Judges 19-21 and the “Othering” of Benjamin A Golah Polemic against the Autochthonous Inhabitants of the Land? 9004499342, 9789004499348

Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction Judges 19–21 and the “Othering” of Benjamin: A Golah Polemic against the Autochthonous Inhabitants of the Land?
Part 1 Text
Chapter 1 Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21
1 Principal Differences between BHS and BHQ Judges 19–21
1.1 Agreements between BHS and BHQ Judges
1.2 Principal Disagreements between BHS and BHQ Preferred Readings
1.3 New Text Critical Changes Proposed by BHQ
2 New Methodological Approach of BHQ to Textual Criticism
3 Determining the “Preferred” Text of Judges 19–21
4 Chapter Summary
Chapter 2 Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context
1 Judges 19–21 in the Broad Canonical Context of Judges 13–1 Samuel 7
1.1 Lexical Parallelism in MT Judges 13–16 and 1 Samuel 1–7
1.2 Absence of Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 13–16 and 1 Samuel 1–7
1.3 Conclusions
2 Literary Relationship between Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21
2.1 Lexical Parallelism in MT Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21
2.2 Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21
2.3 Conclusions
3 Literary Relationship between Judges 19–21 and 1 Samuel 1–7
4 Literary Associations between Judges 19–21 and Ruth
5 Chapter Summary
Chapter 3 Literary Structure of Judges 19–21
1 Status Quæstionis Concerning the Literary Structure of Judges 19–21
2 Structural Indicia of Caesuras in Judges 19–21
2.1 Importance of Collective Persons as Protagonists in the Narrative
2.2 Absence of Direct Dialog in Certain Parts of the Narrative
2.3 Importance of Topographical References in the Narrative Intrigue
2.4 Use of a “3+1 Day” Pattern
2.5 Use of Temporal Markers and Disjunctive Phrases
2.6 Conclusions
3 Proposed Literary Structure for Judges 19–21
3.1 Judges 19:1b–4
3.2 Judges 19:5–21
3.3 Judges 19:22–29
3.4 Judges 19:30–20:13
3.5 Judges 20:14–46
3.6 Judges 20:47–48
3.7 Judges 21:1–14
3.8 Judges 21:15–24
3.9 Judges 21:25
4 Conclusions
5 Chapter Summary
Part 2 Texture
Chapter 4 The Narrator’s Evaluative Point of View
1 Evaluative Point of View in Judges 19–21
2 Position 1: The Narrator Portrays the Sons of Israel as Heroes
2.1 Pre-1984 Consensus View
2.2 Dissension from the Consensus View
3 Position 2: The Narrator Portrays the Sons of Israel as Heroes but Readers Should Reject This Evaluation
4 Position 3: The Narrator Uses Irony and Absurd Humor to Portray the Sons of Israel as Villains
4.1 Presentation of Lasine’s Thesis
4.2 Post-1984 Consensus Position
4.3 Conclusions
5 Position 4: The Narrator Uses a “Non-Critical” Evaluative Point of View Characteristic of “Foundation Myths”
5.1 Presentation of Niditch’s Thesis
5.2 Critique of Niditch’s Position
6 Towards a Methodology for Determining the Narrator’s Evaluative Point of View
6.1 Proposed Set of Methodological Guidelines
7 Conclusions
8 Chapter Summary
Chapter 5 The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21
1 Methodology and the Phenomenon of Intertextuality in the HB
2 Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to the Analysis of Intertextuality
3 Edenburg’s Analysis of Intertextuality in Judg 19:22–24
3.1 Intertextual Allusion in Judges 19:22a
3.2 Intertextual Allusion in Judges 19:22b
3.3 Intentional Allusion in Judges 19:23
3.4 Intentional Allusion in Judges 19:24
3.5 Conclusions
4 Conclusions
Part 3 Context
Chapter 6 Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21
1 Status Quæstionis through the End of the 20th Century
2 Recent Iterations of the “Anti-Saul” Political Polemic Hypothesis
3 Critique of the “Anti-Saul” Political Polemic Hypothesis
4 Methodological Weaknesses of the Hypothesis
4.1 Perceived Allusions to Saul
4.2 Gibeah
4.3 Yabesh-Gilead
4.4 Benjamin
4.5 Perceived Allusions to David
4.6 Bethlehem of Judah
4.7 Judah
4.8 Perceived “Pro-Monarchical” Tendenz
4.9 Problem Posed by the References to Mizpah and Bethel
5 Conclusions
6 Chapter Summary
Chapter 7 Situating the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 in Historical Context
1 Archaeological and Survey Data from the Benjamin Region
1.1 Benjamin Region during the Babylonian Period
1.2 Benjamin Region during the Persian Period
1.3 Conclusions
2 Interpretation of Archaeological Data by Biblical Commentators
2.1 The “Myth of the Empty Land”
2.2 Misinterpretation of Archaeological Evidence
2.3 Acceptance of Archaeological Evidence
3 Relations between the Golah and Those Who Remained in the Land
3.1 Conflict between the Landowning Golah and the Poor People(s)of the Land
3.2 Conflict between the Priests of Bethel and the Priests of Jerusalem
3.3 Absence of Conflict between the Golah and the People(s) of the Land
3.4 The Benjamin Region Was Not Part of Yehud
4 New Hypothesis to Explain the Anti-Benjamin Bias in Judges 19–21
5 Chapter Summary
Part 4 Textualization
Chapter 8 Methodological Problems in Diachronic Analysis
1 Basic Models for Understanding the Compositional History of Judges 19–21
1.1 The “Two-Source Model”
1.2 The “Single Pre-Exilic Author” Model
1.3 The “Two Post-Exilic Authors” Model
1.4 The “Single Exilic Period Author” Model
2 Recommendations for Methodological Controls in Redaction Criticism
2.1 Statement of the Problem
2.2 Proposed Methodological Controls
3 Chapter Summary
Chapter 9 Compositional History of Judges 19
1 Compositional History of Judges 19:1–10aB
1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:1–10aB
1.2 Judges 19:1b
1.3 Judges 19:2
1.4 Judges 19:3a
1.5 Judges 19:3b–10aB
1.6 Conclusions
2 Compositional History of Judges 19:10aC–21
2.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:10aC–21
2.2 Judges 19:10aC–15
2.3 Judges 19:16–17a
2.4 Judges 19:17b–19
2.5 Conclusions
3 Compositional History of Judges 19:22–30
3.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:22–30
3.2 Judges 19:22–24
3.3 Judges 19:25
3.4 Judges 19:26–28
3.5 Judges 19:29–30
3.6 Conclusions
4 Chapter Summary
Chapter 10 Compositional History of Judges 20
1 Compositional History of Judges 20:1–17
1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 20:1–17
1.2 Judges 20:1
1.3 Judges 20:2
1.4 Judges 20:3a
1.5 Judges 20:3b–7
1.6 Judges 20:8–10
1.7 Judges 20:11–14
1.8 Judges 20:15–17
1.9 Conclusions
2 Compositional History of Judges 20:18–31a
2.1 The Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of 20:18–31a
2.2 Judges 20:18
2.3 Judges 20:19–21
2.4 Judges 20:22–24
2.5 Judges 20:25–31a
2.6 Conclusions
3 Compositional History of Judges 20:31b–48
3.1 The Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 20:31b–48
3.2 Statement of the Problem
3.3 Problem Posed by the Phenomenon of Multiple Narrative Conclusions
3.4 Problem Posed by the Phenomenon of Repetition in Judges 20:31b–48
3.5 Problem Posed by the Density of Subject+Qatal Clauses in 20:31b–48
3.6 Interpretation of Subject+Qatal Clauses
3.7 Conclusions
4 Chapter Summary
Chapter 11 Compositional History of Judges 21
1 Compositional History of Judges 21:1–5
1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:1–5
1.2 Judges 21:1
1.3 Judges 21:2
1.4 Judges 21:3
1.5 Judges 21:4
1.6 Judges 21:5
1.7 Conclusions
2 Compositional History of Judges 21:6–23a
2.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:6–23a
2.2 Judges 21:6a
2.3 Judges 21:6b–8a
2.4 Judges 21:8b–9
2.5 Judges 21:10–12
2.6 Judges 21:13–14
2.7 Judges 21:15–18
2.8 Judges 21:19–23a
2.9 Conclusions
3 Compositional History of Judges 21:23b–25
3.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:23b–25
3.2 Judges 21:23b
3.3 Judges 21:24
3.4 Judges 21:25
3.5 Conclusions
4 Chapter Summary
Conclusions and Perspectives for Further Research
Appendix Translation of Judges 19–21
Bibliography
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Ancient Sources

Citation preview

Judges 19–21 and the “Othering” of Benjamin

Oudtestamentische Studiën Old Testament Studies Published on Behalf of the Societies for Old Testament Studies in the Netherlands and Belgium, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Ireland

Editor-in-Chief Hans Ausloos (Louvain-la-Neuve) Editorial Board M. Popović (Groningen) H.F. Van Rooy (Potchefstroom) H.G.M. Williamson (Oxford)

volume 81

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ots

Judges 19–21 and the “Othering” of Benjamin A Golah Polemic against the Autochthonous Inhabitants of the Land?

By

William Krisel

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Krisel, William, 1954– author. Title: Judges 19–21 and the “othering” of Benjamin : a golah polemic against the autochthonous inhabitants of the land? / William Krisel. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2022. | Series: Oudtestamentische studiën / Old Testament studies, 0169–7226 ; vol.81 | “This monograph is a revised and up-dated version of my PhD dissertation presented in Paris on 6 May 2019 for the degree of Doctor in Theology from Institut Catholique de Paris and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven”—Introduction. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Of all the tribes of Israel, why is Benjamin cast in the role of the villainous “other” in Judges 19–21? Krisel argues that the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the narrative reflects economic, political and ideological tensions between the Golah community, the deportees who returned from Babylon during the early Persian period, and the people who had not gone into exile, who lived primarily in the Benjamin region. The hypothesis is supported by archaeological and survey data largely overlooked by biblical scholars and by a careful redaction history of the text. Krisel engages critically with the predominant scholarly view that Judges 19–21 uses “irony” to cast the explicit heroes in the narrative, the sons of Israel, as the implicit villains”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021051142 (print) | LCCN 2021051143 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004499348 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004499355 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Judges, XVII–XXI—Criticism, interpretation, etc. Classification: LCC BS1305.52 .K65 2022 (print) | LCC BS1305.52 (ebook) | DDC 222/.32—dc23/eng/20211117 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051142 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021051143

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0169-7226 ISBN 978-90-04-49934-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-49935-5 (e-book) Copyright 2022 by William Krisel. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents List of Abbreviations xiii

Text

Introduction: Judges 19–21 and the “Othering” of Benjamin: A Golah Polemic against the Autochthonous Inhabitants of the Land? 1

part 1

1

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21 9 1 Principal Differences between BHS and BHQ Judges 19–21 10 1.1 Agreements between BHS and BHQ Judges 10 1.2 Principal Disagreements between BHS and BHQ Preferred Readings 42 1.3 New Text Critical Changes Proposed by BHQ 43 2 New Methodological Approach of BHQ to Textual Criticism 44 3 Determining the “Preferred” Text of Judges 19–21 48 4 Chapter Summary 51

2

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context 53 1 Judges 19–21 in the Broad Canonical Context of Judges 13–1 Samuel 7 53 1.1 Lexical Parallelism in MT Judges 13–16 and 1 Samuel 1–7 54 1.2 Absence of Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 13–16 and 1 Samuel 1–7 55 1.3 Conclusions 59 2 Literary Relationship between Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 61 2.1 Lexical Parallelism in MT Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 61 2.2 Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 65 2.3 Conclusions 68 3 Literary Relationship between Judges 19–21 and 1 Samuel 1–7 69 4 Literary Associations between Judges 19–21 and Ruth 70 5 Chapter Summary 73

vi 3

Contents

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21 74 1 Status Quæstionis Concerning the Literary Structure of Judges 19–21 74 2 Structural Indicia of Caesuras in Judges 19–21 78 2.1 Importance of Collective Persons as Protagonists in the Narrative 79 2.2 Absence of Direct Dialog in Certain Parts of the Narrative 80 2.3 Importance of Topographical References in the Narrative Intrigue 80 2.4 Use of a “3+1 Day” Pattern 80 2.5 Use of Temporal Markers and Disjunctive Phrases 81 2.6 Conclusions 82 3 Proposed Literary Structure for Judges 19–21 83 3.1 Judges 19:1b–4 83 3.2 Judges 19:5–21 86 3.3 Judges 19:22–29 89 3.4 Judges 19:30–20:13 90 3.5 Judges 20:14–46 90 3.6 Judges 20:47–48 92 3.7 Judges 21:1–14 92 3.8 Judges 21:15–24 93 3.9 Judges 21:25 94 4 Conclusions 94 5 Chapter Summary 95

part 2 Texture 4

The Narrator’s Evaluative Point of View 99 1 Evaluative Point of View in Judges 19–21 101 2 Position 1: The Narrator Portrays the Sons of Israel as Heroes 101 2.1 Pre-1984 Consensus View 101 2.2 Dissension from the Consensus View 103 3 Position 2: The Narrator Portrays the Sons of Israel as Heroes but Readers Should Reject This Evaluation 104 4 Position 3: The Narrator Uses Irony and Absurd Humor to Portray the Sons of Israel as Villains 106 4.1 Presentation of Lasine’s Thesis 107 4.2 Post-1984 Consensus Position 110 4.3 Conclusions 113

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5

6 7 8 5

Position 4: The Narrator Uses a “Non-Critical” Evaluative Point of View Characteristic of “Foundation Myths” 115 5.1 Presentation of Niditch’s Thesis 115 5.2 Critique of Niditch’s Position 117 Towards a Methodology for Determining the Narrator’s Evaluative Point of View 118 6.1 Proposed Set of Methodological Guidelines 118 Conclusions 125 Chapter Summary 125

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21 127 1 Methodology and the Phenomenon of Intertextuality in the HB 128 2 Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to the Analysis of Intertextuality 131 3 Edenburg’s Analysis of Intertextuality in Judg 19:22–24 134 3.1 Intertextual Allusion in Judges 19:22a 135 3.2 Intertextual Allusion in Judges 19:22b 137 3.3 Intentional Allusion in Judges 19:23 139 3.4 Intentional Allusion in Judges 19:24 142 3.5 Conclusions 144 4 Conclusions 145 5 Chapter Summary 146

part 3 Context 6

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 151 1 Status Quæstionis through the End of the 20th Century 151 2 Recent Iterations of the “Anti-Saul” Political Polemic Hypothesis 154 3 Critique of the “Anti-Saul” Political Polemic Hypothesis 157 4 Methodological Weaknesses of the Hypothesis 159 4.1 Perceived Allusions to Saul 159 4.2 Gibeah 160 4.3 Yabesh-Gilead 160 4.4 Benjamin 162 4.5 Perceived Allusions to David 162 4.6 Bethlehem of Judah 163 4.7 Judah 164

viii

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5 6 7

4.8 Perceived “Pro-Monarchical” Tendenz 164 4.9 Problem Posed by the References to Mizpah and Bethel 166 Conclusions 167 Chapter Summary 167

Situating the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 in Historical Context 169 1 Archaeological and Survey Data from the Benjamin Region 170 1.1 Benjamin Region during the Babylonian Period 170 1.2 Benjamin Region during the Persian Period 173 1.3 Conclusions 176 2 Interpretation of Archaeological Data by Biblical Commentators 177 2.1 The “Myth of the Empty Land” 178 2.2 Misinterpretation of Archaeological Evidence 180 2.3 Acceptance of Archaeological Evidence 185 3 Relations between the Golah and Those Who Remained in the Land 187 3.1 Conflict between the Landowning Golah and the Poor People(s) of the Land 188 3.2 Conflict between the Priests of Bethel and the Priests of Jerusalem 189 3.3 Absence of Conflict between the Golah and the People(s) of the Land 193 3.4 The Benjamin Region Was Not Part of Yehud 199 4 New Hypothesis to Explain the Anti-Benjamin Bias in Judges 19–21 203 5 Chapter Summary 205

part 4 Textualization 8

Methodological Problems in Diachronic Analysis 209 1 Basic Models for Understanding the Compositional History of Judges 19–21 209 1.1 The “Two-Source Model” 212 1.2 The “Single Pre-Exilic Author” Model 215 1.3 The “Two Post-Exilic Authors” Model 216 1.4 The “Single Exilic Period Author” Model 218

ix

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2

3

Recommendations for Methodological Controls in Redaction Criticism 223 2.1 Statement of the Problem 223 2.2 Proposed Methodological Controls 224 Chapter Summary 232

9

Compositional History of Judges 19 234 1 Compositional History of Judges 19:1–10aB 234 1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:1–10aB 234 1.2 Judges 19:1b 238 1.3 Judges 19:2 243 1.4 Judges 19:3a 244 1.5 Judges 19:3b–10aB 245 1.6 Conclusions 248 2 Compositional History of Judges 19:10aC–21 256 2.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:10aC–21 256 2.2 Judges 19:10aC–15 257 2.3 Judges 19:16–17a 259 2.4 Judges 19:17b–19 261 2.5 Conclusions 262 3 Compositional History of Judges 19:22–30 267 3.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:22–30 268 3.2 Judges 19:22–24 270 3.3 Judges 19:25 271 3.4 Judges 19:26–28 272 3.5 Judges 19:29–30 273 3.6 Conclusions 279 4 Chapter Summary 282

10

Compositional History of Judges 20 285 1 Compositional History of Judges 20:1–17 285 1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 20:1–17 285 1.2 Judges 20:1 287 1.3 Judges 20:2 290 1.4 Judges 20:3a 292 1.5 Judges 20:3b–7 293

x

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2

3

4 11

1.6 Judges 20:8–10 295 1.7 Judges 20:11–14 296 1.8 Judges 20:15–17 299 1.9 Conclusions 301 Compositional History of Judges 20:18–31a 309 2.1 The Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of 20:18–31a 309 2.2 Judges 20:18 310 2.3 Judges 20:19–21 312 2.4 Judges 20:22–24 314 2.5 Judges 20:25–31a 315 2.6 Conclusions 319 Compositional History of Judges 20:31b–48 324 3.1 The Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 20:31b–48 325 3.2 Statement of the Problem 327 3.3 Problem Posed by the Phenomenon of Multiple Narrative Conclusions 328 3.4 Problem Posed by the Phenomenon of Repetition in Judges 20:31b–48 330 3.5 Problem Posed by the Density of Subject+Qatal Clauses in 20:31b–48 336 3.6 Interpretation of Subject+Qatal Clauses 337 3.7 Conclusions 344 Chapter Summary 349

Compositional History of Judges 21 352 1 Compositional History of Judges 21:1–5 353 1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:1–5 353 1.2 Judges 21:1 354 1.3 Judges 21:2 355 1.4 Judges 21:3 357 1.5 Judges 21:4 359 1.6 Judges 21:5 360 1.7 Conclusions 362 2 Compositional History of Judges 21:6–23a 363 2.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:6–23a 364 2.2 Judges 21:6a 368

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3

4

2.3 Judges 21:6b–8a 369 2.4 Judges 21:8b–9 370 2.5 Judges 21:10–12 371 2.6 Judges 21:13–14 377 2.7 Judges 21:15–18 378 2.8 Judges 21:19–23a 381 2.9 Conclusions 383 Compositional History of Judges 21:23b–25 391 3.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:23b–25 392 3.2 Judges 21:23b 392 3.3 Judges 21:24 394 3.4 Judges 21:25 396 3.5 Conclusions 401 Chapter Summary 403



Conclusions and Perspectives for Further Research 406



Appendix: Translation of Judges 19–21 411 Bibliography of Works Consulted 418 Index of Modern Authors 437 Index of Ancient Sources 440

Abbreviations A ABD

Codex Alexandrinus Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D.N. Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992). B Codex Vaticanus BAIAS Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society BCE Before Common Era BDB A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by F. Brown, S.R. Driver, C.A. Briggs (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers 1906, 20059). BH Biblical Hebrew BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by K. Elliger, W. Rudolph (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 19974). BHQ Biblia Hebraica Quinta (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004–2017) BHQ Judges Natalio Fernández Marcos, BHQ, vol. 7, Judges. BI Biblical Interpretation Biblische Notizen BN CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBR Currents in Biblical Research CE Common Era D Deuteronomic DBS Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957). DCH David J.A. Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007). Dtr Deuteronomistic DH Deuteronomistic History EB Estudios Biblicos EJ Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1971). ETL Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses GELS T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Louvain: Peeters, 2009). HALOT L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J.J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited by M.E.J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 2002). HB Hebrew Bible JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JJS Journal of Jewish Studies

xiv

Abbreviations

Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1985). JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series JTS Journal of Theological Studies L Lucianic recension LAB Pseudo-Philo, Liver Antiquitatum Biblicum L-S Greek-English Lexicon. Edited by H.S. Liddell, R. Scott (London: Clarendon Press, 1843, 1996). LEH A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint. Edited by J. Lust, E. Eynikel, K. Hauspie (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1992). LXX Septuagint LXXA Codex Alexandrinus LXXB Codex Vaticanus MT Masoretic Text NAS New American Standard Bible (La Habra, CA: Foundation Publications, 1995). NETS New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by Albert Pietersma, Benjamin, G. Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). New Jerusalem Bible (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985). NJB NEA Near Eastern Archaeology NRSV New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, 1985, 1989. NRT Nouvelle revue théologique OT Old Testament P Priestly PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly RB Revue biblique SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament T Targum TOB Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2010. V Vulgate VT Vetus Testamentum ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ZDPV Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins

JPS Tanakh

introduction

Judges 19–21 and the “Othering” of Benjamin: A Golah Polemic against the Autochthonous Inhabitants of the Land? The composition and transmission of literary works whose plot involves an “insider” group engaged in heroic battle with one or more “outsider” groups is a cultural phenomenon shared by many societies in the ancient world.1 While the popularity and durability of this literary genre can be explained in different ways, it is generally agreed that such war stories serve to cultivate and sustain the reader’s sense of ethnic or national identity. In identifying with the heroes in the narrative, the reader experiences a feeling of prideful solidarity with his or her own people and a sense of difference in relation to the vanquished enemy.2 The HB contains numerous narratives in which the sons of Israel defeat foreign enemies. However, the case of Judges 19–21, one of the longest war stories in the HB, is different. In this narrative, the “sons of Israel” engage in bloody battle with one of their own – the “sons of Benjamin.” The narrative’s outcome is grim. Israel exterminates the entire tribe of Benjamin, including men, women and children, with the exception of 600 warriors who flee to the desert. Most recent commentators of Judges 19–21 argue that the ideological/theological purpose of the narrative is to portray the so-called period of the judges as a downward spiral into chaos that ends in political and moral anarchy,

1 This monograph is a revised and up-dated version of my PhD dissertation presented in Paris on 6 May 2019 for the degree of Doctor in Theology from Institut Catholique de Paris and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. I express my sincere gratitude to my dissertation directors, Professor Sophie Ramond (ICP) and Professor Bénédicte Lemmelijn (KUL). 2 Anthony D. Smith, “War and Ethnicity: The Role of Warfare in the Formation, Self-Images, and Cohesion of Ethnic Communities,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4, 4 (1981): 375–397; T. Ray Hobbs, A Time for War: A Study of Warfare in the Old Testament (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989), 186–193; Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 21–25; Atilla Batmaz, “War and Identity in the Early History of Urartu” in Anatolian Iron Ages 7: The Proceedings of the Seventh Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium 19–24 April 2010, Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 39 (ed. A. Cilingiroglu and A. Sagona; Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 23–50; Lauren A.S. Monroe, “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War-herem Traditions and the Forging of National Identity: Reconsideration of the Sabaean Text RES 3945 in the Light of Biblical and Moabite Evidence,” VT 57 (2007): 318–341.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_002

2

introduction

thereby laying the groundwork for the designation of a king to rule Israel.3 In my view, the text does not support this interpretation of the narrative and justifies taking a fresh look at the ideological/theological purpose of Judges 19–21. I propose to approach the text by addressing the threshold question, “Why Benjamin?” Of all the tribes of Israel, why is Benjamin selected to play the role of villain in Judges 19–21? Although this is only one of the questions the text raises, I argue that its answer provides a hermeneutical key for unraveling other issues. According to the narrative, the purpose of the war against Benjamin is to mete out punishment for the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine by hooligans from the Benjaminite town of Gibeah. But this explanation begs the question, “Why Benjamin?” There is an absence of scholarly consensus on the answer. The overwhelming majority of recent commentators of Judges 19–21 use a synchronic methodological approach and, surprisingly, do not address the question “Why Benjamin?” at all. The sole exception is Richard D. Nelson who argues in his 2017 commentary on Judges, “Somewhere in the background of the story of Benjamin’s near-obliteration is a tribal etiology intended to rationalize the small size of Benjamin. This would seem to be the core tradition behind the present text, which itself is a highly literary authorial creation.”4 The handful of recent scholars who use the historico-critical approach posit that Judges 19–21 should be interpreted as a political polemic relating to the restoration of the Davidic monarchy during the early Persian period. They argue that the narrative has an “anti-Saul” bias and that the purpose of the

3 See, e.g., Barry G. Webb, The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 197; Lillian R. Klein, Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 190; David. J. Chalcraft, “Deviance and Legitimate Action in the Book of Judges” in The Bible in Three Dimensions, Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield, JSOTSup 87 (ed. D.J.A. Clines, S. E. Fowl, S. E. Porter; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 181; Gale A. Yee, “Introduction” in Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (ed. G. Yee; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 13; Thomas Römer and Albert de Pury, “L’historiographie deutéronomiste (HD): Histoire de la recherche et enjeux du débat,” in Israël construit son histoire : L’historiographie deutéronomiste à la lumière des recherches récentes (ed. A. de Pury, T. Römer, J.-D. Macchi; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1996), 103; Tammi J. Schneider, Judges (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000), 285; Victor H. Matthews, Judges and Ruth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 202; Gregory T.K. Wong, “Is There a Direct Pro-Judah Polemic in Judges?,” SJOT 19, 1 (2005): 105; Corinne Lanoir, Femmes fatales, filles rebelles (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2005), 210; Trent C. Butler, Judges (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009), 455; David J. H. Beldman, The Completion of Judges: Strategies of Ending in Judges 17–21 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2017). 4 Richard D. Nelson, Judges: A Critical and Rhetorical Commentary (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 326.

Judges 19–21 and the “ Othering ” of Benjamin

3

text is to counter the claims of those seeking to restore the Saulide dynasty.5 Although I share the view that the narrative has its Sitz im Leben in the early Persian period, my research indicates that there is little biblical or extrabiblical evidence of a political movement seeking to install a descendant of Saul as king of Yehud at any time during the post-exilic period.6 Thus, in my view, the question “Why Benjamin?” remains unanswered. My hypothesis for resolving this issue is threefold. First, the early Persian period was characterized by political, economic and religious conflict between the Golah  – the members of the deportee community who returned from Babylon to Judah – and the people who had remained in the land during the Babylonian period. Second, the autochthonous inhabitants of the land lived primarily in the Benjamin region and identified (and/or were identified by the Golah) as Benjaminites. Third, as the Benjamin region contained urban centers, it is likely that the autochthonous inhabitants of the land included artisans, tradesmen, land owners, administrative functionaries, priests and scribes, as well as poor peasants who lived in rural areas. It is thus inaccurate to characterize the tensions between the Golah and the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region in class terms as a conflict between a wealthy elite and poor landless peasants. This hypothesis will be developed methodologically on the basis of textual evidence read in the light of archaeological and survey data. These data indicate that (i) during the Babylonian period, the Benjamin region prospered while most of Judah languished and (ii) during the Persian period, the Benjamin region suffered a significant decline in population and settlement activity that probably included the destruction and/or abandonment of its principal urban centers and cultic sites. The “rise and fall” of Benjamin thus

5 See, e.g., Marc Brettler, “The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics,” JBL 108 (1989): 413; Yairah Amit, The Book of Judges: The Art of Editing (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 349, n. 43; Diana Edelman, “Did Saulide-Davidic Rivalry Resurface in Early Persian Yehud?” in The Land that I Will Show You, JSOTSup 343 (ed. J. Dearman and M. Graham; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 73; Yairah Amit, “The Saul Polemic in the Persian Period” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschitz and M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 655; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Benjamin Traditions Read in the Early Persian Period” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschitz and O.M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 644; Philip R. Davies, “Saul, Hero and Villain” in Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination (ed. D. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 139. 6 The terms “Judah” and “Yehud” will be used in this work to refer to the former kingdom of Judah during the Babylonian period and the Persian period, respectively. When referring to the region over a longer period of time (e.g., during the Babylonian and Persian periods), the term “Judah” will be used for ease of reference.

4

introduction

represent two critical moments in the history of Judah that have been largely overlooked by scholars. The sustained prosperity of the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period suggests that the most likely source of opposition to the Golah community during the early Persian period came from the political, economic and religious elites living in the urban centers of the Benjamin region. I will argue that the Golah’s program to rebuild the Jerusalem temple and the Persian decision to move the administrative capital of Yehud from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area represented a serious threat to the inhabitants of the Benjamin region whose political, economic and religious lives had been centered for over a century around Mizpah and Bethel. In addition to overlooking the possibility that the Golah encountered their strongest opposition from the inhabitants of the Benjamin region, most commentators have also failed to note the importance of archaeological and survey data indicating that the Benjamin region suffered a significant decline during the Persian period that probably included the destruction and/or abandonment of its principal urban centers  – Mizpah, Bethel, Gibeah and Gibeon.7 It can reasonably be argued that the decline of the Benjamin region and the ascent of the Jerusalem area would have been interpreted by the Golah as providential and could have been remembered in an oral and/or written narrative tradition. On the basis of the foregoing, I propose to read Judges 19–21 – which tells the story of the destruction of Gibeah and the near extermination of the tribe of Benjamin by divinely-approved military action by the sons of Israel – as a literary mise en scène of the Benjaminites’ political and economic reversal during the Persian period. While the war theme in the narrative is probably a literary device, the Golah’s ultimate political, economic and religious domination over the Benjamin region is historically probable. Additionally, I will address two other important unresolved issues in Judges 19–21 scholarship – the roles of irony and intertextuality in the narrative. First, there is a broad consensus among recent commentators that the text is filled with an unusual type of irony in which the narrator describes the sons of Israel as heroes but intends the reader to understand the opposite; i.e., that the protagonists in the story are, in fact, villains. These commentators interpret the narrative as a parody, satire and/or tragi-comedy in which the apparently righteous actions of the sons of Israel to punish a woman’s brutal gang-rape and murder with divine approval are intended to be understood as immoral acts. In my view, these interpretations are based on methodologically weak 7 The toponyms Mizpah, Bethel and Gibeah figure prominently in Judges 19–21.

Judges 19–21 and the “ Othering ” of Benjamin

5

assumptions concerning the narrator’s evaluative point of view as expressed in the text. I will propose a set of methodological guidelines intended to introduce controls to reduce interpretive subjectivity in relation to identifying the narrator’s evaluative point of view. Second, there is also a broad scholarly consensus that Judges 19–21 includes dozens of intertextual references that form the literary groundwork on which the whole narrative is constructed. To the contrary, I will demonstrate that (i) the number of intertextual references in the text has been exaggerated by recent commentators and (ii) the remaining intertextual allusions were interpolated into the text in the final redaction stratum as literary embellishments to an already well-developed narrative framework. As my views on the roles of irony and intertextuality in Judges 19–21 differ significantly with positions taken by recent commentators, I will pay particular attention to methodology. I will critique the methodological assumptions of previous scholars and propose different methodological tools intended to provide more rigorous controls. My overall objective is to discern the ideological/theological purpose of Judges 19–21 relying primarily on the historico-critical approach. As the text was not composed by a single author, it follows that Judges 19–21 reflects a variety of ideological/theological perspectives, each corresponding to the different composition strata that underlie the textus receptus in its MT and LXX versions. I therefore devote considerable attention to the narrative’s compositional history.8 In my view, attention to compositional history is not simply an academic inquiry into the genesis of a text, but rather an essential exegetical tool for discerning the layers of ideological/theological meaning, often contradictory and inconsistent, introduced by each successive stratum of the composition process. I will develop my hypotheses in four broad parts entitled, “Text,” “Texture,” “Context” and “Textualization.” The first part (Text) identifies text critical problems in Judges 19–21 (Chapter 1), examines the narrative in its canonical context (Chapter 2), and proposes a literary structure for the narrative (Chapter 3). The second part (Texture) addresses methodological issues relating to the determination of the narrator’s evaluative point of view (Chapter 4) and the interpretation of the phenomenon of intertextuality (Chapter 5). The third part (Context) 8 By “compositional history,” I mean the identification, delimitation and dating of successive strata of scribal activity underlying the final version of the text in its MT version. I use the neutral term “compositional history” rather than “redaction history” because the latter term has become associated with a methodology that is based on a certain number of assumptions about the nature of the composition process that are, in my view, problematic. These assumptions will be discussed in Chapter 8 infra.

6

introduction

focuses on the historical context of the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the narrative. Methodological issues relating to the historico-critical approach are explored (Chapter 6) and a new hypothesis concerning the relationship between the Golah and the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region during the early Persian period is proposed (Chapter 7). The fourth part (Textualization) presents a diachronic analysis of Judges 19–21. Methodological issues relating to redaction criticism are addressed (Chapter 8) and a detailed analysis of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 is proposed (Chapters 9–11). The conclusions of my research and perspectives for further research then follow. In my view, the underlying methodological Leitmotif of biblical scholarship is dialogue. The scholar enters into dialogue with the text under study, the positions of earlier scholars, and ultimately the readers of his or her own scholarship. Permit me to end this introduction with a quotation from Rabbi Isaiah di Trani, a 13th century Venetian Talmudic scholar, who entered into intellectual dialogue with Christian scholars of his time concerning the metaphor used by Bernard of Chartres in which students are presented as dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of their masters: Should Joshua the son of Nun endorse a mistaken position, I would reject it out of hand. I do not hesitate to express my opinion, regarding such matters, in accordance with the modicum of intelligence allotted to me. I fulfill the verse: I will speak Your testimonies in the presence of kings, without being ashamed [Ps 119:46]. Heaven is witness, however, that even when I felt that my opinion was more persuasive than the opinions of the authorities who preceded me, I was never arrogant, claiming: My wisdom has served me well [Qohelet 2:9]. Instead, I applied to myself the parable of the philosophers. For I heard the following from the philosophers. The wisest of the philosophers was asked: “We admit that our predecessors were wiser than we. At the same time, we criticize their comments, often rejecting them and claiming that the truth rests with us. How is this possible?” The wise philosopher responded: “Who sees farther, a dwarf or a giant? Surely a giant, for his eyes are situated at a higher level than those of a dwarf. But if the dwarf is placed on the shoulders of the giant, who sees farther? Surely the dwarf, for now the eyes of the dwarf are situated at a higher level than those of the giant. So too, we are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it. Due to their wisdom we grow wise and are able to say all that we say, but not because we are greater than they.”9 9 Shnayer Z. Leiman, “From the Pages of Tradition: Dwarfs on the Shoulders of Giants,” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 27, 3 (1993): 90–94. See also, Avi Sagi, The Open Canon: On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse (London: Continuum Press, 2007), 38–39.

part 1 Text

∵

chapter 1

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21 The publication of BHQ Judges in 20111 represents an important turning point in the textual criticism of Judges 19–21. Of the 34 preferred readings proposed by BHS, BHQ rejects 24 and accepts ten. BHQ also proposes one new preferred reading not noted in BHS. The differences between the findings of BHS and BHQ are significant for two reasons. First, the fact that the two critical editions agree on only ten out of a total of 34 proposed readings shows that a definitive consensus on text critical issues relating to Judges 19–21 has not yet emerged. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the significant reduction in the total number of proposed changes to MT2 on text critical grounds indicates that the methodology of textual criticism has changed over the past 30 years. As the most recent commentaries on Judges were written before BHQ Judges was published, the innovations of Fernández Marcos’ work merit particular attention.3 The purpose of this chapter is to examine the methodology used by BHQ in its text critical analysis of Judges 19–21 and to analyze its findings. Section 1 will summarize the principal differences between the preferred readings proposed by BHS and BHQ. Section 2 will explore the different methodological approaches to textual criticism used by the two critical editions. Conclusions concerning the “preferred” text of Judges 19–21 that will form the basis of analysis in this work will be presented in Section 3. 1 Natalio Fernández Marco, BHQ Judges, vol. 7 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011). For ease of reference, the work of Fernández Marcos will be referred to as “BHQ” and “BHQ Judges” rather than by the author’s name. 2 The term “Masoretic Text” is somewhat misleading. As stated by Emmanuel Tov, “As a rule the term Masoretic Text is limited to a mere segment of the representatives of the textual tradition of [MT], namely, that textual tradition which was given its final form by Aaron Ben Asher of the Tiberian group of the Masoretes. Since all the printed editions and most manuscripts reflect this Ben Asher tradition, the term Masoretic Text is imprecise, since it is actually used only for part of the Masoretic tradition, viz., that of Ben Asher. […] Therefore, a term like Masoretic Texts or the group/family of [MT] would reflect the evidence more precisely. In this book, however, we shall continue to use the conventional term Masoretic Text or [MT].” Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 22–23. BHS and BHQ use the term “MT” in the more limited sense to mean the edited version of the Leningrad Codex B 19A. I follow BHS and BHQ in this work. 3 Although Cynthia Edenburg’s monograph on Judges 19–21 was published in 2016, she does not cite BHQ Judges. Cynthia Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole: Composition and Purpose of Judges 19–21 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016). Based on other bibliographic indications, it appears likely that the manuscript of Edenburg’s monograph was completed prior to 2011.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_003

10 1

chapter 1

Principal Differences between BHS and BHQ Judges 19–21

This section will discuss the principal differences in the text critical analysis of Judges 19–21 between BHS and BHQ. Subsection 1.1 will discuss the agreements between BHS and BHQ. Subsection 1.2 will analyze the disagreements. Subsection 1.3 will present the one new textual emendation proposed by BHQ and a review of relevant Qumran manuscripts. 1.1 Agreements between BHS and BHQ Judges BHQ agrees with BHS on 10 proposed emendations to the MT. Each of these proposals will be discussed below. 1.1.1 Judges 19:2a4 Essential thematic elements of the plotline of Judges 19–21 are introduced in 19:1b–3a, including the reasons why (i) the Levite’s concubine left him to return to the house of her father (19:2a) and (ii) the Levite traveled to Bethlehem of Judah (19:3a). According to MT 19:2a, MT 19:2aAnd his concubine whored against him. And she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah.5

‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ ֵּת ֶלְך ֵמ ִאּתֹו‬‎ ‫ל־ּבית ֶל ֶחם‬ ֵ ‫יה ֶא‬ ָ ‫ל־ּבית ָא ִב‬ ֵ ‫ֶא‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫י‬

This verse poses a highly complex text critical problem for two reasons. First, MT is supported by only one other version, S. Second, AL, B, T and V present variants that differ among themselves.6 The challenge is to identify the variant that most closely reflects the earliest Vorlage and to explain how and why different variants evolved. BHS follows a long scholarly tradition of interpreting the AL variant of 19:2a, καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ (and she was angry with him), as reflecting a Vorlage that is earlier than MT. Beginning with the premise of the anteriority of AL over MT, commentators have endeavored to emend MT to replace the verb ‫( זנה‬to prostitute oneself; to commit fornication; to play

4 Section 1.1.1 is a revised and expanded version of my article, “Was the Levite’s Concubine Unfaithful or Angry? A Proposed Solution to the Text Critical Problem in Judges 19:2,” OTE 33, 3 (2020): 473–489. 5 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from BH and Greek in this work are my own. 6 I will follow the abbreviations used by BHQ in this chapter; i.e., (i) AL means the Codex Alexandrinus as supported by variants from the group of Antiochian manuscripts known as L; i.e., the Lucianic recension; (ii) B means the Codex Vaticanus; (iii) S means the Peshitta; (iv) T means the various Targumim of Judges; and (v) V means the Vulgate.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

11

the harlot) with another verb closer in meaning to the Greek verb ὀργίζω (to be angry). George F. Moore argued in 1895 that the Vorlage for the Greek ὀργίζω (to be angry) probably used a form of the verb ‫( אנף‬to be angry), which was then corrupted through a scribal inversion of the first two consonants into ‫( נאף‬to commit adultery), which in turn was then corrected to ‫ זנה‬to reflect the fact that the Levite’s woman was a concubine rather than a wife.7 Charles F. Burney considered Moore’s proposal to be “almost too ingenious” and instead proposed in 1918 that the Vorlage used the verb ‫זנח‬, which was then corrupted into ‫ זנה‬as a result of a scribal confusion between the letters ‫ ח‬and ‫ה‬. Although the verb ‫ זנח‬is usually translated to mean “to reject,” Burney argued that the verb can, “when used absolutely (cf. e.g. Ps 74:1, 77:8, Lam 3:31) possess the sense ‘to be angry’ which regularly belongs to the Bab. equivalent zinŭ [sic].”8 Although all attested uses of ‫ זנח‬in the MT are transitive (i.e., take a direct object), Burney argued further that “the verb might be construed with ‫‘ על‬was angry against,’ much as the Bab. verb is construed with itti, ‘be angry with.’”9 Burney thus took the position that the verb ‫ זנח‬has two meanings in BH: “to reject” and “to be angry.” As the second meaning is the same as the Greek verb ὀργίζω, Burney concluded that the AL variant of 19:2a, καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ (and she was angry with him), reflects an earlier Vorlage than the MT variant that reads, ‫וַ ִּתזְ נַ ח ָע ָליו‬ (and she was angry him). Following Burney, BHS emends the lexeme ‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה‬ (and she whored) to read ‫וַ ִּתזְ נַ ח‬, with the hypothesized meaning of “and she was angry.” It should be noted that Samuel R. Driver proposed a simplification of Burney’s theory in 1950. Driver argued that the BH cognate of the Akkadian zenŭ (to be angry) was actually ‫ זנה‬rather than ‫זנח‬.10 Thus, according to Driver, the verb ‫ זנה‬has two different meanings in BH: to prostitute oneself and to be angry. Dominique Barthélemy follows Driver.11 Thus, while BHS takes the position that the verb in the Vorlage of 19:2a would have been ‫זנח‬, Barthélemy argues it was ‫זנה‬, the same verb used in MT but with the meaning of “to be 7 8 9 10 11

George F. Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1908), 409–410. Charles F. Burney, The Book of Judges, with Introduction and Notes (London: Rivingtons, 1920), 460. Ibid. Godfrey R. Driver, “L’interprétation du texte masorétique à la lumière de la lexicographie hébraïque,” ETL 26 (1950): 348. Both Burney and Driver transcribed the Akkadian word for “to become angry” as zinŭ. Scholars today generally use the transcription zenŭ. Dominique Barthélemy, Critique textuelle de l’Ancien testament, vol. 1 (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires Fribourg, 1982), 116.

12

chapter 1

angry” rather than to “prostitute oneself.” BHQ disagrees with BHS and maintains the MT variant ‫ וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬as the preferred reading. However, BHQ is studiously silent as to how this phrase should be translated. Although Fernández Marcos presents the positions of Driver or Barthélemy in his monograph,12 it is not clear whether BHQ is proposing that the MT variant ‫ וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬should be interpreted to mean (i) “and she whored against him” in accordance with the usual meaning of ‫ זנה‬or (ii) “and she was angry with him” as proposed by Driver and Barthélemy.13 The difference in meaning between “his concubine whored against him” and “his concubine was angry with him” is vast and irreconcilable. To become angry with one’s spouse or partner is an everyday occurrence that elicits sympathy and understanding from the reader. In contrast, to commit adultery is a serious sin that arouses indignation and condemnation. Clearly, a story that revolves around a common place conjugal disagreement is a very different narrative than a story that describes the consequences of a woman’s adultery and abandonment of her husband. I will attempt to demonstrate below that the AL variant of 19:2a, καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ reflects a Vorlage that is earlier than the MT variant ‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬. I thus disagree with BHQ. However, my reconstruction of the underlying Vorlage for AL is different than the ones proposed by Moore, Burney, Driver, BHS, and Barthélemy. As will be discussed in detail below, I propose to reconstruct the Vorlage as ‫( וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר‬and she was furious); i.e., the Wayyiqtol third person singular feminine of the verb ‫ עבר‬in the Hitpa‘el form. As the meaning of 19:2a is critical to understanding Judges 19–21 as a whole, I believe it is necessary to discuss this issue in considerable (but hopefully not tedious) detail. I will attempt to demonstrate that the Vorlage underlying AL, B and MT Judg 19:2 read ‫( וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר‬and she was furious); i.e., the Wayyiqtol third person singular feminine of the verb ‫ עבר‬in the Hitpa‘el form. My proposal will be presented in four steps. First, it will be argued that the various scholarly positions on the question that have been presented to date are methodologically problematic. Second, the semantic breadth of the verb ‫ עבר‬as used in MT will be discussed, and in particular, the meaning of the verb in the Hitpa‘el. Third, it will be argued that a Vorlage using the verb ‫ עבר‬can explain most of the other variants of Judg 19:2 that accord with neither AL nor the MT. Fourth, 12 13

BHQ, 105. As BHQ formally disagrees with BHS on the verb that was used in the Vorlage of 19:2a, this verse should be counted as a “disagreement” between BHQ and BHS to be discussed in Section 1.2 infra. I have elected to discuss 19:2a in this section for two reasons. First, it is not clear whether BHQ in fact agrees with BHS that the meaning of the verb is properly reflected in AL. Second, for analytical purposes, it is appropriate to discuss 19:2a before 19:3a where BHQ formally disagrees with BHS.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

13

an explanation for the shift from the verb ‫ עבר‬in the hypothesised Vorlage to the verb ‫ זנה‬in the MT will be presented. 1.1.1.1

Methodological Weaknesses of Emendations of MT 19:2a Proposed to Date The proposal of Burney (followed by BHS) to emend the verb ‫ זנה‬to ‫ זנח‬with the hypothetical meaning of “to be angry,” and the proposal of Driver (followed by Barthélemy) to interpret ‫ זנה‬as having a secondary meaning of “to be angry,” have two methodological disadvantages.14 First, they are unable to explain why none of the other principal variants of 19:2a (i.e., B, MT, V, S and T) support AL. Second, they both propose that the Vorlage used a verb, ‫ זנח‬or ‫זנה‬, with a meaning of “to be angry,” that cannot be confirmed with reference to any occurrence of these two verbs in the MT. 1.1.1.2 Various Meanings of the Verb ‫ עבר‬in the MT The verb ‫ עבר‬has a wide semantic range in Hebrew. The Qal form of the verb connotes, inter alia, to cross a river, border or boundary; to overstep or transgress; to pass through, to traverse; to pass along, to pass by, to go beyond, to travel.15 In addition, the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫עבר‬, which is used eight times in the MT, has, an apparently unrelated meaning: to be arrogant; to be furious, to be angry.16 When used in the Hitpa‘el, the verb ‫ עבר‬is intransitive or absolute; it is followed by the preposition ‫ ְּב‬in Deut 3:26 and Ps 78:62; by ‫ ִעם‬in Ps 89:39; and by ‫ ַעל‬in Prov 26:17. The Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬is not used in Aramaic. Instead, T uses the verb ‫ רגז‬to translate the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬in T Deut 3:26; Pss 78:21, 59, 62; 89:38. According to Michael Sokoloff, the Aramaic verb ‫ רגז‬means “to be angry.”17 In my view, the possibility should therefore be considered that the Vorlage underlying the AL variant καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ in fact read, ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר ָע ָליו‬, which I propose to translate as “and she was furious with him.”

14

15 16 17

I will frequently invoke multiple arguments in support of a proposition in this work. These arguments are intended to be understood as cumulative rather than alternative arguments; i.e., while one argument may be less compelling than another, the accumulation of evidence tends to strengthen the weight of the arguments in favor of the proposition. BDB; HALOT; DCH. BDB; HALOT; DCH. See, Deut 3:26; Ps 78:21, 59, 62; 89:38; Prov 14:16; 20:2; 26:17. Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2002), 1058.

14

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Of the eight occurrences of the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬in the MT, it is likely that six have direct parallels in the LXX.18 The LXX “translates” the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬in three different ways.19 The verb ὑπεροράω is used in Deut 3:26; Ps 78:59, 62; the verb ἀναβάλλω in Pss 78:21; 89:38; and the verb παροξύνω in Prov 20:2.20 As there are only eight occurrences of the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬in MT (and only six with parallels in LXX), the variety of translations in LXX can be interpreted in two ways. First, they add complementary dimensions of meaning to the narrow definition of the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬as “to be arrogant; “to be furious”; to be angry.” Second, they indicate that the translators worked from a Vorlage that contained a verb other than the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫עבר‬. I will consider both hypotheses below. A comparison of the MT and LXX variants of the verses in which the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬is attested (Deut 3:26; Pss 78:21, 59, 62; 89:38; Prov 20:2) is set out below. The English translation of the LXX verses is that of Philip E. Satterthwaite in NETS; my proposed translation of the Greek verbs in question are indicated in square brackets. Translations from Hebrew are my own. MT Deut 3:26aAnd YHWH was furious with me ‫וַ ִ ּי ְת ַע ּ ֵבר יְ הוָ ה ִּבי ְל ַמ ַענְ ֶכם וְ לֹא‬ because of you. And he did not listen to me. ‫ָׁש ַמע ֵא ָלי‬ LXX Deut 3:26aAnd the Lord ignored [despised] καὶ ὑπερεῖδεν κύριος ἐμὲ ἕνεκεν me on your account and did not listen to me. ὑμῶν καὶ οὐκ εἰσήκουσέν μου 18 19

20

The LXX versions of MT Prov 14:16 and 26:17 are significantly different, suggesting that they may be based on a different Vorlage than the MT versions of these two verses. The proposition that the LXX “translates” specific Hebrew words is an oversimplification. As stated by James Barr, “Where the Greek text gives a sense different from the Hebrew, the hypothesis that it was translated from a different Hebrew text is only one of a number of possibilities. It may have had the same text, but misread it; or been careless in handling it, or guessed at the sense, or paraphrased, or assimilated it to another passage[.] […] Only when we eliminate a number of these possible relations are we entitled to translate back the Greek into a Hebrew text and say that the translators ‘read’ this text.” James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the OT (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1987 with additions and corrections), 245. However, when a relatively rare Hebrew verb in the MT such as the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬is reflected in the LXX with verbs that form part of a semantic field and signify something close to the assumed meaning of the Hebrew word, it can be concluded that it is likely that the Vorlage underlying the LXX variant was the same as the Vorlage underlying MT. John Screnock, “A New Approach to using the Old Greek in Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism,” Textus 27, 1 (2018): 229–257. For ease of reference, I will refer to verses in the LXX using the book name and chapter and verse divisions of the MT. For example, a verse in LXX 3 Reigns will be cited as LXX 1 Kings.

15

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

The verb ὑπεροράω also means “to disregard,” “to despise,” “to disdain” according to LEH and “to be willing to part with” according to GELS. Psalm 78 is instructive because the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬occurs three times in MT (in verses 21.59.62) and is translated in two different ways in LXX: MT Ps 78:21Therefore YHWH heard. And he was furious. And a fire was kindled against Jacob. And anger also went up against Israel. LXX Ps 77:21Therefore, the Lord heard and was put off, and a fire was kindled in Iakob, and anger mounted against Israel. MT Ps 78:59God heard. And he was furious. And he completely rejected Israel. LXX Ps 77:59God heard and disdained, and he treated Israel with utter contempt. MT Ps 78:62And he also delivered his people to the sword. And he was furious with his inheritance. LXX Ps 77:62And he consigned his people to a sword, and his heritage he disdained.

‫ָל ֵכן ָׁש ַמע יְ הוָ ה וַ ִ ּי ְת ַע ּ ָבר וְ ֵאׁש נִ ְּׂש ָקה‬ ‫ם־אף ָע ָלה ְביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ַ ַ‫ְביַ ֲעקֹב וְ ג‬

διὰ τοῦτο ἤκουσεν κύριος καὶ ἀνεβάλετο καὶ πῦρ ἀνήφθη ἐν Ιακωβ καὶ ὀργὴ ἀνέβη ἐπὶ τὸν Ισραηλ

‫ֹלהים וַ ִ ּי ְת ַע ּ ָבר וַ ּיִ ְמ ַאס ְמאֹד‬ ִ ‫ָׁש ַמע ֱא‬ ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

ἤκουσεν ὁ θεὸς καὶ ὑπερεῖδεν καὶ ἐξουδένωσεν σφόδρα τὸν Ισραηλ

‫ּובנַ ֲח ָלתֹו ִה ְת ַע ּ ָבר‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ְסּגֵ ר ַל ֶח ֶרב ַעּמֹו‬

καὶ συνέκλεισεν εἰς ῥομφαίαν τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτοῦ ὑπερεῖδεν

The use of both ὑπεροράω and ἀναβάλλω in LXX Psalm 78 is problematic. In my view, both Greek verbs connote actions that are sufficiently close in meaning to each other to sustain the argument that they translate the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫עבר‬. The use of different Greek verbs to translate a single BH verb in the same psalm can be explained as a stylistic device. For example, it is possible that the Greek translator thought that ἀναβάλλω was more appropriate in v. 21 because it created a felicitous parallel with ἀναβαίνω in the same verse. Psalm 89:39 is also instructive as it uses a series of three verbs that form part of a semantic field: MT Ps 89:39And you spurned. And you rejected. ‫וְ ַא ָּתה זָ נַ ְח ָּת וַ ִּת ְמ ָאס ִה ְת ַע ּ ַב ְר ּ ָת‬ You were furious with your anointed. ‫יחָך‬ ֶ ‫ם־מ ִׁש‬ ְ ‫ִע‬ : LXX Ps 88 39But you spurned and rejected; you σὺ δὲ ἀπώσω καὶ ἐξουδένωσας put off your anointed. ἀνεβάλου τὸν χριστόν σου LXX uses the verb παροξύνω in Prov 20:2 to translate the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫עבר‬:

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MT Prov 20:2The terror of a king is like the growling of a young lion. He who angers him endangers his life. LXX Prov 20:2The threat of a king does not differ from the rage of a lion, and he who provokes [angers] him sins against his own life.

ֹ‫ימת ֶמ ֶלְך ִמ ְת ַע ְּברו‬ ַ ‫נַ ַהם ַּכ ְּכ ִפיר ֵא‬‎

‫חֹוטא נַ ְפׁשֹו‬ ֵ

οὐ διαφέρει ἀπειλὴ βασιλέως θυμοῦ λέοντος ὁ δὲ παροξύνων αὐτὸν ἁμαρτάνει εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχήν

The verb παροξύνω also includes the meaning of “to irritate” according to LEH and “to anger” according to GELS. It should be noted that the verb παροξύνω is also used 14 times in the LXX to translate the verb ‫( נאץ‬to spurn; to despise).21 In conclusion, the rare Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬is translated by T with the Aramaic verb ‫( רגז‬to be angry) and by LXX in a number of different ways that connote anger, hatred, disdain and rejection. The possibility should therefore be considered that the Vorlage underlying the AL variant, καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ, in fact read, ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר ָע ָליו‬, which I propose to translate as “and she was furious with him.” 1.1.1.3

Other Variants of Judges 19:2a Support the Proposed Emendation of ‫ זנה‬with ‫עבר‬ As discussed, the text critical interpretation of 19:2 is problematic because no other Greek, Aramaic or Latin variant supports the MT or AL variant of the verse.22 I have argued that the Vorlage underlying AL might have been ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר‬ ‫( ָע ָליו‬and she was furious with him). I will attempt to demonstrate below that B and Pseudo-Philo support my hypothesis that the Vorlage could have been the verb ‫עבר‬. Each of these variants will be discussed below. 1.1.1.3.1

Codex Vaticanus

The B variant of 19:2 differs from both the MT and the A variants:23

21 22 23

Num 14:11, 23; 16:30; Deut 31:20; 32:19; 2 Sam 12:14; Isa 5:24; 10:14; Pss 9:24; 10:13; 74:10, 18; 108:11; and Lam 2:6. The significance of the agreement between MT and S will be discussed in Section 1.1.1.5 infra. All citations of LXXA in this work are from the eclectic version of A prepared by Alfred Rahlfs. Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007). Rahlf’s text emends Alexandrinus to include certain preferred variants from L and the hexaplaric recension.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

MT Judg 19:2aAnd his concubine whored against him. 2bAnd she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah. LXXA Judg 19:2aAnd his concubine became angry with him. 2bAnd she went away from him to her father’s house, at Bethleem of Ioudas. LXXB Judg 19:2aAnd his concubine left him. 2bAnd she went away from him to her father’s house, at Bethleem of Ioudas.

17 ‫ל־ּבית‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶה ָעלָ יו ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ ֵּת ֶלְך ֵמ ִאּתֹו ֶא‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ל־ּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬ ֵ ‫יה ֶא‬ ָ ‫ָא ִב‬

καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς εἰς Βηθλεεμ Ιουδα καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀπῆλθεν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ εἰς οἶκον πατρὸς αὐτῆς εἰς Βηθλεεμ Ιουδα

As there is considerable overlap in meaning between the verbs πορεύω and ἀπέρχομαι in Greek, and both verbs are used most frequently in LXX to translate the verb ‫הלך‬, the seemingly repetitive nature of B Judg 19:2a (καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ) and B Judg 19:2b (καὶ ἀπῆλθεν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ) is problematic. Ilmari Soisalon-Soininen argues that the use of the verb πορεύω in B Judg 19:2a is a corruption of the verb πορνεύω (to prostitute oneself) as a result of a scribal omission of the letter ν.24 On this theory, B (rather than AL) reflects the Vorlage and accords with the MT. Paul Harlé follows Soisalon-Soininen.25 Importantly, Harlé notes that a scribal confusion of πορνεύω with πορεύω also occurs in AL Judges. In Judg 2:15, B reads, ἐν πᾶσιν οἷς ἐξεπορεύοντο (in each case when they went out), which accords with MT and the obvious context of the passage. Strangely, AL reads ἐν πᾶσιν οἷς ἐπόρνευον (in each case when they went whoring). Harlé considers the case of AL Judg 2:15 to be a scribal error due to the paronomasia of the two verbs.26 I disagree with the positions of Soisalon-Soininen and Harlé for three reasons. First, the B variant of Judg 19:2a reads, καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. If the verb πορεύω is a corruption of πορνεύω as proposed, the original phrase would have read, καὶ ἐπορνεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. Second, the use of the preposition ἀπό following the verb πορνεύω is not attested in the LXX. In contrast, the preposition ἀπό can follow πορεύω.27 Third, the LXX translates the verb ‫ זנה‬in two ways: πορνεύω and ἐκπορνεύω. The former is used 13 times and the latter, 39 times. The verb 24 25 26 27

Ilmari Soisalon-Soininen, Die Textformen der Setptuaginta-Übersetzung des Richterbuches, AASF Series B, 72, 1 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedekatemia, 1951), 79. Paul Harlé, La Bible d’Alexandrie : Les Juges (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1999), 241. Harlé, Les Juges, 89. See, e.g., LXX Judg 6:21; LXX 1 Ch 16:20.

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πορνεύω has a rather limited distribution.28 In contrast, the 39 occurrences of ἐκπορνεύω are more widely distributed, being used, inter alia, in every book of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets (Joshua to Kings), including three times in Judges. In the case of Judges, both A and B use ἐκπορνεύω rather than πορνεύω. For these reasons, it is more likely that B would have used ἐκπορνεύω rather than πορνεύω in B Judg 19:2a. If my hypothesis is correct that the B variant, καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, is not a scribal corruption of the verb πορνεύω, it must then be determined what verb was used in the Vorlage underlying the B text. The verb πορεύω is used in LXX most frequently to translate ‫( הלך‬to walk; to go). However, it is unlikely the Vorlage of B Judg 19:2aA used ‫ הלך‬because MT uses the verb ‫ הלך‬in the immediately following phrase in Judg 19:2aB, ‫ל־ּבית ָא ִב ָיה‬ ֵ ‫( וַ ֵּת ֶלְך ֵמ ִאּתֹו ֶא‬and she went away from him to her father’s house). However, the Qal verb ‫ עבר‬is also translated with πορεύω in LXX Josh 3:4; 15:4; Judg 12:1; 2 Sam 15:18, Isa 33:15; 34:10; 62:10; Ezek 9:5; Ruth 2:8. Although speculative, I propose to interpret the B variant, καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, as using the verb πορεύω to translate the Qal verb ‫עבר‬. As discussed, the Qal verb ‫ עבר‬has a variety of different meanings, including that of “to move on.” The clearest example of the use of ‫ עבר‬with the meaning of “move on” is probably Ruth 2:8: MT Ruth 2:8And Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field. Furthermore, do not move on from this one, but cling closely to my maids here.” LXX Ruth 2:8And Boos said to Routh “Did you not hear, daughter? Do not go to glean in another field, and you should not go from this one. Stick close to my girls.

‫אמר ּב ַֹעז ֶאל־רּות ֲהלֹוא ָׁש ַמ ַע ְּת‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ל־ּת ְל ִכי ִל ְלקֹט ְּב ָׂש ֶדה ַא ֵחר‬ ֵ ‫ִּב ִּתי ַא‬ ‫וְ גַ ם לֹא ַתעֲ בו ִּרי ִמּזֶ ה וְ כֹה ִת ְד ָּב ִקין‬ ‫ִעם־נַ ֲער ָֹתי‬

καὶ εἶπεν Βοος πρὸς Ρουθ οὐκ ἤκουσας θύγατερ μὴ πορευθῇς ἐν ἀγρῷ συλλέξαι ἑτέρῳ καὶ σὺ οὐ πορεύσῃ ἐντεῦθεν ὧδε κολλήθητι μετὰ τῶν κορασίων μου

In this passage, the verb ‫( עבר‬to move on) is contrasted with ‫( דבק‬to cling; to stay close). It can be noted that LXX translates the verb ‫ עבר‬in Ruth 2:8 with πορεύω, as I am proposing is also the case in LXXB Judg 19:2a. In conclusion, I have attempted to demonstrate that the B variant of Judg 19:2a, καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, is not a scribal corruption as has been 28

It is used four times in Hosea, four times in Jeremiah and three times in Ezekiel. Outside of these three books, the verb is attested once in Amos, once in Chronicles and once in Psalms.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

19

proposed by Soisalon-Soininen and followed by Harlé, but rather the translation of a Vorlage that used the verb ‫עבר‬. I therefore propose that B Judg 19:2a can be translated as “And his concubine moved on from him. And she went away from him to her father’s house.” If this hypothesis is correct, it follows that the verb in the Vorlagen underlying both the AL and B variants of Judg 19:2a is ‫עבר‬. It has been argued above that the verb in the AL Vorlage was most likely the rarely used Hitpa‘el form, ‫( וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי‬And she was furious). In contrast, the translators of B appear to have read the Vorlage as if the verb were in the commonly used Qal form, ‫( וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי‬And she moved on). This difference can be explained in two ways. First, the B Vorlage was the same as the AL Vorlage, but the translators of B interpreted the verb as if it were Qal. Second, B worked from a later Vorlage than AL in which a scribe intentionally or accidentally omitted the second ‫ ת‬in ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי‬, thereby changing the verb from the Hitpa‘el to the Qal form. Although speculative, I prefer the second hypothesis. This preference will be defended below in the discussion of Pseudo-Philo’s Liver Antiquitatum Biblicum (LAB). 1.1.1.3.2

Pseudo-Philo’s LAB

A number of ancient Jewish authors writing in Greek produced works that include “rewritten Bible”; i.e., a literary genre common in the Greco-Roman world in which a Jewish author uses the HB as a source and then “re-writes” the text to advance the author’s own ideological/theological positions.29 Both Flavius Josephus and Pseudo-Philo address the story of the Levite and his concubine in their works. It is generally agreed that Flavius Josephus’ text is a creative interpretation of 19:2a without text critical relevance.30 In contrast, Pseudo-Philo’s text relating to 19:2a is significant and will be discussed below. As both the original BH text and ancient Greek translation of Pseudo-Philo’s LAB have been lost, scholars rely on a Latin translation from Greek. It is generally agreed that the BH original of LAB was written in Palestine, shortly 29

30

According to Philip S. Alexander, “Rewritten Bible mimics the form of the original text, but weaves into it additional, explanatory matter. It is basically a genre that applies only to aggadah. It reproduces the biblical text selectively, and is used to integrate legend and tradition into the biblical narrative.” Philip S. Alexander, “The Bible in Qumran and Early Judaism” in Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Studies (ed. A.D.H. Mayes; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 42. I am grateful to Bénédicte Lemmelijn for this reference. See, e.g., Ariel Feldman, “The Book of Judges in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls” in On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets Through the Eyes of Their Interpreters (ed. G.J. Brooke and A. Feldman; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 90–91.

20

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before 70 CE.31 Pseudo-Philo “rewrites” Judges 19–21 in Chapters 45–47 of LAB. Chapter 45 opens the story of the Levite and his concubine with 19:10, thus skipping entirely the narrator’s background information concerning the woman having left her husband to return to her father. However, in Pseudo-Philo’s recounting of the story of the concubine’s gang-rape (19:25) in Chapter 45 of LAB, he adds a comment that explains the violent event as a punishment for the concubine’s adultery (translation by Howard Jacobson): They entered by force and dragged him and his concubine outside. After letting the man go, they abused his concubine until she died, for she had strayed from her man at one time (quoniam transgressa fuerat virum suum quodam tempore), when she committed sin with the Amalekites (cum peccasset cum Amalechitis), and on account of this the Lord God delivered her into the hands of sinners.32 Pseudo-Philo thus presents the woman’s gang-rape and murder as divine retribution for adulteries she had committed earlier in her life. This introduces a theme that is absent in AL and B 19:2a but that is implied in MT 19:2a with the phrase ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬and she whored against him).33 The question thus arises whether Pseudo-Philo based his retelling of the story on a Vorlage similar to AL, B and/or MT. In my view, Pseudo-Philo’s text indicates that he knew the Vorlage of B, as well as a proto-Masoretic text, and thus provides important evidence of the relationship between B and MT. My position can be summarized as follows: First, as discussed, the AL phrase καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ (and she was angry with him) was probably based on a Vorlage that read, ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר ָע ָליו‬, which I propose to translate as “and she was furious with him.” Second, as discussed, B worked from a Vorlage that read ‫ ;וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי ָע ָליו‬i.e., in which the verb ‫ עבר‬had been copied as a Qal rather than a Hitpa‘el verb yielding the Greek translation, καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ (and she moved on from him). Third, while B translated ‫ עבר‬on the basis of its meaning of “to move on,” Pseudo-Philo translated the same verb with another of its meanings, as “to transgress.” My position concerning Pseudo-Philo’s reliance on the Vorlage underlying B is supported by two arguments. 31

32 33

Daniel J. Harrington, “Pseudo-Philo” in ABD 5:345. Some scholars argue for a post-70 dating of LAB. See, e.g., Frederick J. Murphy, “Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo)” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 440. Howard, Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liver “Antiquitatum Biblicum,” with Latin Text and English Translation, vol. 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 168. Pace Christopher Begg, “The Retellings of the Story of Judges 19,” EB 58 (2000): 37.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

21

First, the meaning of the Latin phrase, quoniam transgressa fuerat virum suum quodam tempore is not entirely clear. As mentioned, Jacobson translates the phrase as “for she had strayed from her husband at one time.” In my view, Christopher Begg’s translation, “because she had transgressed against her man” is more accurate.34 It can be noted that V uses the verb transgredior with the meaning of “to transgress” in the following passages: Num 14:41; Deut 17:2; Isa 24:5; Hos 6:7; 8:1; Sir 19:21; 23:5; 31:10. The Greek verb in the corresponding LXX variants is παραβαίνω (which LEH defines inter alia as “to pass beyond, to overstep, to transgress”) in all of the above cited verses with the exception of V Deut 17:2. The Greek verb in LXX Deut 17:2 is παρέρχομαι, which LEH defines inter alia as “to overstep; to transgress; to disregard.” In conclusion, it is likely that the Latin translator of the phrase quoniam transgressa fuerat virum suum quodam tempore in Chapter 45 of LAB used the verb transgredior, with the meaning of “to transgress,” to translate the verb παραβαίνω (or possibly παρέρχομαι) in the underlying Greek version of LAB.35 Second, as LAB was originally composed in Hebrew, the verb that underlies παραβαίνω (or possibly παρέρχομαι) remains to be determined. It can be observed that the Qal verb ‫ עבר‬is used to mean “to transgress” 18 times in MT, with 15 parallels in LXX.36 The verb is translated with (i) παραβαίνω in Num 14:41; Josh 7:11.15; 23:16; 1 Sam 15:24; 2 Kgs 18:12; Isa 24:5 Hos 6:7; 8:1; Dan 9:11; (ii) παρέρχομαι in Deut 17:2; 26:13; Jer 34:18; (iii) παραπορεύομαι in 2 Ch 24:20; and (iv) ἐγκαταλείπω in Judg 2:20. Thus, it is likely that the Hebrew verb underlying the Greek translation of the phrase “and she transgressed against her husband” in Chapter 45 of LAB was the Qal verb ‫עבר‬. I have argued above that the verb in the Vorlage underlying the phrase καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ (and she moved on from him) in B Judg 19:2a was also the Qal verb ‫עבר‬. Thus, while B translated ‫ עבר‬in the sense of “to move on,” Pseudo-Philo translated the same verb, probably from the same Vorlage as B, with another of its meanings, as “to transgress.” 34 35

36

Begg, “Retellings” 39. Jacobson takes the position that it is the verb παραβαίνω that underlies the Latin translation transgredior in LAB. He states, “I do not know any exact Latin parallel [to quoniam transgressa fuerat virum suum quodam tempore]. However, Sirach 23:25 [=LXX Sir 23:18a] is close, transgrediens lectum suum, where the Greek has παραβαίνων ἀπὸ τῆς κλίνης αὐτοῦ, that is, ‘strays from his bed.’ Thus LAB means, ‘she had strayed from her husband’.” Jacobson, Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s, 1034. As discussed above, the verb transgredior is frequently used in V with the meaning of “to transgress.” In particular, V Sir 23:25=LXX Sir 23:18a can more easily be translated as “and the man who transgresses his [marriage] bed” than as “and the man who strays from his [marriage] bed” as proposed by Jacobson. The three occurrences without parallels in LXX are Ps 17:3; Prov 8:29; and Esth 3:3.

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1.1.1.3.3

Targum Jonathan of Judges

1.1.1.3.4

Change of the Vorlage in MT 19:2

Most scholars consider Targum Jonathan of Judges to have been composed in Jerusalem in the 2nd century CE and then revised and amended in Babylon over the following five centuries.37 W. Smelik’s English translation of the Targum’s Aramaic version of 19:2a is as follows: “But the concubine despised (‫ )ּבסר‬him and went away from him, [back] to her father’s house.”38 BHQ takes the position that T does not support AL, B or MT. I disagree. In my view, T follows MT for the reasons discussed below. The Targumim are generally modest in relation to sexual matters and often substitute Aramaic euphemisms to translate a BH word that is considered to be too bold to pronounce. For example, it can be observed that the verb ‫זנה‬ is used four times in MT Judges; in 2:17; 8:27; 8:33; and 19:2. In addition, the BH active participle used nominatively, ‫ זֹונָ ה‬or ‫( זֹנָ ה‬prostitute), is used twice; in 11:1 and 16:1. In all six cases, T replaces the BH word with a more modest euphemism. In 2:17, 8:27 and 8:33 ‫ זנה‬is replaced with an Aramaic verb meaning “to go astray.” In 11:1 and 16:1, “prostitute” is replaced with an Aramaic word meaning “hostess” or “innkeeper.” In 19:2a ‫ זנה‬is replaced with the Aramaic word ‫( בסר‬to despise). Because of T’s consistent “mistranslation” of the six occurrences of the verb ‫ זנה‬and its cognates in Judges, it is highly unlikely that T relied on a Vorlage that was substantially different from MT for all six of these verses. In particular, it is unlikely that T relied on the same Vorlage as AL. As discussed, the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬is not used in Aramaic. Instead, T uses the verb ‫רגז‬, meaning “to be angry, to be enraged.” If T worked from a Vorlage that used the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬as in AL, it could be expected that T would have used the Aramaic verb ‫רגז‬. As T is otherwise generally close to the MT in its choice of vocabulary, the fact that T elects to emend MT 19:2a at all tends to suggest that T’s Vorlage contained a verb with a sexual connotation, such as ‫זנה‬, which was unacceptable to the Aramaic translators for cultural reasons. It is thus preferable to view T’s reading of 19:2a as “his concubine despised him” as an interpretative change to the underlying MT variant ‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬. I have attempted to demonstrate above that the verb in the Vorlage underlying both B and Pseudo-Philo’s LAB was probably the Qal form of the verb ‫עבר‬. B translated the verb with its meaning “to move on” and Pseudo-Philo as “to 37 38

Daniel J. Harrington and Anthony J. Saldarini, Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987), 13. Willem F. Smelik, The Targum of Judges (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 607.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

23

transgress.” It can be hypothesised that a later redactor changed ‫וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי ָע ָליו‬ (and she transgressed against him) to ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬And she whored against him), as reflected in MT and S.39 Three reasons for this change can be envisaged. First, the change clarifies that the verb ‫ עבר‬should be interpreted to mean “to transgress” rather than “to move on” as interpreted by B. Second, the change clarifies that the woman’s “transgression” was precisely that of adultery. Third, the change provides a theological explanation for the concubine’s gang-rape as a “measure-for-measure” or “talionic” retribution for her earlier sexual sins. If this hypothesis is correct, it follows that the change to ‫ וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬occurred late in the compositional history of Judges 19, after the finalization of the Vorlage underlying B and before the finalization of the Vorlage underlying S. 1.1.1.3.5

Conclusions

The text critical analysis of 19:2a is complicated by the fact that the lessons of AL, B, MT, T and Pseudo-Philo’s LAB are different and appear to be irreconcilable. I have proposed a hypothesis that attempts to explain all of these variants as based on a Vorlage that used the verb ‫ עבר‬to describe the concubine’s action in relation to her husband. In my view, the earliest Vorlage read ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי ָע ָליו‬ (and she was furious with him); i.e., the Wayyiqtol third person singular feminine of the verb ‫ עבר‬in the Hitpa‘el form. This Vorlage is reflected in the AL variant καὶ ὠργίσθη αὐτῷ (she was angry with him). The Vorlage then underwent two successive changes. First, a scribe changed ‫( וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי ָע ָליו‬And she was furious with him), as reflected in AL, to ‫וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי ָע ָליו‬, as suggested by B and Pseudo-Philo. One can only speculate as to the reasons for the change from the Hitpa‘el to the Qal form of the verb ‫ עבר‬in 19:2. There are two plausible explanations. Primo, a scribe accidentally omitted the second ‫ ת‬in ‫וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי‬. Secundo, as the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬is used rarely in MT and not used at all in Aramaic, it is possible that a late Persian/early Hellenistic period scribe intentionally changed ‫ וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי‬to ‫ וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי‬to clarify the meaning of 19:2 for readers no longer familiar with the Hitpa‘el meaning of the verb. Although the change in meaning from the Hitpa‘el to the Qal is semantically significant, the change can be viewed as lexically conservative from the perspective of a scribal culture because it involves the deletion of only a single consonant from the earlier Vorlage. Although speculative, I am inclined to prefer the second hypothesis.

39

The dependency of S Judges on a proto-Masoretic Vorlage is generally agreed. According to Fernández Marcos, the Vorlage underlying S Judges “was closer to the Masoretic text than to the text that underlies the Septuagint.” BHQ Judges, 11.

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The Qal verb ‫ עבר‬has multiple meanings that depend on context. B translated the verb in Greek with the meaning of “to move on”; “to travel further.” In contrast, Pseudo-Philo interpreted the verb with the meaning of “to transgress.” In my view, B and Pseudo-Philo can be understood as reflecting two different schools of interpretation of the same Vorlage. B, probably working in Alexandria, may have endeavored to translate ‫ וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי ָע ָליו‬in a way that created the least conflict with A (from “and she was angry with him” to “and she moved on from him”). In contrast, Pseudo-Philo, probably working in Palestine, understood the same Vorlage to mean “and she transgressed against him,” thereby inferring that the concubine had committed adultery. Second, it can be hypothesized that a later redactor changed ‫וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי ָע ָליו‬ (and she transgressed against him) to ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬And she whored against him), as reflected in MT. Three reasons for this change can be envisaged. Primo, the change clarifies that the verb ‫ עבר‬should be interpreted to mean “to transgress” rather than “to move on” as interpreted by B. Secundo, the change clarifies that the woman’s “transgression” was precisely that of adultery. Tertio, the change provides a theological explanation for the concubine’s gang-rape as a “measure-for-measure” or “talionic” retribution for her earlier sexual sins. If this hypothesis is correct, it follows that the change to ‫ וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬occurred late in the compositional history of Judges 19–21, after the finalization of the Vorlage underlying B and before the finalization of the Vorlage underlying S.40 1.1.2 Judges 19:3a The Wayyiqtol phrases ‫יׁשּה וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר ָיה‬ ָ ‫( וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬And her husband rose up. And he went after her) in MT 19:3a are followed by two nominal phrases using infinitive constructs, ‫ל־ל ָּבּה ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬ ִ ‫ ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬. The first infinitive construct phrase, ‫ְל ַד ֵּבר‬ ‫ל־ל ָּבּה‬ ִ ‫ ַע‬, uses a feminine singular possessive suffix that clearly refers to the concubine (to speak to her heart). The second infinitive construct phrase, ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬, uses a masculine singular accusative suffix (to bring him/it back). This suffix can reasonably be interpreted as referring back to the last-mentioned noun, the masculine lexeme ‫( ֵלב‬heart). The two infinitive construct phrases may thus be translated as “to reason with her [in order] to change her mind.”41 However, the Ketiv ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬is corrected in the Qere to read ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬. BHS and BHQ follow the Qere and interpret the feminine singular accusative suffix as referring to 40 41

The compositional history of 19:2a will be discussed in detail in Chapter 9, Section 1.3 infra. The expressions “to speak to her heart” and “to speak heart to heart” occur eight times in the MT (Gen 34:3; 50:21; Judg 19:2; 2 Sam 19:8; Isa 40:2; Hos 2:16, Ruth 2:13; 2 Ch 30:22). Most commentators agree that these collocations do not necessarily have a romantic connotation because the heart is often presented as the seat of intelligence. Indeed, it is often a man who “speaks to the heart” of another man (Gen 50:21; 2 Sam 19:8; 2 Ch 30:32).

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

25

the woman herself. Following the Qere, most commentators translate the two infinitive construct phrases as “to speak upon her heart to bring her back.”42 BHQ defends the Qere version ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬as the preferred reading on the grounds that “the τοῦ διαλλάξαι αὐτὴν and καὶ ἀπαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν of G are a dou�� blet corresponding to the translation of the Qere […].”43 I disagree with BHQ’s position for two reasons. First, because the Ketiv ‫ להׁשיבו‬is grammatically correct and yields a coherent meaning, consideration should therefore be given to the possibility that the Ketiv reflects an earlier variant than the Qere ‫להׁשיבה‬.44 Second, it can reasonably be argued that the AL variant of 19:3a is based on a Vorlage that followed the Qere but with a different vocalization than MT that results in a different understanding of the meaning of the lexeme. These arguments will be developed in the following paragraphs. As a threshold matter, it should be noted that the AL variant of 19:3a contains significant disagreements with both the MT Ketiv and Qere readings of the verse: MT 19:3aB Ketivto reason with her to change her mind. MT 19:3aB Qereto speak to her heart to bring her back. LXXA 19:3aBto speak to her heart to reconcile her to himself and to lead her back again to him.

‫ל־ל ָּבּה ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬ ִ ‫ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬ ‫ל־ל ָּבּה ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬ ִ ‫ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬

τοῦ λαλῆσαι ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῆς τοῦ διαλλάξαι αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ καὶ ἀπαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν πάλιν πρὸς αὐτόν

The AL variant contains three infinitive phrases in comparison with the two infinitive phrases in the MT variants. It is clear that τοῦ λαλῆσαι ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῆς is the equivalent of ‫ל־ל ָּבּה‬ ִ ‫ ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬. The second phrase, τοῦ διαλλάξαι αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ, is a textual “plus” generally translated as “to reconcile her to himself.” The third phrase, καὶ ἀπαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν πάλιν πρὸς αὐτόν, is generally understood to be the equivalent of the Qere, ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬, followed by the “plus” πρὸς αὐτόν. I disagree with BHQ’s position that the second and third phrases in AL “are a doublet corresponding to the translation of the Qere” for four reasons. First, the verb διαλλάσσω is rare in the LXX and its interpretation as “to reconcile” can be questioned. This Greek verb is used to translate three different 42 43 44

Niditch, Judges, 185. See also, “to speak tenderly to her in order to bring her back” (NAS); “to appeal to her affections and fetch her back” (NJB); “pour regagner sa confiance et la ramener” (TOB). BHQ Judges, 2011, p. 105. See also, Harlé, Les Juges, 241. Pace Sarah Schulz. Sarah Schulz, Die Anhänge Zum Richter-Buch, Eine kompositionsgeshichtliche Untersuchung von Ri 17–21 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016), 17.

26

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verbs in MT. Primo, the Hitpa‘el of ‫( רצה‬to make pleasing) in 1 Sam 29:4. Secundo, the Hif‘il of ‫( פרר‬to frustrate, to break) in Job 5:12. Tertio, the Hif‘il of ‫( סור‬to take away) in Job 12:20.24.45 The case of MT Job 12:20 is instructive: Job 12:20He takes away speech from the trusted ones. And the discernment of elders he takes.

‫ ֵמ ִסיר ָׂש ָפה ְלנֶ ֱא ָמנִ ים וְ ַט ַעם‬‎ ‫זְ ֵקנִ ים יִ ָ ּקח‬

It can be noted that the Hif‘il verb ‫( סור‬which the LXX translates as διαλλάσσω) is paired with the Qal verb ‫לקח‬, suggesting that the two verbs are close in meaning.46 Second, the use of the accusative and dative pronouns αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ in the infinitive phrase, τοῦ διαλλάξαι αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ, may shed light on the meaning of διαλλάσσω. The pronouns αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ are used together in the LXX only in Deut 24:3.4; 25:5; 1 Sam 25:39; Est 2:7. All of these attestations occur in phrases that refer to marriage in which the syntagma ‫( ְּול ָק ָחּה לֹו ְל ִא ָּׁשה‬and he took her as a wife for himself) is translated as καὶ λήμψεται αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ γυναῖκα (Deut 25:5). The possibility should therefore be considered that the phrase τοῦ διαλλάξαι αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ in AL 19:3a should be interpreted in the context of a marriage proposal by the Levite to his concubine. Third, the meaning of the third infinitive phrase in AL 19:3a, καὶ ἀπαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν πάλιν πρὸς αὐτόν, is also problematic. As discussed, Harlé and BHQ take the position that καὶ ἀπαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν is simply the Greek translation of ‫ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬ in MT Qere 19:3a.47 In my opinion, this position is not self-evident. The Hif‘il form of the verb ‫ ׁשוב‬is common. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the equivalent LXX variants use the verb ἀποστρέφω. The verb ἀπάγω is only used twice in the LXX as the equivalent of the Hif‘il of ‫ ;ׁשוב‬in AL 19:3a and LXX 1 Sam 6:7, in relation to bringing cattle back to the barn. The Greek verb ἀπάγω is more commonly used as the equivalent of the Hif‘il of ‫( הלך‬to lead away)48 and the Qal of ‫( נהג‬to drive away).49 The possibility should therefore be considered 45 46 47

48 49

The verb is also used in 2 Mac 6:27; Wis 15: 4.18; 1 Esd 4:31 in the LXX, and Mat 5:22 in the NT. LXX Job 12:20b (σύνεσιν δὲ πρεσβυτέρων ἔγνω) is significantly different from the MT variant (‫)וְ ַט ַעם זְ ֵקנִ ים יִ ָּקח‬. Contra Schulz who takes the position that AL follows the Ketiv rather than the Qere and changes the singular accusative suffix from the masculine in BH to the feminine because the Greek noun καρδία is feminine. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 17. Schulz thus interprets the verb ἀπάγω as a translation of the Hif‘il form of ‫ ׁשוב‬as used in MT 19:3a. As will be discussed below, the verb ἀπάγω is used 22 times in the LXX in verses with equivalents in the MT; of these, ἀπάγω only occurs once as the translation of the Hif‘il form of ‫ׁשוב‬. Deut 29:36; 1 Ki 1:38; 2 Ki 6:19 (×2); 17:27; 24:15; 25:20; 2 Ch 36:6. Gen 31:18; Deut 28:37; 1 Sam 23:5; 30:20.22.

27

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

that the Vorlage of καὶ ἀπαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν in AL 19:3a may have been something different than ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬. Fourth, the subtle references to marriage in AL 19:3a are, in my opinion, also present in MT 19:3a. The Qere vocalizes the lexeme ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬as an infinitive construct of the Hif‘il verb ‫ׁשוב‬. However, the consonants in the lexeme can also be vocalized as the defective spelling of the infinitive construct of the Hif‘il form of the verb ‫ יׁשב‬as used in MT Neh 13:27: Neh 13:27Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women? (NAS translation)

‫וְ ָל ֶכם ֲהנִ ְׁש ַמע ַל ֲעׂש ֹת ֵאת‬‎ ‫דֹולה ַהּזֹאת‬ ָ ְ‫ל־ה ָר ָעה ַהּג‬ ָ ‫ָּכ‬ ‫אֹלהינּו לְ ה ִֹׁשיב‬ ֵ ‫ִל ְמעֹל ֵּב‬ ‫נָ ִׁשים נָ ְכ ִרּיֹות‬

This defective spelling of the infinitive construct of the Hif‘il form of the verb ‫ ישׁב‬is used six times in Ezra-Nehemiah.50 Although the literal meaning of the Hif‘il of ‫ יׁשב‬is “to cause to sit or dwell,” it is clear from the context of Ezra 10 and Nehemiah 13 that the verb is used to mean “to marry.” The possibility should therefore be considered that the unpointed phrase ‫ להׁשיבה‬in MT Qere 19:3a was interpreted by the translators of AL 19:3a to mean ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her) rather than ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to take her back). In conclusion, the Qere in MT 19:3a can be interpreted as a redactional change that adds a level of hermeneutical meaning that is not present in the Ketiv. The Ketiv implies that the Levite went to Bethlehem to implore his wife to change her mind and to return to him. The Qere shifts the meaning to a story about a man who went to the house of his girlfriend’s father to marry her and cause her to dwell with him. As will be discussed in detail below, it is my position that the second infinitive construct phrase in the earliest composition stratum of 19:3a read ‫( להׁשיבו‬to change it [her mind]) as per the Ketiv. A later redactor changed the lexeme to ‫להׁשיבה‬, with the meaning of “to marry her” as per the vocalization ‫ ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬. This composition stratum of the Vorlage is reflected in AL’s translation τοῦ διαλλάξαι αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ.51 The second and third infinitive phrases in AL 19:3a may thus be interpreted as a “filling out” of the sense of the lexeme in the MT Qere of that verse reading the lexeme ‫להׁשיבה‬ as vocalized ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her). A Masoretic scribe later added vowels to ‫ להׁשיבה‬to change the meaning to ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to take her back). After this lengthy discussion of 19:2a.3a, the remaining nine agreements between BHS and BHQ will be discussed more briefly below. 50 51

Ezr 10:2.10.14.17.18; Neh 13:27. See discussion of the compositional history of 19:3a in Chapter 9, Section 1.4 infra.

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1.1.3 Judges 19:11a MT 19:11a contains a verbal form,‫רד‬, that is a hapax in the MT. Judg 19:11aThey were close to Jubus. And the day, it was very subdued.52

‫ ֵהם ִעם־יְבּוס וְ ַהּיֹום ַרד ְמאֹד‬‎

BHQ takes the position that ‫ רד‬is “inexplicable.”53 To the contrary, ‫ רד‬can be understood as the Qatal third person masculine singular (or the third person masculine singular active participle) of the rare geminate verb, ‫( רדד‬to beat down; to subdue) in the Qal form.54 Instead, BHS and BHQ interpret ‫ רד‬as a corruption of the verb ‫( ירד‬to go down; to descend). They argue that the verbs κλίνω (to bend; to bow down) as used in AL 19:11a, and προβαίνω (to go forward; to advance) in B 19:11a, indicate that the verb used in the Vorlage was ‫( ירד‬to go down). I disagree for three reasons. First, although the verb ‫ ירד‬is used 382 times in the MT,55 the LXX never uses the verbs κλίνω or προβαίνω to translate the verb ‫ירד‬. The use of κλίνω in AL 19:11a and προβαίνω in B 19:11a therefore do not support the proposal of BHS and BHQ to read ‫ רד‬as ‫ירד‬. Second, the verb ‫ ירד‬is not used in the MT to signify the end of the day. In contrast, the verb ‫( נטה‬to stretch forth) is attested in the MT in four verses in the context of the passing of time, using an idiom based on the lengthening of the shadow cast by a sundial as the day advances.56 The LXX translates ‫נטה‬ in all four verses with κλίνω. While the AL variant of MT 19:11a might support a hypothesis that the Vorlage used the verb ‫נטה‬, it does not support the proposal of BHS and BHQ to read ‫ רד‬as ‫ירד‬. Third, the AL variant of κλίνω can more parsimoniously be explained as an attempt to harmonize 19:11a with two other verses in Judges 19 – 19:8a and 52

53 54 55 56

As it is typical in BH to place the verb before the subject and in English to place the subject before the verb, I will translate all typical BH phrases in English with the subject before the verb. To highlight the atypical BH semantic style in which the subject precedes the verb, these phrases will be translated in English as subject, followed by pronoun, followed by verb; i.e., And the day, it was very subdued. BHQ Judges, 107. The verb ‫ רדד‬is attested in the Yiqtol in Isa 41:2; the Wayyiqtol in 1 Ki 6:32; the infinitive construct in Isa 45:1; and the third person masculine singular active participle in Ps 144:2; all in the Qal form. Miles V. Van Pelt and Gary, D. Pratico, Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 8. Judg 19:8; 2 Ki 20:10; Ps 102:12; 109:23.

29

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

19:9b – that also refer to the passage of the day from afternoon to evening. It can be observed that the motif of the passage of the day from afternoon until evening occurs five times in Judges 19.57 Interestingly, the MT uses a different collocation in each case. The examples of 19:8a.9b.11a are instructive because A uses the same verb to translate three different Hebrew verbs: MT Judg 19:8a[…] Wait until the stretching forth of the day! LXXA Judg 19:8aAnd act like a soldier until the day bows down. MT Judg 19:9b[…] Behold! The day has withdrawn to become evening […]. LXXA Judg 19:19bBehold! Also, into evening the day has bowed down. MT Judg 19:11aThey were close to Jubus. And the day, it was very subdued. LXXA Judg 19:11aThey came as far as Jebus and the day was very bowed down.

‫וְ ִה ְת ַמ ְה ְמהּו ַעד־נְ טוֹ ת ַהּיֹום‬‎

καὶ στρατεύθητι ἕως κλίνῃ ἡ ἡμέρα

‫ ִהּנֵ ה נָ א ָרפָ ה ַהּיֹום ַל ֲער ֹב‬‎

ἰδοὺ δὴ εἰς ἑσπέραν κέκλικεν ἡ ἡμέρα

‫ֵהם ִעם־יְבּוס וְ ַהּיֹום ַרד ְמאֹד‬

ἔτι αὐτῶν ὄντων κατὰ Ιεβους καὶ ἡ ἡμέρα κεκλικυῖα σφόδρα

As discussed, the Greek versions translate ‫נטה‬, as used four times in the MT in the context of the passage of the day to night, with κλίνω. In contrast, the verbs, ‫ רפה‬as used in 19:9b, and ‫ רדד‬as used in 19:11a, are rarer and are not used elsewhere in the MT in the context of sunset. In my view, the translator of A used the same verb, κλίνω, in 19:9b and 19:11a, in order to harmonize those verses with 19:8a. It is therefore more parsimonious to interpret the use of κλίνω in AL 19:8a and προβαίνω in B 19:8a as interpretive translations of ‫ רדד‬rather than as proof that the Vorlage used the verb ‫ירד‬.58 1.1.4 Judges 19:30a As is well known, AL 19:30a contains a “plus” not found in any other version:

57 58

Judg 19:8a.9b(×2).11a.14b. According to L-S, the verb προβαίνω is used in ancient Greek idioms relating to the advance of time from day to night and from night to day.

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MT Judg 19:30aAnd so it was that all those who saw said: “Nothing has ever happened or been seen like this, from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land or Egypt until this day. 30bSet yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And Speak! LXXA Judg 19:30aAnd it came to pass that all those who saw said: Nothing has ever happened or been seen like this from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from Egypt until this day.” And he commanded the men he sent saying: “Here is what you will say to every man of Israel, “Has such a thing ever happened from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from Egypt until this day? 30bTake counsel among yourselves concerning it and speak.’” LXXB Judg 19:30aAnd it came to pass that all those who saw said: Nothing has ever happened or been seen like this from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt until this day.” 30bTake counsel among yourselves concerning it and speak.’”

‫ל־הר ֶֹאה וְ ָא ַמר לֹא־נִ ְהיְ ָתה‬ ָ ‫וְ ָהיָ ה ָכ‬‎ ‫וְ לֹא־נִ ְר ֲא ָתה ָּכזֹאת ְל ִמּיֹום ֲעלֹות‬ ‫ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ִמ ְצ ַריִ ם ַעד ַהּיֹום‬ ‫יה ֻעצּו וְ ַד ֵּברּו‬ ָ ‫ימּו־ל ֶכם ָע ֶל‬ ָ ‫ַהּזֶ ה ִׂש‬

καὶ ἐγένετο πᾶς ὁ ὁρῶν ἔλεγεν οὔτε ἐγενήθη οὔτε ὤφθη οὕτως ἀπὸ τῆς ἡμέρας ἀναβάσεως υἱῶν Ισραηλ ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης καὶ ἐνετείλατο τοῖς ἀνδράσιν οἷς ἐξαπέστειλεν λέγων τάδε ἐρεῖτε πρὸς πάντα ἄνδρα Ισραηλ εἰ γέγονεν κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο ἀπὸ τῆς ἡμέρας ἀναβάσεως υἱῶν Ισραηλ ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης θέσθε δὴ ἑαυτοῖς βουλὴν περὶ αὐτῆς καὶ λαλήσατε καὶ ἐγένετο πᾶς ὁ βλέπων ἔλεγεν οὐκ ἐγένετο καὶ οὐχ ἑόραται ὡς αὕτη ἀπὸ ἡμέρας ἀναβάσεως υἱῶν Ισραηλ ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου καὶ ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης θέσθε ὑμῖν αὐτοὶ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὴν βουλὴν καὶ λαλήσατε

BHS and BHQ take the position that the “plus” in AL reflects an earlier Vorlage than that of B and MT. This position is supported by the argument that a Hebrew scribe accidentally omitted the “plus” by homoioteleuton; i.e., by skipping from the first mention of “until this day” in MT 19:30a to the repetition of “until this day” at the end of the AL “plus.”59 I disagree for three reasons. First, the subject of the verb in the “plus” is referred to with an implied masculine singular pronoun, καὶ ἐνετείλατο (And he commanded).60 The identity of the character described as “and he commanded” is thus ambiguous. The 59

60

BHQ Judges, 110. See also, Harlé, Les Juges, 247; Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle, 121; Julio Trebolle Barrera, “Judges: Masoretic Texts and Ancient Texts Close to MT” in The Hebrew Bible, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets, vol. 1B (ed. A. Lange and E. Tov; Leiden: Brill, 2017), § 4.2.2.3. BHS and BHQ propose a retro-translation of the “plus” into BH. BHS and BHQ reconstruct καὶ ἐνετείλατο in the Vorlage as ‫וַ יְ ַצו‬.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

31

context strongly implies that he is the Levite. However, the subject of the immediately preceding phrase is the collective person ‫ל־הר ֶֹאה‬ ָ ‫ ָכ‬in MT 19:30a and πᾶς ὁ ὁρῶν in the AL variant. Typically, a change in character from “all those who saw” who make a speech in 19:30a to another person who makes a second speech in the following phrase would be signaled to the reader in BH with a phrase such as “And the Levite commanded” rather than with a pronoun. In summary, the implied reference to the Levite in the “plus” as καὶ ἐνετείλατο (‫)וַ יְ ַצו‬, rather than by name, is semantically atypical in BH. Second, from a literary perspective, the order of events in AL 19:29–30 is curious. First, the Levite cuts his concubine into 12 pieces (19:29a). Second, he “sends her into all the territory of Israel” (19:29b). Third, “all those who saw” said that “nothing like this had ever happened or been seen before” (19:30a). Fourth, he (presumably the Levite) commands the men he sent to communicate a message to all Israel (19:30a “plus”). Fifth, the message ends with the words “Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!” (19:30b). The use of a pronoun to refer to the person who “commanded the men he sent” in the “plus” would be semantically clearer if the “plus” followed 19:29b. In addition, the plotline would be more coherent (at least from a modern reader’s perspective) if the “plus” followed 19:29b rather than 19:30a. The order of the verses in AL thus raises semantic and literary problems that need to be addressed. Third, J. Alberto Soggin attempts to resolve the two problems noted above by emending AL so that the “plus” in 19:30a follows directly after 19:29b.61 Soggin’s proposed emendation of the Greek text is not reflected in any extant version and is therefore methodologically subjective. Furthermore, as noted by BHQ, Soggin’s reordering of the verses undermines the argument that a Hebrew scribe accidentally omitted the “plus” by skipping from the first mention of “until this day” in 19:30a to the repetition of that phrase at the end of the “plus.”62 Soggin’s attempt to resolve the semantic and literary problems in AL 19:29–30 is therefore not persuasive.

61 62

J. Alberto Soggin, Judges (London: SCM Press, 1987), 289. The TOB includes the “plus” in its translation of 19:30a in the same verse order as AL, but translates the beginning of the “plus” by replacing the ambiguous pronoun “he” with “the Levite,” and using the plusperfect to translate the indicative middle aorist verb καὶ ἐνετείλατο and the indicative aorist active verb ἐξαπέστειλεν: “Le lévite avait donné cet ordre aux hommes qu’il avait envoyés […].” Harlé considers that these translation values cannot be justified. Harlé, Les Juges, 247.

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Fourth, the text critical phenomenon of “homoioteleuton” can be viewed as the inverse of the literary critical phenomenon of “Wiederaufnahme.”63 In order for AL to be treated as evidence of an earlier Vorlage than MT and B, the possibility must be excluded that the “plus” represents an interpretative interpolation in the Vorlage from which A worked or an interpretive addition made by the translators themselves. As the Levite “sends” his concubine’s corpse into all the territory of Israel in 19:29, the thematic content of the “plus” in AL 19:30a, in which the Levite “sends” men to convey a message, can be interpreted as a filling out of the plotline in 19:29–30. In conclusion, there is insufficient evidence, in my view, to support the proposition of BHS and BHQ that the “plus” in AL 19:30a reflects an earlier Vorlage than MT. It is more parsimonious to interpret the “plus” as an interpretive addition intended to provide the reader with additional information that fills in the narrative. However, the analysis of the compositional history of 19:29–30 that I will present in Chapter 9 infra indicates that the “plus” may in fact represent a trace of a composition stratum that preceded the final redaction stratum of 19:29–30.64 1.1.5 Judges 20:12a MT 20:12a contains what appears to be an obvious scribal mistake: the tribe of Benjamin is referred to in the plural as the “tribes” of Benjamin: MT Judg 20:12:aAnd the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin, saying.

‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְלחּו ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֲאנָ ִׁשים‬‎ ‫יָמן ֵלאמֹר‬ ִ ְ‫ְּב ָכל־ ִׁש ְבטֵ י ִבנ‬

As Benjamin is one of the tribes of Israel, it has long been suspected that the plural “tribes of Benjamin” should read in the singular. BHQ argues that “the word has been assimilated to the first ‫ ִׁש ְב ֵטי‬.”65 All of the versions, with the exception of T, read “tribe of Benjamin.” Although the proposed emendation of ‫ ִׁש ְב ֵטי ִבנְ ִיָמן‬as ‫ ֵׁש ֶבט ִּבנְ ִיָמן‬is entirely plausible, there are reasons to suspect that the text critical situation is more complex than a simple confusion of the singular and the plural forms of the lexeme. It should be noted that MT 20:12a shows lexical similarities to MT 1 Sam 9:21a:

63 64 65

See discussion of Wiederaufnahme as a sign of redactional activity in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.7 infra. See detailed discussion of the compositional history of 19:29–30 in Chapter 9, Section 3.5. BHQ Judges 112.

33

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

MT 1 Sam 9:21aAnd Saul answered. And he said, “Am I not Benjaminite, from the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribes of Benjamin?”

‫אמר ֲהלֹוא ֶבן־יְ ִמינִ י‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּיַ ַען ָׁשאּול וַ ּי‬ ‫ָאנ ִֹכי ִמ ַּק ַטּנֵ י ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ּומ ְׁש ַּפ ְח ִּתי ַה ְּצ ִע ָרה‬ ִ ‫ל־מ ְׁש ְּפחֹות ִׁש ְבטֵ י ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ִ ‫ִמ ָּכ‬

AL, B and V correct “tribes of Benjamin” to read “tribe of Benjamin” in 1 Sam 9:21a. The lexical similarity between MT Judg 20:12a and 1 Sam 9:21a can be interpreted in two ways. First, both verses contain the same scribal error. Second, the use of the plural “tribes of Benjamin” in one verse is an intentional allusion to the other verse in MT.66 I consider the second interpretation to be the more likely. On this hypothesis, the plural “tribes of Benjamin” appeared in the Vorlage of both verses, which were then corrected in the Greek and Latin versions. 1.1.6 Judges 20:13a MT 20:13a uses the lexeme ‫ ָר ָעה‬without the definite article: MT Judg 20:13aAnd now, hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out evil from among Israel. LXXA Judg 20:13aAnd now, give up the impious men who are in Gibeah, the sons of Belial, and we shall put them to death and we shall remove evil from Israel. LXXB Judg 20:13aAnd now give up the men, sons of lawlessness, who are in Gibeah, and we shall put them to death and we shall clear away wickedness from Israel.

‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫ת־ה ֲאנָ ִׁשים ְּבנ‬ ָ ‫וְ ַע ָּתה ְּתנּו ֶא‬

‫יתם ּונְ ַב ֲע ָרה ָר ָעה‬ ֵ ‫ֲא ֶׁשר ַּבּגִ ְב ָעה ּונְ ִמ‬

‫ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

καὶ νῦν δότε τοὺς ἄνδρας τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς τοὺς ἐν Γαβαα τοὺς υἱοὺς Βελιαλ καὶ θανατώσομεν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐξαροῦμεν κακίαν ἐξ Ισραηλ καὶ νῦν δότε τοὺς ἄνδρας υἱοὺς παρανόμων τοὺς ἐν Γαβαα καὶ θανατώσομεν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐκκαθαριοῦμεν πονηρίαν ἀπὸ Ισραηλ

BHS and BHQ propose to emend ‫ ָר ָעה‬as ‫ה‬ ‎ ‫ ָה ָר ָע‬. ‎According to BHQ, “the indispensable article has been lost due to haplography after the preceding ‫ ּונְ ַב ֲע ָרה‬or, less probably, due to an erroneous division of words.”67 However, BHQ does not explain why the definite article is considered to be “indispensable.” I disagree with BHQ’s position for three reasons.

66 67

The question of the relative dating of Judg 20:12a and 1 Sam 9:21a is beyond the scope of this work. BHQ Judges, 112–113; citations omitted.

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First, while the definite article precedes ‫ ָר ָעה‬in lexically similar verses in Deuteronomy,68 there is no reason to assume that the Vorlage of MT 20:13a contained a verbatim reflection of these verses. Indeed, MT 20:13a contains two lexical differences with its closest parallel in Deut 17:12: MT Judg 20:13a[…] And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out evil from Israel. MT Deut 17:12bAnd that man will die. And you will burn out the evil from Israel.

‫יתם ּונְ ַב ֲע ָרה ָר ָעה‬ ֵ ‫ּונְ ִמ‬ ‫ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ּוב ַע ְר ָּת‬ ִ ‫ּומת ָה ִאיׁש ַההּוא‬ ֵ ‎‎ ‫ָה ָרע ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

It can be observed that while Deut 17:12b uses the Qal form of the verb ‫ מות‬in the Weqatal and the Pi‘el verb ‫ ּבער‬in the Wayyiqtol, Judg 20:13a uses the Hi‘fil form of the verb ‫ מות‬in the cohortative and the Pi‘el verb in the Yiqtol. Even if Judg 20:13a were inspired by Deut 17:12b, it is conjectural to emend the verbal form of only one of the two verbs in the phrase to conform it to the supposed hypo-text. Second, the lexeme ‫ ָר ָעה‬is used dozens of times in the MT without the definite article.69 There is therefore no reason to conclude with BHQ that “the indispensable article has been lost” in Judg 20:13a. Third, both A and B translate the lexeme ‫ ָר ָעה‬in 20:13a with indefinite nouns in Greek; κακία and πονηρία, respectively. As BHQ notes, “However it should be noted that all the G variants support M.” BHQ’s proposed addition of the definite article in 20:13a is therefore methodologically curious as it not supported by any version. 1.1.7 Judges 20:22a MT 20:22a consists of a Wayyiqtol phrase with two subjects in apposition, “the people, the men of Israel”: Judg 20:22aAnd the people, the men of Israel, strengthened themselves.

‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַחּזֵ ק ָה ָעם ִאיׁש‬ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

BHS treats the lexeme ‫ ָה ָעם‬as a gloss on the grounds that the word is absent in all of the Greek versions. BHQ concurs and adds the following comment: 68 69

The similar expression “And you shall burn out the evil from Israel” is used in Deut 17:12 and 22:22 and the related expression “And you shall burn out the evil from among you” is used in Deut 13:5; 17:7; 19:19; 22:21.24; 24:7. For example, in Kings, the noun is used without the definite article in 1 Ki 1:52; 14:10; 20:7; 21:21; 22:23; 2 Ki 8:12; 21:12; 22:16.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

35

“The substantive ‫ ָה ָעם‬was probably originally a marginal gloss representing an alternative variant, which was then introduced into the main text at some later point. As it now stands ‫ ָה ָעם‬is superfluous.”70 I disagree with BHQ’s proposed deletion of ‫ ָה ָעם‬for three reasons. First, it can be observed that the use of two subjects in apposition occurs seven times in Judges 19–21, as follows: (i) “and his father-in-law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him” (19:4aA); (ii) “But his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him …” (19:9b); (iii) “And behold! The men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial, encircled the house …” (19:22a); (iv) “But behold! The woman, his concubine, was falling at the entrance of the house …” (19:27b); (v) “And the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of Israel, stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God” (20:2a); (vi) “And the Levite man, the husband of the woman who was murdered, responded and said” (20:4a); and (vii) “And the people, the men of Israel, strengthened themselves” (20:22a). The frequency of the use of apposition in Judges 19–21 suggests that this phenomenon is an intentional stylistic device rather than the result of scribal error. Second, of these seven instances of apposition in MT, the Greek versions support five but disagree with two – 19:22a and 20:22a. In 19:22a, the appositional phrase, ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫( ַאנְ ֵׁשי ָה ִעיר ַאנְ ֵׁשי ְבנ‬the men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial), is translated in AL and B as οἱ ἄνδρες τῆς πόλεως υἱοὶ παρανόμων (the men of the city, the worthless sons). In AL and B 20:22a, the lexeme “the people” is omitted in the MT appositional phrase, “And the people, the men of Israel, strengthened themselves.” The hypothesis that the “minus” in AL and B 20:22a reflects an earlier Vorlage than MT thus requires a stronger showing than the affirmation that “‫ ָה ָעם‬is superfluous.” Third, BHQ interprets 19:22a and 20:22a inconsistently. In the case of MT 19:22a, BHQ considers that the absence of a translation value for the second mention of “the men” in the phrase “the men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial” “could be due to translational techniques, in order to avoid the close repetition of ἄνδρες in this verse.” For this reason, BHQ concludes that “it would be hazardous to draw conclusions about their respective Vorlagen.”71 In contrast, BHQ considers that the absence of the lexeme “the people” in the Greek variants of the MT 20:22a appositional phrase, “And the people, the men of Israel, strengthened themselves,” represents the preferred reading. Fourth, the criticism of one term in an appositional phrase as being “superfluous” is, in my opinion, a bit rash and methodologically weak. Indeed, all of the appositional phrases in Judges 19–21 can be criticized as containing one 70 71

BHQ Judges, 114. BHQ Judges, 109.

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“superfluous” term.72 In the absence of more compelling arguments, it is more parsimonious to treat both AL and B 19:22a and 20:22a as stylistic changes introduced by the translators to a Vorlage that resembled the MT variants of those two verses. 1.1.8 Judges 20:31a This verse consists of a Wayyiqtol phrase followed by an asyndetic Qatal phrase: Judg 20:31aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people. They were drawn away from the city.

‫יָמן ִל ְק ַראת‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ְבנ‬ ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ָה ָעם ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמ‬

BHQ emends ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬to read ‫וַ ּיִ ּנָ ְתקּו‬. This position is supported by three arguments. First, the phrase is “awkward as an asyndeton.”73 Second, all of the Greek variants begin the phrase with καὶ followed by the indicative aorist. Third, the spelling of the third person plural Qatal verb ‫ נתק‬in the Hof‘al form is anomalous because of the retained nun and the vocalization of the first consonant with a qameṣ rather than a qibbuṣ. BHQ thus emends an asyndetic Qatal phrase in the Hof‘al form to read as a Wayyiqtol phrase in the Nif‘al form. I disagree with the proposed change in 20:31a for three reasons. First, most asyndetic phrases in biblical narratives sound “awkward” because they unexpectedly break the forward movement of the narrative represented by the Wayyiqtol.74 It can be observed that there are four other asyndetic phrases in Judges 19–21 – the first phrase in 19:11a and the three phrases in 20:43a. All four occurrences are translated in AL and B with an introductory καὶ. It is thus more parsimonious to view the καὶ in the translation of the aforementioned four asyndetic phrases in Judges 19–21 as a “plus” added by translators to render the flow of the narrative less “awkward” in Greek. Second, the spelling of the verbal form ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬with the retained nun is rare but not “anomalous” as BHQ states. According to Gesenius, the retention of the nun occurs eight times “and is always connected with the pause.”75 The 72

73 74 75

Trebolle Barrera disagrees with the position of BHS and BHQ that the lexeme ‫ ָה ָעם‬is a superfluous gloss in MT. He argues to the contrary that the second term in apposition, “the men of Israel” “could be a secondary juxtaposition to a previous short reading ‫ָה ָעם‬ ‘the people’ (cf. the variants in Judg 20:2.25).” Trebolle Barrera, “Judges: Masoretic Texts,” § 4.2.2.5. Although I agree with Trebolle Barrera, it should be noted that his argument is based on literary criticism of the MT rather than textual criticism as none of the versions of 20:22a read “the men of Israel” instead of “the people.” BHQ Judges, 114. See detailed discussion of asyndetic clauses in Chapter 10, Sections 3.5 and 3.6 infra. Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (edited and enlarged by E. Kautzch; Mineola: Dover Publications, 2006), § 66f.

37

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

possibility should therefore be considered that what appears to be an inappropriate use of the pausal form in a phrase that reads ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמ‬may indicate the presence of redactional activity in MT 20:31a. As will be discussed in detail in Chapter 10 infra, one of the specificities of Judges 20 is that the phrase “They were drawn away from the city” in MT 20:31a is thematically and lexically similar to the phrase “And we shall draw them away from the city to the highways” in 20:32b. It will be argued that the asyndetic phrase in 20:31a originally consisted of a single lexeme ‫( ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬they were drawn away), thereby justifying the use of the pausal form of the Qatal verb ‫ נתק‬in the Hof‘al form. The two words that follow in MT 20:31a, ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫( ִמ‬from the city), could have been added by a redactor to harmonize MT 20:31a with 20:32b.76 In summary, there are no compelling reasons, in my view, to emend MT 20:31a to conform to the Greek variants of that verse. 1.1.9 Judges 20:42a The sons of Benjamin are indirectly referenced four times in the MT variant of 20:42a; once in the plural and three times in the singular: MT Judg 20:42aAnd they turned around before the men of Israel on the desert road. And the battle, it overtook him. 42bAnd those from the cities were destroying him in the midst of him.

‫ל־ּד ֶרְך‬ ֶ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו ִל ְפנֵ י ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ ‫יק ְתה ּו‬ ָ ‫ַה ִּמ ְד ָּבר וְ ַה ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִה ְד ִּב‬ ֹ‫יתים אוֹ תו‬ ִ ‫וַ ֲא ֶׁשר ֵמ ֶה ָע ִרים ַמ ְׁש ִח‬ ֹ‫ְּבתוֹ כו‬

BHQ takes the position, “Whereas M is the lectio difficilior, the reading in G* as 3 m. sg. is probably preferable. The 3 sg. is supported by GL, representing here in all probability G and in agreement with the 3 sg of ‫ וַ ָּיִּב ֵהל‬and ‫ ָע ָליו‬of v. 41, and the 3 sg. sfx of ‫ ִה ְד ִּב ָיק ְתהּו‬of v. 42.”77 I agree with BHQ’s conclusion that the Vorlage of 20:42a read ‫ וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬rather than‫ ;וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬however, I disagree with the reasons advanced by BHQ. I will develop my argument in two stages. First, I will show that BHQ’s reliance on L is methodologically weak. Second, I will develop my own position that a later scribe recopied the lexeme ‫ וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬in 20:42a in the plural because of the similar use of ‫ וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬in MT 20:45a.47a. First, I consider BHQ’s position to be methodologically weak for three reasons. Primo, it can be observed that Benjamin is referred to four times in 20:42. In the MT, the first reference is in the plural and the three following references are in the singular. While L uses the singular (contra MT) in the first reference to Benjamin, L uses the plural (contra MT) in the following three references. 76 77

See discussion of 20:31a.32b in Chapter 10, Section 2.5. infra. BHQ Judges, 117.

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As both versions refer to Benjamin inconsistently in 20:42, it is conjectural to argue that L reflects an earlier Vorlage than MT. Secundo, the question is complicated by the fact that both A and B support MT 20:42 in the lectio difficilior of the plural ‫( וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬and they turned around) but then maintain the plural (pace L; contra MT) in the remaining three references to Benjamin in the verse: LXXA Judg 20:42Before the men of Israel, they turned aside towards the desert road, the battle stopped them short and those who came from the cities destroyed them in the midst of them. LXXB Judg 20:42Before the men of Israel, they cast their eyes towards the desert route and they fled, and the battle stopped them short, and those who came from the cities destroyed them in the midst of them.

καὶ ἔκλιναν ἐνώπιον ἀνδρὸς Ισραηλ εἰς τὴν ὁδὸν τῆς ἐρήμου καὶ ὁ πόλεμος κατέφθασεν αὐτόν καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ τῶν πόλεων διέφθειραν αὐτὸν ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν καὶ ἐπέβλεψαν ἐνώπιον υἱῶν Ισραηλ εἰς ὁδὸν τῆς ἐρήμου καὶ ἔφυγον καὶ ἡ παράταξις ἔφθασεν ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ τῶν πόλεων διέφθειρον αὐτοὺς ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν

Tertio, the root of the problem, in my view, lies in the anomalous use of the plural to refer to Benjamin in 20:42a in the narrative unit 20:40–42 that otherwise consistently uses the singular to refer to Benjamin: MT 20:40aAnd the uplifting, it began to go up from the city in a column of smoke. 40bBenjamin turned around [sg.] backwards. And behold! The entirety of the city went up to the heavens. 41aAnd the men of Israel, he turned. And the men of Benjamin were [sg.] terrified. 41bFor he saw that disaster was close upon him. 42aAnd they turned around [pl.] before the men of Israel on the desert road. And the battle, it overtook him. And those from the cities were destroying him in the midst of him.

‫וְ ַה ַּמ ְׂש ֵאת ֵה ֵח ָּלה ַל ֲעלֹות‬40 ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ן־ה ִעיר ַעּמּוד ָע ָׁשן וַ ִ ּיפֶ ן ִּבנ‬ ָ ‫ִמ‬ ‫יל־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ַא ֲח ָריו וְ ִהּנֵ ה ָע ָלה ְכ ִל‬ ‫וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָה ַפְך‬41 ‫ַה ָּׁש ָמיְ ָמה‬ ‫יָמן ִּכי ָראָ ה‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ִ ּי ּ ָבהֵ ל ִאיׁש ִּבנ‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו‬42 ‫ִּכי־נָ גְ ָעה ָעלָ יו ָה ָר ָעה‬ ‫ל־ּד ֶרְך‬ ֶ ‫ִל ְפנֵ י ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ ‫יק ְתה ּו‬ ָ ‫ַה ִּמ ְד ָּבר וְ ַה ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִה ְד ִּב‬ ‫יתים‬ ִ ‫וַ ֲא ֶׁשר ֵמ ֶה ָע ִרים ַמ ְׁש ִח‬ ֹ‫אוֹ תוֹ ְּבתוֹ כו‬

AL and B follow MT in 20:40–41 with the consistent use of the singular to refer to Benjamin. AL and B then shift in 20:42 to the consistent use of the plural to refer to Benjamin. BHS and BHQ agree that the consistent use of the plural in 20:42 is a stylistic change to the Vorlage that should not be preferred over MT. The most parsimonious explanation for L’s inconsistent use of the singular and the plural in 20:42a is that the L translators wanted to harmonize the first reference to Benjamin in 20:42a with the previous references to Benjamin in

39

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

the singular in 20:40–41. The issue of the shift from the use of the singular in 20:40–41 to the plural in 20:42b in all Greek variants has not, to my knowledge been addressed. My preliminary view is that the subsequent consistent use of the plural in 20:42a represents a stylistic change from the Vorlage to accord with Greek semantic usage. This issue merits further research and analysis. Second, it is my position that the Vorlage of 20:40–42 consistently referred to Benjamin in the singular and that the lexeme ‫ וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬in the first reference to Benjamin in MT 20:42a is a scribal change. This position is supported by three arguments. Primo, the fact that Benjamin is referred to in the singular seven times in MT 20:40–42 and only once in the plural makes the anomalous case suspicious. Secundo, as will be discussed in Chapter 10 infra, there are reasons to interpret MT 20:40b–41b as a redactional interpolation signaled by Wiederaufnahme. As the last phrase of the underlying stratum is ‫( וַ ִ ּיפֶ ן ִּבנְ ִיָמן‬and Benjamin turned around) in 20:41b and the last phrase of the interpolation is ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו ִל ְפנֵ י ִאיׁש‬ ‫( יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬And they turned around before the men of Israel) in 20:42a, it would be expected that the redactor would have repeated the phrase as ‫וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬.78 Tertio, the reason why a later scribe would have miscopied ‫ וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬as ‫ וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬in 20:42a can be explained as follows. It can be noted that the phrase ‫ וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬is used two more times in MT Judges 20, in 20:45a.47a: MT Judg 20:42aAnd they turned around before the men of Israel on the desert road. MT Judg 20:45aAnd they turned around. And they fled towards the desert, to the rock of Rimmon. MT Judg 20:47aAnd they turned around. And they fled towards the desert, to the rock of Rimmon, 600 men.

‫ל־ּד ֶרְך‬ ֶ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו ִל ְפנֵ י ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬

‫הַ ּ ִמ ְד ּ ָבר‬

‫ל־ס ַלע‬ ֶ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו הַ ִּמ ְד ּ ָב ָרה ֶא‬‎‎ ‫ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ‫ל־ס ַלע‬ ֶ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו הַ ִּמ ְד ּ ָב ָרה ֶא‬‎ ‫ָה ִרּמֹון ֵׁשׁש ֵמאֹות ִאיׁש‬

Although each of these verses has a complicated compositional history, the triple repetition in the final version of the text of the verbal phrase ‫ וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬coupled with the noun ‫ ַה ִּמ ְד ָּבר‬represents a refrain in 20:42–47. It can be envisaged that a scribe accidentally (by dittography) or intentionally changed the singular in 20:42a to the plural in order to harmonize the verse with 20:45a and 20:47a. 1.1.10 Judges 20:43a Judges 20:43a consists of a series of three asyndetic phrases in the Qatal: 78

See discussion of the complex compositional history of MT 20:40–42 in Chapter 10, Section 3.7.2. infra.

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MT Judg 20:43aThey surrounded Benjamin. They chased him to the place of rest. They trod him down. LXXA Judg 43aAnd they cut Benjamin in pieces to stop him and they trod him down until in front of Gabaa on the side of the rising sun. LXXB Judg 20:43aAnd they cut Benjamin in pieces and they followed him from Noua and they were on his heels until in front of Gabaa on the side of the rising sun.

‫יכהּו‬ ֻ ‫נּוחה ִה ְד ִר‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִה ְר ִדיפֻ ה ּו ְמ‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫ִּכ ְּתרּו ֶא‬

καὶ ἔκοψαν τὸν Βενιαμιν καταπαῦσαι αὐτὸν κατάπαυσιν καὶ κατεπάτησαν αὐτὸν ἕως ἐξ ἐναντίας τῆς Γαβαα ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου καὶ κατέκοπτον τὸν Βενιαμιν καὶ ἐδίωξαν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ Νουα κατὰ πόδα αὐτοῦ ἕως ἀπέναντι Γαβαα πρὸς ἀνατολὰς ἡλίου

Both BHS and BHQ propose emending the second asyndetic phrase – the Hif‘il verbal form in the Qatal, ‫( ִה ְר ִד ֻיפהּו‬they chased him) – to read ‫וַ ְיר ְּד ֻפהּו‬, a Qal verbal form in the Wayyiqtol. This position is supported with two arguments. First, B reads καὶ ἐδίωξαν αὐτὸν. Second, “the corruption of ‫ וי‬to ‫ ה‬is easy to explain in M.”79 I disagree for three reasons. First, 20:43a consists of a series of three asyndetic Qatal phrases that interrupt the Wayyiqtol phrases in the preceding and following verses. BHS and BHQ propose to read the first and last phrase in 20:43a as asyndetic Qatal phrases (contra AL and B), but to emend the second phrase to read as a Wayyiqtol phrase (contra MT). This inconsistent treatment of the three consecutive asyndetic Qatal phrases in MT is, in my view, questionable. The unusual interruption of a Wayyiqtol sequence with a series of asyndetic Qatal phrases presents a semantic problem that calls for interpretation rather than dismissal as a scribal error.80 Second, the fact that the B variant καὶ ἐδίωξαν αὐτὸν uses an indicative aorist active verb has no bearing on whether the verb ‫ רדף‬is used in MT 20:43a in the Hif‘il or the Qal form. Third, the Hif‘il verbal form ‫ ִה ְר ִד ֻיפהּו‬is followed by the Hif‘il verbal form ‫ ִה ְד ִר ֻיכהּו‬. The unmistakable assonance between the two lexemes is probably an intentional stylistic device. In conclusion, there is no persuasive reason to transform the second asyndetic Qatal phrase in 20:43a into a Wayyiqtol phrase. The use of the Hif‘il rather than the Qal form of the verb ‫ ָר ַדף‬can be justified on literary grounds.

79 80

BHQ Judges, 118. Although not mentioned by BHQ, the fact that the use of the verb ‫ רדף‬in the Hif‘il form in 20:43a is a hapax in the MT may be advanced as an argument in favor of emending the verbal form from the Hif‘il to the Qal. See detailed discussion of 20:43a in Chapter 10, Sections 3.5 and 3.6 infra.

41

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

1.1.11 Judges 21:22a MT Judges 21:22a contains what appears to be a grammatical error: MT Judg 21:22a[…] Be gracious to us to them for we did not take for each man his woman in the battle. LXXA Judg 21:22aBe gracious to them for they did not take for each man his woman in the battle. LXXB Judg 21:22aShow grace to us concerning them for we did not take for each man his woman in the battle.

‫ ָחּנּונּו אוֹ ָתם ִּכי לֹא ָל ַק ְחנּו ִאיׁש ִא ְׁשּתֹו‬‎ ‫ַּב ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬

ἐλεήσατε αὐτούς ὅτι οὐκ ἔλαβον ἀνὴρ γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ ἔλεος ποιήσατε ἡμῖν αὐτάς ὅτι οὐκ ἐλάβομεν ἀνὴρ γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ παρατάξει

In MT 21:22a, the two different accusative suffixes in ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ ָחּנּונּו‬appear to contradict each other. The text would read more coherently if (i) the lexeme ‫אֹותם‬ ָ were deleted, so that the phrase read, “Be gracious to us for we did not take for each man his woman in the battle” or (ii) the lexeme ‫ ָחּנּונּו‬were emended as ‫ ָחּנּו‬, so that the phrase read, “Be gracious to them for we did not take for each man his woman in the battle.” BHS and BHQ opt for the second solution on the grounds that the lexeme ‫ ָחּנּונּו‬can be explained as an example of dittography of the second and third consonants in the lexeme.81 I disagree with this position for two reasons. First, the hypothesized imperative syntagma ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ ָחּנּו‬is a hapax in the MT. The plural imperative of ‫ ָחנַ ן‬is always followed by an accusative suffix rather than the accusative marker ‫את‬. Second, it is well known that the vocalization of the preposition ‫( ֵאת‬with) with pronominal suffixes is confused with the accusative marker in dozens of verses.82 The classic example is Ezek 23:23 in which the lexeme ‫אֹותם‬ ָ is used twice with different meanings: Ezek 37:23And I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them. And I will multiply them. And I will set My sanctuary in their midst forever.

81 82

‫וְ ָכ ַר ִּתי ָל ֶהם ְּב ִרית ָׁשלֹום ְּב ִרית‬ ָ ‫עֹולם יִ ְהיֶ ה אוֹ ָתם ּונְ ַת ִּתים‬ ִ ‫וְ ִה ְר ֵּב‬ ‫יתי אוֹ ָתם וְ נָ ַת ִּתי‬ ‫עֹולם‬ ָ ‫תֹוכם ְל‬ ָ ‫ת־מ ְק ָּד ִׁשי ְּב‬ ִ ‫ֶא‬

BHQ Judges, 121. Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar § 103(b); Paul Joüen, Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique (Rome: Institut Biblique Pontifical, 1923), § 103 (j).

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Similarly, ‫אֹותם‬ ָ is used to mean “with them” in Josh 10:25; 1 Ki 20:25; 2 Ki 6:16; Jer 10:5; 16:8.83 It is thus possible to understand ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ ָחּנּונּו‬in Judg 21:22 as “Be gracious to us with them.” BHQ’s proposed emendation ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫( ָחּנּו‬be gracious to them) appears to be supported by A which reads ἐλεήσατε αὐτούς. However, the next phrase in A, “for they did not take for each man his woman,” differs from the MT variant which reads, “for we did not take for each man his woman.” In contrast, B tracks more closely the wording in MT 21:22a. The distinctive aspect of B is that it includes the dative feminine plural pronoun αὐτάς (concerning them; for them) in the first phrase ἔλεος ποιήσατε ἡμῖν αὐτάς (be gracious to us concerning them).84 In my view, B translates a Vorlage that read, pace the MT variant, ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ ָחּנּונּו‬. Rather than skip over the ambiguous lexeme ‫אֹותם‬ ָ , the translators of B assigned it a dative translation value. I therefore propose to interpret the plural feminine dative pronoun αὐτάς as an indication that the translators understood ‫אֹותם‬ ָ in their Vorlage to mean “with them.” The change from the masculine ‫אֹותם‬ ָ in the Vorlage to the feminine αὐτάς in B can be explained as an interpretive change intended to clarify the Vorlage. 1.2 Principal Disagreements between BHS and BHQ Preferred Readings BHQ rejects many of the readings proposed by BHS on the grounds that the differences between MT and the Greek variants can more parsimoniously be explained as additions, stylistic corrections and interpretations rather than as evidence of an earlier Vorlage. BHQ disagrees with 24 of the preferred readings proposed by BHS on the grounds, inter alia, that (i) the plus was “introduced into the narrative under the influence of context. […] It is a characteristic of GL to introduce small additions and stylistic corrections into the narrative. […] These corrections are merely stylistic and have nothing to do with the Vorlage”;85 (ii) the plus is “an intentional adjustment within the context”;86 (iii) “M can be maintained as lectio difficilior”;87 (iv) “Since the addition of G is an unnecessary explanation M is to be retained”;88 (v) “G does not presuppose a different Vorlage. The variant is translational […]”;89 (vi) “Even if the 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

For the preposition ‫ ֵאת‬with other suffixes, see Josh 14:12; 2 Sam 24:24; 1 Ki 22:7.8.24; 2 Ki 1:15; 3:11.12.26; 8:8; Jer 2:35; 19:10; 20:11; Ezek 2:6; 16:17; 37:26. BHQ does not mention LXXB 21:22a in its discussion of the proposed emendation of MT 21:22a. BHQ Judges, 106, in relation to the proposed preferred reading of 19:4. Ibid., 105, in relation to 19:3. Ibid., 107, in relation to 19:9. Ibid., 110, in relation to 19:28. Ibid., in relation to 19:30.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

43

narrative is somewhat uneven, it is quite understandable within the paratactic style of M, which should be retained”;90 (vii) “it is preferable to maintain M’s ambiguity, which belongs to the realm of exegesis”;91 and (viii) “G’s omission is most likely due to translation technique.”92 I agree with BHQ’s rejection of the emendations proposed by BHS in these verses. 1.3 New Text Critical Changes Proposed by BHQ BHQ proposes one new preferred reading not already identified in BHS. MT Judges 20:45a contains the lexeme ‫ּגִ ְדעֹם‬, a hapax in the MT: Judg 20:45bAnd they followed after him until Gidom. And they struck among him 2,000 men.

‫וַ ּיַ ְד ִּביקּו ַא ֲח ָריו ַעד־ ִ ּג ְדעֹם וַ ּיַ ּכּו‬ ‫ִמ ֶּמּנּו ַא ְל ַּפיִ ם ִאיׁש‬

BHS interprets the lexeme ‫ ּגִ ְדעֹם‬as a toponym on the grounds that all of the Greek versions translate the lexeme using a Greek word that can best be understood as a toponym. Following Barthélemy, BHQ argues that with a different vocalization, the lexeme ‫ גדעם‬can be interpreted as a Piel infinitive construct of the verb ‫( גדע‬to hew off; to cut off) with an accusative third person plural masculine suffix. On this hypothesis, BHQ takes the position that MT 20:45b should be translated as “And they followed after him until [they] cut them off. And they struck among him 2,000 men.”93 I disagree with BHQ’s proposed emendation of the vocalization of ‫ גדעם‬for three reasons. First, Judges 20:45aB-b consists of three phrases all of which refer to Benjamin in the singular: “And they gleaned him on the highways, 5,000 men. And they followed after him until Gidom. And they struck among him 2,000 men.” BHQ’s proposed emendation of “until Gidom” as “until they cut them off” thus introduces a semantic change from the singular to the plural in reference to Benjamin. Second, there is no attested use in the MT of the verb ‫גדע‬ in the infinitive construct. Third, BHQ’s proposed emendation of the text is methodologically curious as textual criticism. While it presents an interesting hypothesis, it is not in fact supported by any of the versions. One of the principal innovations of BHQ in relation to BHS is that it includes variants of Judges from manuscripts found at or near Qumran. Four fragmentary Hebrew manuscripts of the book of Judges have been found to date. 90 91 92 93

Ibid., 111, in relation to 20:3. Ibid., in relation to 20:9. Ibid., 114, in relation to 20:24. Ibid., 118; see Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle, 126; Trebolle Barrera, “Judges: Masoretic Texts,” § 4.2.2.3.

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These are identified as 1QJudg, 4QJudga and 4QJudgb found at Qumran, and XJudg found at one of the sites near the Dead Sea connected with the second Jewish war. Of these, Judges 19–21 is attested in only two of the Qumran manuscripts. 1QJudg contains a fragment of Judg 21:7–8 and 4QJudga contains fragments of 19:5–7; 21:12–25.94 According to BHQ, all of the Qumran fragments of Judges 19–21 support MT with the exception of 4QJudga 21:19a.23aB. These two verses contain minor disagreements with MT. In both cases, BHQ prefers MT. In MT 21:19a, Shiloh is described as being located “toward the east side (‫ ) ִמזְ ְר ָחה ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש‬of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem.” Although the manuscript is very fragmentary, it appears that 4QJudga 21:19a reads ‫ ;מזרח השמש‬i.e., without the directional ‫ ה‬at the end of the first lexeme. The syntagma in MT 21:19a is attested elsewhere in MT only in Josh 12:1a. However, the similar syntagma ‫ ִמזְ ְר ָחה ָׁש ֶמׁש‬is used in MT Deut 4:41. The syntagma used in 4QJudga 21:19a, ‫ ִמזְ ַרח ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש‬, is more common, being attested in Josh 1:15; 13:5; 19:12.27.34; 2 Ki 10:33. As both MT and 4QJudga use collocations that are attested elsewhere in MT, and the MT syntagma is rarer, MT should be preferred over 4QJudga as the lectio difficilior. MT 21:23aB reads, “And they took wives in accordance with their number from among the dancers (‫ן־ה ְּמח ְֹללֹות‬ ַ ‫ ) ִמ‬whom they had abducted.” The 4QJudga variant of this verse replaces the independent preposition ‫ מן־‬in the syntagma ‫ן־ה ְּמח ְֹללֹות‬ ַ ‫ ִמ‬with the prefixed form ‫מ‬. According to Gesenius, ‫“ מן־‬is usual only before the article.”95 However, there are exceptions in the MT. For example, ‎ ‫ ֵמ ֶה ָע ִרי‬is attested in Judg 20:15; 42; Ezek 25:9, and ‫ ֵמ ַה ָּביִ ת‬in Ezek 40:7.8.9; 43:6. ‫ם‬ As both forms of the preposition are attested in the MT, there is therefore no reason to consider that 4QJudga 21:23aB necessarily represents an earlier Vorlage than the MT variant of that verse. As BHS and BHQ agree on only ten out of a total of 34 proposed readings, it is clear that the methodology of textual criticism has changed over the past 30 years. The following section will discuss these changes. 2

New Methodological Approach of BHQ to Textual Criticism

As the Qumran fragments of Judges 19–21 support the MT, textual criticism of the final three chapters of Judges is entirely dependent on versions in BH, Greek, Latin, Aramaic and Syriac. However, the comparison of textual variants in 94 95

Armin Lange, “Judges: Ancient Manuscript Evidence” in The Hebrew Bible, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets, vol. 1B (ed. A. Lange and E. Tov; Leiden: Brill, 2017), 281–283. Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar § 102b.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

45

different languages is inherently problematic. As stated by Fernández-Marcos in a 2005 article, La Septante est assurément une traduction mais ce n’est également rien de moins que le résultat d’un transfert culturel et d’interprétations multiples aux différentes étapes du processus de traduction. Confrontés à plusieurs difficultés dans leur Vorlage, les traducteurs ont été capables de recréer un texte grec qui est devenu une œuvre littéraire avec sa valeur et sa cohérence propre. Autrement dit, nous nous trouvons devant la face de Janus de la traduction de la Septante. Les traducteurs pouvaient se trouver devant une Vorlage différente du TM comme l’attestent de façon évidente certains des documents de Qumran. Mais on ne peut oublier, ni sous-estimer, les autres dimensions de la traduction : elle est la première interprétation de la Bible Hébraïque avec les conséquences que cela comporte. En tant que telle, elle devait résoudre les principales difficultés de la Vorlage hébraïque et les rendre compréhensibles aux lecteurs grecs.96 In order to compare LXX with MT, the “Janus face” problem of the Greek translation must be resolved; i.e., each verse must be carefully evaluated to determine whether it is a “translation” or an “interpretation” of the Vorlage.97 The methodology used by BHS for distinguishing between translation and interpretation in the LXX shows a bias in favor of LXX as representing an earlier Vorlage than MT. In contrast, BHQ rejects 24 of the preferred readings proposed 96 97

Natalio Fernández Marcos, “L’histoire textuelle : Les livres historiques (Juges)” in L’enfance de la Bible hébraïque, L’histoire du texte de l’Ancient Testament à la lumière des recherches récentes (ed. A. Schenker and P. Hugo; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2005), 157–158. Bénédicte Lemmelijn argues that a rigorous study of “translation techniques” is a necessary prerequisite to the determination of whether a variant represents a translation or an interpretation of the Vorlage. She states, “The study of so-called translation technique, which is necessary in order to trace the various factors that lie at the origins of textual ‘deviations,’ includes, among other things, research into the linguistically and contextually exegetical renderings the translator may have brought about, the study of word sequence, a detailed analysis of the quantitative representation of the various words in the different versions, and the consistency of translation equivalents. […] Complementing the latter aspects, reference should be made to a quite recent emphasis not only on the translators’ freedom as such, but equally on their creativity. Indeed, when the LXX translations are to be evaluated in an adequate way, it is only the detailed and painstaking research into the character of the translation that will offer a serious assessment.” Bénédicte Lemmelijn, “Text-Critically Studying the Biblical Manuscript Evidence: An ‘Empirical’ Entry to the Literary Composition of the Text” in Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism (ed. R.F. Person and R. Rezetko; Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 144–145; references omitted; emphasis in original.

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by BHS on the grounds that the LXX variants in question should properly be viewed as interpretations of the same Vorlage as the MT rather than as translations of a different Vorlage. BHQ prefers the LXX variant in only eight cases.98 BHQ’s methodology in these eight cases will be discussed below. It can be observed that in all but three cases,99 BHQ justifies the preference for the LXX variant on the grounds that the MT contains a grammatical error or a scribal copying error. As discussed above, the “plus” in AL 19:30a is preferred on the grounds of scribal homoioteleuton in the MT variant. The phrase “tribe of Benjamin” in AL and B 20:12a is preferred over MT’s “tribes of Benjamin” on the grounds of scribal assimilation to the earlier mentioned “tribes of Israel.” The second asyndetic phrase in MT 20:31a is corrected to a Wayyiqtol phrase in the Nif‘al form (pace AL and B) on the grounds that the spelling of the third person plural Qatal verb ‫ נתק‬in the Hophal form in MT is anomalous because of the retained nun and the vocalization of the first consonant with a qameṣ rather than a qibbuṣ. The second asyndetic phrase in MT 20:43a is corrected to a Wayyiqtol phrase in the Qal form (pace B) on the grounds that “the corruption of ‫ וי‬to ‫ ה‬is easy to explain in M.”100 An apparently anomalous accusative suffix in MT 21:22a is omitted (pace A but contra B) on the grounds that the lexeme ‫ ָחּנּונּו‬can be explained as an example of dittography of the second and third consonants in the lexeme. On the basis of the foregoing, BHQ’s methodology for distinguishing between Greek variants that represent “interpretation” of the same Vorlage as MT and “translation” of a different Vorlage can be summarized as follows. A Greek variant, and especially a L variant, represents the preferred reading of the Vorlage when the MT variant can be argued to contain a “scribal” copying error that occurred during the transmission process of the text; e.g., homoioteleuton, dittography, haplography or spelling mistakes. Greek variants that (i) use Greek verbs with different meanings than the verbs in MT or (ii) contain “pluses” that expand and develop MT, should be presumed to represent interpretations of the same Vorlage as MT in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary such as the presence of a scribal copying error in the MT variant. In summary, 98 99

Judg 19:11a.30a; 20:12a.22a.31a.42a.43a; 21:22a. BHQ’s emendation of the rare geminate verb, ‫( רדד‬to beat down; to subdue), as a corruption of the verb ‫( ירד‬to go down; to descend) in 19:11a is based on the argument that the former is “inexplicable” and that the latter corresponds better to the Greek verb κλίνω (to bend; to bow down) used in the AL variant. BHQ concludes that the lexeme ‫ ָה ָעם‬in the appositional phrase, ‫ ָה ָעם ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬in 20:22a is “superfluous” and should be treated as a late gloss. BHQ’s preference for a third person singular verbal form in 20:42a is based solely on L, notwithstanding that A and B support MT. 100 BHQ Judges, 118.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

47

BHQ’s textual criticism of Judges 19–21 strongly supports the hypothesis that all of the Greek versions and MT share a common Vorlage.101 It can be noted that dittography, haplography and spelling mistakes in the MT are the type of scribal error that can be identified on the basis of a close reading of the MT itself. In these cases, a variant Greek reading serves to confirm a hypothesis formulated on independent grounds. In contrast, the phenomenon of homoioteleuton presents a different methodological problem. The only way to determine that a scribe omitted text by skipping from one word to an identical word later in the passage is to compare the MT with another variant that fills in the gap between the two identical words. However, as discussed, the scribal error of homoioteleuton in the shorter text is the inverse of the literary phenomenon of Wiederaufnahme; i.e., the redactional technique of interpolating new text into an existing text and signaling the interpolation by repeating the last phrase of the existing text. In my view, the text critical criterion of homoioteleuton to identify the preferred variant is methodologically questionable because it assumes that the longer variant represents an older Vorlage rather than (i) a redactional interpolation added in a subsequent stratum of the Vorlage using the scribal technique of Wiederaufnahme or (ii) a “plus” added by the translator to explicate and interpret the Vorlage. These issues raise the thorny question of how the term Vorlage should be defined in textual criticism. It is well known that most biblical texts are the result of a long process of expansion and development by successive generations of scribes/authors who added additional composition strata to the text.102 I will attempt to demonstrate in this work that four composition strata can be 101 Fernández Marcos states, “Only in a few cases, as may be seen in the apparatus, can it be argued that the reading of the Vorlage of G was superior to that of M, except in the special case of Judges 5, and the omissions by homoioteleuton in M of 16:13–14 and 19:30. In many other cases, corruptions at the level of the Vorlage (20:1), different vocalizations read by the Greek translator, inner-Greek corruptions, doublets ([…] 21:19), revisions […], additions and explicitations in G, mainly represented by GL or GL1 ([…] 19:8, 10, 20; 20:18, 21, 28, 41; 21:8) can be detected. However it can be said that the Hebrew text known by the translators was only slightly different from M.” BHQ Judges, 8. 102 As stated by Müller and Pakkala, “The variety and abundance of evidence implies that editing of the Hebrew scriptures continued unabated for centuries. Before the texts had become too holy and authoritative to be changed, all scribes were potential editors. This does not mean that all scribes made substantial changes, but the documented evidence we have implies that before the freezing of the texts for changes quite many – if not all – scribes did make changes to the texts they were transmitting.” Reinhard Müller and Juhu Pakkala, “Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East” in Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East: What Does Documented Evidence Tell Us about the Transmission of Authoritative Texts? (ed. R. Müller and J. Pakkala; Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 4.

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identified in Judges 19–21.103 Should each composition stratum be defined for text critical purposes as (i) a different Vorlage or (ii) successive “stages” of a single Vorlage? If the latter, should an earlier “stage” of the Vorlage be “preferred” over a later “stage”? In translating a biblical text for analytical or religious purposes, should the text reflect the earliest composition stratum or the final composition stratum? These issues will be addressed in the following section. 3

Determining the “Preferred” Text of Judges 19–21

Classical textual criticism assumes that a fundamental distinction can be made between the composition and transmission phases of a biblical text. It is posited that the composition of a given biblical text must have been finalized and then widely circulated within a given community at a certain moment in time. The purpose of textual criticism is therefore to establish the earliest such textus receptus.104 Later textual changes should be attributed to accidental scribal error and/or intentional scribal variations for ideological/theological reasons. This conception of textual criticism is reflected in BHS’s proposal of dozens of preferred readings in Judges 19–21 that differ from MT. BHQ Judges appears to question the notion that a clear dividing line can be established between composition and transmission. As stated by Fernández Marcos, Mais il y a des livres bibliques pour lesquels ces deux processus [processus de formation littéraire du livre et processus de transmission] se croissent ou coexistent ; dans ce cas plusieurs formes textuelles coexisteraient donc dès le début du processus de transmission et pas seulement un texte unique.105

103 See discussion of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 in Chapters 9–11 infra. 104 “Théoriquement, l’objet de cette reconstruction peut être défini comme étant le texte original qui résulte du processus de croissance et de formation littéraire du livre, mais avant que le processus de transmission n’ait commencé.” Fernández-Marcos, “L’histoire textuelle,” 154. 105 Ibid., 154. Pace Emanuel Tov and Eugene Ulrich: “The pluriformity and organic growth, seen in the pattern of successive revised literary editions, are characteristic of the biblical text throughout its history up to the second century C.E. There was no ‘final form’ until the organic development of the texts was halted due to extraneous circumstances.” Emanuel Tov and Eugene Ulrich, “Textual History of the Hebrew Bible” in The Hebrew Bible, Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets, vol. 1A (ed. A. Lange, and E. Tov; Leiden: Brill, 2017), §1.1.1.2.4.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

49

This issue is particularly relevant when it can be demonstrated that the difference between two versions reflects two different strata in the compositional history of the Vorlage underlying MT. As observed by Bénédicte Lemmelijn, “[…] it is clear that, when textual and literary criticism empirically ‘cooperate’ in their study of the text, literary irregularities and problems are often discovered precisely at those places and instances where, text-critically speaking, textual variants are observed.”106 In her analysis of the Plague Narrative in Exod 7:14–11:10, Lemmelijn states that “[t]he evaluation of the LXX as the preferable variant in 9:20,21 is of importance for distinguishing the redactional layers of the verses in question.”107 However, it can be questioned whether a textual variant that points to an earlier stage in the compositional history of the text should be qualified as a “preferred” variant. This question is particularly relevant to studies, like this work, that are focused on a detailed analysis of the compositional history of the text. While it is obvious that the existence of a variant that reflects an earlier composition stratum of the text is highly relevant to the study of that text, it does not necessarily follow that the variant represents a “preferred” reading that should be reflected with an emendation of the MT.108 This methodology, as still practiced by BHQ in certain cases, can lead to the paradoxical result of eliminating the final composition stratum of the text in the MT from the Vorlage. In her analysis of the major expansions in the Qumran versions and SamP of Exod 7–11, Lemmelijn states:

106 Bénédicte Lemmelijn, “Influence of a So-Called P-Redaction in the ‘Major Expansions’ of Exod 7–11? Finding Oneself at the Crossroads of Textual and Literary Criticism” in Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls Studies in Honour of Julio Trebolle Barrera: Florilegium Complutense, JSOTSup 157 (ed. A. Piquer Otero, and P.A. Torijano Morales; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 208. See also, Lemmelijn, “Text Critically Studying,” 131. 107 Ibid., 163. 108 As stated by Tov and Ulrich, “Linear development of the biblical books is a major element in our analysis of the early history of the biblical text. Most of the biblical books were not written by one person nor at one particular time, but rather over many generations. […] Since the process of literary development was long, one needs to decide which, if any, of the final stages in the presumed literary development of the book should be considered determinative for textual criticism. This problem has become more acute in light of the preservation in textual variants of sections of early formulations that were circulated at that time. […] These earlier stages were not ‘drafts,’ but each literary stage was considered final and then released, in modern parlance.” Tov and Ulrich, “Textual History,” § 1.1.1.2.5; emphasis in original; internal references omitted.

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If redaction, progressing theological reflection and ‘Fortschreibung’ were integral to the process of copying, should then the idea of searching for the ‘preferable’ variant in the evaluation of text-critical variants also be modified? Indeed, generally speaking, the preferable variant is considered to be the one which is the ‘more original’ even in a relative framework (cf. above) or the one that explains the development of the others. Now, if one affirms the fact that the (re-)production of the text also contained further reflection and evolution at the level of the theological content, should the ‘preferable’ variant then still be the ‘more original’? Would this not create a paradox between the ‘preferable’ reading from a text-critical perspective and the ‘preferable’ variant from a literary perspective?109 In my view, the time has come to abandon the term “preferred variant” to mean “the Urtext” or even an “older” Vorlage. In cases where it appears that multiple Vorlagen were circulating within a community at the same time, the identification and analysis of these Vorlagen does not require that one be evaluated as being “preferred” over another. In cases where it appears that a variant witness reflects an earlier composition stratum of the text, the variant can more appropriately be discussed in the context of the compositional history of that text. In addition, the methodology to be used to identify variants that should be assigned to the textual transmission phase, and thus excluded from the socalled final version of the Vorlage, remains problematic. The historical dividing line between the final composition stratum of a text and scribal changes made during the transmission process is often hard to discern. For example, my research indicates that AL, B and LAB suggest that the verb in 19:2aA underwent successive changes from ‫( וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי‬and she was furious), to ‫( וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי‬and she moved on/and she transgressed), to ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה‬and she whored). I have argued that while the first two changes reflect different strata in the compositional history of the text, the third change was introduced by a scribe working during the textual transmission process, possibly after 100 CE. Similarly, the second infinitive construct phrase in 19:3a underwent successive changes from ‫ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬ (to change it [i.e., her mind]) as per MT Ketiv, to ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her) as per AL, to ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to bring her back) as per MT Qere. In this case, although speculative, I have assigned the last change to the final composition stratum rather than to a scribe working during the textual transmission process. On the basis of the foregoing, this work will use the BHQ edition of the MT of Judges 19–21, subject to the emendation discussed in the previous paragraph, as the basis of textual analysis. The translation attached hereto in the 109 Lemmelijn, “Influence,” 226; references omitted.

Text Critical Problems in Judges 19–21

51

Appendix will thus follow this reconstructed version of the text. I have selected the MT as the textual basis for study because it best reflects, in my opinion, the latest stage in the compositional history of Judges 19–21. I recognize that this inverts the classical purpose of textual criticism which is to identify the earliest text that underlies subsequent revisions. Although I have profound respect for each composition stratum that underlies the final version of Judges 19–21, and will endeavor to identify the ideological/theological perspective reflected in each such stratum, I consider that it is methodologically inappropriate to qualify an earlier composition stratum reflected in a variant as the “preferred” Vorlage simply because it is older. 4

Chapter Summary

The publication of BHQ Judges in 2011 represents an important turning point in the textual criticism of Judges 19–21. Of the 34 preferred readings proposed by BHS, BHQ rejects 24 of them on the grounds that the Greek variants in question should properly be viewed as interpretations of the same Vorlage as the MT rather than as translations of a different Vorlage. BHQ prefers the Greek variant in only nine cases. It can be observed that BHQ prefers a Greek variant only when the MT variant contains a scribal copying error such as homoioteleuton, dittography, haplography and spelling mistakes. On the basis of the foregoing, BHQ concludes that the Greek witnesses of Judges 19–21 and MT share a common Vorlage. While I agree with BHQ’s general conclusion, I have attempted to demonstrate that several Greek variants may reflect a Vorlage that pre-dates the final redaction stratum of MT Judges 19–21. The most important of these variants include the following. First, it has been argued that the AL and B variants of 19:2a, although in disagreement with each other, indicate that the BH verb underlying both “she was angry with him” (AL) and “she went away from him” (B) may have been the verb ‫עבר‬, read by AL in the Hitpa‘el form and by B in the Qal form. Second, it has been argued that while the Qere of the lexeme ‫להׁשיבה‬ in 19:3a is vocalized as ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to bring her back) in the MT, it can also be read as ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her). In my view, the B variant of 19:3a can be interpreted as reflecting the latter vocalization. Third, I disagree with the shared position of BHS and BHQ that the “plus” in AL 19:30a (that is absent in B) reflects an earlier Vorlage than MT. I have argued to the contrary that the “plus” can more parsimoniously be interpreted as a trace of the Vorlage that existed prior to the interpolations added in the final redaction stratum of Judges 19. However, as the final redaction stratum is also reflected in the verses that precede and

52

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follow the “plus” in AL 19:30a, it is preferable to interpret the “plus” as evidence of the development of the Vorlage into its final form. This phenomenon can be explained in two ways. First, the translators of AL had at their disposal different editions of the same Vorlage, including one that pre-dated the final redaction stratum of the BH text. Second, the Greek translation itself probably evolved over time, in part to take account of late redaction strata in the BH text, and in part to harmonize the Greek translation more closely with the BH text. I have elected to use the BHQ edition of the MT of Judges 19–21, with only one significant emendation, as the basis of textual analysis in this work on the grounds that the MT reflects the latest stage in the compositional history of Judges 19–21. Although this inverts the classical purpose of textual criticism, which is to identify the earliest text that underlies subsequent revisions, I consider that it is methodologically inappropriate to qualify an earlier composition stratum reflected in a variant as the “preferred reading” simply because it is older.

chapter 2

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context Judges 19–21 form the last three chapters of the book of Judges in both the MT and LXX versions of the text. While Judges is followed directly by Samuel in the Hebrew canon, Ruth is intercalated between Judges and Samuel in the Greek canon. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the structural, literary and thematic points of continuity and discontinuity between Judges 19–21 and the narrative units that precede and follow it in both the MT and LXX. Section 1 will consider the place of Judges 19–21 in the broad canonical context of Judges 13–1 Samuel 7. Section 2 will discuss the literary relationship between Judges 19–21 and the narrative units that immediately precede it in Judges 17–18. Section 3 will analyze the literary relationship between Judges 19–21 and the narrative unit that immediately follows in the MT; i.e., 1 Samuel 1–7. Section 4 will analyze the literary relationship between Judges 19–21 and the narrative unit that immediately follows in the LXX; i.e., Ruth. Methodologically, this chapter will take both a synchronic and diachronic approach to the question of the place of Judges 19–21 in its canonical context. The analysis of Judges 13 through 1 Samuel 7 in the MT and LXX will be essentially synchronic. However, the comparison of the MT and LXX points to important differences between the two versions that require a diachronic explanation. The detailed analysis of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 will be addressed in chapters 9–11 infra. 1

Judges 19–21 in the Broad Canonical Context of Judges 13–1 Samuel 7

A continuous reading of the final received versions of the books of Judges through Samuel in the MT and LXX suggests that there is an important thematic caesura in the narrative framework between Judges 13–16 (the Samson story) and 1 Samuel 1–7 (the Samuel story).1 This narrative arc is interrupted by a seemingly heterogenous set of narratives comprising Judges 17–18 and 1 Barry G. Webb disagrees and views the book of Judges as a coherent narrative framework in which Judges 17–21 is an appropriate literary continuation of the Samson story. Webb argues that Judg 13–16 is the central section of Judges in which “Samson does what is right in his own eyes.” Judg 17–21 continues this motif and expands it to mean that “everyone does what is right in his own eyes.” Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 512.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_004

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Judges 19–21 in the MT, and Judges 17–18, 19–21 and Ruth in the LXX. This unexpected interruption in the narrative framework is problematic.2 It raises questions relating to the reasons for the interruption as well as to the structural, literary and thematic coherence of the intervening material when read as a narrative unit. 1.1 Lexical Parallelism in MT Judges 13–16 and 1 Samuel 1–7 There are strong structural, thematic and literary parallels between the Samson story and the Samuel story in the MT suggesting that the two narrative units are intended to be read as a diptych. The narrative intrigue in both stories is centered on war between the sons of Israel and the Philistines. The Samson story begins with the notice, “And the sons of Israel again did evil in the eyes of YHWH. And YHWH gave them into the hand of the Philistines (‫ד־ּפ ִל ְׁש ִּתים‬ ְ ַ‫) ְּבי‬ for 40 years” (Judg 13:1). The Samuel story concludes with the notice, “And the Philistines were subdued. And they did not come anymore within the border of Israel. And the hand of YHWH (‫ )יַ ד־יְ הוָ ה‬was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel” (1 Sam 7:13). The protagonists in both stories are introduced by the incipit ‫( וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬and it came to pass that there was a certain man) in Judg 13:2 and 1 Sam 1:1. This formula is not used elsewhere in the MT. Samson is the son of a sterile mother who conceives with divine assistance (Judg 13:2). He is consecrated from birth to be a Nazirite “and no razor shall go up on his head (‫ּומֹורה לֹא־יַ ֲע ֶלה ַעל־רֹאׁשֹו‬ ָ )” (Judg 13:5a). He is destined to “begin to deliver (‫הֹוׁש ַיע‬ ִ ‫ )וְ הּוא יָ ֵחל ְל‬Israel from the hands of the Philistines” (Judg 13:5). Samson “judged Israel (‫ )וַ ּיִ ְׁשּפֹט ֶאת־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬20 years in the days of the Philistines” (Judg 15:20), but failed to deliver Israel from its enemy.3 The narrative framework appears to resume in 1 Samuel 1. Like Samson, Samuel is the son of a sterile woman who conceives with divine assistance.4 Again, like Samson, Samuel 2 As noted by Richard D. Nelson, “The storyline simply cannot be left with the situation described in Judg. 15:20 (and 16:31): ‘He judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.’ Reader expectations have been raised but not satisfied. The narrative arc is only completed when the Ark Story and the subsequent victory of Samuel are recounted.” Richard D. Nelson, “The Deuteronomistic Historian in Samuel: ‘The Man behind the Green Curtain’,” in Is Samuel among the Deuteronomists? Current Views on the Place of Samuel in a Deuteronomistic History (ed. C. Edenburg and J. Pakkala; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 30. 3 The formula “And he judged Israel for 20 years” is repeated in Judg 16:31 at the close of the Samson and Delilah story. The diachronic history of Judg 13–16* is beyond the scope of this work. 4 Various commentators have argued that the diachronic history of 1 Samuel 1–7 indicates that the miraculous birth scene in 1 Samuel 1 originally related to Saul rather than Samuel. This argument is based primarily on the wordplay between the verb ‫ ָׁש ַאל‬in 1 Sam 1:17.20.27.28 and Saul’s name (‫) ָׁשאּול‬. According to P. Kyle Mc Carter Jr., “Saul’s birth story may have stood

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

55

is consecrated to YHWH “all the days of his life and a razor shall not go up on his head (‫ּומֹורה לֹא־יַ ֲע ֶלה ַעל־רֹאׁשֹו‬ ָ )” (1 Sam 1:11).5 Unlike Samson, Samuel succeeds in defeating the Philistines. Towards the end of 1 Samuel 7, the narrator reports that “Samuel judged Israel (‫מּואל ֶאת־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫ )וַ ּיִ ְׁשּפֹט ְׁש‬all the days of his life” (1 Sam 7:15).6 1.2 Absence of Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 13–16 and 1 Samuel 1–7 While the lexical parallels between the Samson and Samuel stories mentioned above are clear in the MT, they are far less evident in the LXX. First, the parallel incipits that introduce Samson and Samuel in MT Judg 13:2 and 1 Sam 1:1, ‫וַ יְ ִהי‬ ‫ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬, are not mirrored in the LXX variants of those two verses: MT Judg 13:2And it came to pass that there was a certain man from Zorah of the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah. MT 1 Sam 1:1And it came to pass that there was a certain man from Ramathiam Zophim, from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah. LXXA Judg 13:2And it came to pass that there was a man from Saraa of the tribe of Dan and his name was Manoe. LXXB Judg 13:2And there was one man from Saraa from the kinship group of the Danites, and his name was Manoe. LXX 1 Sam 1:1There was a man of Armathaim Sipha, of the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Helkana.

‫יש אֶ חָ ד ִמ ָּצ ְר ָעה‬ ׁ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִא‬ ‫נֹוח‬ ַ ‫ּוׁשמֹו ָמ‬ ְ ‫ִמ ִּמ ְׁש ַּפ ַחת ַה ָּדנִ י‬ ‫ן־ה ָר ָמ ַתיִ ם‬ ָ ‫יש אֶ חָ ד ִמ‬ ׁ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִא‬ ‫ּוׁשמֹו ֶא ְל ָקנָ ה‬ ְ ‫צֹופים ֵמ ַהר ֶא ְפ ָריִ ם‬ ִ

καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ ἐκ Σαραα ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς τοῦ Δαν καὶ ὄνομα αὐτῷ Μανωε καὶ ἦν ἀνὴρ εἷς ἀπὸ Σαραα ἀπὸ δήμου συγγενείας τοῦ Δανι καὶ ὄνομα αὐτῷ Μανωε ἄνθρωπος ἦν ἐξ Αρμαθαιμ Σιφα ἐξ ὄρους Εφραιμ καὶ ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ελκανα

originally before the story in 9:3–10:16.” P. Kyle McCarter Jr., I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes & Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 26; see also 64–66. This issue will not be discussed further in this study for two reasons. First, it is highly probable that Judges 19–21 and Ruth were composed after the birth story in 1 Samuel 1 had already been redacted to relate to Samuel. Second, even if my dating hypothesis is incorrect, the point still remains that there is a literary gap in the narrative framework between the Samson story and the hypothesized Saul story. 5 However, unlike Samson, Samuel is not called a “Nazirite.” 6 It should be noted that the Samuel story mentions another judge, Eli, who judged Israel for 40 years (1 Sam 4:18). Samuel thus succeeds Eli, who is assumed to have succeeded Samson, according to the narrative framework.

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Second, the lexical parallelism between “Samson judged Israel” in MT Judg 15:20 and “Samuel judged Israel” in MT 1 Sam 7:15 is absent in the LXX versions of these two verses: MT Judg 15:20And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for 20 years. MT 1 Sam 7:15And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. LXXAB Judg 15:20And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for 20 years. LXX 1 Sam 7:15And Samuel pleaded for Israel all the days of his life.

‫ימי ְפ ִל ְׁש ִּתים‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְׁש ּפֹט אֶ ת־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִּב‬ ‫ֶע ְׂש ִרים ָׁשנָ ה‬ ‫מּואל אֶ ת־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ּכֹל‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְׁש ּפֹט ְׁש‬ ‫יְ ֵמי ַחּיָ יו‬

καὶ ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ ἐν ἡμέραις ἀλλοφύλων εἴκοσι ἔτη καὶ ἐδίκαζεν Σαμουηλ τὸν Ισραηλ πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς αὐτοῦ

These two examples of the lack of lexical parallelism in the LXX versions of the Samson and Samuel stories will be discussed below. 1.2.1 Absence of Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 13:2 and 1 Samuel 1:1 It can be observed that (i) the incipits in LXXA and LXXB Judg 13:2 are different and (ii) there is a lack of parallelism between Judg 13:2 and 1 Sam 1:1 in both LXXA and LXXB. The incipit in LXXA Judg 13:2, καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ, is attested elsewhere in LXXAB Judg 17:1 and 19:1 as the translation of ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש‬. The incipit in LXXB Judg 13:2, καὶ ἦν ἀνὴρ εἷς, is a hapax in the LXX. However, it can be noted that (i) the syntagma, καὶ ἦν ἀνὴρ, is attested four times in the LXX as the translation of ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיש‬7 and (ii) the syntagma ἀνὴρ εἷς is frequently used in the LXX to translate ‫ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬.8 The incipit in LXX 1 Sam 1:1, ἄνθρωπος ἦν, is used two other times in LXX verses with equivalents in the MT as the translation of ‎‫ ִאיׁש ָהיָ ה‬.9 It can be noted that the syntagma ἄνθρωπος εἷς is used to translate ‫ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬in LXX Num 16:22, 1 Ki 21:35 and Dan 10:5. It can be argued that the lack of lexical parallelism between LXXAB Judg 13:2 and LXX 1 Sam 1:1 is the result of the books of Judges and Samuel being translated into Greek at different times by different translators. In my view, this explanation is unlikely for three reasons. First, the incipit in LXXA Judg 13:2, καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ, is also attested in LXXAB Judg 17:1 and 19:1 as the translation of 7 LXX Gen 39:2; 1 Sam 9:1; 2 Sam 21:20=1 Ch 20:6. See also, Susanna 1:1. 8 LXX Num 1:44; LXXAB Judg 20:1.8.11; LXX 1 Sam 11:7; 2 Sam 18:10; 1 Ki 22:8=2 Ch 18:7; 2 Ki 6:2; Ezr 3:1; Neh 8:1. See also, Judith 1:11; 7:11. 9 LXX Jer 33:20 (=MT Jer 26:20) and LXX Est 2:5.

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

57

‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש‬. This suggests that the translators of LXXA Judges recognized the syntactical importance of parallel incipits as used in the Vorlage from which they were working. Second, as the translators of LXXA use the syntagma ἀνὴρ εἷς to translate ‫ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬in LXXA Judg 20:1.8.11, the question arises why LXXA did not translate the incipit in MT Judg 13:2 as καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ εἷς. The above analysis indicates that the absence of the lexeme εἷς in LXXA Judg 13:2 represents a “minus” in relation to MT Judg 13:2. In my view, the most parsimonious explanation of this phenomenon is that the lexeme ‫ ֶא ָחד‬in MT Judg 13:2 is actually a “plus” in relation to the Vorlage that underlies LXXA Judg 13:2. If this hypothesis is correct, it can reasonably be argued that the incipit in LXXB Judg 13:2, καὶ ἦν ἀνὴρ εἷς, reflects a later proto-MT Vorlage. Third, the incipit in LXX 1 Sam 1:1, ἄνθρωπος ἦν, is problematic for three reasons. Primo, it uses the lexeme ἄνθρωπος rather than ἀνὴρ as in LXXAB Judg 13:2. However, it can be noted that of the 42 occurrences of the lexeme ‫ ִאיׁש‬in MT 1 Samuel 1–7, nine are translated by ἄνθρωπος. It is thus likely, in my opinion, that the distinction between ἄνθρωπος and ἀνὴρ is purely stylistic. Secundo, the incipit ἄνθρωπος ἦν does not include a translation value for ‫ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬in MT 1 Sam 1:1. As the syntagma ἄνθρωπος εἷς is used to translate ‫ִאיׁש‬ ‫ ֶא ָחד‬in LXX Num 16:22, 1 Ki 21:35 and Dan 10:5, the most parsimonious explanation for the “minus” in LXX 1 Sam 1:1 is that the lexeme ‫ ֶא ָחד‬in MT 1 Sam 1:1 is actually a “plus” in relation to the Vorlage that underlies LXX 1 Sam 1:1. Tertio, the incipit ἄνθρωπος ἦν does not include a translation value for the temporal marker ‫וַ יְ ִהי‬. It can be noted that the lexeme ‫ וַ יְ ִהי‬is used 14 times in MT 1 Samuel 1–7.10 It is significant that the LXX includes a translation value for the temporal marker in all cases other than 1 Sam 1:1.11 As the syntagma ἄνθρωπος ἦν is used twice in the LXX to translate ‫ ִאיׁש ָהיָ ה‬,12 it is possible that the underlying Vorlage of LXX 1 Sam 1:1 may in fact have followed a similar syntactical pattern as Job 1:1:‎ ‫( ִאיׁש ָהיָ ה ְב ֶא ֶרץ־עּוץ ִאּיֹוב ְׁשמֹו‬A man there was in the land of Uz; Job was his name).

10 11 12

MT 1 Sam 1:1.2.4.20; 3:2; 4:15.18; 5:9.10; 6:1; 7:2.10.14. The syntagma καὶ ἐγενήθη is used in LXX 1 Sam 1:4.20; 4:1.5; 5:9.10; 7:2; the syntagma καὶ ἦν in LXX 1 Sam 1:2; 6:1; 7:10.14; and the syntagma καὶ ἐγένετο in LXX 1 Sam 3:2; 4:18. LXX Jer 33:20 (=MT Jer 26:20) and LXX Est 2:5.

58

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1.2.2

Absence of Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 15:20 and 1 Samuel 7:15 The syntagma ‫( וַ ּיִ ְׁשּפֹט ֶאת־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬And he judged Israel) appears 12 times in MT Judges,13 four times in MT 1 Samuel14 and once in the plural in MT 2 Ki 23:22. This formula is consistently translated as καὶ ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ in LXXAB Judges and as ἔκρινον τὸν Ισραηλ in LXX 2 Ki 23:22. However, the case of LXX 1 Samuel is different. While LXX 1 Sam 4:18 uses the syntagma καὶ ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ in relation to Eli, the LXX reads καὶ ἐδίκαζεν τὸν Ισραηλ in the four verses that refer to Samuel as having judged Israel in 1 Sam 7:15.16.17; 8:5. Consistent with this practice, the LXX also uses the verb δικάζω to translate ‫ ׁשפט‬in the related passages in 1 Sam 8:5.6.20.15 The shift from the verb κρίνω to describe Eli’s judging Israel to the verb δικάζω to describe Samuel’s judging Israel is thus problematic and calls for an explanation. It can be argued that this phenomenon reflects a stylistic difference in the Greek translation of two different books, Judges and Samuel, according to which the translators of Judges used κρίνω to translate the verb ‫ ׁשפט‬while the translators of Samuel preferred δικάζω. This position is unlikely for three reasons. First, the LXX uses κρίνω nine times in Samuel and Kings to translate ‫ׁשפט‬.16 In particular, it can be noted that the phrase in MT 1 Sam 4:18 ‎ ‫וְ הּוא‬ ‫( ָׁש ַפט ֶאת־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַא ְר ָּב ִעים ָׁשנָ ה‬And he [Eli] judged Israel for 40 years) is translated as καὶ αὐτὸς ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ εἴκοσι ἔτη; i.e., in the same manner as the 12 occurrences of the syntagma “and he judged Israel” in Judges. The verb κρίνω is thus not unknown to the translators of LXX Samuel and Kings. Second, the verb δικάζω is used five times in LXX Judges and 1 Samuel to translate the verb ‫( ריב‬to plead for; to contend with).17 This raises the text critical possibility that the translation of the syntagma “and he judged Israel” in 1 Sam 7:15.16.17; 8:5 with δικάζω may reflect a Vorlage which used the verb ‫ ריב‬rather than ‫ׁשפט‬. Third, it is significant in my view that the verb associated with the judges in Judges and with Eli in 1 Sam 4:18 is κρίνω while the verb associated with Samuel is δικάζω. This suggests that the choice of the verb δικάζω to describe Samuel’s mode of governing Israel is intentional rather than simply stylistic.18 13 14 15 16 17 18

Judg 3:10; 10:2.3; 12:7.8.9.11(×2).13.14; 15:20; 16:31. 1 Sam 4:18; 7:15.16.17. See also LXX 1 Sam 12:7; 24:13. 1 Sam 4:18; 2 Sam 18:19.31; 1 Ki 3:9.28; 7:44; 8:32; 2 Ki 15:5; 23:22. LXXAB Judg 6:31(×3).32; 1 Sam 24:16. See also LXX Jer 15:10; Hos 4:4; Ps 35:1; 73:22. Michel Lestienne posits that the use of the verb κρίνω to translate ‫ ָׁש ַפט‬in relation to Eli’s judging Israel in LXX 1 Sam 4:18b is exceptional. He argues, “Cette exception s’explique facilement : krinein intervient en effet dans la formule stéréotypée ekrinen ton Israël (…) éte, ‘il avait jugé Israël durant […] ans’ qui ponctue à 7 reprises le livre des Juges (10,2;

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

59

In conclusion, the difference in the verbs used to describe the judges and Eli, on the one hand, and Samuel, on the other hand, points to a distinction between the LXX and MT in its conception of the Samuel figure. Samuel is a prophet and king-maker in the LXX (and possibly in the Vorlage that underlies LXX 1 Samuel 7–8). Samuel is a prophet, king-maker as well as a judge in the MT.19 According to the LXX, Eli is the last judge in Israel and the Samuel story represents a break from the period of the judges.20 According to the MT, Samuel is a judge like Eli and Samson and their predecessors in the book of Judges. If the hypothesis is correct that LXX 1 Samuel 7–8 is based on a Vorlage that used the verb ‫=( ריב‬δικάζω) in relation to Samuel, the question arises whether this Vorlage is earlier or later than the Vorlage that uses the verb ‫=( ׁשפט‬κρίνω). Although speculative, it is my view that the most parsimonious explanation of the MT conception of Samuel as a judge is that it reflects a later Vorlage than the one that underlies LXX 1 Samuel 7–8.21 1.3 Conclusions A continuous reading of the textus receptus of Judges 13 through 1 Samuel 7 in both the MT and LXX leaves the reader with the clear impression that Judges 17–18 and 19–21 in the MT, and Judges 17–18, 19–21 and Ruth in the LXX, interrupt a coherent narrative framework in which the Samuel story should follow directly after the Samson story. Lexical parallels between Judges 13–16 and 1 Sam 1–7 in the MT strengthen this perception. However, the fact that most of these parallels are absent in the LXX witnesses of the Samson and

19 20 21

12,7.9.11.14. 15,20; 16,31), et dont c’est la huitième et dernière occurrence.” Bernard Grillet and Michel Lestienne, Premier Livre des Règnes, La Bible d’Alexandrie (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1997), 46. I disagree with Lestienne for two reasons. First, the syntagma “and he judged Israel for x years” is a variation on the shorter formula “and he judged Israel” which is used in MT Judg 3:10; 10:3; 12:8.11.13. Second, the first reference to Samuel as a judge in MT 1 Sam 7:15 states, ‫מּואל ֶאת־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ּכֹל יְ ֵמי ַחּיָ יו‬ ֵ ‫“( וַ ּיִ ְׁשּפֹט ְׁש‬And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life”). Lestienne interprets this verse as semantically unrelated to MT 1 Sam 4:18b because the former ends “all the days of his life” and the latter ends “for 20 years.” Lestienne does not discuss the three subsequent references to Samuel as judging Israel in MT 1 Sam 7:16.17; 8:5. As discussed, it is more parsimonious in my view to explain the shift from κρίνω to δικάζω as relating to a different ideological/theological conception of the Samuel figure. It should be noted that other passages that mention Samuel by name characterize him as a prophet and do not mention his role as judge. See, e.g., 2 Ch 35:18; 1 Esd 1:20 and Sir 46:13–20. Josephus emphasizes this historical break in the structure of Jewish Antiquities in which Book V is entitled “The interval of 476 years from the death of Moses to the death of Eli.” As the compositional history of MT 1 Samuel 7–8 is beyond the scope of this work, this question merits further research and analysis.

60

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Samuel stories raises important questions. Although the compositional history of the books of Judges and Samuel are beyond the scope of this work, it can be noted that both Christophe Levin and Reinhard Müller rely heavily on the lexical parallels in the incipits in MT Judg 13:2; 17:1; 1 Sam 1:1 and 9:1 to support their argument that DtrG must have included the Samson story in Judges 13–16*, the Micah story in Judges 17–18*, the narrative concerning Samuel’s birth and childhood in 1 Samuel 1–3*, and the anointment of Saul story in 1 Samuel 9–10*.22 Levin argues, In the Old Testament this narrative beginning is confined […] to these four narrative complexes. Since in addition these follow immediately upon one another, it is virtually certain that they belonged to a common preredactional compilation. That would also explain why some of the material does not fit in with the intention of the whole as we have it today; for example, the stylization of Samson the hero as deliverer. It is easier to understand how a story like that of Samson should have been included in the Deuteronomic Book of Judges, if the author found it in the earlier work on which he based his own, than to imagine that he introduced it for himself from some other source.23 Müller argues similarly, “It is not very likely that the similarity between the introductions to the four narratives is coincidental, since the opening formula is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament.”24 It has been demonstrated in this section that the lexical parallelism among the incipits on which Levin and Müller base their position – and in particular between MT Judg 13:2 and 1 Sam 1:1 – is not supported by the LXX. To the contrary, it can reasonably be argued that the incipits in LXXA Judg 13:2 and LXX 1 Sam 1:1 reflect an earlier Vorlage than the one on which the MT is based. The possibility should therefore be considered that the lexical parallelism between the MT versions of these two verses is the result of redactional activity intended 22 23

24

Neither Levin nor Müller discusses the LXX versions of the various incipits in their analysis of the structural links between Judges 13–16, Judges 17–18, Judges 19–21 and 1 Samuel 1–7. Christoph Levin, “On the Cohesion and Separation of Books within the Enneateuch” in Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch? Identifying Literary Work in Genesis through Kings (ed. T. Dozeman, T. Römer, K. Schmid; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 136; citations omitted. Reinhard Müller, “1 Samuel as the Opening Chapter of the Deuteronomistic History?” in Is Samuel among the Deuteronomists? Current Views on the Place of Samuel in a Deuteronomistic History (ed. C. Edenburg and J. Pakkala; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 214.

61

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

to highlight the connection between the Samson and Samuel stories. Although this hypothesis does not invalidate the positions of Levin and Müller on the scope of the pre-redactional stratum of the DH, it does question their reliance on the lexical parallelism between the incipits in MT Judg 13:2 and 1 Sam 1:1 as arguments in favor of their positions. 2

Literary Relationship between Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21

Judges 19–21 shares a number of formulaic expressions with Judges 17–18 that encourage the reader to understand the last five chapters of Judges as forming a structured literary unit. These include the expressions “In those days, there was no king in Israel” and “It came to pass that there was a man….” In addition, the toponyms, “the hill country of Ephraim” and “Bethlehem of Judah” feature prominently in both Judges 17–18 and 19–21. These unifying literary elements will be discussed below. 2.1 Lexical Parallelism in MT Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 The formula “In those days, there was no king in Israel” is used three times in Judges 17–21 and a related formula is used in Judg 19:1a: Judg 17:6aIn those days, there was no king in Israel. Judg 18:1aIn those days, there was no king in Israel. Judg 19:1aAnd it came to pass in those days, a king there was not in Israel. Judg 21:25aIn those days, there was no king in Israel.

‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֵאין‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬ ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

While the syntagma ‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬is used 31 times in the MT, it is not used in Judges 1–16 or Ruth and appears only once in Samuel.25 Although the syntagma ‫ ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך‬is attested elsewhere in the MT in Hos 3:4 and 10:3, it is not used in Judges 1–16 or in Ruth or Samuel. It can be concluded that the formulaic expression “In those days, there was no king in Israel” is specific to Judges 17–21 and serves to unify these narratives in the reader’s mind. The formula “In those days, there was no king in Israel” is more than a “refrain” that punctuates the story from time to time. Instead, it appears at strategic points in the text suggesting that it serves to introduce a narrative, close a narrative or both. Commentators have traditionally followed the chapter divisions of Judges 17–21 and interpreted the formula as opening a narrative 25

1 Sam 28:1.

62

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unit delimited by 18:1–31, and opening and closing the narrative unit delimited by 19:1–21:25.26 The use of the formula in 17:6a is more problematic as it occurs in the middle of Judges 17. Martin Noth raised the possibility that Judges 17–18 consists of three micro-narratives in which the formula in 17:6a closes the first and the formula in 18:1a closes the second. “If they have not been placed at the two junctures primarily to cast light upon the entire narrative, then they are better understood as concluding judgments upon what precedes, since a new stage in the narrative follows them.”27 However, Noth maintains the traditional view that the formulae in 19:1a and 21:25a open and close the macro-narrative in Judges 19–21. Noth attributes the use of the formulae in Judges 19–21 to a redactor who took them over “editorially from Jg 17–18, where they once intrinsically belonged.”28 Although Noth’s position that the formulae in 17:6a and 18:1a signal the closure of two separate narrative units has not been followed by other commentators, it is my view that Noth is correct. I will attempt to demonstrate below that (i) 19:1a should also be treated as the closure to the narrative unit delimited by 18:1b–19:1a and (ii) 21:25 should be interpreted as the closure to the narrative unit in 19:1b–21:25. It should be noted that two distinctions can be observed in the construction of the four formulae as used in 17:6b, 18:1a, 19:1a and 21:25a. First, the formula used in 19:1a differs somewhat from the other three verses. Judg 19:1a uses the temporal marker ‫ וַ יְ ִהי‬to introduce the phrase, divides the verse into two parts joined by the conjunction waw, and inverts the phrase ‫ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ to read ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֵאין ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֶ .29 In my view, the syntactical difference between 19:1a and the other three closing formulae can best be explained diachronically. It can be observed that the concluding verse of many chapters in the MT begins with ‫וַ יְ ִהי‬.30 As there is a scholarly consensus that Judges 19–21 was added as an appendix to the book of Judges in the final stages of the construction of the book,31 it can reasonably be argued that the closure in 19:1a was structured syntactically so as to resemble the end of a chapter, and more precisely, the end of a book. Second, the formula as used in 17:6a and 21:25a is followed by an 26

27 28 29 30 31

See, e.g., Soggin, Judges; Matthews, Judges and Ruth; Schulz, Die Anhänge. In contrast, Robert G. Boling treats the formula in 18:1a as the closure of a narrative delimited by 17:1– 18:1. Robert G. Boling, Judges: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1975). Cf. Webb, Judges: An Integrated Reading, 182. Martin Noth, “The Background of Judges 17–18” in Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (ed. B. Anderson and W. Harrelson; London: SCM Press, 1962), 79–80. Ibid., p. 79. The order ‫ ֶמ ֶלְך ֵאין‬is also attested in 1 Ki 22:48; Mic 4:9; Prov 30:27. Gen 30:43b; Exod 12:51; Judg 11:39b–40; 1 Sam 10:27b; 18:30b; 2Ki 3:27b; 19:37; 1 Ch 15:29. See discussion of the dating of Judges 19–21 in Chapter 8, Section 1 infra.

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

63

identical second formula in 17:6b and 21:25b, ‫( ִאיׁש ַהּיָ ָׁשר ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes). Barry G. Webb focuses particular attention on the use of the expanded formula in 17:6 and 21:25 (“In those days, there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes”). He interprets these two verses as creating an inclusio bracketing the series of narrative units between 17:6 and 21:25.32 Although Webb’s hypothesis is appealing, it is weakened by fact that the first Micah narrative in 17:1–5 – which is thematically related to the second Micah narrative in 17:6–13 – precedes the supposed inclusio frame in 17:6 and is thus excluded from the supposed narrative unit that runs from 17:6–21:25. In addition, the repetition of the basic formula in 18:1a and the variant basic formula in 19:1a becomes problematic. According to Susan Niditch, “the partial repetition at 18:1 and 19:1 creates transitions and frameworks for the stories that follow.”33 She does not address the issue of the lexical difference between these two verses noted above. Niditch’s characterization of the shorter formulae as “partial” is arbitrary. It can just as easily be argued, as I propose, that (i) the shorter formula is the basic formula used to unify Judges 17–21 as a literary unit, and (ii) the second formula, which is only used twice, is an expansion of the formula that could have been interpolated after 17:6a and 21:25a in a late composition stratum to add an evaluative comment to the neutral syntagma, “In those days, there was no king in Israel” As will be discussed below, the LXX versions of the expanded formula tend to support this position.34 Contrary to Noth, Webb and Niditch, I propose that the basic formula “In those days there was no king in Israel” is consistently used in Judges 17–21 as a narrative closure to four narrative units delimited as 17:1–6; 17:7–18:1a; 18:1b–19:1a; and 19:1b–21:25. This position is supported by two arguments. First, it can be observed that the formula as used in 17:6, 18:1a and 19:1a is directly followed by a second formula that can be interpreted as a proper narrative incipit: 32

33 34

Webb, Judges: An Integrated Reading, 181–182. Webb takes his position even further in his later 2012 commentary on Judges by arguing that Judg 17:6–21:25 is structured concentrically: A (17:6); B (18:1); B1 (19:1); A1 (21:25). Webb, Judges, 419. The following objections can be raised to this hypothesis. First, although 17:1–5 is thematically related to the narrative that begins in 17:6, Webb provides no explanation why it should fall outside the concentric structure. Second, as discussed, the incipits in 18:1 and 19:1 are not lexically identical. Third, the concentric structure identifies the narrative bracketed by 18:1 and 19:1 as representing the center of the chiasm, but Webb does not attribute any significance to this. Third, it is difficult to understand how a narrative of 8 verses (A) can be paired with a macro-narrative comprising three chapter (A1). Niditch, Judges, 178. See discussion in Section 2.2 infra.

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Judg 17:6In those days, there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes. 17:7And it came to pass that there was a lad from Bethlehem of Judah … Judg 18:1aIn those days, there was no king in Israel. 1bAnd in those days, the tribe of Dan … Judg 19:1aAnd it came to pass that in those days, a king there was not in Israel. 1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man residing in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim …

‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך‬ ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִאיׁש ַהּיָ ָׁשר‬ ‫ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה וַ יְ ִהי־נ ַַער‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ִמ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬ ‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך‬ ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וּבַ ּי ִָמים הָ הֵ ם‬ ‫ֵׁש ֶבט ַה ָּדנִ י‬ ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֵאין‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬‎ ‫יש ֵלוִ י ּגָ ר‬ ׁ ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ יְ ִהי ִא‬ ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי ַה‬

My hypothesis thus permits the narrative unit in 17:1–5 to be included in the framework of Judges 17–21.35 Second, the opening verses of three of the four narratives (Judg 17:1–6; 17:7–18a; and 19:1b–21:2536) show remarkable thematic similarity: 17:1And it came to pass that there was a man from the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. 17:7aAnd it came to pass that there was a lad from Bethlehem of Judah, from the clan of Judah. 7bAnd he was a Levite and he sojourned there. 8aAnd the man went from the city, from Bethlehem of Judah, to sojourn wherever he could find. 8bAnd he came to the hill country of Ephraim … 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took a concubine wife for himself from Bethlehem of Judah.

‫ּוׁשמֹו‬ ְ ‫יש ֵמהַ ר־אֶ ְפ ָריִ ם‬ ׁ ‫י־א‬ ִ ‫וַ יְ ִה‬ ‫יכיְ הּו‬ ָ ‫ִמ‬ ׂ ֶ ֲ‫וַ יְ ִהי־נ ַַער ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יַע‬ ‫שה‬ ‫הּודה וְ הּוא‬ ָ ְ‫יְ הו ָּדה ִמ ִּמ ְׁש ַּפ ַחת י‬ ‫־ׁשם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ָה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫לֵ וִ י וְ הּוא גָ ר‬ ‫ֵמ ָה ִעיר ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה לָ גוּר‬ ‫ַּב ֲא ֶׁשר יִ ְמ ָצא וַ ּיָבֹא הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם‬

‫יש לֵ וִ י ָּגר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי‬ ׁ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִא‬ ‫הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה‬ ‫ילגֶ ׁש ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ ֶ ‫ִפ‬

The narratives that begin in 17:1 and 19:1b are introduced with the incipit ‫י־איׁש‬ ִ ‫וַ יְ ִה‬. The narrative in 17:6 begins with a similar incipit ‫וַ יְ ִהי־נַ ַער‬. In addition 35 36

Contra Webb and Niditch. The narrative unit in 18:1b–19:1a begins with a different incipit, ‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬, and closes with ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֵאין ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬, a variation of the formula used in 17:6a, 18:1a and 21:25a. The repetition of ‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬in the opening and closing verses suggests that the narrative unit 18:1b–19a is framed by an inclusio.

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

65

to the lexical parallelism in the opening and closing phrases of these narrative units, the topographical references in 17–21 also encourage the reader to understand Judges 17–21 as an overarching literary unit. The geographical reference ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫ ַה‬features prominently in Judges 17–19, in 17:1.8; 18:2.13; 19:1.16.18. Although the toponym Bethlehem is mentioned 53 times in the MT, the expression, ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬, is used seven times in Judges 17–1937 and two times in Ruth.38 It is attested elsewhere only in 1 Sam 17:12. In conclusion, I propose to delimit four narrative units in Judges 17–21: 17:1– 6, 17:7–18:1a, 18:1b–19:1a, and 19:1b–21:25. Each unit opens with a typical narrative incipit and closes with the phrase, “In those days, there was no king in Israel.” If this hypothesis is correct, the narrative in 19–21, the subject of this work, begins in 19:1b. The literary purpose of using similar incipits and closures in a series of narratives is to encourage the reader to understand Judges 17–21 as constituting a literary unit.39 2.2 Lexical Parallelism in LXX Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 There is agreement between the MT and the LXX in the lexical parallelism of the opening and closing frames in Judg 17:1–17:6a, 17:7a–18:1a and 19:1b–21:25a. However, there is disagreement between the two versions as to the lexical parallelism between the second closing verses Judg 17:6b and 21:25b (“Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes”). These two sets of cases will be discussed below. 2.2.1 Agreements between the MT and the LXX The three identical incipits in MT Judg 17:1, 17:7 and 19:1b, “And it came to pass that a man/lad,” are mirrored in LXXAB: LXXA Judg 17:1καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ ἐξ ὄρους Εφραιμ LXXA Judg 17:7καὶ ἐγένετο παιδάριον ἐκ Βηθλεεμ δήμου Ιουδα 37 38 39

LXXB Judg 17:1καὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ ἀπὸ ὄρους Εφραιμ LXXB Judg 17:7καὶ ἐγενήθη νεανίας ἐκ Βηθλεεμ δήμου Ιουδα

Judg 17:7.8.9; 19: 1.2.18 (×2). Ruth 1:1.2. The diachronic question of whether the similar incipits and closures in the narrative unit Judg 17–19:1a should be attributed to the same author or to one or more redactors intending to highlight the literary unity of that unit is beyond the scope of this work and requires further research and analysis. The compositional history of the closure in 21:25 will be discussed in Section 2.2.2 infra.

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LXXA Judg 19:1bκαὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ Λευίτης LXXB Judg 19:1bκαὶ ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ Λευίτης παροικῶν ἐν μηροῖς ὄρους Εφραιμ παροικῶν ἐν μηροῖς ὄρους Εφραιμ Similarly, the identical closing formula in MT 17:6a, 18:1a and 21:25a, “And there was no king in Israel,” is closely paralleled in LXXAB: LXXA Judg 17:6aἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ LXXA Judg 18:1aἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ LXXA Judg 21:25aἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ

LXXB Judg 17:6aἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ LXXB Judg 18:1aἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ LXXB Judg 21:25aἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ

These agreements support the proposition that the narrative framework of Judges 17–21 encourages the reader to read the final five chapters of Judges as a narrative unit. 2.2.2 Disagreements between the MT and the LXX In contrast, there is a lack of lexical parallelism in both the LXXA and LXXB variants of the second closing phrase in 17:6b and 21:25b, ‫ִאיׁש ַהּיָ ָׁשר ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬ (Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes): LXXA Judg 17:6bἀνὴρ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει LXXA Judg 21:25bἀνὴρ ἕκαστος τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει

LXXB Judg 17:6bἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει LXXB Judg 21:25bἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐποίει

The following agreements and disagreements among the variants can be observed. First, LXXA 17:6b and LXXA 21:25b are lexically identical except that (i) the noun τὸ ἀγαθὸν is used in 17:6b and τὸ εὐθὲς in 21:25b and (ii) the syntagma ἀνὴρ is used in 17:6b and ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in 21:25b. Second, LXXB 17:6b and 21:25b are lexically identical except that the phrase ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ is used in 17:6b and ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ in 21:25b. The first difference between LXXA 17:6b and LXXB 17:6b is significant. The former states, “each man did the good [thing] (τὸ ἀγαθὸν) in his eyes” and the latter “each man did the right [thing] (τὸ εὐθὲς) in his eyes.” The former differs from the MT witness and the latter conforms to the MT witness. The syntagma ‫( ַהּטֹוב ְּב ֵעינֶ יָך‬and collocations using the right thing in “his/her/your/their” eyes)

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

67

is used 12 times in MT Samuel and synoptic verses in MT Chronicles.40 Of the 12 occurrences in Samuel and Chronicles, the LXX translates ‫ ַהּטֹוב‬11 times as τὸ ἀγαθὸν.41 The possibility should therefore be considered that (i) the phrase ἀνὴρ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει in LXXA 17:6b reflects an earlier Vorlage that read ‫ ִאיׁש הַ ּט ֹוב ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬and (ii) the phrase ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει in LXXB 17:6b is based on a later proto-Masoretic Vorlage. It can reasonably be argued that the later Vorlage introduced the change in MT 17:6 from ‫( ַהּטֹוב‬the good [thing]) to ‫( ַהּיָ ָׁשר‬the right [thing]) in order to harmonize the text with MT 21:25b. If this hypothesis is correct, it provides an example of what David M. Carr calls a “secondary scribal coordination” in which an earlier text (17:6b) is edited to harmonize it with a later text (21:25b).42 However, the absence of parallelism between LXXB 17:6b (ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει) and LXXB 21:25b (ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐποίει) adds an additional complexity to the problem.43 As is well known, the LXX translates ‫ ְּב ֵעינָ יו‬as either ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ or as ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ. The question then arises why the LXXB translator would use ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ in 17:6b and ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ in 21:25b to translate what are identical syntagmas in the MT. Three possible explanations come to mind. First, the translators varied their style and did not consider the absence of parallelism between 17:6b and 21:25b to be problematic. Second, Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 were translated by different translators at different times. On this hypothesis, Judges 17–18 might have been translated before Judges 19–21 was added to the book of Judges as an appendix. Third, the translators of both LXXA and LXXB worked from a Vorlage that included all of Judges 17–21, with the exception of 21:25b. On this hypothesis, MT 21:25b was interpolated in the final composition stratum of MT Judges 19–21 and both LXXA and LXXB 21:25 were then “updated” to harmonize the Greek text with MT. The possibility that (i) 21:25b may have been the last addition to MT Judges 19–21 and (ii) the LXX was subsequently updated to harmonize it with a more recent Vorlage is the hypothesis that seems the most likely to me. This position is supported by the fact that LXXA 21:25b contains an unusual 40 41 42 43

1 Sam 1:23; 3:18; 11:10; 14:36.40; 2 Sam 10:12=1 Ch 19:13; 2 Sam 19:19.28.39; 24:22=1 Ch 21:23. The syntagma is also used in Gen 16:6, Judg 10:15 and 19:24. The sole exception among the 12 occurrences is 2 Sam 19:19 in which )‫וְ ַל ֲעׂשֹות ַהּטֹוב ( ְּב ֵעינָ ו‬ ]‫ [ ְּב ֵעינָ יו‬is translated καὶ τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ. David M. Carr, “Scribal Processes of Coordination/Harmonization and the Formation of the First Hexateuch(s)” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, FAT (ed. T. Dozeman, K. Schmid, B. Schwartz; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 90–94. Paul Harlé does not comment on the lexical difference between LXXB 17:6b and 21:25b. Harlé, Les Juges.

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grammatical construction not found elsewhere in LXXA Judges or indeed elsewhere in the LXX. It will be recalled that ‫ ִאיׁש‬is translated as ἀνὴρ in LXXA Judg 17:6b and as ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in LXXA Judg 21:25b. The noun ‫ ִאיׁש‬is used to mean “each man” 12 times in MT Judges. LXXA Judges translates the word as ἀνὴρ in eight cases,44 as ἕκαστος in three cases,45 and as ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in LXXA 21:25b. It should be noted that the syntagma ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος is a hapax in the LXX.46 The ungrammaticality of ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος may indicate that LXXA 21:25b was translated by a later translator than the other 11 verses in which ‫ִאיׁש‬ (each man) is consistently translated as either ἀνὴρ or ἕκαστος. This change in translation style supports the hypothesis that 21:25b was absent from the Vorlage on which the principal translator of Judges 17–21 worked and was added later by a different translator in order to harmonize the LXXA text with LXXB 21:25b and/or the MT itself. 2.3 Conclusions The textual material that precedes Judges 19–21 in both the MT and LXX is comprised of three narratives that I have delimited as Judg 17:1–6, 17:7–18a and 18b–19a. Although these three narratives contain thematic differences among themselves and with 19b–21:25, all four contain structural and literary elements that are intended to unify them in the reader’s mind. The structural similarities are most apparent in 17:1–6, 17:7–18:1a, and 19:1b–21:25. All three narratives are introduced with the incipit, “And it came to pass that a man/ lad …” and close with the formula “In those days, there was no king in Israel.” This lexical parallelism is confirmed by LXXAB. The narrative intrigue in the three narratives includes references to two relatively rare toponyms, “the hill country of Ephraim” and “Bethlehem of Judah.” The place of 18:1b–19:1a in the unified framework of Judges 17–21 is less obvious and merits further research. The disagreement between the MT and the LXX concerning Judg 17:6 and 21:25 raises important questions concerning the relative dating of the Vorlagen that underlie LXXAB and the MT. It has been proposed that the translator of LXXA Judges worked from a Vorlage in which 17:6b referred to “each man doing the good thing” and in which 21:25b was absent. The translator of LXXB Judges worked from a later proto-Masoretic Vorlage in which 17:6 already contained the formula “Each man did the right thing in his eyes” but in which 21:25b was absent. If this hypothesis is correct, it follows that (i) MT 21:25b was added to the end of Judges 19–21 at a very late stage in the compositional history of MT

44 45 46

Judg 7:7.8; 9:55; 16:5; 17:6; 21:21.22.24. Judg 2:6; 7:21; 9:49. Harlé does not comment on the syntagma ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in LXXA 21:25b. Harlé, Les Juges.

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

69

Judges 19–21 and (ii) the Greek translation of MT 21:25b was then included in an even later redaction of LXXAB Judges in order to harmonize the LXX with the MT. 3

Literary Relationship between Judges 19–21 and 1 Samuel 1–7

It is frequently noted that many of the toponyms that feature prominently in the narrative intrigue in Judges 19–21 also appear in Samuel.47 For example, the city of Gibeah/Geba, which is referenced by name 23 times in the final three chapters of Judges, is also the home town of Saul, mentioned for the first time in 1 Sam 10:26. The toponym Yabesh-Gilead that features prominently in Judg 21:5–14 is also important in the story of Saul’s deliverance of the inhabitants of that town from the Ammonites in 1 Samuel 11 and in the story of Saul’s death in 1 Samuel 31. However, these geographic associations between Judges 19–21 and Samuel suggest a thematic link between the last three chapters of Judges and 1 Sam 8–15 (the Saul story) rather than with the material in 1 Sam 1–7 (the Samuel story) that directly follows Judges 21 in the MT. The most commonly noted association between Judges 19–21 and 1 Samuel 1–7 is the shared reference to the toponym Shiloh and, more specifically, to the annual festival held at Shiloh.48 The town of Shiloh is mentioned four times in Judges 21. After the extermination of all the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead, save the virgin women of marriageable age, the 12,000 Israelite “men of valor” captured 400 such women “and they brought them to the encampment of Shiloh, which was in the land of Canaan” (Judg 21:12). The next reference to Shiloh occurs in the commands given by the “elders of the congregation” for finding an additional 200 wives for Benjamin. They say, “Behold! There is from days to days a festival of YHWH in Shiloh” (Judg 21:19). The elders command the Benjaminites to capture “daughters of Shiloh” and take them as wives (Judg 21:20–21). The evaluative point of view in relation to Shiloh in Judg 21:12.19–23 is, in my opinion, clearly negative. Shiloh is “in the land of Canaan” and the “daughters of Shiloh” are thus foreigners in relation to the sons of Israel. Viewed from a post-exilic perspective, Shiloh was located outside the boundaries of Yehud and its Samari(t)an inhabitants were perceived to be “foreigners” in relation to the Golah.49 The descendants of the 200 sons of Benjamin who married daughters of Shiloh are thus tainted – when 47 48 49

See the discussion of the perceived allusions to Saul in Judges 19–21 in Chapter 6 infra. Most recently, see Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 295, 300–301, 333. See discussion of the anti-Samari(t)an Tendenz in Judges 19–21 in Chapter 11, Section 2.10.2 infra.

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viewed from the evaluative perspective of the narrator in Judges 19–21 – by their mixed Judean-Samari(t)an ancestry.50 Shiloh is mentioned 10 times in 1 Samuel 1–7.51 However, in contrast to Judges 21:12.19–23, Shiloh is positively evaluated in 1 Samuel 1–7 as a legitimate Israelite cult site.52 This distinction undermines the hypothesis that Judg 21:19–23 represents an intentional transitional link to 1 Samuel 1.53 4

Literary Associations between Judges 19–21 and Ruth

According to the Greek canon, the book of Ruth follows Judges 21 and precedes the book of Samuel. As the link between Judges 21 and 1 Samuel 1 is weak in my view, the possibility that the Greek canon’s order of the two texts may be earlier than that of the Hebrew canon merits serious consideration. Most recent interpreters interested in the history of the construction of the Hebrew canon ignore this possibility.54 I will attempt to demonstrate below that there are structural and literary points of contact between Judges 19–21 and Ruth that could explain why Ruth may have followed directly after Judges. At a formal level, it can be observed that the opening verse of Ruth 1 shares similarities with Judg 17:7–8 and 19:1: Judg 17:7aAnd it came to pass that there was a lad from Bethlehem of Judah, from the clan of Judah. 7bAnd he was a Levite and he sojourned there. 8aAnd the man went from the city, from Bethlehem of Judah, to sojourn wherever he could find. 8bAnd he came to the hills of Ephraim … 50 51 52 53

54

‫וַ יְ ִהי־נַ ַער ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ ‫הּודה וְ הּוא לֵ וִ י‬ ָ ְ‫ִמ ִּמ ְׁש ַּפ ַחת י‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫־ׁשם וַ ּיֵלֶ ְך הָ ִא‬ ָ ‫וְ הּוא גָ ר‬ ‫ֵמ ָה ִעיר ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה לָ גוּר‬

‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫ַּב ֲא ֶׁשר יִ ְמ ָצא וַ ּיָבֹא ַה‬

See discussion of the negative evaluation of Shiloh in Chapter 11, Section 2.10.2 infra. 1 Sam 1:3.9.24; 2:14; 3:21(×2); 4:3.4.12.13. Elkanah went up to Shiloh “to worship and to sacrifice to YHWH Sabaoth” (1 Sam 1:3) and God appeared to Samuel at Shiloh (1 Sam 3:21). It could be argued that Judg 21:19–23 is an “anti-Shiloh” theological polemic and therefore represents a sort of adversarial transition to 1 Sam 1–7. However, the polemical focus in Judg 21:19–23 relates, in my opinion, to inter-marriage between the sons of Benjamin and daughters of Shiloh and not to the status of Shiloh as a legitimate cultic site. See, e.g., Reinhard G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark International, 2005); Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2005); Levin, “On the Cohesion”; Müller, “1 Samuel”; Schulz, Die Anhänge.

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

Judg 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine woman from Bethlehem of Judah. Ruth 1:1aAnd it came to pass in the days the judges judged. And it came to pass that there was a famine in the land. 1bAnd a man from Bethlehem of Judah went to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

71 ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש לֵ וִ י ָּגר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי‬ ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה‬ ֶ ‫ַה‬ ‫ילגֶ ׁש ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ ֶ ‫ִפ‬ ‫ימי ְׁשפֹט ַהּׁש ְֹפ ִטים וַ יְ ִהי‬ ֵ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִּב‬ ְ ‫יש ִמ ּ ֵבית‬ ׁ ‫ָר ָעב ָּב ָא ֶרץ וַ ּיֵלֶ ך ִא‬ ‫מֹואב‬ ָ ‫לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה לָ גוּר ִּב ְׂש ֵדי‬

‫ּוׁשנֵ י ָבנָ יו‬ ְ ‫הּוא וְ ִא ְׁשּתֹו‬

All three narratives introduce the motif of a man who travels to “sojourn” in a land other than his birth place. In Judg 17:7–8, the man is from Bethlehem of Judah and he travels north to sojourn in the hill country of Ephraim. In Judg 19:1, the Levite is a ger who sojourns in the hill country of Ephraim and is married to a concubine wife from Bethlehem of Judah. This verse implies that the Levite had travelled from his unnamed birth place to the hill country of Ephraim as well as that his concubine had travelled north from Bethlehem of Judah to sojourn with her husband in the hill country of Ephraim. In Ruth 1:1, the man is from Bethlehem of Judah and he travels east to sojourn in Moab. Although the toponym Bethlehem is mentioned 53 times in the MT, the syntagma, ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬, is attested only ten times; seven times in MT Judg 17:7–19:18, twice in Ruth 1:1–2 and once in 1 Sam 17:12.55 The syntagma “blessed be you to YHWH” is used twice in Ruth and once in Judges 17: Judg 17:2And his mother said, “Blessed be my son [Micah] to YHWH.” Ruth 2:20And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he [Boaz] to YHWH.” Ruth 3:10And he [Boaz] said, “Blessed be you to YHWH, my daughter.”

‫אמר ִאּמֹו ּ ָברו ְּך ְּבנִ י‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּת‬

‫לַ יהוָ ה‬ ְ‫אמר נָ ֳע ִמי ְל ַכ ָּל ָתּה ּ ָברוּך‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּת‬ ‫הּוא לַ יהוָ ה‬ ‫אמר ְּברוּכָ ה ַא ְּת לַ יהוָ ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬

‫ִּב ִּתי‬

Although this lexical parallel may be a coincidence, there are only two other comparable uses of the syntagma in the MT, in 1 Sam 15:13 and 2 Sam 2:5. 55

Judg 17:7.8.9; 19: 1.2.18 (×2). Ruth 1:1.2. These lexical parallels are less obvious in the LXX. The toponym ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬appears as Βηθλεεμ δήμου Ιουδα in LXXAB Judg 17:7, as τῆς πόλεως Ιουδα ἐκ Βηθλεεμ in LXXA Judg 17:8a, as Βηθλεεμ τῆς πόλεως Ιουδα in LXXB Judg 17:8, as Βηθλεεμ Ιουδα in LXXA Judg 17:9; LXXAB 19:1.2.18, as Βαιθλεεμ Ιουδα in LXXB Judg 17:9, as Βαιθλεεμ τῆς Ιουδα in LXX Ruth 1:1.2.

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At a literary level, it can be noted that the protagonists in Judges 17–18, Judges 19–21 and Ruth all have an atypical family situation. In Judg 17:1–6, Micah’s mother is an important character, but his father is not mentioned. Micah steals from his mother. Micah has sons, but his wife is not mentioned. In 17:7–13, a nameless Levite lad travels northwards in search of a place to sojourn. There is no mention of his parents or siblings. He arrives at Micah’s house and Micah hires him – notwithstanding that the Levite is just an adolescent – “to be a father and a priest for me” (Judg 17:10). In Judges 19, an unnamed Levite has a “concubine-wife,” but there is no mention of his parents or his children or the possibility that he may have a “principal” wife. The other significant character in the narrative is the Levite’s father-in law; the syntagma ‫ח ְֹתנֹו‬ is used 4 times in Judges 19.56 In Ruth, the protagonist also finds herself in an atypical family situation: she is a childless widow. Another principal character in the narrative is Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law; the syntagma ‫מֹותּה‬ ָ ‫ ֲח‬is used 10 times in Ruth.57 Boaz is a prosperous adult male, but no mention is made of his wife or children. The literary points of continuity between Judges 19–21 and Ruth are striking. Both narratives (i) contain a high number of female characters (the Levite’s concubine, the virgin girls of Yabesh-Gilead and the dancing girls of Shiloh in Judges 19–21, and Ruth, Naomi and the neighbor women who proclaim Obed’s name in Ruth); (ii) show interaction among in-laws (the Levite and his father-in-law and Ruth and her mother-in-law); (iii) address the issue of “intermarriage” (unfavorably in Judg 21 and favorably in Ruth); (iv) are particularly interested in the question of the preservation of a lineage for men who have no surviving children (the 600 childless sons of Benjamin who flee to the Rock of Rimmon and Naomi’s deceased husband who has no surviving offspring); and (v) treat the issue of the obligation of hospitality owed towards visitors of other tribes/ethnicities (sons of Israel in the land of Benjamin and Moabites in the land of Judah). Although Judges 17–18, 19–21 and Ruth address different themes and present different ideological/theological perspectives, the structural and literary parallels among them may explain why Ruth may have been an independent narrative that was included in the canon immediately after Judges and before Samuel.58 56 57 58

Judg 19:4.5.7.19. The only other characters in the MT who are described as having a “fatherin-law” are Tamar, Moses and Phinehas’ wife. Ruth 1:14; 2:11.18.19(×2).23; 3:1.6.16.17. Ruth is the only character in the MT described as having a “mother-in-law.” The syntagma ‫מֹותּה‬ ָ ‫ ֲח‬is also used in Mic 7:6. It is possible that Ruth may have followed Judges in an early version of the Hebrew canon before the book was moved to the Ketuvim. A close reading of the Bava Batra Tractate of

Judges 19–21 in Canonical Context

5

73

Chapter Summary

A continuous reading of Judges 13 through 1 Samuel 7 leaves the reader with the impression that Judges 17–21 in the MT, and Judges 17–21 and Ruth in the LXX, interrupt a coherent narrative framework in which the Samuel story should follow directly after the Samson story. The textual material that precedes Judges 19–21 in both the MT and LXX is comprised of three narratives that I have delimited as Judg 17:1–6, 17:7–18a and 18b–19a. Although these three narratives contain thematic differences among themselves and with 19b–21:25, all four contain structural and literary elements that are intended to unify them in the reader’s mind. In contrast, the structural, literary and thematic points of continuity between Judges 19–21 and the narrative unit that follows in the MT, 1 Sam 1:1–7, are weak. However, there are strong points of structural and literary continuity between Judges 19–21 and Ruth, the narrative unit that follows in the LXX. Both narratives begin with the motif of a man who travels to “sojourn” (‫ )ּגּור‬in a land other than his birth place and the rare toponym “Bethlehem of Judah” figures prominently in both narratives. Five points of literary continuity have been noted between Judges 17–18, Judges 19–21 and Ruth. Although the three narratives address different themes and present different ideological/theological perspectives, the structural and literary parallels among them may explain why Ruth may have been an independent narrative that was included in the canon after Judges and before Samuel. the Babylonian Talmud supports this position. See, William Krisel, “The Place of Ruth in the Hebrew Canon: A New Hypothesis”, EB 79 (2021): 63–76.

chapter 3

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21 Most commentators of Judges 19–21 propose a literary structure for the text. These structures generally consist of a division of the macro-narrative into three or more micro-narratives and the further subdivision of each micronarrative into a series of episodes. The most common criteria used for identifying caesuras in the text are changes in the dramatis personæ and thematic shifts over the course of the macro-narrative. However, the heuristic value of these structures is questionable. They provide a synopsis of the plotline but do not address the more complex question of how the sequencing of the narrative units and their internal structure contribute to the text’s narrative strategy for communicating meaning to the reader. The purpose of this chapter is to propose a literary structure for Judges 19–21 that is based on the text’s use of suspense and surprise as techniques for communicating meaning. This issue will be addressed from a synchronic perspective using the MT version of the text. The first section will summarize the status quæstionis concerning the literary structure of Judges 19–21. The second section will identify structural indicia of caesuras in the text. The third section will propose a new literary structure for Judges 19–21. 1

Status Quæstionis Concerning the Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

Most commentators propose a literary structure of Judges 19–21 that follows the traditional chapter divisions of the text and then divides the text into sections on the basis of changes in the dramatis personæ and thematic shifts in the plotline. For example, John Gray (1967) divides Judges 19–21 into 18 episodes, J. Alberto Soggin (1981) into ten, Walter Groß (2009) into 14, and Serge Frolov (2013) into 17.1 As these commentators give a title to each episode, it can be argued that their literary structures are primarily intended to provide the 1 John Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1967); Soggin, Judges; Walter Groß, Richter, Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2009); Serge Frolov, Judges (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013).

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_005

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

75

reader with a broad-brush synopsis of the plotline of Judges 19–21 and thereby to provide a structure for the commentator’s own commentary of the text. In contrast, Edenburg delimits the narrative into three parts, following the traditional chapter divisions, but does not subdivide the chapters into episodes.2 To the best of my knowledge, Barry G. Webb (1987) is the first commentator to propose a structure that deviates from the traditional tripartite division of Judges 19–21 into three “chapters.” Webb divides the narrative into four parts: first, “the outrage at Gibeah” (19:1–28); second, “preparations for war” (19:29–20:11); third, “the war itself” (20:12–48); and fourth, “postwar reconstruction” (21:1–25).3 Webb thus identifies three principal caesuras in the text: Judg 19:28/29; 20:11/12; and 20:48/21:1. However, the literary justification for the first two breaks – that do not conform to the traditional chapter divisions of the text – is problematic for two reasons. First, Webb introduces a caesura between 19:28b and 19:29a. However, it can be noted that the first phrase in 19:29a is the fourth in a series of consecutive Wayyiqtol clauses. In my view, a series of four Wayyiqtol clauses suggests continuity rather than the closure of one narrative unit and the opening of another. To introduce a structural break between the third and the fourth Wayyiqtol clauses in 19:28–29 is thus arbitrary. Second, Webb introduces a break between “And all the men of Israel gathered to the town as one man, united” (Judg 20:11) and “And the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin saying” (Judg 20:12a). Once again, it is arbitrary to identify an important literary caesura in the text between two Wayyiqtol clauses. Although the subject of the action appears to be different in the two phrases (“all the men of Israel” in the first and “the tribes of Israel” in the second), this is only one of many examples of the principal protagonist in Judges 19–21 being referenced by different appellations;4 it does not represent a change of the dramatis personæ signaling an important break in the plotline. Corinne Lanoir (2005) proposes a pentapartite chiastic literary structure for Judges 19–21: (A) “the murder of the concubine” (19:1–30); (B) “the war against Benjamin” (20:1–48); (C) “the oath not to give daughters of Israel to the sons 2 Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole. 3 Webb, Judges: An Integrated Reading, 187–188. It should be noted that Webb does not explain the methodological criteria he uses to identify the literary structure of Judges 19–21. 4 For example, between Judg 20:1–17, the protagonist is called “the sons of Israel” (20:1a.3a.7a.13b.14a); “the community” (20:1a); “all the people” (20:2a.8a); “all the tribes of Israel” (20:2a); “all the men of Israel” (20:11); “the tribes of Israel” (20:12a); and “the men of Israel” (20:17a).

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of Benjamin” (21:1–9); (B1) “the war against Yabesh-Gilead” (21:10–14); and (A1) “the abduction of the girls of Shiloh” (21:15–25).5 According to Lanoir, the micro-narrative concerning the abduction of the girls of Shiloh (A1) mirrors and parallels the murder of the concubine (A) because they are both focused on “la situation à risque des filles vierges et des jeunes femmes mariées, qui se situent dans une période de transition et doivent affronter tous les dangers. En filigrane se dessine la critique d’une société où les pères n’ont plus le pouvoir de protéger leurs filles […].”6 In my view, Lanoir’s perceived thematic parallelism between Judg 19:1–30 (A) and 21:15–25 (A1) is questionable. While it is clear that the narrator characterizes the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine as an evil act meriting severe punishment, there is nothing in the text to suggest that the narrator expresses a negative evaluative point of view in relation to the marriage by abduction of the dancing girls at Shiloh.7 Lanoir’s mirroring of the “war against Benjamin” (B) and the “war against Yabesh-Gilead” (B1) is not persuasive for three reasons. First, 20:1–48 (B) is 48 verses long and 21:10–14 (B1) is four verses long; viewing the two as forming the inside set of parallel sequences of a chiasmus seems artificial and forced. Second, 21:10–14 (B1) and 21:15–25 (A1) share an important theme in common: the abduction of women to serve as wives for Benjamin. The former is as much a story about “the risky situation of virgin girls” as the latter. It thus seems arbitrary to assign them to different levels in the chiasmus. Third, the plotline of Judges 21 explicitly links 21:10–14 (B1) with 21:15–25 (A1). The former unit ends “And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had let live from among the women of Yabesh-Gilead” (21:14a). The latter unit begins “But they did not find enough for them” (21:15b). The plotline of Judges 21 thus presents the two units as a diptych to be read together. Lanoir’s assignment of the two units to different levels in the chiasmus thus distorts one of the structural elements of the text that appears to be relatively explicit. It should be noted that Lanoir’s proposed structure for Judges 19–21 is more than a simple synopsis of the plot line. She attempts to identify an organizational structure that unifies the narrative and expresses the narrative strategy

5 Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 179. 6 Ibid., 240. 7 It can be noted that marriage by abduction is a practice still used today in certain cultures. In my view, the narrator’s evaluative point of view in Judg 21:15–23 is focused on a negative portrayal of intermarriage between Israelites and Samari(t)ans rather than on a negative portrayal of the institution of marriage by abduction. The narrator’s evaluative point of view in 21:15–23 will be discussed in detail in Chapter 11, Section 2.10 infra.

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

77

of the text as a whole. However, Lanoir’s proposed literary structure raises important methodological questions concerning the relationship between the literary structure of a text and the message that the text seeks to communicate to readers. When structure and content are analyzed simultaneously, there is a risk of engaging in circular reasoning; i.e., the proposed literary structure tends to become a reading template for guiding the modern reader through a long and complex narrative to the commentator’s own predetermined hypothesis about the meaning and purpose of the text.8 In my view, it is methodologically preferable to separate the analysis of structure and content. To be more precise, I would argue that it is more appropriate to engage in an analysis of the literary structure of a text prior to forming any views as to the meaning and purpose of the text. Webb’s 2012 commentary on Judges is an expansion on his previously citied 1987 monograph.9 Among other things, Webb modifies his proposed literary structure for Judges 19–21. He proposes a pentapartite chiastic structure that is very similar to Lanoir’s (although he does not cite Lanoir). According to Webb, the literary structure of Judges 19–21 can be divided into five sections: (A) “the rape of the Levite’s concubine”; (B) “‘holy’ war against Benjamin”; (C) “Problem: The oath – Benjamin threatened with extinction”; (B1) “‘holy’ war against Yabesh-Gilead”; (A1) “the rape of the daughters of Shiloh.”10 In summary, the pentapartite chiastic structures for Judges 19–21, proposed by Lanoir and Webb, conflate the analysis of structure and content. Their proposed literary structures are based on their own interpretive analysis of the meaning and purpose of the text rather than on methodological criteria for identifying structural breaks in the text. The absence of scholarly consensus on the literary structure of Judges 19–21 is illustrated in the following chart comparing the literary structure proposed by seven commentators:

8

9 10

Marjo C.A. Korpel notes, “Generally the delimitations of text-units are based on content and theme, certain expressions which the interpreter sees as ‘keywords,’ or the presumed characteristics of a certain literary genre. Inevitably a certain preunderstanding, often based on modern criteria, influences the choices made and obviously this may well result in a circular argument.” Marjo C.A. Korpel, “Introduction to the Series Pericope” in Delimitation Criticism: A New Tool in Biblical Scholarship (ed. M.C.A. Korpel and J.M. Oesch; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2000), 2. Webb, Judges. Ibid., 907. Webb only identifies the section themes in his pentapartite chiastic structure; he does not delimit the five sections by verse number.

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Gray, 1967

Soggin, 1981

Webb, 1987

Lanoir, 2005

Groß, 2009

Frolov, 2013

Edenburg, 2016

19:1–10a

19:1–9

19:1–28

19:1–30

19:1–4 19:5–10

19:1–30

19:10b–21

19:10–21

19:22–28 19:29–30 20:1–3 20:4–7 20:12–13 20:14–17 20:18 20:19–28

19:22–28 19:29–30 20:1–11

19:29–20:11

19:1–3a 19:3b–8aB 19:8aC–10 19:11–16 19:17–21 19:22–28a 19:28b–30 20:1–16

20:12–17

20:12–48

20:29–48 21:1 21:2–5 21:6–14a 21:14b–16 21:17–24a 21:24b–25

20:29–48 21:1–14 21:1–25

20:1–48

20:18–28

21:15–25

21:1–9 21:10–14

19:11–15 19:16–21 19:22–25 19:26–28e 19:28f–30 20:1–2 20:3–7 20:8–10 20:11–28 20:29–48

21:1–24

21:15–25

20:17–31a 20:31b–34 20:35–37 20:38–43 20:44–48 21:1–5 21:6–15

20:1–48

21:1–25

21:16–24 21:25

21:25

It can be observed that there is only one caesura in the entire narrative, 19:48/ 20:1, as to which all seven commentators under review in this chapter agree. In my view, this absence of consensus justifies taking a fresh look at the literary structure of Judges 19–21. As all seven commentators rely on the literary criterion of thematic changes in the plotline to delimit the narrative, I will propose below an analysis of Judges 19–21 based on structural criteria. 2

Structural Indicia of Caesuras in Judges 19–21

As discussed, most proposed literary structures for Judges 19–21 are based primarily on the methodological criterion of identifying the thematic shifts

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

79

that occur over the course of the narrative. However, the specificities of the narrative intrigue in Judges 19–21 suggest other criteria for determining the literary structure of the text. These include (i) the important role played by individual characters in certain parts of the story and by collective persons in other parts; (ii) the fact that while most of the text makes use of an artful articulation between “telling” (the scenic mode or diégésis) and “showing” (the dramatic mode or mimésis), the protagonists do not engage in direct dialog with each other in certain parts of the story; (iii) the important number of topographic references throughout the narrative; (iv) the use of a “3+1 day” pattern to structure the episodes of the Levite’s visit to his father-in-law in Bethlehem and the three days of battle between Israel and Benjamin; and (v) the fact that narrative is punctuated by occasional phrases that represent non-verbal or disjunctive clauses often introduced by a temporal marker and followed by a series of Wayyiqtol clauses. Each of these specificities of the text will be discussed below. 2.1 Importance of Collective Persons as Protagonists in the Narrative One of the specificities of Judges 19–21 is that all of the protagonists in the long swath of text between Judg 20:8–21:25 are collective persons.11 This phenomenon is particularly striking in the genre of a “war story” in which the narrative intrigue typically focuses on the heroic individual who leads the army in battle. The principal protagonists in Judg 20:8–21:25 are the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin who act collectively without the need for individual military or political leaders. In contrast, all of the protagonists in Judg 19:1–21 are individual persons. These characters include the Levite, his concubine, his father-in-law, his servant boy, and the old man of Gibeah. Between these two sections that are focused entirely on individual or collective characters, a transitional section can be identified in 19:22–20:7 in which both individual and collective characters act and speak. These distinctions suggest a possible

11

There is one exception. In the episode in which the sons of Israel consult YHWH for the third time in 20:26–28, the narrator states, “And the sons of Israel inquired of YHWH […] saying, “Shall I continue again to go out for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I cease?” In the elliptical space between “inquired of YHWH” and “saying,” a parenthetical comment is added: “for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. And Phinehas the son of Eleazar, Aaron’s son, was standing before it in those days” (20:27b28aA). This comment also interrupts the flow of the narrative framework. As will be discussed in Chapter 10, Section 1.2.5 infra, there are compelling reasons to treat the reference to Phinehas as a redactional interpolation.

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first-level structural découpage of the narrative into three micro-narratives: 19:1b–21; 19:22–20:7; and 20:8–21:25.12 2.2 Absence of Direct Dialog in Certain Parts of the Narrative A second and related specificity of Judges 19–21 is that the collective persons do not speak to each other in direct dialog in Judg 20:14–21:9. When they speak, they appear to be addressing themselves and/or the reader. The only exception to this rule is that the sons of Israel do engage in direct dialog with YHWH who responds to them. This distinction – between parts of the narrative in which the characters engage in direct dialog with each other and parts in which they do not – suggests a possible second-level découpage of the narrative into three micro-narratives: 19:1b–20:13 (presence of direct dialog); 20:14–21:9 (absence of direct dialog); and 21:10–25 (presence of direct dialog). 2.3 Importance of Topographical References in the Narrative Intrigue A third specificity of Judges 19–21 is the large number of toponyms that are mentioned.13 However, the toponym that is named most often is the town of Gibeah. The action in the narrative takes place in and around Gibeah in 19:11–28 and in 20:14–40. This suggests a possible third-level découpage of the macronarrative into seven micro-narratives: 19:1–10 (centered on Bethlehem); 19:11– 29 (centered on Gibeah); 19:30–20:13 (centered primarily on Mizpah); 20:14–45 (centered on Gibeah and Bethel); 20:46–48 (centered on Rock of Rimmon and the Benjamin region); 21:1–14 (centered on Bethel, Rock of Rimmon and Yabesh-Gilead); and 21:15–45 (centered on Shiloh). 2.4 Use of a “3+1 Day” Pattern It can be observed that two episodes in the narrative are structured on a “3+1 day” pattern. First, in the story of the Levite’s visit to Bethlehem, the narrator 12 13

As discussed, I delimit the macro-narrative in Judges 19–21 as beginning in 19:1b, such that 19:1a is the closure of the preceding macro-narrative. See discussion in Chapter 2, Section 2.1 supra. The following geographical locations are mentioned in Judges 19–21: Israel (19:1a; 20:21b; 21:25a); mount Ephraim (19:1b.16a); Bethlehem of Judah (19:1b.2a.18a [×2]); Jebus, that is Jerusalem (19:10a); Gibeah (19:12a.13b.14b.15a.16a;20:4b.5a.8a10b.12b.14b.15b.19b.20b.21a.25 a.29.30b.31b.34a.36b.37a.43a); Ramah (19:13b); the house of YHWH (19:18b); all the territory of Israel (19:29b); Egypt (19:30a); Dan (19:1a); Beer-Sheva (20:1a); the land of Gilead (20:1a); Mizpah (20:1b.3a; 21:1a.5b.8a); the open territory of the inheritance of Israel (20:6a); Bethel (20:18a.26a.31b; 21:2a.19a(×2); Baal-Tamar (20:33a); Gava (20:33b); Benjamin (20:35a); Rock of Rimmon (20:45a.47a.47b; 21:13a); Gidom (20:45b); Yabesh-Gilead (21:9b.10b.12a.14a); Shiloh (21:12b.19a.21a [×2]); Canaan (21:12b); Shechem (21:19a); Lebonah (21:19b); and land of Benjamin (21:21b).

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

81

states, “And his father-in-law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him. And he dwelled with him three days. And they ate. And they drank. And they stayed the night there” (19:4). As used in other biblical narratives, the significance of the pattern is that after three days of eating and drinking, the reader can expect that something significant will happen on the fourth day.14 Similarly, the story of the war between Israel and Benjamin is structured as a sequence of three battles that take place on three consecutive days. After the third day of battle, the men of Israel return to the sons of Benjamin, presumably on the fourth day. “And they struck them with the edge of the sword, from the citadel, to the cattle, to all that they found. All the cities they found, they sent away with fire” (20:48). The use of the “3+1 day” pattern in these two episodes suggests a possible fourth level découpage of the narrative in which there is a caesura between the events of the first three days and the events on the fourth day between 19:4/5 and 20:47/48. 2.5 Use of Temporal Markers and Disjunctive Phrases Syntactically, the text in Judges 19–21 is characterized by long series of Wayyiqtol phrases punctuated by non-verbal clauses and direct dialog. It can be noted that a series of Wayyiqtol phrases is introduced with the temporal marker ‫ וַ יְ ִה‬or ‫ וְ ָהיָ ה‬in 19:1b, 19:5a 19:30a and 20:46a. It can also be noted that phrases in which the subject precedes a Qatal verb introduce a series of Wayyiqtol phrases in 21:1 and 21:15. In addition, asyndetic phrases (in which the phrase is not preceded by a waw) introduce a series of Wayyiqtol phrases in 19:22 and 20:31aB. These changes in syntactical structure may signal the closure of one micro-narrative

14

Cf. Wolfgang M.W. Roth, “The Numerical Sequence x/x + 1 in the Old Testament,” VT, 12, 1 (1962): 300–311; Yairah Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives: Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 62–65; Eric Eynikel, “One Day, Three Days, and Forty Days in the Book of Jonah” in One Text, A Thousand Methods, Studies in Memory of Sjef van Tilborg (ed. P.A. Counet and U. Berges; Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005), 65–76. Roth identifies a limited number of passages in which the words “three and four” appear; however, none of them refers to three days plus a fourth day. Amit argues that the “3+1” structure is a frequently used technique to develop the narrative intrigue. “As we shall see, this structure is often used to convey confrontation and persuasion and for effecting a change of attitude. It entails four events sharing a common denominator, the last of which entails a change in position: in other words, after three ineffective occurrences, there is an effective fourth.” Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives, 62. Amit notes the “3+1 day” pattern in Judg 9:7–21, Judg 14:6–21 and Job 1:13–22, but not in Judges 19–21. Ibid., 62–63. My research indicates that the “3+1 day” pattern is also used in the following pericopes: Exod 10:22–24; 15:22–25; Josh 2:15–16; 2:22–23; 3:2–5; 1 Sam 20:19–20; Jon 1:17–2:10; 2 Ch 20:25–27.

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and the opening of another.15 This suggests a possible sixth-level découpage of the narrative into eight micro-narratives: 19:1b–4; 19:5–21; 19:22–29; 19:30– 20:31aA; 19:31aB–45; 20:46–48; 21:1–14; and 21:15–45. 2.6 Conclusions Five structural criteria for identifying caesuras in Judges 19–21 can be discerned: (i) the differential use of individual and collective persons as protagonists; (ii) the absence of direct dialog between two or more characters in certain parts of the text; (iii) the importance of topographical references in the narrative intrigue; (iv) the use of a “3+1 day” pattern; and (v) the use of temporal markers and disjunctive clauses. It can be observed that there is considerable overlap between the results obtained using different criteria. First, the caesura between 19:4/5 is marked by the use of a temporal marker and use of a “3+1 day” pattern. Second, the caesura between 19:21/22 is indicated by the use of an asyndetic clause to introduce a series of Wayyiqtol phrases and by the introduction of the first set of collective characters in the narrative. Third, the caesura between 19:29/30 is signaled by the use of a temporal marker as well as a change in geographic locale from Gibeah to Mizpah. Fourth, the caesura between 20:13/14 reflects both a change in geographic locale and a shift to a unit in which there is an absence of direct dialog between two or more characters. Fifth, the caesura between 20:46/47 is indicated by a change in geographic locale as well as by use of a temporal marker to introduce the concluding phrase. Sixth, the caesuras between 20:48/21:1 and 21:14/15 are both introduced by a Qatal clause and both reflect a change in geographic locale. In summary, the foregoing analysis of verses that contain at least two different criteria of structural caesuras suggest that the following verses point to possible breaks in the literary structure: 19:4/5; 19:21/22; 19:29/30; 20:13/14, 20:45/46, 20:48/21:1, and 21:14/15. While use of structural criteria to delimit the literary structure of a narrative provides a greater degree of objectivity than reliance on perceived thematic changes in the plotline, structural criteria are theoretical in nature and can only serve to provide a preliminary introduction to the issue of literary structure. Every narrative has its own literary strategy for communicating meaning to the reader. This strategy involves the use of various literary techniques 15

The semantic significance of disjunctive Qatal clauses and asyndetic clauses that introduce or interrupt a series of Wayyiqtol phrases will be discussed in detail in Chapter 10, Section 3.6 infra. One of the functions of these clauses is to signal the opening of a new unit. Thomas Lambdin notes that Gen 3:1; 4:1; 16:1; 21:1 begin with a Qatal clause in which the subject precedes the verb. Thomas O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1973), § 132 (d).

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

83

to structure the forward movement of the plotline. The following section will explore the narrative strategy of Judges 19–21 in the light of the structural indicia of caesuras discussed above. 3

Proposed Literary Structure for Judges 19–21

This section will seek to demonstrate that the text uses two consistent techniques to handle narrative closure.16 First, at the moment in the narrative intrigue when the reader would expect closure, the text provides instead a “surprise ending” that reverses the reader’s expectations and propels the plotline forward to another intrigue. Second, when the text does provide what appears to the reader to be a satisfactory closure, the plotline surprises the reader by rebounding immediately with a new intrigue that is not signaled with a proper opening. It will be demonstrated below that these series of surprise endings and surprise openings dovetail with the structural indicia of caesuras in the text noted above; together, they provide the best indicator, in my opinion, for understanding the literary structure of Judges 19–21. 3.1 Judges 19:1b–4 The macro-narrative opens with the verse “And it came to pass that there was a Levite man, residing in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine wife, from Bethlehem of Judah” (19:1b).17 The narrator’s exposition is intended to provide the reader with essential background information about two characters, a man and a woman, and to lay the foundation for the narrative intrigue that will follow. However, the narrator’s exposition withholds more information than it provides. While certain readers may be content to accept the narrator’s limited information and wait patiently to learn what will happen next, it is likely that most readers experience a feeling of frustration because the narrator’s statement leaves so many critical

16

17

Various definitions of “closure” have been proposed to describe the final phase of a narrative intrigue. I will follow the definition proposed by Raphaël Baroni: “L’intrigue, en tant qu’enchainement de faits, repose sur la présence d’une tension interne entre ces faits qui doit être créée dès le début du récit, entretenue pendant son développement et qui doit trouver sa résolution dans le dénouement.” Raphaël Baroni, La tension narrative: Suspense, curiosité et surprise (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2007), 41, citing Roland Bourneuf and Réal Ouellet, L’univers du roman (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1972), 43. Judg 19:1b opens with the temporal marker ‫וַ יְ ִה‬.

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questions unanswered.18 Why does the Levite reside as a ger in a land other than his birthplace? Where is he from? Why is his woman a concubine rather than a regular wife? Does he have another wife? However, the reader does more than simply formulate “prognostic” and “diagnostic” questions addressed to a text that he or she knows cannot respond.19 Instead, the reader proceeds to answer these questions by formulating hypothetical answers based on his or her knowledge of biblical literature and personal life-experience.20 For example, the reader might answer that the Levite resides far from home because, like the Levite in Judges 17, he could not find work in his place of birth. The woman could be a concubine wife because, like Abraham in Genesis 16, the Levite already has a primary wife who may be infertile. These answers constitute counter-narratives or complementary narratives in which the reader creates expectations about what will happen next in the narrative intrigue. The competent story-reader is also a story-teller. However, MT 19:2 introduces an unexpected surprise that reverses the reader’s expectations about what will happen next in the plotline: “And his concubine whored against him.21 And she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah. And she was there, the days of four months”

18

19

20

21

Meir Sternberg describes the reader’s “state of mind” in response to information withheld by the narrator as being characterized by “expectant restlessness, awareness of gaps, gapfilling inference along alternative lines, with the attention thrown forward to the point in time that will resolve it all and establish closure by supplying the desired information.” Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 264. Baroni argues that suspense in a narrative intrigue encourages the reader to ask “prognostic questions” such as “What will X do next?” while curiosity about information that the narrator has failed to disclose encourages the reader to ask “diagnostic questions” such as “Why did X take a certain action?” Baroni, La tension narrative, 99. Sternberg argues, “With the future suddenly turned opaque, the dynamics of suspense enjoys free play, and we start calculating the chances for and against the alternative resolutions by appeal to natural probabilities. Like the characters themselves, we then form and shift our hypotheses by reference to the social context, the relative strength of the parties involved, their personality and antecedents; and, like them, we may fail to achieve closure before the event.” Sternberg, Poetics, 277. The phrase “And she whored against him” in MT 19:2a has a complex compositional history. I have argued that the earliest composition stratum read, “and she was furious with him” and that this phrase was changed to “and his concubine transgressed against him” in the final composition stratum. The MT variant used in this synchronic analysis of the text was added by scribes probably after 100 CE. See discussed in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.1 supra and Chapter 9, Section 1.3 infra.

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

85

(19:2).22 The reader is no doubt overwhelmed with feelings of shock and surprise.23 The concubine’s unfaithfulness and abandonment of her husband are doubly unexpected. First, there is nothing in Judg 19:1b that prepares the reader for this surprising turn of events. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the plot is developing in a way that is contrary to the reader’s expectation. The shocking nature of this surprise should not be underestimated. On the basis of the number of dicta devoted to female infidelity in Proverbs, Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon, it is fair to conclude that cuckoldry was a significant emotional concern of men in ancient Israel. Indeed, the infidelity of the Levite’s concubine is compounded by her abandonment of her husband. These two phrases surprise the reader but also redirect his or her curiosity. The reader can now reasonably expect that the narrative intrigue will revolve around the woman’s punishment for her infidelity.24 This encourages the reader to pose prognostic questions such as, “How will the Levite respond? Will his fatherin-law take the Levite’s side or try to protect his daughter from punishment? After her four-month stay in Bethlehem, will it be obvious to her husband that she is pregnant? If so, is the Levite or her paramour the father of the child?”25 The surprise in 19:2 thus creates a strong feeling of suspense and encourages the reader to formulate expectations about what will happen next. However, the surprise in 19:2 is followed by yet another surprise that reverses the reader’s expectations: “And her husband rose up and he went after her, to 22 23

24

25

The motif of a four-month stay is used only one other time in the MT, in Judg 20:47. After the massacre of the Benjaminites, a remnant of 600 soldiers flee to the desert and take refuge at the rock of Rimmon “where they stayed four months.” In defining the “post-classical approach to the quinary schema,” Daniel Marguerat states, “Le texte, surtout dans sa phase de nouement, est en effet vu comme une entité génératrice de trames virtuelles. Amorçant une tension chez le lecteur en lui faisant anticiper une pluralité d’intrigues virtuelles, le récit joue de cette tension en faisant attendre le dénouement, ou en installant l’incertitude, puis en validant tel aboutissement au détriment d’un autre possible. […] Mais principalement, face au schéma quinaire, c’est la compréhension (complexifiée) du nœud qui devient majeure : le nouement du récit est générateur d’incertitude, d’embarras, de questions chez le lecteur, car il fait surgir la possibilité de plusieurs dénouements possibles dont le récit ne va sélectionner qu’un seul.” Daniel Marguerat, “Intrigue et tension narrative en Marc 14 et Luc 22 : Une approche postclassique du schéma quinaire” in L’intrigue dans le récit biblique, Quatrième Colloque International du RRENAB, Université Laval, Québec, 29 mai–1er juin 2008 (ed. A. Pasquier, D. Marguerat, A. Wénin; Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2010), 45. According to Prov 6:34–35, a cuckolded husband is expected to be angry rather than conciliatory, “For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge. He will not accept any compensation; he will refuse the bribe, however great it is.” In Sirach’s condemnation of female adultery in Sir 23:22–27, he focuses in particular on the cuckolded husband’s concern that he may be raising another man’s child.

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reason with her, to bring her back” (19:3aA). As I argue that the use of surprise is essential to the literary structure of Judges 19–21, the supposed incongruence between a man who has been cuckolded by his woman and a man who wants to reconcile with her serves a literary purpose. It is the incongruence between the two verses that creates the surprise. This surprise opens up a wide range of reader-generated hypotheses about what will happen next. The text then introduces yet another surprise to confound the reader’s expectations. The Levite travels to his father-in-law’s house but it is his concubine “who brought him (‫ )וַ ְּת ִב ֵיאהּו‬into the house of her father” (19:3bA). As it is not the role of a woman to greet a man at the entrance of her father’s house,26 this verse also surprises the reader. Although the meaning of the Hif‘il verb ‫יאהּו‬ ֵ ‫ וַ ְּת ִב‬is perfectly clear in the MT, the LXXA variant of 19:3bA reads, καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἕως οἴκου τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς (And he went into the house of her father). It is likely that the Greek translator emended the verse in order to portray the Levite’s concubine in a more expected, gender-conforming light. The Levite then “dwelled with him [his father-in-law] three days. And they ate and they drank. And they spent the night there” (19:4). As many biblical narratives follow a “3+1 day” pattern, the reader can reasonably expect that after three days of eating and drinking, something significant will happen on the fourth day. This pattern encourages the reader to speculate as to what will happen next. It is likely that most readers expect that the Levite’s stay with his father-in-law will end on the third day and the protagonist will leave Bethlehem to return home in the morning of the fourth day. However, the reader’s expectation is frustrated by the introduction of yet another surprise: The host invites his guest to stay longer, first to postpone his departure until after a meal (19:5), and then to spend a fourth night (19:6). 3.2 Judges 19:5–21 As the reader knows from personal experience that it is not reasonable to begin a full day’s walk in the afternoon following a long mid-day meal, it can be expected that the Levite will accept his host’s invitation to spend a fourth night in Bethlehem and leave early in the morning on the fifth day to begin his long journey to his home in the hill country of Ephraim. However, the text reverses the reader’s expectation when the Levite refuses the invitation and “rises up to go” (19:7a). Readers now turn their thoughts to all the mishaps that are likely to follow from the Levite’s impulsive decision to leave in the afternoon. However,

26

In a patriarchal culture, the front door is not a woman’s place. In Prov 7:13–15, it is the prostitute who lingers in her doorway inviting in passers-by.

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

87

the narrative introduces an element of surprise when the father-in-law “urged him strongly. And he came back. And he stayed the night there” (19:7b). The reader’s sense of relief that the Levite will spend the fourth night and leave early in the morning to return to his house is then frustrated by the host’s unexpected invitation to spend a fifth day in Bethlehem. As before, the Levite “rises up to go” and the host invites him to spend another night. However, this time, the host tells the Levite exactly what the reader wants him to say: “Behold! The day is preparing its camp. Stay the night here! And may your inner-person be glad. And you will awaken early tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent” (19:9b). However, once again, the Levite rises up to go (19:10a). It can be observed that the Levite has already “risen up to go” three times (19:7a.8a. 9a). The reader can reasonably expect that the fourth attempt to rise up to leave in 19:10a will be significant. This creates suspense in the reader’s mind. What will the Levite do next? As the Levite’s fourth attempt “to rise up to go” occurs at twilight (19:9a), the reader knows that this is not the right time to begin a long journey on foot. The reader thus expects that the Levite will agree to spend a fifth night in Bethlehem. However, the narrator reverses the reader’s expectation once again and states, “But the man was not willing to stay the night. And he rose up. And he went. And he came near Jebus. And with him was the pair of saddled donkeys. And his concubine was with him.” (19:10). While this surprise ending can be said to provide closure to the episode of the Levite’s visit to Bethlehem, it is not a closure that provides the reader with a sense of relief and finality. To the contrary, the reader is filled with a foreboding feeling of suspense and is eager to learn how the journey will end. The unexpected nature of the closure leaves the reader with an anxious feeling that a trip that begins at an inauspicious time will end badly.27 27

Bénédicte Lemmelijn discusses the significance of nightfall in biblical texts. She states, “When one studies the darkness as a literary motif, one soon notices that it plays an important role in the evocation of a certain atmosphere. More specifically, it appears that the fear of night and darkness has to do with the threatening element that comes out of the ‘unknown’. […] When one combines this notion with the stark reality of the severely limited availability of artificial light in the ancient Near East, it quickly becomes evident that darkness is not only sinister, but dangerous as well. Darkness in this context becomes synonymous with the end of daily activities. All work stops after sundown. This fact led also to a situation in which public life came to an almost complete stop after dusk and the fading away of the light. […] In an analogous way, it seems that the setting of a biblical story at dusk, in the evening or at night had an immediate, frightening effect.” Bénédicte Lemmelijn, “‘Palpable Darkness’: The Meaning of Exod 10,21–29 in the Literary Context of the Plague Narrative and the Cultural-Historical Background of the Ancient Near East” in A Pillar of Cloud to Guide: Text-Critical, Redactional, and Linguistic Perspectives on the

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The Levite and his entourage leave Bethlehem and walk northwards. The text introduces a direct dialog sequence that takes place on the road outside of the Canaanite town of Jebus as the sun is setting. The Levite’s servant boy proposes that they spend the night there. The Levite disagrees and states, “We shall not detour into a town of foreigners that has no sons of Israel [living there]. And we shall travel further to Gibeah” (19:12). But when the group arrived in Gibeah and sat down in the town square, “[…] there was no man gathering them into the house to spend the night” (19:15b).28 As the reader already knows that the journey began at an inauspicious time of day, the “bad ending” of the journey to Gibeah episode is not unexpected. However, this closure is immediately followed by a surprise. Even though it is already after dark, an old man coming from his work in the fields manages to see the Levite’s group sitting in the town square (19:16a). The plotline advances exactly as the reader would expect: “And he brought him into his house. And he gave provender to the donkeys. And they washed their feet. And they ate. And they drank” (19:21). This happy ending recalls the happy ending of the Levite’s third day in Bethlehem which ended with the narrator’s statement, “And they ate. And they drank. And they spent the night there” (19:4b). The reader experiences a sense of relief at this point in the narrative and fully expects that the Levite and his entourage will spend an uneventful night in Gibeah.29

28

29

Old Testament in Honour of Marc Vervenne (ed. H. Ausloos and B. Lemmelijn; Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 172–173. The Levite’s response indicates that he believes he will be received more graciously in Israelite Gibeah than in Canaanite Jebus. This introduces a double irony in the narrative. First, the Levite and his woman will end up being treated worse in Gibeah than they could have imagined would be the case in Jebus. Second, the servant boy’s recommendation of the place to spend the night turns out to be better advice than his master’s. At this point in the text, there is no reason for the reader to expect this outcome. Sophie Ramond has noted an association between the reader reactions of surprise and irony. She argues that a narrative with a surprise ending that reverses the reader’s expectations can generate irony. She cites Qohelet 9:13–15 as an example. In this short narrative, a city besieged by a powerful king is delivered by a poor wise man. However, Qohelet adds a second conclusion to the narrative, “But no man remembered that poor man.” Ramond argues, “Ce qui se produit est en contradiction flagrante avec ce que le lecteur pourrait prévoir concernant l’homme pauvre et sage. Dans cet épisode, le renversement attendu consisterait à penser que l’homme pauvre et sage est placé à la tête de la ville et le grand roi puni ou banni. Un tel renversement aurait mis en œuvre une sorte de justice intrinsèque au déroulement des évènements. […] [L]e coup de théâtre surprend et modifie le sens de la narration de sorte que le lecteur est obligé de suspendre son jugement.” Sophie Ramond, “Y a-t-il de l’ironie dans le livre de Qohélet ?” VT 60 (2010): 624. It is possible that the wording of 19:21 is intended to provide the attentive reader with a clue. While the first three-day stay in Bethlehem closes with “And they ate. And they drank. And they spent the night there” (19:4b), the phrase “And they spent the night there”

Literary Structure of Judges 19–21

89

3.3 Judges 19:22–29 The reader’s sense of relief that the Levite and his entourage are comfortably lodged and are eating and drinking is then suddenly frustrated with a surprise: “They were making glad their heart. “And behold! The men of the town, the men of the sons of Belial, surrounded the house, beating violently on the door” (19:22a). The old man of Gibeah and the sons of Belial then engage in dialog that is recounted in a narrative speed equal to real time. In contrast, the allnight ordeal of the Levite’s concubine is presented in a single half-verse: “And they knew her and abused her all the night until morning. And they sent her away at the rise of dawn” (19:25b). The gruesome gang-rape scene appears to reach a narrative closure when the narrator states, “And she came back at the turning of the morning. And the woman fell at the entrance of the house of the man where her lord was until the light” (19:26). However, this ending is immediately followed by a surprise second ending: “And he [the Levite] took her on the donkey. And the man rose up. And he went to his place (‫( ”)וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬19:28b). The typical nature of this second closure, “and he went to his place,”30 could even lead an attentive reader to interpret 19:28 as the closure to the entire set of episodes that began with the narrator’s statement, “And her husband rose up and he went after her, to reason with her, to bring her back. And his servant boy was with him and a pair of donkeys” (19:3a). The typical ending in 19:28 is however followed by yet another unexpected surprise ending: “And he came to his house. And he took the knife. And he laid hold of his concubine. And he cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. And he sent her into all the territory of Israel” (19:29). The element of surprise is reinforced by the fact that 19:29 is a series of Wayyiqtol phrases that follow directly after the Wayyiqtol phrases, “And he took her on the donkey. And the man rose up. And he went to his place.” The reader obviously expects continuity rather than rupture in a long series of Wayyiqtol phrases. As there are no antecedent hints or clues in the text that prepare the reader for this totally unexpected development concerning the butchering of the woman’s corpse, the second closure in 20:29 engenders shock and surprise and develops a sense of urgency in the reader’s mind to learn what will happen next.

30

is not included in the parallel closing verse in 19:21b. Might this be a hint that the Levite and his entourage will not in fact spend a peaceful night in Gibeah? See Gen 18:33 (‫ ;)וְ ַא ְב ָר ָהם ָׁשב ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬Gen 32:1 (‫ ;)ַּיֵ ֶלְך וַ ּיָ ָׁשב ָל ָבן ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬and Num 24:25 (‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬ ‫ם־ּב ָלק ָה ַלְך ְל ַד ְרּכֹו‬ ָ ַ‫)וַ ּיָ ָׁשב ִל ְמקֹמֹו וְ ג‬. Although MT Gen 32:1 is the first verse of the chapter, the LXX variant of this verse is numbered Gen 31:55; i.e., the closing verse of chapter 31.

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3.4 Judges 19:30–20:13 The surprise ending in 19:29 is followed by a typical form of opening in 19:30 that begins with the temporal marker ‫ וְ ָהיָ ה‬followed by a Qatal verb, followed by a series of Wayyiqtol phrases. This narrative sequence, which takes place principally in Mizpah, develops in detail the outrage of the sons of Israel over the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine and the community’s plans to punish the men who committed the crime. This development tends to confirm the reader’s expectations that the crime will indeed be avenged. The narrative creates feelings of solidarity and optimism in the reader’s mind. The sons of Israel act as “one man” (20:1a.8a.11) and make a unanimous collective decision to send a delegation to Benjamin demanding that the guilty parties, “the sons of Belial who are in Gibeah,” be handed over to the sons of Israel for proper punishment (20:12–13a). There is nothing in the text that would suggest to the reader that the men of the town of Gibeah might resist this demand, made on behalf of the community of the sons of Israel gathered in the assembly of the people of God (20:2). The reader can reasonably expect that this episode will have a “happy ending” that might even provide an appropriate closure of punishment for the crime that had occurred at Gibeah. However, the narrative catches the reader by surprise and reverses his or her expectations. The narrator states succinctly, “But the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel” (20:13b). 3.5 Judges 20:14–46 The surprise ending in 20:13b is followed by an opening that describes the preparations for war.31 The army of the sons of Israel comprises 400,000 men while the sons of Benjamin come to battle with only 26,700 armed men (20:14– 17). The reader can observe that the sons of Israel outnumber their opponents by almost 15 to one and should therefore be able to crush the enemy without difficulty. The reader can also expect that the battle will be described in enjoyable detail. However, the text reverses both of these reader expectations and provides a surprise ending to the battle that ends in Israel’s defeat that is summarily reported in annalistic manner: “And they [the sons of Benjamin] destroyed in Israel that day 22,000 men to the ground” (20:21b). Following the first disastrous battle, the text provides its own literary structure for the war story that follows a “3+1 day” pattern. It can be observed that

31

Judg 20:14 introduces a change in geographic locale from Mizpah to Gibeah and introduces a narrative unit in which the protagonists will no longer engage in direct dialog with each other.

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the syntagma ‫( ַּבּיֹום ַההּוא‬on that day) is used five times in Judges 20:14–46.32 The narrator introduces the second day in 20:24 with the statement “And the sons of Israel drew close to the sons of Benjamin the second day.” The events on the third day are introduced with a similar phrase, “And the sons of Israel went up to the sons of Benjamin on the third day” (20:30a). The battle on the third day appears to reach closure when the narrator states, “And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day, all drawing the sword. And the sons of Benjamin saw that they were smitten” (20:35–36a). The reader can reasonably understand the narrator’s statement of Israel’s victory over Benjamin as the closure of the war story and possibly the closure of the narrative as a whole. However, the report that Israel “destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day” is immediately followed by a rebounding of action: “And the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ambush they had set against Gibeah.” This surprise opening following a typical closing has perplexed critical scholars for over a century. Those commentators who use a synchronic approach interpret the resumption of battle in 20:36b as an analeptic digression that provides additional information about the battle on the third day.33 Those commentators who use a diachronic approach generally treat the socalled digression as a fracture in the text that can best be explained by positing that two separate source texts have been combined by a redactor.34 However, what is noteworthy from the reader’s perspective is that there are no structural elements that prepare the reader to understand that the forward-moving chronology of the narrative is being interrupted in 20:36b with an analeptic digression. As the syntax of 20:35–36 consists of a series of four Wayyiqtol phrases, the reader experiences a feeling of surprise when the narrative appears to reach closure in 20:36a and then suddenly rebounds in 20:36b with another episode in the war story. The narrative sequence that is introduced with the surprise opening in 20:36b reaches a typical closure in 20:46 introduced by the temporal marker ‫וַ יְ ִהי‬.35 The narrator states, “And it came to pass that all the fallen among 32 33 34 35

Judg 20:15.21.26.35.46. Ernst J. Revell, “The Battle with Benjamin (Judges XX 29–48),” VT 35 (1985): 430; Philip E. Satterthwaite, “Narrative Artistry in the Composition of Judges XX 29FF,” VT 42, 1 (1992): 85. The literary problem posed by 20:36b and the diachronic solutions that have been proposed will be discussed in Chapter 10, Section 3.1 infra. The temporal marker ‫ וַ יְ ִהי‬is used both to open and to close a narrative; in Judg 20:46, it functions as a closure, as in Gen 30:43b; Exod 12:51; Judg 11:39b–40; 1 Sam 10:27b; 18:30b; 2Ki 3:27b; 19:37; 1 Ch 15:29.

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Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword; all these were valiant men.” This statement could be interpreted by the reader as an entirely appropriate ending to the war narrative or indeed to the macro-narrative as a whole. However, the narrative immediately rebounds in 20:47. 3.6 Judges 20:47–48 Following the statement that “all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword,” the action suddenly rebounds in 20:47: “And they turned around. And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon; 600 men. And they stayed at the rock of Rimmon four months” (20:47).36 The text thus reverses the reader’s expectations that the episode has reached closure in 20:46 with another surprise ending. By introducing the plot element that 600 men of Benjamin had survived the war and fled to the rock of Rimmon, the text creates suspense and encourages the reader to speculate about what will happen next to this handful of survivors. The “3+1 day” structure of the battle narrative is maintained when, following the third day of battle and the flight of the 600 survivors to the desert, the sons of Israel “come back (‫ ) ָׁשבּו‬to the sons of Benjamin” to destroy all of the towns that were inhabited by Benjaminites (20:48). The reader can reasonably interpret these events on the fourth day as signifying that the narrative unit of the three-day battle has finally reached closure. As the war story began with the narrator’s statement, “And the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities (‫ן־ה ָע ִרים‬ ֶ ‫ ) ִמ‬to Gibeah” (20:14a), an attentive reader could reasonably interpret the narrator’s closing statement in 20:48b, “In addition, they set on fire all the cities (‫ל־ה ָע ִרים‬ ֶ ‫ ) ָּכ‬which they found” as the closure to the war narrative and possibly to the narrative as a whole. 3.7 Judges 21:1–14 A new episode clearly begins in 21:1. The episode describes (i) Israel’s regret that the tribe of Benjamin has been exterminated, save 600 wifeless men and (ii) the problem posed by the oath that the sons of Israel had sworn not to give their daughters to Benjamin as wives. The proposed solution to this problem is to attack Yabesh-Gilead and to exterminate all of its inhabitants, save the virgin young women, who are to be given to the sons of Benjamin as wives. The episode reaches what appears to be an appropriate closure in 20:13b–14a: “And they proclaimed peace to them. And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had let live from among the women of 36

Judg 20:46 is a phrase introduced by a temporal marker and 20:47 introduces a change in geographic locale from Gibeah to the Rock of Rimmon.

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Yabesh-Gilead.” But once again, the text reverses the reader’s expectation of closure by introducing an unexpected surprise ending in 20:14b: “But they did not find enough [wives] for them.” 3.8 Judges 21:15–24 The surprise ending in 21:14b impels the narrative forward with yet another episode about finding wives for the sons of Benjamin. The opening phrase in 21:15a, “And the people relented toward to Benjamin (‫ ”)וְ ָה ָעם נִ ָחם ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬is a repetition of the similar phrase in 21:6a, “And the sons of Israel relented toward his brother Benjamin (‫ל־ּבנְ ִיָמן ָא ִחיו‬ ִ ‫)וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬.” This repetition encourages the reader to expect that the sequence will follow the pattern of Judg 21:1–14 and involve yet another war scene in which men are killed and young women are taken as war brides. This expectation of another war episode is reinforced when the elders of the congregation state in Judg 21:18a, “But as to us, we cannot give them wives from among our daughters (‫נּוכל ָל ֵתת־‬ ַ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו לֹא‬ ‫נֹותינּו‬ ֵ ‫) ָל ֶהם נָ ִׁשים ִמ ְּב‬.” This is a repetition of the similar statement in Judg 21:7b before the war with Yabesh-Gilead, “And we swore an oath by YHWH not to give them wives from among our daughters (‫ת־ל ֶהם‬ ָ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו נִ ְׁש ַּב ְענּו ַביהוָ ה ְל ִב ְל ִּתי ֵּת‬ ‫נֹותינּו ְלנָ ִׁשים‬ ֵ ‫) ִמ ְּב‬.” However, the narrator surprises the reader by invalidating his or her expectation that the problem of the remaining wifeless Benjaminites will be solved with another bloody war. Instead, the sons of Israel recommend that the sons of Benjamin hide in the vines on the outskirts of the place where the Shiloh festival will be held and then rush forward and abduct virgin dancing girls and force them into marriage. This unexpected development creates suspense. The reader can anticipate several different outcomes to this set of events. The narrative intrigue takes an interesting twist at this point. Rather than holding the reader in suspense until the end of the sequence to learn how the girls’ fathers and brothers will react, the narrator anticipates the reader’s concern and addresses it immediately. The elders of the congregation say to the sons of Benjamin, “And it will come to pass that their fathers or brothers will come to quarrel with us. And we shall say to them, ‘Be gracious to them, for we did not take a woman for each man in the battle, nor did you give [them] to them at this time [such that] you would incur guilt” (21:22). Although the outcome of the “quarrel” with the men of Shiloh remains unknown at this point in the plotline, the suspense in the sequence is nonetheless significantly reduced by what the reader can reasonably interpret to be an “ingenious” litigation strategy proposed by the elders of the congregation. This time the narrator validates the reader’s expectation that the episode will have a happy ending. The sons of Benjamin “carried away wives in

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accordance with their number from among the dancers whom they had abducted,” presumably without incident (21:23a). The episode reaches a typical closure in 20:23b–24: “And they [the sons of Benjamin] went. And they came back to their inheritance. And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them. And the sons of Israel went from there at that time, each man to his tribe and to his clan. And they went out from there each man to his inheritance.” This ending provides closure to the episode concerning the wifeless Benjaminites, as well as closure to the principal narrative intrigue in Judges 19–21 – the conflict between the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin provoked by the gangrape and murder of the Levite’s concubine at Gibeah. 3.9 Judges 21:25 Judges 19–21 ends with the refrain, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” (21:25). As previously discussed, this secondary conclusion to Judg 20:23–24 serves to integrate Judges 19–21 into the series of narratives in Judges 17–18 that end similarly.37 4 Conclusions It has been demonstrated that the Judges 19–21 uses two consistent techniques to handle narrative closure. First, at the moment in the narrative intrigue when the reader would expect closure, the text provides a “surprise ending” that reverses the reader’s expectations and propels the plotline forward to another intrigue. Second, when the text does provide what appears to be a satisfactory closure, the plotline surprises the reader by rebounding immediately with a new intrigue that is not signaled with a typical opening. This technique serves to propel a long narrative forward by creating the impression in the reader’s mind that the text is a continuous whole without obvious caesuras. The literary structure of Judges 19–21 reflects a dialogic relationship between the text and the reader. When the narrator withholds information, the reader is encouraged to question the text and to form hypotheses about what the protagonist will do next and how the plot will develop towards closure. The reader’s expectations (which seem to be anticipated by the text) create a situation in which the text will have to respond to the reader by confirming or invalidating those expectations. A narrative in which the reader’s expectations are consistently confirmed is a boring story in which the narrator has added little value. A narrative in which the reader’s expectations are consistently invalidated is 37

See discussion of the diachronic issues posed by 21:25 in Chapter 11, Section 3.4 supra.

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a frustrating story that seems unreal (“Kafkaesque” in modern terms) to the reader. A narrative such as Judges 19–21, that artfully interweaves confirmation and invalidation of reader expectations, sustains the reader’s interest and leaves the reader with the satisfaction of having read a narrative that is more skillfully presented than the one he or she had mentally anticipated over the course of reading the text. 5

Chapter Summary

Most commentators propose a literary structure for Judges 19–21 that divides the narrative into three or more micro-narratives and further subdivides each micro-narrative into a series of episodes. The most common criteria used for identifying caesuras in the text are changes in the dramatis personæ and thematic shifts over the course of the narrative. However, the heuristic value of these structures is questionable. They provide a synopsis of the plotline but do not address the more complex question of how the sequencing of the narrative units and their internal structure contribute to the text’s narrative strategy for communicating meaning to the reader. This chapter proposes that a methodology for defining the literary structure of a biblical narrative should begin with a structural analysis of the text. Five structural criteria for identifying caesuras in Judges 19–21 have been proposed: (i) the differential use of individual and collective persons as protagonists; (ii) the absence of direct dialog between two or more characters in certain parts of the text; (iii) the importance of topographical references in the narrative intrigue; (iv) the use of a “3+1 day” pattern; and (v) the use of temporal markers and disjunctive clauses. There is considerable overlap between the results obtained using different criteria that suggests the following verses point to possible caesuras in the literary structure: 19:4/5; 19:21/22; 19:29/30; 20:13/14; 20:45/46; 20:48/21:1; and 21:14/15. While use of structural criteria to delimit the literary structure of a narrative provides a greater degree of objectivity than customary reliance on perceived thematic changes in the plotline, structural criteria are theoretical in nature and can only serve to provide a preliminary introduction to the issue of literary structure. Every narrative has its own literary strategy for communicating meaning to the reader. This strategy involves the use of various literary techniques to structure the forward movement of the plotline. Judges 19–21 uses two consistent techniques to handle narrative closure; i.e., the transition from one narrative unit to another. First, at the moment in the narrative intrigue when the reader would expect closure, the text provides instead a “surprise

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ending” that reverses the reader’s expectations and propels the plotline forward to another intrigue. Second, when the text does provide what appears to the reader to be a satisfactory closure, the plotline surprises the reader by rebounding immediately with a new intrigue that is not signaled with a proper opening. It has been demonstrated that these series of surprise endings and surprise openings dovetail with the structural indicia of caesuras in the text; together, they provide the best indicator, in my opinion, for understanding the literary structure of Judges 19–21.

part 2 Texture

∵

chapter 4

The Narrator’s Evaluative Point of View It is generally agreed that biblical narratives express an “evaluative point of view” that seeks to shape the reader’s understanding of the characters and the actions they take. The role of the narrator is critical in this process. In narrating the story, the narrator does more than introduce the dialog spoken by the characters and neutrally describe the actions they take. The narrator also makes statements that express an evaluative position in relation to the events that transpire in the narrative.1 According to Daniel Marguerat and Yvan Bourquin, “le jugement du narrateur est constamment présent dans le texte, qu’il s’agisse de sa présentation des personnages, du monde, des choses ou des idées. Pas une parcelle du texte qui ne soit façonnée selon l’optique particulière de l’auteur.”2 It is also generally agreed that the narrator’s evaluative point of view is omniscient and reliable in the world of the text.3 As stated by Robert Alter, the narrator “is all-knowing and also perfectly reliable: at times he may choose to make us wonder but he never misleads us.”4 It is the narrator’s role to intervene 1 While the notion of the “narrator’s evaluative point of view” has its origin in literary theory, and is primarily used by commentators who take a narratological approach to the text, the term is not, in my view, exclusive to a synchronic methodology. When the text is viewed from a diachronic perspective, it can be argued that the narrative does not have a single narrator, but rather a series of narrators who present differing “evaluative points of view” in the various composition strata of the text that reflect the theological/ideological orientation of the redactor responsible for that stratum. 2 Daniel Marguerat and Yvan Bourquin, Pour lire les récits bibliques (Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 20094), 96. It should be noted that Marguerat and Bourquin refer in this citation to the relationship between the narrator and the “author.” As it is customary in narrative analysis to distinguish between the “real author” and the “implied author,” and to identify the narrator’s evaluative point of view more closely with that of the implied author, Marguerat and Bourquin’s statement is somewhat unclear. To avoid this kind of problem, I have decided to exclude all references to the “author,” the “real author” and the “implied author” from the discussion in this chapter. 3 The notion of an “unreliable” narrator has been a standard feature of modern literary theory since it was introduced by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 work, The Rhetoric of Fiction. Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1983), 159. David M. Gunn has applied the notion of the unreliable narrator to biblical narratives. David M. Gunn, “Reading Right. Reliable and Omniscient Narrator, Omniscient God and Foolproof Composition” in The Bible in Three Dimensions, Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield, JSOTSup, 87 (ed. D.J.A. Clines, S.E. Fowl, S.E. Porter; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1990), 56. 4 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 184.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_006

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in the story to guide the reader to adopt the text’s intended evaluative point of view. According to Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “Le narrateur est ainsi celui qui, lorsqu’il intervient de sa propre autorité, fournit la version fiable de l’histoire – tout comme Dieu d’ailleurs, lorsqu’il parle –, à l’aune de laquelle mesurer toutes les autres. Le récit biblique se présente en effet comme un échiquier de la vérité, présentant toute la gamme des déformations du vrai […]. [L]es interventions du narrateur, ou encore celles de Dieu, sont celles qui permettent au lecteur de débusquer l’erreur ou la manipulation des faits.”5 Although characters have qualities and faults and engage in good and bad actions in biblical narratives, the text generally provides clues to aid the reader in assigning moral judgments to the character’s behavior.6 While commentators often interpret a biblical narrative in different ways, it is rare that they disagree on an issue as fundamental as the narrator’s evaluative point of view in relation to the protagonists and their actions. Therefore, one of the striking features of Judges 19–21 scholarship is the absence of consensus on this issue. The principal protagonist in the narrative, the “sons of Israel,” is considered to be a hero by certain scholars and a villain by others. As identifying the narrator’s evaluative point of view should be a threshold issue in biblical exegesis, the disagreement on this issue among contemporary commentators is problematic. The purpose of this chapter is to review the status quæstionis on the issue of the narrator’s evaluative point of view in relation to the characters in Judges 19–21 and to propose a series of methodological guidelines for identifying the evaluative point of view in a narrative in a more objective manner than has been used to date in Judges 19–21 scholarship. These issues will be addressed from a synchronic perspective using the MT version of the text. Section 1 will introduce four different interpretations of the evaluative point of view expressed in the final three chapters of Judges as proposed by recent commentators. Each of these four positions will be analyzed in Sections 2–5. Section 6 will explore the methodological issues raised by the problem of

5 Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “L’analyse narrative des récits bibliques” in Manuel d’exégèse de l’Ancien Testament (ed. M. Bauks and C. Nihan; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2008), 55. 6 An obvious example is the treatment of King David in the book of Samuel. Although David is clearly a “heroic” figure in the macro-narrative, the narrator does not leave it to the reader to decide whether David’s actions in relation to Uriah the Hittite should be viewed as the justifiable exercise of royal prerogative or a wicked sin. The narrator introduces the prophet Nathan into the narrative to express an unambiguous evaluative judgment of David’s actions: “Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife” (2 Sam 12:10; NAS translation).

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evaluative point of view and propose a series of guidelines for reducing hermeneutical subjectivity in identifying the evaluative point of view in biblical narratives. Conclusions will be presented in Section 7. 1

Evaluative Point of View in Judges 19–21

Commentators’ positions on the narrator’s evaluative point of view in Judges 19–21 can be divided into the following four categories. First, the narrator evaluates the sons of Israel positively and the sons of Benjamin negatively in a narrative about crime and punishment (Position 1). Second, notwithstanding the narrator’s positive evaluation of certain male characters, the text invites readers to actualize the narrative as a condemnation of patriarchal and misogynistic attitudes (Position 2). Third, the narrator uses “irony and absurd humor” throughout the narrative to signal to readers that the conduct of all the male characters in the narrative is morally incorrect (Position 3). Fourth, the narrator expresses a “non-critical” evaluative point of view throughout Judges 19–21, as is claimed to be typical in “foundation myths” (Position 4). Each of these positions will be discussed in Sections 2–5 below. 2

Position 1: The Narrator Portrays the Sons of Israel as Heroes

Until the mid-1980s, scholarly interest in Judges 19–21 was focused primarily on the compositional history of the text. As the notion of the narrator’s evaluative point of view presupposes a narratological approach to texts, it is methodologically anachronistic to describe commentators writing before the mid-1980s as having a position on this issue. However, it is fair to conclude that these commentators simply assumed, without sensing the need for rigorous analysis, that the sons of Israel are portrayed as “heroes” in the narrative and the sons of Benjamin as “villains.” 2.1 Pre-1984 Consensus View In his 1895 work, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Julius Wellhausen posited that Judges 19–21 is a narrative “about the shameful deed of the Benjaminites and their exemplary punishment.” Wellhausen concludes, “Although not a word is said in these chapters about Mosaic law, who could fail to perceive that the spirit which finds its expression in the law pervaded the community which acted thus? […] Where under the monarchy could we find an Israel so united, vigorous, earnest, so willing to enter upon the severest conflict for the sake of

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the highest ends?”7 George F. Moore views Judges 19–21 as a narrative about crime and punishment and concludes that “a contemporary of the Chronicler illustrates the way in which such a crime [the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine] should have been – and therefore must have been – punished by the Congregation.”8 In his 1903 commentary on Judges, Marie-Joseph Lagrange concludes his analysis of Judges 19–21 as follows: “L’enseignement tiré du texte est donc exactement pour nous ce qu’il était pour les Peres : il s’agit ici d’une histoire qui a pris la couleur nécessaire à l’enseignement moral qui est le premier but d’une écriture sacrée.”9 Wellhausen, Moore and Lagrange thus assume without discussion that the sons of Israel are positively evaluated in Judges 19–21. As the commentaries of Charles F. Burney10 and John Gray11 are highly focused on the compositional history of Judges, the question of whether the sons of Israel should be viewed as heroes or villains in Judges 19–21 is not addressed. It is fair to infer that both commentators understand the narrative as positively evaluating the sons of Israel. In his 1981 commentary on Judges, J. Alberto Soggin echoes Wellhausen’s previously discussed 1895 position: This seems to be the theme of the redactors: certain things should not happen in Israel because they are incompatible with the concept of the people of God which the redactors proclaim. The redactors therefore propose to their hearers and readers a very high ethical standard: certain things may happen among other peoples, but they must not come about in Israel; where they do come about all the same, the event suspends every criterion of tribal solidarity: the guilty ones must be handed over to the institutions responsible for the punishment which they deserve.12 Wellhausen’s reading of Judges 19–21 as a narrative “about the shameful deed of the Benjaminites and their exemplary punishment,” and Soggin’s view that the purpose of the narrative is to show that “the guilty ones must be handed over to the institutions responsible for the punishment which they deserve,” are in 7 8 9 10 11 12

Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 236; citations omitted. George F. Moore, The Book of Judges: A New English Translation Printed in Colors Exhibiting the Composite Structure of the Book (London: James Clark & Co., 1898), 92. Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Le livre des Juges (Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre, 1903), 336. Burney, Judges. John Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1967). Soggin, Judges, 301. Soggin uses the term “redactors” rather than “author” to reflect his view that Judg 19–21 is a highly redacted composite text.

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my view well-supported by the text. On the basis of a “literal” reading of the narrative,13 it can reasonably be argued that the villains in the story include the hooligans of Gibeah who rape and murder the Levite’s concubine, the elders of Gibeah who refuse to hand over the guilty parties for punishment, the entire tribe of Benjamin who support Gibeah, and the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead who fail to heed the call to battle against Benjamin. The heroes in the story can be argued to include the Levite’s father-in-law and the old man of Gibeah who provide exemplary hospitality, the Levite who succeeds in convening the assembly of the people of God to judge the murder case, the assembly which properly judges the matter and issues an order to the elders of Gibeah to hand over the guilty parties, and the sons of Israel who heroically go to war against Benjamin and Yabesh-Gilead to avenge the wrongs that had been committed.‎ In conclusion, biblical scholars from Wellhausen in 1885 through Soggin in 1981 shared a consensus view that Judges 19–21 is a narrative about crime and punishment in which the narrator evaluates certain characters positively and others negatively. As I am not aware of any commentator who advanced a contrary position prior to 1984, it is fair to say that the question of whether the narrator in Judges 19–21 might have intended the reader to evaluate the Levite, the assembly of the people of God and/or the sons of Israel other than positively was not considered a hermeneutic “problem” posed by the text until the mid-1980s. 2.2 Dissension from the Consensus View The overwhelming majority of post-1984 commentators now disagree with the long-standing consensus view on the narrator’s evaluative point of view in Judges 19–21 described in the preceding section. In my view, this sea-change in Judges 19–21 scholarship was set in motion by the publication of two works in 1984: Phyllis Trible’s monograph, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of

13

I use the term “literal” reading in the sense proposed by the 1993 document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II. The Document states in Section II.B.2, “It is not only legitimate, it is also absolutely necessary to seek to define the precise meaning of texts as produced by their authors – what is called the “literal” meaning. The Section concludes, “On the contrary, one must reject as unauthentic every interpretation alien to the meaning expressed by the human authors in their written text. To admit the possibility of such alien meanings would be equivalent to cutting off the biblical message from its root, which is the word of God in its historical communication; it would also mean opening the door to interpretations of a wildly subjective nature.” Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, 1993, www.catholic-resources.org, consulted on 5 December 2018.

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Biblical Narratives,14 and Stuart Lasine’s article, “Guest and Host in Judges 19: Lot’s Hospitality in an Inverted World.”15 The implicit starting point in both authors’ criticism of the consensus view is that the extreme misogyny and violence depicted in the narrative – that appear to be positively evaluated by the narrator – are contrary to the word of God. They posit that when the text is properly interpreted, there are in fact no heroes in the narrative; the characters comprise a set of villains – all the male characters, and a set of victims – all the female characters in the story. However, the two commentators reach this result using different hermeneutic approaches. Trible invokes the distancing of the text from its historical author to emphasize that the modern Christian reader should interpret Judges 19–21 as a morality tale depicting male behavior that is wicked and contrary to Christian values properly understood. In contrast, Lasine affirms that the historical author of Judges 19–21 in fact intended the ancient reader to view all the male characters as villains and achieved this result by using irony and absurd humor throughout the narrative. The positions of Trible and Lasine will be analyzed in detail in Sections 3 and 4 infra. 3

Position 2: The Narrator Portrays the Sons of Israel as Heroes but Readers Should Reject This Evaluation

Beginning in the mid-1980s, commentators began to focus attention on misogynistic attitudes expressed in Judges 19–21. The following events in the narrative are often cited as examples of misogyny: During the five-day period the Levite spends with his concubine and her father in Bethlehem, not a word is addressed to the woman and she never speaks. When hooligans menacingly surround the house where the couple is spending the night in Gibeah, they demand that the Levite be sent outside so they can gang-rape him. The host then counter-offers to hand over to the hooligans his own virgin daughter as well as the Levite’s concubine in place of the Levite. When the hooligans refuse the host’s counter-offer, the Levite pushes his concubine out to them in order to save his own life. After the woman is brutally gang-raped and murdered, the Levite fails to express any sadness over his wife’s death or remorse over his own complicity in her death. The Levite coldly dismembers his concubine’s corpse into 12 pieces as if he were butchering cattle. The gang-rape and murder are 14 15

Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). Stuart Lasine, “Guest and Host in Judges 19: Lot’s Hospitality in an Inverted World,” JSOT 29 (1984): 37–59.

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understood by the assembly of the people of God as a violation of the Levite’s honor rather than as a crime against the woman herself. In the war that ensues, the entire female population of Benjamin is exterminated and then the entire female population of Yabesh-Gilead is exterminated, save 400 virgin girls who are forced into non-consensual marriages with Benjaminites. Finally, the sons of Israel encourage the 200 remaining wifeless sons of Benjamin to kidnap virgin girls participating at a festival in Shiloh, rape them, and thereby force them into marriage. The thrust of these critiques of Judges 19–21 is to expose the culture of ancient Israel as fundamentally patriarchal and misogynistic and to advance the argument that a literal reading of the text represents an unacceptable guide for moral conduct.16 Commentators who view the Levite, the assembly of the people of God, and the sons of Israel in Judges 19–21 as moral heroes (Position 1) and those who view these characters as patriarchal misogynists (Position 2) in fact share an important point in common: They both acknowledge that a literal reading of the text strongly suggests that the narrator evaluates these characters positively, in accordance with the social values prevailing at the time the text was composed and redacted. The disagreement between these two groups of commentators relates primarily to their differing hermeneutic perspectives. Commentators holding to Position 1 focus primarily on the meaning(s) of the text at the time the text was composed and leave to theologians the question of how contemporary readers should respond to the text. In contrast, feminist critics of Judges 19–21 consider that the text has become sufficiently distanced from its historical author to justify interpreting the narrative from the perspective of the modern reader. Trible states, Truly, to speak for this woman [the Levite’s concubine] is to interpret against the narrator, plot, other characters, and the biblical tradition because they have shown her neither compassion nor attention. When we direct our hearts to her, what counsel can we take? What word can 16

See the following works published between 1984 and 1998: Mieke Bal, “A Body of Writing: Judges 19” in A Feminist Companion to Judges (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 208–230; Koala Jones-Warsaw, “Toward a Womanist Hermeneutic: A Reading of Judges 19–21” in A Feminist Companion to Judges (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 172–186; Trible, Texts of Terror; Mieke Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Susan Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New York: Doubleday, 1998); Alice Bach, “Rereading the Body Politic: Women and Violence in Judges 21,” BI 6 (1998): 1–19. Daniel Block, “Unspeakable Crimes: The Abuse of Women in the Book of Judges,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2–3 (1998): 46–55.

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we speak? What can we, the heirs of Israel, say in the presence of such unrelenting and unredeemed terror? First of all, we can recognize the contemporaneity of the story. Misogyny belongs to every age, including our own. Violence and vengeance are not just characteristics of a distant, pre-Christian past; they infect the community of the elect to this day. Woman as object is still captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered and scattered. To take to heart this ancient story, then, is to confess its present reality.17 In summary, Trible’s position on Judges 19–21 presupposes the hermeneutics of “reader-response” theory which sets it apart from Positions 1, 3 and 4. 4

Position 3: The Narrator Uses Irony and Absurd Humor to Portray the Sons of Israel as Villains

Lasine’s criticism of the pre-1984 scholarly consensus on the narrator’s evaluative point of view in Judges 19–21 has had a longer lasting impact on the scholarly community than Trible’s. In his 1984 article, “Guest and Host in Judges 19: Lot’s Hospitality in an Inverted World,” Lasine posits that the text intends the reader to evaluate negatively all of the male characters in the narrative as “blind to law, compassion and responsibility.”18 On Lasine’s reading, the narrative portrays villains and victims, but no heroes worthy of emulation. In order to reach this conclusion without recourse to “reader-response theory” as in Position 2, Lasine argues that the historical author of Judges 19–21 uses irony and absurd humor to portray the characters in the narrative and expects the competent reader, both ancient and modern, to understand that the narrator’s description of events should not be taken literally. Although I find Lasine’s ironic reading of the text to be methodologically flawed, the majority of post-1984 commentators on Judges 19–21 cite Lasine, and appear to share his position that the narrator presents his evaluative point of view using irony and absurd humor.19 As I am not aware of any commentator who has challenged Lasine’s core proposition that the author of Judges 19–21 uses irony and absurd humor to express his evaluative point of view, Lasine’s article merits careful analysis.

17 18 19

Trible, Texts of Terror, 86–87; emphasis added. Lasine, “Guest and Host,” 50. See discussion of commentators who support Position 3 in Section 4.2 infra.

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4.1 Presentation of Lasine’s Thesis Lasine posits that Judges 19–21 has a clear theological purpose: to condemn the so-called period of the Judges as a “period when there is no king to rally the league and every man does what is right in his own eyes, even when those eyes are blind to law, compassion and responsibility.”20 Lasine claims that the text “allows the reader to recognize that a world in which there is no king in Israel and every man does what is right in his own eyes (Judg. 19.1; 21.25; cf. 17.6) is an ‘inverted world’ where actions are often ludicrous, absurd, and self-defeating.”21 Lasine acknowledges that the principal challenge to his thesis lies in the fact that neither the narrator nor any character in the narrative explicitly condemns the conduct of the Levite, the old man of Gibeah, the assembly of the people of God or the sons of Israel. Lasine’s response to this criticism is to affirm in relation to the Levite, “Far from condoning what Wellhausen calls the Levite’s ‘revolting act of cowardice,’ the narrator condemns the Levite by means of the subtle use of irony and absurd humor.”22 According to Lasine, this “subtle use of irony and absurd humor” in the narrative become apparent to the reader when the text is read as a whole. Lasine contends, The reader is not meant to share the confused and ambiguous perspective of the Levite, but to view his obliviousness and topsy-turvy behavior from a detached perspective. The narrator assumes that the reader has the ability to piece together the crucial aspects of the events and conclude that a world in which there is no king in Israel and every man does what is right in his own eyes is an inverted world of absurd confusion.23 The entire narrative world in Judges 19–21 is thus intended to be understood as an ironic portrayal of an absurd inverted world in which all of the characters behave exactly the opposite of the way the reader knows they should. “The world described in Judg. 17–21 continually reverses the reader’s expectations of what is appropriate in a world inhabited by Yahweh’s people.”24 As mentioned, Lasine argues that through the “subtle use of irony and absurd humor” the narrator provides the reader with the necessary signals to evaluate negatively each male character in the narrative. As to the Levite, 20 21 22 23 24

Lasine, “Guest and Host,” 50. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 38. Ibid., 45–46; citations omitted. Ibid., 50, note 1. Lasine refers to Judg 17–18 as well as Judg 19–21 as he sees the same use of irony and absurd humor in all five of the concluding chapters of Judges.

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Lasine posits that the narrator intends the reader to view him as an “irresponsible, callous and self-absorbed man.”25 He bases this position on the following actions taken by the Levite. First, he takes hold of his concubine and brings her out to the sons of Belial to be gang-raped (19:25a). Second, the Levite shows no empathy when the concubine crawls back to the house after her all-night ordeal (19:27–28). Third, when the Levite reports the crime to the assembly of the people of God, he provides a self-centered account: “And the masters of Gibeah rose up against me. And they surrounded me at the house by night. Me they wanted to kill. And my concubine they raped. And she died” (20:4–5). Lasine contends that that the narrative intends the reader to negatively evaluate the Levite’s behavior, notwithstanding the narrator’s absence of any evaluative judgment. He argues, The behavior of the Levite is incongruous on two levels. First, the fact that he threw her [his concubine] out to the mob and then seems oblivious to her death contradicts his desire for her, as evidenced by the fact that he went to “speak to her heart” and bring her home after a four-month separation (19.3). Secondly, his behavior is in violent disagreement with what we must assume most readers would consider to be the appropriate response to such a situation, if they were in his position.26 Lasine then invokes Henri Bergson to conclude that the Levite is a comic figure: Bergson might say that the Levite’s behavior is comic because he is not acting like a social human being. That is, his actions are so bizarre that they burst the category of tragic villainy, just as they prevent the concubine from being viewed with tragic pity. What remains is the reader’s awareness that this is a world in which unpredictability, incongruity, and chaos are the defining features. One can only shake one’s head in bemusement at such a world.27 In the case of the assembly of the people of God, the narrator describes this collegial body as being engaged in serious judicial deliberation in the matter of the concubine’s murder and gang-rape. However, Lasine argues that the reader should understand this to be a satire of justice. He places great emphasis on the fact that in his testimony before the assembly, the Levite withholds the critical 25 26 27

Ibid., 37. Ibid., 47. Ibid.

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information that it was he who threw his concubine out to the hooligans in order to save his own life. According to Lasine, the omission of this fact in his testimony “is designed to […] show how the unified response of the assembly was based on the distorted reporting of a very interested but unreliable party. The Levite’s account exemplifies a Russian saying: ‘He lies like an eyewitness.’”28 As to the sons of Israel who go to war against Benjamin to enforce justice, Lasine’s negative evaluation is rather dismissive: “Unlike the punishment of the Sodomites [in Gen 19], the excessive revenge of the Israelites in Judges 20–21 is not successful theodicy. Nor was it meant to be. It is another example of what happens in this ‘inverted world’ when people act on their own to gain revenge and engage in holy warfare.”29 Although Lasine’s thesis is that the final three chapters of Judges describe “an inverted world where actions are often ludicrous, absurd and self-defeating,” he is surprisingly silent on the issue of God’s role in this “topsy-turvy world.” For Lasine, the sons of Israel engage in holy war against Benjamin “on their own to gain revenge.”30 This interpretation can be questioned for two reasons. First, the emphasis on judicial process – deliberating collectively on the Levite’s allegations of crime and then sending envoys to Benjamin to extradite the sons of Belial to be punished – indicates that the punishment of Benjamin is not portrayed as an act of tribal “revenge.” Second, Lasine fails to mention that (i) the sons of Israel consulted YHWH on three separate occasions and obtained divine encouragement to go to war with Benjamin (Judg 20:18.23.26–27a) and (ii) the narrator explicitly attributes Israel’s victory to YHWH (Judg 20:35; 21:15). In summary, Lasine argues that the theological purpose of Judges 19–21 is to present the final stages of the so-called period of the judges as an “inverted world” or a “topsy-turvy world” in which everyone behaves the opposite of the way he or she should. The narrator intends the reader to evaluate negatively the actions of all of the male characters in the narrative. Although the narrator never explicitly condemns the conduct of the Levite, the old man of Gibeah, the assembly of the people of God or the sons of Israel, Lasine contends that competent readers are able to perceive the “subtle use of irony and absurd humor” in the narrative because they have “the ability to piece together the crucial aspects of the events” in order to understand that the so-called period of the judges is “an inverted world of absurd confusion.”31

28 29 30 31

Ibid., 49. Ibid., 50. Ibid. Ibid., 45–46; citations omitted.

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4.2 Post-1984 Consensus Position As mentioned, the majority of post-1984 commentators on Judges 19–21 generally follow Lasine’s position that the narrator negatively evaluates all of the male characters in the narrative. The positions of these commentators will be summarized below, in chronological order.32 Barry G. Webb argues in his 1987 monograph on the book of Judges that Judges 19–21 is essentially a piece of social criticism, and the criticism is of a moral nature. It shows how Israel’s hospitality, warfare, justice, and politics were all debased because of the moral blindness and/or perversity of its citizens (including Levites and elders) and the consequent malfunctioning of its institutions. Yahweh’s displeasure, and his sovereignty, find expression in the chastisement he brings to bear on the whole Israelite community.33 Webb’s conclusion is, in my view, an overreading of the text because the text contains no reference to “Yahweh’s displeasure” or to his “chastisement” of the sons of Israel. Webb appears to base this conclusion on the fact that Israel lost ten percent of its fighting force in the first two battles with Benjamin.34 The editors of the TOB amended their introduction to the book of Judges in the revised 1988 edition by adding the following sentence: “Le recueil s’achève par deux appendices [Judges 17–18; 19–21] qui montrent l’anarchie régnant en Israël avant l’instauration de la monarchie.”35 This characterization of the war between Israel and Benjamin as “anarchy” is an interpretation that will be repeated by many subsequent commentators. As discussed, the emphasis on judicial process in Judges 19–21 – collective deliberation on the Levite’s allegations of crime, the sending of envoys to Benjamin to extradite the sons of Belial to be punished; the three consultations with YHWH, and the collective decision to declare peace with Benjamin – are not typical of a period of anarchy. It would appear that the motif of “anarchy” is based solely on the closing refrain 32 33 34

35

For a summary of the positions of various authors who generally share what I am calling the post-1984 consensus view, see Beldman, Completion of Judges. Webb, Judges: An Integrated Reading, 197. Webb maintains his position in his expanded discussion of Judges 19–21 in his 2012 commentary. Webb, Judges, 509. Webb states, “To summarize then, in this episode [20:12–48] in which Israelites wage holy war on Israelites, Yahweh takes his place at the head of the assembly and distributes victory and defeat in such a way that the punishment of Benjamin by the other tribes is made the occasion for the whole of Israel to be chastised by Yahweh.” Webb, Judges: An Integrated Reading, 194. TOB, 467.

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of the narrative: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” (21:25). In a 1989 monograph on Judges, Lillian R. Klein summarizes the evaluative point of view in Judges 19–21 as follows: “The vision of a moral state under a single god of right and might has become a chaos of ‘flexible’ right, technical loopholes and brutal behavior, including murder of ‘brothers,’ blamed on Yahweh. All the anticipation of the tribes standing on the threshold of the promised land has come to nothing because each man is his own judge and does what is right in his own eyes.”36 David J. Chalcraft took the position in a 1990 article that “the narrator portrays the collective punitive action as being generally unsuccessful because the use of violence, even in the necessary punishment of crime, is almost as destabilizing to the group as the crime they are attempting to outlaw. […] Throughout this episode the narrator is at pains to highlight how deviance and punishment can threaten the stability of the social group.”37 Gale A. Yee contended in 1995 that “as the book [of Judges] progresses, the leadership and character of these judges deteriorate, so that by the end religious and social anarchy is [sic] rampant. The conclusion highlights the absence of a king (and the order he is thought to bring) by relating violent stories about the lawlessness of the period. These final chapters prepare for the establishment of the monarchy in the next biblical book, 1 Samuel.”38 Even Thomas Römer and Albert de Pury, known for their fidelity to the historico-critical method, weighed in briefly on the subject in 1999. They argue, “Jg 19–21 peut se lire comme une caricature de la préhistoire d’Israël, mais cette caricature vise-t-elle l’anarchie qui a précédé la royauté – dans le sens de 19,1 ; 21,25 – ou ironise-t-elle sur ce qu’il advient lorsqu’un pouvoir central cherche à imposer sa loi dans les villages ?”39 Tammi Schneider argues in her 2000 commentary on Judges that “the chapter [Judges 21] reveals what happens when the themes highlighted throughout the book come to full fruition. There was no leader, leading to anarchy. People were intermarrying and thereby taking on practices opposed by their deity. Women were no longer protected by anyone. Fathers were no longer allowed to protect their daughters. Everything was upside down and ironic. Israel was in total anarchy and, according to the narrator, the only solution was kingship.”40 36 37 38 39 40

Klein, Triumph of Irony, 190. Chalcraft, “Deviance and Legitimate Action,” 181; emphasis added. Yee, “Introduction,” 3. Römer and de Pury, “L’historiographie deutéronomiste,” 103. Schneider, Judges, 285.

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Victor Matthews argued in his 2004 commentary on Judges, “The final phrase in the Book of Judges sums up the continual slide of the people into social and political anarchy. […] Their lack of any clear code of conduct allowed for rampant violence, intrigue, and haphazard religious practice. What good can come of total reliance on a personal sense of right and wrong? There are no social standards, no precedents in law, and no authoritative leaders calling for proper conduct.”41 Gregory V.K. Wong takes the position in a 2005 article that “one can almost say that the events described in the prologue and in the last two chapters of the epilogue are practically two sides of the same coin. While one records Israel’s failure to do what is right, the other records Israel’s success in doing what is wrong, and both resulted in diminishing national fortune that justifiably deserved to be wept over and mourned.”42 Corinne Lanoir states in her 2005 monograph on Judges, “Le récit permet à ses auteurs de s’élever contre une certaine conception de l’unité du ‘tout Israël’ et de son intégrité en construisant, pour décrire une guerre civile, une parodie de guerre sainte décidée par une parodie d’assemblée manipulée par une caricature de lévite.”43 Trent C. Butler posits in his 2009 commentary on Judges, “Chap. 21 presents a story without a hero or central figure. All receive blame. None receive praise. Action ceases, but chaos continues.”44 Katherine E. Southwood introduces an interesting change to the post-1984 consensus view in her 2017 monograph on Judges 2145 that merits special attention. She argues that while Judges 19 and 20 should be interpreted along the lines of the pre-1984 consensus view, it is Judges 21 that uses irony to create a subtle polemic against the sons of Israel for compromising their firmly held value that the sons of Benjamin should be punished and indeed excluded from Israel for their violations of the group’s core values. She argues that Judges 19 and 20 have “a dual function: to encourage readers or listeners to achieve and replicate the qualities of Israel (unity, reverence, hospitality, kin-loyalty, justice and so on), and to subject the undesirable features of the Benjamites’ behaviour to ridicule as a means of strengthening normative examples of behaviour for the narrative’s audience.”46 However, the sons of Israel are presented in

41 42 43 44 45 46

Matthews, Judges and Ruth, 202. Gregory T.K. Wong, “Is There a Direct Pro-Judah Polemic in Judges?,” SJOT 19, 1 (2005): 105. Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 210. Butler, Judges, 455. Katherine E. Southwood, Marriage by Capture in the Book of Judges: An Anthropological Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Ibid., 183.

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Judges 21 as compromising those values by their willingness to reincorporate the sons of Benjamin into Israel through endogamous marriages. “Compassion on such symbolic out-groups through their inclusion within Israel results in Israel’s replicating the behaviour of such groups to the extent that the Levite’s wife’s rape is answered not by justice, but with marriage by capture.”47 In order to reach this result, Southwood takes the position that post-exilic readers of Judges 19–21 “are unlikely to have viewed the Benjamites’ marriages as entirely legitimate.”48 4.3 Conclusions Lasine argues that the narrator in Judges 19–21 uses a variety of literary techniques to communicate to the reader his true evaluative point of view. These techniques include “irony and absurd humor,”49 as well as “grotesque exaggeration.”50 Webb contends that the author also uses the techniques of “comedy of correctness”51 and “satire.”52 Lanoir characterizes the narrative as a “parody” in which the author “caricaturizes” the protagonists and their actions.53 Southwood argues that the recommendation that Benjamin be reintegrated into Israel through marriage by capture is a “sardonic representation” of tribal unity.54 As literary theorists usually distinguish among the genres of situational irony, parody, satire and tragi-comedy, it is hard to imagine that Judges 19–21 is an example of all four genres. In my view, the post-1984 consensus view is not grounded in literary theories of irony, parody, satire or tragicomedy. Instead, it seems to be based on the modern reader’s intuitive sense that there is something incongruent about the narrative when read as a whole. While the narrator appears to be evaluating the sons of Israel positively, the violence, brutality and misogyny practiced by the sons of Israel is repugnant to modern readers. The proposed solution to this incongruence is to affirm that when the narrator says something positive about the sons of Israel, the text intends the reader to understand that the narrator actually means the opposite, because the “purpose” of the narrative is ironic, satiric, parodic and/or comic. 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

54

Ibid., 228. Ibid., 237. See detailed discussion of the marriage motif in Judges 21 in Chapter 11, Section 2 infra. Lasine “Guest and Host,” 38. Ibid., 42. Webb, Judge: An Integrated Reading, 189. Ibid., 190, 196. Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 210. Lanoir contrasts her position with that of Lasine as follows: “Je reprends ici assez largement les observations de LASINE S qui montre bien comment de nombreux éléments de Gn 19 apparaissent de façon délibérément inversée en Jg 19 […]. Contrairement à lui, je lis Jg 19 comme une parodie.” Ibid., 195, note 74. Southwood, Marriage by Capture, 236.

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However, the proponents of the post-1984 consensus have not established any objective methodological criteria to permit the reader to distinguish between the narrator’s “reliable” and “unreliable” statements. The methodological flaws in their position will be discussed in Section 6 infra. I am aware of only two post-1984 commentators who take a contrary position on the narrator’s evaluative position in relation to the sons of Israel. Yairah Amit argued in her 1992 monograph on Judges that the narrator’s evaluation of the form of governance described in Judges 19–21 – in which the community elders act by consensus and solidarity without the need for a judge or king – is positive. She concludes, In the world described in Chapters 19–21, the social function of the king is superfluous. The tribal institutions are shown as capable of being organized and organizing the people as one man, of uprooting the evil from Israel, and of controlling the cultic and moral situation. Thus, Chapters 19–21 do not fit into the tendency according to which the period of the judges is portrayed as a negative period, nor with Chapters 17–18, which concludes the book with the statement that the solution to the problems of the period is to anoint a king.55 Jacques Cazeaux concludes similarly, Communauté, c’est donc le maître mot de la solution inventée. […] Ici [in Judges 19–21], la communauté lésée par le crime de Gibéa, crime sensible cette fois, réagit vigoureusement pour se sauver elle-même dans sa vérité. Et c’est donc en l’absence de toute autre boussole que son esprit n’est ni tribu prépondérante, ni Juge, ni chef.56 In my opinion, Amit’s and Cazeaux’s return to the pre-1984 consensus position on the narrator’s evaluative point of view in Judges 19–21 reflects an accurate literal reading the text. The burden of proof should lie with those commentators who seek to interpret the narrator as speaking with an ironic, parodic, satiric or comic voice. These commentators have not, in my view, adequately discharged their burden of proof.

55 56

Amit, Judges, 348. Jacques Cazeaux, Le Refus de la guerre sainte : Josué, Juges et Ruth, Lectio Divina 174 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1998), 218.

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Position 4: The Narrator Uses a “Non-Critical” Evaluative Point of View Characteristic of “Foundation Myths”

In her 2008 commentary on Judges, Susan Niditch attempts to find a middle ground between those commentators who assign to the narrator a clearly positive or a clearly negative evaluative point of view in relation to the principal protagonists in Judges 19–21. Niditch proposes instead that the author of the final three chapters of Judges expresses a “non-critical” evaluative point of view that is characteristic, in her view, of the point of view generally found in “foundation myths.”57 5.1 Presentation of Niditch’s Thesis Niditch focuses her analysis of Judges 19–21 on the last three verses which set out the final situation in the narrative intrigue.58 According to Niditch, the conflict between the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin ends in reconciliation and the restoration of social order. She argues, To read Judges 19–21 as a narrative about chaos is correct, but chaos does not end the story, making necessary a new order under kings. Rather, the cycle ends with a victory, the cessation of hostilities, the reintegration of the internecine enemy, and the transfer of women. At the end, harmony prevails, at least in the view of the androcentric author: the warriors are domesticated, building houses, dwelling in them, and returning home. A renewal of order has taken place.59 57

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Walter Groß also takes the position that the narrator’s evaluative point of view is noncritical. He states, “Die Ersählung Ri 19–21 mit ihren abscheulichen Details provisiert moderne Ausleger zu massiven Wertungen. Der Erzähler präsentiert die Vorgange, laßt gelegentlich Akteure Wertungen formulieren: 19,23–24; der efraimitische Gastgeber gegenüber den Gibeatitern; 19,30; jeder in Israel; 20:6: der efraimitische Mann der ermordeten Frau 20,10.12; 21,3: die Israeliten. Der Erzähler selbst (zum jüngeren Rahmen 19,1ab; 21,25 s. weiter unten) enthält sich jedoch jeder expliziten Wertung. Daher gehen die Ausleger bis in jüngste Zeit weit auseinander. […] Folgen derartige konträre Urteile aus der jeweiligen Literarkritik oder bestimmen sie diese vielmehr explizit oder implizit?” Groß, Richter, 826; emphasis added. However, Groß does not characterize Judges 19–21 as a foundation myth. “And the sons of Benjamin did thus, and they carried off women in accordance with their numbers, from the whirling dancers whom they stole. And they went and returned to their inheritance, and they built cities, and they dwelled in them. And the descendants of Israel sallied forth from there at that time, each man to his tribe and clan, and they went forth from there, each man to his inheritance. In those days, there was no king in Israel. A man would do what was right in his eyes” Judg 21:23–25; translation by Niditch. Niditch, Judges, 208.

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More precisely, Niditch posits that “[t]he final imagery is not of chaos but of cosmogony. The world is set and ordered, cities inhabited, and people properly and peacefully divided into social kinship groups, even while recognizing the ties that unify all Israelites.”60 On the basis of this imagery, Niditch characterizes Judges 19–21 as a “foundation myth.”61 Niditch defines “foundation myth” broadly as “stories concerning the genesis of the people, often including a war or battle and reference to the career of a hero.”62 She considers that the essential aspect of the genre is that the narrator indicates to the reader at the outset that the events recounted in the tale take place in a far distant ancient time that is long before the time of the implied reader. According to Niditch, the narrator signals this notion of the “olden days” to the reader by introducing a foundation myth with the phrase, ‫( וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬and it was in those days) or ‫( ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬in those days). She rather boldly affirms, “The context for all of these usages is foundation myth […].”63 Niditch’s classification of Judges 19–21 as a foundation myth is closely linked to her views on the narrator’s evaluative point of view. Contrary to commentators who understand the protagonists in the narrative as being either positively or negatively evaluated, Niditch posits instead that the narrator in Judges 19–21 expresses a “non-critical” evaluative point of view in relation to the characters and their actions. She calls this non-critical point of view the “humanist

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61 62

63

Ibid., p. 210. Niditch’s argument that “chaos” gives way to “cosmogony” in Judges 19–21 is stylistically appealing but hermeneutically imprecise. Biblical scholars customarily restrict the term “cosmogony” to myths relating to the creation of the world and limit the notion of Chaoskampf leading to an ordered creation to one category of ancient creation myth. Robert A. Oden, “Cosmogony, Cosmology,” ABD 1:1165. Niditch, Judges, 14. It should be noted that Niditch also refers to the genre of “foundation myth” elsewhere in her commentary as “foundation tale” and “founding myth.” Ibid. Contrary to Niditch, Moshe Weinfeld defines “foundation story” in more focused terms to refer to “traditions related to the beginning of settlement in a new land.” Moshe Weinfeld, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 22. According to Weinfeld, “the key element in a foundation story is the topos of the migration of a founder/people to settle in a new land.” Ibid., 1–2. Guy Darshan develops Weinfeld’s argument in a more systematic way. Darshan notes that foundation stories present the settlement phase of the narrative in two contrasting ways. In the first, the migration to the new land is peaceful and the people establish themselves in the new land by “gaining the respect of the local inhabitants.” In the second, the migration to the new land is violent “and their settlement is achieved via warfare and dispossession of the native population.” Guy Darshan, “The Origins of the Foundation Stories Genre in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Eastern Mediterranean,” JBL 133, 4 (2014): 691. Niditch, Judges, 14.

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voice.”64 Niditch affirms that this non-critical humanist voice is typical of foundation myths: “Telling tales of ‘olden times,’ this voice is noncritical about the ancient protagonists. It lets the tales speak for themselves.”65 Commentators who view the narrator in Judges 19–21 as speaking with an ironic voice interpret the concluding verse of the narrative, “In those days, there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” (Judg 21:25), as an ironic allusion to its opposite, “And you shall do the right and good [thing] in the eyes of YHWH” (Deut 6:18).66 Niditch disagrees: “This line is not, as some have suggested, an indictment of early times of chaos, but an accepting commentary on a romantic, battle-ridden foundation period in the history of the nation.”67 5.2 Critique of Niditch’s Position Niditch’s definition of a “non-critical” evaluative point of view is not developed in detail. I understand her to be arguing that the text assumes a “non-critical” evaluative point of view when the narrator relies primarily on the “scenic mode” of narration to “show” the characters and the action in the narrative intrigue and refrains from expressing precise judgments about what the characters say or do.68 However, Judges 19–21 contains large swaths of text in which the author uses the narrative mode to “tell” the story. In these sections, the narrator clearly expresses a “critical” evaluative point of view in relation to all of the characters in the narrative. In addition, Niditch’s definition of foundation myth is both overly broad and overly narrow. First, not all biblical narratives that are introduced by the phrases, ‫( וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬and it came to pass in those days)69 and ‫( ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬in those days),70 meet Niditch’s definition of

64 65 66 67 68

69 70

“I call this measured and thoughtful contributor the ‘humanist’ voice, whose worldview is congruent with those of some Persian or early Hellenistic period biblical writers.” Niditch, Judges, 12. Ibid., 11. See, e.g., Lasine, “Guest and Host,” 19. Niditch, Judges, 180. Elsewhere, Niditch states that this line “is not a condemnation, anticipating the need for the monarchy, but an indication that in the old days things were different. Such is the message of foundation myths.” Ibid., 182. Sonnet summarizes the difference between the narrative mode (“telling”) and the scenic mode (“showing”) as follows: “Dans un cas comme dans l’autre le narrateur est bien évidemment à la source de la narration ; dans le mode narratif, il la conduit en la récapitulant avec l’autorité qu’est la sienne, alors que, dans le mode scénique, il met en avant les scènes qu’il fait ‘voir’ s’effaçant pour ainsi dire devant les personnages parlant et agissant.” Sonnet, “L’analyse narrative,” 57. See also, Marguerat, and Bourquin, Pour lire, 98. The expression ‫ וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬occurs in Gen 6:4; Judg 19:1. The expression ‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬occurs in Exod 2:11; Judg 17:6; Judg 18:1; 20:27.28; 21:25; 1 Sam 3:1; 28:1; 2 Sam 16:23; 2 Ki 10:32; 15:37; 18:4; 20:1=2 Ch 32:24; Est 1:2; 2:21. It should be noted that this expression is used at the beginning of a pericope in only a small handful of cases.

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a foundation myth.71 Second, not all foundation myths are necessarily introduced by one of these stereotypical phrases.72 It would appear that Niditch is trying to find a middle ground between those commentators who attribute to the narrator a clearly positive or a clearly negative evaluative point of view in relation to the principal protagonists in Judges 19–21. Niditch proposes instead that the narrator expresses a non-critical evaluative point of view in the narrative that is characteristic of foundation myths generally. Contrary to Niditch, I believe that the narrator’s evaluative point of view as expressed in Judges 19–21 is “critical” rather than “non-critical.” The narrator clearly presents the sons of Israel as “heroes” and the sons of Benjamin as “villains.” Notwithstanding the methodological weaknesses of her definition, I believe that Niditch’s intuition that Judges 19–21 is a foundation myth is sound and merits further analysis.73 6

Towards a Methodology for Determining the Narrator’s Evaluative Point of View

Judges 19–21 scholarship remains divided over the question of whether the narrator expresses a positive or a negative evaluative point of view in relation to the sons of Israel and the actions they take in the narrative. As discussed, the vast majority of commentators interpret the sons of Israel as villains; a small minority treat the collective protagonist as heroes. The purpose of this section is (i) to propose a simple set of methodological guidelines for identifying the narrator’s evaluative point of view that is intended to reduce interpretive subjectivity, and (ii) to apply the system to Judges 19–21. 6.1 Proposed Set of Methodological Guidelines Although the problem of identifying the evaluative point of view in a narrative is a threshold issue in biblical exegesis, I am not aware of any scholars who have addressed the question from a methodological perspective. To fill this lacuna, I will propose below a series of four consecutive steps that a reader

71

72 73

For example, the expression ‫ וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬occurs in Gen 6:4, but the pericope Gen 6:1–7 does not satisfy the criteria for identifying a foundation myth, even as broadly defined by Niditch. Similarly, the phrase ‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬occurs in Exod 2:11 but it is equally difficult to characterize Exod 2:11–15 as a foundation myth as defined by Niditch. Niditch’s two key phrases for identifying a foundation myth are used in Genesis-Joshua only in Gen 6:4 and Exod 2:11. This suggests that no other narrative in the Hexateuch should be characterized as a foundation myth on Niditch’s definition. See discussion below in Chapter 7, Section 4 infra.

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should follow in a threshold-level investigation of the narrator’s evaluative point of view as expressed in a biblical narrative. First, identify the verses in which God speaks. Second, identify the verses in which the narrator refers to God or describes God’s actions in the narrative intrigue. Third, identify the verses in which the narrator makes statements that qualify a character or an action using vocabulary that is generally used in the MT as a clearly positive or negative evaluation. Fourth, identify statements of the narrator that qualify the same character or action using vocabulary that is harder to evaluate as being positive or negative. In order to decrease the likelihood of an arbitrary or conjectural interpretation, I propose that the difficult verses identified in step 4 should be interpreted in a way that is consistent with the identification of the narrator’s evaluative point of view as determined on the basis of the preceding three steps. The four steps thus create a hierarchical order for identifying the narrator’s evaluative point of view. An application of this proposed methodology to Judges 19–21 will be presented below. 6.1.1 Step One: God’s Word The sons of Israel “consult with YHWH” before engaging in battle with the sons of Benjamin on three successive days. It may be relevant to note that the adversary, the sons of Benjamin, do not consult with YHWH before engaging in battle. YHWH answers Israel’s inquiry each time. In response to the first question posed by the sons of Israel, “Who shall go up for us at the beginning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?,” YHWH responds, “Judah at the beginning” (Judg 20:18). In response to the second question, “Shall I continue to draw near for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother?,” YHWH responds, “Go up against him” (Judg 20:23). In response to the final question, “Shall I continue to go out for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I cease?” YHWH responds, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give him into your hand” (Judg 20:28). Although these three sets of dialog between the sons of Israel and YHWH merit detailed exegetical attention,74 it can reasonably be concluded as a threshold matter that the narrator is expressing a positive evaluative point of view in relation to Israel’s decision to engage in war against the sons of Benjamin. Lasine’s position that the narrator speaks in Judges 19–21 with an ironic voice in order to condemn Israel’s war against Benjamin is impossible to sustain unless he is also arguing that God speaks with an ironic voice in which He means the opposite of what He actually says. To be fair to Lasine, he does not take this position and instead simply ignores Judg 20:18.23.28 in his analysis of the text. 74

See discussion in Chapter 10, Sections 2.3 and 2.4 infra.

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6.1.2 Step Two: God’s Actions God acts twice in Judges 19–21. In the first instance, the narrator states, “And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day” (Judg 20:35a). The narrator’s attribution of Israel’s victory over Benjamin to divine action further evidences the positive evaluation of the sons of Israel and negative evaluation of the sons of Benjamin in the narrative. It is simply impossible for a reader to conclude on the basis of Judg 20:35a that YHWH in fact favored Benjamin, or was indifferent to the outcome of the war, or was opposed to the commencement of hostilities. The second reference to God’s actions occurs in Judg 21:15. The narrator states, “And the people relented toward Benjamin (‫ )וְ ָה ָעם נִ ָחם ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬for YHWH had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.” Although the relationship between the people’s “relenting” and God’s act as described in Judg 21:15 is complex and merits detailed attention,75 the reader should conclude as a threshold matter that the near extermination of the sons of Benjamin reflects God’s will. The notion that the narrator may be suggesting that God acted improperly or excessively is hard to justify. 6.1.3

Step Three: Use of Vocabulary That Is Customarily Positive or Negative The narrator introduces the reader to the Levite’s concubine with the following description: “And his concubine whored against him [the Levite]. And she went from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah” (Judg 19:2a). Although the exact meaning of the phrase ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה‬and she whored) is open to interpretive discussion, it is evident that the author intends the reader to evaluate the Levite’s concubine negatively in this verse because the verb ‫ זנה‬always carries a negative valence in the MT. The narrator introduces the reader to the Levite’s father-in-law with the following description: “And his father-in-law laid hold of him, the father of the young woman. And he dwelled with him three days. And they ate and they drank. And they spent the night there” (Judg 19:4). “Hospitality” is a common trope in the HB. It is customarily “good” to give and to accept hospitality, and “bad” to refuse to offer or refuse to accept hospitality. It is thus reasonable to conclude that the narrator evaluates both the father-in-law and the Levite positively in this verse. The old man of Gibeah also offers hospitality to the Levite. The narrator uses the scenic mode to describe the old man’s invitation in Judg 19:17–20 and then summarizes the scene with the statement, “And he brought him to his house. And he gave provender to the donkeys. And they 75

See discussion in Chapter 11, Section 2.8 infra.

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washed their feet. And they ate and they drank” (Judg 19:21). Again, the narrator is expressing a clearly positive evaluation of the old man of Gibeah and the Levite in this verse. The narrator introduces the sinister events that will occur at the old man’s house in Gibeah with the following statement: “And they were making glad their heart. And behold, the men of the town, men of the sons of Belial (‫ַאנְ ֵׁשי‬ ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫) ְבנ‬, surrounded the house. And they were beating violently on the door” (Judg 19:22a). As the syntagma, “sons of Belial” always carries a negative valence in the MT,76 the narrator is signaling to the reader at the earliest possible moment in the narrative that the men of Gibeah should be evaluated negatively. When the sons of Israel make their first appearance in the narrative, the narrator informs the reader, “And all the sons of Israel went out. And the community assembled as one man (‫) ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬, from Dan to Beer-Sheva and the land of Gilead, to YHWH at Mizpah. And the leaders of all the people, of all the tribes of Israel, stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God, 400,000 men on foot drawing a sword” (Judg 20:1–2; emphasis added). The triple repetition of the particle “all” and the use of the expressions “as one man” and “from Dan to Beer-Sheva” are intended to portray the “unity” of the sons of Israel and their “consensual” form of governance. The narrator repeats the description of the sons of Israel as “acting as one man” in Judg 20:8a and 20:11. These terms relating to unity and consensus are generally used in the MT with a positive valence. However, Lanoir argues to the contrary, Mais je propose de considérer avant tout cet usage comme un procédé littéraire délibéré, visant à exagérer ce trait de l’unité (comme du reste on retrouve cette exagération dans les chiffres énormes des morts du côté des vaincus et ridiculement minimes du côté des vainqueurs) pour en faire un récit ironique, une parodie. […] Cette affirmation d’unité poussée jusqu’à la caricature devient donc suspecte.77 Lanoir is correct that the lexeme ‫ ָּכל‬is used frequently in Judges 20; 21 times to be precise. However, ‫ ָּכל‬is also used 19 times in Numbers 16. It is conjectural to assume that frequent usage of a common word such as ‫ ָּכל‬necessarily implies that the text is a parody. 76 77

See, Deut 13:14; Judg 19:22; 20:13; 1 Sam 2:12; 10:27; 1 Ki 21:10.13; 2 Ch 13:7. See also related syntagma in 1 Sam 25:17.25; 2 Sam 16:7; 20:1; 1 Ki 21:13; Prov 16:27. Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 207.

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The “sons of Belial” who had gang-raped and murdered the Levite’s concubine are protected from prosecution by the residents of Gibeah. The sons of Israel then send messengers to Benjamin demanding that the guilty parties be handed over to them for prosecution and judgment. The narrator “shows” this episode in Judg 20:12–13b with the use of dialog. However, the narrator uses the narrative mode to “tell” the reader the outcome of the negotiations: “But the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel” (Judg 20:13b). This statement could be interpreted as a straightforward “non-critical” description of the facts. However, the motif of “X refusing to listen to the voice of Y” is a common trope in the HB that generally carries a negative valence. In most cases, it is Israel who refuses to the listen to the voice of God. However, there are a handful of instances in which the negative evaluation also applies to the refusal to listen to the voice of an authority figure78 and more precisely to the voice of a judge.79 As the message that is sent to Benjamin comes from the assembly of the people of God who have issued a judicial-like decision against the guilty rapists/murderers, it can be argued with relative confidence that the narrator’s statement in Judg 20:13b that the “sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel” is intended to communicate a negative evaluative point of view in relation to Benjamin. 6.1.4 Step Four: Use of Ambiguous Evaluative Vocabulary While it is axiomatic that every narrative seeks to convey an evaluative point of view in relation to the characters and the actions they take, one of the specificities of narratives in the HB is that the narrator usually portrays the protagonists as “round characters.” Heroic figures have faults as well as 78

79

See, e.g., Exod 6:9 in which Moses relates God’s promise of deliverance to the sons of Israel, “but they did not listen to Moses (‫ ;”)וְ לֹא ָׁש ְמעּו ֶאל־מ ֶֹׁשה‬in Exod 16:19, Moses commands the sons of Israel not to put aside any of the bread from heaven to save until morning. “But they did not listen to Moses (‫( ”)וְ לֹא ָׁש ְמעּו ֶאל־מ ֶֹׁשה‬Exod 16:20; NAS translation). Similarly in relation to Samuel, “But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel (‫מּואל‬ ֵ ‫”)וַ יְ ָמ ֲאנּו ָה ָעם ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע ְּבקֹול ְׁש‬, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us” (1 Sam 8:19a; NAS translation). In the Joseph story, the ten sons regret that they did not listen to Joseph’s cries of distress: “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen (‫;)וְ לֹא ָׁש ָמ ְענּו‬ therefore this distress has come upon us” (Gen. 42:21; NAS translation). See, e.g., “The man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest (‫ְל ִב ְל ִּתי ְׁשמ ַֹע‬ ‫ל־הּכ ֵֹהן‬ ַ ‫ ) ֶא‬who stands there to serve YHWH your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel” (Deut 17:12; NAS translation); “And they did not listen to their judges (‫יהם לֹא ָׁש ֵמעּו‬ ֶ ‫)וְ גַ ם ֶאל־ׁש ְֹפ ֵט‬, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them” (Judg 2:17a; NAS translation).

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qualities and even villains are sometimes portrayed as having qualities as well as faults. In addition, a narrative is more complex than a series of portraits of individual characters. The purpose of a narrative is to recount an intrigue that typically involves a reversal of situation. The protagonist is not a static figure but rather a dynamic figure, who starts in an initial situation and then encounters one complication or crisis after another, until he or she reaches the final situation. The roundness of characterization and the complexity of narrative intrigue cannot be reduced to a simple set of methodological guidelines. The text’s evaluative point of view should not be determined on the basis of interpretations of selected statements by the narrator read out of context. However, the proper context for interpreting ambiguous narrator statements is delimited by the first three steps in the guidelines set out above. Ambiguous statements identified in step 4 should be interpreted in a way that is not inconsistent with the basic evaluative point of view determined on the basis of the first three steps. Consider the example of the pericope in 19:22–25 in which the sons of Belial surround the old man’s house and are banging violently on the door demanding “Bring out the man who came to your house and we shall know him” (19:22). The old man then goes outside and begins negotiating with the rapists. He offers them “my virgin daughter and his concubine” in the place of the Levite (19:24). “But the men were not willing to listen to him” (19:25aA). The very next phrase states, “And the man took hold of his concubine. And he brought [her] out to them outside” (Judg 19:25aB).80 The proponents of the post-1984 consensus position interpret the behavior of the old man and the Levite as being so repugnant as to justify reading the entire pericope as ironic or satirical. According to Webb, Again this dark narrative is deeply ironical. The model host turns out to be the one who conceives the idea of throwing the two women to the dogs. […] He is just as responsible, in his own way, for what happens to the two young women as the mob outside his door are. The model host and the rabble outside are not as different from each other as they first

80

It is interesting to note that neither the old man nor the Levite thinks of offering the Levite’s servant boy to be gang-raped by the sons of Belial. The offering of an adolescent boy would not have made sense in the monde du récit on the grounds that gang-rape is a violent act intended to humiliate the victim, and in the case of daughters and wives, their fathers and husbands as well, rather than an expression of homosexual or heterosexual desire. See, Ken Stone, “Gender and Homosexuality in Judges 19: Subject-Honor, Object-Shame?,” JSOT 67 (1999): 87–107.

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seem to be. They are both enmeshed in the same evil, and symptomatic of the same basic, moral sickness.81 Webb affirms that a clear-cut negative evaluative point of view can be discerned in the pericope in relation to both the Levite and the old man of Gibeah. However, the question arises as to whether this evaluative point of view is that of the narrator or the modern commentator. In my view, Webb is overreading the narrative to impose his own point of view on the text. This position will be defended in the following two paragraphs. Modern readers recoil in shock and revulsion when they read that the Levite took hold of his wife and thrust her out of the house in order to be gang-raped. This man is very unchivalrously sacrificing his wife in order to save his own skin! While his actions seem morally flawed to us, it is not at all clear that an ancient reader would have viewed the situation from the same perspective. It could well be argued that the Levite acted in a wise manner. He might have reasoned that if the hooligans had succeeded in raping and killing him, they would surely also have taken his woman, servant boy and donkeys as booty, and all would have been lost. If, on the other hand, the Levite were to hand over his woman to the hooligans as a kind of bribe of appeasement, they might let him live and keep his other property. Although speculative, it can be argued that the Levite’s behavior in 19:25a mirrors that of Abram/Abraham in Gen 12:11–13 (NAS translation): “As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, ‘I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.’” Abraham’s strategy worked for him. When Pharaoh’s officials saw Sarai, “they praised her to Pharaoh and she was taken into his palace” and Abraham was left undisturbed (Gen 12:15).82 The narrator of Genesis 12 is too reserved to tell readers exactly what Pharaoh did with Sarai in his palace, except to confirm rather elliptically that Pharaoh said, “I took her as my wife” (‫)וָ ֶא ַּקח א ָֹתּה ִלי ְל ִא ָּׁשה‬. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen 12:19 “corrects” the implication that Pharaoh had sexual relations with Sarai by adding the following additional phrase to Pharaoh’s farewell speech to Abram: “But immediately a plague was unleashed against me, and I did not approach her.”83 81 82 83

Webb, Judges, 468. The “type-scene” of a patriarch passing off his wife to the enemy in order to save his own life is repeated in Gen 20:1–14 and Gen 26:6–11. Michael Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), 53.

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125

Conclusions

Proponents of the post-1984 consensus position (Position 3) have not endeavored to submit the narrator’s statements in Judges 19–21 to a rigorous analysis to determine the evaluative point of view the narrator intends to convey to readers. Instead, these commentators appear to address the issue on the basis of their personal understanding of the narrative as a whole. I have proposed a four-step set of guidelines, for beginning the interpretive process of identifying the narrator’s evaluative point of view, that is intended to reduce interpretive subjectivity. When applied to Judges 19–21, this methodology strongly suggests that the narrator views the heroes in the narrative to include the Levite’s father-in-law and the old man of Gibeah who provide exemplary hospitality, the Levite who succeeds in convening the assembly of the people of God to judge the gang rape/murder case, the assembly which properly judges the matter and issues an order to the elders of Gibeah to hand over the guilty parties, and the sons of Israel who heroically go to war against Benjamin and Yabesh-Gilead to avenge wrongs that have been committed. Clearly, the narrator’s evaluative point of view in a narrative is rich and complex and cannot be fully determined on the basis of a mechanistic set of interpretive guidelines. However, reference to objective criteria in identifying the author’s evaluative point of view serves a valuable hermeneutic function by enabling the commentator to falsify interpretations of the text that point to results that are incompatible with the criteria. 8

Chapter Summary

It is generally agreed that biblical narratives express an “evaluative point of view” that seeks to shape the reader’s understanding of the characters and the actions they take. The identification of the narrator’s evaluative point of view should be a threshold issue in any exegetical analysis of a narrative. One of the striking features of Judges 19–21 scholarship is the absence of consensus on this issue. Commentators from Wellhausen in 1885 through Soggin in 1981 shared a consensus view that Judges 19–21 is a narrative about crime and punishment in which the reader can easily identify the “heroes” and “villains.” However, an important turning point in Judges 19–21 scholarship occurred in the mid-1980s. The overwhelming majority of post-1984 commentators posit instead that there are no heroes in Judges 19–21; the characters comprise a set of villains – all the male characters, and a set of victims – all the female characters in the story. This hypothesis is defended by arguing that the narrative

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should be understood as a parody, satire or tragi-comedy in which irony pervades the text. A set of methodological guidelines has been proposed that is intended to reduce interpretive subjectivity in relation to identifying the narrator’s evaluative point of view. When applied to Judges 19–21, this methodology strongly suggests that the narrator views the heroes in the narrative to include the Levite’s father-in-law and the old man of Gibeah who provide exemplary hospitality, the Levite who succeeds in convening the assembly of the people of God to judge the murder case, the assembly which properly judges the matter and issues an order to the elders of Gibeah to hand over the guilty parties, and the sons of Israel who heroically go to war against Benjamin and YabeshGilead to punish wrongs that have been committed.

chapter 5

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21 One of the specificities of Judges 19–21 is that it contains a significant number of allusions to other biblical texts. From the early days of modern biblical criticism, commentators have recognized that there are thematic and lexical similarities between (i) the story of the Levite’s visit to the house of the old man in Gibeah in Judg 19:16–28 and the story of the two angels’ visit to Lot’s house in Sodom in Genesis 19:1–11 and (ii) the story of the conquest of Gibeah in Judg 20:28–48 and the story of the conquest of Ai in Josh 8:1–29.1 Certain recent commentators have identified a number of additional intertextual allusions in Judges 19–21 and treat the phenomenon of intertextuality as a hermeneutical key for understanding the narrative.2 Other commentators focus more narrowly on perceived allusions to the life of Saul and conclude that Judges 19–21 is an anti-Saul political polemic.3 The purpose of this chapter is to explore methodological problems in the analysis of intertextuality in Judges 19–21. As Cynthia Edenburg devotes more than one-half of her 2016 monograph on Judges 19–21 to the interpretation of the phenomenon of intertextuality, particular attention will be devoted to Edenburg’s position in this chapter.4 Section 1 will review the methodological 1 See, e.g., Wellhausen, Moore, Budde, Gunkel, Burney. 2 See, Lanoir, Femmes fatales; Cynthia, Dismembering the Whole. Lanoir argues that the following four passages show thematic and lexical similarities with Judges 19–21: (Gen 19:1–11 (Lot and the two messengers who arrive in Sodom); Numbers 31 (war against Midian); Josh 8:1– 24 (conquest of Ai); 1 Sam 10:27–27.11:1–7 (Saul’s victory over the Ammonites). In addition, Lanoir sees thematic parallels with Genesis 34 (rape of Dinah). Edenburg’s identification of the phenomenon of intertextuality in Judges 19–21 is extensive. She argues that the following eight passages show thematic and lexical similarities with Judges 19–21: Genesis 18–19 (Abraham, Lot and the destruction of Sodom); Numbers 31 (war against Midian); Deut 13:13– 18 (law of the apostate towns); Deut 22:13–29 (laws concerning sexual offenses); Joshua 7–8 (conquest of Ai); Josh 22:9–34 (the trans-Jordanian altar); 1 Sam 10:27–27.11:1–7 (Saul’s victory over the Ammonites); and 2 Sam 13:11–17 (rape of Tamar). In addition, she claims that lexical parallels can also be identified in Judg 19:4–8//Gen 24:54–57; Judg 19:29//Gen 22:10; Judg 21:7//2 Sam 21:2–3. 3 See, e.g., Brettler, “Literature as Politics”; Edelman, “Saulide-Davidic Rivalry”; Amit, “Saul Polemic”; Blenkinsopp, “Benjamin Traditions”; Joseph Blenkinsopp, David Remembered: Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013); Davies, “Saul Hero and Villain.” 4 The hypothesis that Judges 19–21 is an anti-Saul political polemic will be discussed in Chapter 6 infra.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_007

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approach used by recent commentators to identify and interpret the phenomenon of intertextuality in the HB. Section 2 will address methodological issues that arise when intertextual allusions are analyzed from a synchronic perspective. As an example of these methodological problems, Section 3 will critique Edenburg’s hypothesis of the intertextual relationship between the Gibeah story in Judg 19:16–28 and the Sodom story in Gen 19:1–11. Conclusions will be presented in Section 4. 1

Methodology and the Phenomenon of Intertextuality in the HB

The scholarly literature on intertextuality in general, and more particularly, on the relationship between Judges 19 and Genesis 19, is extensive and need not be rehearsed.5 This section will focus on methodological issues related to the analysis of the phenomenon of intertextuality. In my view, the threshold methodological problems raised by a narrative text that appears to allude to another text are twofold. First, objective criteria need to be defined for distinguishing between intentional and coincidental allusion. By “intentional allusion,” I mean the case of an author6 who intentionally incorporates thematic and/or lexical references to another text into his original composition and intends these allusions to be recognized by the reader. By “coincidental allusion,” I mean all other associations among biblical texts that a reader perceives when reading a specific text. This default category includes the author’s use of (i) type scenes; (ii) customary motifs; and (iii) formulaic language. Second, in the case of intentional allusion, it is necessary to formulate criteria for identifying the intended “purpose” of the allusion. The purpose of an intentional allusion can be divided into two broad categories. Primo, certain hyper-texts direct the reader’s attention to the hypo-text7 with the intention 5 For bibliographic references through 2011, see bibliography in Geoffrey D. Miller, “Intertextuality in Old Testament Research,” CBR 9, 3 (2011): 283–309. For bibliographic references through 2016, see the bibliographies in the collection of articles in Exploring Intertextuality: Diverse Strategies for New Testament Interpretation of Text (ed. B. Oropeza and S. Moyise; Eugene: Cascade, 2016). 6 I use the term “author” in its broadest sense to include the presumed author of the earliest composition stratum of a narrative text as well as subsequent “redactors” who interpolated material into the text. For a recent discussion of the overlap between the roles of author and redactor, see Lemmelijn, “Influence,” 225. 7 Following Gérard Genette, I will use the terms “hyper-text” and “hypo-text” to refer to a later text that contains intentional allusions to an older text. Gérard Genette, Palimpsestes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1982), 11. Benjamin D. Sommer uses the terms “alluding text” and “evoked text.” Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford:

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of (i) revising or actualizing the reader’s understanding of the older text and/ or (ii) making an exegetical comment that may subvert the hypo-text. This category of intentional allusion corresponds to what is often referred to as “innerbiblical exegesis.”8 Secundo, other hyper-texts invoke the hypo-text to reinforce the purpose of the hyper-text itself without proposing any revision, actualization or exegesis of the older text. Benjamin D. Sommer identifies more mundane reasons why one text intentionally alludes to another. These include (i) bolstering the authority of the hyper-text; (ii) seeking to gain admission into the canon; (iii) permitting the author to display erudition; (iv) establishing a link between the author and reader by appealing to shared knowledge; and (v) giving the reader the pleasure of discovering connections between the hyper-text and older authoritative texts in the canon.9 A scholarly consensus has emerged concerning the methodological criteria for distinguishing between intentional and coincidental allusions. In contrast, there is an absence of consensus on the criteria to be used to distinguish between intentional allusion in the hyper-text that (i) should be interpreted as an inner-biblical exegesis of the hypo-text and (ii) serves primarily to reinforce the ideological/theological purpose of the hyper-text itself. The consensus view on the methodology for distinguishing between intentional and coincidental allusion may be summarized as follows. First, an intentional allusion is characterized by the use of language and a plotline that resembles that used in another text. Second, the greater the number of lexical and thematic similarities between two texts, the more likely it is that one text is alluding to another. Third, independent historico-critical criteria must be

Stanford University Press, 1998), 11–29. Edenburg uses the terms “alluding text and alluded text.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole. 8 See, e.g., Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Michael Fishbane, “Law to Canon: Some ‘Ideal-Typical’ Stages of Development,” JSOTSup 154, 65–86; Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Michael Fishbane, “Types of Biblical Intertextuality,” in Congress Volume, 80, 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire and M. Saebo; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 39–44; Bernard M. Levinson, “You Must Not Add Anything to What I Command You: Paradoxes of Canon and Authorship in Ancient Israel,” Numen, International Review for the History of Religion 50, 1 (2003): 1–51; Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “Inscrire le nouveau dans l’ancien : Exégèse intra-biblique et herméneutique de l’innovation,” NRT 128 (2006), 3–17; Sophie Ramond, Les leçons et les énigmes du passé, Une exégèse intra-biblique des psaumes historiques (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014). 9 Sommer, A Prophet Reads, 16–17.

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used to determine the relative dating of the two texts in order to conclude that one is the hyper-text and the other is the hypo-text.10 Edenburg proposes an additional criterion for distinguishing between intentional and coincidental allusion in a biblical narrative that she argues is methodologically more reliable than the generally accepted criterion of dense accumulation of lexical and thematic similarities between two texts. She argues that it is the presence of “foreignness” or “ungrammaticality” in the hyper-text, and its absence in the hypo-text, that characterizes an intentional allusion and serves to identify which of the two texts is the hypo-text.11 Edenburg argues that “[i]n allusion, one text constructs a covert level of significance by indirectly invoking another text. For allusion to fulfill its purpose as a signifying device, it must be accompanied by textual markers that alert the audience to an underlying significance. The marker is an element that is ‘borrowed’ from another context where it is at home, and then planted in a new, foreign context.”12 The “foreignness” of the borrowed element thus creates “ungrammatically” in the hyper-text. According to Edenburg, Ungrammaticality represents an abrogation of the text’s inner logic. In this context, ungrammatically arises not only from disrupting language norms, but also from employing dysfunction or “blind motifs.” […] Thus, I consider ungrammaticality of a common element to be a deciding factor in establishing textual interrelations, particularly when accompanied by

10

11

12

With respect to lexical similarities, Jeffrey M. Leonard argues that an intertextual relationship between two texts can be established with greater certainty when the two texts contain (i) an “accumulation of shared language” that includes (ii) “rare or distinctive lexemes” and (iii) a significant number of shared phrases (rather than individual lexemes). Jeffrey M. Leonard, “Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions: Psalm 78 as a Test Case,” JBL 127 (2008): 246. With respect to thematic similarities, Dennis R. MacDonald argues that an intertextual relationship between two texts can be established when (i) there are many parallels between the two texts rather than only a few; (ii) the series of parallels occur in the same order in both texts and (iii) the parallels are distinctive; i.e., they contain “unusual characteristics that set them apart.” Dennis R. MacDonald, “Introduction” in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity (ed. D.R. MacDonald; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 2. Edenburg states, “[…] the quantitative character of the marker is not relevant to determining use of allusion; the significant criterion remains the foreignness of the marker in the context of the alluding text, compared to its natural integration in the alluded text.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 168–169, fn. 34. Cynthia Edenburg, “Intertextuality, Literary Competence and the Question of Readership: Some Preliminary Observations,” JSOT 35, 2 (2010): 144.

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other indications of possible interrelatedness, such as similarity in formulation or structure.13 I find Edenburg’s argument to be convincing, subject to one caveat: the phenomenon of ungrammaticality and blind motifs in biblical narratives can also be identified in pericopes that do not contain intentional intertextual allusions. Thus, while Edenburg argues that ungrammatically is necessarily present in an intertextual allusion, the reverse is not true; i.e., not all examples of narrative ungrammaticality point to the presence of an intertextual allusion. I am not aware of any scholars who have addressed the phenomenon of ungrammaticality in biblical texts other than in relation to intertextuality. As will be discussed in detail in Chapter 8 infra, it is my position that the phenomenon of ungrammaticality is frequently an indicium of redactional activity in a text. When a redactor adds new material to an existing text, the plotline is changed, however slightly, thereby giving rise to the possible introduction of ungrammaticality and blind motifs into the underlying composition stratum on which the redactor is working.14 Thus, when the presence of intertextuality in a text is suggested on the grounds that the intentional allusion introduces an element of ungrammaticality into the hyper-text as Edenburg proposes, the possibility should also be considered that the ungrammatical intertextual allusion may have been interpolated by a later redactor rather than forming part of the earliest composition stratum of text. The methodological implications of this hypothesis will be discussed in the following section. 2

Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to the Analysis of Intertextuality

As the interpretation of the phenomenon of intertextuality requires an analysis of the relative dating of two texts in order to determine which text is the hypo-text, it is fair to say that intertextual analysis is a diachronic methodology. However, as most commentators limit their analysis of intertextuality to a comparison of the final versions of the two texts in the MT, the study of 13

14

Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 172–173. Edenburg cites Michael Riffaterre for the concept of “ungrammaticality.” According to Riffaterre, “It [the sign] is first apprehended as a mere ungrammaticality, until the discovery is made that there is another text in which the word is grammatical; the moment the other text is identified, the dual sign becomes significant purely because of its shape, which alone allude to that other code.” Michael Riffaterre, Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 82. See discussion of ungrammaticality and blind motifs in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.5 infra.

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intertextuality relies on a de facto synchronic methodology. In my view, it is methodologically unsound to seek to identify examples of intentional allusions solely on a basis of an analysis of the final version of the MT for two reasons. First, a comparison of the MT and LXX versions of a given text often shows that the phenomenon of intertextuality is evident to a far greater extent in the MT than the LXX. This requires an explanation. Second, an intentional allusion necessarily relates to the “author’s” intentionality. However, most texts have undergone redaction and thus have multiple “authors.” A more complete analysis of intertextuality would seek (i) to determine whether the intentional allusion forms part of the earliest composition stratum of the text (the “N” stratum) under study or was instead added to the text by a redactor in a later stratum and (ii) to situate the stratum in which the allusion was added in a specific historical context. This implies that it is preferable to complete a thorough analysis of the compositional history of a given text before the significance of the phenomenon of intertextuality in that text is addressed.15 A thorough diachronic analysis of the hyper- and hypo-texts would address the following issues: First, it should be questioned whether the perceived intertextuality in the hyper-text forms part of the N stratum or was interpolated by a later redactor. It is possible that an erudite redactor may have been responsible for interpolating intertextual allusions in order to add an additional layer of hermeneutical meaning to the composition stratum on which he was working. Second, some of the perceived examples of intertextuality may have been introduced into the hyper-text gradually, by a succession of redactors as part of a Fortschreibung process, in order to further accentuate the more limited intertextuality present in the underlying redaction stratum on which each such redactor was working. Third, the hypo-text itself may have undergone subsequent redactional activity to harmonize it with the hyper-text. This kind of “cross-fertilization” or “secondary scribal coordination” between texts has the result of accentuating the phenomenon of intertextuality present in the final MT versions of the two texts.16 Fourth, a close comparison of the two MT texts with their LXX versions may help identify examples of redactional changes in the MT texts interpolated after the date of the Vorlagen on which the LXX versions are based. These late changes could include both additional harmonization of the hyper-text

15 16

I am not aware of any intertextual analyses of biblical narratives that follow this approach. See Carr, “Scribal Processes,” 90–94.

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

133

with the hypo-text and additional harmonization of the hypo-text with the hyper-text. These diachronic possibilities have an impact on the interpretation of the purpose of intertextuality in a text under study. Does the intentional association of the hyper-text with an older authoritative hypo-text reflect the ideological/theological perspective of the N stratum or of a later redaction stratum? Is the purpose of some or all of the perceived intertextual allusions in the final version of the hyper-text text to add hermeneutical meaning to the underlying composition stratum or merely to harmonize the hyper-text with the hypo-text for literary effect?17 Are certain perceived allusions in the hyper-text the result of late changes to the hypo-text itself intended to accentuate the presence of intertextuality in both texts? In my view, most biblical scholars have an implicit bias that leads them to interpret possible intertextual allusions as being intentional rather than coincidental,18 and to interpret such intentional allusions as being examples of inner-biblical exegesis rather than literary embellishments. Methodological controls are needed to counter the commentator’s bias in favor of overreading possible allusions as exegetical relecture. Suspending intertextual analysis of a text until the redaction history of such text has been completed has the methodological advantage of providing a control against commentator bias. These methodological problems will be demonstrated by an analysis of two texts that are generally agreed to display a high degree of intertextuality – the narrative of the two angels’ visit to Lot’s house in Sodom in Gen 19:1–11 and the story of the Levite’s visit to the house of the old man in Gibeah in Judg 19:16–28. As Cynthia Edenburg’s 2016 monograph is the most complete analysis to date of the phenomenon of intertextuality in Genesis 19 and Judges 19, I will engage with her position as the basis of my methodological critique.

17

18

Sommer has identified reasons why an author would allude to another text other than for purposes of creating an inner-biblical exegesis. These include (i) bolstering the authority of the hyper-text; (ii) seeking to gain admission into the canon; (iii) permitting the author to display erudition; (iv) establishing a link between the author and reader by appealing to shared knowledge; and (v) giving the reader the pleasure of discovering connections between the hyper-text and older authoritative texts in the canon. Sommer, A Prophet Reads, 16–17. By “coincidental allusion” I mean all associations among biblical texts that a reader perceives when reading a text and which cannot convincingly be demonstrated to reflect an author’s intentionality to allude to a specific hypo-text. This default category includes an author’s use of type scenes, customary motifs and formulaic language.

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Edenburg’s Analysis of Intertextuality in Judg 19:22–24

Edenburg does not ignore diachronic issues in Judges 19–21. As will be discussed below, she identifies two compositional strata in the narrative: a composition stratum and a later redaction stratum. She argues that her composition stratum is itself based on a series of poetic fragments dating to an earlier period. Edenburg’s compositional history of Judges 19–21 differs from that proposed by other commentators because she assigns the overwhelming majority of the verses in all three chapters of Judges 19–21 to the earliest composition stratum.19 The phenomenon of intertextuality plays an important methodological role in Edenburg’s analysis of the compositional history of Judges 19–21. She posits, Intertextual links are distributed throughout nearly the entire N1 [earliest composition] strand in Judg 19–20, with only limited pockets displaying wholly independent formulation (19:11–12; 20:14–22, 24, 28, 43, 45). By contrast, the N1 material in Judg 21 demonstrates far less verbal interrelation, although the structure of the section may have been influenced by the story of Lot’s daughters in Gen 19 […].20 In my view, Edenburg’s hypothesis that the phenomenon of intertextuality in Judges 19–20 should be assigned to the earliest composition stratum of the text is problematic because she assumes what she should be demonstrating. Her methodology can be summarized as follows. First, she interprets nearly all intertextual allusions in the text as intentional rather than coincidental allusions. Second, she assumes that all of the allusions to a single hypotext (e.g., Genesis 19) should be attributed to the same composition stratum of Judges 19–21. Third, because of the great number of perceived intentional allusions in the text, she assumes that all intentional allusions in Judges 19–21 should be attributed to the earliest composition stratum of the text. Edenburg then concludes on the basis of these assumptions that a single author composed most of Judges 19–21. I disagree with Edenburg’s methodology. I will present my critique below using her analysis of 19:22–24 as an example.

19 20

See discussion of Edenburg’s compositional history of Judges 19–21 in Chapter 9, Sections 1.1, 2.1, 3.1; Chapter 10, Sections 1.1, 2.1, 3.1; Chapter 11, Sections 1.1, 2.1, 3.1 infra. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 317.

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3.1 Intertextual Allusion in Judges 19:22a Edenburg argues that 19:22a is an intentional allusion to Gen 19:4 and that the entire verse should be assigned to the earliest composition stratum.21 I disagree and will argue below that a redactor added a single word to the verse in order to harmonize Judges 19 with Genesis 19. The two verses are set out below, with the lexical parallels noted by Edenburg in bold type. Judges 19:22a

Genesis 19:4

Judg 20:22aThey were making glad their heart. And behold! The men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial, they surrounded the house, beating violently on the door.

Gen 19:4Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, they surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.

‫ת־ל ָּבם וְ ִהּנֵ ה אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי הָ ִעיר‬ ִ ‫יט ִיבים ֶא‬ ִ ‫ֵה ָּמה ֵמ‬ ְ ‫אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי ְבנ‬ ‫ֵי־ב ִל ּי ַַעל נ ַָס ּב ּו אֶ ת־הַ ּ ַביִ ת ִמ ְת ַּד ְּפ ִקים‬ ‫ל־ה ָּד ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ַע‬

‫ ֶט ֶרם יִ ְׁש ָּכבּו וְ אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי הָ ִעיר אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי ְסדֹם נ ַָס ּב ּו‬‎ ‫ל־ה ָעם ִמ ָּק ֶצה‬ ָ ‫ַעל־הַ ּ ַביִ ת ִמּנַ ַער וְ ַעד־זָ ֵקן ָּכ‬

Edenburg treats the appositional phrases, “the men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial” in Judg 19:22a as a lexical parallel to the phrase “the men of the city, the men of Sodom” in Gen 19:4. She argues, “The difficulty in Judg 19:22 derives from the double construct ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫ ַאנְ ֵׁשי ְבנ‬, which is a unique formulation. The most economic explanation of this unusual collocation is that it cites and interprets the parallel expression in Gen 19:4. […] Thus, by borrowing the phrase from Gen 19:4 and substituting ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫ ְבנ‬for Sodom, N1 in Judg 19:22 associates the base fellow at Gibeah with the men of Sodom.”22 I agree that the phrase “the men of the sons of Belial” was intended to parallel “the men of Sodom” but will argue below that the “ungrammaticality” in Judg 19:22a was introduced into the text by a redactor who added a single word to an underlying composition stratum in which there were no references to Genesis 19.23 This hypothesis is supported by three arguments:

21

22 23

For ease of reference, I will refer in this work to the earliest composition stratum in Judges 19–21 as “N” and to the succeeding redaction strata as “R1, R2 and R3”. In contrast, Edenburg uses “N1” to refer to the earliest composition stratum and “R2” to refer to the first redaction stratum. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 181–182. Citations omitted. Although Edenburg considers that ungrammaticality is a sign of intentional allusion, she does not discuss the possibility that the collocation, ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫( ַאנְ ֵׁשי ְבנ‬the men of the sons of Belial) is ungrammatical.

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First, the collocation “the men of the city” in Judg 19:22a is commonly used in the MT.24 It is thus possible that the phrase, “the men of the city” is simply a stock phrase and not an intentional allusion to Gen 19:4. Second, it can be noted that the plural construct noun ‫ ַאנְ ֵׁשי‬is not used elsewhere in the MT in a genitive construct chain with the plural construct noun ‫ ְבנֵ י‬. Instead, collective persons such as the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin are generally referred to in genitive construct chains as‎ ‫ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬and ‫ׁש‬ ‎ ‫ִאי‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ ִּבנ‬, respectively. However, grammaticality can be restored to Judg 19:22a by treating the first lexeme ‫ ַאנְ ֵׁשי‬as a one-word redactional interpolation intended to harmonize the verse with Gen 19:4. Third, the double construct “men of the sons of” is not present in the LXXAB variants of Judg 19:22a: καὶ ἰδοὺ οἱ ἄνδρες τῆς πόλεως υἱοὶ παρανόμων περιεκύκλωσαν τὴν οἰκίαν. The “minus” in the LXXAB Judg 19:22a can be explained in two ways. First, the translators of LXXAB did not recognize the intertextual allusion in the MT and deleted “the men of” in order to correct the ungrammaticality in the passage. Second, LXXAB worked from a Vorlage earlier than the final version of the MT, suggesting that “men of” is a “plus” added by a late Hebrew scribe intending to harmonize Judg 19:22a with Gen 19:4. Although both hypotheses are plausible, the latter is, in my view, the more parsimonious explanation. On the basis of the foregoing, it can reasonably be argued that (i) the underlying composition stratum read, “the men of the city, the sons of Belial, surrounded the house” and (ii) a redactor introduced the ungrammatically of the syntagma “the men of the sons of Belial” in an attempt to create a somewhat awkward intertextual allusion to Gen 19:4 that was not present in the N stratum. There is a subtle lexical difference between Judg 19:22a and Gen 19:4 that also suggests that the intertextual allusion was not present in the N stratum of Judges 19 but rather was added by a later redactor. It can be noted that the two phrases that Edenburg translates as “They surrounded the house” read ‫־ה ַּביִ ת‬ ַ ‫ נָ ַסּבּו אֶ ת‬in Judg 19:22a and ‫־ה ַּביִ ת‬ ַ ‫ נָ ַסּבּו ַעל‬in Gen 19:4. Although both verses use the Nif‘al form of the verb ‫סבב‬, it can be observed that the complement of the verb is a direct object in Judg 19:22a and the object of a preposition in Gen 19:4. While the Qal form of the verb ‫ סבב‬followed by a direct object is widely used in the MT to mean “to march around; to circle around; to surround,” the Nif‘al form is used very rarely. According to BDB, there are only three attestations of the Nif‘al form of the verb ‫סבב‬ – Gen 19:4, Josh 7:9 and Judg 19:22. In the first two occurrences, the verb is followed by the preposition

24

See, Gen 19:4; 24:13; Josh 8:14; Judg 6:27.28.30; 8:17; 14:18; 19:22; 1 Sam 5:9; 2 Sam 11:17; 2 Ki 2:19; 23:17.

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

137

‫ ַעל‬. In contrast, the verb is followed by a direct object in Judg 19:22a. The question thus arises why an author seeking to allude to Gen 19:4 would vary the syntax from that used in the hypo-text. This question is pertinent because (i) the verbal form in the hypo-text is itself extremely rare and (ii) the different syntax in the hyper-text is not attested elsewhere in the MT. In answer to this question, I propose that the phrase in question in the N stratum of Judg 19:2a was ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת‬ ַ ‫( ַסּבּו ֶא‬they circled around the house), using the Qal form of the verb ‫סבב‬. A later redactor then added a single letter to the phrase so that it read ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת‬ ַ ‫ ָנ ַסּבּו ֶא‬, using the Nif‘al form of the verb ‫ סבב‬in order to harmonize Judg 19:22a with Gen 19:4. This hypothesis is supported by three arguments. First, the use of the Qal form of ‫ ָס ַבב‬is widely attested in the MT. This increases the likelihood that the N stratum of 19:22a used the verb in the Qal form. Second, the hypothesis that the N stratum read ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת‬ ַ ‫ ַסּבּו ֶא‬explains why the verb is followed by a direct object rather than a preposition as in Gen 19:4. Third, the theme of bad men surrounding the old man’s house is presented a second time, in 20:5a, when the Levite addresses the assembly to report the events that had transpired at Gibeah. The Levite says, ‫וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו ָע ַלי ַּב ֲע ֵלי ַהּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ָ ּיס ֹּב ּו‬ ‫( ָע ַלי אֶ ת־הַ ּ ַביִ ת ָליְ ָלה‬And the lords of Gibeah rose up against me and they circled around the house at night because of me). Here the text uses the Qal form of ‫ ָס ַבב‬followed by a direct object as I am proposing for the N stratum of 19:22a. In my view, the most parsimonious explanation for the use of the Nif‘al form of the verb ‫ סבב‬in the final version of the text is that a redactor introduced the change in order to harmonize the verse with Gen 19:4.

3.2 Intertextual Allusion in Judges 19:22b Verse 19:22b is set out below with the shared lexical material in bold type. Judges 19:22b

Genesis 19:5

And they said to the man, the master of the house, the elder, saying: “Bring out the man who came to your house and we shall know him.”

And they called to Lot. And they said to him: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know them.”

ְ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש ַּב ַעל ַה ַּביִ ת ַהּזָ ֵקן ֵלאמֹר‬ ָ ‫ֹאמר ּו ֶא‬ ‫יתָך ְונ ֵָד ֶענּ ּו‬ ְ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ר־בא ֶא‬ ָ ּ ‫ֲש‬ ֶ ׁ ‫יש א‬ ׁ ‫הוצֵ א אֶ ת־הָ ִא‬ ֹ

ְ ‫וַ ּיִ ְק ְראּו ֶאל־לֹוט וַ ּי‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו לֹו ַאּיֵ ה הָ ֲאנ ִָׁשים‬ ָ ּ ‫ֲש‬ ֶׁ ‫א‬ ‫ר־בא ּו ֵא ֶליָך ַה ָּליְ ָלה הוֹ ִציאֵ ם ֵא ֵלינּו וְ נ ְֵד ָעה‬ ‫א ָֹתם‬

Edenburg argues, correctly in my view, that the element of threatened homosexual rape is “at home” in Genesis 19 but foreign and thus “ungrammatical”

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in Judges 19.25 As the plotline in Judges 19 is centered on the gang-rape and murder of a woman, the phrase “Bring out the man who came to your house and we shall know him” in Judg 19:22b creates a dysfunctional blind motif in the narrative intrigue. This demonstrates in Edenburg’s view that the phrase has been intentionally borrowed from Gen 19:5, where it is “at home,” in order to create an ungrammatical “marker” that signals to the reader that the author intends Judg 19:22b to be read in relation to Gen 19:5. The question thus arises as to whether this blind motif formed part of the N stratum or was introduced into the text by a redactor. Edenburg takes the former position. I will argue below in favor of the latter. Judg 19:22b is part of a dialog in 19:22–24 between the sons of Belial and the old man of Gibeah. The words spoken by the sons of Belial consist of two short phrases. The first is a demand using an imperative verb: ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫הֹוצא ֶא‬ ֵ ‫יתָך‬ ְ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ר־ּבא ֶא‬ ָ ‫( ֲא ֶׁש‬Bring out the man who came to your house). The second is a Yiqtol phrase, ‫( וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬And we shall know him). I propose to analyze each phrase separately. While the first phrase shows some lexical similarity to ‫הֹוצ ֵיאם ֵא ֵלינּו‬ ִ (“Bring them out to us”) in Gen 19:5, the possibility should be considered that the phrase is simply a formulaic element used coincidentally in the two texts. For example, in Josh 2:3, the king of Jericho sent a message to Rahab saying, “Bring out the men visiting you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” The language used in Judg 19:22b is actually closer to Josh 2:3 than Gen 19:5: Judg 19:22bBring out the man who came to your house. Josh 2:3Bring out the men visiting you, who came to your house. Gen 19:5Bring them out to us.

‫ר־בא‬ ָ ּ ‫ֲש‬ ֶ ׁ ‫יש א‬ ׁ ‫הוֹ צֵ א אֶ ת־הָ ִא‬ ‫ית ָך‬ ְ ‫ל־ב‬ ֵ ּ ֶ‫א‬ ‫יאי הָ אֲ נ ִָׁשים ַה ָּב ִאים ֵא ַליִ ְך‬ ִ ‫הוֹ ִצ‬ ‫ית ְך‬ ֵ ֵ‫ר־בא ּו ְלב‬ ָ ּ ‫ֲש‬ ֶׁ ‫א‬ ‫הוֹ ִציאֵ ם ֵא ֵלינּו‬‎

It is the concluding one-word phrase in Judg 19:22b, ‫( וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬And we shall know him), that introduces ungrammaticality into Judg 19:22–25. Without this phrase, the blind motif of threatened homosexual rape would disappear from the narrative. The possibility should therefore be considered that the lexeme ‫ וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬was interpolated by a redactor in order to harmonize Judg 19:22b with Gen 19:5. This hypothesis is further supported by the observation that the phrase in the hyper-text is not a verbatim citation of the hypo-text. Gen 19:5 expresses the threatened homosexual rape using the cohortative, ‫וְ נֵ ְד ָעה א ָֹתם‬. The equivalent statement in Judg 19:22b, ‫וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬, uses a Yiqtol verbal form with an 25

Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 177.

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

139

energic nun and an accusative suffix.26 As cohortative verbs are not unknown in Judges 19–21, the lexical difference is curious.27 Why would an author seeking to provide a clear sign to the reader of his intention to make an intentional allusion to Gen 19:5 change the construction of the verb? The use of the energic nun may provide an answer. Gesenius argues that the purpose of the energic nun is to place strong emphasis on the verb in question.28 This can be analogized to the modern practice of using italics or bold to emphasize a word. In my view, the use of the energic nun may represent a sign of redactional activity. On the assumption that the underlying text read, “Bring out the man who came to your house,” it is possible that a redactor who added a one-word intentional allusion to Gen 19:5, ‫( וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬and we shall know him), would emphasize the borrowed word with an energic nun. In summary, the above analysis of 19:22b indicates that Edenburg’s emphasis on the importance of thematic ungrammaticality in the verse is correct. However, this phenomenon can more parsimoniously be interpreted, in my opinion, as a criterion for identifying redactional activity than as the primary criterion for identifying intentional allusions. When a redactor adds new material to an existing text, the plotline is changed, however slightly, thereby giving rise to the possible introduction of blind motifs into the underlying composition stratum on which the redactor is working. On this hypothesis, it would be a redactor, rather than N, who introduced the ungrammaticality of the homosexual rape motif into 19:22b by adding the single lexeme ‫ וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬at the end of the verse. 3.3 Intentional Allusion in Judges 19:23 Judges 19:23 is set out below with the shared lexical material in bold type. Judges 19:23aA

Genesis 19:6–7

‫ֹאמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיֵצֵ א אֲלֵ יהֶ ם ָה ִאיׁש ַּב ַעל ַה ַּביִ ת וַ ּי‬‎ ‫וַ ּיֵצֵ א אֲלֵ הֶ ם לֹוט ַה ֶּפ ְת ָחה וְ ַה ֶּד ֶלת ָסגַ ר ַא ֲח ָריו‬‎ ‫ר־ּבא ָה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫ל־ת ֵרע ּו נָא ַא ֲח ֵרי ֲא ֶׁש‬ ָ ּ ַ‫ַאל־אַ חַ י א‬ ‫ֹאמר אַ ל־נָא אַ חַ י ּ ָת ֵרע ּו‬ ַ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ת־הּנְ ָב ָלה ַהּזֹאת‬ ַ ‫ל־ּת ֲעׂשּו ֶא‬ ַ ‫יתי ַא‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ַהּזֶ ה ַא‬

26

27 28

Edenburg translates the phrases in Gen 19:5 and Judg 19:22b identically as “so that we may know them (sexually).” Ibid., 180. It should be noted that the intertextual association between Judg 19:22 and Gen 19:5 is less obvious in the LXX. The verb ‫( יָ ַדע‬to know) in MT Judg 19:22b and Gen 19:5 is translated in LXXAB Judg 19:22b as the subjunctive aorist active verb γινώσκω and in Gen 19:5 as the subjunctive aorist middle verb συγγίνομαι. See use of cohortative verbs in Judg 19:11b.13a.23b; 20:13.32b. Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar § 58.4.

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23aAnd the man, the master of the house, went out to them. And he said to them: “Do not, my brothers! Please do not do evil! 23bAs this man has come to my house, do not do this folly.”

6And Lot went out to them at the doorway. And he shut the door behind him. 7And he said: Please, my brothers, do not do evil.

Verse 19:23a presents the old man’s reply to the demand of the sons of Belial to bring out to them the man who had come to spend the night. The dialog is introduced in 19:23aA with the phrase, “And the man, the master of the house, went out to them.” Interestingly, Edenburg does not interpret this phrase as an intertextual allusion, possibly because it does not contain ungrammaticality.29 In my view, 19:23aA is an intentional allusion to Gen 19:6–7 that does contain ungrammaticality and thus points to redactional activity. This hypothesis is supported by three arguments. First, because the preceding verse introduces the line of dialog spoken by the sons of Belial with “And they said to the man, the master of the house, the elder, saying,” it would be expected in typical narrative style for the old man’s reply to be expressed more economically as “And he said to them.” It can be argued that the syntactical ungrammaticality of re-identifying the subject as “And the man, the master of the house, went out to them” is intended to highlight the allusion to “And Lot went out to them.” Second, it is unusual that the prepositional phrase ‫( ֲא ֵל ֶיהם‬to them) would be used twice in the same verse, after “he went out” and “he said” in Judg 19:23aA. In contrast, the phrase ‫ ֲא ֵל ֶיהם‬is not repeated twice in Gen 19:6–7. This variation from Gen 19:6–7, in what otherwise appears to be an intertextual allusion, can be explained on the grounds that the second phrase, ‫אמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם‬ ֶ ֹ ‫( וַ ּי‬And he said to them), was already present in the underlying composition stratum of Judg 19:23 on which the redactor worked. On the basis of the foregoing, it is my position that a redactor interpolated the entire phrase “And the man, the master of the house, went out to them” before the phrase in the earliest composition stratum, “And he said to them” in order to introduce an intentional allusion to the phrase “And Lot went out to them” in Gen 19:6. Edenburg focuses her attention in Judg 19:23 on the perceived intentional allusion in Judg 19:23aB–23b to Gen 19:7. It can be noted that although all five words in Gen 19:7 appear in Judg 19:23aB–23b, they are used in a different order. 29

In contrast, Lanoir notes the intertextual allusion in Judg 19:23aA to Gen 19:6–7. Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 318.

141

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

In my view, Judg 19:23aB–23b shows greater similarity to the story of the rape of Tamar in 2 Sam 13:1230 than to Gen 19:7: Judges 19:23aB–23b

‫ל־ת ֵרע ּו‬ ָ ּ ַ‫ֹאמר אֲלֵ הֶ ם אַ ל־אַ חַ י א‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ר־ּבא ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה‬ ָ ‫נָא אַ ח ֲֵרי ֲא ֶׁש‬ ‫ל־תעֲ שׂ ּו אֶ ת־הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה‬ ַ ּ ַ‫יתי א‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ַא‬ ‫הַ ּזֹאת‬

23aBAnd he said to them: “Do not, my brothers! Please do not do evil! 23bAs this man has come to my house, do not do this folly!”

2 Samuel 13:12

‫ל־ּת ַעּנֵ נִ י‬ ְ ‫ֹאמר לוֹ אַ ל־אָ ִחי ַא‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּת‬ ‫ִּכי לֹא־יֵ ָע ֶׂשה ֵכן ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

Genesis 19:7

‫ֹאמר אַ ל־נָא אַ חַ י‬ ַ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ּ ָת ֵרע ּו‬

ׂ ֵ ֲ‫ל־תע‬ ‫שה אֶ ת־הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה הַ ּזֹאת‬ ַ ּ ַ‫א‬

And she said to him: “Do not, my brother. Do not rape me! for such a thing is not done in Israel. 12bDo not do this folly!

And he said: Please, my brothers, do not do evil.

This intentional allusion to a text other than Genesis 19 complicates the redaction history of Judg 19. Edenburg argues that Judg 19: 23aB–23b alludes to both Gen 19:7 and 2 Sam 13:12 and that the entire verse should be assigned to the N stratum of Judges 19.31 However, as a methodological control, the possibility should also be considered that (i) one allusion should be assigned to N and another to a redactor or (ii) both allusions should be attributed to different redactors. In my view, the most parsimonious explanation is that (i) N included an intertextual allusion to the rape of Tamar in his narrative about the rape of the Levite’s concubine and (ii) a redactor added allusions to Genesis 19 in order to reorient the reader’s attention away from 2 Samuel 13 to Genesis 19. The redactor’s purpose in “overwriting” the allusion to the rape of Tamar might have been the same as the Chronicler’s decision to exclude the rape of Tamar from his rewritten story of David; i.e., to portray David more favorably than he is presented in Samuel. If this hypothesis is correct, it suggests that the redactor may be a contemporary of the Chronicler.

30

31

The similarity I am highlighting between Judg 19:23aB–23b and 2 Sam 13:12 is lexical. At a thematic level, the two rape scenes can be distinguished on the grounds that the Levite’s concubine was forced out of the house where she was staying to be raped by hooligans while Tamar was raped by her half-brother. As will be discussed, I attribute the motif in Judg 19:24 of bringing the women outside to be raped as an interpolation added to the earliest composition stratum in order to harmonize the text with Genesis 19. See detailed discussion of 19:24 in Section 3.4 infra. Edenburg states that the verbal parallels [to 2 Sam 13] “are woven into the plotline borrowed from the story of Sodom.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 251.

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3.4 Intentional Allusion in Judges 19:24 Edenburg argues that Judg 19:24 is an intentional allusion to Gen 19:8, as set forth below: Judges 19:24

Genesis 19:8

24aBehold my maiden daughter and his concubine. Please, let me bring them out. Rape them! Do to them what is good in your eyes! 24bBut do not do to this man this thing of folly!

8Behold, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please let me bring them out to you. Do to them what is good in your eyes! Just do not do a thing to these men, as they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

‫ּופ ַילגְ ֵׁשהּו‬ ִ ‫תּולה‬ ָ ‫ ִה ּנֵה ִב ִּתי ַה ְּב‬‎ ‫אֹותם וַ עֲ שׂ ּו לָ הֶ ם‬ ָ ‫או ָתם וְ ַעּנּו‬ ֹ ‫ה־נָא‬ ּ ָ‫או ִציא‬ ֹ ‫יש הַ ּזֶה לֹא ַתעֲ שׂ ּו‬ ׁ ‫הַ ּט ֹוב ְּב ֵעינֵיכֶ ם וְ לָ ִא‬ ‫דְּ בַ ר ַהּנְ ָב ָלה ַהּזֹאת‬

‫ִה ּנֵה־נָ א ִלי ְׁש ֵּתי בָ נוֹ ת ֲא ֶׁשר לֹא־יָ ְדעּו ִאיׁש‬ ‫יכם וַ עֲ שׂ ּו לָ הֶ ן ּ ַכ ּט ֹוב‬ ֶ ‫ה־נָא אֶ ְתהֶ ן ֲא ֵל‬ ּ ָ‫אוֹ ִציא‬ ‫ל־תעֲ שׂ ּו ָדבָ ר‬ ַ ּ ַ‫ְּב ֵעינֵיכֶ ם ַרק לָ ֲאנ ִָׁשים הָ אֵ ל א‬ ‫ל־ּכן ָּבאּו ְּב ֵצל ק ָֹר ִתי‬ ֵ ‫י־ע‬ ַ ‫ִּכ‬

Lot’s offer of his two virgin daughters in Gen 19:8 is generally understood to be a sign of hospitality to the two visitors to whom Lot owes a duty of absolute protection. Edenburg notes that the townspeople’s demand in Gen 19:8 to send out two male guests is symmetrically countered by Lot’s offer to send out his two daughters.32 In contrast, Edenburg observes that the old man’s parallel offer of his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine in Judg 19:24 seems ungrammatical for two reasons. First, it is difficult to understand the old man’s gesture of offering the Levite’s concubine to be gang-raped as a sign of hospitality to her husband. Second, because the sons of Belial had demanded that one man be sent out to them, there is a lack of symmetry in the old man’s counteroffer of two (rather than one) women.33 Judg 20:24 thus appears to introduce ungrammaticality into the plotline of Judg 19:20–24. Edenburg explains this ungrammaticality as follows: It seems that this tension perceived in Judg 19 derives from its dependence upon Gen 19. The author of Judg 19 borrowed from Gen 19 the motif of the host who defends his guests by offering two women from his house. In his source, the women belonged to the host’s family, thus showing how the ideal host would spare no means of his own in order to safeguard his guests. However, the circumstances of the story in Judg 19 made it

32 33

Ibid., 178. Ibid., 178–179.

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

143

necessary to hint at the concubine’s fate, and thus the author traded one of the host’s daughters for the concubine of the guest.34 I agree with Edenburg’s position that Judg 20:24 is an intentional allusion to Gen 19:8. However, I propose to assign the verse to a redactor. This hypothesis is supported by three arguments. First, it can be observed that the principal lexical difference between Judg 19:24a and Gen 19:8 is that the old man says, “Rape them! (‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫”)וְ ַעּנּו‬ after “Let me bring them out” and before “Do to them what is good in your eyes.” If 19:24a is assigned to N, as proposed by Edenburg, the question arises why the same author uses the verb ‫( ָענָ ה‬to rape) in 19:24a and the verbs ‫( יָ ַדע‬to know) and ‫( ָע ַלל‬to abuse) in 19:25b: ‫ד־הּב ֶֹקר‬ ַ ‫ל־ה ַּליְ ָלה ַע‬ ַ ‫לּו־בּה ָּכ‬ ָ ‫אֹותּה וַ ּיִ ְת ַע ְּל‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְדעּו‬‎ (And they knew her. And they abused her all the night until morning).35 This shift in vocabulary suggests that the two verses may not have been composed by the same author as proposed by Edenburg. Second, 19:24a contains an unusual morphological element that suggests that this verse should be assigned to a later composition stratum than 19:25. It can be noted that that the old man says in 19:24a, ‫תּולה ִּופ ַילגְ ֵׁשהּו‬ ָ ‫ִהּנֵ ה ִב ִּתי ַה ְּב‬ (Behold my maiden daughter and his concubine). The genitive suffix used to signify “his concubine” is ‫הּו‬. In all other occurrences of “his concubine” in Judges 19 the lexeme is spelled ‫ ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬with the short genitive suffix (19:2a.9a.10b. 25a.27b.29a).36 Third, there is an example of Wiederaufnahme in Judg 19:23–24 that supports the hypothesis that all of the intentional allusions to Genesis 19 were interpolated by a redactor. The old man says to the sons of Belial, “Do not do this folly (‫ל־תעֲ שׂ ּו אֶ ת־הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה הַ ּזֹאת‬ ַ ּ ַ‫ ”)א‬in the last phrase of 19:23b. The old man says again, “Do not do to this man this thing of folly (‫וְ ָל ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה לֹא ַתעֲ שׂ ּו ְּד ַבר‬ ‫ ”)הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה הַ ּזֹאת‬in the last phrase of 19:24b. This repetitive resumption suggests that the intervening material in 19:24a – “Behold my maiden daughter and his 34 35 36

Ibid., 179. Edenburg does not address the question of the phrase “Rape them!” that interrupts the lexical parallelism between Gen 19:8a and Judg 19:24a. Edenburg notes the use of the variant genitive suffix in 19:24a but assigns all of Judges 19 to the earliest composition stratum. She argues, “It is possible that postexilic scribes made use of the long ending alongside the more common short suffix because they felt it imparted an archaic flavor to their texts.” Ibid., 124–125. Edenburg’s explanation fails to address the question of why the author would want to impart an archaic flavor to the lexeme “his concubine” in 19:24a and not in 19:2a.9a.10b.25a.27b.29a in which the more common short suffix is used. In addition, the qualification of the long form genitive suffix as “archaic” contradicts Edenburg’s contention that this form “occurs most frequently in postexilic biblical texts. It is also found in Qumran Hebrew […].” Ibid., 124.

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concubine. Please, let me bring them out. Rape them! Do to them what is good in your eyes” – is a redactional interpolation. On the basis of the foregoing arguments, I propose to interpret 19:24a, with its intentional allusion to Gen 19:8, as a redactional interpolation into an underlying text that did not contain intertextual references to Genesis 19. 3.5 Conclusions Judges 19:22–24 is a pericope in which two different composition strata can be discerned. The purpose of the unit is to introduce the episode in 19:25–26 in which the Levite’s concubine is brutally gang-raped and murdered. The intertextual allusion to the rape of Tamar in 19:23a forms part of the earliest composition stratum. This position is supported by the argument that the introduction of this allusion does not give rise to any ungrammaticality or blind motifs in the plotline of 19:22–26 which is focused on the rape of the Levite’s concubine. A later redactor, working no earlier than the time of the Chronicler, added glosses in 19:22a.23a and additional phrases in 19:24 that can reasonably be interpreted as intentional allusions to Gen 19:4–8. These allusions have the literary effect of “overwriting” the allusions to the rape of Tamar in the underlying composition stratum. in 19:24. I have argued that the redactor may have had ideological/theological reasons for wanting to shift the reader’s attention away from the association of the Levite’s concubine with David’s daughter Tamar, and towards the association of Gibeah with the evil city of Sodom. It is the redactor’s interpolations that introduce ungrammaticality into the narrative. This hypothesis of the compositional history of 19:22–25 is summarized in the following two charts. In the second, the interpolations added by a redactor are indicated in bold type and examples of Wiederaufnahme are indicated in italics in the English translation. Earliest Composition Stratum Judg 22aThey were making glad their heart. And behold! the men of the city, […] the sons of Belial, circled around the house, beating violently on the door. 22bAnd they said to the old […] man: “Bring out the man who came to your house […].” 23aBAnd he said to them: “Do not, my brothers. […]. 23bAs this man has come to my house, do not do this folly.

‫ת־ל ָּבם וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬ ִ ‫יט ִיבים ֶא‬ ִ ‫ ֵה ָּמה ֵמ‬22a ‎‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל נָ ַסּבּו‬ ְ ֵ‫ַאנְ ֵׁשי ָה ִעיר […] ְבנ‬ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ִמ ְת ַּד ְּפ ִקים‬ ַ ‫[ ָס ְבבּו] ֶא‬ ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫אמרּו ֶא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬22b ‫ל־ה ָּד ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫הֹוצא ֶא‬ ֵ ‫[…] ַהּזָ ֵקן‬ ]…[23aB ‫ל־ּב ְיתָך‬ ֵ ‫ר־ּבא ֶא‬ ָ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬ 23b ]…[ ‫ל־א ַחי‬ ַ ‫אמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם ַא‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬

‫ר־ּבא ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה‬ ָ ‫ַא ֲח ֵרי ֲא ֶׁש‬ ‫ת־הּנְ ָב ָלה‬ ַ ‫ל־ּת ֲעׂשּו ֶא‬ ַ ‫יתי ַא‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ַא‬ ‫ַהּזֹאת‬

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

Redaction Stratum Judg 22aThey were making glad their heart. And behold! the men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial, surrounded the house, beating violently on the door. 22bAnd they said to the man, the master of the house, the elder, saying: “Bring out the man who came to your house. And we shall know him.” 23aAnd the master of the house went out to them and he said to them: “Do not, my brothers. Please do not do evil. 23bAs this man has come to my house, do not do this folly. 24aBehold my maiden daughter and his concubine. Please, let me bring them out. Rape them! Do to them what is good in your eyes! 24bDo not do to this man this thing of folly.”

145

‫ת־ל ָּבם וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬ ִ ‫יט ִיבים ֶא‬ ִ ‫ ֵה ָּמה ֵמ‬‎22a ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫ַאנְ ֵׁשי ָה ִעיר אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי ְבנ‬ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ִמ ְת ַּד ְּפ ִקים‬ ַ ‫[ ָס ְבבּו] נ ַָס ּב ּו ֶא‬ ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫אמרּו ֶא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬22b ‫ל־ה ָּד ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫הֹוצא‬ ֵ ‫ּ ַב ַעל הַ ּ ַביִ ת ַהּזָ ֵקן לֵ אמֹר‬ ‫יתָך‬ ְ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ר־ּבא ֶא‬ ָ ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש ֲא ֶׁש‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫וַ ּיֵצֵ א אֲלֵ יהֶ ם הָ ִא‬23a ‫וְ נ ֵָד ֶענּ ּו‬ ‫ל־א ַחי‬ ַ ‫אמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם ַא‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ּ ַב ַעל הַ ּ ַביִ ת וַ ּי‬ ‫ר־ּבא‬ ָ ‫ ַא ֲח ֵרי ֲא ֶׁש‬23b ‫ל־ת ֵרע ּו נָא‬ ָ ּ ַ‫א‬

‫ל־ּת ֲעׂשּו‬ ַ ‫יתי ַא‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה ַא‬ ‫ ִה ּנֵה ִב ִּתי‬24a ‫ת־הּנְ ָב ָלה ַהּזֹאת‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬

‫ה־נָא‬ ּ ָ‫הַ ְּבתוּלָ ה ו ִּפילַ גְ ׁ ֵשה ּו אוֹ ִציא‬ ‫אוֹ ָתם וְ ַענּ ּו אוֹ ָתם וַ עֲ שׂ ּו לָ הֶ ם הַ ּטוֹ ב‬ ‫לֹא ַתעֲ שׂ ּו‬24b ‫יש הַ ּזֶה‬ ׁ ‫ְּב ֵעינֵיכֶ ם וְ לָ ִא‬ ‫דְּ בַ ר הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה הַ ּזֹאת‬

4 Conclusions As the interpretation of the phenomenon of intertextuality requires an analysis of the relative dating of two texts in order to determine which text is the hypo-text, it is fair to say that intertextual analysis is a diachronic methodology. However, as most commentators limit their analysis of intertextuality to a comparison of the final versions of the two texts in their MT versions, the study of intertextuality relies on a de facto synchronic methodology. This methodology implicitly assumes an authorial model in which a single scribe composed the hyper-text with a copy in hand of the hypo-text in its final MT version. This authorial model contradicts the general consensus view that most OT texts are composite and include glosses and interpolations added by successive generations of scribal redactors. Intertextual analysis should integrate diachronic analysis of the hyper- and hypo-texts to reach more reliable results. Such analysis should address the following issues. First, it should be questioned whether the perceived intertextuality in the hyper-text forms part of the earliest composition stratum or was interpolated by a later redactor. It is possible that an erudite redactor may have been responsible for interpolating intertextual allusions in order to add an additional layer of hermeneutical meaning or literary embellishment to the stratum on which he was working. Second, some of

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the perceived examples of intertextuality may have been introduced into the hyper-text gradually by a succession of redactors, as part of a Fortschreibung process, in order to further accentuate the more limited intertextuality present in the underlying redaction stratum on which each such redactor was working. Third, the hypo-text itself may have undergone subsequent redactional activity to harmonize it with the hyper-text. This kind of “cross-fertilization” or “secondary scribal coordination” between texts has the result of accentuating the phenomenon of intertextuality present in the final MT version of the two texts. Fourth, a close comparison of the two MT texts with their LXX versions may help identify examples of redactional changes in the MT texts interpolated after the date of the Vorlagen on which the LXX versions are based. These late changes could include both additional harmonization of the hyper-text with the hypo-text and additional harmonization of the hypo-text with the hyper-text. My analysis of Judges 19 suggests that there is a single intertextual allusion in the earliest composition stratum of the text, in Judg 19:23 – to the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. As Judges 19 recounts the story of a woman’s brutal gang-rape and murder, the borrowing of Tamar’s plea in 2 Sam 13:12 to her half-brother Amnon not to rape her makes literary sense. A later redactor then introduced glosses and interpolations that allude to Gen 19:4–8. As these changes to the text introduce blind motifs and ungrammaticality into the narrative intrigue, their purpose is not self-evident. However, one of these interpolations, in Judg 19:23, overlays the allusion to the rape of Tamar in the earliest composition stratum. In my view, this provides a clue as to the redactor’s purpose. I have argued that the redactor’s intention in “overwriting” the allusion to the rape of Tamar might have been the same as the Chronicler’s decision to exclude the rape of Tamar from his rewritten story of David; i.e., to portray David more favorably than he is presented in Samuel. Although this conclusion is speculative, it nonetheless suggests that intertextual analysis that is limited to a comparison of two texts in their final MT versions understates the complexity and subtlety of the gradual compositional development process of biblical texts. 5

Chapter Summary

One of the specificities of Judges 19–21 is that it contains a significant number of allusions to other biblical texts. Various commentators have argued that the following texts present thematic as well as lexical similarities with Judges 19–21: Genesis 18–19 (Abraham, Lot and the destruction of Sodom);

The Phenomenon of Intertextuality in Judges 19–21

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Numbers 31 (war against Midian); Deut 13:13–18 (law of the apostate towns); Deut 22:13–29 (laws concerning sexual offenses); Joshua 7–8 (conquest of Ai); Josh 22:9–34 (the trans-Jordanian altar); 1 Sam 10:27–27.11:1–7 (Saul’s victory over the Ammonites); and 2 Sam 13:11–17 (rape of Tamar). This chapter identifies methodological problems in the analysis of the phenomenon of intertextuality in Judges 19–21. In my view, most commentators have an implicit or explicit bias that leads them to interpret possible allusions as being intentional rather than coincidental, and to interpret such intentional allusions as being examples of innerbiblical exegesis rather than, for example, literary embellishments intended to harmonize one text with another. Methodological controls are needed to counter the commentator’s bias in favor of overreading possible allusions as exegetical relecture. In my view, suspending intertextual analysis of a text until the compositional history of such text has been completed has the methodological advantage of providing a control against commentator bias. As the interpretation of the phenomenon of intertextuality requires an analysis of the relative dating of two texts in order to determine which text is the hypo-text, it is fair to say that intertextual analysis is a diachronic methodology. However, as most commentators limit their analysis of intertextuality to a comparison of the final versions of the two texts in the MT, the study of intertextuality relies on a de facto synchronic methodology. A more complete analysis of intertextuality would seek to identify whether the intentional allusion forms part of the earliest composition stratum of the text under study or was instead added to the text by one or more redactors in later strata. In order to determine the ideological/theological purpose of an intentional allusion, it is necessary to situate the stratum in which the allusion was added in a specific historical context.

part 3 Context

∵

chapter 6

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 As the principal narrative intrigue in Judges 19–21 relates to an internecine conflict between all-Israel and a single tribe, the obvious question arises, why Benjamin? Why are the villains in the story the sons of Benjamin rather than the sons of another tribe? The purpose of this chapter is to explore possible explanations for the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21. Section 1 will present the status quæstionis through the end of the 20th century. Section 2 will discuss in detail the now widely-accepted hypothesis that Judges 19–21 should be interpreted as an “anti-Saul/pro-David” political polemic reflecting Persian period tensions between the Golah and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region who had remained in the land following the Babylonian conquest of Judah. Section 3 will set out the substantive weaknesses of the historical argument that early Persian period Yehud was characterized by a serious conflict between partisans in favor of the restoration of the Davidic and Saulide dynasties. Section 4 will analyze the methodological weaknesses of interpreting the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin in Judges 19–21 as intertextual ciphers for David and Saul, respectively. Section 5 will seek to demonstrate that the supposed “anti-Saul” bias in Judges 19–21 can more parsimoniously be understood as an “anti-Benjamin” Tendenz that arose in the historical context of a political, economic and religious conflict during the early Persian period between the Golah and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region who had remained in the land following the fall of Jerusalem. 1

Status Quæstionis through the End of the 20th Century

The argument that Judges 19–21 contains allusions to Saul dates back to the early days of critical biblical scholarship. Moritz Güdemann noted in an 1869 article published in Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums that the negative evaluations of the tribe of Benjamin and the towns of Gibeah and Yabesh-Gilead are allusions to Saul.1 George F. Moore summarized Güdemann’s position in his 1895 commentary as follows: 1 I have not been able to locate a copy of Güdemann’s 1869 article and will rely on secondary sources to summarize his position. © William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_008

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The towns which are pilloried in this story are Gibeah, Saul’s home, and Jabesh in Gilead, by the relief of which Saul became king, and whose grateful inhabitants held so loyally to him; while the Levite, who is so outrageously treated, comes from Bethlehem, David’s birthplace. The coincidence is certainly striking. Güdemann inferred that the motive of the whole story was Judaean animosity against Saul: “The places and people that were most intimately associated with his history were held up to infamy; the inhabitants of Gibeah were guilty of an unspeakable crime; his tribe of Benjamin upheld them; the people of Jabesh were the only men in Israel who took no part in the holy war.”2 Charles F. Burney follows Güdemann in his 1918 commentary and concludes “The whole story of Judg. 19–21 may have taken its rise out of antipathy to the memory of Saul.”3 More recently, Mario Liverani took a similar position in 1979.4 Marc Brettler returned to the question in a 1989 article entitled, “The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics.”5 He states, “It is uncertain why this [Güdemann’s] interpretation of Judges 19–21 has been rejected by most modern scholars.”6 The importance of Brettler’s article is that he decouples the anti-Saul bias in Judges 19–21 from the historical context of Saul and David, the first two kings of Israel. Brettler states, “The evidence suggests that a pro-Saul faction continued to be active long after Saul’s demise. It is thus very possible that Judges 19–21 reflects a polemic aimed at anyone who might be tempted to follow the Saulide dynasty at the expense of following the Davidic dynasty.”7 He argues more precisely, “The issue of who was the legitimate king remained alive throughout the divided monarchy and beyond, at least through the Chronicler, as indicated by 2 Ch 13:4–12. It could have been raised by a polemicist from the time of 2 Moore, Judges, 408. Moore rejects Güdemann’s hypothesis that Judges 19–21 is an anti-Saul political polemic primarily on the grounds that the earliest stratum of Judges 19–21, which includes, according to Moore, the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine in Gibeah, is older than the Saul material in 1 Sam 11. Ibid. 3 Burney, Judges, 477. 4 Mario Liverani, “Messaggi, donne, ospitalità in Giud. 19–21,” Studi Storico-Relioso, III (1979): 303–41, reprinted as “Messages, Women and Hospitality: Inter-Tribal Communication in Judges 19–21” in Mario Liverani, Myth and Politics in Ancient Near Eastern Historiography (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 191. 5 Brettler, “Literature as Politics,” 413. 6 Ibid. As both Burney and Liverani had expressed support for Güdemann’s hypothesis, Brettler overstates somewhat the importance of his article when he proposes to “return to the view voiced by several scholars last century that Judges 19–21 reflects an anti-Saul polemic.” Ibid., 412. 7 Ibid., 415.

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Rehoboam on. Given the paucity of evidence, it is pointless to speculate on a more precise date of this pro-Davidic editor of Judges.”8 As an alternative to the hypothesis that the anti-Saul Tendenz in Judges 19–21 represents a political polemic opposed to the restoration of the Saulide dynasty, Yairah Amit interprets the anti-Saul bias in the text as a literary device intended to shape the reader’s understanding of the following chapters in 1 Samuel. She argues, “The inclusion of negative information concerning the tribe of Benjamin, and especially about Gibeah, directs the reader’s stance toward the transition to the book of Samuel: in this way a hostile attitude is built towards the origin of Saul and toward his admirers – the people of Jabesh Gilead. […] The reader is convinced of the existence of negative elements in Benjamin, and is prepared for the failure of anyone connected with this tribe.”9 Amit further argues that the polemical tone of the anti-Saul bias in Judges 19–21 is intended to subvert the more balanced presentation of Saul and David in Samuel as characters with strengths and weaknesses. “This balanced literary technique caused later writers and editors, who sought to stress the messianism of the Davidic house, to sharpen and polarize their stances.”10 Sarah Schulz’s position on the function of the anti-Saul Tendenz in Judges 19–21 is similar to Amit’s position. Schulz argues that the purpose of these chapters is to prepare the reader for the conflict between David and Saul in 1 Samuel and that they thereby serve as a literary “prequel” or “trailer” (Vorspann) to Samuel-Kings.11 According to Schulz, “Judges 19 contrasts the birthplaces of Saul and David, Gibeah and Bethlehem. With good reason this chapter is often interpreted as a Tendenzschrift that presents David in a positive light and Saul in a negative light. Thus, Judg 19 provides a ‘reading guide’ for the following time of the monarchy.”12 I find Amit’s and Schulz’s hypotheses to be convincing. However, when viewed from a diachronic perspective, they raise the question whether Judges 19–21 was originally composed (i) as an “anti-Saul” polemic for the purpose of creating an ideologically/theologically motivated transition between Judges and Samuel or (ii) as an independent text expressing an anti-Benjamin

8 9 10 11 12

Ibid., 417. Amit, Judges, 349. Ibid., 350. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 52. Sarah Schulz, “The Literary Transition between the Books of Joshua and Judges” in Book-Seams in the Hexateuch I: The Literary Transitions between the Books of Genesis/ Exodus and Joshua/Judges (ed. C. Berner and H. Samuel; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 257–280.

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bias that was inserted at a later time at the end of the book of Judges and then further redacted to develop the literary transition between Judges and Samuel. The first hypothesis is strongly argued by Schulz. I prefer the second hypothesis. Our respective positions on this diachronic issue will be presented in Chapter 8 infra. 2

Recent Iterations of the “Anti-Saul” Political Polemic Hypothesis

Although Brettler’s 1989 article received little attention in the decade that followed its publication, Diana V. Edelman returned to Brettler’s hypothesis in her 2001 article entitled, “Did Saulide-Davidic Rivalry Resurface in Early Persian Yehud?” Edelman posits, A date in the last third of the sixth century BCE, after the return of members of the golah community to Yehud and the appointment of a Persian-approved leader from the golah, provides another cogent setting in which Davidic-Saulide rivalry could have surfaced anew. Those living in the villages that [sic] did not go into exile in 586 BCE, located primarily in the territory of Benjamin, were included within the borders of the Persian province of Yehud and would likely have favored the appointment of a descendant of the Saulide throne to be the new governor and puppet king of Yehud.13

13

Edelman, “Saulide-Davidic Rivalry,” 73. It should be noted that Edelman’s thesis was anticipated by Amit in a footnote to her 1992 monograph on Judges: “The struggle against Benjamin and the Saulan [sic] dynasty is generally ascribed to the period of David or Solomon. But there would seem to be room for its renewal at the beginning of the Second Temple period. It may be that the criticism against the Davidic dynasty following the destruction of the Temple and the disappearance of its representatives at the beginning of the Second Temple encouraged hopes for the renewal of the Benjaminite monarchy.” Amit, Judges, 349, fn. 43. Amit subsequently changed her position on this issue in a 2006 article. See discussion in the following paragraphs. Edelman maintains the position that “many in the region of Benjamin favored instead the royal line of Saul, David’s predecessor” in her 2005 monograph on the Second Temple. Diana Edelman, The Origins of the ‘Second Temple’: Persian Imperial Policy and the Rebuilding of Jerusalem (London: Equinox, 2005), 344. However, she states in a footnote that the dating of the “re-surfacing of Saulide-Davidic rivalry” should now be dated to the middle of the 5th century BCE. Ibid., 351. However, she provides no evidence that a movement existed during this time frame seeking the restoration of a Saulide dynasty.

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Edelman’s principal argument in support of her thesis is the fact that the Chronicler shows an interest in the genealogy of Saul and names 12 generations of descendants after his death.14 Edelman concludes that this “shows that some group maintained interest in the genealogy of the Saulide house down to the post-exilic community.”15 Amit and Joseph Blenkinsopp contested Edelman’s thesis in separate articles published in 2006. Both authors consider that the Saul genealogies in 1 Chronicles are insufficient proof of a Persian period rivalry between descendants of Saul and David for the restoration of the monarchy in Yehud. Amit bluntly concludes, “The notion of reviving the kingship of the House of Saul during the Persian or Hellenistic Period seems almost delusional. Even the literature does not show a continuous genealogy of the House of Saul reaching postexilic times but lists only 12 generations after Saul himself.”16 Blenkinsopp concludes similarly, “But evidence for a movement in favor of a descendant of Saul as ruler-designate is lacking, and it does not help that the genealogy of Saul’s line in 1 Ch 8:33–40 (cf. 9:39–44) ends well before the Persian period.”17 Blenkinsopp’s conclusion is based on the assumption of a 25 year average span for a royal generation. According to this calculation, the last descendant of Saul known to the Chronicler would have died during the reign of Manasseh, which ended about 665 BCE.18 In my view, Amit’s and Blenkinsopp’s arguments against Brettler’s thesis are convincing and should have put an end to the interpretation of Judges 19–21 as an “anti-Saul/pro-David” political polemic with its setting in the early Persian period. However, long-held scholarly views seem destined to endure a slow death. Instead of rejecting Edelman’s thesis, both Amit and Blenkinsopp attempt to salvage it. Amit dates Judges 19–21 to what she calls the “transition between the late Babylonian and early Persian Periods”19 and redefines the political tension addressed in the narrative as a conflict between those who favored the restoration of the Davidic dynasty and those who were opposed to a renewed monarchy. She argues, 14 15 16 17 18

19

See, 1 Ch 8:29–40 and 9:35–44. Edelman, “Saulide-Davidic Rivalry,” 77. Amit, “Saul Polemic,” 655; emphasis added. Blenkinsopp, “Benjamin Traditions,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschitz and M. Oeming; Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns), 2006, 644. Ibid., p. 644. In a subsequent monograph, Blenkinsopp changes the average duration of a royal generation from 25 to 30 years but maintains his earlier conclusion that the last descendant of Saul in the 1 Chronicles genealogies would have died during the reign of Manasseh. Blenkinsopp, David Remembered, 39. Amit, “Saul Polemic,” 648.

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It is possible that in these circumstances the population of Benjaminite origin hoped to assume the local leadership, a hope that reflected their relative strength in the recovering province of Yehud, as well as their disappointment in the House of David. These expectations were expressed in the literary reference to Saul, the Benjaminite, the first man to assume the kingship over Israel – even though there are doubts if there was a real legitimate heir in that lineage.20 By “literary reference to Saul, the Benjaminite,” Amit appears to be arguing that there were texts composed during the Persian period by Benjaminite authors who sought to rehabilitate the memory of Saul as a covert technique to oppose restoration of the Davidic dynasty. However, the only textual evidence Amit cites in support of her hypothesis is the book of Esther that “rehabilitates the descendants of Saul.”21 Amit explains this paucity of textual evidence by arguing that “the pro-Saul polemic went underground” at the beginning of the Persian period and then “expressed itself in a covert way in the book of Esther.”22 The connection between Amit’s hypothesis that Benjaminite authors composed texts to rehabilitate the memory of “Saul, the Benjaminite” and her interpretation of Judges 19–21, is not obvious. She states, The partisans of the Davidic dynasty chose the technique of the implied polemic, whether because they hesitated to favor openly the scions of their favored but disappointing dynasty, “the fallen booth of David” (Amos 9:11), or because they believed that this technique was a more effective way of changing people’s attitudes, since it would not provoke an immediate and obvious resistance to a known figure.23 I understand Amit to mean that the explicit negative evaluation of the sons of Benjamin in Judges 19–21 is intended to convey an implied negative evaluation of Saul in contrast to the positive evaluation of Saul supposedly proposed by Benjaminite authors in assumed texts that have now been lost. This in turn covertly encourages readers to favor the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. Blenkinsopp has recently proposed a more straightforward argument on the purpose of the anti-Saul polemic in Judges 19–21. He argues,

20 21 22 23

Ibid., 657; emphasis added. Ibid., 654. Ibid., 658. Ibid.

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The shadowy figure of a defeated and discredited Saul is also discernible in the background of the war of extermination against Benjamin waged under the leadership of Judah in which, as we have seen, the crime which precipitated the conflict was committed by the male inhabitants of Gibeah, Saul’s town. […] These undertones and hints below the surface of the narrative show that Saul was still alive, whether in favor or disfavor, in the collective memory at the time of the final redaction of Judges 19–21, certainly in the postdisaster [sic] period.24 I understand Blenkinsopp’s position to be that he agrees with Amit that the memory of Saul had resurfaced in the Persian period, with both a positive and a negative valence. However, he does not share Amit’s position that the purpose of Judges 19–21 is to favor the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. Instead, Blenkinsopp appears to view the narrative as taking a polemical position in a literary debate concerning the rehabilitation of the memory of Saul. Philip R. Davies takes a similar position that Judges 19–21 is an anti-Saul polemic reflecting a “revival of the memory of Saul” during the Persian period.25 3

Critique of the “Anti-Saul” Political Polemic Hypothesis

The various iterations of the “anti-Saul/pro-David” political polemic hypothesis raise substantive as well as methodological problems. At a substantive level, the argument that a biblical text represents a “political polemic” requires proof that the text’s polemical position would have been relevant to readers at the time the text was composed and/or finally redacted.26 At the methodological level, the argument that Judges 19–21 should be interpreted as an anti-Saul/ pro-David polemic is based on a series of perceived literary allusions in the narrative to stories about the life of Saul in 1 Samuel. The substantive weaknesses of the anti-Saul/pro-David political polemic hypothesis will be discussed 24 25 26

Blenkinsopp, David Remembered, 38–39. Davies, “Saul, Hero and Villain,” 139. Gale A. Yee notes the two-fold methodology used in ideological criticism. She states, “Ideological criticism uses literary methods within a historical and social-scientific frame in a comprehensive strategy for reading biblical texts. On the one hand, the social sciences and historical analyses help to reconstruct or ‘unmask’ the material and ideological conditions under which the biblical text is produced. On the other hand, literary-critical methods address how the biblical text assimilates or ‘encodes’ these conditions in reproducing a particular ideology.” Gale A. Yee, “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17–21 and the Dismembered Body” in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (ed. G. Yee; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 138; emphasis in original.

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in the following paragraphs. Methodological issues will be addressed in Section 4 infra. All of the recent commentators who interpret Judges 19–21 as an “anti-Saul” political polemic situate the narrative, correctly in my view, in the historical context of Persian period Yehud. Edelman’s hypothesis that the narrative reflects a political conflict between partisans of the restoration of the Davidic and Saulide dynasties has the advantage of being clear and straight-forward. However, it has the disadvantage of lacking textual support. As Amit and Blenkinsopp have demonstrated, there is no corroborating evidence of any kind that indicates that any group in Yehud favored the restoration of the Saulide dynasty to act as “king” of Yehud during the early Persian period. In my view, the recent attempts by Amit, Blenkinsopp and Davies to salvage the “anti-Saul” political polemic hypothesis can be questioned as well. They assume that the inhabitants of the Benjamin region composed literature intended to salvage the reputation of their ancestral kinsman, Saul. On the basis of this assumption, they then interpret Judges 19–21 as a polemical response to this “pro-Saul” literature. However, the only textual evidence of the existence of “pro-Saul” literature, outside of parts of 1 Samuel, is the fact that the positively evaluated figure of Mordechai in the book of Esther is described as “the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite” (Est 2:5). This absence of evidence is justified with the hypothesis that a supposedly vast extra-canonical “pro-Saul” literature composed in the Benjamin region during the Persian period has been lost. As it is methodologically impossible to argue for or against a hypothesis based on textual evidence that has been lost, the positions of Amit, Blenkinsopp and Davies are conjectural. Although it is an easy accusation to make, I believe these commentators are “over-reading” the text. In my view, Judges 19–21 clearly evokes an antiBenjamin Tendenz. However, rather than interpreting the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin as ciphers for David and Saul in a literary debate over the memory of Israel’s first king, it is more parsimonious to interpret Judges 19–21 as evoking a strong anti-Benjamin Tendenz directed at the inhabitants of the Benjamin region during the Persian period. I will argue in Chapter 7 infra that the inhabitants of the Benjamin region were the principal opponents of the Golah’s program to reconstruct the walls of Jerusalem, repopulate the city, rebuild the temple, and transfer Yehud’s administrative center from Mizpah to the Jerusalem area. If this hypothesis is correct, Judges 19–21 should be interpreted in the historical context of a multifaceted conflict between the Golah and the people who remained in the land following the fall of Jerusalem.

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21

4

159

Methodological Weaknesses of the Hypothesis

The position that Judges 19–21 should be interpreted as an “anti-Saul/pro-David” political or literary polemic – as argued by commentators from Güdemann in the 19th century to Edelman, Amit, Blenkinsopp, Davies and Schulz in the 21st century – is based on a series of perceived literary allusions in the narrative to stories about Saul and David in 1 Samuel. I will attempt to demonstrate below that this position is not grounded in a rigorous methodology and is therefore conjectural. 4.1 Perceived Allusions to Saul The proponents of the “anti-Saul” polemic hypothesis rely on three signifiers in Judges 19–21 that they interpret as covert allusions to Saul: the toponyms, Gibeah and Yabesh-Gilead, and the tribal and/or geographic term, sons of Benjamin. As a preliminary matter, it should be noted that there are 26 geographical references in Judges 19–21.27 As Judges 19–21 is a story in which the protagonists move from place to place, many of these toponyms are organized as stops on a travel itinerary. For example, the Levite’s travel itinerary links Bethlehem of Judah, Jebus (“that is, Jerusalem”28), Ramah, Gibeah, the hill country of Ephraim and Mizpah. The itinerary of the sons of Israel links Mizpah, Bethel, Gibeah, Yabesh-Gilead and Shiloh. The itinerary of the sons of Benjamin links Gibeah, Rock of Rimmon and Shiloh. The large number of toponyms mentioned in Judges 19–21, and the interrelationship among them as stops in a series of journeys, suggest that the geographical references in the text are intended to convey meaning to the reader. However, the proponents of the “anti-Saul polemic” hypothesis focus attention on only two of the 26 geographical locations named in the text – Gibeah and Yabesh-Gilead – and ignore the internal relationship among them as stops on a journey. They are 27

28

The following geographical locations are mentioned in Judges 19–21: Israel (19:1a; 20:21b; 21:25a); mount Ephraim (19:1b.16a); Bethlehem of Judah (19:1b.2a.18a [×2]); Jebus, that is Jerusalem (19:10a); Gibeah (19:12a.13b.14b.15a.16a;20:4b.5a.8a10b.12b.14b.15b.19b.20b.21a. 25a.29.30b.31b.34a.36b.37a.43a); Ramah (19:13b); the house of YHWH (19:18b); all the territory of Israel (19:29b); Egypt (19:30a); Dan (19:1a); Beer-Sheva (20:1a); the land of Gilead (20:1a); Mizpah (20:1b.3a; 21:1a.5b.8a); the open territory of the inheritance of Israel (20:6a); Bethel (20:18a.26a.31b; 21:2a.19a [×2]); Baal-Tamar (20:33a); Gava (20:33b); Benjamin (20:35a); Rock of Rimmon (20:45a.47a.47b; 21:13a); Gidom (20:45b); Yabesh-Gilead (21:9b.10b.12a.14a); Shiloh (21:12b.19a.21a [×2]); Canaan (21:12b); Shechem (21:19a); Lebonah (21:19b); and land of Benjamin (21:21b). Judg 19:10a.

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thus interpreting the geographical references in the text selectively.29 Although Gibeah and Yabesh-Gilead are indeed relevant to the story of the life of Saul in 1 Samuel, it is conjectural to jump to the conclusion that the use of these two toponyms in Judges 19–21 is necessarily intended to convey a covert polemical allusion to the figure of Saul. Each of these claimed covert references to Saul will be discussed below. 4.2 Gibeah Although Gibeah is best known as the home town of Saul, the town is mentioned elsewhere in the HB without any clear association to Saul. For example, Hosea expresses a highly negative evaluative point of view in relation to Gibeah in Hos 9:9 and 10:9 that is not necessarily a hidden reference to Saul.30 It can be argued that the crime that takes place in Gibeah in Judges 19 more closely echoes the depravity and sinfulness of Hosea’s Gibeah than the hometown of Saul. The Gibeah of Judges 19–21 could therefore be an allusion to Hos 9:9 and 10:9, or the Hosea passages could be an allusion to Judges 19–21, or both texts could be independent developments of a common literary motif that characterizes Gibeah as an archetypically sinful city. It should be noted that I am not arguing that the Gibeah of Judges 19–21 in fact alludes to the Gibeah of Hosea 9–10; I am simply seeking to demonstrate at this point in the analysis that the association of Gibeah in Judges 19–21 with Gibeah of Saul is only one of many possible interpretations. 4.3 Yabesh-Gilead The “anti-Saul polemic” hypothesis relies heavily on the references in Judges 21 to Yabesh-Gilead which are interpreted as an allusion to Saul’s deliverance of this trans-Jordanian town from an Ammonite attack (1 Sam 11:1–11) and the

29

30

Corinne Lanoir argues that the toponyms in Judg 19–21 are linked as stops on a travel itinerary. She notes that the narrative begins in Gibeah, moves on to Mizpah and ends in Yabesh-Gilead. Lanoir concludes, “Ce parcours constitue donc une sorte de ‘pèlerinage par anticipation’ sur les traces de Saul. Les drames et massacres qui y sont rapportés n’augurent pas de façon positive du destin d’un homme lié à ces lieux.” Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 219. However, the three toponyms that Lanoir describes as stops on a travel itinerary are incomplete. In fact, the sons of Israel travel in Judg 20–21 from their homes throughout Israel to Mizpah, to Bethel, to Gibeah, to Yabesh-Gilead and end up in Shiloh before returning to their homes. “They have gone deep in depravity as in the days of Gibeah; He will remember their iniquity, He will punish their sins” (Hos 9:9; NAS translation). “From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel; There they stand! Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity overtake them in Gibeah?” (Hos 10:9; NAS translation).

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21

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subsequent loyalty of its inhabitants to Saul even after his ignominious death at the hands of the Philistines (1 Sam 31:11–13). As stated by Lanoir, Ceux de Yabesh qui se font tuer en Jg 21 sont les prédécesseurs de ceux qui sont sauvés par Saül de la menace des Ammonites […]. On peut lire en Jg 21 une sorte de condamnation par avance du destin de Saül, voire l’idée que si les six cents Benjaminites n’avaient pas été épargnés, comme le voulait la logique de la guerre sainte, et si on ne leur avait pas trouvé de femmes, on aurait pu éviter la royauté problématique de Saül qui n’aurait ainsi jamais vu le jour.31 As a preliminary matter, it should be noted that all of the references to Yabesh-Gilead in Judges 19–21 occur in a single short episode in the narrative, Judges 21:8–14. In contrast, the anti-Gibeah and anti-Benjamin Tendenz is expressed broadly throughout the entire macro-narrative. Thus, it is methodologically preferable to analyze the anti-Yabesh-Gilead bias in Judg 21:8–14 separately from the more broadly expressed anti-Gibeah and anti-Benjamin biases in the text. Before jumping to the conclusion that the anti-YabeshGilead Tendenz represents a covert literary allusion to the life of Saul, other plausible interpretations should be considered. The narrative intrigue in Judg 21:8–14 concerns the discovery by the sons of Israel that the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead had not heeded the call to participate in the all-Israel war against Benjamin. Although the precise geographical location of this town is not specified, the double name “Yabesh-Gilead” suggests that the people who failed to participate in the war at Gibeah lived in the trans-Jordanian region of Gilead. The motif of Israelites living in the transJordan who question whether they should join their brothers in fighting wars in cis-Jordan obviously recalls the situation of the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh narrated in Num 32:1–32 and Deut 3:18–20.32 The motif is repeated again in Josh 1:10–18 and Josh 22:1–34. The importance of the motif in Joshua is highlighted by the fact that Josh 1:10–18 is the first narrative scene in Joshua and Josh 22:1–34 is the last narrative scene before the two long speeches of Joshua in Josh 23–24. It should be noted that I am not arguing at this point in the analysis that the Yabesh-Gilead of Judg 21:8–14 is in fact an allusion to Gilead in Numbers 32, Deuteronomy 3, Joshua 1 and/or Joshua 22; I

31 32

Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 218. Num 32:1–32 mentions only the tribes of Reuben and Gad and not the half-tribe of Manasseh.

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am simply seeking to demonstrate that the notion that Yabesh-Gilead is necessarily a covert literary allusion to the life of Saul can be questioned.33 4.4 Benjamin In addition to the toponyms, Gibeah and Yabesh-Gilead, the proponents of the “anti-Saul” polemic hypothesis rely heavily on the association between the sons of Benjamin in Judg 19–21 and Saul’s identity as the son of “a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite, a mighty man of valor” (1 Sam. 9:1). It is correct in my view that the narrator in Judges 19–21 expresses a markedly negative evaluative point of view in relation to the sons of Benjamin. However, it does not follow that because Saul was a son of Benjamin, all of the references in the narrative to the sons of Benjamin are covert allusions to Saul. The lexeme ‫( ִּבנְ ִיָמין‬Benjamin) occurs 169 times in the MT34 and refers to (i) the youngest son of Jacob; (ii) the tribe of Benjamin; (iii) a geographical area in central Palestine with fluctuating boundaries situated south of Bethel and north of Jerusalem; and (iv) a name given to boys in the post-exilic period as reported in Ezra-Nehemiah. Viewing the description of the sons of Benjamin in Judges 19–21 as necessarily pointing to Saul can be questioned. As the text expresses a clear anti-Benjamin bias, the first methodological step in interpreting this Tendenz should be to determine what an antiBenjamin bias might have signified during the Persian period, the likely time of the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19–21. I will argue in Chapter 7 infra that the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 can be explained more parsimoniously as reflecting an actual conflict between the Golah community and the inhabitants of the region of Benjamin who had remained in the land after the fall of Jerusalem. This conflict related broadly to political, economic and ideological differences between the two groups rather than specifically to a supposed conflict over the restoration of the Davidic dynasty or a conflict over the memory of Saul. 4.5 Perceived Allusions to David As discussed in Section 2 infra, Edelman, Amit, Blenkinsopp and Davies argue that the anti-Saul Tendenz in Judges 19–21 should be interpreted as a “proDavid” polemic notwithstanding the absence of clear references to David in

33 34

I will develop the argument in Chapter 11 infra that the early composition strata of Judg 21:8–14 referred to a battle against “Gilead” and that the final redactor introduced the toponym “Yabesh-Gilead.” See discussion in Chapter 11, Section 2 infra. Van Pelt and Pratico, Vocabulary Guide, 169.

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21

163

the text.35 In contrast, other commentators posit that the text contains several allusions to David and Judah. These include the toponym “Bethlehem of Judah,” YHWH’s command in 20:18 that Judah should lead the battle against Benjamin, and the pro-monarchical perspective expressed in the refrains “And it came to pass in those days that there was no king in Israel” (19:1a) and “In those days there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” (21:25). Each of these arguments will be discussed below. 4.6 Bethlehem of Judah Schulz argues that the positive portrayal of hospitality in Bethlehem of Judah (19:3b–9) and the negative portrayal of hospitality in Gibeah (19:22–25) represent “ciphers” for David and Saul. As a result, Schulz takes the position that Judges 19 represents a pro-David polemic.36 In my view, Schulz’s position can be questioned on two grounds. First, the toponym “Bethlehem of Judah” is only used in Judges 19–21 in 19:1b.2a and then reprised in the Levite’s speech in 19:18. As discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.1, the incipit in Judg 19:1b closely resembles the incipit in Judg 17:7–8. 17:7aAnd it came to pass that there was a lad from ‫וַ יְ ִהי־נ ַַער ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ Bethlehem of Judah, from the clan of Judah. 7bAnd ‫הּודה וְ הּוא יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬ ָ ְ‫ִמ ִּמ ְׁש ַּפ ַחת י‬ he was a Levite and he sojourned there. 8aAnd the ‫־ׁשם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ָה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫לֵ וִ י וְ הּוא גָ ר‬ ‫ֵמ ָה ִעיר ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ man went from the city, from Bethlehem of Judah, to sojourn wherever he could find. 8bAnd he came ‫לָ גוּר ַּב ֲא ֶׁשר יִ ְמ ָצא וַ ּיָבֹא‬ to the hill country of Ephraim … ‫הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם‬ 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite ‫יש לֵ וִ י ָּגר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי‬ ׁ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִא‬‎ man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country ‫הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה‬ ‫ילגֶ ׁש ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ of Ephraim. And he took a concubine wife for ֶ ‫ִפ‬ himself from Bethlehem of Judah. As there is no mention of Gibeah or Benjamin in Judges 17–18, it is difficult to understand the reference to Bethlehem of Judah in 17:7.8.9 as a cypher for David. However, the lexical similarities between the incipits in 17:7–8 and 19:1b suggest that there is a redactional link between them. In my view, the references to Bethlehem of Judah and the hill country of Ephraim in 19:1b are 35

36

As previously mentioned, Amit attempts to explain the absence of “pro-David” associations in the narrative by arguing that the author refrained from openly favoring the restoration of the Davidic monarchy so as not to “provoke an immediate and obvious resistance to a known figure.” Amit, “Saul Polemic,” 658. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 51.

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redactional glosses intended to harmonize the narrative unit 19:1b–21:25 with the narrative unit 17:7–18:1a. This position is supported by the fact that while the two toponyms play a functional role in the narrative intrigue of 17:7–18:1a, they represent “blind motifs” in 19:1b–21:25; i.e., neither Bethlehem of Judah nor the hill country of Ephraim will be mentioned again in the narrative. Schulz takes the contrary position and argues that Judges 19 represents the earliest composition stratum of Judges 17–21 and that the references to Bethlehem of Judah and the hill country of Ephraim in Judges 17–18 are therefore based on Judges 19.37 Second, while the book of Samuel closely identifies David with the town of Bethlehem,38 it can be noted that this is not the case in Chronicles. While the Chronicler identifies David as the “son of Jesse” seven times,39 neither Jesse nor David is associated with Bethlehem in Chronicles. This tends to undercut Schulz’s argument that the pro-David Tendenz in Judges 19 should be situated in the time of the Chronicler and that “in dieser Zeit ein Einsatz des Geburtsortes als Chiffre für David sogar besonders naheliegend gewesen sein dürfte.”40 4.7 Judah There is a clear reference to the tribe of Judah in Judges 20. Before the first battle with Benjamin, the sons of Israel went to Bethel to consult with YHWH and they asked: “Who shall go up for us at the beginning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin.” And YHWH said: “Judah at the beginning” (20:18). The problem with this verse is that Judah does not in fact lead the battle against Benjamin and the tribe of Judah will not be mentioned again in the narrative. As will be discussed in detail below, Judg 20:18 is a “blind motif” in Judges 19–21 and should be assigned to a late redactor who wanted to introduce an intertextual reference to Judg 1:1–2.41 4.8 Perceived “Pro-Monarchical” Tendenz A number of commentators argue that a pro-monarchical Tendenz can be identified in the closing refrain of the narrative, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” (21:25). According to Webb, 37 38 39 40 41

See detailed discussion of the diachronic issues related to 19:1b in Chapter 9, Section 1.2 infra. However, it should be noted that the term “Bethlehem of Judah” is used in Samuel only in 1 Sam 17:12. 1 Ch 2:15; 10:2.13.14; 12:18; 29:26; 2 Ch 10:16. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 51. See discussion of 20:18 in Chapter 10, Section 2.2 infra.

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21

165

This last occurrence of the refrain rings down the curtain on the story of the Levite and his concubine and on the book’s presentation of the judges period as a whole. It attributes the troubles that have threatened Israel’s continued existence to two things: extreme individualism expressed in religious and moral anarchy (everyone doing what was right in his own eyes), and the absence of a stable, central authority (a king) capable of maintaining order.42 Schulz argues similarly, Zu der Vielzahl an Stimmen, die sic him Alten Testament zum Thema “Königtum” äussern, gehören auch die fünf Schlusskapitel des Richersbuches: “In jenen Tagen gab es keinen König in Israel. Jeder tat, was in seinen Augen recht war” (Ri 17,6; 21,25). Dieser Kommentar führt die chaotischen Zustände, die Ri 17–21 schildern, auf das Fehlen der regulierenden Institution des Königtums zurück – und rückt Ri 17–21 damit in eine Fronstellung zu den antimonarchischen Texten in Ri 8 und 1 Sam 8–12.43 I will demonstrate below that the refrain in 21:25 should be attributed to a late redactor who intended to harmonize Judges 19–21 with the closing refrains in Judg 17:6, 18:1a, and 19:1a and thereby smooth the integration of the text as an appendix to the book of Judges.44 This position is supported by the argument that when Judges 19–21 is read without 20:25, the narrative presents an “antimonarchical” rather than a “pro-monarchical” Tendenz. It can be observed that one of the thematic specificities of the final three chapters of Judges is that there are no “judges,” “saviors” or “kings” in the narratives. The governance structure of the sons of Israel is described in Judges 20–21 as being collegial and leaderless. All the sons of Israel gather in Mizpah “as one man (‫”) ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ to hear the Levite’s charge of rape and murder against the men of Gibeah (20:1). “All the people rose up as one man (‫ ”) ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬to decide collectively to take action against Gibeah (20:8) and “they gathered to the town as one man, united (‫ ”) ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֲח ֵב ִרים‬to go out against Gibeah (20:11).45 The army of the 42 43 44 45

Webb, Judges, 508; emphasis in original. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 1. See detailed discussion of 20:25 in Chapter 11, Section 3 infra. The syntagma ‫“( ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬as one man”) is attested in Num 14:15; Judg 6:16; 20:1.8.11; 1 Sam 11:7; 2 Sam 19:15; Ezr 3:1; Neh 8:1. The complete phrase in Judg 20:11 “And every man of Israel gathered to the town as one man, united (‫ל־ה ִעיר ְּכאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ ָ ‫ל־איׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיֽ ָא ֵסף ָּכ‬ ‫ ”) ֲח ֵב ִ ֽרים‬is very similar to two verses in Ezra-Nehemiah: “And the people gathered as one

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men of Israel is composed of 400,000 men drawing the sword but it has no commanding general or officers. The collegial body of the sons of Israel who make decisions is called the “assembly of the people of God (‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫”) ְק ַהל ַעם ָה ֱא‬ (20:2), the “assembly (‫( ”) ָק ָהל‬21:5a.8a), the “congregation (‫( ”) ֵע ָדה‬20:1; 21:10a), and “all the congregation (‫ל־ה ֵע ָדה‬ ָ ‫( ”) ָּכ‬21:13a).46 The notion of the assembly or the congregation as having leaders arises only twice in Judges 19–21. First, there is mention of “all the leaders [literally, corners] of all the people, of all the tribes of Israel (‫ל־ה ָעם ּכֹל ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ָ ‫ ”) ִּפּנֹות ָּכ‬in 20:2a. Second, the syntagma “elders of the congregation (‫ ”)זִ ְקנֵ י ָה ֵע ָדה‬is used in 21:16a. However, these leaders are themselves collective persons without names. Only one individual character has a name in Judges 19–21 – Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron – who is mentioned in 20:28a in what is probably a late gloss to the text.47 As discussed, Amit argues that the narrator’s evaluation of the form of governance without king or judge as described in Judges 19–21 is positive.48 Jacques Cazeaux argues similarly that Judges 19–21 presents a positive evaluation of a non-monarchical governmental system in which the community elders act by consensus and solidarity.49 In my view, Amit and Cazeau are correct in their interpretation of Judges 19–21 as presenting an ideal political structure in which decisions are taken collectively by the community as a whole. It is difficult to reconcile this explicitly defined idealized form of governance with a covert political polemic favoring the restoration of the Davidic dynasty in the Persian period. 4.9 Problem Posed by the References to Mizpah and Bethel The principal toponyms associated with the sons of Israel in Judges 20–21 are Mizpah and Bethel. Mizpah is the seat of the assembly of the people of God; Bethel is the nearby religious sanctuary where the sons of Israel go to pray, fast and consult with YHWH. One would expect that if Gibeah and Yabesh-Gilead are negatively evaluated because they allude to Saul, the positively evaluated towns of Mizpah and Bethel would represent allusions to David. This is simply not the case. According to Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, David never sets foot in Mizpah or Bethel. To the contrary, Mizpah is closely associated with Samuel in 1 Samuel 7–10, with Gedaliah in Jeremiah 40–41 and 2 Kings 25, and briefly with king Asa in 1 Ki 15:22=2 Ch 16:6. Kings generally associates Bethel with

46 47 48 49

man to Jerusalem (ִ‫רּוׁש ָלם‬ ָ ְ‫ ”)וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו ָה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֶאל־י‬in Ezr 3:1, and “And all the people gathered as one man at the square (‫ל־ה ְרחֹוב‬ ָ ‫ל־ה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֶא‬ ָ ‫ ”)וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו ָכ‬in Neh 8:1. The dating of these collective terms will be discussed in Chapter 10, Section 1.3 infra. See discussion of the dating of 20:28a in Chapter 10, Section 2.5 infra. See discussion of Amit’s position in Chapter 4, Section 4.3 supra. See discussion of Cazeaux’s position in Chapter 4, Section 4.3 supra.

Understanding the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21

167

the northern kingdom and thus expresses a highly negative attitude towards this sanctuary. On the other hand, the list of Benjaminite cities in Neh 11:31–35 includes Bethel. The positive portrayal of Mizpah and Bethel in Judges 19–21 is one of the principal interpretive problems in the text. The proponents of the “anti-Saul” polemic hypothesis do not address this issue. The lack of coherence between the assumed intertextual associations of Gibeah, Benjamin and Yabesh-Gilead with Saul, on the one hand, and the absence of any associations of Mizpah and Bethel with David, on the other hand, tend to undermine the “anti-Saul/ pro-David” polemic hypothesis. 5

Conclusions

The proponents of the “anti-Saul/pro-David” political polemic hypothesis read Judges 19–21 selectively and dismiss important motifs in the narrative that do not support their thesis. The toponyms Gibeah, Benjamin and Yabesh-Gilead may represent allusions to the life of Saul, but they can also be interpreted as allusions to other texts. Because other toponyms mentioned in Judges 19–21 cannot be shown to be allusions to the lives of Saul or David, the political polemic hypothesis can be questioned. It is methodologically preferable to attempt to read narratives that appear to express a political bias literally, and then to determine what this Tendenz might have signified to readers at the time the narrative was composed. In my view, the consensus view that Judges 19–21 can be interpreted as a “political polemic” is sound. However, the interpretive challenge posed by the narrative is to explain (i) the text’s negative evaluative point of view in relation to the sons of Benjamin as a people who merit collective punishment for their sins; (ii) the association in the narrative between the sons of Israel and the toponyms, Mizpah and Bethel; and (iii) the text’s positive evaluative point of view in relation to a non-monarchical form of governance in which the whole people form an “assembly” or “congregation” that acts collegially. These issues will be discussed in the following chapter. 6

Chapter Summary

A small number of contemporary commentators continue to affirm, correctly in my view, the pre-1984 consensus position that Judges 19–21 intends the reader to evaluate the sons of Israel positively and the sons of Benjamin

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negatively. The focus of their inquiry has been to determine the ideological/ theological purpose of the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the narrative. On the basis of perceived literary allusions in Judges 19–21 to events in the life of Saul, these commentators argue that the text should be understood as an “anti-Saul” political polemic. Edelman posits that this anti-Saul bias reflects an actual political conflict in early Persian period Yehud between those who favored the restoration of the Davidic dynasty and those who favored the restoration of the Saulide dynasty. It has been demonstrated in this chapter that there is no textual or historical basis for the hypothesis that there was a political movement in early Persian period Yehud to restore the Saulide dynasty. Amit, Blenkinsopp and Davies argue more narrowly that the anti-Saul bias reflects a literary debate that flourished in the Persian period in which the inhabitants of the Benjamin region produced literature seeking to rehabilitate the memory of their ancestral kinsman Saul, and the Golah community responded with the production of literature denigrating the memory of Saul. As the existence of this “pro-Saul” literature is conjectural, the conclusion is speculative. In addition, the claimed literary allusions in Judges 19–21 to the life of Saul are methodologically problematic. While the narrative clearly evokes an anti-Benjamin bias, the historical context and theological/ideological purpose of this Tendenz require further examination and analysis.

chapter 7

Situating the Anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 in Historical Context As discussed, a scholarly consensus has emerged that interprets Judges 19–21 as a political polemic relating to early Persian period tensions in Yehud concerning the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. I have attempted to demonstrate that textual evidence of a political movement seeking to restore the Saulide dynasty during the early Persian period is weak. Within this context, I have proposed instead that Judges 19–21 can more parsimoniously be interpreted as presenting an anti-Benjamin (rather than an anti-Saul) Tendenz.1 The purpose of this chapter is to take a fresh look at the history of the former kingdom of Judah2 during the Babylonian and Persian periods to better identify the meaning and purpose of the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21. As there are few extant inscriptions or other literary references to Judah or Benjamin in contemporaneous extra-biblical materials,3 it is difficult to reconstruct the history of Judah during the Babylonian and Persian periods in an objective and reliable manner. Scholars are effectively dependent on two sources of information: archaeological evidence and biblical texts. Section 1 will summarize the archaeological record concerning the Benjamin region during the Babylonian and early Persian periods. Section 2 will review interpretations of the archaeological data proposed by biblical commentators. Section 3 will summarize various approaches proposed by scholars to explain the nature of relations during the early Persian period between the returnees from Babylon (hereinafter, the “Golah”) and the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region who had remained in the land during the Babylonian period. Section 4 will set out a new hypothesis to explain the “anti-Benjamin” Tendenz in Judges 19–21.

1 See discussion in Chapter 5 supra. 2 The terms “Judah” and “Yehud” are used in this work to refer to the former kingdom of Judah during the Babylonian period and the Persian period, respectively. When referring to the region over a longer period of time (e.g., during the Babylonian and Persian periods), the term “Judah” will be used for ease of reference. 3 William G. Dever, “Archaeology and the Fall of Judah,” Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies, 29 (2009): 29.

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Archaeological and Survey Data from the Benjamin Region

Ehud Ben Zvi summarized the state of archaeological and survey research as of 2010 as follows: “It is usually agreed, even among scholars who tend to disagree on many areas, that the area of Benjamin was substantially less affected by the destruction associated with the Babylonian campaign of 586 BCE, and that its population constituted by far the largest group in neo-Babylonian Judah and early Yehud and their economic center.”4 The status quæstionis does not appear to have changed significantly since 2010. In a 2014 article, Lester L. Grabbe states, “A significant portion of the region from Jerusalem south was devastated, and Jerusalem itself seems to have been uninhabited from 587 BCE until sometime in the Persian period. Only the old area of Benjamin north of Jerusalem appears to have flourished during the Neo-Babylonian rule.”5 1.1 Benjamin Region during the Babylonian Period According to Oded Lipschits, the region of Benjamin had “four important, central settlements that were not destroyed by the Babylonians and indeed, even flourished during the sixth century CE.”6 These sites are Tell el-Nasbeh (identified as the biblical Mizpah),7 Tell el-Fûl (Gibeah),8 Beitin (Bethel)9 and 4 Ehud Ben Zvi, “Total Exile, Empty Land and the General Intellectual Discourse in Yehud,” in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts (ed. E. Ben Zvi and C. Levin; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 155. See fn. 1 in Ben Zvi’s article for a review of the scholarly literature through 2010 on the question of continuity of life in the Benjamin region following the fall of Jerusalem. Ibid., 155. 5 Lester L. Grabbe, “Religious and Cultural Boundaries from the Neo-Babylonian to the Early Greek Period: A Context for Iconographic Interpretation” in A “Religious Revolution” in Yehud? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case (ed. C. Frevel, K. Pyschny, I. Cornelius; Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2014), 29 (citations omitted). 6 Oded Lipschits, “Demographic Changes in Judah between the Seventh and the Fifth Centuries B.C.E.” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 346. See also, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origins of Its Sacred Texts (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 307. 7 “The archaeological evidence supports the notion that Mizpah served as the administrative center of Yehud during the Babylonian as well as Persian periods. Finds discovered there attest to a Babylonian presence, together with evidence of the continued existence of local traditions. It remained fortified, and in it were homes of well-to-do people as well as buildings that may be interpreted as storehouses.” Oded Lipschits, “The History of the Benjamin Region under Babylonian Rule,” Tel Aviv, Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 26, 2 (1999): 179. See also, Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 307. 8 “There is also marked settlement continuity at Gibeah […]. One may even assume that, in the first half of the sixth century BCE, the built-up area extended beyond the city wall, and the local population grew.” Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 347. See also, Israel Finkelstein,

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el-Jib (Gibeon).10 Lipschits attributes the relative prosperity of the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period “to the political centrality assigned to Mizpah and the economic importance of Gibeon and Mozah. The agricultural hinterland surrounded and based itself on these centers.”11 In a 2010 article, Lipschits summarized his position as follows: “[…] the area of Benjamin, north of Jerusalem, and the area south of the city, between Ramat Rachel and Beth-Zur, were left nearly untouched, and their populations continued to live in the same way, the same places, and with the same material culture, as they had before the destruction of Jerusalem.”12 The continuity of settlement activity in the Benjamin region and the Bethlehem area during the period following the fall of Jerusalem contrasts “Tell el-Ful Revisited: The Assyrian and Hellenistic Periods (With a New Identification),” PEQ 143, 2 (2011): 113. It should be noted that the identification of Tell el-Fûl with Gibeah is contested. Patrick M. Arnold argued in a 1990 monograph that the toponyms Gibeah and Geba refer to the same place and should be identified with the unexcavated site of Jeba (located on the same east-west road as Ramah) rather than with the site of Tell elFûl. Patrick M. Arnold, Gibeah: The Search for a Biblical City (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 42–53. Finkelstein agrees that Tell el-Fûl should not be identified with Gibeah, but does not address the question of whether Gibeah/Geba should be identified with the site of Jeba. Finkelstein, “Tel el-Ful,” 115. 9 “Likewise, at Bethel […], no evidence of Babylonian destruction was found […].” Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 347. See also, Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 307. Finkelstein has subsequently changed his position. He and Lilly Singer-Avitz concluded in a 2009 article that “[e]vidence for activity at Bethel in the Babylonian, Persian and early Hellenistic period [sic] is very meager, if it exists at all.” Israel Finkelstein and Lily Singer-Avitz, “Reevaluating Bethel,” ZDPV 125 (2009): 45. It should be noted however that Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz recognize that two sherds found at Bethel “probably date to the Babylonian or Babylonian/early Persian period, rather than to the main phase of the Persian period.” Ibid., p. 42. This evidence leads to a more nuanced conclusion than as stated at p. 45 of the article: “In any event, no unambiguous evidence for a full-fledged Persian-period occupation was found at Bethel – neither pottery nor Jehud seal impressions.” Ibid., 45. In my view, it can reasonably be argued that the archaeological evidence supports the hypothesis that settlement activity in Bethel continued to a certain degree through the Babylonian and early Persian periods. 10 “Gibeon apparently continued to be a wine-producing centre; its activity might even have expanded, and the city integrated into the framework of the provincial administration. The place had great economic importance for the Benjamin region, and it might have served as an industrial centre for the wine-making activity of the region.” Lipschits, “History of Benjamin Region,” 179. See also, Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 307. 11 Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 350. 12 Oded Lipschits, “Between Archaeology and Text: A Reevaluation of the Development Process of Jerusalem in the Persian Period” in Congress Volume Helsinki 2010 (ed. M. Nissinen; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 149.

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markedly with circumstances in the rest of Judah. Lipschits interprets the archaeological and survey data as follows: The Babylonians brought about an utter and deliberate destruction of Jerusalem and its immediate environs, and the region was almost completely emptied of its population. As part of the military activity, the Babylonians destroyed the main cities and fortresses of Judah’s western border in the Shephelah. It seems that the hinterland areas in the south and east of the kingdom toppled in a longer, more complex process with ruinous consequences. The thriving area of settlements that had existed in the Judean Desert, Jordan Valley, and Dead Sea environs disappeared completely and the border fortresses of the Judean kingdom in the Beersheba-Arad Valleys collapsed, together with the settlements that had existed alongside them.13 In Lipschits’ opinion, “between the end of the Iron Age and the Persian period there was a decline of approximately 70% in the size of settled area” in the former kingdom of Judah.14 One of the only Judean towns outside of the Benjamin region that showed any signs of continuity of settlement was Bethlehem.15 In summary, archaeological data support the conclusion that the only urban centers that remained largely unaffected by the Babylonian conquest of Judah were Mizpah, Gibeah, Bethel and Gibeon in the region of Benjamin, and Bethlehem in the region south of Jerusalem. It can be noted as a preliminary observation that four of these five toponyms figure prominently in Judges 19–21.16 13 14

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Ibid., 148–149. Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 355. It should be noted that Lipschits’ estimations of the decrease in the number of settlements is contested by Abraham Faust, who holds an outlier position among Israeli archaeologists. Faust argues that the decrease in the number of settlements was much greater than the 70% figure proposed by Lipschits. According to Faust, the population of Judah dropped by 90% following the Babylonian conquest. Avraham Faust, “Settlement Dynamics and Demographic Fluctuations in Judah from the Late Iron Age to the Hellenistic Period and the Archaeology of Persian-Period Yehud,” in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods (ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 49. Lipschits responded to Faust’s position in Oded Lipschits, “The Rural Settlement in Judah in the Sixth Century BCE: A Rejoinder,” PEQ 136, 2 (2004): 99–107. Oded Lipschits, “Judah, Jerusalem and the Temple: 586–539 B.C.” in Transeuphratène 22 (2001): 134. See also, Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 307; Oded Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 254. Gibeon is not mentioned in Judges 19–21.

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1.2 Benjamin Region during the Persian Period Far more surprising than the evidence of continuity of life in parts of Judah during the Babylonian era are the archaeological and survey data indicating that population levels and settlement activity in the Benjamin region declined substantially during the Persian period. According to Lipschits, In contrast to the settlement picture in Jerusalem, settlement in Benjamin declined only at the beginning of the Persian period, a fact for which the archaeological data provide unequivocal evidence. […] The dwindling population in the Benjamin region at the beginning of the Persian period led to an additional drop in the size of settled area, a drop of approximately 25%; the resettling in Jerusalem is of almost no demographic significance.17 The gradual decline in population and settlement activity in the Benjamin region included the destruction and/or abandonment of its four principal urban centers: Mizpah, Bethel, Gibeah and Gibeon. According to Ephraim Stern, “The archaeological evidence shows, however, that all these cities in the territory of Benjamin were laid waste in approximately 480 BCE. This date is virtually certain, and is based on the date of the Attic pottery uncovered in the excavations of Mizpah, Bethel, Tell el-Fûl, and Gibeon. There is no known historical event that can count [sic] for this destruction. Perhaps these towns were only abandoned for various unknown internal reasons.”18 Stern’s seemingly overly-precise dating of the destruction of the four urban centers in the Benjamin region in 480 BCE is based on the fact that Attic pottery was first introduced in the region in the first quarter of the 5th century BCE and is typically found in sites dated to 480 BCE or later. The fact that no Attic pottery was found in the destruction strata of Mizpah, Bethel, Gibeah and Gibeon therefore suggests that these towns were destroyed no later than 480 BCE. Stern’s dating, however, is contested with respect to certain towns. Jeffrey R. Zorn dates the destruction of Mizpah several decades later than Stern. Zorn interprets the archaeological data to mean that the “in situ remains in Building 110.01 suggest that Tell en-Nasbeh was destroyed, though not burned, in the second half of the fifth century.”19 17 18 19

Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 365. Ephraim Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, vol. 11: The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Periods, 732–332 BCE (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 322–323. Jeffrey R. Zorn, “Tell en Nasbeh and the Problem of the Material Culture of the Sixth Century” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 444.

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In relation to Gibeon, Diana Edelman interprets the archaeological data to mean that this town was also destroyed in the early Persian period.20 She notes that the destruction of Gibeon’s walls included the filling in of the town’s pools for storing water. Edelman asks the question, “Who would have been responsible for these actions? It is extremely unlikely that the local residents would have blocked access to their own water and destroyed their protective defenses of their own accord. Thus, it is logical to posit that the filling in of the pool and the weakening of the town’s long-standing defenses reflected some sort of deliberate governmental policy imposed on the settlement by local provincial authorities.”21 As Lipschits bases his argument for the decline of the Benjamin region during the Persian period primarily on the basis of archaeological survey data rather than excavation results, he does not directly address the date of the destruction and/or abandonment of Benjamin’s urban centers. Instead, he argues more generally that the “gradual impoverishment of the settlement in the region of Benjamin took place at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries BCE […].”22 Avraham Faust is the only leading archaeologist who contests the 5th century BCE dating of the destruction of Benjamin’s urban centers. Consistent with his view that population levels declined by 90% throughout Judah during the Babylonian period,23 Faust contends that the rural areas of Benjamin experienced an immediate decline in population levels and settlement activity following the fall of Jerusalem, but that the decline “of the urban sector was more gradual.”24 Faust concludes, “The specific history of the area of Benjamin, in which the remaining administration under Gedaliah survived during the early part of the Babylonian period, should serve to explain why some central sites did not collapse right away, but had a longer dying process than sites in other parts of Judah.”25 In summary, there is a general consensus among archaeologists (other than Faust) that the material culture in the Benjamin region underwent a significant change during the period between the last quarter of the 6th century BCE and the second half of the 5th century BCE. While Benjamin’s rural areas and urban centers prospered during the Babylonian period, the entire region declined 20 21 22 23 24 25

Diana Edelman, “Gibeon and the Gibeonites Revisited,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 162. Ibid., 162–163. Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 350. See discussion in note 14 supra. Faust, “Settlement Dynamics,” 46. Ibid.

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dramatically during the Persian period. There is an absence of consensus, however, in explaining the events and circumstances that caused the decline of the Benjamin region during the Persian period. Archaeologists disagree among themselves, and Lipschits, the leading expert on the Benjamin region, has changed his own position three times. The various explanations for the decline of the Benjamin region will be discussed in the following paragraphs. In his analysis of the destruction of Mizpah, Zorn speculates that “possibly this event should be connected with the successful Egyptian revolt against Persia at the end of the fifth century […].”26 John W. Betlyon shares Zorn’s view and speculates more broadly that the destruction of all four Benjaminite urban centers could be related to an anti-Persian uprising in the Benjamin region. He asks the question, “Could this disruption in occupation have been associated with people supportive of the Egyptian revolt of the 460s, people who took advantage of a Persian interregnum; i.e., the death of Xerxes I in ca. 465 BCE?”27 Edelman speculates that the Golah community may have been responsible for the destruction of Gibeon and the filling-in of its water pools. She contends, Once the pro-Davidic golah had consolidated their position in power, they would have moved against their pro-Saulide opposition to ensure that they did not cause trouble in the future. The filling in of the pool at Gibeon and the weakening of its defensive wall would have been designed to prevent it from becoming a rallying point and unassailable bastion for pro-Saulides who opposed the newly established regime and contemplated overthrowing it.28 As discussed, Edelman’s argument that the people who remained in the land following the fall of Jerusalem favored the restoration of the Saulide dynasty is weak.29 However, if Edelman is correct that the destruction of Gibeon’s walls and the filling in of its water pools was a deliberate hostile action, her argument that the event may reflect tension and conflict between the Golah and the Benjaminite inhabitants of Gibeon merits further research and review. Lipschits has addressed the causes that gave rise to the decline in population levels and material culture in the Benjamin region in three articles, each taking a different position. First, he contended in a 1999 article that “[p]art of 26 27 28 29

Zorn, “Tell en Nasbeh,” 444. John W. Betlyon, “A People Transformed: Palestine in the Persian Period,” NEA 68 (2005): 26. Edelman, “Gibeon and Gibeonites,” 164. See discussion in Chapter 4, Sections 1 and 3 supra.

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the inhabitants of the territory apparently moved to Jerusalem and its environs, but it is also possible that the decline was due to the strengthening of the settlement in the Modi’in area during the Persian period. The political stability and more especially the enhanced economic activity that developed in the coastal area during the Persian period drew many of the inhabitants of the region to settle in those parts.”30 Lipschits cites 1 Ch 8:12–13 in support of this proposition.31 Second, in a 2003 article, Lipschits argued more narrowly that the decline of the Benjamin region can be explained by the “transfer of the provincial center to Jerusalem and the reduced status of Mizpah, as well as the change in economic and security conditions in the region during the Persian period.” These changes undermined the economic base of the settlements in the region, resulting in a marked demographic decline for the Benjaminite region. This decline may be estimated at about 60%: from approximately 1150 settled dunams at the end of Iron Age II to about 500 settled dunams in the Persian period.32 Third, in his later 2005 monograph, Lipschitz adds an additional reason to explain the abandonment of the Benjamin region. Lipschits states that “[w]e cannot rule out the possibility that this migration also had ideological motives. At the time of the Return, the ruling authority in Judah was transferred to those who returned from the Babylonian Exile, and they forced their religious, ritual, social and national views upon the residents of the province. This may have pushed some of the inhabitants of Benjamin to migrate beyond the administrative limits of the province and to settle beyond its borders.”33 It is fair to conclude that the set of events and circumstances that led to the decline of the Benjamin region during the early Persian period is still an unresolved issue requiring further research and analysis. 1.3 Conclusions The archaeological evidence from the Babylonian and Persian periods may be summarized as follows: First, Judah as a whole suffered a massive economic decline, including the abandonment of settlements and a significant drop in population in the Babylonian period, and did not begin to recover until the Persian period. Second, it is however inaccurate to affirm that Judah had become empty and desolate as there is clear evidence of continuous 30 31 32 33

Lipschits, “History of the Benjamin Region,” 185. Ibid. See also Ezr 2:23; Neh 7:37; 11:35 which describe the settlement of Lod by Benjaminites. Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 351. Lipschits, Fall and Rise, 248.

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settlement activity in Judah during the Babylonian period, albeit on a greatly reduced scale. Third, more precisely, certain areas of Judah, including the Benjamin region in the north and Bethlehem in the south, indeed prospered during the Babylonian period and did not experience a decline in settlements or population. Fourth, the Benjamin region underwent a significant reversal of fortune during the Persian period that has been variously dated from the last quarter of the 6th century BCE to the last quarter of the 5th century BCE. The set of events and circumstances that led to the decline of the Benjamin region during the early Persian period is still an unresolved issue requiring further research and analysis. It should be noted that the reconstruction of the political, economic and ideological history of Yehud during the Persian period falls outside the scope of the specialized expertise of archaeologists. While archaeologists have their views on the subject, this should not exclude scholars with other areas of specialized expertise, such as biblical commentators, from contributing to the debate. 2

Interpretation of Archaeological Data by Biblical Commentators

Biblical commentators have long suspected the historical accuracy of the scriptural descriptions of Judah during the Babylonian period as a desolate land empty of all inhabitants and impassible to strangers.34 Archaeological evidence pointing to the continuity of settlement and economic activity in Judah during the Babylonian period supports the suspicion that the relevant biblical texts present a theological rather than historical account of what must have been a more nuanced and complex set of events. It could reasonably be anticipated that biblical commentators in the 1960s and 1970s would have seized 34

See, e.g., Charles C. Torrey’s 1896 monograph, The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the author treats both the Babylonian exile and the Golah’s return to Judah as ahistorical myths. Torrey states, “Before leaving the story of Ezra and his expedition, a word more may be said about the Jewish tradition of a return from the Babylonian exile. The fact deserves to be emphasized, not passed over lightly, that outside of Ezra-Neh, there is not a trace of any such tradition in the Old Testament. To the prophets, Babylonia is not the only land of captivity. The ‘exiles’ of whom they speak are scattered among all the nations. The cherished hope seems to be that the Jews of the Diaspora who have left the holy land, and suffered strangers to pour in, will one day return. But there is nowhere a hint that this hope was ever realized in any actual occurrence. Such an event would have furnished a most inspiring theme for a Psalm-writer, or could have been used with great effect in the prophet’s prediction; but we look in vain for anything of the kind.” Charles C. Torrey, The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah (Giessen: J. Richer’sche Buchhandlung, 1896), 62–63; citations omitted.

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on this new archaeological data as a basis for reconstructing the history of Judah during the Babylonian period in a more objective manner. Surprisingly, this did not happen. Most biblical commentators ignored the published archaeological evidence until the early 1990s and then cited it sparingly and at times inaccurately. It was not until about 2003 that biblical commentators began to acknowledge that the archaeological and survey data concerning the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period constitute an essential tool for understanding the political, economic and ideological tensions that emerged in early Persian period Yehud, and, as such, an important tool for interpreting biblical texts of that period. It could be argued that 20th century biblical commentators ignored the archaeological evidence because most of it was published in modern Hebrew and not translated. This is an unlikely explanation, however, as summaries of the archaeological evidence could be found in numerous secondary sources published in European languages. The earliest such secondary source I have been able to identify is the first edition of John Bright’s A History of Israel. Bright wrote in 1960, The calamity of 587 is on no account to be minimized. Though the popular notion of a total deportation which left the land empty and void is erroneous and to be discarded, the catastrophe was nevertheless appalling and one which signaled the disruption of Jewish life in Palestine. […] Only in the Negeb, apparently separated from Judah in 597, and in the district north of Jerusalem, which was probably a part of the Babylonian province of Samaria, did towns escape destruction.35 Although Bright’s comment reflects the status quæstionis of archaeological research only through 1960, one could have expected that it would have piqued the curiosity of biblical commentators to learn more about the archaeological record. The evolving response of biblical scholars to the archaeological data will be discussed below. 2.1 The “Myth of the Empty Land” In a 1992 article entitled, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” Robert P. Carroll posited that all of the passages in the HB that refer to Judah becoming an empty and desolate land represent mythic constructs invented by the Golah community to justify and legitimate their political, economic and ideological domination 35

John Bright, A History of Israel (London: SCM Press Ltd, 19601), 324.

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of Yehud.36 Carroll argues that “[a] land empty over a lengthy period of time is simply a construct derived from the ideology of pollution-purity values in the second temple community.” It ignores the social reality of the people working the land and living there because they do not belong to the sacred enclave. They are invisible in ideological terms […].37 He further states, “Not only are there exclusivistic claims to possession of and power in the land, but there is also such a denigration of all opposition that no rival claim has any legitimacy whatsoever.”38 Carroll reconstructs the interests and beliefs of the autochthonous inhabitants of Judah on the basis of a deconstruction of the biblical texts that make up the myth of the empty land. Carroll argues, “The representation of the people(s) of the land must also be seen as the depiction of the losers in that particular ideological struggle.”39 The losers are “the poorest who eked out a livelihood working the land […].”40 Carroll imagines that “[g]reat wealth also endowed the returning deportees, so that their appearance in the ravaged land accompanied by such enormously conspicuous wealth must have set them apart from the local inhabitants and have given rise to considerable opportunities for social oppression.”41 According to Carroll, the myth of the empty land “reflects an ideology of occupation and control”42 that resembles “a Leninist seizure of power.”43 Carroll thus conceives of the conflict between the Golah and the “people(s) of the land” as the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by a large number of indigenous peasants to resist the “occupation and control” of their land by a small but wealthy group of non-indigenous colonialists. Because the victors in the class struggle recorded the story from their own biased ideological perspective, the “people(s) of the land” have been effaced from the biblical record. Although Carroll does not refer to archaeological research in his 1992 article, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” he does so in another article published that year in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. Carroll states, “According to Stern (1982:229), the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem had little effect on the culture of the Israelite period. Life continued as before and changes only began to appear with the emergence of the Persian hegemony. […] At this juncture of 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Carroll’s 1992 thesis is similar to Torrey’s 1896 position. See note 34 supra. Robert P. Carroll, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” Semeia 59 (1992), 90. Ibid., 83. Ibid., 85. Ibid., 80. Ibid., 81. Ibid. Ibid., 89.

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history the land lost some people; very much a minority of people, even [sic] important people of status were deported. Most people lived on in the land as if nothing, except the burning of Jerusalem had happened.”44 Carroll’s citation of Stern’s 1982 monograph misrepresents Stern’s position. The page Carroll cites in Stern’s book, p. 229, in fact discusses archeological evidence of continuity of life at only four sites: Tell el-Nasbeh (Mizpah), Tell el-Fûl (Gibeah), Beitin (Bethel) and el-Jib (Gibeah); all four of which are located in the Benjamin region.45 2.2 Misinterpretation of Archaeological Evidence Carroll’s conclusions that “life continued as before” and “most people lived on in the land as if nothing, except the burning of Jerusalem had happened” will be repeated by biblical commentators for another 20 years. The position of Hans Barstad merits particular attention. In a 1996 monograph, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archeology of Judah during the “Exilic” Period, Barstad reaches the same conclusion as Carroll: “The Judah left behind by the Babylonians was not a desolate and empty country lying in ruins until the Jews miraculously arrived back under Cyrus. Judah after the fall of Jerusalem constituted yet another wheel in the much bigger economic machinery of the Neo-Babylonian empire, and a society where life went on after 586 BC pretty much in the same way as it did before the arrival of Nebuchadnessar’s armies.”46 Barstad’s contribution to Carroll’s thesis is to discuss archaeological research through 1996 that supports the argument that everyday life in Judah during the Babylonian period continued as before. Curiously, however, the research Barstad discusses and cites in his monograph in fact contradicts his own thesis. Barstad presents an accurate summary of archaeological research through 1996 in the first few pages of his monograph. He states, Whereas the archaeological evidence from such sites as Jerusalem, Tell Beit Mirsim, Beth-Shemesh, Lachish, and Ramat Rachel shows clear traces of the destruction brought about by Nebuchadnessar’s campaigns in the west, settlements in the northern part of Judah and Benjamin were not affected by the event. Several cities lying north of Jerusalem, in the traditional area of Benjamin, were not destroyed at all. In contrast to sites 44 45 46

Robert P. Carroll, “History of Israel (Post-Monarchic Period)” in ABD 3:569. Ephraim Stern, Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period 538–332 BC (Westminster: Aris & Phillips, 1982), 229. Hans M. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archeology of Judah during the “Exilic” Period (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), 79.

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excavated south of Jerusalem, these places in fact prospered in the later sixth century.47 Following this accurate summary of the archaeological evidence through 1996, Barstad concludes in the immediately following two sentences: “Thus, it was mainly the hill country of Judah that suffered deportations and destructions under Nebuchadnessar. The rest of the country was left more or less intact.”48 When Barstad states that “the rest of the country was left more or less intact,” he implies that the region that suffered no destruction represented a significant part of Judah, both geographically and demographically. This conclusion mischaracterizes the archaeological data that Barstad had just summarized that pointed to massive destruction of urban centers throughout Judah with the sole exception of towns in the Benjamin region. From this distortion of the geographic and demographic importance of Benjamin in relation to Judah as a whole, Barstad leaps to the even broader conclusion cited above, “Judah after the fall of Jerusalem constituted […] a society where life went on after 586 BC pretty much in the same way as it did before the arrival of Nebuchadnessar’s armies.”49 In my view, Barstad’s conclusion is a significant distortion of the archaeological record. Barstad up-dated his 1996 monograph in a 2003 article to take account of subsequent archaeological discoveries. He states, “Recent detailed accounts of the archaeology of Neo-Babylonian Judah have been published by Carter [1999] and Lipschits [1999]. The presentation below is based on my monograph from 1996. The way I see it, the studies by Carter and Lipschits support the views that I put forward in 1996 concerning the continued existence of Judah during the so-called ‘exilic’ period.”50 To the contrary, neither Carter’s nor Lipschits’ 1999 publications support Barstad’s position. Carter in fact takes a position that is antipodal to that of Barstad. He posits that there are only three excavated sites outside of the Benjamin region that survived the Babylonian conquest: Tel elNasbeh, Horvat Zimri and Khirbet Er Ras.51 Lipschits stated in his 1999 article cited by Barstad,

47 48 49 50 51

Ibid., 48. Ibid. Ibid., 79. Hans M. Barstad, “After the ‘Myth of the Empty Land’: Major Challenges in the Study of Neo-Babylonian Judah” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 6; citations omitted. Charles E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demographic Study, JSOTSup 294 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 134.

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The archaeological data reinforce the biblical account, and they indicate that Jerusalem and its close environs suffered a severe blow. […] From the evidence preserved in the Bible concerning the region of Benjamin and the north of the Mount Judah area, and from the archaeological finds in these areas, it emerged that their fate was different. It may be assumed that in these areas the Judean inhabitants who did not go into exile were concentrated and amongst them the existence of “the people that [sic] remained in the land of Judah” continued.52 Lipschits’ carefully worded position does not support Barstad’s sweeping conclusion that, “[…] as the majority of scholars now assume, ‘most of the population’ remained in Judah […]. In other words, what we are dealing with is a functioning society, with its various socioeconomic institutions still intact.”53 Carroll’s thesis of the “myth of the empty land” and Barstad’s continued affirmation that “life went on [in Judah] after 586 BC pretty much in the same way as it did before the arrival of Nebuchadnessar’s armies,” continued to hold sway among biblical commentators until about 2003, notwithstanding strong archaeological evidence to the contrary. For example, Peter R. Bedford uses Barstad as his sole source for archeological evidence in his 2001 monograph, Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah.54 Bedford summarizes the status of Judah during the Babylonian period as follows: “Economic conditions were difficult immediately after the 588–87 invasion, but they may have slowly ameliorated through the Babylonians permitting those who remained in Judah to work the formal royal estates and the land abandoned by the deportees.”55 Joseph Blenkinsopp affirmed in a 2002 article, “The myth of the empty land is therefore the creation of the Judaeo-Babylonian immigrant community which achieved social, economic and religious dominance in Judah during the first century of Iranian rule. The idea that these diaspora Jews returned to a land emptied of inhabitants by the Babylonians had the advantage of obviating embarrassing questions of legal ownership of real estate.”56 Frédéric 52 53

54 55 56

Lipschits, “History of the Benjamin Period,” 158. Barstad, “After the Myth,” 4; emphasis in original. It should be noted that Barstad’s 2003 article appeared in the volume edited by Lipschits and Blenkinsopp which also included a more recent article by Lipschits that more clearly contradicts Barstad’s understanding of Lipschits’ position. See discussion of Lipschits’ 2003 article in Section 1.1 supra. Peter R. Bedford, Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah (Leiden: Brill, 2001). Ibid., p. 45. Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Bible, Archaeology and Politics; or The Empty Land Revisited,” JSOT 27, 2 (2002): 175. However, in his 2003 article on Bethel in the Babylonian period, Blenkinsopp states, “In common with other sites in Benjaminite territory, Bethel was not destroyed during the Babylonian punitive expedition of 588–586.” Joseph Blenkinsopp,

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Gangloff uses a more polemical tone to reach a similar conclusion in another article published in 2002. He argues that the myth of the empty land sealed “la victoire finale des ‘gens de l’exil’ sur les ‘gens du pays’, les premiers imposant leur hégémonie au second en contrôlant le Temple, centre économique, politique et religieux de la petite province de Yehud à l’époque perse. Il n’est pas déraisonnable de penser que cette communauté perse a, la première, élaboré l’idéologie d’un ‘pays sans peuple’ – une terre ruinée et dépeuplée – pour ‘un peuple sans pays’ – le peuple de l’exil –, un ‘slogan’ qu’un certain sionisme contemporain reprendra à son compte.”57 Gangloff considers the Golah community’s ideology, like that of a “certain sionisme contemporain” to be “sectaire et raciste.”58 Resistance to the archaeologically-based hypothesis that continuity of “normal life” in Judah was limited to the Benjamin region and Bethlehem during the Babylonian period continues to prevail among biblical commentators. The 2012 monograph, Opening the Books of Moses, co-authored by Diana V. Edelman, Philip R. Davies, Christophe Nihan and Thomas Römer59 merits particular attention, especially because of the scholarly eminence of its four coauthors. The third chapter of the monograph is devoted to the history of Judah in the Babylonian and Persian periods. However, this chapter omits all discussion of the archaeological data that support the hypothesis that the Benjamin region flourished during the Babylonian period while the rest of Judah suffered a massive decline in population and settlement activity. The authors describe the Babylonian conquest of Judah in the following terms: They [the Neo-Babylonians] destroyed the capital of the former kingdom, Jerusalem, and established Mizpah, a site about 12 km to the northwest, as the provincial administrative seat. They established the population that was not deported on farmsteads to continue to produce the traditional agricultural crops of the region, wine and oil (2 Kgs 25:12; Jer 39:10), which were paid in kind as taxes. In addition, sheep, goats, wool and woven

57 58

59

“Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. O. Lipschits, and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 95. Frédéric Gangloff, “Le ‘pays dévasté et dépeuplé’: Genèse d’une idéologie biblique et d’un concept sioniste. Une esquisse,” BN 113 (2002): 41–42. Ibid., 48. Notwithstanding its obviously polemical tone, Gangloff’s article continues to be cited by respected biblical commentators. See, e.g., Jacques Vermeylen, “Les anciens déportés et les habitants du pays. La crise occultée du début de l’époque perse,” Transeuphratène 39 (2010), 175. Diana V. Edelman, Philip R. Davies, Christophe Nihan and Thomas Römer, Opening the Books (Sheffield: Equinox, 2012).

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cloth had been part of the annual levy paid when Judah was a vassal and probably remained part of the tax burden on the newly formed province. The region of Benjamin, around Mizpah, had the densest population, but settlement continued in the Judean hills as well, and in the Shephelah (see Lipschits 2003; Edelman 2005:298).60 The authors’ citation of Lipschits’ 2003 article for the proposition that “settlement continued in the Judean hills as well, and in the Shephelah” is a misrepresentation of the archaeologist’s views. Lipschits’ 2003 article in fact draws an important distinction between the northern and southern parts of the Judean hills. “In the northern part of the Judean Hills, the settlement and historical processes between the seventh and the fifth centuries BCE were similar to those of the region of Benjamin.”61 In contrast, Lipschits estimates that the settled area in the southern part of the Judean hills dropped from 390 dunams before the Babylonian conquest to 110 dunams at the height of the Persian period; i.e., a drop of 72%.62 As to the Shephelah region, Lipschits states, “It is reasonable to assume that the Babylonians dealt a major military blow to the inhabitants of the Shephelah.”63 The resistance of Edelman, Davies, Nihan and Römer to accept the hypothesis that population levels and economic activity had been significantly reduced in Judah as a consequence of the Babylonian conquest is difficult to understand and interpret. If Edelman, Davies, Nihan and Römer appear to minimize the level of destruction in Judah during the Babylonian period, Niels Peter Lemche takes the opposite tact. He argues in a 2015 article, “There can be no doubt that the territory of the former state of Judah was utterly destroyed by the Babylonians. […] The Babylonians really destroyed most of Palestine at the beginning of the sixth century B.C.E. Only the territory belonging to the ancient city-state of Samarina, already for more than one hundred years an Assyrian province, was spared, or experienced only marginal destruction.”64 As Lemche cites Lipschits’ 2005 monograph on Judah under Babylonian rule for this position, he is no doubt aware that Lipschits argues that settlement activity and 60 61 62 63 64

Ibid., 51–52. Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 351. Ibid., 363. Ibid., 364. It can be noted that Lipschits’ subsequent 2004, 2006, and 2012 articles and 2005 monograph on Judah under Babylonian rule are not cited in Opening the Books of Moses. Niels P. Lemche, “Locating the Story of Biblical Israel” in New Perspectives on Old Testament Prophesy and History, Essays in Honour of Hans M. Barstad (ed. R.I. Thelle, T. Stordalen and M.E.J. Richardson; Leiden: Brill, 2015), 218.

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economic life were not in fact disrupted in the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period. It is possible that Lemche does not mention the archaeological data from the Benjamin region because it contradicts his hypothesis that scribal activity during the Babylonian and Persian periods was centered in Samaria rather than in Judah.65 In summary, biblical commentators first began to use archaeological data in their reconstructions of the history of the Persian period in the 1990s. However, most of these commentators relied on Barstad’s 1996 and 2003 summaries of archaeological evidence. In my view, Barstad misinterpreted or misrepresented the archaeological data in both his 1996 monograph and his 2003 article. Carroll’s thesis of the “myth of the empty land,” and Barstad’s continued affirmation that “life went on [in Judah] after 586 BC pretty much in the same way as it did before the arrival of Nebuchadnessar’s armies,” continued to hold sway among most commentators, notwithstanding strong archaeological evidence to the contrary. 2.3 Acceptance of Archaeological Evidence A small handful of biblical scholars have made their peace with the nuanced archaeological evidence confirming that (i) Judah as a whole suffered a significant decline in population and economic activity during the Babylonian period but (ii) certain parts of the country, especially the Benjamin region and Bethlehem, flourished under Babylonian occupation. Mario Liverani stated in 2003, On peut en déduire que la population connut un effondrement de 85% à 90%. Les sites n’ont plus de murs d’enceinte ni d’édifices publics (on ne connait pas de ‘petit palais’ provincial construit par des Babyloniens), l’artisanat de luxe a disparu, l’écriture (qui ne sert plus à l’administration royale, inexistante) devient rarissime. C’est bien d’une chute verticale qu’il s’agit. Seule la zone centrale de Benjamin en réchappe (Tell el-Fûl), Tell en-Nasbe, Bethel, (Gabaon) […].66

65

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Lemche’s position on the total destruction of Judah during the Babylonian period is followed by the following statement: “If we are to look for places where the survival of the tradition that later developed into biblical writing was possible, it would be within the territory of the former-city state of Samaria, or Samarina. Only a dogmatic position in favour of Jerusalem as a center of intellectual activity would deny that this could very well explain the dominance of northern traditions in large parts of the Pentateuch.” Ibid., 218–219. Mario Liverani, La Bible et l’invention de l’histoire (Montrouge: Bayard, 2008), 267.

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Jacques Vermeylen attempted to put to rest the scholarly disagreement with the archaeological data relating to the level of settlement activity and population in Judah during the Babylonian period in a 2010 article: Il semble, en effet, que H.M. Barstad ait exagéré en affirmant que la grande majorité de la population était restée dans le pays. De toute manière, de nombreuses personnes sont mortes ou ont fui dans les pays voisins à cause de la guerre. Il ne faut pas, pour autant, en revenir à l’idée d’une terre vidée de ses habitants. Il est à peu près certain qu’une population plus ou moins importante demeurait aux environs et surtout au Nord [sic] de Jérusalem ; le nombre exact importe peu pour mon propos.67 Although he is a co-author of the previously mentioned 2012 monograph, Opening the Books of Moses, Davies is the biblical scholar who has most fully embraced the archaeological consensus and attempted to interpret biblical texts in the light of that evidence. In his 2008 monograph, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and Modern, Davies concludes, “It is estimated (from surveys) that the population in and around Jerusalem fell by 90% and may have been initially zero. In the south, different populations (Edomite, Arabian) immigrated. The major areas of settlement in Judah were around Bethlehem and in the territory of Benjamin. The Beersheba valley was also nearly deserted.”68 In a subsequent 2011 article, Davies stated, “This northern part of the province of Yehud was, during the sixth century, not only the most densely populated part of the Neo-Babylonian province and the focus of political life in Judah, but it also, with the demise of the dynastic cult, provided the sanctuaries at which the population could worship (Bethel, Mizpah, Gilgal, Gibeon).”69 Similarly, Jean-Daniel Macchi and Nihan (who is also a co-author of the 2012 monograph, Opening the Books of Moses) co-authored a 2012 article in which they acknowledge that “[l]a population judéenne de l’époque se repartit 67 68 69

Vermeylen, “Les anciens déportés,” 177. Philip R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and Modern (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 79. Philip R. Davies, “The Origins of Biblical Israel” in Enquire of the Former Age: Ancient Historiography and Writing the History of Israel (ed. L.L. Grabbe; London: T&T Clark, 2011), 42. It can be noted that Davies’ position in his 2008 book and 2011 article contradict the position advanced in the 2012 monograph Opening the Books of Moses, of which he is one of the four co-authors. Although the relevant chapter in the 2012 monograph ends with an extensive bibliography that cites four publications by Edelman, none of Davies’ works is included.

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principalement en Benjamin ainsi que dans les collines du nord de la Judée, alors que, par rapport a la fin du Fer II, Jérusalem et la Shepelah sont très significativement dépeuplées.”70 Also in 2012, Rainer Albertz concluded that the loss of population in Judah as a whole “was about 60 percent of the former population. Apart from the Benjaminite area around the new capital Mizpah, where a reduced urban civilization survived, most regions of Judah suffered heavy destructions, including also the rural areas of Northern Judah, as Avraham Faust has recently pointed out. […] Archaeological evidence points to flourishing oil and wine production in Mizpah and Gibeon. However, most of the public and economic activity was restricted to the Benjaminite region, which almost [sic] escaped the Babylonian destructions.”71 In summary, it was not until the second decade of the 21st century that certain biblical commentators began to accept the archaeological evidence that a dramatic drop in population had occurred in Judah during the Babylonian period and that population levels and economic activity remained at pre-occupation levels only in limited parts of the land, most especially the Benjamin region. These scholars include Albertz, Davies, Grabbe, Liverani, Macchi, Nihan and Vermeylen. 3

Relations between the Golah and Those Who Remained in the Land

As the hypothesis that the Golah returned to an empty land has been abandoned by almost all contemporary commentators, scholarly debate is now focused on the question of the nature of the relationship between the autochthonous inhabitants of Judah and the deportees who began to return from Babylon in the early Persian period. Three different hypotheses have been proposed. First, the conflict was socio-economic pitting the interests of the rich landowning Golah against the interests of the landless “people(s) of the land.” Second, the conflict was theological/cultic engaging the interests of the priests of Bethel and their concept of Yahwism against the interests of the priests of Jerusalem and their concept of Yahwism. Third, the conflict was socio-economic with the Golah championing the small landowners – both returnees and people who 70 71

Jean-Daniel Macchi and Christophe Nihan, “Le prétendu conflit entre exilés et non-exilés dans la province de Yehud à l’époque achéménide. Plaidoyer pour un approche différenciée,” Transeuphratène 42 (2012): 33. Rainer Albertz, “More and Less Than a Myth: Reality and Significance of Exile for the Political, Social, and Religious History of Judah” in By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile [ed. J.J. Ahn, and J. Middlemas (New York: T&T Clark, 2012)], 24–25; citations omitted.

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had remained in the land during the Babylonian period – against the interests of a small elite group of wealthy landowners who were supported by the Persian imperial authorities. Each of these hypotheses will be discussed in the following sections. Conflict between the Landowning Golah and the Poor People(s) of the Land Beginning with Carroll in 1992, the deconstruction of the “myth of the empty land” has been closely linked to the hypothesis that the relationship between the Golah and those who had not gone into exile was highly conflictual. As discussed, Carroll conceived of the conflict between the Golah and the “people(s) of the land” as the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by a large number of indigenous peasants to resist the “occupation and control” of their land by a small but wealthy group of non-indigenous colonialists. In his 2006 monograph, The Social History of Ancient Israel, Rainer Kessler follows Carroll in portraying all those who remained in the land during the Babylonian period as the “poorest people of the land” and “poor people who owned nothing.”72 He argues that “the impoverished people took possession of the exiles’ landed property, and, in the initial period, Gedaliah officially encouraged this. On the other hand, the banished upper class survived as a social group during the Babylonian exile, and they never surrendered their claim to the land. The opportunity to return to Judah thus portended a conflict situation […].”73 Kessler accepts the implicit claim in Ezra-Nehemiah that “foreigners” had migrated into Judah during the Babylonian period and constituted an upper class. This leads Kessler to posit that early Persian period Yehud was characterized by a dual set of conflicts: “[S]ome members of the former lower class had taken possession of the property of the exiles, and there, too, a new upper class had arisen, possibly made up primarily of non-Jewish elements. This portended a twofold conflict in the Persian era: a struggle over land and over political and religious leadership.”74 Although Vermeylen acknowledged in his previously discussed 2010 article that urban centers and economic life prospered in the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period,75 he continues to view the autochthonous population as an undifferentiated mass composed of the poorest people in the land. He

3.1

72 73 74 75

Rainer Kessler, The Social History of Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 122. Kessler cites 2 Ki 25:12 for the first term and Jer 39:10 for the second term. Ibid., 135. Ibid., 136. See discussion in Section 3.2 supra.

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posits, “Selon la meilleure vraisemblance, au moment du retour des déportés à Jérusalem, ce sont surtout des Judéens de souche qu’ils trouveront dans le pays. Ce peuple était en grande partie formé par d’humbles cultivateurs, qui étaient restés, attachés à la terre dont ils avaient besoin pour vivre.”76 Vermeylen argues that these two monolithic groups, the Golah community and the “people(s) of the land,” found themselves locked in a highly conflictual situation: “Après la chute de Babylone, quand les deux groupes se retrouvent en concurrence dans le même espace géographique, le conflit est violent, comme l’atteste toute une littérature de propagande. Il porte sur la propriété des maisons et des terrains, mais aussi et surtout sur la question du leadership et sur l’identité israélite.”77 In summary, both Kessler and Vermeylen continue to conceive of the tensions in 5th century Yehud in terms not dissimilar to those originally proposed by Carroll in 1992: a binary confrontation between the politically powerless and poor “people(s) of the land” and the newly arrived wealthy and hegemonistic Golah community. The archaeological and survey data confirming that urban centers and economic activity flourished in the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period contradict the hypothesis of Carroll, Kessler and Vermeylen that the people who remained in the land after the destruction of Jerusalem represented an undifferentiated mass of mostly poor peasants. As urban centers generally signify the presence of an economic, political and religious elite in a region, it is difficult to sustain the proposition that all of the “people(s) of the land” were poor peasants. As population levels and settlement activity remained basically unchanged in the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period, it is reasonable to assume that in addition to poor peasants living in rural areas, the population of the urban centers included artisans, tradesmen, land owners, administrative functionaries, priests and scribes. The “class conflict” model for characterizing relations between the supposedly rich Golah community and the supposedly poor autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region contradicts the archaeological data and should therefore, in my opinion, be rejected. 3.2 Conflict between the Priests of Bethel and the Priests of Jerusalem Other commentators contend that the conflict between the Golah and the people who remained in the land after the fall of Jerusalem was primarily focused on theological/cultic differences. In his previously mentioned 2003

76 77

Vermeylen, “Les anciens déportés,” 177–178. Ibid., 204.

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article,78 Blenkinsopp notes that “during most or all of the period between the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and its rebuilding, Bethel served as the alternative, imperially-sponsored sanctuary associated with the administrative center at Mizpah; and that this privileged position of Bethel put the priests claiming descent from Aaron who functioned there in serious but by no means undisputed contention for cultic supremacy after the restoration of Jerusalem in the early Persian period.”79 As the Golah (who Blenkinsopp calls the “Judeo-Babylonians”) favored the “Zadokite priestly groups,” conflict between the two priestly groups became important during the early Persian period. According to Blenkinsopp, this conflict was resolved “in the form of a compromise between Aaronites and Zadokites, the final expression of which can be read off in the priestly genealogies (especially 1 Ch 5:27–41).”80 Blenkinsopp concludes, “Our sources for the early Persian period, meager and uncertain of interpretation as they are, testify to conflict in Achaemenid Judah, not least between the dominant Judeo-Babylonian element and indigenous groups both within the province and in neighboring territories. If the hypothesis presented above can be sustained, opposition to the reestablishment of Jerusalem as the cult center of the province and of the Jewish ethnos elsewhere must have played a part.”81 As discussed, Davies is the scholar who has most fully embraced the archaeological consensus and seeks to interpret the biblical text in light of archaeological data. Davies notes that “a province called ‘Judah’ was in fact governed from a territory that, as the Bible and biblical historians themselves describe it, was ‘Benjaminite.’ The former capital of the kingdom of Judah, Jerusalem, was replaced by Mizpah. […] Thus, for well over a century, the political life of Judah was centered in a territory which had once been part of the kingdom of Israel.”82 Davies argues, Judeans adopted the cult of the “god [sic] of Israel” in the sixth century, identifying this deity with the god [sic] of Jerusalem’s cult […]. Over a period of a century and a half, Judeans came to recognize (“remember”) themselves as descendants of the Jacob whose ancestral god they 78 79

80 81 82

See discussion in Section 2.3 supra. Blenkinsopp, “Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian,” 104–105. As previously discussed, Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz take the position that Bethel had ceased to be occupied towards the end of the monarchical period. However, their analysis can be questioned particularly with regard to the Babylonian period. See discussion in note 9 supra. Ibid., 104. Ibid. Davies, “Origins,” 40–41.

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worshipped and who founded the sanctuary of Bethel. Those who took over authority in Judah under the Persians, at some time in the middle to late fifth century, and re-established Jerusalem and its cult (I think “Zionists” is precisely the right term) did not reject this identity, but defined their “Israelite” identity in various ways: extending their claims over the territory of Samaria as well as Judah or, on the contrary, excluding these and claiming themselves to be exclusively “Israel” […].83 Edelman, Davies, Nihan and Römer follow Blenkinsopp in their 2012 monograph in identifying the principal tension in early Persian period Yehud to be religiously focused: The rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple appears to have marked the beginning of a policy of religious centralization within the province. The sites of Bethel and Gibeon, both of which probably had contained Yahwistic temples, were “neutralized” about this time (Edelman 2001; 2003). […] More indicatively, the defensive walls of Gibeon/el-Jib were pulled down and stones from them were used to block up the interior water system. […] Thus, the site was deliberately made an undesirable place to continue to live sometime after the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and one is hard-pressed to explain this action outside of internal provincial tensions – probably in part religious; there were no external invasions (Edelman 2001; 2003).84 These authors thus share Blenkinsopp’s view that the conflict between the Golah and the people who had remained in the land during the Babylonian period had a strong religious component. It can be noted that they do not mention the “class-conflict” model that pits the poor peasants working the land against the wealthy Golah intruders as proposed by Kessler and Vermeylen. More recently, James Anderson has broadened the conflict between the priests of Bethel and Jerusalem into a more fundamental theological disagreement between a traditional concept of YHWH as the head of a pantheon of deities and a newer monotheistic concept of YHWH advanced by the Golah. According to Anderson, “It was in the Persian period that the pantheon 83

84

Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel, 173. Davies further develops this argument in a 2016 article. Philip R. Davies, “Monotheism, Empire, and the Cult(s) of Yehud in the Persian Period,” in Religion in the Achaemenid Persian Empire: Emerging Judaisms and Trends (ed. D. Edelman, A. Fitzpatrick-McKinley, P. Guillaume; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 24–35. Edelman, Davies, Nihan and Römer, Opening the Books, 69.

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collapsed and a monotheistic Yahwism was born.”85 Anderson argues that this theological debate underlies the conflict between the Golah and the people who remained in the land: The situation in the province, particularly when the Temple was rebuilt, would have pitted the repatriated Golah community from Babylon and its descendants against a people who had resided in the land and whose ancestors were never hauled away into Exile by the Neo-Babylonians. […] The religious struggles between these groups would have become pronounced when the Temple was rebuilt, but in all probability, contention began with the first returnees. The Golah community and their later progeny, especially the priestly elite, championed a new form of Yahwism against those who had remained in the land and continued the old monarchic religion that believed that Yahweh was first among a number of deities.86 The hypothesis proposed by Blenkinsopp, Davies, the four authors of Opening the Books of Moses, and Anderson – that the reconstruction of the Jerusalem temple gave rise to conflict over the status of the cultic sites located in the Benjamin region – is convincing. However, I believe that this hypothesis is too narrow to explain the full range of tensions between the Golah and the people who had remained in the land after the fall of Jerusalem. It can reasonably be argued that the Golah’s program – to rebuild the temple and to encourage the Persian authorities to transfer the provincial capital of Yehud from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area87 – represented a serious threat to the inhabitants of the Benjamin region whose political, economic and religious lives had been centered for almost a century around Mizpah, the Babylonian and early Persian period administrative capital of Judah. 85

86 87

James Anderson, “Creating Dialectical Tensions: Religious Developments in Persian-Period Yehud Reflected in Biblical Texts” in Religion in the Achaemenid Persian Empire: Emerging Judaisms and Trends (ed. D. Edelman, A. Fitzpatrick-McKinley, P. Guillaume: Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 20. Ibid., 17–18. Oded Lipschits, Yuval Gadot and Dafna Langgut have convincingly argued that the provincial capital was moved from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel, a fortress located on a prominent summit, 818 m above sea-level, about 4 km south of Jerusalem. “Only during the Persian period, when Mizpah was deserted and Jerusalem renewed its status as the lone cultic site, the location of the Temple and the seats of the priests, did Ramat Rahel become both the palace of the governor and the main administrative center for collecting taxes.” Oded Lipschitz, Yuval Gadot and Dafna Langgut, “The Riddle of Ramat Rahel: The Archaeology of a Royal Persian Period Edifice,” Transeuphratène 41 (2012): 77.

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In my view, the Golah’s program concerning Jerusalem had two interrelated consequences. First, the delegitimization of the cultic sites and their priesthoods scattered throughout Yehud in favor of a single cultic site in Jerusalem with its Zadokite priesthood. Second, the transfer of the administrative capital of Yehud from Mizpah in the Benjamin region to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area. The former can be understood as giving rise to a theological/ideological conflict with that part of the population who supported the Bethel sanctuary. The latter would no doubt have engendered a politico-economic conflict with that part of the population living in and around the urban centers in the Benjamin region. In both cases, it is fair to conclude that the strongest opposition to the Golah in the early Persian period would have come from the inhabitants of the Benjamin region and, in particular, from the residents of the urban centers in Benjamin who benefitted from Persian imperial support. 3.3 Absence of Conflict between the Golah and the People(s) of the Land The provocatively titled 2012 article by Macchi and Nihan, “Le prétendu conflit entre exilés et non-exilés dans la province de Yehud à l’époque achéménide. Plaidoyer pour un approche différenciée,” seeks to challenge the position that the Persian period was characterized by a “conflit récurrent entre des groupes constitués de descendants de Judéens déportés de retour d’exil et la population demeurée au pays.”88 Macchi and Nihan conclude that (i) during the early Persian period, through the beginning of the 5th century BCE, “les traditions bibliques témoignent d’une situation considérablement moins conflictuelle qu’on ne l’a généralement supposé” and (ii) during the period from the end of the 5th century BCE to the end of the Persian period, “l’opposition entre Judéens exilés et non exilés ne paraît plus jouer de rôle significatif de fait.”89 Macchi and Nihan reach their conclusion concerning the early Persian period on the basis of an analysis of Isaiah 40–55* (Deutero-Isaiah), Haggai, Zachariah 1–8*, and Nehemiah 1–6; 13* (the Nehemiah Memoire).90 They see 88 89

90

Macchi and Nihan, “Le prétendu conflit,” 2012, 19–20. Ibid., 47. Hugh G.M. Williamson reaches a similar conclusion in his provocatively titled 2010 article, “Welcome Home.” Hugh G.M. Williamson, “Welcome Home” in The Historian and the Bible, Essays in Honour of Lester L. Grabbe (ed. P.R. Davies and D.V. Edelman; London: T&T Clark, 2010), 113–123. Although Williamson’s article was published two years earlier than that of Macchi and Nihan, it can be noted the latter article was presented at a colloquium held at the Institut Catholique de Paris on April 8–10, 2010. Although the compositional history of Ezra-Nehemiah is beyond the scope of this work, it can be noted that Lester L. Grabbe delimits the earliest composition stratum of the Nehemiah Memoire slightly more broadly than Macchi and Nihan, as including Nehemiah 1:1–7:5; 12:27–43; 13:4–31. Lester L. Grabbe, Ezra-Nehemiah (London: Routledge, 1998), 154–156.

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no explicit or implicit references to any form of conflict between the Golah and those who had remained in the land in Deutero-Isaiah, Haggai and Zachariah.91 The principal thrust of these three texts is, in their opinion, to stress the importance of rebuilding Jerusalem. Macchi and Nihan conclude, “Surtout si l’on tient compte du nombre vraisemblablement très restreint de familles de la gola de retour en Judée dans les dernières décennies du 6e s., un tel programme de restauration passait presque nécessairement par une forme de collaboration politique et économique avec les Judéens non déportés vivant dans la région de Jérusalem, comme le suggèrent notamment les oracles du Deutéro-Esaïe.”92 While Deutero-Isaiah, Haggai and Zachariah appear to support the argument that there is no evidence of conflict between the Golah and those who remained in the land, the Nehemiah Memoire is, in my view, more problematic. The motif of conflict plays a central role in the text. For example, the narrative about the rebuilding of the wall in Nehemiah 4 takes the form of a war story. The chapter begins, “It came to pass that when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on and that the breaches began to be closed, they were very angry. And all of them conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to damage it” (Neh 4:1–2).93 Nehemiah “set up a guard against them day and night” (Neh 4:3). The work force was divided in two with half of them carrying on the work “while half of them held the spears, the shields, the bows and the breastplates” (Neh 4:10). Indeed, “those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon” (Neh 4:11). Nehemiah stood ready with a trumpet in hand. He told the builders “At whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us” (Neh 4:14). In addition to Nehemiah’s foreign enemies named in Neh 4, the Nehemiah Memoire also refers to domestic opponents. These include (i) the prophet Shemaiah who uttered a prophesy against Nehemiah but who is unmasked as a false prophet “hired by Tobiah and Sanballat” (Neh 6:10–13); (ii) “Noadiah the prophetess and the rest of the prophets who were trying to frighten me” (Neh 6:14); (iii) ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫( ח ֵֹרי י‬the nobles of Judah) who wrote many letters to Tobiah (Neh 6:17) and who did not observe the Sabbath (Neh 13:7); (iv) the 91

92 93

Pace Lisbeth S. Fried. Fried concluded in her 2007 review of Persian and Hellenistic period texts that touch on encounters with the “other” that “Haggai and Zechariah […] know of no friction between social groups.” Lisbeth S. Fried, “From Xeno-Philia to -Phobia – Jewish Encounters with the Other” in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods; ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 190. Macchi and Nihan, “Le prétendu conflit,” 31. All biblical citations in this section follow the NAS translation.

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‫( ְסגָ נִ ים‬prefects) whom Nehemiah reprimanded for the slow pace of the recon-

struction work (Neh 13:11); and (v) Eliashib, a priest “related to Tobiah,” who gave Tobiah a “large room” in the temple (Neh 13:4). The references to the ‫( ח ִֹרים‬nobles) and the ‫( ְסגָ נִ ים‬prefects) in the Nehemiah Memoire merit particular attention. These two groups appear to form part of a stratified collection of socially important personages. This universe of characters includes the ‫( ֶּמ ֶלְך‬King of Persia),94 the ‫( ֶּפ ָחה‬governor of the province),95 the ‫( ח ִֹרים‬nobles),96 the ‫( ְסגָ נִ ים‬prefects),97 the ‫( ָׂש ִרים‬captains),98 the ‫ַהּכ ֵֹהן ַהּגָ דֹול‬ (the high priest);99 the ‫( ּכ ֲֹהנִ ים‬priests)100 and the ‫( ְלוִ ּיִ ם‬Levites).101 In the description of the reconstruction work on the walls in Nehemiah 3, it can be noted that while the captains, the high priest, the priests and the Levites participate in the work, the nobles and the prefects do not. Nehemiah treats the nobles and prefects as adversaries. When Nehemiah first arrived in Jerusalem, he made a secret visit to inspect Jerusalem. To emphasize the secrecy of his mission, Nehemiah states, “And the prefects did not know where I had gone or what I had done” (Neh 2:16). As to the nobles, Nehemiah states, “Also in those days many letters went from the nobles of Judah to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah. They were also speaking about his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. Then Tobiah sent letters to frighten me” (Neh 6:17–19). In his diatribe against usurious practices by the wealthy, Nehemiah states, “I entered into dispute with the nobles and prefects and said to them, ‘You are exacting usury, each from his brother!’ I held a great assembly against them” (Neh 5:7). Nehemiah also accuses the nobles of Judah of profaning the Sabbath day (Neh 13:7). Macchi and Nihan appear to accept that Nehemiah’s description of his conflict with his foreign enemies is historically rooted.102 The opposition of 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

Neh 1:11; 2:1(×2).2.3(×2).4.5(×2).6(×2).7(×2).8(×2).9(×2).18.19; 5:4.14; 6:6; 13:6(×2). Neh 2:7.9; 3:7; 5:14(×2).15.18. Neh 2:16; 4:8.13; 5:7; 6:17; 13:17. Neh 2:16(×2); 4:8.13; 5:7.17; 13:11. Neh 2:9; 3:9.12.14.15.16.17.18.19; 4:10. Neh 3:1.20.28. Neh 2:16; 3:1.22.28; 5:12: 13:4.5.13.29(×2).30. Neh 3:17; 13:5.10(×2).13.22.29.30. Pace, Diana Edelman, “Seeing Double: Tobiah the Ammonite as an Encrypted Character,” RB 113–114 (2006): 570–584; Gary N. Knoppers, “Nehemiah and Sanballat: The Enemy Without or Within?” in, Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E. (ed. O. Lipschits, G. Knoppers and R. Albertz; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 305–331; Sebastian Grätz, “The Adversaries in Ezra/Nehemiah – Fictitious or Real? A Case Study

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Sanballat and Tobiah to Nehemiah’s political program “s’explique aisément dans la mesure où, comme le suggère le mémorandum, la reconstruction reflète très vraisemblablement la volonté de la part de Néhémie, sans doute soutenu par une partie de la bourgeoisie judéenne, d’échapper partiellement à l’influence politique des centres administratifs voisins en réhabilitant Jérusalem comme centre administratif de la région de Yehud.”103 Macchi and Nihan describe the conflict between Nehemiah and his domestic enemies as reflecting […] un conflit interne à la communauté qui concerne le clivage socioéconomique entre une petite élite qui prospère sous l’administration impériale et le gros des propriétaires fonciers menacés de surendettement (Ne 5,1–13). Toute la politique de Néhémie décrite dans le mémoire témoigne ainsi d’une volonté d’unifier l’ensemble des yehudim contre ceux qui sont présentés comme étant opposés à la restauration de Jérusalem, ce qui implique nécessairement une politique intégrative à l’égard des différentes familles agnatiques résidant en Judée.104 Macchi and Nihan thus conclude, “Le mémoire de Néhémie ne mentionne de manière générale strictement aucun conflit entre déportés et non-déportés.”105 I understand Macchi and Nihan to be proposing a return to the “class conflict” model originally posited by Carroll, but with Nehemiah cast in an inverted role as the champion of the oppressed class. The early Persian period was characterized in the authors’ view by a conflict between a small elite who prospered under the imperial administration and the majority of landowners who were overly-indebted and threatened by bankruptcy. The small elite that opposed Nehemiah were supported by Sanballat and Tobiah, governors of neighboring Persian provinces. Macchi and Nihan thus replace Carroll’s binary opposition between the Golah and poor peasants with an interlocking set of two binary oppositions. The first binary opposition pits the governors of neighboring provinces against Nehemiah. The second opposes an elite group of large landowners against the overwhelming majority of small landowners. in Creating Identity in Late Persian and Hellenistic times” in Between Cooperation and Hostility: Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers (ed. R. Albertz and J. Wöhrle; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 73–87. Contra, Israel Finkelstein, “Nehemiah’s Adversaries: a Hasmonaean Reality?”, Transeuphratène 47 (2015): 47–55. 103 Ibid.; citations omitted. 104 Macchi and Nihan, “Le prétendu conflit,” 37. 105 Ibid.

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The two conflicts are linked because the large landowners act in alliance with the Golah’s “foreign” enemies. Nehemiah’s political goal was thus to unite all of the inhabitants of Yehud – without regard to their status as members of the Golah or autochthonous inhabitants of the land – against wealthy landowners and their Samarian and Ammonite supporters. I disagree with Macchi and Nihan on one element of their hypothesis – that all of the autochthonous inhabitants of the land supported Nehemiah because their economic interests were aligned with Nehemiah’s reform program. In my view, the appeal of Nehemiah’s economic reform program to small landowners and peasants should be analyzed in the broader context of the Golah’s objectives of transferring the administrative center of Yehud from Mizpah to the Jerusalem area and rebuilding the temple to serve as the unique cultic site in the province. As previously argued, these two objectives could have provided the inhabitants of the Benjamin region – both rich and poor – with grounds for political, social and religious opposition to the Golah’s overall program. My position is supported by four arguments. First, the hypothesis of Macchi and Nihan is based on an argumentum ex silentio. They argue that because the Nehemiah Memoire does not explicitly describe a conflict between the Golah and the people who remained in the land, it is reasonable to conclude that no such conflict existed. However, the possibility should be considered that the erasure of the existence of tensions with the autochthonous inhabitants of the land during the early Persian period may be as polemically mythical as the “myth of the empty land.” As the Golah considered themselves to be the true sons of Israel, and succeeded later in the Persian period in reincorporating the sons of Benjamin into their polity, it would have made polemical sense to obscure the existence of ethnic or regional tensions during the early Persian period. Second, as archaeological and survey data indicate that the most significant area in Judah that prospered economically during the Babylonian period was the Benjamin region, it is reasonable to conclude that wealthy landowners in early Persian period Yehud would have been highly concentrated in the Benjamin region. When Macchi and Nihan refer to the “small elite who prospered under the imperial administration,”106 it would be more accurate in my view to refer to the “small elite in the Benjamin region who prospered under the imperial administration.” This puts into question whether the basis of the Golah’s opposition to the elite population of the Benjamin region was grounded primarily in economic tensions or also included political, social 106 Ibid., p. 37.

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and religious tensions pitting the “old” Benjaminite elite and their supporters against the “new” Golah elite and their supporters. Third, the preceding argument is supported by the fact that the Nehemiah Memoire identifies the “nobles” and the “prefects” as being opposed to the reconstruction of the walls in contrast to the “captains” who supported and participated in the work. This has two consequences. Primo, it tends to support my hypothesis that tensions in early Persian-period Yehud were rooted in disagreement over the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple as well as economic issues concerning the indebtedness of small landowners. Secundo, it tends to support my hypothesis that the urban elites of the Benjamin region might have opposed the Golah’s claim to exercise political dominion over all of Yehud. In my view, the ‫( ְסגָ נִ ים‬prefects) and the ‫ָׂש ִרים‬ (captains) are presented as having overlapping administrative functions in the Nehemiah Memoire. BDB identifies the lexeme ‫ ָסגָ ן‬as a loan word from the Assyrian shaknu meaning prefect of a conquered city. Although the lexeme ‫ ַׂשר‬is widely used in the MT with over 100 attestations, it can be noted that the word is used nine times in Nehemiah 3 in the double construct phrase ‫ַׂשר ֶּפ ֶלְך‬ (prefect of the district of …). The lexeme ‫ ֶּפ ֶלְך‬to mean district is only attested in the MT in Nehemiah 3 and only in construct with the lexeme ‫ ַׂשר‬. On the basis of the foregoing, it can reasonably be argued that the ‫ָׂש ִרים‬ (captains) in the Nehemiah Memoire were officials appointed by Nehemiah (or by one of his predecessors) from among the Golah to administer certain districts in Yehud. It is likely that the captains had overlapping jurisdictional responsibilities with the ‫( ְסגָ נִ ים‬prefects) whose function dates back to Babylonian times and who presumably were appointed from among (or with the support of) the wealthy elite in the Benjamin region. This situation thus hints at a conflict in the early Persian period between a long line of provincial officials appointed from among the elite of Benjamin (the ‫ ) ְסגָ נִ ים‬and a newer set of provincial officials appointed from among the Golah (the ‫) ָׂש ִרים‬. Fourth, and most importantly, it can be questioned whether all of the small landowners and peasants in the Benjamin region would have supported the “new” Golah elite rather than the “old” Benjaminite elite. I have argued that the economic situation of all landowners and peasants – especially those engaged in olive and grape cultivation which requires processing to produce oil and wine – is linked to the urban centers in the region where they live.107 107 As previously noted, Lipschits attributes the relative prosperity of the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period “to the political centrality assigned to Mizpah and the economic importance of Gibeon and Mozah. The agricultural hinterland surrounded and based itself on these centers.” Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 350.

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It is therefore likely that a large number of the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region would have been negatively impacted by the transfer of the provincial capital from the Benjamin region to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area. In addition, the rebuilding of the temple, and the centralization of the cult in Jerusalem to the detriment of Bethel and its priesthood, could have been opposed by the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region for religious reasons.108 Consideration should therefore be given to the possibility that the Golah’s opponents during the Persian period included not only the wealthy landowners in the Benjamin region but also the artisans, tradesmen, administrative functionaries, priests and scribes who lived in the urban centers of the Benjamin region as well as a significant portion of the rural population of Benjamin whose economic activity depended on those urban centers. 3.4 The Benjamin Region Was Not Part of Yehud In her 2005 monograph, The Origins of the ‘Second’ Temple: Persian Imperial Policy and the Rebuilding of Jerusalem, Edelman notes that the “Returnee List” in Nehemiah 7 “is curious in its heavy emphasis on settlements that lay north of Jerusalem.”109 She considers the possibility that the early returnees may actually have settled in the Benjamin region because “the settlements comprising Yehud in the Neo-Babylonian period were concentrated in the territory associated with Benjamin.”110 However, Edelman rejects this possibility and argues instead, The decision to place the returnees in sites primarily within Benjamin has been motivated by concerns other than an accurate reporting of events. One underlying motivation may have been a desire to claim that those in Yehud who had returned from Babylonia were true heirs to the name Israel and represented this entity in its transformation into a religious community instead of a kingdom. […] Thus, to have the people settle primarily in the territory of Benjamin, which was able to symbolize the former Israel because part of it had belonged to that kingdom, may have been a deliberate move by the author.111

108 Pace Blenkinsopp, Davies, the four authors of Opening the Books of Moses, and Anderson; see discussion in Section 3.2 supra. 109 Edelman, Origins of Second Temple, 223. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid., 225.

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Edelman concludes that the Golah settled in the Jerusalem area and that the Returnee List in Nehemiah 7 reflects a much later time when the Benjamin region had been incorporated into the province of Yehud. Finkelstein provides archaeological data to support Edelman’s hypothesis. According to Finkelstein, Persian-period Yehud was a very small Persian province with a population of about 12,000 people and a built-up area of about 61 hectares.112 He states, Yehud seems to have included mainly the area of Jerusalem, between Ramat Rahel and the City of David. It could have extended a bit further to the south, but Beth-Zur seems to have been outside of Yehud. In the north, the dearth of [Persian-period Yehud] seal impressions from the area of Mizpah and Nebi Samuel […] raises the question whether this area was included in Yehud. The List of Returnees, which mentions places in this area, should probably be dated to the Hellenistic period.113 Finkelstein argues that the Benjamin region only became part of Yehud during the Hellenistic period. While few Persian-period Yehud seals have been found at Mizpah and Nebi Samuel, the number of seal impressions of Types 13–15, which Finkelstein assigns to the late 4th and 3rd centuries, are much greater. Finkelstein argues that “[t]heir distribution north of Jerusalem is especially noteworthy; in this area Impressions 13–14 grow from ca. 5.5% of the total in the early group (Types 1–12, of the Persian period), to 11% in the period under discussion. This may indicate an expansion of the province, or at least of the Jewish population, to the north, to include the highlands around Mizpah.”114 Finkelstein interprets these archaeological data to mean that the list of those who built the Jerusalem walls in Nehemiah 3 (which mentions people from the district Mizpah) and the lists of returnees in Ezr 2:1–67 and Neh 7:6– 68 (which includes toponyms in the highlands as far north as Bethel) represent Hellenistic period, and more precisely Hasmonean period, interpolations in Ezra-Nehemiah.115 Although Finkelstein does not address the question of 112 Finkelstein, Israel, “The Territorial Extent and Demography of Yehud/Judea in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods,” RB 117, 1 (2010): 45. Contra Carter and Lipschits who estimate the population of Yehud at between 20,000 and 30,000 inhabitants during the Persian period. Carter, “Emergence of Yehud,” 195–205; Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 364. 113 Finkelstein, “Territorial Extent,” 43; citations omitted. 114 Ibid., 45. 115 Ibid., 53. See also, Israel Finkelstein, “Geographical Lists in Ezra and Nehemiah in the Light of Archaeology: Persian or Hellenistic?” in Judah Between East and West: The Transition

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201

conflict between the Golah and inhabitants of the Benjamin region during the Persian period, his proposed narrow boundaries for Yehud would suggest that the Golah settled primarily in the Jerusalem area and had little contact with the inhabitants of the Benjamin region which formed part of the Persian province of Samaria. I disagree with Edelman and Finkelstein for four reasons. First, Finkelstein no longer holds to his 2010 position that the Benjamin region was not part of Yehud during the Persian period. He argues in a 2016 article, “Yehud seems to have extended from Mizpah in the north to Ramat Rahel in the south, possibly slightly further, though Beth-Zur probably remained outside it; and from Jericho and En-Gedi in the east to the border of the Shephelah in the west (no Yehud impressions were found in any of the sites of the upper Shephelah).”116 Finkelstein does not explain his change of position. Second, it seems improbable that small groups of returnees would have settled during the early Persian period in the Jerusalem region, an economically devastated area without urban centers or Persian military garrisons to protect them. In my view, it is more plausible to assume that the returnees would have settled in the populated regions of Judah (e.g., in the Benjamin region and possibly in Bethlehem) rather than in the devastated area surrounding Jerusalem. As the Golah arrived in Yehud in successive waves of small groups, with the support of the Persian authorities, it makes sense to assume that they would have settled first in and around Mizpah, the provincial capital. Third, there is a small core of material in the two returnee lists in Ezr 2:21– 32 and Neh 7:25–32 that, in my opinion, accurately reflects the boundaries of Yehud in the early Persian period and which supports my hypothesis that the Golah first settled in the Benjamin region. Although there are many differences between the two long lists, it can be observed that there is a perfect overlap in the names, and order of presentation, of certain toponyms. These place names are Bethlehem and Netophah;117 Anathoth;118 Beth-azmaveth;119

116 117 118 119

from Persian to Greek Rule (ca. 400–200 BCE) [ed. L.L. Grabbe and O. Lipschits; (London: T&T Clark, 2011)], 49–69; Finkelstein, “Nehemiah’s Adversaries.” Israel Finkelstein, “Jerusalem and Judah 600–200 BCE: Implications for Understanding Pentateuchal Texts” in The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah (ed. P. Dubovsky, D. Markl; J-P Sonnet; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 9; emphasis added. Ezr 2:21–22=Neh 7:26. Ezr 2:23=Neh 7:27. Ezr 2:24=Neh 7:28. Note that the toponym is called‎ ‫ ַעזְ ָמוֶ ת‬in Ezr 2:24 and ‫ית־עזְ ָמוֶ ת‬ ַ ‫ֵב‬ in Neh 7:28.

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Kiriath-Yearim, Chephirah and Beeroth;120 Ramah and Geba;121 Michmas;122 and Bethel and Ai.123 All of these toponyms can be correlated with sites in the Benjamin region and around Bethlehem; i.e., in the part of Judah that flourished during the Babylonian period. The fact that these toponyms are presented in the same order in the Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 returnee lists supports my hypothesis that the Golah may in fact have settled in these towns during the early Persian period. Fourth, it is possible that the order of the toponyms listed in Ezr 2:21–32 and Neh 7:25–32 constitute a travel itinerary. When the toponyms in the two lists are read in order, they represent the towns a traveler would pass through when traveling on the three highways in Yehud that intersect in Geba/Gibeah.124 On the “eastern highway” heading north from Bethlehem to Geba/Gibeah, one would pass Anathoth, Netophah (identified with Ramat Rachel), and Azmaveth. On the east-west road that passes through Geba/Gibeah, one would pass (from west to east) from Kiriath-arim, to Chephirah, to Beeroth, to Ramah, to Geba/ Gibeah. On the “eastern highway” heading north from Geba/Gibeah, one would pass Michmas, Ai and Bethel. Of these toponyms, Bethlehem, Ramah, Geba/ Gibeah, and Bethel are mentioned in Judges 19–21. Although speculative, the ordering of these toponyms in the Ezra and Nehemiah returnee lists appears to treat Geba/Gibeah and the sanctuary at Bethel as the focal points of the map in relation to which all the other named toponyms are linked. It should be noted that Mizpah, which figures prominently in Judges 19–20, is not included in the returnee lists in Ezra and Nehemiah. However, “an official from the district of Mizpah” appears twice in Nehemiah’s list of the people who worked on the reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh 3:15.19). It is therefore likely that the Golah also settled in Mizpah. The question thus arises why Mizpah is omitted from the list of toponyms in the returnee lists in Ezr 2:21–32 and Neh 7:25–32. If my hypothesis is correct that the two lists represent travel stops on the north-south and west-east highways, the absence of Mizpah from the list may be explained by the fact that Mizpah is located on 120 Ezr 2:25=Neh 7:29. Note that the first toponym in the verse is spelled ‫ ִק ְריַת ָע ִרים‬in Ezr 2:25 and ‫ ִק ְריַת יְ ָע ִרים‬in Neh 7:29. 121 Ezr 2:26=Neh 7:30. 122 Ezr 2:27=Neh 7:31. 123 Ezr 2:28=Neh 7:32. 124 For the routes of the three highways that cross Gibeah/Geba, I rely on the maps in (i) Arnold, Gibeah, 8–9, and (ii) David A. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1991), 130. For the location of the toponyms mentioned in Ezr 2:21–32 and Neh 7:25–32, I rely on Arnold, Gibeah, 8–9 and Carter, Emergence of Yehud, 85.

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another route, the “watershed highway” that links Jerusalem in the south with Bethel in the north. On the basis of the foregoing, there is a reasonable basis for treating the opening verse of Judges 20, “And all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man […] to YHWH at Mizpah” as reflecting the fact that the earliest waves of Golah returnees to Yehud settled in the Benjamin region and viewed Mizpah, the provincial capital, as their central gathering place and Bethel as their principal cultic site.125 If this hypothesis is correct, the conflict between the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin in the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19–21 portrays tensions between two groups of people living in very close proximity to each other. The drama in the narrative is centered on the town of Gibeah, which is situated at the crossroads of three principal highways that traverse Yehud: First, the highway linking Bethlehem and Gibeah. Second, the highway linking Gibeah and Bethel in the north. Third, the highway linking Kiriath-arim in the west and Jericho in the east. 4

New Hypothesis to Explain the Anti-Benjamin Bias in Judges 19–21

In my view, the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 can be situated in the historical context of Judah between the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the transfer of the provincial capital from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area in about 450 BCE.126 As will be discussed in Chapters 9–11 infra, the final version of Judges 19–21 is the result of several composition strata. All of the action in the earliest composition stratum of the narrative takes place in Bethlehem, Gibeah, Mizpah and Bethel – four of the five urban centers that prospered during the Babylonian period. As the Golah often refers to itself as the “sons of Israel” in Ezra-Nehemiah,127 it is likely that the Golah community would have identified with the sons of Israel in the narrative. The villains in Judges 19–21 are the “sons of Benjamin.” This reflects the likely fact that the 125 Edelman considers that it “is likely that there had been a Yahwistic temple functioning in Mizpah […].” Edelman, Origins of Second Temple, 347. 126 Edelman dates the transfer of the administration capital of Yehud from Mizpah to Jerusalem to about 450 BCE. Ibid., 75–76. It should be noted that there is an absence of scholarly consensus on the dating of the rebuilding of the temple, the reconstruction of Jerusalem’s city walls and the transfer of the provincial capital from Mizpah to Jerusalem. This debate is beyond the scope of the present study. The thrust of my argument is that the historical setting of Judges 19–21 is the period before the transfer of the provincial capital from Mizpah to Jerusalem, whether this event occurred earlier or later than 450 BCE. 127 Ezr 3:1; 6:16.21; 7:7; Neh 1:6(×2); 2:10; 7:72; 8:14.17; 9:1; 10:40; 13:2.

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Golah’s principal opponents during the early Persian period were the inhabitants of the Benjamin region who had remained in the land and led prosperous lives throughout the Babylonian period. The roots of the conflict between the Golah and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region during the early Persian period were no doubt multiple, including the following: First, as the returnees intended to exercise a leadership role over Yehud, it is likely that this political pretention would have been resisted by the elites who held positions of prominence and authority prior to the arrival of the Golah. It would be reasonable to assume that tensions would arise between (i) the “old” elite who lived in the urban centers of the Benjamin region and had working relationships with the Babylonian administration based in Mizpah and (ii) the “new” elite who arrived from Babylon with the support of the new Persian imperial administration. Second, my interpretation of the Nehemiah Memoire indicates that the principal domestic opponents of the Golah were the ‫( ח ִֹרים‬nobles) and ‫( ְסגָ נִ ים‬prefects). I interpret the “nobles” as being the elite of the Benjamin region and the “prefects” as local authorities appointed by the Babylonian authorities and who were probably recruited from among the inhabitants of the Benjamin region. Third, if it is assumed that the Golah intended to make the second Jerusalem temple the central (and probably unique) cultic site in Yehud, it is reasonable to conclude that this endeavor would have been opposed by the priests of Bethel and lay people who venerated that sanctuary. Fourth, the transfer the provincial capital from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area would have threatened the interests of those inhabitants of the province whose political and economic and lives had been centered in and around Mizpah for over one hundred years. In conclusion, archaeological and survey data indicate that the prosperous sons of Benjamin of the Babylonian period underwent a significant reversal of fortune during the Persian period. This reversal of fortune is presented in Judges 19–21 as being the result of divinely approved military action by the “sons of Israel.” The war story genre used in the last three chapters of Judges is mirrored in the Nehemiah Memoire. Nehemiah 4 describes the builders of the wall as carrying a trowel in one hand and a spear in the other, in anticipation of an imminent attack by the Golah’s enemies. While the war motif in both narratives is probably a literary device, the Golah’s ultimate political, economic and religious domination over the Benjamin region seems historically probable. Read against this background, Judges 19–21 may be understood as forming part of a “foundation myth” of the Golah community; i.e., a set of narratives that portray a people’s migration to a new land in which their successful settlement

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is achieved by warfare and dispossession of the autochthonous inhabitants of the land.128 5

Chapter Summary

Archaeological and survey data indicate that (i) the Benjamin region prospered while most of the rest of Judah languished during the Babylonian period and (ii) the Benjamin region suffered a significant decline in population and settlement activity during the early Persian period that probably included the destruction and/or abandonment of its principal urban centers and cultic sites. The “rise and fall” of Benjamin thus represent two critical moments in the history of Judah during the Babylonian and Persian periods that have been largely overlooked by commentators. The sustained prosperity of the Benjamin region during the Babylonian period suggests that the most likely source of opposition to the Golah community during the early Persian period came from the political, economic and religious elites living in the urban centers of the Benjamin region. It can reasonably be argued that the Golah’s program to rebuild the temple, and to move the administrative capital of Yehud from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area, represented a serious threat to the inhabitants of the Benjamin region whose political, economic and religious lives had been centered for over a century around Mizpah and Bethel. The military victory of the “sons of Israel” over the “sons of Benjamin” in Judges 19–21 thus reflects historical reality, albeit in a mythologized form: the prosperous inhabitants of the Benjamin region of the Babylonian period did in fact undergo a significant reversal of fortune during the Persian period. Although speculative, it can be imagined that the decline of the Benjamin region and the ascent of the Jerusalem area would have been interpreted by the Golah as a providential event and could have been remembered in a narrative tradition such as Judges 19–21. While the war theme in the narrative is probably a literary device, the Golah’s ultimate political, economic and religious domination over the Benjamin region seems historically probable. Judges 19–21 may thus be understood as a “foundation myth” of the Golah community. Although the purpose of Judges 19–21 is theological as well as etiological, and a fortiori precisely for this reason, analysis of the narrative should begin with an understanding of its historical setting in the remarkable circumstances of the rise and fall of Benjamin during the Babylon and Persian periods. 128 See, Darshan, “Origins of Foundation Stories,” 691.

part 4 Textualization

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Methodological Problems in Diachronic Analysis This chapter will summarize the various methodological approaches that have been used by commentators to analyze the compositional history of Judges 19–21, as a prelude to my own analysis of the text in the three following chapters.1 Section 1 will discuss four basic methodological models for analyzing the compositional history of Judges 19–21 that have been proposed by commentators to date. The focus of the discussion in this section will be to identify the methodological weaknesses of each approach with a view to avoiding these problems in my own analysis. Section 2 will set out recommendations for methodological controls intended to reduce subjectivity in diachronic analysis. 1

Basic Models for Understanding the Compositional History of Judges 19–21

Commentators have been interested in the compositional history of Judges 19–21 for over 130 years. This chapter will discuss a selection of scholars, including, in chronological order, Ernst Bertheau (1883), Julius Wellhausen (1885), George F. Moore (1885), Charles F. Burney (1918), Martin Noth (1962), John Gray (1967), J. Alberto Soggin (1981), Patrick M. Arnold (1990), Thomas Römer and Albert de Pury (1996), Reinhard G. Kratz (2000), Christoph Levin (2011), Cynthia Edenburg (2016) and Sarah Schulz (2016). The status quæstionis of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 is difficult to summarize for three reasons. First, certain scholars limit their discussion of the text to the question of the relative dating of Judges 19–21 in relation to Judges 1–18* or to a wider corpus running from Joshua to Samuel.2 Second, others provide a detailed

1 As discussed, by “compositional history,” I mean the identification, delimitation and dating of successive strata of scribal activity underlying the final version of the text in its MT version. I use this neutral term rather than “redaction history” because the latter term has become associated with a methodology that is based on a certain number of assumptions about the nature of the redaction process that are, in my view, problematic. These assumptions will be discussed below. 2 Wellhausen, Prolegomena; Noth, “Background”; Römer and de Pury, “L’historiographie deutéronomiste”; Kratz, Composition of the Narrative Books, Levin, “Cohesion and Separation.”

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_010

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compositional history of only certain parts of Judges 19–21.3 Third, those commentators who propose a compositional history for the entire text do so in the form of annotating their translation of Judges 19–21 with indications of the redactional interpolations in the text and the composition strata to which they are being assigned. Unfortunately, they generally provide only a few sentences of argumentation to justify their positions in relation to a limited number of verses.4 In summary, although the question has been addressed in general terms, a detailed discussion of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 has not yet been proposed. The purpose of the following three chapters is to attempt to fill this lacuna in scholarly research. A detailed analysis of the dating of Judges 19–21 in relation to the material that precedes and follows it in the MT and LXX is beyond the scope of this work. A scholarly consensus has emerged that interprets Judges 19–21 as an “appendix” to the book of Judges that was added by a post-exilic redactor not identified with any of the known redactional schools that worked on the socalled DH.5 As summarized by Römer and de Pury in 1996, “En fait, il y a peu de terminologie dtr dans ces chapitres [Juges 17–21]. […] Jg 17–21 interrompt la continuité de HD et occupe à cet égard une position analogue à celle de l’appendice de 2 S 21–24 à la fin des livres de Samuel.”6 Kratz reached a similar conclusion in 2000: “[…] Judg 1 and 17–21 consist purely of filling-out passages and particularly in Judg 19–21, as in Josh. 13–22, indicate Priestly influence. Language and content alone prove the passages to be post-Deuteronomistic; they are very reminiscent of the Chronistic view of the period before the monarchy (cf. 2 Chron. 15.1–7).”7 It is interesting to note that the current consensus view that Judges 19–21 is a belatedly added appendix to the book of Judges represents a return to ideas first proposed in the early days of critical biblical scholarship. The exceptional nature of Judges 19–21 was first noted by Berteau in his 1883 commentary on Judges and Ruth, and then adopted by Wellhausen in his 1885 edition of the Prolegomena. According to Wellhausen,

3 Soggin (Judges) limits his discussion to the compositional history of 20:31b–48; Arnold (Gibeah), to Judges 19–20; and Edenburg (Dismembering the Whole), to 20:1–7;29–48; 21:1–24. 4 Moore, Judges; Burney, Judges; Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth; and Schulz, Die Anhänge. 5 Schulz disagrees with the consensus view. As will be discussed in Section 1.3 infra, Schulz argues that Judges 1.17–21* and Judges 2–16* each represent independent compositions intended to fill the gap between Joshua and Samuel. These two texts were later combined into one. 6 Römer and de Pury, “L’historiographie deutéronomiste,” 102–103. 7 Kratz, Composition of the Narrative Books, 196.

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One is translated into another world on passing from this [Judges 17–18] to the narrative immediately following, about the shameful deed of the Benjamites and their exemplary punishment; a greater or more instructive contrast as regards religious history is hardly to be found in all the Old Testament. […] [As stated by Bertheau,] “Had we more narratives of similar contents we should be able to solve many a riddle of the Pentateuch. Where under the monarchy could we find an Israel so united, vigorous, earnest, so willing to enter upon the severest conflict for the sake of the highest ends?”8 Wellhausen rejects the notion that Judges 19–21 describes events that took place during the so-called “period of the judges” and concludes that the narrative “describes Israel to us as existing in a religious centralization, such as demonstrably was never attained in the earlier life of the nation, but only came about as a consequence of the exile, and is the distinctive mark of Judaism.”9 Levin summarizes the general consensus view in 2011 in terms that are reminiscent of those of Wellhausen: […] the division of the books [of Judges and Samuel] made it possible to add an appendix to the separate book of Judges. Again this appendix has grown to a considerable size […]. The concept of the people of God, which is premised here [in Judges 19–21] belongs to the latest phase of Old Testament literary history. The foundation itself is already close to Chronicles, as Wellhausen rightly pointed out. As Walter Groß remarks, “It is a late postexilic testimony of scribal work.” (Groß, 2009, p. 879). The three chapters, containing 103 Masoretic verses in all, were added only after the books had been separated; and in addition, these chapters themselves evidently developed in several stages.10 In conclusion, I propose (i) to accept the hypothesis that Judges 19–21 was added as an appendix to the book of Judges by scribes working at the same time as, or after, the Chronicler and (ii) to use Levin’s concluding statement, “these chapters themselves evidently developed in several stages” as the starting point of my analysis of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 in the three chapters that follow.

8 9 10

Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 236. Wellhausen quotes Bertheau without citing a page reference. Ibid., p. 237. Levin, “Cohesion and Separation,” 137.

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The compositional histories of Judges 19–21 that have been proposed to date can be divided into four categories on the basis of the methodologies that they use: First, a model based on the documentary hypothesis that views the text as being composed of two separate texts reflecting different sources that were later integrated by a redactor into a single text (hereinafter, the “twosource model”). Second, a model which is consistent with the DH hypothesis and that views the text as having been composed by a single pre-exilic author, which then underwent successive redactions (hereinafter, the “single pre-exilic author model”). Third, a model that rejects the consensus view that Judges 19–21 represents an appendix to the book of Judges and posits instead that Judges 1.17–21* and Judges 2–16* each represent independent compositions written during the post-exilic period intended to fill the gap between Joshua and Samuel which were later combined into one (hereinafter, the “two post-exilic authors model”). Fourth, a model that views the text as being composed by a single author during the Babylonian period which then underwent a single redaction at the time the text was added as an appendix to Judges (hereinafter, the “single exilic period author model”). Each of these models will be discussed below. 1.1 The “Two-Source Model” The “two-source model” is associated with the work of Burney, Gray and Soggin. Although these three commentators reach the conclusion that two or more independent source texts underlie the final version of Judges 19–21, each uses a different methodology. Burney’s methodology can be summarized as follows. First, he posits as a fundamental assumption that an author will always refer to the protagonists in his narrative with a consistent set of names.11 Second, when the protagonists are referred to by different appellations; i.e., “sons of Israel” and “men of Israel” and “sons of Benjamin” and “Benjamin,” it necessarily follows that the text is composite. Third, when the verses using different terms for the protagonists are separated from each other, Judges 19–21 can be deconstructed into “two parallel and self-consistent narratives” that were later combined into one.12 Burney assigns the shorter reconstructed narrative to J and the other to a source otherwise unknown in the Pentateuch that he calls X. Burney demonstrates the validity of his three assumptions by arguing 11

12

I will refer to author and redactor with the masculine pronoun “he” rather than the standard usage in English of “he or she” to reflect the historical reality that the scribes who composed, redacted and recopied authoritative texts were most probably men rather than women. Burney, Judges, 449.

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that when each of the two deconstructed source texts is read as a continuous unit, it constitutes a coherent narrative unit. Burney states, “[…] the merit of the criterion for analysis which we have adopted rests in the fact that, without any sleight of hand, it immediately resolves the confusion of the narrative as it now stands, and offers us two parallel and nearly continuous narratives […].”13 The methodological weaknesses of Burney’s argument are fourfold. First, Burney’s first hypothesis, that biblical authors always refer to their protagonists with consistent terminology, is an assumption and not an argument. Second, even if this hypothesis were correct, it does not necessarily follow that variance in the names of the protagonists necessarily implies that the text represents a combination of two independent source texts. The variation in names could just as easily have been introduced into the text by a redactor interpolating new material into the underlying composition stratum on which he was working. Third, as most verses in Judges 19–21 refer to the protagonists with pronouns, Burney’s methodology for assigning these ambiguous verses to one or the other of the two hypothesized source texts involves conjecture and is not subject to methodological control. Fourth, Burney’s position that Judges 19–21 reads more coherently after it has been deconstructed into two source texts is based on an underlying assumption that an ancient author necessarily develops a narrative intrigue in the same manner as a modern author; this is not only an assumption (rather than an argument), it is a questionable assumption. Gray bases his “two-source” model on that of Burney, but shifts the criterion for distinguishing between the two sources from one of different names for the protagonists to that of different topographical references. Gray thus distinguishes between a “Bethel” source and a “Mizpah” source. He states, “the preservation of the tradition at Mizpah and, we think, the royal shrine of Bethel would account for doublets and discrepancies in the narrative such as the two accounts of the defeat of Benjamin and the fall of Gibeah.”14 It should be noted that these two toponyms are mentioned only a handful of times in Judges 19–21; Mizpah in 20:1b.2b; 21:1a.5b.8a, and Bethel in 20:18a.26a.31b; 21:2a.19a(×2). As a result, Gray is required to use other criteria for assigning verses to each of the two sources. He generally follows Burney’s delimitation of the J and X sources in Judges 20. Gray then notes that one source, corresponding to Burney’s J material, shows closer affinities to the tradition of the fall of Ai in Josh 8:14–28 than the X material. He then argues, “The confusion between this tradition [Burney’s X material] and that of the fall of Ai is not likely to have 13 14

Ibid., 458. Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 241.

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been made so near the site of Ai as Bethel, hence we conclude that the latter is the Mizpah tradition. The former passages, generally characterized by the description of Israel as the ‘people of Israel’ [Gray uses this term to translate ‫] ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬, might then be associated with Bethel. On this working hypothesis a Bethel and a Mizpah tradition may be discerned in the sequel.”15 Gray’s methodology consists entirely of a series of assumptions. He assumes (i) that one source has “confused” the tradition of the fall of Gibeah with the tradition of the fall of Ai in Josh 8:14–28; (ii) that Bethel is closer to Ai than Mizpah; (iii) that a tradition “preserved at Bethel” would not confuse the tradition of the fall of Gibeah with the tradition of the fall of Ai; and (iv) that the confusion was therefore made in the source preserved at Mizpah. To demonstrate that his assumptions are correct, Gray argues that he reaches the same conclusions as Burney as to the delimitation of the J source, which can more accurately in Gray’s opinion be described as the “Bethel” source. It appears that the principal purpose of Gray’s analysis is to demonstrate that Burney’s J source can be identified with the “royal shrine of Bethel.” Soggin drops Burney’s use of different names for the protagonists as a criterion for identifying the two source texts that were later combined into the final version of the text. He focuses instead on the phenomenon of “doublet” verses in Judges 19–21; i.e., verses that are lexically or thematically similar. Unfortunately, Soggin’s compositional history of Judges 19–21 is limited to 20:29–48. He identifies the following doublet verses in this narrative unit: 20:31=39a, 32a=39b, 35=46, 36a=41a. 45=47.16 Soggin’s methodology can be summarized as follows. First, he posits as a fundamental assumption that a single author would never repeat himself in a narrative. Second, once the doublet verses are separated from each other, Judges 20:29–48 can be deconstructed into two independent source texts. Soggin demonstrates the validity of his two assumptions by arguing that when each of the two deconstructed source texts is read as a continuous unit, it constitutes a coherent narrative unit. Soggin’s methodological approach to redaction criticism is similar to Burney’s, with the exception that while Burney assumed that a single author would never use different names to refer to his protagonists, Soggin assumes that a single author would never repeat himself in his narrative by using thematically and lexically similar verses. Soggin’s methodology therefore shows the same weaknesses as Burney’s; i.e., he assumes what he should be demonstrating with argumentation. As Bertrand Russell famously quipped, “The

15 16

Ibid. Soggin, Judges, 294.

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215

method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.”17 The assumption that a biblical author would never repeat himself is particularly weak for two reasons. First, Robert Alter and others have demonstrated that repetition is a fundamental characteristic of ancient literature. Alter states, One of the most imposing barriers that stands between the modern reader and the imaginative subtlety of biblical narrative is the extraordinary prominence of verbatim repetition in the Bible. Accustomed as we are to modes of narration in which elements of repetition are made to seem far less obtrusive, this habit of constantly restating material is bound to give us trouble, especially in a narrative that otherwise adheres so evidently to the strictest economy of means.18 Second, as will be discussed below, the redactional technique of Wiederaufnahme provides an alternative explanation for certain doublet verses.19 1.2 The “Single Pre-Exilic Author” Model The “single pre-exilic” model is associated with the work of Moore and Arnold. Moore’s discussion of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 in his 1885 commentary is remarkedly prescient. Moore considers the “two-source” model originally proposed by Bertheau (and then taken up by Burney) to be unlikely. Instead, he proposes a single pre-exilic composition stratum that underwent successive revisions in three identifiable redaction strata. The first, R1, is not identified with a particular redaction school and is not assigned a date. The second is a post-exilic “Deuteronomistic” redactor and the third is a post-exilic “Priestly” redactor. Moore presents his over-all conception of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 as follows: The basis of the narrative […] is a very old story, having an obvious affinity to the primary stratum in ch. 17,18, and in tone and language resembling the most ancient parts of the Hexateuch and the Books of Samuel. This is overlaid […] by a stratum akin to the latest additions to the priestly history in the Hexateuch and to the Chronicles. This post-exilic rifacimento is clearly dependent upon the former version; the only question is, whether it once existed separately and was united with the old story 17 18 19

Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1919), 71. Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative, 88. See discussion in Section 2.2.7 infra.

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by a third hand, or whether it was from the beginning merely a kind of midrash upon the original text, in part exaggerating it, in part substituting an account of the events in accordance with the author’s theocratic conception of the ancient history. The latter appears to me the more probable hypothesis […].20 Arnold follows Moore’s position that Judges 19–21 began as the work of a single pre-exilic author and then underwent revision in successive composition strata. Arnold argues that the underlying composition stratum has a “northern” perspective and thus should be dated no later than the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE. He identifies two redaction strata. The first is identified as a “priestly edition” completed in Jerusalem before the Babylonian conquest of Judah. The second reflects a Deuteronomistic ideology which was introduced by “Dtr redactors” during the Persian period.21 Arnold’s methodology for distinguishing between the underlying composition stratum and the priestly redaction stratum is relatively simple. First, he identifies P vocabulary in Judges 19–21. Second, he assigns all verses containing P vocabulary to the redaction stratum. His control methodology consists of verifying that the underlying composition stratum reads as a coherent continuous narrative after the verses containing P vocabulary have been removed. The weakness of Arnold’s methodology is that it uses assumptions concerning his understanding of the then prevailing overarching Redaktionsgeschichte of the Hexateuch – that an older non-P stratum can always be distinguished from a later P stratum – to determine his analysis of Judges 19–21. 1.3 The “Two Post-Exilic Authors” Model Schulz proposes a compositional history model for Judges 19–21 that differs significantly from those of the other commentators under review in this chapter. Her starting point is to challenge the consensus view that Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 represent two “appendices” belatedly added to Judges 1–16*. She argues to the contrary, As a result, two originally independent narrative strands can be assumed at the transition from the Hexateuch to the composition of Samuel-Kings: Josh 11:23b; 24:1–27; Judg 2:6–16:31 on the one hand and Josh 13ff.; 23; 24:28–33; Judg 1:1–2.5; 17–21 on the other. Both connect the Hexateuch

20 21

Moore, Judges, xxxi. Arnold, Gibeah, 86.

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217

with the composition of Samuel-Kings by taking up the conquest of the land and focusing on future events in the monarchic period.22 According to Schulz, these two narrative strands were composed during the post-exilic period23 by different scribal groups and “neither part of the book of Judges seems to have been written in knowledge of the other.”24 Schulz bases her position that Judges 17–18 and 19–21 do not represent appendices belatedly added to the book of Judges on two principal arguments. First, the narrative intrigue in Judges 17–21 takes place “in the time of the conquest of the land (Judg 18) and during the lifetime of the second generation after Moses (Judg 18:30) and Aaron (Judg 20:27b,28a)” thereby suggesting “a direct continuation of the death of Joshua and the conquest of the land.”25 Second, while Israel’s sin is defined as “illegitimate worship of YHWH” in Judges 17–21, “the savior narratives focus on the permanent worship of foreign gods (Judg 3:7; 8:33; 10:6).”26 In my view, Schulz’s two arguments are more persuasive in relation to Judges 17–18 than to Judges 19–21. As to the first, the reference to Phinehas (a member of the second generation after Moses and Aaron) occurs only once in Judges 19–21, in Judg 20:28a, a verse which is generally attributed to a late redactor and which Schulz assigns to a “punktuelle Ergänzung.”27 Second, it is not self-evident in my opinion that Israel’s sin in Judges 19–21 can be characterized as “illegitimate worship of YHWH.” As to the compositional history of Judges 19–21, all of the commentators under review in this chapter conceive of the earliest composition stratum as including elements from all three chapters. Schulz argues to the contrary that Judges 19* alone should be attributed to the earliest composition stratum. In her view, “Judges 17–18 and 20–21 are the result of gradual Fortschreibungen of this oldest narrative in Judg 19.”28 More precisely, Schulz argues that the core narrative in Judges 19 was expanded in six successive redaction strata: First, Judges 20*. Second, Judg 17:1–4:6; 20:48–21:1; 21:15–23.25. Third, Judg 17:7–18:31. Fourth, Judg 21:2–4. Fifth, 21:5.9–14.24. Sixth, Judg 21:6–8.29 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

Schulz, “Literary Transition,” 273. See also, Schulz, Die Anhänge, 207–230. Schulz stresses relative chronology in her work and rarely addresses the absolute date of composition of the various strata that comprise each of the two independent units that were later combined to form the book of Judges. She refers to a likely post-exilic dating of the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19* in Schulz, Die Anhänge, 51. Schulz, “Literary Transition,” 268. Ibid. Ibid., 269. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 256. Schulz, “Literary Transition,” 269. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 242–244.

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1.4 The “Single Exilic Period Author” Model Edenburg posits that Judges 19–21 was composed by a single author (N1) and then redacted by a single redactor (R2). However, she posits that “[t]he account of the decisive battle in N1 appears to have been built around segments from a poetic source (vv. 37a, 39-bA, 41aB–b, 42b–43).”30 She dates the earliest composition stratum, N1, to the Babylonian period “or perhaps even at the beginning of the Persian period.”31 No dating is provided for the “poetic source” that underlies N1 or the single redaction stratum that follows N1. Edenburg distinguishes between N1 and R2 primarily on the basis of generallyaccepted literary criteria used in redaction criticism. She states, Therefore, the distinction between compositional and redactional layers depends upon internal criteria, such as breaks in the narrative, inconsistencies, repetition, and change in terminology. […] Narrative breaks and internal contradictions may present strong evidence of editorial stratification, especially when it is possible to reconstruct a supposed original continuity within the text and explain the motives for editorial interference.32 It can be noted that Edenburg’s use of the criterion of finding “original continuity within the text” after the redaction strata have been removed is reminiscent of the methodology of proponents of the “two-source” model and the “single pre-exilic author” model. In effect, the ultimate proof of their compositional history models is the circular argument that the general plotline in the narrative, which is necessarily to be assigned to the earliest composition stratum, is more coherent (at least to a modern reader) after the redactional interpolations have been removed. In Edenburg’s case, this methodological problem is compounded by her position that all intertextual allusions in Judges 19–21 form part of the “original continuity within the text” and should therefore be assigned to the earliest composition stratum.33 As Edenburg’s proposed compositional history of Judges 19–21 posits that a key part of the earliest composition stratum was based on an older “poetic source” – an argument not made by other commentators under review in this chapter – Edenburg’s identification of the relevant poetic fragments will be 30 31 32 33

Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 56. Ibid., 161. Ibid., 11. See discussion of Edenburg’s synchronic interpretation of the phenomenon of intertextuality in Judges 19–21 in Chapter 5, Section 3 supra.

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discussed in detail below. Edenburg’s argument that the earliest composition stratum of 20:37–43 is characterized by the incorporation of a number of poetic fragments expands an idea proposed by Isac Leo Seeligmann in 1963.34 Seeligmann argued that 20:43 is a poetic fragment. Edenburg expands Seeligmann’s thesis by proposing that additional verses in 20:37–44 should also be interpreted as poetic fragments. In my view, Seeligmann’s argument in relation to 20:43 is strong; however, I am not convinced by Edenburg’s expansion of the argument to interpret 20:37a.39*.40*.41*.42* as poetic fragments incorporated by N1 into the earliest composition stratum.35 Each of these verses will be discussed below. 1.4.1 Poetic Fragment in Judges 20:43 Following Seeligmann, Edenburg interprets 20:43 as two sets of bicola. 43aThey surrounded Benjamin. They pursued them to the place of rest.36 They trod them down, 43bopposite Gibeah toward the east.

‫נּוחה‬ ָ ‫יפהּו ְמ‬ ֻ ‫יָמן ִה ְר ִד‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫ִּכ ְּתרּו ֶא‬ ‫יכהּו ַעד נ ַֹכח ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ֻ ‫ִה ְד ִר‬ ‫ח־ׁש ֶמׁש‬ ָ ‫ִמ ִּמזְ ַר‬

Edenburg argues that this verse should be interpreted as poetry for three reasons. First, 20:43 consists of three Qatal phrases “similar to the usage characteristic of poetry.”37 Second, the three verses are joined by parataxis (i.e., without a coordinating waw) “in a manner that is not unusual in poetry but is uncharacteristic of prose narrative.”38 Third, the verse scans neatly, in Edenburg’s opinion, into two bicola as follows: ‫ ִה ְד ִר ֻיכהּו ַעד‬// ‫נּוחה‬ ָ ‫יפהּו ְמ‬ ֻ ‫ ִה ְר ִד‬/ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫ִּכ ְּתרּו ֶא‬ ‫ח־ׁש ֶמׁש‬ ָ ‫ ִמ ִּמזְ ַר‬/ ‫נ ַֹכח ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬. Edenburg’s position that 20:43 represents poetry rather than prose is plausible, especially when the verse is read in isolation. However, it can be observed that one of the specificities of the broader narrative unit 20:31b–48 is the unusually frequent use of Qatal phrases; this syntax occurs in 20:32b.33a.34 34

35 36 37 38

“Already in 1963, [Seeligmann] suggested that verse 43 preserves a poetic fragment, and this opinion was also adopted – but without further development – by his student Talia Rudin-Obrasky.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 47, referring to Isac Leo Seeligmann, “Menschliches Heldentum und göttliche Hilfe,” Theologische Zeitschrift 19 (1963): 397– 397; and Talia Rudin-O’Brasky, “The Appendices to the Book of Judges (Judges 17–21)” [Hebrew], Beer-Sheva 2 (1985): 157. This list of poetic verses is based on Edenburg’s list in Hebrew on p. 49. Edenburg appears to have omitted certain verses from the list summarized on p. 52. Edenburg translates ‫ ַעד נ ַֹכח‬as “from Nohah,” presumably to emphasize the parallelism with the toponym Gibeah in the second set of poetic bicola. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 46. Ibid., 47.

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b.37a.38a.39b.40a.41a.41b.48a. I will argue in Chapter 10 infra that these Qatal phrases serve to interrupt the narrative flow of the preceding Wayyiqtol phrases and signal redactional activity.39 If this hypothesis is correct, it puts into question Edenburg’s position that 20:43 represents a fragment from a poetic source. 1.4.2 Poetic Fragment in Judges 20:42 Edenburg’s interpretation of 20:42 will be addressed next because she views this verse as forming part of the poetic fragment in 20:43 identified by Seeligmann. 42aAnd the battle, it overtook him [subject + Qatal phrase]. 42bAnd those from the cities were destroying him in the midst of him.

‫וְ ַה ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִה ְד ִּב ָיק ְתהּו וַ ֲא ֶׁשר‬‎ ‫יתים אֹותֹו‬ ִ ‫ֵמ ֶה ָע ִרים ַמ ְׁש ִח‬ ‫ְּבתֹוכֹו‬

As it can reasonably be assumed that Seeligmann considered, but then rejected, the possibility that 20:42 formed part of the set of poetic bicola he had identified in 20:43, it is surprising that Edenburg does not provide any argumentation to support her position that 20:42 forms part of the same poetic fragment as 20:43. There are three differences between the two verses that suggest that 20:42–43 do not form a unit, whether poetic or prose. First, while the three phrases in 20:43 are joined by parataxis, the two phrases in 20:42 are joined to each other, and to the preceding text in 20:41b, with a coordinating waw. Second, while the three phrases in 20:43 begin with a Qatal verb, the phrase in 20:42a places the subject before the Qatal verb. Third, while 20:43 uses plural pronouns to describe Benjamin, singular pronouns are used in 20:42. Edenburg does not address these issues. 1.4.3 Poetic Fragment in Judges 20:37a Edenburg interprets 20:37a as a poetic bicolon. 20:37aThe ambush, they hurried [subject + Qatal clause]. And they made a dash to Gibeah [Wayyiqtol phrase].

‫וְ ָהא ֵֹרב ֵה ִחיׁשּו וַ ּיִ ְפ ְׁשטּו‬ ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬

Edenburg argues that this verse should be interpreted as poetry because the first verb, ‫( חּוׁש‬to hurry), “is a verbal root that occurs only once more in prose (1 Sam 20:38) while it is frequent in poetry.”40 I disagree with Edenburg for four 39 40

See detailed discussion of the use of Qatal phrases in 20:31b–48 in Chapter 10, Sections 3.5 and 3.6 infra. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 48.

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221

reasons. First, the verb ‫ חּוׁש‬is used in Num 32:17; Deut 32:35 and Qoh 2:25 (in addition to 1 Sam 20:38 as noted by Edenburg), verses that can be defined as prose rather than poetry. Second, the verb is used three times in Isaiah, once in Habbakuk, ten times in Psalms and twice in Job. It is not clear to me that all of these verses should be interpreted as poetry rather than prose. Third, it can be observed that 20:37a is preceded in 20:36b by a Wayyiqtol phrase (“And the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin […]”). This syntax of a Wayyiqtol phrase being followed by a subject + Qatal clause occurs frequently in narrative prose and is often interpreted to mean that the actions described in the two phrases occurred simultaneously. Fourth, the verse continues in 20:37b with two additional Wayyiqtol phrases (“And the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword”). Edenburg’s argument that 20:37a represents a poetic fragment is in my opinion inconclusive. 1.4.4 Poetic Fragment in Judges 20:39 Edenburg argues that 20:39 contains a poetic bicolon as indicated in bold type below: 39aAnd the men of Israel turned in the battle [Wayyiqtol phrase]. 39bAAnd Benjamin, he began to strike victims in the men of Israel, about thirty men [subject + Qatal clause]. 39bBFor they said: “Surely he is smitten before us, as in the first battle.”

‫יש־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ּ ַב ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה‬ ׁ ‫וַ ַ ּי ֲהפ ְֹך ִא‬‎ ‫ו ִּבנְ י ִָמן הֵ חֵ ל לְ הַ ּכוֹ ת חֲלָ לִ ים‬

‫ֹלׁשים ִאיׁש ִּכי‬ ִ ‫ְּב ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִּכ ְׁש‬ ‫ָא ְמרּו ַאְך נִ ּגֹוף נִ ּגָ ף הּוא ְל ָפנֵ ינּו‬ ‫ַּכ ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ָה ִראׁש ֹנָ ה‬

‎ denburg does not provide an explanation for her interpretation of 20:39 E as poetry in general or for her elimination of the concluding phrase ‫ֹלׁשים ִאיׁש‬ ִ ‫( ְּב ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִּכ ְׁש‬in the men of Israel, about thirty men) in 20:39bA and all of 20:39bB from the supposed poetic fragment. As discussed in the case of 20:37a, the syntax of a Wayyiqtol phrase followed by a subject + Qatal phrase occurs frequently in prose to signify that the actions in the two phrases occur simultaneously. In this regard, it can be noted that Edenburg translates 20:39a–39bA as “As the men of Israel turned in the battle, Benjamin began to smite dead men of Israel – about 30 men.”41

41

Ibid., p. 57.

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1.4.5 Poetic Fragment in Judges 20:40–41 Edenburg interprets 20:40b–41 as containing a poetic bicolon as indicated in bold type below, the cola of which are separated by prose text:42 20:40bAnd Benjamin turned around [sg.] backwards [Wayyiqtol phrase]. And behold, the entirety of the city went up to the heavens. 41aAnd the men of Israel, he turned [subject + Qatal clause]. And the men of Benjamin were [sg.] terrified, 41bfor he saw that he was smitten with evil.

‫וַ ִ ּיפֶ ן ִּבנְ י ִָמן ַא ֲח ָריו וְ ִהּנֵ ה ָע ָלה‬‎ ‫ וְ ִאיׁש‬‎‫יל־ה ִעיר ַה ָּׁש ָמיְ מ‬ ָ ‫ְכ ִל‬ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָה ַפְך וַ ִ ּי ּ ָבהֵ ל ִאיׁש‬ ‫יָמן ִּכי ָר ָאה ִּכי־נָגְ ָעה ָעלָ יו‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ ‫הָ ָר ָעה‬

Edenburg justifies her interpretation of the two reconstructed phrases as poetry on two grounds. First, the phrase ‫ ִּכי־נָגְ ָעה ָע ָליו הָ ָר ָעה‬has a parallel in Job 5:19, ‫ ְּב ֵׁשׁש ָצרֹות יַ ִּצ ֶילּךָ ְּוב ֶׁש ַבע לֹא־יִ ַּגע ְּבָך ָרע‬‎. Second, the Nif‘al verb ‫( ָּב ַהל‬to be frightened) is “five times more frequent in poetry than in prose.” Edenburg cites 19 examples from poetry and four from prose: Gen 45:3; 1 Sam 28:21; 2 Sam 4:1; Qoh 8:3.43 Both arguments are in my opinion inconclusive. 1.4.6 Other Poetic Fragments in Judges 20 Edenburg identifies three additional verses “which deviate from usual prose style.”44 These include 20:32b* (And the sons of Israel, they said: “Let us flee and we shall draw them away from the city to the highways”); 20:33b* (And the ambush of Israel came bursting out from its place); and 20:45* (And they gleaned him on the highways, 5,000 men. And they followed after him until Gidom). As Edenburg does not explain why these verses deviate from usual prose style, it is impossible to critique her position. It should be noted that she assigns these three supposed poetic fragments to R2 rather than N1, presumably on the grounds that they are incorporated into material that Edenburg has already assigned to R2 on the basis of literary criteria.

42

43 44

It should be noted that Edenburg delimits the poetic fragment in 20:40–41 in three different ways. She underlines all poetic fragments in the Hebrew and English versions of her reconstructed earliest composition stratum on pp. 56–58. The delimitation of the poetic fragment in 20:40–41 in the English translation is different from that in the Hebrew text. Both of these delimitations differ from that provided in a list of all poetic verses presented as bicola in Hebrew on p. 49. As I suspect that the underlining in the Hebrew and English reconstruction of N1 may be the result of an editing error, I have followed the list on p. 49. Ibid., 48. Ibid., 56.

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223

1.4.7 Conclusions Edenburg’s thesis that N1 composed all of 20:37–43, and incorporated sets of poetic cola from an older poetic source into his original composition, is not persuasive for two reasons. First, her criteria for distinguishing between prose and poetry are vague. Second, Edenburg’s argument that the use of the older poetic fragments is a methodological indicator that that the passages into which they are incorporated were composed by N1 is weakened by the fact that Edenburg identifies three additional poetic fragments in 20:32b.33b.45 that she assigns to R2. Edenburg appears to have anticipated the criticism that assigning poetic verses to both N1 and R2 undermines her thesis when she states that the poetic cola attributed to R2 “might have originally been part of the primary narrative, but they were subsequently appropriated by R2 and subsumed into his overwriting.”45 The diachronic issues in the poetic verses identified by Edenburg will be addressed in detail in my proposed compositional history of Judges 19–21 in the following three chapters. 2

Recommendations for Methodological Controls in Redaction Criticism

2.1 Statement of the Problem The above discussion of the various methodological approaches that have been used by commentators to analyze the compositional history of Judges 19–21 indicates that the most prevalent weakness relates to the interplay between “assumptions” about redaction criticism and “arguments” in favor of a proposed compositional history for a specific text. These assumptions include the following: (i) an author always refers to the protagonists with consistent terminology; (ii) an author never repeats himself in a narrative episode by using thematically and lexically similar verses; (iii) an author always uses P or non-P vocabulary and never both; (iv) the text reads “better” after the inconsistencies in terminology, repetition and P vocabulary have been removed; and (v) the presence of poetic phrases in a narrative text indicates that that the author of the earliest composition stratum incorporated material from an older poetic source. Similarly, my analysis in Chapter 5, Section 3 supra indicates that Edenburg’s assumptions about the phenomenon of intertextuality in narrative texts are questionable because they fail to take account of alternative diachronic explanations. These include the possibility that (i) perceived intertextual 45

Ibid.

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allusions to a specific hypo-text may have been introduced into the text by a redactor; (ii) perceived intertextual allusions to a specific hypo-text may have been introduced into the text gradually by a succession of redactors as part of a Fortschreibung process intended to further accentuate the more limited intertextual allusions present in the underlying composition stratum on which such redactors were working; and (iii) the hypo-text itself may have undergone redaction to further harmonize that text with the hyper-text. 2.2 Proposed Methodological Controls While a number of criteria can be identified as suggesting the presence of redactional activity in a subject verse, no single criterion is sufficiently reliable to justify the assignment of that verse to a particular composition stratum on the basis of that criterion alone. Conclusions should therefore be based on an accumulation of evidence using different criteria. My research indicates that the following criteria should be considered. 2.2.1 Likely Zones of Redactional Activity in a Narrative The sequential movement of the plotline in a narrative is typically carried forward by a series of Wayyiqtol phrases. These phrases can be interrupted by subordinate or circumstantial clauses often introduced by ’asher and ki and by nominal (i.e., non-verbal) clauses. In addition, the narrator’s narration of the story is often interrupted by dialog in which one protagonist speaks to another. Not infrequently, one protagonist responds to the other with two lines of dialog, each introduced by “and he said.” In addition, the forward thrust of the plotline can be interrupted by a long “speech” composed of multiple phrases spoken by one protagonist to an assembled group. It is reasonable, in my view, to treat (i) ’asher and ki clauses, (ii) nominal clauses, (iii) one or the other of a double response by a protagonist in a dialog, and (iv) long speeches, as possible zones of redactional activity. As these zones create a space in the text for adding explanations, expansions and digressions from the narrative intrigue carried forward by the Wayyiqtol phrases, it is reasonable to conclude that they may represent redactional interpolations. It should be stressed however that this criterion is insufficient in itself to assign such material to a redaction stratum and can only serve as a preliminary methodological control. 2.2.2 Changes in Syntactical Style One of the characteristics of Hebrew narrative style is that a series of Wayyiqtol phrases can be interrupted by (i) an occasional verbal clause structured as waw + subject + Qatal verb (hereinafter, a “S+Qatal clause” and (ii) an occasional verbal clause structured as a Qatal phrase joined to the previous Wayyiqtol

Methodological Problems in Diachronic Analysis

225

phrase by parataxis (hereinafter, an “asyndetic Qatal clause” or “aQ clause”). As will be discussed below, there is an absence of agreement among grammarians as to the meaning and purpose of S+Qatal clauses and asyndetic Qatal clauses. Notwithstanding this disagreement, it is fair to conclude that when there is a high concentration of S+Qatal and/or asyndetic Qatal clauses in a particular unit in the narrative, the change in syntactical style may indicate redactional activity. For example, it can be observed that while there are no S+Qatal clauses in 20:18–31a, there are 12 in 20:31b–48, notwithstanding that both units are thematically linked. Similarly, there is one asyndetic Qatal clause in 20:18–31a and three in 20:31b–48.46 2.2.3 Changes in Vocabulary One of the classic criteria for identifying redactional activity is the perceived presence of a change in lexical registry in certain parts of the narrative. In my opinion, this criterion is problematic. First, use of the criterion assumes that there are well-defined lexical registries in all parts of the MT. In practical terms, this criterion is usually applied by identifying a P lexical registry and a D lexical registry and assigning all other lexemes to a default non-P/non-D category. Second, when the subject text uses P and/or D vocabulary less often than default vocabulary, it is assumed that a redactor interpolated the verses containing the P and D language. These assumptions are not the subjective inventions of the commentators who invoke them. They are based on conclusions reached after extensive study of the formation of the Pentateuch/Hexateuch and the DH. It can well be argued that sufficient evidence has been accumulated to justify qualifying the assumption in question as a “theory” that can be used as a predictive model. For example, it appears reasonable to conclude that if it has been demonstrated that 10 pericopes containing both non-P and P vocabulary can best be explained by positing that the P vocabulary should be assigned to a redaction stratum, then this theory should also apply to all other pericopes that contain non-P and P vocabulary. In my view, this position is methodologically unsound. The proposition that all pericopes that contain both P and non-P vocabulary should be interpreted as composite texts resembles the philosophical proposition that “all swans are white.” As argued by Karl Popper, this kind of proposition cannot be proven because it is impossible to verify that all swans in the universe are in fact white. In contrast, the proposition that “some swans are black” (i) can be demonstrated to be true on the basis of empirical evidence of the existence of a single black swan and (ii) has the heuristic benefit 46

See discussion of S+Qatal and a-Qatal clauses in Chapter 10, Sections 3.5 and 3.6 infra.

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of disproving the proposition that “all swans are white.”47 By analogy, a rigorous methodology for redaction criticism should require the commentator to focus substantive attention on trying to prove that “some swans are black” before concluding that the pericope under study can best be explained by the theory that “all swans are white.” I am not suggesting that the commentator should seek to approach a subject text without any a priori assumptions about redaction criticism, but rather that he or she should adopt a critical attitude in relation to his or her assumptions and seriously consider the possibility that they may not apply to the subject text. As will be discussed below, my research indicates that the assignment of many verses in Judges 19–21 to a “priestly” redaction stratum, as proposed by most commentators, cannot be verified using other indicia of redactional activity in the verses in question. In my view, the use of both non-P and P language in Judges 19–21 can more parsimoniously be explained on the basis of David M. Carr’s theory of “priestly wash” as a characteristic of late-Persian and Hellenistic period texts and revisions in which P and non-P vocabulary are used together.48 I will thus argue below that while Judges 19–21 contains at least four identifiable composition strata, the methodological criterion of distinguishing between non-P and P vocabulary to identify a specific P redaction stratum cannot be validated. However, there are two types of change in vocabulary that may indicate redactional activity on a more reliable basis. First, the use of lexemes that can be considered to be interchangeable synonyms may be a sign that verses containing one lexeme or the other should be assigned to different composition strata. For example, the thematically similar lexemes ‫ ֵלב‬and ‫ ֵל ָבב‬are used in different verses in 19:7–9 in closely related phrases: Judg

19:5bSustain

‫ ְס ָעד ִל ְּבָך‬Judg 19:5b‎

your heart!

‫וְ יִ ַטב ִל ֶּבָך‬Judg 19:6

Judg 19:6bAnd may your heart be glad!

Judg

19:8aPlease,

‫ ְס ָעד־נָ א ְל ָב ְבָך‬Judg 19:8a

sustain your heart! ‫יטב ְל ָב ֶבָך‬ ַ ִ‫וְ י‬Judg 19:9b‎ : Judg 19 9bAnd may your heart be glad!

This phenomenon can be explained in two ways. First, a single author decided to introduce variety in his lexical registry to avoid unnecessary repetition. 47 48

Karl Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Routledge, 2002), 82–83. David M. Carr, “Data to Inform Ongoing Debates about the Formation of the Pentateuch – The View from Beyond the Bible” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America (ed. J.C. Gertz et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 94–97.

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227

Second, the verses containing each lexeme should be assigned to different composition strata. The latter hypothesis can be considered more probable than the former if there are independent reasons for assigning the verses in question to different strata. Second, the presence of a significant cluster of lexemes in a unit of text that are not used elsewhere in the narrative may indicate redactional activity. Although the possibility should be carefully considered that the author of the earliest composition stratum intentionally introduced a cluster of “new” vocabulary into his narrative, it is more probable that the unit containing unusual vocabulary should be attributed to a redactor if there are independent indicia that support the argument that the unit is a redactional interpolation. 2.2.4 Use of Late Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary and Syntax Many commentators identify redaction strata in a narrative on the basis of the concentration of late BH vocabulary and syntax in certain verses. For example, Edenburg devotes 34 pages in her monograph to the identification of late morphology, syntax and lexica in Judges 19–21.49 In my view, the distinction between so-called classic and late BH is not a useful criterion for distinguishing between different composition strata in Judges 19–21 for two reasons. First, there is an absence of scholarly consensus on the lexical and syntactical distinctions between classical and late BH. Shimon Gesundheit concluded in 2016, “To conclude, we have seen that the field of historical dating is exceptionally thorny and utterly lacking in consensus. There are numerous methodological pitfalls, and there are problems surrounding various conclusions as well.”50 Second, because the use of late BH is generally considered to be characteristic of texts composed or redacted during the Persian and Hellenistic periods,51 the broad distinction between classic and late BH is of limited heuristic value in the case of Judges 19–21. As there are independent reasons to suspect that the entire text should be dated to the Persian and Hellenistic periods, the extensive use of late BH in the narrative does not help distinguish between the various composition strata in Judges 19–21.

49 50 51

Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 115–159. Shimon Gesundheit, “Introduction: The Strengths and Weakness of Linguistic Dating” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America (ed. J.C. Gertz et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 302. According to Jan Joosten, classical BH is characteristic of texts composed before the exile and late BH is characteristic of texts composed during the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Jan Joosten, “The Difference between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew as reflected in Syntax,” Hebrew Studies 46 (2005): 327.

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On the basis of the foregoing, I consider that the distinction between classical and late BH is not a useful criterion for identifying late redaction strata in Judges 19–21. In contrast, the lexical and syntactical changes made by the Chronicler in passages with clear lexical parallels in Samuel or Kings do in my opinion provide a smaller, but more reliable, set of data for identifying verses in Judges 19–21 that use language typical of the Chronicler. My research indicates that this set of Chronicler-like vocabulary does not overlap with the P lexical registry that many commentators use to identify redaction strata in Judges 19–21. 2.2.5 Presence of Thematic Tensions and Contradictions The presence of perceived thematic tensions and contradictions in a narrative’s plotline has classically been interpreted as an evident sign of redactional activity.52 Christophe Nihan raises the caveat that en tant que lecteurs modernes, nous courons toujours en principe le risque de surévaluer certaines tensions, en oubliant que la culture dans laquelle les textes bibliques ont vu le jour est profondément différente de la nôtre, et que ce qui nous parait être une contradiction ne l’était pas nécessairement pour les auditeurs ou les lecteurs de ces récits.53 I agree with Nihan’s observation that the phenomenon of perceived thematic tensions and contradictions in a subject text may be an interpretation imposed 52

53

For proponents of the documentary hypothesis, such tensions and contradictions are explained as the result of the combination of two independent source texts that, when read separately, do not contain any tensions or contradictions. Joel S. Baden has recently presented the case for the documentary hypothesis in the following terms. “If it is the contradictions in plot that drive us to the literary-historical analysis of the text – and this is the claim being put forward here – then it is only logical that our literary-historical solutions should also proceed on the basis of resolving those contradictions in plot. This is because, sensibly enough, if we try to divide the text on other grounds – terminological, stylistic, generic, thematic, theological – then we are not actually addressing the basic problem. […] Once the plot contradictions are resolved, if we are left with a narratively coherent text, that can, like any text ancient or modern, accommodate stylistic and thematic and thematic complexity. The reverse is not true: a stylistically or thematically or theologically uniform text cannot accommodate plot contradictions.” Joel S. Baden, “Why is the Pentateuch Unreadable? – Or, Why Are We Doing This Anyway?” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America (ed. J.C. Gertz et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 250–251. The arguments against the documentary hypothesis are well known and will not be rehearsed in this work. Christophe Nihan, “L’analyse rédactionnelle,” in Manuel d’exégèse de l’Ancien Testament (ed. M. Bauks and C. Nihan; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2008), 161.

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on the text by modern readers. Because of the inherent subjectivity in using this criterion to identify redactional interpolations, it is my position that it should be rejected as a valid methodological technique of redaction criticism. However, there is a subset of perceived literary tensions and contradictions in a narrative that can serve, in my view, as an objective methodological tool. I propose to treat the presence of “blind motifs” as an objective sign of redactional activity. Blind motifs are defined in narratology as “motifs apparemment inutiles dans le récit, car ils paraissent immotivés dans le récit et n’ont pas de suite ou de conséquences.”54 An example of a blind motif in Judges 19–21 can be found in the first “consultation with YHWH” scene in 20:18 in which the sons of Israel ask, “Who shall go up for us at the beginning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?” and YHWH responds, “Judah at the beginning.” This narrative sequence is a blind motif because Judah will not in fact lead the battle against the sons of Benjamin, and indeed, the tribe of Judah is not mentioned elsewhere in Judges 19–21. The phenomenon of blind motifs in narrative texts is problematic and requires further research and review. My preliminary view is that the blind motifs in Judges 19–21 can best be explained as redactional interpolations. This raises the question why a blind motif would be an acceptable literary device for a redactor and not for the author of the underlying composition stratum. I will attempt to demonstrate below that many of the blind motifs in Judges 19–21 occur in verses that also contain intertextual allusions. It can be argued that the hermeneutical “advantage” of the allusion outweighs the narrative “disadvantage” of introducing a contradiction into the plotline. In other words, the redactor who introduces an intertextual allusion into the underlying composition stratum on which he is working is asking the reader to focus on the midrash-like association he is making between two texts rather than on the coherence of the plotline. 2.2.6 The Place of “Intertextuality” in Diachronic Analysis Certain commentators do not consider the phenomenon of intertextuality to be relevant to redaction criticism. For example, Nihan argues, Sur ce plan, l’exégèse intra-biblique partage ainsi de nombreux présupposés avec l’analyse rédactionnelle, notamment l’idée qu’il est possible – et même nécessaire – d’élucider systématiquement les phénomènes de réception en distinguant sur le plan diachronique entre texte ‘premier’ 54

Jean-Loïc Le Guellec and Bernard Sergent, Dictionnaire critique de mythologie (Paris: CNRS, 2017), 144.

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et texte ‘second’. Toutefois, l’exégèse intra-biblique demeure également distincte de la Redaktionsgeschichte. Contrairement à l’analyse rédactionnelle, son objet n’est pas d’élucider l’ensemble du processus rédactionnel de la Bible hébraïque : il s’agit plutôt de partir de l’observation selon laquelle toute une partie du canon biblique s’est constituée à partir de la réception de textes plus anciens, lesquels ont également été canonisés, afin de chercher ensuite à mieux éclairer la nature de ce processus de transmission et ses enjeux.55 In my view, the study of intertextuality in a subject text can become a valid inquiry of redaction criticism if the comparison of the final MT versions of the hyper-text and hypo-text is extended to include a study of the compositional history of the two texts. I am not aware of any intertextual analyses that have taken this approach. A thorough diachronic analysis of the hyper- and hypotexts would address the following issues. First, it must be questioned whether the perceived intertextuality in the hyper-text forms part of the earliest composition stratum or was interpolated by a later redactor. It is possible that an erudite redactor may have been responsible for interpolating intertextual allusions in order to add an additional layer of hermeneutical meaning to the composition stratum on which he was working. Second, some of the perceived examples of intertextuality may have been introduced into the hyper-text gradually by a succession of redactors as part of a Fortschreibung process intended to further accentuate the more limited intertextuality present in the underlying composition stratum on which each such redactor was working. Third, the hypo-text itself may have undergone subsequent redactional activity to harmonize it with the hyper-text. This kind of “cross-fertilization” or “secondary scribal coordination” between texts has the result of accentuating the phenomenon of intertextuality present in the final MT version of the two texts. Fourth, a close comparison of the two MT texts with their LXX equivalents may help identify examples of “cross-fertilization” that were interpolated into the MT witness later than the Vorlagen of the two texts on which the LXX witnesses are based. These diachronic possibilities have an impact on the interpretation of the purpose of intertextuality in a subject text. Does the intentional association of the subject text with another text reflect the ideological/theological perspective of the earliest composition stratum or of a later redaction stratum? Is the purpose of some or all of the perceived intertextual allusions in the final 55

Nihan, “L’analyse rédactionnelle,” 183–184; emphasis in the original.

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version of the subject text to add hermeneutical meaning to the underlying composition stratum or merely to harmonize the hyper-text with the hypo-text for literary effect? To avoid overreading the purpose of intertextual allusions in a narrative, it is methodologically preferable to determine the compositional history of a narrative before proceeding to analyze the phenomenon of intertextuality that may be present in one or more strata of that text. 2.2.7 The Redactional Technique of Wiederaufnahme The presence of a verse in the subject text that shows strong lexical similarity to another verse in the subject text may be a sign of redactional activity. For proponents of the documentary hypothesis, the phenomenon of “doublet verses” in a narrative is a sure sign that the text can be deconstructed into two underlying source texts that were later combined. For scholars who are not convinced by the documentary hypothesis, the phenomenon of “doublet verses” becomes problematic and requires a more complex explanation. This phenomenon can be explained in certain cases as an example of the redactional literary technique commonly referred to as Wiederaufnahme or “repetitive resumption.” As defined by Nihan, La Wiederaufnahme est typiquement une technique d’amplification : le rédacteur reproduit un passage du document sur lequel il travaille afin d’introduire un développement nouveau entre les deux passages parallèles. La Wiederaufnahme constitue, par conséquent, un cas spécifique de doublet ; la répétition d’un passage donné forme le ‘cadre’ rédactionnel au sein duquel un nouveau développement peut être introduit. Cette technique rédactionnelle est très fréquente dans l’AT; c’est même, vraisemblablement l’une des techniques favorites des rédacteurs.56 In my view, proponents of the Wiederaufnahme hypothesis have missed a step in the methodological process. The more cautious proposition – that the material between two Wiederaufnahmen often constitutes a literary digression from the forward thrust of the narrative intrigue – is an argument that can be empirically tested using literary analysis. Such digressions include explanatory information, expansions of an existing theme and the introduction of a new theme. However, the issue of whether such digression (i) forms part of the underlying composition stratum or (ii) was interpolated by a redactor, remains to be resolved. To assume that all examples of Wiederaufnahmen indicate 56

Ibid., 155; emphasis in the original.

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secondary redactional activity is as much an “all swans are white” proposition as the assumption that all doublet verses indicate the presence of two independent sources combined into one. In order to introduce methodological control, I recommend that the presence of Wiederaufnahmen in a subject text be interpreted as a sign of redactional activity only if there are other independent indicia of redactional activity in the presumed interpolated material. 3

Chapter Summary

The previous chapters point to the importance of situating Judges 19–21 in historical context in order to discern the ideological/theological purpose of the text. However, as it can reasonably be assumed that the narrative was not composed by a single author at a specific point in the history of Yehud, it follows that the text probably reflects a variety of ideological/theological perspectives, each corresponding to the different composition strata that underlie the textus receptus in the MT. A study of the compositional history of Judges 19–21 is therefore not simply an academic inquiry into the genesis of a text but rather an essential exegetical tool for discerning the ideological/theological purpose(s) of the narrative. This chapter focuses on methodological problems in the diachronic study of biblical texts and presents recommendations for methodological controls, borrowed from the social sciences, intended to reduce subjectivity in redaction criticism. Six criteria for identifying the presence of redactional activity in the text have been proposed. However, it is important to note that no single criterion is sufficiently reliable to justify the assignment of that verse to a particular composition stratum on the basis of that criterion alone. Conclusions should be based on an accumulation of evidence using different criteria. More precisely, my research indicates that customary reliance on the criterion of perceived literary tensions and contradictions in the text to signal the presence of redactional activity is overly subjective. The possibility needs to be considered that a narrative unit that appears to the modern reader to be incoherent and contradictory in relation to the narrative as a whole could have been understood differently by an ancient reader. However, there is a subset of perceived literary tensions and contradictions in a narrative that can serve as an objective methodological tool. I propose to treat the presence of “blind motifs” in a narrative as an objective sign of redactional activity. A blind motif is defined in narratology as a motif that has no prior foundation in the narrative and that will not reappear later in the narrative. It will be argued in the

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233

following chapters that many of the blind motifs in Judges 19–21 occur in verses that also contain intertextual allusions. There is therefore a methodologically significant overlap between the phenomena of blind motifs and intertextuality in Judges 19–21. This supports the hypothesis that when an intertextual allusion introduces a blind motif into the plotline, the intertextual reference should, if supported by other indicia of redactional activity, be assigned to a redactor.

chapter 9

Compositional History of Judges 19 The purpose of this chapter is to apply the methodological principles outlined in the preceding chapter to Judges 19 in order to identify and date the earliest composition stratum of the text and the redactional interpolations introduced in subsequent composition strata. The ideological/theological orientations of each stratum will be discussed and signs of “anti-Benjamin” bias will be explored. For ease of discussion, the compositional history of Judges 19 will be divided into three parts. Section 1 will analyze Judg 19:1–10aB; Section 2, Judg 19:10aC–21; and Section 3, Judg 19:22–30. The status quæstionis of the compositional history of Judges 19 will be presented before the detailed analysis of each of the three narrative units. 1

Compositional History of Judges 19:1–10aB

As previously discussed, Judges 19 is introduced by a double incipit. I have argued that 19:1a, “And it came to pass in those days that there was no king in Israel,” should be interpreted as the closing verse of the narrative unit in 18:1b–19:1b.1 The narrative unit under study in this work thus begins in 19:1b. The three characters in the unit, the Levite, his concubine and her father, are introduced in 19:1b–3a. It can be noted that the Levite’s father-in-law is the only character with a speaking part in the narrative unit. He addresses the Levite three times in 19:5–7 with short addresses consisting of between 5 and 7 words. The Levite’s father-in-law speaks to the Levite a fourth time in 19:9 in a speech that is 19 words long. 1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:1–10aB Burney, a proponent of the “two-source” model, argues that two independent sources can be distinguished in 19:1–10aB on the basis of different terms used 1 See discussion in Chapter 2, Section 2 supra. Moore and Burney assign the first incipit in 19:1a to a redactor without explanation. Edenburg assigns 19:1a to an “editor.” She argues, “[…] there is no justification for opening the narrative with double formulas (vv. 1a, 1b). Indeed, it is more likely that the comment in 19:1a was derived from those in Judg 17–18. […] The editorial nature of all four comments in Judg 17–21 is clear since their point of reference – the period of the monarchy – lies outside the narratives themselves.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 2–13.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_011

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235

to refer to the Levite’s host in Bethlehem.2 He is called (i) the “father of the girl” and “her father” in 19:2a.3b(×2).4a.5b.6b.8a.9b and (ii) “his father-in-law” in 19:4a.7b.9b. Similarly, the Levite is called (i) “the man” or “he” in most verses and (ii) “her husband” in 19:3a and “his son-in-law” in 19:5b. Burney postulates that the vocabulary that implies that the Levite and his woman are “husband and wife” should be assigned to one source and the vocabulary that avoids marital terms should be attributed to the other source. He then proceeds to reconstruct the two sources by dividing the neutral terms “the man” and “he” between them as is necessary to render both presumed source texts narratively coherent. Burney’s methodology is flawed for two reasons. First, Burney’s assumption that the terms “father of the girl” and “his father-in-law” reflect two different sources is challenged by the text itself. It can be observed that the double appositional term, “his father-in-law, the father of the girl” is used in 19:4a.9b. Furthermore, 19:5b uses incompatible terminology, “And the father of the girl said to his son-in-law.” Burney resolves these problems by (i) assigning 19:4a to his second source and treating the offending reference to “the father of the girl” as a redactional interpolation; (ii) assigning 19:9b to the first source and treating the offending reference to “his father-in-law” as a redactional interpolation; and (iii) emending 19:5b to replace “his son-in-law” with “him” notwithstanding that this textual emendation is not supported by any Greek or other variants of the verse. In my view, Burney uses the redactor as a deus ex machina to save the two-source model when the text does not conform to his assumptions. Second, the assumption that “the father of the girl” and “his father-in-law” are thematically distinguishable is a solution in search of a problem. There is no literary, ideological or theological reason why the narrator would not use both terms to refer to the same person. Burney’s position is, in my view, driven by a different problem in the text; namely, that 19:1b refers to the Levite’s woman as a ‫( ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬concubine-wife). Burney assumes that the marital terms “father-in-law” and “son-in-law” are incompatible with the woman’s status as a concubine. He solves this problem by positing that “‫ ִא ָּׁשה‬may be derived from one source and ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬from the other.”3 Burney concludes that 19:1b should be assigned to the first source, with the exception of the offending word “concubine.” However, he is unable to reconstruct a verse in the second source in which the Levite’s woman is introduced as a concubine.4 2 See discussion of the “two-source” model in Chapter 7, Section 1.1 supra. 3 Burney, Judges, 442. 4 Burney acknowledges that the second source in 19:1b–10 is fragmentary, and “seems to have been used merely as a supplement. […] Since the other narrative has been identified as J, it

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The proponents of the “single pre-exilic author” model do not assume that a single author would necessarily avoid using “father-in-law” and “father of the girl” in the same narrative.5 Moore assigns all of 19:1–10aB to his single preexilic author with the exception of 19:6b–8 (the scene describing the events in Bethlehem on the fourth day) which he assigns, without explanation, to his RD.6 It can be inferred that Moore considers that the redundancy between the description of the fourth day in 19:5–7 and the description of the fifth day in 19:8–10 indicates that one unit is secondary to the other and should therefore be attributed to a redactor. Moore does not provide any argumentation in favor of his delimitation of the redactional interpolation in 19:5–7 or his reasons for treating the second unit (19:8–10) as secondary to the first. In my view, Moore is correct that there is redactional activity in 19:5–10. This issue will be addressed in detail in the discussion that follows. Schulz, the proponent of the “two post-exilic authors” model, attributes all of 19:1–10aB to the earliest composition stratum, with the exception of the two words ‫( ֵלוִ י ּגָ ר‬a Levite sojourning) in 19:1bA (“And it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim”). Schulz attributes this two-word gloss to a later redactor who added Judges 17–18* as an introduction to Judges 19 and intended to harmonize the Levitical status of the protagonist of Judges 19 with that of 17:7ff.7 Edenburg, the proponent of the “single exilic period author” model, attributes all of 19:1aB–10 (and indeed, all of Judges 19), to the earliest composition stratum.8 In my view, the interpretation of the lexeme ‫( ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬concubine) in 19:1b. 2a.9a.10b. 24a.25a.27b. 29a is a threshold issue that needs to be resolved in order to understand the compositional history of Judges 19 in general and 19:1b–10 in particular. As discussed, Burney argues that because the status of a concubine is incompatible with marital terms such as “his father-in-law” and “his sonin-law,” it should be concluded that the first source conceived of the Levite’s woman as a concubine and the second source presented her as a regular wife. Moore, writing more than 20 years earlier than Burney, argued to the contrary

5 6 7 8

is natural to infer that the present narrative may be derived from E, though there occur no characteristic E phrases to substantiate this view.” Ibid., 445. Gray, another proponent of the “two-source” model, rejects Burney’s interpretation of 19:1–10 and attributes the entire unit to J. Soggin, the most recent proponent of the “two-source” hypothesis, does not address diachronic issues in Judges 19. See discussion of the “single pre-exilic author” model in Chapter 8, Section 1.2 supra. George F. Moore, The Book of Judges: A New English Translation Printed in Colors Exhibiting the Composite Structure of the Book (London: James Clark & Co., 1898), 93. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 23. See discussion of the “single exilic period author” model in Chapter 8, Section 1.3 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

237

that marital terminology is not incompatible with the status of a concubine. He states, “Concubinage was a kind of marriage; the girl’s father was the man’s father-in-law. The relation was perfectly legitimate, whether the concubine was a slave or a free woman; and children born of such union had a right of inheritance (Gen 21:11).”9 Gray, a proponent of the “two-source” model, follows Moore rather than Burney on the compatibility of marital language with the status of a concubine. He argues that “Ugaritic usage indicates that ‫ ִא ָּׁשה‬referred to various degrees of marriage, requiring further qualification when it denoted a fully legal wife. The status of ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬, on the other hand, as [Judges] 8.31 and chapter 9 indicate, denotes a regular status like that of a sadika wife in early Arab usage.”10 This position permits Gray to attribute all of 19:1b–10aB to J. Arnold, the most recent proponent of the “single pre-exilic author” model, agrees with Burney that marital terminology is incompatible with the status of a concubine but disagrees with Burney’s position that J presented the Levite’s woman as a concubine. Arnold argues to the contrary, We can assume that the wife’s transformation into a mere concubine is a Priestly alternation in order to save the story from two moral dilemmas. In the original story, the wife committed adultery against the husband (19.2). The Levitical Holiness Code, however, prescribed death for such an adulteress. In order to retain symmetry with this law, the Levitical redactors may have changed the ‘wife’ into a mere ‘concubine’, which, in turn, might have improved her legal position. Moreover, the admittedly bizarre scene of a Levite pushing his wife out to the surrounding Gibeahites

9 10

Moore, Judges: A New Translation, 93. Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 372. Gray defines a sadika as a wife “who continued to live in her father’s house.” Gray cites W.R. Smith’s 1887 Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, for this concept. Ibid., 315. The theory that concubinage is a type of marriage is developed in detail in a 1931 article by Julian Morgenstern. Julian. Morgenstern, “Additional Notes on ‘Beena Marriage’ (Matriarchat) in Ancient Israel,” ZAW 49 (1931): 46–58. C. Rabin revisited the issue in 1974 and concluded that the lexeme ‫ילגֶ ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ ִפ‬is a loan word from a non-Semitic language, probably introduced into BH under Philistine influence. He argues that “concubinage marriage was probably a Philistine institution introduced into ancient Israel in Judah and Benjamin, the regions with closest contact to Philistine presence.” C. Rabin, “The Origin of the Hebrew Word Pilegesh,” JJS 25, 3 (1974): 360–361. In my view, the conclusions of both Morgenstern and Rabin are influenced by Rabbinic positions on the subject. As summarized by Rabin, “That the pilegesh had a legal status in the opinion of the Rabbis, is clear from the discussion in the Palestinian Talmud, Kethubboth, v, 2, 29d; cf. also Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 21a.” Ibid., 363.

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(19.25) may have shocked the Priestly editors into substituting the word ‘concubine’ in order to soften the scurrilousness of his action.11 Arnold thus argues that the seven mentions of the word “concubine” in Judges 19 are priestly interpolations. Schulz takes the position that the Levite’s woman is a regular wife and that (i) the compound nouns ‫ ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬in 19:1b should be interpreted to mean “geliebte Frau” and (ii) the lexeme ‫ ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬in 19:2a should be translated as “seine geliebte (Frau).”12 She argues, “‫ ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬dürfte daher als relationaler Terminus aufzufassen sein, der nicht zwingend den minderen rechtlichen Rang einer Frau gegenüber einer anderen kennzeichnet […]. Grundsätzlich könnte er eine Frau bezeichnen, die in einer emotionalen und sexuellen Beziehung zu einem Mann steht.”13 Schulz thus assigns all of the uses of the word “concubine” in Judges 19 to the earliest composition stratum. Edenburg does not address the meaning and purpose of the characterization of the Levite’s woman as a ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬or see any diachronic issues relating to the use of the lexeme.14 The various problems posed by the lexeme ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬will be discussed in detail in the following section. 1.2

Judges 19:1b

Judg 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine-wife, from Bethlehem of Judah.

‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש ֵלוִ י ּגָ ר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי ַהר־‬‎ ‫ֶא ְפ ַריִ ם וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ִמ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬

The incipit in 19:1b introduces two characters who will play important roles in the narrative intrigue through 20:7, the Levite and his concubine. The man is portrayed as a “Levite-man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim.” The woman is described as “a concubine-wife from Bethlehem of 11 12 13 14

Arnold, Gibeah, 66; citations omitted. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 13. Ibid., p. 16. Edenburg raises the following questions concerning the father of the concubine. “Could he have been glad to see his daughter’s husband, because her reappearance at the paternal house was a source of embarrassment? The father would have received his daughter’s bride-price when she joined the Levite’s household, and he might have feared that the Levite would now demand restitution of the bride-price if the girl did not return to her husband.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 19. It can be inferred that Edenburg assumes that concubinage represents a type of marital relationship.

Compositional History of Judges 19

239

Judah.” The parallel syntagmas ‫ ִאיׁש ֵלוִ י‬and‎‫ ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬are both hapax legomena in the MT.15 Levites are typically referred to as “sons of Levi” (‫) ְּבנֵ י ֵלוִ י‬. When context requires reference to an individual Levite, he is described as “the Levite ( ִ‫;”) ַה ֵּלו‬16 “a Levite (‫;”) ֵלוִ י‬17 or as “the son of Levi (‫ן־לוִ י‬ ֵ ‫) ֶּב‬.”18 Similarly, ‫ ִּפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬is not used elsewhere in the MT as an adjective or as part of a compound noun.19 When the words “Levite” and “concubine” are removed from Judg 19:1b, it can be observed that the text reads quite smoothly: ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש [ ֵלוִ י] ּגָ ר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי ַה‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה [ ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש] ִמ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬. The question thus arises whether the references in the text to the male protagonist as a Levite man and to the female protagonist as a concubine wife are redactional glosses. In the case of the man, it should be noted that the syntagma ‫ ִאיׁש ֵלוִ י‬is only used twice in Judges 19–21; in 19:1 and 20:4. All other references to the male protagonist use terms such as “her husband” (19:3a); “his son-in-law” (19:5b); “the man” (19:6a.7a.9a.10a.25a.28b); “his lord” (19:11b); “this man” (19:23b.24b); “her lord” (19:26b.27a); and “the husband of the woman who was murdered” (20:4a). It can be observed that the man’s status as a Levite does not play a functional role in the narrative; i.e., there is nothing in the narrative intrigue that depends on the male protagonist having a tribal affiliation with Levi or the professional status of a priest or teacher.20 In contrast, in Judg 17:7–13, the young protagonist’s status as a Levite plays a functional role in the narrative intrigue. He travels from Bethlehem of Judah to the hill country of Ephraim to find a job. He arrives at Micah’s house and accepts Micah’s invitation, “Dwell with me. And be a father and a priest to me” (17:10a). The Levite lad also plays a cameo role in the next narrative unit, Judg 18:1b–19:1a, in which he consults with YHWH (18:5–6). Thus, unlike the case of the Levite lad in 17:7–13 and 18:5–6 in which the protagonist’s status 15 16 17 18 19 20

The equivalent terms, ἀνὴρ Λευίτης and γυναῖκα παλλακὴν in LXXAB 19:1b are also hapax legomena in the LXX. Deut 18:6; Judg 17:13. Judg 17:7.9. Ezr 8:18. The one possible exception is in Judg 18:3.15 in which reference is made to ‎‫ַהּנַ ַער‬ ִ‫ ַה ֵּלו‬. This syntagma is ambiguous; it can be read as either “the Levite lad” or as two nouns in apposition, “the lad, the Levite.” Contra Schulz who interprets ‫ילגֶ ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ ִּפ‬in 19:1b as an adjective meaning “beloved” modifying the noun ‫ ִא ָּׁשה‬. The one possible exception is the Levite’s statement in Judg 19:18bA, ‫ת־ּבית יְ הוָ ה ֲאנִ י ה ֵֹלְך‬ ֵ ‫וְ ֶא‬ (And I frequent the house of YHWH). Although speculative, I interpret this to mean that the Levite is a devout man rather than a cultic official. The equivalent of this phrase in LXXA is καὶ εἰς τὸν οἶκόν μου ἐγὼ ἀποτρέχω (And I am running off to my house) and in LXXB, καὶ εἰς τὸν οἶκόν μου ἐγὼ πορεύομαι (And I am going to my house). BHS and BHQ Judges concur that the MT variant is preferred.

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as a Levite is an essential element of the narrative intrigue, the protagonist’s Levitical status in Judges 19 is a blind motif.21 This strengthens the argument that the use of the compound noun ‫ ִאיׁש ֵלוִ י‬is a redactional gloss intended to harmonize Judges 19 with the preceding narrative units in Judges 17–18.22 It is possible that the redactor may have intended the reader to understand that the “Levite man” in 19:1b–20:7 is in fact the same person as the “Levite lad” in Judges 17–18. The possibility that a redactor added the word “concubine” in the phrase, “And he took for himself a concubine-wife” is not self-evident. As mentioned, while the compound noun ‫ ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬is a hapax in the MT, the woman is referred to frequently in the text as “his concubine” (Judg 19:2a; 9a.10b.24a.25a.27b.29a).23 As discussed, most of the commentators under review in this chapter define concubinage as a form of marital relationship that has lower status than that of a regular wife.24 In my view, the various references to concubines in the MT do not justify such a clear-cut understanding of the presumed institution of concubinage.25 The lexeme ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬is used 37 times in the MT; the LXX translates the lexeme as παλλακὴ in all occurrences other than Ezek 23:20.26 It should be noted that 11 of the 37 attestations of ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬in the MT occur in Judges 19–20. Leaving Judges 19–20 aside for the moment, the lexeme is used in the MT in three broad contexts. First, Esther, Song of Songs and Daniel use the term to refer to women in the harem of a foreign king.27 It can be noted that the lexeme παλλακὴ is used only once in the LXX in books not included in the HB, in 2 Mac 4:30, in reference to the concubine of a foreign king. Second, the early kings of Israel, Saul, David, Solomon, and Rehoboam, have multiple ‫ ִּפ ַלגְ ִׁשים‬, presumably on 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

See discussion of the significance of “blind motifs” in biblical narratives in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.5 supra. Although Edenburg argues generally that the presence of a “blind motif” should be interpreted as an indication of intertextual allusion, she does not address the possibility that the “Levite man” in Judges 19 is an intertextual allusion to the “Levite lad” in Judges 17–18. Instead, she interprets the protagonist’s status as a Levite in Judges 19 to be sign of irony in the narrative: “[…] there is irony in the character of a Levite whose actions are utterly divorced from the sacral sphere […].” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 20. Pace Schulz. She is also called “the girl” (19:3b.4a.5b.6b.8a.9b); “your maidservant” (19:19a); and “the woman” (19:26b; 20:4a). See Moore, Gray, Arnold and Edenburg. Pace Schulz. The LXX also uses the lexeme παλλακὴ to translate the ‫( ֵׁשגָ ל‬queen consort) in Neh 2:6, as well as in three verses that do not have a MT equivalent, LXX Gen 46:20; 1 Ki 11:1; Est 4:29. Est 2:14; Song 6:8.9; Dan 5:2.3.

Compositional History of Judges 19

241

the model of foreign kings.28 Third, the patriarchal era figures, Zlipha (Esau’s son), Nahor, Abraham, Jacob and Manasseh have concubines.29 According to Chronicles, Caleb also had a secondary wife.30 The above analysis indicates that the term ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬is used in Judges 19–20 in an unprecedented way. First, the Levite is neither a royal nor a patriarchal figure. Second, as no mention is made of the Levite having a primary wife, it is not obvious that his woman is a secondary wife, as is the case of all of the other ‫ ִּפ ַלגְ ִׁשים‬in the MT. Third, the theory that concubinage is an ancient type of marriage arrangement in which the “wife” continues to live with her father, as proposed by Moore and Gray, has found little support in recent scholarship.31 On the basis of the foregoing, it is difficult to discern the meaning and purpose of the Levite woman’s status as a concubine.32 As there is nothing in the narrative intrigue in Judges 19–21 that depends on the Levite’s woman having the status of a concubine rather than that of a wife, her concubine status appears to be a “blind motif” in the plotline. This contrasts with Gideon’s situation of having many wives and one concubine in Judg 8:30–31. As the son of the concubine, Abimelech will murder the 70 sons of Gideon’s regular wives and assume kingship, Abimelech’s “illegitimate” birth lays the thematic groundwork for his conflict with his 70 half-brothers. As the status of the Levite’s woman as a concubine introduces a blind motif into the narrative, the lexeme ‫ ִפּ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬may have been interpolated by a redactor.33 If this hypothesis is correct, 28 29 30

31 32 33

2 Sam 3:7; 5:13; 15:16; 16:21.22; 19:6; 20:3; 21:11; 1 Ki 11:3; 1 Ch 3:9; 2 Ch 11:21. It can be argued that the description of Gideon, the would-be king, as having many wives and one concubine (Judg 8:31), follows the usage of ‫ ִּפ ַלגְ ִׁשים‬in royal contexts. Gen 22:24; 25:6 35:22; 36:12; 1 Ch 1:32; 7:14. The reason for attributing concubines to patriarchal era figures is a question that merits further research. It can reasonably be argued that the patriarchs are intended to be viewed as royal figures. 1 Ch 2:46.48. Other than the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19–20, there is only one passage in the MT that uses the term ‫ילגֶ ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ ִפּ‬other than in reference to a secondary wife of a royal or patriarchal figure, Ezek 23:20. In his allegorical presentation of Jerusalem’s infidelity, Ezekiel states,‎‫יהם‬ ֶ ‫( וַ ַּת ְעּגְ ָבה ַעל ִּפ ַלגְ ֵׁש‬she lusted after their ‫) ִּפ ַלגְ ִׁשים‬. The context indicates that the ‫ ִּפ ַלגְ ִׁשים‬are the male lovers of the Babylonian officers with whom Jerusalem has already had sexual relations. Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 474. The LXX equivalent of Ezek 23:20 uses “the Chaldeans” in place of “their [male] concubines.” The only recent commentators who continue to support this position are Mieke Bal and Corinne Lanoir. Mieke Bal, Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 81–86; Lanoir, Femmes fatales, 183. As discussed, Schulz interprets ‫ילגֶ ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ ִפּ‬to mean “beloved” and therefore applicable to regular as well as secondary wives. She therefore assigns all uses of the lexeme to the earliest composition stratum. See discussion in Section 1.1 supra. See discussion of blind motifs as indicators of redactional activity in Chapter 7, Section 2.2.5.

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the Levite and his woman had a regular marriage in the earliest composition stratum and a redactor then transformed the couple into something less honorable than “husband and wife.”34 In order to resolve this question, each of the verses containing the lexeme ‫( ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬his concubine) will be analyzed below to determine whether there are independent indicia of redactional activity in these verses. It is also possible that there is redactional activity in the topographical references associated with the Levite and his concubine in 19:1b. The man “sojourns in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim” and the woman is “from Bethlehem of Judah.” As discussed, the opening verses of Judg 17:1–6; 17:7–18a; and 19:1b–21:25 show remarkable thematic similarity:35 17:1And it came to pass that there was a man from the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. 17:7aAnd it came to pass that there was a lad from Bethlehem of Judah, from the clan of Judah. 7bAnd he was a Levite and he sojourned there. 8aAnd the man went from the city, from Bethlehem of Judah, to sojourn wherever he could find. 8bAnd he came to the hill country of Ephraim … 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took a concubine woman for himself from Bethlehem of Judah.

‫ּוׁשמֹו‬ ְ ‫יש ֵמהַ ר־אֶ ְפ ָריִ ם‬ ׁ ‫י־א‬ ִ ‫וַ יְ ִה‬ ‫יכיְ הּו‬ ָ ‫ִמ‬ ‫וַ יְ ִהי־נ ַַער ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬

‫הּודה וְ הּוא יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬ ָ ְ‫ִמ ִּמ ְׁש ַּפ ַחת י‬ ‫־ׁשם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ָה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫לֵ וִ י וְ הּוא גָ ר‬ ‫ֵמ ָה ִעיר ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה לָ גוּר‬ ‫ַּב ֲא ֶׁשר יִ ְמ ָצא וַ ּיָבֹא הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ‫יש לֵ וִ י ָּגר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי‬ ׁ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִא‬‎ ‫הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה‬ ‫ילגֶ ׁש ִמ ּ ֵבית לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ ֶ ‫ִפ‬

The geographical reference ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫ ַה‬features prominently in Judges 17–19, in 17:1.8; 18:2.13; 19:1.16.18. It is also possible that there is redactional activity in the topographical reference to “Bethlehem of Judah” in 19:1.2. Although the toponym Bethlehem is mentioned 53 times in the MT, the longer expression, ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬, is used only ten times: three times in Judges 17–18,36 four times in Judges 19,37 twice in 34 35 36 37

It will be argued below that the term ‫ילגֶ ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ ִפּ‬as used in Judges 19 may signify “lover” and imply that the Levite and his woman are an unmarried couple (as in the French legal term “concubinage notoire”). See discussion in Section 1.6.3 infra. See detailed discussion of these verses in Chapter 2, Sections 2.1 and 2.2 supra. Judg 17:7.8.9. Judg 19:1.2.18 (×2).

Compositional History of Judges 19

243

Ruth38 and once in 1 Sam 17:12. This limited distribution of the long-form toponym ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬raises the possibility of redactional activity to harmonize the occurrences. On this hypothesis, it is possible that the toponym might have been “Bethlehem” in the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19 and that a later redactor interpolated “of Judah” to harmonize the text with Judges 17–18 when Judges 19–21 was added as an appendix to the book of Judges. On the basis of the foregoing, I propose that the earliest composition stratum of 19:1b might have read, “And it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine-wife from Bethlehem of Judah.”39 1.3

Judges 19:2

Judg 19:2aAnd his concubine whored against him. And she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah. 2bAnd she was there the days of four months.

‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ ֵּת ֶלְך ֵמ ִאּתֹו‬‎ ‫ל־ּבית ֶל ֶחם‬ ֵ ‫יה ֶא‬ ָ ‫ל־ּבית ָא ִב‬ ֵ ‫ֶא‬ ‫יָמים ַא ְר ָּב ָעה‬ ִ ‫י־ׁשם‬ ָ ‫הּודה וַ ְּת ִה‬ ָ ְ‫י‬ ‫ֳח ָד ִׁשים‬

There are semantic reasons for suspecting that all or part of the phrase ‎ ‫וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה‬ ‫( ָע ָליו ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬And his concubine whored against him) in 19:2a is a redactional interpolation. It can be observed that the narrator’s exposition (Judg 19:1b–2) consists of an initial phrase introduced by the temporal marker ‫וַ יְ ִהי‬, followed by four Wayyiqtol phrases: (i) “And he took for himself a concubine-wife, from Bethlehem of Judah”; (ii) “And his concubine whored against him”; (iii) “And she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah”; and (iv) “And she was there the days of four months.” As the woman is the last-mentioned person in phrase (i), she could have been referred to in phrase (ii) with a pronoun, as is the case in phrases (iii) and (iv), and as is typical in the Wayyiqtol sequences in Judges 19–21. The possibility should therefore be considered that the lexeme ‫ ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬was added as a gloss at the end of phrase (ii). As neither a blind motif nor a semantic inconsistency is sufficient on its own to assign a word or phrase to a redaction stratum, my hypothesis concerning the interpolation of the lexeme “his concubine” in 19:1b.2a is still speculative and requires confirmation on the basis of the analysis of the other verses in 19:1b–10aA that use the lexeme ‫ ִּפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬.

38 39

Ruth 1:1.2. Pace Schulz for the proposed deletion of “Levite” and “sojourning” in the earliest composition stratum of 19:1b.

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The phrase ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬and she whored against him) in 19:2a poses a complex text critical problem. As previously discussed, my research indicates that AL, B and LAB suggest that the verb in 19:2aA underwent successive changes from ‫( וַ ַּת ְת ַע ְבּ ִרי‬and she was furious), to ‫( וַ ַּת ַע ְב ִרי‬and she moved on/and she transgressed), and finally to ‫( וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה‬and she whored). I have argued that while the first two changes reflect different strata in the compositional history of the text, the third change was introduced by a scribe working during the textual transmission process, probably after 100 CE.40 1.4

Judges 19:3a

Judg 19:3aAnd her husband rose up. And he went ‫יה ְל ַד ֵּבר‬ ָ ‫יׁשּה וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬‎ after her, to reason with her, (to change her mind) ]‫ל־ל ָּבּה ( ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו) [ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬ ִ ‫ַע‬ [to bring her back]. And his servant boy was with ‫וְ נַ ֲערֹו ִעּמֹו וְ ֶצ ֶמד ֲחמ ִֹרים‬ him and a pair of donkeys. The Wayyiqtol phrases ‫יׁשּה וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר ָיה‬ ָ ‫( וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬And her husband rose up. And he went after her) in 19:3a are followed by two nominal phrases using infinitive constructs. The first phrase, ‫ל־ל ָּבּה‬ ִ ‫ ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬, can be translated as either “to speak to her heart” or “to reason with her.”41 The second phrase contains a Masoretic correction. The Ketiv is ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬and the Qere is ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬. As the masculine possessive suffix in the Ketiv ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬can reasonably be interpreted as referring back to the last-mentioned noun, the masculine lexeme ‫( ֵלב‬heart), following the Ketiv would yield a translation of 19:3a such as “And her husband rose up. And he went after her to reason with her [in order] to change her mind.” Following the Qere, 19:3a would be translated as “And her husband rose up. And he went after her to speak unto her heart to bring her back.”42 The question thus arises whether the Ketiv (i) represents a scribal “error” that is “corrected” by the Qere or (ii) reflects an earlier composition stratum of 19:3a than the Qere. As discussed, BHS and BHQ Judges consider the Qere to be the preferred reading, supported by LXXA. I have taken the contrary position 40 41

42

See the detailed discussion of the text critical problems posed by the phrase ‫ וַ ִּתזְ נֶ ה ָע ָליו‬in Chapter 1, Section 1.1 supra. The expressions “to speak to her heart” and “to speak heart to heart” occur eight times in the MT (Gen 34:3; 50:21; Judg 19:2; 2 Sam 19:8; Isa 40:2; Hos 2:16, Ruth 2:13; 2 Ch 30:22). Most commentators agree that the syntagma does not necessarily have a romantic connotation because the heart is often presented as the seat of intelligence. Indeed, it is often a man who “speaks to the heart” of another man (Gen 50:21; 2 Sam 19:8; 2 Ch 30:32). Niditch, Judges, 185. See also, “to speak tenderly to her in order to bring her back” (NAS); “to appeal to her affections and fetch her back” (NJB); “pour regagner sa confiance et la ramener” (TOB).

Compositional History of Judges 19

245

and argued that because the Ketiv is grammatically correct and yields a coherent meaning, the Ketiv ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬should be treated as reflecting an earlier Vorlage rather than a scribal error.43 If this hypothesis is correct, the question then arises whether the Qere (i) reflects a later composition stratum of the Vorlage or (ii) a change made during the transmission process of the textus receptus, probably by scribes working after 100 CE. The problem is compounded by the fact that the consonants of the Qere, ‫ להׁשיבה‬can be vocalized as either (i) ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬, the infinitive construct of the Hif‘il verb ‫ ׁשּוב‬with a singular feminine possessive suffix, or (ii) ‫ ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬, the defective spelling of the infinitive construct of the Hif‘il form of the verb ‫ יָ ַׁשב‬with a singular feminine possessive suffix. The first vocalization would yield the meaning “to bring her back” and the second, “to marry her.” As discussed, I have argued that the vocalization of the Qere ‫ להׁשיבה‬as the Hif‘il form of the verb ‫ יָ ַׁשב‬is supported by LXXA.44 On the basis of the foregoing, I propose to treat the Ketiv as reflecting the earliest composition stratum and the Qere vocalized as ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her) as per AL as a change to the text of 19:3a made by a redactor. Although speculative, I have assigned the change in vocalization of Qere to ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to bring her back) as per MT to the final composition stratum rather than to a scribe working during the textual transmission process. The reasons for the redactional interpolation that replaced the Ketiv with the Qere will be discussed in Section 1.6.2 infra. 1.5

Judges 19:3b–10aB

Judg 19:3bAnd she brought him into the house of ‫יה וַ ּיִ ְר ֵאהּו‬ ָ ‫יאהּו ֵּבית ָא ִב‬ ֵ ‫וַ ְּת ִב‬3b‎ her father. And the father of the girl saw him. ‫ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה וַ ּיִ ְׂש ַמח ִל ְק ָראתֹו‬ And he rejoiced to meet him. 4aAnd his father-in‫וַ ּיֶ ֱחזַ ק־ּבֹו ח ְֹתנֹו ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה‬4 law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him. And ‫יָמים‬ ִ ‫ֹלׁשת‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב ִאּתֹו ְׁש‬ he dwelled with him three days. 4bAnd they ate. ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו וַ ּיָ ִלינּו ָׁשם‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ And they drank. And they stayed the night there. ‫יעי וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו‬ ִ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיֹום ָה ְר ִב‬5 5aAnd it came to pass that it was the fourth day. ‫אמר ֲא ִבי‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ַבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיָ ָקם ָל ֶל ֶכת וַ ּי‬ And they awakened early in the morning. And he ‫ל־ח ָתנֹו ְס ָעד ִל ְּבָך‬ ֲ ‫ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ֶא‬ rose up to go. 5bBut the father of the girl said to his ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו‬6 ‫ת־ל ֶחם וְ ַא ַחר ֵּת ֵלכּו‬ ֶ ‫ַּפ‬ son-in-law: “Sustain your heart with a morsel of ‫יהם יַ ְח ָּדו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו‬ ֶ ֵ‫אכלּו ְׁשנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ bread. And afterward you may go.” 6aAnd they sat. ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫אמר ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ֶא‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ And they ate, the two of them together. And they ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם‬7 ‫הֹואל־נָ א וְ ִלין וְ יִ ַטב ִל ֶּבָך‬ ֶ drank. 6bAnd the father of the girl said to the man: ‫ָה ִאיׁש ָל ֶל ֶכת וַ ּיִ ְפ ַצר־ּבֹו ח ְֹתנֹו‬ “Please, agree to stay the night! And may your ‫וַ ּיַ ְׁש ֵּכם‬8 ‫וַ ּיָ ָׁשב וַ ּיָ ֶלן ָׁשם‬

43 44

See discussion of the text critical issues in MT 19:3a in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.2 supra. See discussion of the text critical issues in LXXA 19:3a in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.2 supra.

A

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heart be glad.” 7aBut the man rose up to go. 7bAnd his father-in-law urged him strongly. And he came back. And he stayed the night there. 8aAnd he awakened early in the morning on the fifth day, to go. But the father of the girl said: “Please! Sustain yourheart! Wait until the stretching forth of the day! 8bAnd the two of them ate. 9aAnd the man rose up to go, he and his concubine, and his servant boy. 9bBut his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him: “Behold! The day is preparing its camp. Stay the night here! And may your heart be glad. And you will awaken early tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent. 10aABut the man was not willing to stay the night. 10aBAnd he rose up. And he went.

‫יׁשי ָל ֶל ֶכת‬ ִ ‫ַּבּב ֶֹקר ַּבּיֹום ַה ֲח ִמ‬ ‫אמר ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ְס ָעד־נָ א‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ְל ָב ְבָך וְ ִה ְת ַמ ְה ְמהּו ַעד־נְ טֹות‬ ֶ ֵ‫אכלּו ְׁשנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫ַהּיֹום וַ ּי‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם‬9 ‫יהם‬ ‫ּופ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬ ִ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ָל ֶל ֶכת הּוא‬ ‫אמר לֹו ח ְֹתנֹו ֲא ִבי‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וְ נַ ֲערֹו וַ ּי‬ ‫ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ִהּנֵ ה נָ א ָר ָפה ַהּיֹום‬ ‫ַל ֲער ֹב ִלינּו־נָ א ִהּנֵ ה ֲחנֹות‬ ‫יטב ְל ָב ֶבָך‬ ַ ִ‫ַהּיֹום ִלין ּפֹה וְ י‬ ‫וְ ִה ְׁש ַּכ ְמ ֶּתם ָמ ָחר ְל ַד ְר ְּכ ֶכם‬ ‫א־א ָבה‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬10aA ‫וְ ָה ַל ְכ ָּת ְלא ָֹה ֶלָך‬ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ָללּון וַ ּיָ ָקם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬

As previously discussed, the episode of the Levite’s stay in Bethlehem in 19:3b– 10 is structured on a “3+1 day” framework.45 The Levite spends three nights with his father-in-law and then awakens early in the morning on the fourth day to leave Bethlehem (19:5a). The “3+1 day” structure is then broken in 19:7–10 when the father-in-law entreats the Levite to spend a fourth and fifth night with him. From a literary perspective, this break in the “3+1 day” structure can be explained as a “surprise” ending that adds an unexpected element of suspense to the story. However, the question arises whether this break in the “3+1 day” structure is integral to the earliest composition stratum or represents a redactional interpolation. Moore observed that the speeches addressed to the Levite by his father-inlaw on the fourth and fifth day contain doublet phrases. In the speech on the fourth day, the host says, “Sustain your heart” (19:5b) and “And may your heart be glad” (19:6b). Both of these phrases are repeated in the speech on the fifth day in 19:8a.9b. Moore argues that a redactor expanded the narrative to include a fifth day by interpolating new material between the noon meal on the fourth day and the morning of the fifth day.46 Moore delimits the underlying

45 46

See discussion in Chapter 3, Section 2.4 supra. Contra Burney, Gray and Edenburg.

247

Compositional History of Judges 19

composition stratum and the redaction stratum as follows; the presumed doublet verses are in bold type: Earliest Composition Stratum 19:5aAnd it came to pass that it was the fourth day. And they awakened early in the morning. And he rose up to go. 5bBut the father of the girl said to his son-in-law: “Sustain your heart (‫ ) ִל ְּב ָך‬with a morsel of bread and afterward you may go.” 6aAnd they sat. And they ate, the two of them together. And they drank. 9aAnd the man rose up to go, he, and his concubine, and his servant boy. […] 9bBut his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him: “Behold! The day has withdrawn to become evening. Please! Stay the night! Behold, please! The day is preparing its camp. Stay the night here! And may your heart (‫ ) ְלבָ ְב ָך‬be glad. And you will awaken early tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent.” 10aBut the man was not willing to stay the night. And he rose up. And he went. And he came near to Jebus […].

Redaction Stratum 19:6bAnd the father of the girl said to the man: Please agree! Spend the night! And may your heart (‫)לִ ְּב ָך‬ be glad. 7aAnd the man rose up to go. 7bBut his father-in-law urged him strongly. And he came back. And he spent the night there. 8aAnd he awakened early in the morning on the fifth day, to go. But the father of the girl said: “Please! Sustain your heart (‫ ”!)לְ בָ ְב ָך‬Wait until the stretching forth of the day!” 8bAnd the two of them ate.

Moore does not explain his delimitation of the redactional interpolation. It can be inferred that Moore’s methodology consists of assigning the doublet phrases “Sustain your heart” (19:5b=8a) and “And may your heart be glad” (19:6b=9b) to different composition strata, and then reconstructing the earliest composition stratum so that it read as a coherent whole. I agree with Moore that the expansion of the narrative unit in 19:3b–10 to include a fifth day is a redactional interpolation. However, I propose to delimit the interpolation as 19:7–9 rather than 19:6b–8a as proposed by Moore. This hypothesis is supported by three arguments. First, the two phrases in 19:5b.8a and 19:6b.9b that Moore argues are doublets are not in fact lexically identical. It can be observed that the word translated as “heart” in 19:5b.6b is a different lexeme than the one used in 19:8a.9b. The former verses use ‫ ֵלב‬while the latter verses use ‫ ֵל ָבב‬.47 47

Both lexemes are translated in LXXAB Judges 19 as καρδία.

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Judg 19:5bSustain your heart!

‫ ְס ָעד ִל ְּבָך‬Judg 19:5b

‫ ְס ָעד־נָ א ְל ָב ְבָך‬Judg 19:8a Judg 19:8aPlease, sustain your heart!

‫וְ יִ ַטב ִל ֶּבָך‬Judg 19:6b Judg 19:6bAnd may your heart be glad!

‫יטב ְל ָב ֶבָך‬ ַ ִ‫וְ י‬Judg 19:9b Judg 19:9bAnd may your heart be glad!

This phenomenon can be explained in two ways. First, a single author composed the unit 19:3b–10aB and decided to vary the vocabulary referring to “your heart.” Second, each lexeme forms part of the lexical registry of a different composition stratum. Although the first possibility cannot be excluded, it seems more likely to me that the second possibility is the more likely.48 If this hypothesis is correct, it is reasonable to assign the ‫ ֵלב‬verses (19:5b.6b) to one stratum and the ‫ ֵל ָבב‬verses (19:8a.9b) to another stratum.49 Second, the thematic similarity between the phrase ‫ וְ יִ ַטב ִל ֶּבָך‬in 19:6b and ‫יטב ְל ָב ֶבָך‬ ַ ִ‫ וְ י‬in 19:9b can be interpreted as an example of the literary technique of Wiederaufnahme.50 This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the two uses of ‫ ֵל ָבב‬occur in the interpolated material in 19:7a–9bA between Wiederaufnahmen. Third, it can be noted that the lexeme ‫( ִּופ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬his concubine) is only used once in the narrative unit 19:3b–10, in 19:8b. As this verse forms part of the redactional interpolation identified on the basis of the criteria of a change in lexical registry and use of Wiederaufnahme, this provides independent support for the hypothesis that all references to the Levite’s woman as a concubine should be attributed to a redactor. 1.6 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 19:1– 10aB as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 1.6.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 19:1b–10aB My reconstruction of the N text is set out below.

48 49 50

Although both lexemes ‫ ֵלב‬and ‫ ֵל ָבב‬are used frequently in the MT, it can be noted that while ‫ ֵלב‬is used 14 times in Judges (including four times in Judges 19–21), ‫ ֵל ָבב‬is attested only twice in Judges, in the two verses in question, 19:8a.9b. Contra Moore. See discussion of the literary technique of Wiederaufnahme in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.7 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

249

19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a […] man ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש […] ַה‬1b‎ […] in the hill country of Ephraim. And he took ‫וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה […] ִמ ֵּבית‬ for himself a […] wife from Bethlehem […]. 2aAnd ]‫[וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר‬2a ]…[ ‫ֶל ֶחם‬ she […] was furious with him. And she went away ‫ל־ּבית‬ ֵ ‫ָע ָליו וַ ֵּת ֶלְך ֵמ ִאּתֹו ֶא‬ from him to the house of her father […]. 2bAnd ָ ‫ָא ִב‬ ‫יָמים‬ ִ ‫י־ׁשם‬ ָ ‫וַ ְּת ִה‬2b ]…[ ‫יה‬ she was there the days of four months. 3aAnd ‫יׁשּה‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬3a ‫ַא ְר ָּב ָעה ֳח ָד ִׁשים‬ her husband rose up. And he went after her to ‫ל־ל ָּבּה‬ ִ ‫יה ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר‬ reason with her, to change her mind.51 And his ‫ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו […] וְ נַ ֲערֹו ִעּמֹו וְ ֶצ ֶמד‬ servant boy was with him and a pair of donkeys. ‫יה‬ ָ ‫יאהּו ֵּבית ָא ִב‬ ֵ ‫וַ ְּת ִב‬3b ‫ֲחמ ִֹרים‬ 3bAnd she brought him into to the house of her ‫וַ ּיִ ְר ֵאהּו ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה וַ ּיִ ְׂש ַמח‬ father. And the father of the girl saw him. And ‫וַ ּיֶ ֱחזַ ק־ּבֹו ח ְֹתנֹו ֲא ִבי‬4a ‫ִל ְק ָראתֹו‬ he rejoiced to meet him. 4aAnd his father-in‫יָמים‬ ִ ‫ֹלׁשת‬ ֶ ‫ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב ִאּתֹו ְׁש‬ law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him. And ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו וַ ּיָ ִלינּו ָׁשם‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬4b he dwelled with him three days. 4bAnd they ate ‫יעי וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו‬ ִ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיֹום ָה ְר ִב‬5a and they drank. And they spent the night there. ‫אמר‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬5b ‫ַבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיָ ָקם ָל ֶל ֶכת‬ 5aAnd it came to pass that it was the fourth day. ‫ל־ח ָתנֹו ְס ָעד‬ ֲ ‫ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ֶא‬ And they awakened early in the morning. And he ‫ת־ל ֶחם וְ ַא ַחר ֵּת ֵלכּו‬ ֶ ‫ִל ְּבָך ַּפ‬ rose up to go. 5bBut the father of the girl said to ‫יהם יַ ְח ָּדו‬ ֶ ֵ‫אכלּו ְׁשנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו וַ ּי‬6a his son-in-law: “Sustain your heart with a mor‫אמר ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬6b ]…[ sel of bread and afterward you may go.” 6aAnd ‫הֹואל־נָ א וְ ִלין וְ יִ ַטב‬ ֶ ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ they sat. And they ate, the two of them together ‫וְ ִה ְׁש ַּכ ְמ ֶּתם ָמ ָחר‬9bB ‫ִל ֶּבָך‬ […]. 6bAnd the father of the girl said to the man: ‫ְל ַד ְר ְּכ ֶכםוְ ָה ַל ְכ ָּת ְלא ָֹה ֶלָך‬ “Please agree! Spend the night! And may your ‫א־א ָבה ָה ִאיׁש ָללּון וַ ּיָ ָקם‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬10aA heart be glad.” 9bBAnd you will awaken early ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬ tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent.” 10aABut the man was not willing to stay the night. 10aBAnd he rose up. And he went. The earliest composition stratum in 19:1b–10aB (which I will hereafter refer to as “N”) tells a story about an unnamed husband and wife. The man is from the hill country of Ephraim and the woman is from Bethlehem. The wife becomes furious with him (‫ )[וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר] ָע ָליו‬and returns to her father’s house.52 The husband waits four months and then travels to Bethlehem in order, according to MT Ketiv 19:3a, ‫ל־ל ָּבּה ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬ ִ ‫( ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬to reason with her and change her mind). As there is no mention of children, the reader can assume that the couple are newlyweds. 51 52

The translation “to change her mind” follows the Ketiv rather than the Qere. See the discussion of the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫ עבר‬in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.1, and Section 1.3 supra.

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The portrayal of the young couple is unflattering in N. The narrator describes the Levite’s reaction to his wife’s abandonment of the conjugal domicile as “And her husband rose up. And he went after her” rather than as “And he rose up. And he went after his wife.” The phrase ‫( וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר ָיה‬And he went after her) conveys an image of a man running after a woman. There are very few passages in the HB that portray a man as walking “behind” or “after” a woman; in the passages that do, this behavior is presented as shameful or degrading. In Proverbs, a man who visits a prostitute is described as “going after her (‫הֹולְך‬ ֵ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫) ַא ֲח ֶר‬, as an ox goes to slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose” (Prov 7:22). When David sends men to bring him his former wife Michal (Saul’s daughter), Michal’s then husband, Paltiel, “accompanied her as far as Bahurin, walking and weeping after her” (‫ד־ּב ֻח ִרים‬ ַ ‫יה ַע‬ ָ ‫ּובכֹה ַא ֲח ֶר‬ ָ ‫יׁשּה ָהלֹוְך‬ ָ ‫)וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ִא ָּתּה ִא‬. Then Abner said to him, ‘Go back home!’ So, he went back” (2 Sam 3:16). The context suggests that Paltiel’s behavior in “going and weeping after her” is unbecoming of a man. It should be noted that the text does not say that “Paltiel accompanied her” or “he accompanied her,” but rather “her husband accompanied her (‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬ ָ ‫)וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬. In ‫יׁשּה‬ ָ ‫) ִא ָּתּה ִא‬.” This is the same way N refers to the Levite in 19:3a (‫יׁשּה‬ addition, when the Levite arrives at his father-in-law’s house, it is his wife who meets him at the door and invites him to enter into her father’s house (19:3b). In a traditional patriarchal culture, the front door is not a woman’s place. In Proverbs, it is the prostitute who lingers in her doorway inviting in passers-by.53 In conclusion, N’s narrator in 19:3a is signaling to the reader at the outset of the narrative that the Levite and his wife are not an exemplary young couple. In modern terms, it could be said that the man and the women engage in “genderbending” behavior. The Levite’s stay in Bethlehem is structured as a “3+1 day” narrative. After three days of eating and drinking, the Levite rises up to leave “early in the morning” on the fourth day. However, his father-in-law convinces him to share a midday meal. The Levite accedes. The father-in-law then invites the Levite to spend a fourth night. The Levite refuses and leaves Bethlehem late in the day, an inopportune time to begin a long journey on foot. The fault for this mistake in judgment thus lies with the Levite. The father-in-law’s offer to spend a fourth day can be interpreted as a customary sign of hospitality to which the guest is expected to refuse politely. From a literary perspective, it can be noted that the N material lacks the elements of surprise and suspense that can be observed in the final version of the text. At this point in the analysis of the text, there are no textual indicia that shed light on the dating of the N stratum.

53

See, e.g., Prov 7:13–15.

A

Compositional History of Judges 19

251

1.6.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 19:1b–10aB The redactional interpolations of R1 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a […] man […] in the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine-wife from Bethlehem […]. 2aAnd she was furious with him. And she went away from him to the house of her father […]. 2bAnd she was there the days of four months. 3aAnd her husband rose up. And he went after her to speak to her heart, to marry her.54 And his servant boy was with him and a pair of donkeys. 3bAnd she brought him into to the house of her father. And the father of the girl saw him. And he rejoiced to meet him. 4aAnd his father-in-law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him. And he dwelled with him three days. 4bAnd they ate and they drank. And they spent the night there. 5aAnd it came to pass that it was the fourth day. And they awakened early in the morning. And he rose up to go. 5bBut the father of the girl said to his son-inlaw: “Sustain your heart [with] a morsel of bread and afterward you may go.” 6aAnd they sat. And they ate, the two of them together […]. 6bAnd the father of the girl said to the man: “Please agree! Spend the night! And may your heart be glad.” 7aAnd the man rose up to go. 7bBut his father-inlaw urged him strongly. And he came back. And he spent the night there. 8aAnd he awakened early in the morning on the fifth day, to go. But the father of the girl said: “Please! Sustain your heart!” Wait until the stretching forth of the day!” 8bAnd the two of them ate. 9aAnd the man rose up to go, he, and his concubine, and his servant boy. 9bABut his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him: “Behold! The day has withdrawn to become evening. Please! Stay the night! Behold, please! The day is preparing its 54

‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש […] ַה‬‎1b ‫וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה ִפילֶ ג ֶׁש ִמ ֵּבית‬ ‫[וַ ַּת ְת ַע ֵּבר] ָע ָליו‬2a ]…[ ‫ֶל ֶחם‬ ‫ל־ּבית‬ ֵ ‫[…] וַ ֵּת ֶלְך ֵמ ִאּתֹו ֶא‬ ‫יָמים‬ ִ ‫י־ׁשם‬ ָ ‫יה […] וַ ְּת ִה‬ ָ ‫ָא ִב‬ ‫יׁשּה‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬3a ‫ַא ְר ָּב ָעה ֳח ָד ִׁשים‬ ‫ל־ל ָּבּה‬ ִ ‫יה ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר‬ ‫[לְ ה ִֹׁשיבָ ּה] וְ נַ ֲערֹו ִעּמֹו וְ ֶצ ֶמד‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫יאהּו ֵּבית ָא ִב‬ ֵ ‫וַ ְּת ִב‬3b ‫ֲחמ ִֹרים‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְר ֵאהּו ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה וַ ּיִ ְׂש ַמח‬ ‫וַ ּיֶ ֱחזַ ק־ּבֹו ח ְֹתנֹו ֲא ִבי‬4a ‫ִל ְק ָראתֹו‬ ‫יָמים‬ ִ ‫ֹלׁשת‬ ֶ ‫ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב ִאּתֹו ְׁש‬ ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו וַ ּיָ ִלינּו ָׁשם‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬4b ‫יעי וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו‬ ִ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיֹום ָה ְר ִב‬a5a ‫אמר‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬5b ‫ַבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיָ ָקם ָל ֶל ֶכת‬ ‫ל־ח ָתנֹו ְס ָעד‬ ֲ ‫ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ֶא‬ ‫ת־ל ֶחם וְ ַא ַחר ֵּת ֵלכּו‬ ֶ ‫ִל ְּבָך ַּפ‬ ‫יהם יַ ְח ָּדו‬ ֶ ֵ‫אכלּו ְׁשנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו וַ ּי‬6a ‫אמר ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬6b ]…[ ‫הֹואל־נָ א וְ ִלין וְ יִ ַטב‬ ֶ ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫יש לָ לֶ כֶ ת‬ ׁ ‫וַ ּי ָָקם הָ ִא‬7a ‫ִל ֶּבָך‬ ‫ָשב וַ ּיָלֶ ן‬ ָ ׁ ‫ר־בוֹ ח ְֹת ֹנו וַ ּי‬ ּ ַ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפצ‬7b ‫וַ ּי ְַׁש ּ ֵכם ּ ַב ּב ֶֹקר ּ ַביּוֹ ם‬8a ‫ׁ ָשם‬ ‫ֹאמר א ֲִבי‬ ֶ ‫ישי לָ לֶ כֶ ת וַ ּי‬ ִׁ ‫הַ ח ֲִמ‬ ‫הַ ּנַעֲ ָרה ְס ָעד־נָא לְ בָ ְב ָך‬ ‫וְ ִה ְת ַמ ְה ְמה ּו ַעד־נְ טוֹ ת הַ יּוֹ ם‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫וַ ּי ָָקם הָ ִא‬9a ‫ֹאכל ּו ְׁשנֵיהֶ ם‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬8b ֹ‫לָ לֶ כֶ ת הוּא ו ִּפילַ גְ ׁשוֹ וְ נַעֲ רו‬ ‫ֹאמר לוֹ ח ְֹת ֹנו א ֲִבי‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬9bA ‫הַ ּנַעֲ ָרה ִה ּנֵה נָא ָרפָ ה הַ יּוֹ ם‬ ‫ֲנות הַ י ֹּום‬ ֹ ‫לַ עֲ רֹב לִ ינוּ־נָא ִה ּנֵה ח‬ ‫יטב לְ בָ בֶ ָך‬ ַ ִ‫לִ ין ּפֹה וְ י‬

‫וְ ִה ְׁש ַּכ ְמ ֶּתם ָמ ָחר ְל ַד ְר ְּכ ֶכם‬9bB ‫א־א ָבה‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬10aA ‫וְ ָה ַל ְכ ָּת ְלא ָֹה ֶלָך‬ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ָללּון וַ ּיָ ָקם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬

The translation “to marry her” follows the Qere ‫ להׁשיבה‬vocalized as ‫יבּה‬ ָ ‫ ְלה ִֹׁש‬rather than as ‫יבּה‬ ָ ‫ ַל ֲה ִׁש‬as per BHS and BHQ.

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camp. Stay the night here! And may your heart be glad. 9bBAnd you will awaken early tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent.” 10aABut the man was not willing to stay the night. 10aBAnd he rose up. And he went. The R1 composition stratum alters the plotline in the N stratum in a number of ways. First, the woman’s marital status is changed from wife to concubine. Second, the rewriting of ‫ להׁשיבו‬as ‫ להׁשיבה‬in 19:3a introduces the possibility of reading the Qere as either ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to bring her back) or ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her). LXXA appears to understand the vocalization as being ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her).55 The purpose of these two changes is to portray the male protagonist in a better light. He is transformed from a married man who wants to convince his wife who has abandoned the conjugal home to return, into an unmarried man who goes to the house of the father of his girlfriend in order to marry her. The LXXA interpretation of ‫ ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬tends to support Schulz’s argument that ‫ ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬should be interpreted to mean something other than a secondary wife. As discussed, she proposes the adjective “geliebte” (beloved) and translates ‫ ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬as “geliebte (Frau).”56 I would suggest that ‫ ִפ ֶילגֶ ׁש‬is used in Judges 19 as a noun which can be translated as lover (Geliebte) or girlfriend, thereby implying that the man and the woman are cohabiting but not married.57 Second, R1 adds an additional day to the “3+1” day structure of the Levite’s visit to Bethlehem in N. This addition serves a number of purposes. First, it permits R1 to add commentary to the underlying composition stratum. After the N phrase, “And the father of the girl said to the man: ‘Please agree! Spend the night! And may your heart be glad’” in 19:6b, R1 interpolates, “And the man rose up to go. But his father-in-law urged him strongly (‫)וַ ּיִ ְפ ַצר־ּבֹו‬. And he came back. And he spent the night.” The phrase ‫ וַ ּיִ ְפ ַצר־ּבֹו‬creates an implication that the father-in-law is being overbearing rather than simply hospitable

55 56 57

See discussion of LXXA 19:3a in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.2 supra. See discussion of Schulz’s position in Section 1.1 supra. It can be noted that the interpretation of ‫ילגֶ ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ ִפ‬to mean unmarried lover is supported by the curious use of the lexeme in Ezek 23:20 to refer to the male lovers of the Babylonian officers with whom Jerusalem had already had sexual relations. See discussion in Section 1.2 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

253

as in N. The Levite’s acquiescence to spend another night casts the protagonist as a “good son-in-law.” R1 thus subtly shifts responsibility for the inopportune departure from Bethlehem late in the day from the Levite, as in N, to the father-in-law. The fifth day scene also permits R1 to clarify that the Levite left Bethlehem late in the afternoon, an inopportune time to start a long journey on foot. While N leaves it to the reader to deduce that the sharing of a morsel of bread in 19:6a was in fact a midday meal, R1 makes this explicit. After the meal on the fifth day, the father-in-law says, “Behold! The day has withdrawn to become evening. Please stay the night! Behold, please! The day is preparing its camp. Stay the night here” (19:9b). With this interpolation, even an inattentive reader understands that the timing of the Levite’s departure is inauspicious. At this point in the analysis of the text, it can be concluded that the material assigned to R1 is later than N in relative dating; however, there are no textual indicia that shed light on the absolute dating of the R1 stratum of 19:1b–10aB.58 1.6.3 Second and Third Redaction Strata of Judges 19:1b–10aB I will argue below that a second redaction stratum (R2) can be identified in parts of Judges 19–21; however, this stratum is not present in 19:1b–10aA. The redactional interpolations in 19:1b–10aA that I propose to assign to R3 are indicated in bold type. 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine-wife, from Bethlehem of Judah. 2aAnd his concubine transgressed against him. And she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah. 2bAnd she was 58

‫וַ יְ ִהי ִאיׁש לֵ וִ י ָּגר ְּביַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי‬‎1b ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם וַ ּיִ ַּקח־לֹו ִא ָּׁשה‬ ֶ ‫ַה‬ ‫ילגֶ ׁש ִמ ֵּבית ֶל ֶחם יְ הו ָּדה‬ ֶ ‫ִפ‬ ַ ּ 2a ‫ות ַע ְב ִרי ָע ָליו ּ ִפילַ גְ ׁשוֹ וַ ֵּת ֶלְך‬ ‫ל־בית‬ ֵ ּ ֶ‫יה א‬ ָ ‫ל־ּבית ָא ִב‬ ֵ ‫ֵמ ִאּתֹו ֶא‬ ‫יָמים‬ ִ ‫י־ׁשם‬ ָ ‫וַ ְּת ִה‬2b ‫לֶ חֶ ם יְ הו ָּדה‬ ‫יׁשּה‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ִא‬3a ‫ַא ְר ָּב ָעה ֳח ָד ִׁשים‬

As noted by Kratz, “The question of whether or not a text is primary or secondary should not be decided by absolute dating or historical speculations. These can only be postulated but not proven and therefore remain hypothetical. For this reason, I advocate a strict differentiation between the relative chronology of the text genesis and the absolute dating and historical classification of a text. Where both levels of arguments are mixed together, one enters into a circle which cannot be reconstructed in the text and only consists of statements of belief.” Reinhard G. Kratz, “Nahash, King of the Ammonites, in the Deuteronomistic History” in Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East: What Does Documented Evidence Tell Us about the Transmission of Authoritative Texts? (ed. R. Müller and J. Pakkala; Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 185.

b

ba

254 there the days of four months. 3aAnd her husband rose up. And he went after her to speak to her heart, to bring her back. And his servant boy was with him and a pair of donkeys. 3bAnd she brought him into to the house of her father. And the father of the girl saw him. And he rejoiced to meet him. 4aAnd his father-in-law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him. And he dwelled with him three days. 4bAnd they ate and they drank. And they spent the night there. 5aAnd it came to pass that it was the fourth day. And they awakened early in the morning. And he rose up to go. 5bBut the father of the girl said to his son-in-law: “Sustain your heart [with] a morsel of bread and afterward you may go.” 6aAnd they sat. And they ate, the two of them together. And they drank. 6bAnd the father of the girl said to the man: “Please agree! Spend the night! And may your heart be glad.” 7aAnd the man rose up to go. 7bBut his father-in-law urged him strongly. And he came back. And he spent the night there. 8aAnd he awakened early in the morning on the fifth day, to go. But the father of the girl said: “Please! Sustain your inner-person!” Wait until the stretching forth of the day!” 8bAnd the two of them ate. 9aAnd the man rose up to go, he, and his concubine, and his servant boy. 9bBut his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him: “Behold! The day has withdrawn to become evening. Please! Stay the night! Behold, please! The day is preparing its camp. Stay the night here! And may your inner-person be glad. And you will awaken early tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent.” 10aABut the man was not willing to stay the night. 10aBAnd he rose up. And he went.

chapter 9

‫ל־ל ָּבּה‬ ִ ‫יה ְל ַד ֵּבר ַע‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ַא ֲח ֶר‬ ִׁ ַ‫ל‬ ‫הֲשיבָ ּה וְ נַ ֲערֹו ִעּמֹו וְ ֶצ ֶמד‬ ‫יאהּו ֵּבית‬ ֵ ‫וַ ְּת ִב‬3b ‫ֲחמ ִֹרים‬ ‫יה וַ ּיִ ְר ֵאהּו ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה‬ ָ ‫ָא ִב‬ ‫וַ ּיֶ ֱחזַ ק־ּבֹו‬4a ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂש ַמח ִל ְק ָראתֹו‬ ‫ח ְֹתנֹו ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב ִאּתֹו‬ ִ ‫ֹלׁשת‬ ֶ ‫ְׁש‬ ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬b4b ‫יָמים‬ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיֹום‬5a ‫וַ ּיָ ִלינּו ָׁשם‬ ‫יעי וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו ַבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיָ ָקם‬ ִ ‫ָה ְר ִב‬ b ‫ָל ֶל ֶכת‬ ‫אמר ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬5b ‫ל־ח ָתנֹו ְס ָעד ִל ְּבָך ַּפת־‬ ֲ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו‬6a ‫ֶל ֶחם וְ ַא ַחר ֵּת ֵלכּו‬ ‫יהם יַ ְח ָּדו וַ ִ ּי ְׁש ּת ּו‬ ֶ ֵ‫אכלּו ְׁשנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫אמר ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ֶאל־‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬6b ‫הֹואל־נָ א וְ ִלין וְ יִ ַטב‬ ֶ ‫ָה ִאיׁש‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ָה ִאיׁש ָל ֶל ֶכת‬7a ‫ִל ֶּבָך‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפ ַצר־ּבֹו ח ְֹתנֹו וַ ּיָ ָׁשב‬7b ‫וַ ּיַ ְׁש ֵּכם ַּבּב ֶֹקר‬8a ‫וַ ּיָ ֶלן ָׁשם‬ ‫אמר‬ ֶ ֹ ‫יׁשי ָל ֶל ֶכת וַ ּי‬ ִ ‫ַּבּיֹום ַה ֲח ִמ‬ ‫ֲא ִבי ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ְס ָעד־נָ א ְל ָב ְבָך‬ ‫וְ ִה ְת ַמ ְה ְמהּו ַעד־נְ טֹות ַהּיֹום‬ ֶ ֵ‫אכלּו ְׁשנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬8b ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם‬9a ‫יהם‬ ‫ּופ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬ ִ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ָל ֶל ֶכת הּוא‬ ‫אמר לֹו ח ְֹתנֹו ֲא ִבי‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬9b ‫וְ נַ ֲערֹו‬ ‫ַהּנַ ֲע ָרה ִהּנֵ ה נָ א ָר ָפה ַהּיֹום‬ ‫ַל ֲער ֹב ִלינּו־נָ א ִהּנֵ ה ֲחנֹות ַהּיֹום‬ ‫יטב ְל ָב ֶבָך וְ ִה ְׁש ַּכ ְמ ֶּתם‬ ַ ִ‫ִלין ּפֹה וְ י‬ ‫ָמ ָחר ְל ַד ְר ְּכ ֶכם וְ ָה ַל ְכ ָּת ְלא ָֹה ֶלָך‬ ‫א־א ָבה ָה ִאיׁש ָללּון‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬10aA ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬

R3’s interpolations are limited. He introduces (i) the lexeme “Levite” to qualify the male protagonist in 19:1b; (ii) the lexeme “of Judah” after Bethlehem in relation to the woman’s hometown in 19:1b; (iii) the replacement of the Hitpa‘el

Compositional History of Judges 19

255

form of the verb ‫ עבר‬by the Qal form with the meaning “and she transgressed” in 19:2a; (iv) the syntagma “to Bethlehem of Judah” to qualify the location of the father-in-law’s house in 19:2a; (v) the change in vocalization of the second infinitive construct phrase in 19:3a from ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her) to ‫ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬ (to bring her back) and (vi) the phrase “And they drank” at the end of 19:6a. The description of the protagonist as a Levite introduces a thematic “blind motif” into the narrative as his Levitical status will not be mentioned again in Judges 19.59 Indeed, 19:1b is the only verse in Judges 19 in which the protagonist is called a Levite. Similarly, the description of the woman as being “from Bethlehem of Judah” is not developed in the narrative. I have argued that R3’s purpose in introducing these two blind motifs is to create an intertextual link between Judges 19 and the preceding narratives in Judges 17–18 in which a “Levite lad” and the toponym “Bethlehem of Judah” figure prominently. This example of intertextuality suggests that the R3 stratum was interpolated after Judges 19–21 had already been added as an appendix to the book of Judges. The interpolation of the phrase “and they drank” at the end of 19:6a can be explained as an attempt to harmonize 19:6a with 19:4a and to emphasize that the sharing of a morsel of bread was a long midday meal rather than a quick early morning breakfast. R3’s emendation of the phrase “And she was furious with him” in N to “And his concubine transgressed against him” represents a significant change to the narrative. To the modern reader, the change appears to introduce a blind motif as the woman’s “transgression” (presumably adultery, as per Pseudo-Philo) will not be mentioned again. However, the motif of the woman’s adultery would, in my opinion, have been understood by an ancient reader as a functional element of the narrative intrigue. It can reasonably be argued that R3 interpolated the phrase “and his concubine transgressed against him” in order to lay the theological groundwork for the woman’s gang-rape and murder later in the narrative. In the Chronicler’s theology of retributive justice, every misfortune that befalls a person can be explained as a consequence of a moral failure committed by that person earlier in his or her life.60 For example, it is reported in 1 Ki 14:25, “In the fifth year of Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt marched against Jerusalem.” The Chronicler cites this phrase in 2 Ch 12:2, but adds, “for they had been unfaithful to YHWH.” Similarly, 1 Ki 20:49 states, “Edom has been in rebellion against Judah […] Libnah has rebelled against him.” The Chronicler cites 59 60

The protagonist will be called “the Levite” one more time, in Judg 20:4a, in a unit that will be attributed to a redactor. See discussion in Chapter 10, Section 1.5 infra. Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1989), 456.

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these phrases in 2 Ch 21:10 but adds “because he had forsaken YHWH God of his fathers.”61 R3’s interpolation of the phrase “and his concubine transgressed against him” is similarly intended to provide a theological explanation for the woman’s death. If my hypothesis is correct, it provides the first clue that R3 should be dated no earlier than the time of the Chronicler. 2

Compositional History of Judges 19:10aC–21

From a structural perspective, 19:10aC–21 is a continuation of 19:1b–10aB. It can be observed that beginning in 19:5, the narrative is structured as a series of Wayyiqtol phrases interspersed with extensive dialog. This pattern continues through 19:21. However, the pace of the narrative slows down progressively between 19:5 and 19:21. The first three days in Bethlehem are described in 19:3b–4 (21 words). The fourth day is presented in 19:5–7 (32 words). The fifth day is the longest. It begins in 19:8a with “And he awakened early in the morning on the fifth day” and only reaches the point of an evening meal in 19:21. The events of this long fifth day have already been shown to have been expanded by R1 in 19:7–9. They will be expanded further by redactors at various points in 19:10aC–21. This gradual slowing down of the speed of the narrative intrigue will continue until 19:22 when the narrative pace will dramatically shift. 2.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:10aC–21 Moore identifies two literary problems in 19:10aC–21. First, he notes that the Levite responds twice to the servant boy’s request to spend the night in Jebus; first in 19:12 and again in 19:13. Moore assigns the first line of the Levite’s dialog to his pre-exilic composition stratum and the second to his RD. Second, Moore also assigns 19:15a (“And they made a detour there, to come to spend the night in Gibeah”) to RD. Moore does not provide an explanation for either of these proposed redactional interpolations. Burney assigns all of 19:10–21 to J, with the exception of 19:13–14, which he attributes to his second source, X. Although Burney does not provide an explanation, it can be inferred that (i) he follows Moore’s position that the Levite’s second line of dialog should be attributed to a different stratum than the first and (ii) he views 19:14 and 19:15a as doublets to be distributed between the first and second sources. Burney’s argument in favor of the two-source model in 19:10aC–21 is significantly weakened by the fact that 19:13–14 – the only verses assigned to the second source – are fragmentary and are not connected to the 61

NAS translations; these two examples from Chronicles are noted by Japhet. Ibid., p. 451.

Compositional History of Judges 19

257

prior material Burney has assigned to that source. Gray and Soggin, the other two proponents of the “two-source” model under discussion in this chapter, do not address the compositional history of 19:10aC–21. Arnold, the most recent proponent of the “single pre-exilic author” model sees little redactional activity in 19:10aC–21. Contrary to Moore and Burney, he treats both of the Levite’s speeches to the servant boy as part of the earliest composition stratum. He also attributes the supposedly doublet phrases in 19:14.15a to the earliest composition stratum. However, he assigns the ’asher subordinate clause at the end of 19:12a ([a city] “where they are not sons of Israel”) as well as 19:12b (“And we shall move on to Gibeah”) to RP, without explanation. Schulz treats 19:12b as a “Theologische Korrektur” introduced by a later redactor and assigns 19:16b to the same redactor who added Judges 20* as a continuation of Judges 19. Edenburg assigns the entire narrative unit to the earliest composition stratum without discussion. 2.2

Judges 19:10aC–15

Judg 19:10aCAnd he came near Jebus (that is, ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ַעד־נ ַֹכח יְבּוס ִהיא‬10c‎ Jerusalem). 10bAnd with him was the pair of ‫מֹורים‬ ִ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ וְ ִעּמֹו ֶצ ֶמד ֲח‬ ָ ְ‫י‬ saddled donkeys. And his concubine was with ִ ‫בּוׁשים‬ ִ ‫ֲח‬ ‫ ֵהם‬11 ‫ּופ ַילגְ ׁשֹו ִעּמֹו‬ him. 11aThey were close by Jebus. And the day, it ‫ִעם־יְבּוס וְ ַהּיֹום ַרד ְמאֹד‬ was very subdued. 11bAnd the servant boy said to ‫ל־אד ֹנָ יו ְל ָכה־‬ ֲ ‫אמר ַהּנַ ַער ֶא‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ his lord: “Go! Please, let us detour into this city of ‫יְבּוסי‬ ִ ‫יר־ה‬ ַ ‫ל־ע‬ ִ ‫סּורה ֶא‬ ָ ָ‫ּנָ א וְ נ‬ the Jebusites. And let us spend the night there.” ‫אמר ֵא ָליו‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬12 ‫ַהּזֹאת וְ נָ ִלין ָּבּה‬ 12aAnd his lord said to him: “We shall not detour ‫ל־עיר נָ ְכ ִרי‬ ִ ‫ֲאד ֹנָ יו לֹא נָ סּור ֶא‬ into a foreign city where they are not sons of Israel. ‫א־מ ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵהּנָ ה‬ ִ ֹ ‫ֲא ֶׁשר ל‬ 12bAnd we shall move on to Gibeah.” 13aAnd he said ‫אמר‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬13 ‫וְ ָע ַב ְרנּו ַעד־ּגִ ְב ָעה‬ to his servant boy: “Go! And we shall draw near to ‫ְלנַ ֲערֹו ְלָך וְ נִ ְק ְר ָבה ְּב ַא ַחד‬ one of the places. 13bAnd we shall spend the night ‫ַה ְּמקֹמֹות וְ ַלּנּו ַבּגִ ְב ָעה אֹו‬ in Gibeah or Ramah.” 14aAnd they moved on. And ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְברּו וַ ּיֵ ֵלכּו וַ ָּתבֹא‬14 ‫ָב ָר ָמה‬ they went. 14bAnd the sun went down on them, ‫ָל ֶהם ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש ֵא ֶצל ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ near Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin. 15aAnd they ִ ְ‫ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ֻסרּו ָׁשם‬15 ‫יָמן‬ made a detour there, to come to spend the night ‫ָלבֹוא ָללּון ַּבּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיָבֹא‬ in Gibeah. 15bAnd he came. And he sat in the town ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב ִּב ְרחֹוב ָה ִעיר וְ ֵאין ִאיׁש‬ square. But there was no man gathering them into ‫ף־אֹותם ַה ַּביְ ָתה ָללּון‬ ָ ‫ְמ ַא ֵּס‬ the house to spend the night. It will be recalled that the Levite and his entourage left Bethlehem in the afternoon, too late to return to the Levite’s home in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim in a single day. The group must spend the night somewhere along

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the route and continue their journey the following day. The last phrase of the previous unit is “But the man was not willing to stay the night. And he rose up. And he went” (19:10aB). It can be observed that the verb ‫ ָה ַלְך‬is next used in 19:14a: “And they moved on. And they went.” The possibility should therefore be considered that ‫ וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬in 19:10aA and ‫ וַ ּיֵ ֵלכּו‬in 19:14a represent Wiederaufnahmen. If this hypothesis is correct, the intervening material in 19:10aC–14a – that includes the two sets of dialog between the Levite and his servant boy and introduces the toponyms Jebus, Gibeah and Ramah – could be interpreted as a redactional interpolation. This position is supported by two arguments. First, from a literary perspective, the material in 19:10aC–14a can be characterized as a digression. The servant boy will not speak again, and the towns of Jebus and Ramah will not be mentioned again, in Judges 19–21. It can thus reasonably be argued that the purpose of the episode is to slow down the forward thrust of the plotline with an enjoyable digression that helps develop the reader’s understanding of the Levite’s character. As a digression could have been introduced by the author of the earliest composition stratum as well as by a redactor, further indicia of redactional activity are needed before a literary digression can be assigned to a redaction stratum. Second, the lexical registry in 19:10aC–14a contains verbs, lexemes and syntagmas not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21, thereby suggesting that the digression should be attributed to a redactor. This unusual lexical registry includes the following: First, the toponym Jebus and the gentilic noun Jebusites are not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. While the gentilic noun ‫יְבּוסי‬ ִ is well attested in the MT – and is most commonly used in customary lists of foreign peoples such as “the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you” (Deut 7:1) – the toponym ‫ יְבּוס‬is attested only in 1 Ch 11:4.5. This tends to suggest that the redaction stratum in question should be dated no earlier than Chronicles. Second, the toponym Ramah will not recur in Judges 19–21. It is possible that the redactor associates Gibeah with Ramah because the two toponyms are similarly paired in 1 Sam 15:34; Isa 10:29 and Hos 5:8. Third, the syntagma ‫א־מ ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵהּנָ ה‬ ִ ֹ ‫( ל‬they are not sons of Israel) will not recur in Judges 19–21. However, the syntagma is used in 2 Sam 21:2 and 1 Ki 9:20. Judg 19:12a and 1 Ki 9:20 show sufficient lexical and thematic similarities as to consider one an intertextual allusion to the other: Judg 19:12aAnd his lord said to him: “We shall not detour into a city of foreigners where they are not sons of Israel.

‫ֲשר‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ל־עיר נָ ְכ ִרי א‬ ִ ‫לֹא נָ סּור ֶא‬‎ ‫ֹא־מ ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל הֵ ּנָה‬ ִ ‫ל‬

Compositional History of Judges 19

1 Ki 9:20All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, they who are not sons of Israel.

259 ‫ן־ה ֱאמ ִֹרי‬ ָ ‫ּנֹותר ִמ‬ ָ ‫ל־ה ָעם ַה‬ ָ ‫ ָּכ‬‎ ‫יְבּוסי‬ ִ ‫ַה ִח ִּתי ַה ְּפ ִרּזִ י ַה ִחּוִ י וְ ַה‬

‫ֹא־מ ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל הֵ ּ ָמה‬ ִ ‫אֲשר ל‬ ֶׁ

On the basis of the foregoing, I propose to assign the digression between the Wiederaufnahmen – 19:10aC–13b – to two different redaction strata. I will argue below that the digression was interpolated by R1 and then redacted by R3.62 If this hypothesis is correct, the earliest composition stratum resumes in 19:14b–15a: “And the sun went down on them, near Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin (‫ ֵא ֶצל ַהּגִ ְב ָעה ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬‎). And they made a detour there, to come to spend the night in Gibeah.” As this is the first mention of Benjamin in Judges 19–21, the phrase ‫ ֵא ֶצל ַהּגִ ְב ָעה ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬merits particular attention. It can be noted that the syntagma, ‎‫( ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬that belongs to Benjamin), is a hapax in the MT.63 In Samuel, the town of Gibeah is sometimes qualified using the construct phrases ‫( ּגִ ְב ַעת ִּבנְ ִיָמן‬Gibeah of Benjamin)64 and ‫( ּגִ ְב ַעת ָׁשאּול‬Gibeah of Saul).65 If the purpose of the phrase ‫ ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬in 19:14b is to create an allusion to the life story of Saul, as many commentators suggest,66 it is surprising that the syntagma ‫ ּגִ ְב ַעת ִּבנְ ִיָמן‬was not used. The syntagma ‫ ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬may be modeled on the syntagma ‫יהּודה‬ ָ ‫( ֲא ֶׁשר ִל‬that belongs to Judah).67 I propose to assign the syntagma “that belongs to Benjamin” to a redactor for two reasons. First, as the syntagma appears in an ’asher clause that follows the noun Gibeah, it could easily have been added at the end of 19:14b by a redactor. Second, it can reasonably be argued that the syntagma “that belongs to Benjamin” refers to Benjamin as a tribe, rather than as a region or ethnic group. I will attempt to demonstrate later in this work that there are no references to Benjamin as a tribe in N or R1. I thus attribute the syntagma to R2 on a preliminary basis. 2.3 Judges 19:16–17a The old man is introduced in 19:16aA with the phrases, “And behold! An old man (‫ ) ִאיׁש זָ ֵקן‬came from his work, from the field, in the evening.”68 The narration 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

See discussion of redactional activity in 19:10aC–13b in Sections 2.5.2 and 2.5.4 infra. The corresponding phrase in LXXAB, ἥ ἐστιν τοῦ Βενιαμιν, is also a hapax in the LXX. 1 Sam 13:2.15.16; 14:16. The related syntagma ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫( ּגֶ ַבע ִּבנ‬Geba of Benjamin) is used in 1 Ki 15:22. The syntagma ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫( ּגִ ְב ַעת ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬Gibeah of the sons of Benjamin) is used in 2 Sa 23:29=1 Ch 11:31. 1 Sam 11:4; 15:34; 2 Sam 21:6. See also, Isa 10:29. See detailed discussion of the possible allusions to the life of Saul in Chapter 4, Section 4 supra. 1 Sam 17:1; 30:14; 2 Sam 3:8; 19:3; 2 Ki 14:1; 1 Ch 13:6; 2 Ch 25:21. Although the word ‫ זָ ֵקן‬is extremely common in the MT, the expression ‫( איׁש זָ ֵקן‬old man) as used in 19:16.17.20.22 is in fact extremely rare. The word ‫ זָ ָקן‬is used primarily (a) as a

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resumes in 19:17a with the phrases, “And he raised his eyes. And he saw the wayfaring man in the town square.” However, the narration is interrupted by three nominal phrases in 19:16aB–16b that provide parenthetical explanatory information to the reader: “The man was from the hill country of Ephraim. And he was sojourning in Gibeah. But the men of the place were Benjaminites (‫) ְּבנֵ י יְ ִמינִ י‬.” The purpose of this digression is to create a subtle parallelism between the Levite who sojourns in the hill country of Ephraim as a ger and the old man who is from the hill country of Ephraim but sojourns in Gibeah as a ger. Although there is no a priori reason to assign all parenthetical nominal clauses in a narrative to a redactor, there are, in my opinion, two reasons that suggest that the interruption in 19:16aB–16b is an interpolation.69 First, it can be observed that the subject of the last nominal clause in 19:16b is “the men of the place” and the subject in the following Wayyiqtol clause in 19:17a is the old man. However, the old man is referred to in 19:17a by the pronoun “he.” As there is a change between the last-mentioned character in 19:16b and the first mentioned character in 19:17a, it could be expected that 19:17a would read, “And the old man raised his eyes” rather than “And he raised his eyes.” When 19:16–17 is read without the nominal clauses, the use of a pronoun to refer to the old man in 19:17a follows logically after 19:16a in which the subject has already been stated to be the old man. Second, the text contains an unusual syntagma not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. The inhabitants of Gibeah are described as ‫ ְּבנֵ י יְ ִמינִ י‬rather than as “sons of Benjamin” or “Benjamin” as is typical in the narrative. This unusual vocabulary increases the likelihood that the digression in 19:16aB–16b is not part of the earliest composition stratum. The plural gentilic noun ‫ ְּבנֵ י יְ ִמינִ י‬occurs only one other time in the MT, in 1 Sam 22:7: “And Saul said to his servants who stood around him, ‘Hear now, O Benjamites (‫ !) ִׁש ְמעּו־נָ א ְּבנֵ י יְ ִמינִ י‬Will the son of Jesse also give to all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds?’” (NAS translation).70 It

69 70

singular noun to refer to an “elder”; (b) in the plural expression “old men” to refer to the “elders” of the community; (c) as an adjective to modify a subject other than a human being; and (d) as a singular noun to mean “beard.” The expression ‫ ִ ֤איׁש זָ ֵקן‬in fact only appears once outside of Judg 19; in I Sam 28:14. In that passage, Saul is anguished and seeks out a pagan woman prophetess to conjure up the deceased prophet Samuel to give him advice. She does so. Saul asks her what she sees. She responds, “I saw an old man (‫ ) ִ ֤איׁש זָ ֵקן‬rising up; he was wearing a coat.” Both LXXA and LXXB translate ‫ ִ ֣איׁש זָ ֵקן‬as ἀνὴρ πρεσβύτης in 19:16.17.20.22; this expression appears nowhere else in the LXX. The LXX translates the phrase in I Sam 28:14 as “upright man” (ἄνδρα ὄρθιον). Schulz limits the redactional interpolation to 19:16b (“But the men of the place were Benjaminites”). While the redundant plural ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫( ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬the sons of Benjamin; literally, sons of the sons of Yamin) is the standard way to refer to Benjaminites in the MT, the redundant singular is

Compositional History of Judges 19

261

is possible in this case that the redactor is making an intertextual association between Gibeah and Saul. 2.4

Judges 19:17b–19

Judg 19:17bAnd the old man said: “Where are you going. And from where do you come? 18aAnd he said to him: “We are moving on from Bethlehem of Judah to the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. I am from there. And I had walked as far as Bethlehem of Judah. 18bAnd I frequent the house of YHWH. But there is no man gathering me into his house. 19aAnd even straw, even fodder there are for our donkeys. And even bread and wine there are for me, for your maidservant, and for the servant boy with your servants. 19bThere is lacking not a thing.

‫אמר ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזָ ֵקן ָאנָ ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬17b‎ ‫אמר ֵא ָליו‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬18 ‫ּומ ַאיִ ן ָּתבֹוא‬ ֵ ‫ֵת ֵלְך‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ית־ל ֶחם י‬ ֶ ‫ע ְֹב ִרים ֲאנַ ְחנּו ִמ ֵּב‬ ‫ר־א ְפ ַריִ ם ִמ ָּׁשם‬ ֶ ‫ַעד־יַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי ַה‬ ‫הּודה‬ ָ ְ‫ד־ּבית ֶל ֶחם י‬ ֵ ‫ָאנ ִֹכי וָ ֵא ֵלְך ַע‬ ‫ת־ּבית יְ הוָ ה ֲאנִ י ה ֵֹלְך וְ ֵאין‬ ֵ ‫וְ ֶא‬ ‫אֹותי ַה ָּביְ ָתה‬ ִ ‫ִאיׁש ְמ ַא ֵּסף‬ ‫ם־מ ְסּפֹוא יֵ ׁש‬ ִ ַ‫ם־ּת ֶבן ּג‬ ֶ ַ‫וְ ג‬19 ‫ׁש־לי‬ ִ ֶ‫מֹורינּו וְ גַ ם ֶל ֶחם וָ יַ יִ ן י‬ ֵ ‫ַל ֲח‬ ‫ם־ע ָב ֶדיָך ֵאין‬ ֲ ‫וְ ַל ֲא ָמ ֶתָך וְ ַלּנַ ַער ִע‬ ‫ל־ּד ָבר‬ ָ ‫ַמ ְחסֹור ָּכ‬

After the old man notices the Levite and his entourage sitting in the dark in the town square, the old man asks the Levite, “Where are you going and from where do you come” (19:17b). The Levite responds with a 45-word long speech. Stylistically, the oration is composed of a series of nominal clauses.71 As all of the information that the Levite conveys to the old man in the speech is already known to the reader, the literary function of 19:17b–19 is to slow down the forward movement of the plotline in order to sustain the suspense in the narrative intrigue and thereby enhance the reader’s enjoyment of the story. In addition, the long speech subtly serves to enhance the Levite’s role as the principal protagonist in the narrative. There are three reasons to suspect that the Levite’s speech is a redactional interpolation. First, long speeches are not common in Judges 19–21; as will be discussed below, they are all located in parts of the text that can reasonably be attributed to a redactor on the basis of independent criteria. Second, while dialog in Judges 19–21 is generally presented with Qatal phrases, the Levite’s speech is expressed in a long series of nominal clauses. Third, the speech uses

71

not attested. Instead, an individual Benjaminite is called (i) ‫ן־היְ ִמינִ י‬ ַ ‫( ֶּב‬Judg 3:15; 2 Sam 9:17; 16:11; 1 Ki 2:8; (ii) ‫( ֶּבן־יְ ִמינִ י‬1 Sam 9:21; superscription in Ps 7:1; 1 Ch 27:12; and (iii) ‫ִאיׁש יְ ִמינִ י‬ (1 Sam 9:1; 2 Sam 20:1; Est 2:5). There is one Wayyiqtol phrase, “And I walked as far as Bethlehem of Judah” embedded in the series of nominal clauses.

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vocabulary that is atypical of Judges 19–21. The lexeme‎ ‫( ּגַ ם‬moreover) is used three times in the Levite’s speech; although this particle is very common in the MT, it is used only one other time in Judges 19–21, in 20:48, a verse that can also be attributed to a later redactor on independent grounds.72 2.5 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 19:10aC–21 as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 2.5.1 Earliest Composition Stratum in Judges 19:10aC–21 My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 14bAnd the sun went down on them near Gibeah […]. 15bAnd he came. And he sat in the town square. But there was no man gathering them into the house to spend the night. 16aAAnd behold! An old man was coming from his work, from the field, in the evening. 17aAnd he raised his eyes. And he saw the wayfaring man in the town square. 20aAnd the old man said, “Peace to you. Just let whatever you lack be upon me. 20bJust do not spend the night in the town square.” 21aAnd he brought him into his house. And he gave provender to the donkeys. 21bAnd they washed their feet. And they ate. And they drank.

‫וַ ָּתבֹא ָל ֶהם ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש ֵא ֶצל‬‎14b ‫וַ ּיָבֹא וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב‬15b ]…[ ‫ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ‫ִּב ְרחֹוב ָה ִעיר וְ ֵאין ִאיׁש‬ ‫ף־אֹותם ַה ַּביְ ָתה ָללּון‬ ָ ‫ְמ ַא ֵּס‬ ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ִאיׁש זָ ֵקן ָּבא‬16aA ‫ן־ה ָּׂש ֶדה ָּב ֶע ֶרב‬ ַ ‫ן־מ ֲע ֵׂשהּו ִמ‬ ַ ‫ִמ‬ ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ָּׂשא ֵעינָ יו וַ ּיַ ְרא ֶא‬17a ‫אמר‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬20a ‫ָהא ֵֹר ַח ִּב ְרחֹב ָה ִעיר‬ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזָ ֵקן ָׁשלֹום ָלְך ַרק‬ ְ ‫ל־מ ְח‬ ַ ‫ָּכ‬ ‫ ַרק ָּב ְרחֹוב‬20b ‫סֹורָך ָע ָלי‬ ָ ‫ַא‬ ‫יאהּו ְל ֵביתֹו וַ ָּיָבול‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִיְב‬21a ‫ל־ּת ַלן‬ 21b ‫מֹורים וַ ּיִ ְר ֲחצּו ַרגְ ֵל ֶיהם‬ ִ ‫ַל ֲח‬ ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬

The first phrase in N, “And the sun went down on them near Gibeah” in 19:14b picks up after the last phrase in the previous episode, “But the man was not willing to stay the night. And he rose up. And he went” in 19:10a. As in 19:1b–10aB, N is less interested in the Levite’s travel from place to place than in the events that transpire once the Levite has arrived at a destination. The Levite and his entourage leave Bethlehem and arrive in Gibeah after sunset; however, the town square is deserted. This element of suspense is quickly relieved by the surprise arrival of an old man. The purpose of the N material in 19:10aC–21 is to develop the old man’s character. He is an old man who works late in the fields and is willing to welcome a group of strangers into his house to eat, drink and 72

See discussion of Judg 20:48 in Chapter 10, Section 3.7.4 infra.

b

Compositional History of Judges 19

263

spend the night. At this point in the analysis of the text, there are no textual indicia that shed light on the absolute dating of N. 2.5.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 19:10aC–21 The redactional interpolations of R1 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. For ease of reference, the last phrase in the preceding unit 19:1b–10aB is also included. 10aABut the man was not willing to spend the ‫א־א ָבה ָה ִאיׁש ָללּון‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬10aA night. 10aBAnd he rose up. And he went. 11aBAnd ‫וְ הַ יּוֹ ם ַרד ְמאֹד‬11aB ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬ the day, it was very subdued. 11bAnd the servant ‫ֹאמר הַ ּנ ַַער אֶ ל־ ֲא ֹדנָיו‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬11b boy said to his lord: “Go! Please, let us detour ‫ל־עיר־‬ ִ ֶ‫ה־נָא וְ נָסו ָּרה א‬ ּ ָ‫לְ כ‬ into this city of the Jebusites, and let us spend ‫הַ יְ בו ִּסי הַ ּזֹאת וְ נָלִ ין ּ ָב ּה‬ the night there.” 13aAnd he said to his servant ]…[ ‫ֹאמר לְ נַעֲ רוֹ לְ ָך‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬13a boy: “Go! […] 13bAnd we shall spend the night ‫וַ ּי ַַע ְבר ּו וַ ּיֵלֵ כ ּו‬14a ‫וְ לַ נּ ּו בַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה‬13b in Gibeah […].” 14aAnd they moved on. And ‫וַ ָּתבֹא ָל ֶהם ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש ֵא ֶצל‬14b they went. 14bAnd the sun went down on them, ‫וַ ּיָבֹא וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב‬b15b ]…[ ‫ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ near Gibeah […]. 15bAnd he came. And he sat in ‫ִּב ְרחֹוב ָה ִעיר וְ ֵאין ִאיׁש‬ the town square. But there was no man gather‫ף־אֹותם ַה ַּביְ ָתה ָללּון‬ ָ ‫ְמ ַא ֵּס‬ ing them into the house to spend the night. ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ִאיׁש זָ ֵקן ָּבא ִמן־‬16a 16aAnd behold! An old man was coming from his ‫ן־ה ָּׂש ֶדה ָּב ֶע ֶרב‬ ַ ‫ַמ ֲע ֵׂשהּו ִמ‬ work, from the field, in the evening […]. 17aAnd ‫וַ ּיִ ָּׂשא ֵעינָ יו וַ ּיַ ְרא‬17a ]…[ he raised his eyes. And he saw the wayfaring ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש ָהא ֵֹר ַח ִּב ְרחֹב ָה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ man in the town square. 20aAnd the old man ‫אמר ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזָ ֵקן ָׁשלֹום ָלְך‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬20a said, “Peace to you. Just let whatever you lack be ‫סֹורָך ָע ָלי‬ ְ ‫ל־מ ְח‬ ַ ‫ַרק ָּכ‬ upon me. 20bJust do not spend the night in the ‫ל־ּת ַלן‬ ָ ‫ ַרק ָּב ְרחֹוב ַא‬20b town square.” 21aAnd he brought him into his ‫יאהּו ְל ֵביתֹו וַ ָּיָבול‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִיְב‬21a house. And he gave provender to the donkeys. ‫יהם‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיִ ְר ֲחצּו ַרגְ ֵל‬21b ‫מֹורים‬ ִ ‫ַל ֲח‬ 21bAnd they washed their feet. And they ate. And ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ they drank. R1 expands and develops the N text by introducing a new intrigue to fill out the Levite’s travel from Bethlehem to Gibeah. This interpolation is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. R1’s material follows the phrases “And he rose up. And he went” in 19:10a and ends with the phrase, “And they went.” The Levite’s servant boy proposes an overnight stop in a city inhabited by Canaanites and the master proposes Gibeah, an Israelite city. It is implied that the Levite believes he will be received more graciously in Israelite Gibeah than in Canaanite Jebus. The introduction of dialog in R1 serves to create a double irony in the narrative intrigue. First, the Levite and his woman will end up being treated worse in

a b

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Gibeah than they could have imagined would be the case in Jebus. Second, the servant boy’s recommendation of the place to spend the night turns out to be better advice than his master’s. 2.5.3 Second Redaction Stratum of Judges 19:10aC–21 In my view, R2 introduced his first interpolation in Judges 19–21 in 19:14b. The interpolated material is indicated in bold type. 14bAnd the sun went down on them near Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin.

‫וַ ָּתבֹא ָל ֶהם ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש ֵא ֶצל ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ‫ֲשר לְ ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ֶׁ ‫א‬

The syntagma ‫( ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬that belongs to Benjamin) is a hapax in the MT that may be modeled on the syntagma ‎‫יהּודה‬ ָ ‫( ֲא ֶׁשר ִל‬that belongs to Judah). I interpret the syntagma as referring to Benjamin as a tribe rather than as a region or ethnic group. I will attempt to demonstrate below that neither N nor R1 uses tribal imagery in relation to Benjamin.73 2.5.4 Third Redaction Stratum of Judges 19:10aC–21 The redactional interpolations of R3 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahme are indicated in italics in the English translation. 10aCAnd he came near Jebus (that is, ‫וַ ָ ּיבֹא ַעד־נֹכַ ח יְ בוּס ִהיא‬10aB Jerusalem). 10bAnd with him was the pair of ‫יְ רו ׁ ָּש ִ ָלם וְ ִע ּמוֹ צֶ ֶמד‬ saddled donkeys. And his concubine was with ֹ‫חֲמוֹ ִרים חֲבו ִּׁשים ו ִּפילַ גְ ׁשוֹ ִע ּמו‬ him. 11aThey were close to Jebus. And the day, ‫הֵ ם ִעם־יְ בוּס וְ ַהּיֹום ַרד ְמאֹד‬11a it was very subdued. 11bAnd the servant boy said ‫ל־אד ֹנָ יו‬ ֲ ‫אמר ַהּנַ ַער ֶא‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬11b to his lord: “Go! Please, let us detour into this ‫יְבּוסי‬ ִ ‫יר־ה‬ ַ ‫ל־ע‬ ִ ‫סּורה ֶא‬ ָ ָ‫ְל ָכה־ּנָ א וְ נ‬ city of the Jebusites, and let us spend the night ‫ֹאמר אֵ לָ יו‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬12a ‫ַהּזֹאת וְ נָ ִלין ָּבּה‬ there.” 12aAnd his lord said to him: “We shall not ‫ל־עיר נ ְָכ ִרי‬ ִ ֶ‫ֲא ֹדנָיו לֹא נָסוּר א‬ detour into a city of foreigners where they are ‫ֹא־מ ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל הֵ ּנָה‬ ִ ‫ֲשר ל‬ ֶׁ ‫א‬ ּ ִ ‫ ָעבַ ְרנ ּו ַע‬bְ‫ו‬12b not sons of Israel. 12bAnd we shall move on to ‫אמר‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬13a ‫ד־ג ְב ָעה‬ Gibeah.” 13aAnd he said to his servant boy: “Go! ‫ְלנַ ֲערֹו ְלָך וְ נִ ְק ְרבָ ה ְּבאַ חַ ד‬ And we shall draw near to one of the places. ֹ‫וְ ַלּנּו ַבּגִ ְב ָעה או‬13b ‫ֹמות‬ ֹ ‫הַ ְּמק‬ 13bAnd we shall spend the night in Gibeah or ‫וַ ָּתבֹא‬14b ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְברּו וַ ּיֵ ֵלכּו‬14a ‫בָ ָר ָמה‬ Ramah.” 14aAnd they travelled further. And they ‫ָל ֶהם ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש ֵא ֶצל ַהּגִ ְב ָעה ֲא ֶׁשר‬ went. 14bAnd the sun went down on them, ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ֻסרּו ָׁשם ָלבֹוא ָללּון‬15a ‫יָמן‬

73

See discussion of “tribal” imagery in Chapter 10, Section 1.7 infra.

b

Compositional History of Judges 19

265

near Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin. 15aAnd ‫וַ ּיָבֹא וַ ּיֵ ֶׁשב ִּב ְרחֹוב‬15b ‫ַּבּגִ ְב ָעה‬ they made a detour there, to come to spend the ‫ף־אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ָה ִעיר וְ ֵאין ִאיׁש ְמ ַא ֵּס‬ night in Gibeah. 15bAnd he came. And he sat in ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ִאיׁש זָ ֵקן‬16a ‫ַה ַּביְ ָתה ָללּון‬ the town square. But there was no man gather‫ן־ה ָּׂש ֶדה ָּב ֶע ֶרב‬ ַ ‫ן־מ ֲע ֵׂשהּו ִמ‬ ַ ‫ָּבא ִמ‬ ing them into the house to spend the night. ‫יש ֵמהַ ר אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם וְ הוּא־גָ ר‬ ׁ ‫וְ הָ ִא‬ 16aAnd behold! An old man was coming from his ‫וְ אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי הַ ּ ָמקוֹ ם ְּבנֵי‬16b ‫ּ ַב ִ ּג ְב ָעה‬ work, from the field, in the evening. (The man ‫וַ ּיִ ָּׂשא ֵעינָ יו וַ ּיַ ְרא‬17a ‫יְ ִמינִ י‬ was from the hill country of Ephraim. And ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש ָהא ֵֹר ַח ִּב ְרחֹב ָה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ he was residing in Gibeah. 16bBut the men of ‫יש הַ ָ ּז ֵקן אָ נָה‬ ׁ ‫ֹאמר הָ ִא‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬b17b the place were Benjaminite.) 17aAnd he raised ‫ֹאמר‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬18a ‫ֵתלֵ ְך ו ֵּמאַ יִ ן ּ ָתבוֹ א‬ his eyes. And he saw the wayfaring man in the ‫אֵ לָ יו ע ְֹב ִרים ֲאנ ְַחנ ּו ִמ ּ ֵבית־לֶ חֶ ם‬ town square. 17bAnd the old man said: “Where ‫יְ הו ָּדה ַעד־י ְַר ְּכ ֵתי הַ ר־אֶ ְפ ַריִ ם‬ are you going and from where do you come?” ‫ד־בית לֶ חֶ ם‬ ֵ ּ ‫ִמ ּ ׁ ָשם אָ נ ִֹכי וָ אֵ לֵ ְך ַע‬ 18aAnd he said to him: “We are travelling from ‫ת־בית יְ הוָ ה אֲנִ י‬ ֵּ ֶ‫וְ א‬18b ‫יְ הו ָּדה‬ Bethlehem of Judah to the recesses of the hill ‫או ִתי‬ ֹ ‫יש ְמאַ ּ ֵסף‬ ׁ ‫הֹלֵ ְך וְ אֵ ין ִא‬ country of Ephraim; I am from there. And I had ‫ם־מ ְס ּפוֹ א‬ ִ ‫ם־תבֶ ן ַּג‬ ֶ ּ ַ‫וְ ג‬19a ‫הַ ּ ָביְ ָתה‬ walked as far as Bethlehem of Judah. 18bAnd I ‫י ֵׁש לַ חֲמוֹ ֵרינ ּו וְ גַ ם לֶ חֶ ם וָ יַיִ ן‬ frequent the house of YHWH. But there is no ‫י ֶׁש־לִ י וְ לַ א ֲָמ ֶת ָך וְ לַ ּנ ַַער ִעם־‬ ָ ‫עֲ בָ ֶד‬ man gathering us into his house. 19aAnd even ‫אֵ ין ַמ ְחסוֹ ר ּ ָכל־דָּ בָ ר‬19b ‫יך‬ straw, even fodder there are for our donkeys, ‫אמר ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזָ ֵקן ָׁשלֹום‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬20a and even bread and wine there are for me, for ‫סֹורָך ָע ָלי‬ ְ ‫ל־מ ְח‬ ַ ‫ ַרק ָּכ‬20b ‫ָלְך‬ your maidservant, and for the servant boy with ָ ‫ַרק ָּב ְרחֹוב ַא‬ ‫יאהּו‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִיְב‬21a ‫ל־ּת ַלן‬ your servants. 19bThere is lacking not a thing.” ִ ‫ְל ֵביתֹו וַ ָּיָבול ַל ֲח‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְר ֲחצּו‬21b ‫מֹורים‬ 20aAnd the old man said, “Peace to you. Just let ‫אכלּו וַ ּיִ ְׁשּתּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫יהם וַ ּי‬ ֶ ‫ַרגְ ֵל‬ whatever you lack be upon me. 20bJust do not spend the night in the town square.” 21aAnd he brought him into his house. And he gave provender to the donkeys. 21bAnd they washed their feet. And they ate. And they drank. The purpose of R3’s interpolations in 19:10.12.16 is to fill in gaps in the narrative with explanations and clarifications. As discussed, R1 had introduced the motif of the Levite’s stop outside of the city of the Jebusites where he engages in dialog with his servant boy about where they should spend the night. R3 expands this unit by identifying the city of the Jebusites as “Jebus, that is Jerusalem” This interpolation appears to be a typical geographic explanatory gloss. In my view, it is also an intertextual reference to 1 Ch 11:14a: Judg 19:10aBAnd he rose up. And he went. And he came to Jebus, that is Jerusalem.

‫וַ ּיָ ָקם וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך וַ ּיָבֹא ַעד־נ ַֹכח יְ בוּס ִהיא‬ ‫יְ רו ׁ ָּש ִ ָלם‬

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1 Ch 11:14aAnd David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, this is Jebus.

‫ וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ָּדוִ יד וְ ָכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל יְ רו ׁ ָּש ִ ַלם‬‎ ‫ִהיא יְ בוּס‬

If this hypothesis is correct, it supports the argument that R3 knows Chronicles and should probably be dated to the early Hellenistic period. The nominal phrases in 19:10b were added by R3 to clarify that the Levite’s concubine in fact left Bethlehem with him. Without this interpolation, readers of the R1 stratum of 19:10aC–21 might have concluded that the woman remained with her father in Bethlehem. It should be noted that the reference to the Levite’s donkeys and concubine in 19:10b appears to mirror a similar reference to the Levite’s servant boy and donkeys in 19:3a that I have attributed to the earliest compositional stratum: ‫ וְ נַ ֲערֹו ִעּמֹו וְ ֶצ ֶמד ֲחמ ִֹרים‬‎

Judg 19:3aAnd his servant boy [was] with him and a pair of donkeys.

‫ּופ ַילגְ ׁשֹו ִעּמֹו‬ ִ ‫בּוׁשים‬ ִ ‫מֹורים ֲח‬ ִ ‫וְ ִעּמֹו ֶצ ֶמד ֲח‬‎

Judg 19:10bAnd with him [was] the pair of saddled donkeys. And his concubine [was] with him.

However, there is a subtle difference in grammatical construction between these two verses that suggests that the 19:10b is later than 19:3a. It can be observed that 19:3a is a nominal clause in which the subject, “his servant boy,” precedes the prepositional phrase, “with him.” This grammatical order is widely attested in the MT. In contrast, in 19:10b, the subject, “the pair of saddled donkeys,” follows the prepositional phrase, “with him.” The use of this grammatical order is quite rare and is attested primarily in late texts such as Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.74 This grammatical usage provides further support for a Hellenistic period dating of R3. It can be inferred that the Levite’s preference to spend the night in Gibeah rather than Jebus in the R1 material is motivated by his understanding that he will be better received in an Israelite rather than a Canaanite town. This position is clarified in the Levite’s first response to his servant boy, “We shall not detour into a city of foreigners where they are not sons of Israel” in 19:12a. In R1, the Levite rejects his servant boy’s advice to spend the night in the city of the Jebusites and instead proposes that the group move on to Gibeah. R3 expands this unit to have the Levite hesitate between spending the night in Gibeah or 74

Ezr 8:3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.14.33; 1 Ch 12:28; 2 Ch 17:14.15.16.17.18; 26:17. See also, Gen 33:1; 2 Ki 15:25. The use of this syntax in Genesis 33 and 2 Kings 15 merits further research and analysis to determine whether it might be a sign of redactional activity in those chapters as well.

Compositional History of Judges 19

267

Ramah. As the toponym Ramah introduces a blind motif into the narrative, R3’s interpolation is perplexing. Although speculative, it can be argued that the Levite’s hesitation between Gibeah and Ramah recapitulates the Levite’s hesitation between leaving Bethlehem in the morning of the fourth day or the afternoon of the fifth day. It is thus possible that R3 intended to develop the Levite’s tendency to hesitate before making an important decision as a negatively evaluated general character trait. 3

Compositional History of Judges 19:22–30

The narrative unit 19:22–30 recounts the story of the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine by certain men of Gibeah who are described as “sons of Belial” (hooligans). As this crime provides the justification for the punitive action that the sons of Israel will conduct against the sons of Benjamin in Judges 20, 19:22–30 represents one of the principal turning points in the narrative intrigue of Judges 19–21. Scholarly attention on 19:22–30 has focused primarily on the phenomenon of intertextuality that is arguably present in this narrative unit.75 However, most scholars ignore the diachronic aspects of intertextual allusions. Those who do address this issue attribute all of the verses in Judges 19 that contain perceived intertextual allusions to the first composition stratum,76 with the notable exception of Moore who assigns 19:22–24 to a redactor.77 In my view, the assumption that all intertextual allusions in Judges 19 were composed by the same author and should be assigned to the earliest composition stratum is unfounded. To correct this bias, I propose to explore the compositional history of 19:22–30 using the same methodology as employed in the analysis of the other episodes of Judges 19–21. I will therefore attempt to identify redactional activity in 19:22–30 without giving attention to the possibility that there may be intertextual allusions in the narrative unit. The advantage of this methodology is that it should shed light on the questions of (i) distinguishing between phrases in 19:22–30 that are actual intertextual allusions and those that are simply coincidental usages of type-scenes and stock phrases and (ii) distinguishing between intertextual allusions that are present in the earliest composition stratum and those that are the product of later redactional activity. 75 76 77

See discussion of intertextuality in Judges 19–21 in Chapter 5, Section 3 supra. See Burney and Edenburg. Moore, Judges, 417–418.

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3.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 19:22–30 Unexpectedly for a proponent of the two-source hypothesis, Burney attributes the entirety of 19:22–30 to a single author, J. He notes, The account of the outrage, vv. 22ff, is parallel phrase by phrase with Gen 19:4ff J in so remarkable a manner as to compel the conclusion that one narrative must have been deliberately modelled on the other. The action taken by the Levite after his return home is strikingly paralleled by Saul’s action when summoning the tribes to the assistance of Jabesh of Gile‘ad, 1 Sam 11 J.78 It can reasonably be inferred that Burney is arguing that the presence of these perceived intertextual allusions in Judg 19:22–30 to Genesis 19 and 1 Samuel 11 supports his hypothesis that this segment was composed by a single author. In my view, Burney’s position is questionable. Even if one accepts that there are extensive intertextual allusions in Judg 19:22–30, it does not necessarily follow that they were all composed by a single author in the earliest compositional stratum. Other possibilities include the following: First, all of the intertextual allusions were interpolated into 19:22–30 by a single redactor in a later composition stratum. Second, some of the allusions were present in the earliest compositional stratum (or the first redaction stratum) and others were introduced by later redactors in order to harmonize 19:22–30 more extensively with the hypo-texts. Third, the hypo-texts themselves may have undergone late redactional activity to harmonize them more extensively with Judg 19:22–30. In my view, the presence of intertextual allusions in a text does not short-circuit the methodological requirement that such text should be analyzed diachronically in the same manner as texts in which the phenomenon of intertextuality is absent. Soggin limits his diachronic analysis of Judges 19:22–30 to two verses in which he argues that redactional activity is present. First, Soggin argues that the old man of Gibeah’s offer of the Levite’s concubine as well as his own maiden daughter to be gang-raped by the sons of Belial in 19:24a is incoherent. Without any supporting argumentation, Soggin contends that the lexeme “and his concubine” “should be deleted.” As a result of this emendation of the text, Soggin then affirms that “the personal pronouns here and in the following verses should therefore always be read in the singular: ’otah.”79 Soggin appears to be arguing that a later redactor introduced the motif of offering two women 78 79

Burney, Judges, 444. Ibid.

Compositional History of Judges 19

269

to the sons of Belial to be gang-raped in order to harmonize Judg 19:22–26 with Gen 19:4–8. This position is entirely reasonable in my opinion; however, Soggin uses the argument selectively. For example, it can also be argued that the homosexual gang-rape motif in Judg 19:22–26, which is based entirely on the presence of a single lexeme ‫( וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנו‬and we shall know him) at the end of 19:22b, is also a redactional interpolation intended to harmonize Judg 19:22–26 with Gen 19:4–8. However, Soggin does not consider the possibility of assigning ‫ וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנו‬to a redactor. Instead, Soggin argues “[…] while in Gen 19 the homosexual violence is a fundamental element, given that the three ‘angels’ are seen as men, here the theme quickly disappears, as the toughs are happy with the concubine, cf. 20.5. As we have seen, this is manifest proof that this narrative is secondary in comparison with Gen 19, which moreover, is a much earlier story.”80 Second, as discussed, Soggin emends MT 19:30a (i) to include the “plus” in LXXA and (ii) to displace this “plus” from the end of 19:30a to the end of 19:29b. While Soggin’s emendation of the order of the verses in LXXA 19:29–30 makes the plotline more coherent from a literary perspective, the change is not supported by any version or extant manuscript. Moore’s analysis of the perceived intertextual allusions in Judg 19:22–24 to Gen 19:4–8 is innovative. He states, “It is not unlikely that the similarity of the situation has led to some conformation of the story in Judges to that of Lot. V. 24, in particular, is, not without reason, thought to be an interpolation from Gen. 19,8.”81 Moore assigns this interpolation to his RP.82 Although he does not develop the point in detail, Moore appears to be arguing that the earliest composition stratum in Judg 19:22–24 told a story that coincidentally shared certain thematic elements in common with Gen 19:4–8 akin to what Alter would later call “type-scenes.” A redactor then interpolated textual material intentionally borrowed from Gen 19:4–8 for the purpose of harmonizing the plotline in Judg 19:22–24 with that of Gen 19:4–8. Arnold attributes only three phrases in 19:22–30 to his Dtr redactor. First, the phrase, “do not do this folly” in 19:23b. Second, the phrase, “But do not do to this man this thing of folly” in 19:24b. Third, the phrases in 19:30a.b, “[…] Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen, from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, until this day. Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!” The problem with Arnold’s analysis is that he does not provide any objective criteria for distinguishing between Dtr and non-Dtr vocabulary. The three examples of Dtr vocabulary that he presents could be 80 81 82

Ibid. Moore, Judges, 93. Ibid., 92.

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argued to be non-Dtr. In addition, there are other lexemes in Judges 19 that can also be argued to be Dtr but which Arnold assigns to the earliest composition stratum. It would appear that the methodology Arnold uses for assigning redactional interpolations to a Dtr redactor is two-fold. First, he identifies verses that contain arguably Dtr vocabulary. Second, he assigns certain of those verses to his Dtr redactor if they do not disrupt the flow of the narrative intrigue in the underlying composition stratum of the text. In my view, Arnold’s identification of a Dtr redaction stratum in Judges 19 is methodologically subjective. Edenburg follow Burney in assigning all of 19:22–30 to the earliest composition stratum. Schulz also assigns the text to the earliest composition stratum, subject to (i) the references to “his concubine” in the old man’s offer in 19:24 to bring out his own maiden daughter and his guest’s concubine to be raped which Schulz, like Soggin, assigns to a redactor and (ii) 19:30b (“Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!”) which Schulz assigns to the redactor who added Judges 20* as a continuation of Judges 19. 3.2

Judges 19:22–24

Judg 19:22aThey were making glad their heart. ‫ת־ל ָּבם וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬ ִ ‫יט ִיבים ֶא‬ ִ ‫ ֵה ָּמה ֵמ‬22 And behold! The men of the city, the men of ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל נָ ַסּבּו‬ ְ ֵ‫ַאנְ ֵׁשי ָה ִעיר ַאנְ ֵׁשי ְבנ‬ the sons of Belial, they encircled the house, ‫ל־ה ָּד ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ִמ ְת ַּד ְּפ ִקים ַע‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ beating violently on the door. 22bAnd they ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש ַּב ַעל ַה ַּביִ ת ַהּזָ ֵקן‬ ָ ‫אמרּו ֶא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ said to the man, the master of the house, the ‫ר־ּבא‬ ָ ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש ֲא ֶׁש‬ ָ ‫הֹוצא ֶא‬ ֵ ‫ֵלאמֹר‬ elder, saying: “Bring out the man who came to ְ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ֶא‬ ‫יהם‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ֲא ֵל‬23 ‫יתָך וְ נֵ ָד ֶעּנּו‬ your house. And we shall know him.” 23aAnd ‫אמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ַּב ַעל ַה ַּביִ ת וַ ּי‬ the master of the house went out to them. ‫ל־ּת ֵרעּו נָ א ַא ֲח ֵרי‬ ָ ‫ל־א ַחי ַא‬ ַ ‫ַא‬ And he said to them: “Do not, my brothers. ‫יתי‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ר־ּבא ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה ַא‬ ָ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬ Please do not do evil. 23bAs this man has ַ ‫ל־ּת ֲעׂשּו ֶא‬ ַ ‫ַא‬ ‫ ִהּנֵ ה‬24 ‫ת־הּנְ ָב ָלה ַהּזֹאת‬ come to my house, do not do this folly. ‫ּופ ַילגְ ֵׁשהּו‬ ִ ‫תּולה‬ ָ ‫ִב ִּתי ַה ְּב‬ 24aBehold my maiden daughter and his ‫אֹותם וַ ֲעׂשּו‬ ָ ‫אֹותם וְ ַעּנּו‬ ָ ‫יאה־ּנָ א‬ ָ ‫אֹוצ‬ ִ concubine. Please, let me bring them out. ‫יכם וְ ָל ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה‬ ֶ ֵ‫ָל ֶהם ַהּטֹוב ְּב ֵעינ‬ Rape them! Do to them what is good in your ‫לֹא ַת ֲעׂשּו ְּד ַבר ַהּנְ ָב ָלה ַהּזֹאת‬ eyes! 24bBut do not do to this man this thing of folly.” My analysis of 19:22–24 has been presented in Chapter 5 supra and will not be repeated.83 My position can be summarized as follows. These verses contain intertextual allusions to 2 Samuel 13 as well as Genesis 19. While the allusions 83

See Chapter 5, Section 3 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

271

to the rape of Tamar are well integrated into the narrative, the allusions to Lot and his visitors introduce ungrammaticality into the plotline of Judg 19:22–24. This suggests that the allusions to Genesis 19 were interpolated by a redactor.84 I have argued that the redactor’s purpose in “overwriting” the allusions to the rape of Tamar might have been the same as the Chronicler’s decision to exclude the rape of Tamar from his rewritten story of David; i.e., to portray David more favorably than he is presented in Samuel. If this hypothesis is correct, it suggests that the redactor who revised 19:22–24 knows Chronicles and should be dated to the early Hellenistic period. 3.3

Judges 19:25

Judg 19:25aBut the men were not willing to listen to him. And the man took hold of his concubine. And he brought [her] out to them outside. 25bAnd they knew her. And they abused her all the night until morning. And they sent her away at the rise of dawn.

‫א־אבּו ָה ֲאנָ ִׁשים ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע לֹו‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬‎25 ‫וַ ּיַ ֲחזֵ ק ָה ִאיׁש ְּב ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ ּי ֵֹצא‬ ‫אֹותּה‬ ָ ‫יהם ַהחּוץ וַ ּיֵ ְדעּו‬ ֶ ‫ֲא ֵל‬ ‫ל־ה ַּליְ ָלה‬ ַ ‫לּו־בּה ָּכ‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַע ְּל‬ )‫חּוה ( ַּב ֲעלֹות‬ ָ ‫ד־הּב ֶֹקר וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫[ ַּכ ֲעלֹות] ַה ָּׁש ַחר‬

The story of the brutal gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine is presented in a short sequence of 22 words. From a literary perspective, 19:25 functions as the pivotal turning point in the narrative unit concerning the Levite’s visit to Gibeah in 19:22–26 as well as in the narrative intrigue of Judges 19–21 as a whole. In my view, redactional activity can reasonably be suspected in 19:25aBC, ‫( וַ ּיַ ֲחזֵ ק ָה ִאיׁש ְּב ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ ּי ֵֹצא ֲא ֵל ֶיהם ַהחּוץ‬And the man seized his concubine. And he brought [her] out to them outside). This position is supported by two arguments. First, the phrase ‫ וַ ּיַ ֲחזֵ ק ָה ִאיׁש ְּב ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬is ambiguous. The most likely interpretation is that “the man” refers to the Levite who seized his own concubine. However, the phrase can also be interpreted to mean that it was the old man who seized the Levite’s concubine. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the lexeme ‫ ָה ִאיׁש‬is used previously in the unit to refer to the old man (19:22b.23a). Second, it can be noted that the second phrase ‫( וַ ּי ֵֹצא ֲא ֵל ֶיהם ַהחּוץ‬And he brought out to them outside) lacks a direct object. It is inferred, but not stated, that it was the Levite’s concubine who was taken out of the house. This semantic ellipsis is not present in LXXAB which reads, καὶ ἐξήγαγεν αὐτὴν πρὸς αὐτοὺς 84

Contra Edenburg who argues that the allusions to 2 Sam 13:12 “are woven into the plotline borrowed from the story of Sodom.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 251.

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ἔξω. It is possible that (i) the LXX reflects an earlier Vorlage that read ‫;ויוצאה‬ i.e., ‫ּיֹוצ ָאּה‬ ִ ַ‫( ו‬he brought her out), rather than‫ ויוצא‬as in the MT variant of 19:25a, and (ii) the final ‫ ה‬was lost through scribal error. The hypothesized verbal form ‫ּיֹוצ ָאּה‬ ִ ַ‫( ו‬and he brought her out) in 19:25a would thus mirror the phrase ‫חּוה‬ ָ ‫וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל‬ (and they sent her away) in 19:25b. If my hypothesis is correct that there is only one woman in the house in the N material, and that a redactor introduced the motif of the old man having a maiden daughter in order to harmonize the story with Genesis 19, it is possible that this redactor reworked 19:25a to include the lexeme “his concubine” to distinguish her from the old man’s daughter. Although speculative, it can reasonably be argued that (i) the N text read, “And the man brought her out to them outside” and (ii) a redactor reworked the phrase to read, “And the man laid hold of his concubine. And he brought [her] out to them outside.” 3.4

Judges 19:26–28

Judg 19:26aAnd she came back at the turning of the morning. 26bAnd the woman fell at the entrance of the house of the man where her lord was until the light. 27aAnd her lord rose up in the morning. And he opened the doors of the house. And he went out to go on his way. 27bBut behold! The woman, his concubine, was falling at the entrance of the house, her hands on the threshold. 28aAnd he said to her: “Arise! Let us go!” But no one answered. 28bAnd he took her on the donkey. And the man rose up. And he went to his place.

‫וַ ָּתבֹא ָה ִא ָּׁשה ִל ְפנֹות ַהּב ֶֹקר‬‎26 ‫ית־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫וַ ִּתּפֹל ֶּפ ַתח ֵּב‬ ‫ד־האֹור‬ ָ ‫יה ָּׁשם ַע‬ ָ ֶ‫ר־אדֹונ‬ ֲ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬ ‫יה ַּבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיִ ְפ ַּתח‬ ָ ֶ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ֲאד ֹנ‬27 ‫ַּד ְלתֹות ַה ַּביִ ת וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ָל ֶל ֶכת‬ ‫ְל ַד ְרּכֹו וְ ִהּנֵ ה ָה ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫נ ֶֹפ ֶלת ֶּפ ַתח ַה ַּביִ ת וְ יָ ֶד‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫אמר ֵא ֶל‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬28 ‫ל־ה ַּסף‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫קּומי וְ נֵ ֵל ָכה וְ ֵאין עֹנֶ ה וַ ּיִ ָּק ֶח ָה‬ ִ ‫ל־ה ֲחמֹור וַ ּיָ ָקם ָה ִאיׁש וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬

Judges 19:26–28 provides the dénouement to the gang-rape scene. The woman manages to crawl back to the house, but she dies on the threshold. The Levite puts her on the back of a donkey and “the man rose up and he went to his place” (19:28b).85 I propose to attribute 19:26–28 to N, subject to two exceptions. First, it can reasonably be argued that there is redactional activity in the phrase “The woman, his concubine, was falling at the entrance of the house.” It is my position that a redactor interpolated “his concubine” in the appositional phrase ‫( ָה ִא ָּׁשה ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬the woman, his concubine), along with all of the previous mentions of ‫ ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו‬in Judges 19. 85

The syntagma ‎‫ וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬is a typical narrative closure formula. See, Gen 18:33; Gen 32:1; Num 24:25; and discussion in Chapter 3, Section 3.3 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

273

Second, there is redactional activity in the three Wayyiqtol phrases in 19:28b: “And he took her on the donkey. And the man rose up. And he went to his place.” The use of the pronoun “he” in the first Wayyiqtol phrase followed by the more specific “the man” in the second is syntactically awkward. One would normally expect “the man” to be used in the first Wayyiqtol phrase. This syntactical problem can be resolved by assigning the phrase, “And he took her on the donkey” to a redactor. It can be argued that the purpose of the interpolation is to fill in the ellipsis in N where it is not clear whether the Levite brought the corpse back to his place or simply left his woman to be buried in Gibeah. It is possible that N actually intended the reader to understand that the Levite rose up and stepped over his woman’s corpse and returned alone to his place. 3.5

Judges 19:29–30

Judg 19:29aAnd he came to his house. And he took the knife. And he took hold of his concubine. And he cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. 29bAnd he sent her into all the territory of Israel. 30aAnd so it was that all [those] who saw. And he said: “Nothing has ever happened or been seen like this from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, until this day. 30bSet yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!

‫ל־ּביתֹו וַ ּיִ ַּקח ֶאת־‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ֶא‬‎29 ‫ַה ַּמ ֲא ֶכ ֶלת וַ ּיַ ֲחזֵ ק ְּב ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ יְ נַ ְּת ֶח ָה‬ ‫יה ִל ְׁשנֵ ים ָע ָׂשר נְ ָת ִחים‬ ָ ‫ַל ֲע ָצ ֶמ‬ ‫וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל ֶח ָה ְּבכֹל ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ל־הר ֶֹאה וְ ָא ַמר‬ ָ ‫וְ ָהיָ ה ָכ‬30 ‫לֹא־נִ ְהיְ ָתה וְ לֹא־נִ ְר ֲא ָתה ָּכזֹאת‬ ‫ְל ִמּיֹום ֲעלֹות ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ‬ ‫ימּו־ל ֶכם‬ ָ ‫ִמ ְצ ַריִ ם ַעד ַהּיֹום ַהּזֶ ה ִׂש‬ ‫יה ֻעצּו וְ ַד ֵּברּו‬ ָ ‫ָע ֶל‬

Most commentators interpret 19:29 as an intentional allusion to the story of Saul’s deliverance of the people of Yabesh-Gilead in 1 Samuel 11 and view the verse as an integral part of the earliest composition stratum.86 As discussed, I consider it methodologically preferable to analyze the compositional history of a narrative sequence before addressing the issue of whether one or more of the identified strata can be interpreted as an intertextual allusion to another text. From a literary perspective, 19:29–30 represents a transitional segment from the story of the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine to the convocation of all Israel to an assembly at Mizpah to deliberate on the punishment of the crime in 20:1. The essential element in the transitional episode is that the Levite communicates the news of the crime throughout Israel. However, the Levite’s method of communicating the news is unique in the HB: he 86

See Moore, Burney, Schulz and Edenburg.

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butchers his concubine’s corpse into 12 pieces and sends the pieces on a travelling road show throughout Israel. Although gruesome and therefore dramatic, the Levite’s method of communicating the news of the crime is elliptical and lacks coherence. The text simply states, “And he sent her into all the territory of Israel.” Did the Levite commission 12 messengers to carry the body parts? Did he commission a single messenger to carry all 12 body parts on a traveling spectacle through the 12 tribes of Israel? Were the messengers charged with delivering a verbal message to explain the unusual package they were carrying? These ellipses in the plotline can be interpreted in two ways. First, the author intended the episode to be opaque and invited readers to fill in the details. Second, the episode originally contained additional verses with more detail in an earlier Vorlage that were somehow lost through scribal error. The second hypothesis may be supported by the “plus” in LXXA 19:30a that is absent in both the MT and LXXB variants of the text. However, for the reasons discussed in Chapter 1 supra, it is unlikely that LXXA 19:29–30 reflects a Vorlage earlier than that of the MT.87 In my view, the nub of the text critical problem – as well as the redaction critical problem – in this narrative unit lies in 19:29a (the butchering of the concubine’s corpse into 12 parts) rather than in the “plus” in LXXA 19:30a (the sending of messengers). It is my position that (i) 19:29a is a redactional interpolation and (ii) there is evidence of redactional activity in 19:29b and 19:30a as well. These three verses will be discussed below. 3.5.1 Judges 19:29a The hypothesis that 19:29a is a redactional interpolation is supported by three arguments. First, as there are no proleptic or analeptic references in Judges 19–21 that point forward or backward to the Levite’s strange action of butchering his concubine’s corpse in 19:29, this material introduces a blind motif into the narrative. As discussed, blind motifs are often a preliminary sign of redactional activity. Second, while the butchering of the woman’s corpse is gruesome and dramatic from a literary perspective, the ideological/theological thrust of Judg 19:29a is its focus on the numbering of the cut pieces as twelve, an obvious reference to the twelve tribes of Israel. I will argue below that the handful of other explicit references to the “tribes of Israel” in Judges 20–21 can be assigned to a redactor on the basis of independent criteria.88 Third, the lexical registry in 19:29a is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. As is well known, the lexeme ‎ ‫( ַמ ֲא ֶכ ֶלת‬knife) is rare, being used elsewhere in 87 88

See discussion of the text critical issues in 19:30a in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.4 supra. See discussion of the references to the “tribes” of Israel in Judges 20 and 21 in Chapter 10, Section 1.7 infra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

275

the MT only in the story of the binding of Isaac in Gen 22:6.10 and in a nonsacrificial context in Prov 30:14.89 The phrase “And he cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces” recalls ritual sacrifice. The alliteration between ‫ וַ יְ נַ ְּת ֶח ָה‬and ‫ נְ ָת ִחים‬in 19:29a is attested elsewhere in P material.90 For example, Judg 19:29a shows similarities with Lev 1:6: Judg 19:29aBAnd he cut her up, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. Lev 1:6And he shall skin the burnt offering. And he shall cut it up into its pieces.

‫יה לִ ְׁשנֵ ים ָע ָׂשר‬ ָ ‫וַ יְ נ ְַּתחֶ הָ ַל ֲע ָצ ֶמ‬‎ ‫נְ ָת ִחים‬

‫ת־הע ָֹלה וְ נִ ּ ַתח א ָֹת ּה‬ ָ ‫וְ ִה ְפ ִׁשיט ֶא‬‎ ָ‫לִ נְ ָתחֶ יה‬

Edenburg interprets the Levite’s action of using a sacrificial knife to cut up his concubine’s corpse as an intertextual allusion to the story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22:1–18. She states, The rarity of the parallel expression [He took the knife], along with the inverse circumstances, seems to indicate that the two texts are literarily related. […] Abraham bound his beloved son in obedience to divine commandment and was spared his son in reward for his blind obedience. Conversely, the Levite acts on his own behalf and sacrifices his concubine, whom he does not appear to love, as implied by his four-month wait before taking steps to bring her home. […] The inverse analogy reinforces the brutal characterization of the Levite by marking the contrast between his acts and those of Abraham.91 In my view, Edenburg is overreading Judg 19:29a. Most commentators interpret Judg 19:29a as an intertextual allusion to 1 Sam 11:7aA: Judg 19:29aAnd he came to his house. And he took ‫ת־ה ַּמ ֲא ֶכ ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ל־ּביתֹו וַ ִ ּי ַ ּקח ֶא‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ֶא‬‎ the knife. And he seized his concubine. And he ‫יה‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲחזֵ ק ְּב ִפ ַילגְ ׁשֹו וַ יְ נ ְַּתחֶ הָ ַל ֲע ָצ ֶמ‬ cut her up, limb by limb, into 12 pieces. ‫ִל ְׁשנֵ ים ָע ָׂשר נְ ָת ִחים‬ : 1 Sam 11 7aAAnd he took a yoke of oxen. And he ‫וַ ִ ּי ַ ּקח ֶצ ֶמד ָּב ָקר וַ יְ נ ְַּתחֵ ה ּו‬‎ cut him up.

89 90 91

It should be noted that LXXA 19:29a uses the lexeme μάχαιρα which is the word used to translate the common lexeme‎‫( ַה ֶח ֶרב‬sword). Exod 29:17; Lev 1:6.12; 8:20. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 280.

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I agree that Judg 19:29a is an intertextual allusion to 1 Sam 11:7aA. However, the question then arises whether this allusion was part of N or interpolated into the text by a later redaction. For the reasons discussed above, it is my position that 19:29a is a redactional interpolation intended to fill in a thematic gap in N between 19:28b and 19:29b. This hypothesis will be developed in the following paragraph. 3.5.2 Judges 19:29b If the hypothesis that 19:29a is a redactional interpolation is correct, 19:29b (And he sent her into all the territory of Israel) would have followed directly after “And the man rose up. And he went to his place” in 19:28b. The possibility should be considered that a redactor added one consonant to one word in 19:29b to change its meaning. The final text reads ‫( וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל ֶח ָה ְּבכֹל ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬And he sent her into all the territory of Israel). Without the accusative suffix ‫ ָה‬at the end of the verb, the text would read ‫( וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח ְּב ָכל־ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬And he sent into all the territory of Israel). Interestingly, the syntax in this reconstructed verse mirrors that of 1 Sam 11:7aB: Judg 19:29bAnd he sent her into all the territory of Israel. 1 Sam 11:7aBAnd he sent into all the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying

‫וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל ֶח ָה [וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח] ְּבכֹל ּגְ בּול‬‎ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח ְּב ָכל־ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ְּביַ ד‬ ‫ ֵלאמֹר‬‎ ‫ַה ַּמ ְל ָא ִכים‬

The syntactical use of “X sent to Y saying” and, less frequently, “X sent to Y. And he said,” to mean that X sent a message to Y, probably by the hand of a messenger, is well attested in numerous passages spanning from Numbers to Chronicles.92 At this point in the analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that a redactor associated Judg 19:29b in N with 1 Sam 11:7aB and then interpolated Judg 19:29a to harmonize the text with Saul’s butchering of a yoke of oxen in 1 Sam 11:7aA. 3.5.3 Judges 19:30 There is a change in syntax between 19:29b and 19:30a. After five consecutive Wayyiqtol phrases, 19:30a begins with a nominal phrase introduced by the 92

Num 22:10; Josh 2:3; 10:3.6; Judg 21:13; 2 Sam 11:3.5; 12:25; 19:12; 1 Ki 2:36.42; 5:22; 20:10; 21:11.14; 2 Ki 3:7; 5:8; 6:9; 10:5; Jer 39:13; Amos 7:10; Dan 3:2; 2 Ch 2:2; 2 Ch 36:15. Most of these occurrences follow the formula “X sent to Y saying.” The following verses use the formula “X sent to Y and he said/inquired/declared”: Judg 19:29b–30a; 21:13; 2 Sam 11:3.5; 1 Ki 2:36.42; 1 Ki 20:10.

Compositional History of Judges 19

277

Qatal temporal marker: ‫ל־הר ֶֹאה‬ ָ ‫( וְ ָהיָ ה ָכ‬And it came to pass that all those who saw). This is the only occurrence of the Qatal temporal marker in Judges 19–21; in addition, the collective character “all those who saw” will not be mentioned again in the final three chapters of Judges.93 The phrase ‫ל־הר ֶֹאה‬ ָ ‫ וְ ָהיָ ה ָכ‬is then awkwardly followed by the Qatal phrase ‫( וְ ָא ַמר‬and he said). I propose to interpret the introductory phrase ‫ל־הר ֶֹאה‬ ָ ‫ וְ ָהיָ ה ָכ‬as a redactional interpolation intended to link the rest of 19:30 with the interpolated motif of sending body parts throughout Israel in 19:29a. In summary, the earliest composition stratum of 19:28b–30 can be reconstructed as reading: And the man rose up. And he went to his place. And he sent into all the territory of Israel. And he [i.e., the messenger] said: “Nothing has ever happened […] like this from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt until this day. Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!” A redactor then edited the N stratum as follows: 19:28bAnd he took her on the donkey. And the man rose up. And he went to his place. 19:29aAnd he came to his house. And he laid hold of his concubine. And he took the knife. And he cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. And he sent her into all the territory of Israel. 19:30aAnd it came to pass that all those who saw. And he [i.e., all those who saw] said: “Nothing has ever happened or been seen94 like this from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt until this day. 19:30bSet yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!” The redactional interpolations introduce an intertextual allusion to 1 Sam 11:7. It is possible that the redactor perceived a similarity between (i) the identical phrases ‫ וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח ְּב ָכל־ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬in the N stratum of Judg 19:29b and 1 Sam 11:7a,95 93 94 95

The syntagma ‫ל־הר ֶֹאה‬ ָ ‫( ָכ‬all [those] who saw) uses a singular participle to refer to a collective group. The same syntagma is used in Nahum 3:7 and Ps 64:8. The syntagma is used with a plural participle in Isa 61:9, Ezek 28:18 and Ps 22:7. It can be noted that both the N stratum and the “plus” LXXA 19:30a refer to “Nothing has ever happened like this/Has anything ever happened like this before?” In contrast, R3’s interpolation of “or been seen” is reflected in LXXB 19:30aA. It is not at all clear that Saul sent the pieces of slaughtered oxen into all the territory of Israel in 1 Sam 11:7. The text reads ‫( ֵלאמֹר וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח ְּב ָכל־ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ְּביַ ד ַה ַּמ ְל ָא ִכים‬And he sent into all the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying […]). The phrase does

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and (ii) the motif of the convocation of all Israel to go to war in the two pericopes, and then expanded Judg 19:29–30 to harmonize it with 1 Samuel 11. It can be observed that LXXA 19:30a “plus”-30b shows similarities to my reconstructed N text: Reconstructed N text in 19:29b–30 And he sent into all the territory of Israel. And he said: “Nothing has ever happened […] like this, from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, until this day. Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!”

LXXA 19:30a “plus”-30b And he commanded the men he sent: “This is what you will say to all the men of Israel, ‘Has anything happened like this from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt until this day? Take counsel among yourselves on this subject and speak!’”

It can reasonably be argued that the LXXA variant is an interpretive translation of the N material in 19:29b–30. If this hypothesis is correct, LXXA can be understood as a composite text that includes both the N stratum of 19:29b–30 and the final MT version of 19:29–30. However, the compositional history of LXXA is not clear. I propose the following compositional hypothesis for LXXA 19:29–30. First, the translators worked from a Vorlage that reflects the earliest composition stratum of the text. They smoothed out the ambiguity of the N’s phrases “And he sent into all the territory of Israel. And he said” with the explanatory expansion, “And he commanded the men he sent: ‘This is what you will say to all the men of Israel.’” Second, a significant change to the Vorlage was then made by R3 in the final redaction stratum that included (i) the interpolation of 19:29a with its description of the butchering of the woman’s corpse into 12 pieces; and (ii) the interpolation of 19:30a (“And so it was that all who saw”). By introducing the intertextual reference to 1 Samuel 11, R3 effectively eliminated the “messengers” who transmitted a verbal message to all Israel in N and replaced them with the travelling spectacle of the woman’s body parts. The woman’s butchered corpse thus serves as the message itself. Third, LXXA was then updated to reflect the R3 stratum of the Vorlage. However, the translators incorporated the new R3 not contain a direct object identifying what Saul sent. LXX 1 Sam 11:7a contains the same ambiguity. In my view, it is more likely that Saul sent word “by the hand of messengers, saying” than that he sent the carcasses of two slaughtered oxen (probably weighing about 1,500 kg) “by the hand of messengers, saying.”

279

Compositional History of Judges 19

material in 19:29a and 19:30a but maintained the underlying text that reflects the R1 stratum of the Vorlage. 3.6 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 19:22– 30 as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 3.6.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 19:22–30 My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. Judg 22aThey were making glad their heart. And behold! the men of the city, […] the sons of Belial, circled around the house, beating violently on the door. 22bAnd they said to the man […]: “Bring out the man who came to your house […].” 23aBAnd he said to them: “Do not, my brothers. […]. 23bAs this man has come to my house, do not do this folly. 25aBut the men were not willing to listen to him. And the man […] brought [her] out to them outside. 25b[…] And they abused her all the night until morning. And they sent her away at the rise of dawn. 26aAnd the woman came back at the turning of the morning. 26bAnd she fell at the entrance of the house of the man where her lord was until the light. 27aAnd her lord rose up in the morning. And he opened the doors of the house. And he went out to go on his way. 27bBut behold! The woman […], was falling at the entrance of the house, her hands on the threshold. 28aAnd he said to her, “Arise! Let us go!” But no one answered. 28bBAnd the man rose up. And he went to his place. 29aAnd he came to his house […]. 29bAnd he sent […] into all the territory of Israel. 30a[…] And he said: “Nothing has ever happened […] like this, from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, until this day. 30bSet yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!’”

‫ת־ל ָּבם וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬ ִ ‫יט ִיבים ֶא‬ ִ ‫ ֵה ָּמה ֵמ‬22a ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל נָ ַסּבּו‬ ְ ֵ‫ַאנְ ֵׁשי ָה ִעיר […] ְבנ‬ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ִמ ְת ַּד ְּפ ִקים‬ ַ ‫ [ ָס ְבבּו] ֶא‬‎ ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫אמרּו ֶא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬22b ‫ל־ה ָּד ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫ר־ּבא‬ ָ ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש ֲא ֶׁש‬ ָ ‫הֹוצא ֶא‬ ֵ ]…[ ‫אמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם‬ ֶ ֹ ‫[…]וַ ּי‬23aB ‫יתָך‬ ְ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ֶא‬ ַ ‫ַא‬ ‫ר־ּבא‬ ָ ‫ ַא ֲח ֵרי ֲא ֶׁש‬23b ]…[ ‫ל־א ַחי‬ ‫ל־ּת ֲעׂשּו‬ ַ ‫יתי ַא‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה ַא‬ ]…[ ‫ת־הּנְ ָב ָלה ַהּזֹאת‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫א־אבּו ָה ֲאנָ ִׁשים ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬25a ‫ּיֹוצ ָאּה] ָה ִאיׁש‬ ִ ַ‫לֹו […] וַ ּי ֵֹצא [ו‬ ]…[25b ‫ֲא ֵל ֶיהם ַהחּוץ‬ ‫ל־ה ַּליְ ָלה‬ ַ ‫לּו־בּה ָּכ‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַע ְּל‬ )‫חּוה ( ַּב ֲעלֹות‬ ָ ‫ד־הּב ֶֹקר וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫וַ ָּתבֹא‬26a‎‫[ ַּכ ֲעלֹות] ַה ָּׁש ַחר‬ ‫וַ ִּתּפֹל‬26b ‫ָה ִא ָּׁשה ִל ְפנֹות ַהּב ֶֹקר‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ֶ‫ר־אדֹונ‬ ֲ ‫ית־ה ִאיׁש ֲא ֶׁש‬ ָ ‫ֶּפ ַתח ֵּב‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ֶ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ֲאד ֹנ‬27a ‫ד־האֹור‬ ָ ‫ָּׁשם ַע‬ ‫ַּבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיִ ְפ ַּתח ַּד ְלתֹות ַה ַּביִ ת וַ ּיֵ ֵצא‬ ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ָה ִא ָּׁשה‬27b ‫ָל ֶל ֶכת ְל ַד ְרּכֹו‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫[…] נ ֶֹפ ֶלת ֶּפ ַתח ַה ַּביִ ת וְ יָ ֶד‬ ‫קּומי‬ ִ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫אמר ֵא ֶל‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬28a ‫ל־ה ַּסף‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ָה ִאיׁש‬28bB ‫וְ נֵ ֵל ָכה וְ ֵאין עֹנֶ ה‬ ‫ל־ּביתֹו‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ֶא‬29a ‫וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬ ‫וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל ֶח ָה [וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח] ְּבכֹל‬29b ]…[ ]…[ ‫[…] וְ ָא ַמר‬30a ‫ּגְ בּול יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫וְ לֹא־נִ ְר ֲא ָתה ָּכזֹאת ְל ִמּיֹום ֲעלֹות‬ ‫ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ִמ ְצ ַריִ ם ַעד‬ b ‫ַהּיֹום ַהּזֶ ה‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫ימּו־ל ֶכם ָע ֶל‬ ָ ‫ ִׂש‬30b ‫ֻעצּו וְ ַד ֵּברּו‬

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The N material in 19:22–28 presents the pivotal scene in which the Levite’s woman is gang-raped and murdered by the sons of Belial of Gibeah. This crime provides the literary groundwork for the punitive action taken by the sons of Israel against the sons of Benjamin that will be developed in Judges 20. The focus of the narrative unit is on the woman and the terrible crime of which she was a victim. The pathos of the episode is similar to that in the story of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13, to which the text makes a short intertextual allusion. The N material in 19:29–30 provides a transitional episode between the Levite’s discovery that his concubine had been gang-raped and murdered in 19:27–28 and the gathering of all Israel at Mizpah to judge and punish the crime in 20:1–10. The episode is short and uses the type-scene of sending messengers to communicate the Levite’s news to the broader community. 3.6.2 Redaction Strata of Judges 19:22–30 In my view, there are no changes to the N stratum that can be assigned with certainty to R1 or R2. The redactional interpolations in the narrative unit that I propose to assign to R3 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. Judg 22aThey were making glad their heart. And ‫ת־ל ָּבם וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬ ִ ‫יט ִיבים ֶא‬ ִ ‫ ֵה ָּמה ֵמ‬22a behold! the men of the city, the men of the ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל‬ ְ ֵ‫ַאנְ ֵׁשי ָה ִעיר אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי ְבנ‬ sons of Belial, circled around the house, beat‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ִמ ְת ַּד ְּפ ִקים‬ ַ ‫נָ ַסּבּו ֶא‬ ing violently on the door. 22bAnd they said to ‫ל־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫אמרּו ֶא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬22b ‫ל־ה ָּד ֶלת‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ the man, the master of the house, the elder, ‫הֹוצא‬ ֵ ‫ּ ַב ַעל הַ ּ ַביִ ת הַ ָ ּז ֵקן לֵ אמֹר‬ saying: “Bring out the man who came to your ‫יתָך‬ ְ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ר־ּבא ֶא‬ ָ ‫ת־ה ִאיׁש ֲא ֶׁש‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ house. And we shall know him.” 23aAnd he said ‫יהם ָה ִאיׁש‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ֲא ֵל‬23a ‫וְ נ ֵָד ֶענּ ּו‬ to them: “Do not, my brothers. Please do not do ‫אמר ֲא ֵל ֶהם‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ַּב ַעל ַה ַּביִ ת וַ ּי‬ evil. 23bAs this man has come to my house, do ָ ּ ַ‫ל־א ַחי א‬ ַ ‫ַא‬ ‫ ַא ֲח ֵרי‬23b ‫ל־ת ֵרע ּו נָא‬ not do this folly. 24aBehold my maiden daughter ‫יתי‬ ִ ‫ל־ּב‬ ֵ ‫ר־ּבא ָה ִאיׁש ַהּזֶ ה ַא‬ ָ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬ and his concubine. Please, let me bring them ‫ת־הּנְ ָב ָלה הַ ּזֹאת‬ ַ ‫ל־ּת ֲעׂשּו ֶא‬ ַ ‫ַא‬ out. Rape them! Do to them what is good in ‫ ִה ּנֵה ִב ִּתי הַ ְּבתוּלָ ה‬24a your eyes! 24bBut do not do to this man this ‫ה־נָא אוֹ ָתם‬ ּ ָ‫ו ִּפילַ גְ ׁ ֵשה ּו אוֹ ִציא‬ thing of folly.” 25aBut the men were not willing ‫וְ ַענּ ּו אוֹ ָתם וַ עֲ שׂ ּו לָ הֶ ם הַ ּטוֹ ב‬ to listen to him. And the man took hold of his ‫יש הַ ּזֶה לֹא‬ ׁ ‫וְ לָ ִא‬24b ‫ְּב ֵעינֵיכֶ ם‬ concubine. And he brought [her] out to them ‫ַתעֲ שׂ ּו דְּ בַ ר הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה הַ ּזֹאת‬ outside. 25bAnd they knew her. And they abused ‫א־אבּו ָה ֲאנָ ִׁשים ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע‬ ָ ֹ ‫וְ ל‬25a her all the night until morning. And they sent ‫יש ְּב ִפילַ גְ ׁש ֹו‬ ׁ ‫לֹו וַ ַ ּי ֲחזֵק הָ ִא‬ her away at the rise of dawn. 26aAnd the woman ֶ ‫וַ ּי ֵֹצא ֲא ֵל‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְדעּו‬25b ‫יהם ַהחּוץ‬ came back at the turning of the morning. ָ ‫ל־ה ַּליְ ָלה‬ ַ ‫לּו־בּה ָּכ‬ ָ ‫אֹותּה וַ ּיִ ְת ַע ְּל‬ 26bAnd she fell at the entrance of the house )‫חּוה ( ַּב ֲעלֹות‬ ָ ‫ד־הּב ֶֹקר וַ יְ ַׁש ְּל‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ ‫[ ַּכ ֲעלֹות] ַה ָּׁש ַחר‬

a

Compositional History of Judges 19

281

of the man where her lord was until the light. ‫וַ ָּתבֹא ָה ִא ָּׁשה ִל ְפנֹות ַהּב ֶֹקר‬26a‎ 27aAnd he her lord rose up in the morning. And ‫ית־ה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫וַ ִּתּפֹל ֶּפ ַתח ֵּב‬26b he opened the doors of the house. And he went ‫ד־האֹור‬ ָ ‫יה ָּׁשם ַע‬ ָ ֶ‫ר־אדֹונ‬ ֲ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬ out to go on his way. 27bBut behold! The woman, ‫יה ַּבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיִ ְפ ַּתח‬ ָ ֶ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ֲאד ֹנ‬27a his concubine, was falling at the entrance of ‫ַּד ְלתֹות ַה ַּביִ ת וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ָל ֶל ֶכת ְל ַד ְרּכֹו‬ the house, her hands on the threshold. 28aAnd ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ָה ִא ָּׁשה ִפילַ גְ ׁשוֹ נ ֶֹפ ֶלת‬27b he said to her, “Arise! Let us go!” But no one ‫ל־ה ַּסף‬ ַ ‫יה ַע‬ ָ ‫ֶּפ ַתח ַה ַּביִ ת וְ יָ ֶד‬ answered. 28bAnd he took her on the donkey. ‫קּומי וְ נֵ ֵל ָכה וְ ֵאין‬ ִ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫אמר ֵא ֶל‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬28a And the man rose up. And he went to his place. ‫וַ ִ ּי ָ ּקחֶ הָ ַעל־הַ חֲמוֹ ר וַ ּיָ ָקם‬28b ‫עֹנֶ ה‬ 29aAnd he came to his house. And he took the ‫ וַ ּיָבֹא‬29a‫ָה ִאיׁש וַ ּיֵ ֶלְך ִל ְמקֹמֹו‬ knife. And he took hold of his concubine. And ֶ�‫ל־ּביֹותֹו וַ ִ ּי ַ ּקח אֶ ת־הַ ּ ַמאֲכ‬ ֵ ‫ֶא‬ he cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. ָ‫לֶ ת וַ ַ ּי ֲחזֵק ְּב ִפילַ גְ ׁשוֹ וַ יְ נ ְַּתחֶ ה‬ 29bAnd he sent her into all the territory of Israel. ‫לַ עֲ צָ ֶמיהָ לִ ְׁשנֵים ָעשָׂ ר נְ ָת ִחים‬ 30aAnd so it was that that all those who saw. ‫וַ יְ ַׁש ַּלח וַ יְ ׁ ַש ְּלחֶ הָ ְּבכֹל ּגְ בּול‬29b And he said: “Nothing has ever happened or 30b ‫וְ הָ יָה כָ ל־הָ רֹאֶ ה‬30a ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ been seen like this, from the day of the going up ‫וְ ָא ַמר לֹא־נִ ְהיְ ָתה וְ לֹא־נִ ְרא ֲָתה‬ of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, until ‫ָּכזֹאת ְל ִמּיֹום ֲעלֹות ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ this day. 30bSet yourselves upon it! Give counsel! ‫ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ִמ ְצ ַריִ ם ַעד ַהּיֹום ַהּזֶ ה‬ And speak!’” ‫יה ֻעצּו וְ ַד ֵּברּו‬ ָ ‫ימּו־ל ֶכם ָע ֶל‬ ָ ‫ִׂש‬ The interpolations in 19:21–30 introduce two important blind motifs into the narrative. First, the threat of homosexual rape and the old man’s counteroffer of two women to be raped in place of the Levite. Second, the Levite’s act of butchering his concubine’s corpse into twelve pieces and sending them throughout Israel. I have presented multiple arguments in favor of the position that these blind motifs, which introduce intertextual allusions to Genesis 19 and 1 Samuel 11, should be assigned to a redactor. In the case of the redactional activity in 19:22–24, I have argued that the purpose of the interpolations is to “overwrite” the association made in N between the rape of the Levite’s concubine and the rape of David’s daughter Tamar. The redactor artfully shifts the reader’s attention away from 2 Samuel 13 and its negative image of David and his sons and towards the association of Gibeah with the sinful city of Sodom in Genesis 19. I have argued that one of the reasons for this shift in intertextual association might have been to efface the memory of the rape of Tamar, consistent with the Chronicler’s treatment of the episode. If this hypothesis is correct, it would imply that R3 knows Chronicles and should be dated to the Hellenistic period. In the case of the redactional activity in 19:29–30, which introduces the intertextual allusions to 1 Samuel 11, the redactor is filling in the ellipses created by the ambiguity of how the Levite sent word of the crime committed at

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Gibeah to the community as a whole. It is possible that the use of intertextual allusions that create blind motifs in the narrative intrigue may be a stylistic characteristic of R3. I will argue below that the intertextual allusions to Joshua’s victory over Ai in Joshua 8 were also introduced by R3.96 I have suggested that the reason that R3 is not troubled by the introduction of blind motifs into the narrative is that he considers that the hermeneutical advantages of the intertextual allusion outweigh the literary disadvantages of disrupting the flow of the plotline.97 4

Chapter Summary

Four composition strata have been identified in Judges 19. Most of the narrative unit can be attributed to N, the earliest stratum. There is little in the N material that sheds light on the dating of the stratum. The first redaction stratum, R1, introduces two significant changes to the narrative intrigue. First, while N portrays the Levite’s woman as his “wife” in 19:1b, R1 transforms her into a “concubine-wife.” Second, while N describes the purpose of the Levite’s visit to Bethlehem as being ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁשיבֹו‬to bring it [her heart] back) in Ketiv 19:3a, R1 modifies the infinitive construct to read ‫להׁשיבה‬ in the Qere. However, R1’s small change in the accusative suffix can be vocalized as either ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to bring her back) or ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her) as used in Ezr 10:2.10.14.17.18; Neh 13:27. I have argued that LXXA 19:3a supports the latter vocalization. The purpose of these two changes in R1 is to improve the reader’s perception of the Levite. In N, he is a married man who runs after the wife who has abandoned him to beg her to return to him. In R1, the protagonist is now an unmarried man who has a love quarrel with his girlfriend, and then travels to her father’s house to propose marriage. In addition, R1 expands and develops the narrative intrigue in N with two additional scenes. First, the “3+1 day” structure of the Levite’s visit to Bethlehem is broken by the addition of a fifth day in 19:7–9bA. This scene should be attributed to a redactor in part because of the vocabulary shift from N’s use of ‫ ֵלב‬in 19:5b.6b to R1’s use of ‫ ֵל ָבב‬in 19:8a.9b in the otherwise similar phrases, “Sustain your heart!” and “May your heart be glad!” Second, the travel scene from Bethlehem to Gibeah is expanded to include dialog between the Levite and his servant boy in 19:11–14a*. The attribution of

96 97

See discussion of allusions to Joshua 8 in Chapter 10, Section 3.7.4 infra. See discussion of blind motifs in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.5 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 19

283

these two new scenes to R1 is justified in part by the fact that both interpolations are bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. The presence of a third composition stratum in Judges 19 is signaled by the syntagma ‫( ַהּגִ ְב ָעה ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin) in 19:14b. The lexeme ‫ ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬is a hapax in the MT. As this is the first mention of Benjamin in Judges 19–21, the syntagma merits particular attention. While it could be assigned to N or R1, my research indicates that use of “tribal” vocabulary is consistently absent in N and R1 material in Judges 20–21. I thus assign the syntagma ‫ ַהּגִ ְב ָעה ֲא ֶׁשר ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬to R2 on a preliminary basis. The final composition stratum, R3, has substantially reworked the N-R2 material. At the beginning of the narrative, R3 introduces three important changes. First, R3 interpolates the lexeme “Levite” and the participle “sojourning” to describe the protagonist who is simply the “man” in the N-R2 material and expands the topographical reference to “Bethlehem” to “Bethlehem of Judah” in 19:1b. Second, R3 replaces the Hitpa‘el form of the verb ‫( עבר‬she was furious with him) with the Qal form of the verb (and she transgressed against him) in 19:2a. Third, R3 changes the vocalization of the second infinitive construct phrase in 19:3a from ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש ָיבּה‬to marry her) to ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש ָיבּה‬to bring her back). The purpose of the first set of interpolations, which introduce blind motifs into the narrative, is to harmonize the beginning of Judges 19–21 with the preceding narratives in Judges 17–18 in which a Levite lad who resides as a ger in a region other than his place of birth, and the toponym “Bethlehem of Judah” play important roles. The change from “and she was furious with him” to “and his concubine transgressed against him” also introduces a blind motif into the narrative as the woman’s transgression (presumably, adultery) will not be referred to again in the narrative. However, it is likely that an ancient reader would have understood the woman’s infidelity as a proleptic reference to her later gang-rape and murder. In the Chronicler’s theology of retributive justice, every misfortune that befalls a person can be explained as a consequence of a moral failure committed by that person earlier in his or her life. R3’s interpolation of “and she transgressed against him” is thus intended to provide a theological explanation for the woman’s gruesome death. This provides the first clue that R3 should be dated no earlier than the time of the Chronicler. R3 also expands the hospitality scene in Gibeah (19:22–25) to include a number of intertextual allusions to the story of Lot and his visitors in Genesis 19. Although most commentators interpret these allusions as being present in N, I have argued that they can all be demonstrated to be interpolations added to the underlying N-R2 material. It can be noted that the homosexual rape motif

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and the role of the old man’s maiden daughter introduce blind motifs into the narrative intrigue; in addition, 19:24, the verse with the closest parallel to Genesis 18, is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. There are a number of reasons why a redactor would introduce intertextual allusions in a narrative. In the case of 19:22–25, it can reasonably be argued that R3 wanted to create a parallel between Gibeah and Sodom as quintessentially evil towns.

chapter 10

Compositional History of Judges 20 The purpose of this chapter is to apply the methodological principles outlined in Chapter 8 supra to Judges 20 in order to identify and date the earliest composition stratum of the text and the redactional interpolations introduced in subsequent composition strata. The ideological/theological orientations of each stratum will be discussed and signs of “anti-Benjamin” bias will be explored. For ease of discussion, the compositional history of Judges 20 will be divided into three parts. Section 1 will analyze Judg 20:1–17; Section 2, Judg 20:18–31a; and Section 3, Judg 20:31b–48. The status quæstionis of the compositional history of Judges 20 will be presented before the detailed analysis of each of the three narrative units. 1

Compositional History of Judges 20:1–17

From a literary perspective, the narrative unit in 20:1–17 functions as an interlude in the narrative intrigue between (i) the crime committed by certain sons of Benjamin at Gibeah (19:22–30) and (ii) the punitive military action undertaken by the sons of Israel against all the sons of Benjamin (20:18–48). However, there are literary signs in the text that suggest that the thematic transition in the plotline between crime and punishment was addressed in the earliest composition stratum with a short episode. This episode then underwent a process of Fortschreibung in later composition strata that expanded and developed the episode. These interpolations have a two-fold ideological/theological purpose. First, to introduce the notion that crimes must be investigated and judged by a judicial authority with the power to issue decisions binding on the entire community. Second, to take a position on the thorny issue of whether an entire city (or tribe) may be punished collectively for crimes committed by specific individuals. 1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 20:1–17 Notwithstanding their different methodologies, the four compositional history models presented in Chapter 8 supra reach surprisingly similar conclusions concerning the compositional history of Judges 20:1–17. As all four models assign most of the narrative unit to a second source and/or one or more redaction strata, it is useful to discuss the material they assign to these secondary

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_012

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strata before discussing their respective positions on the composition and dating of the earliest composition stratum. It can be noted that there is considerable agreement among them as to the verses that should be assigned to secondary strata.1 The verses in 20:1–17 that Moore, Burney, Gray, Arnold, Schulz and Edenburg assign to a second source and/or a redaction stratum are summarized in the following chart.2 Moore, 1895

Burney, 1918

Gray, 1967

Arnold, 1990

Schulz, 2016

Edenburg, 2016

20:1a*

20:1a* 20:1b 20:2ab

20:1a* 20:1b 20:2ab

20:1a*

20:1a*

20:2b

20:2a*

20:9–10

20:3b–8 20:9–10

20:3b–8 20:9–10

20:1a 20:1b 20:2ab 20:3a 20:3b–8 20:9–10

20:4a* 20:10a*

20:12–13

20:12–13

20:12–13

20:3b–8 20:9–10 20:11

20:15 20:16 20:17

20:15 20:16 20:17

20:15 20:16 20:17

20:15b* 20:16

20:15b* 20:16

20:2a 20:3a

20:12–13 20:14 20:15 20:16 20:17

The principal disagreements among the five commentators under review in this chapter relate to (i) 20:1b which Moore, Schulz and Edenburg assign to N and Burney and Gray attribute to the second source; (ii) 20:3a, which Moore and Arnold assign to a redactor and Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg attribute to N; (iii) 20:3b–8, which Moore and Schulz (with the exception of 20:4a* in Schulz’s case) assign to N and the other four to a redactor; (iv) 20:11, which Edenburg assigns to a redactor and the other five to N; (v) 20:12–13, which Schulz and Edenburg assign to N and the other four to a redactor; (vi) 20:14, 1 It should be noted that Schulz, alone among the commentators under review in this chapter, argues that Judges 20 was added by a redactor as a continuation of Judges 19. Thus, her earliest composition stratum of Judges 20 is later than her earliest composition stratum of Judges 19. In order to compare her compositional history of Judges 20 with the other commentators under review in the chart that follows, I have equated her earliest stratum of Judges 20 with the continuous N stratum of Judges 19–20 of the other commentators. 2 Soggin, the most recent proponent of the “two-source” model, does not address the compositional history of 20:1–17.

Compositional History of Judges 20

287

which Arnold assigns to a redactor and the other five to N; and (vii) 20:17, which Schulz and Edenburg assign to N and the other four to a redactor. Particular attention will be paid to these contested passages in the detailed discussion below. From a methodological perspective, it can be noted that Burney’s “twosource” hypothesis shows considerable weakness in the interpretation of 20:1– 17. As the term “men of Israel” occurs only once, in 20:11, this is the only verse in the narrative unit that Burney assigns to J. In contrast, although the terms “sons of Israel/sons of Benjamin” (the criterion for identifying Burney’s second source) occur eight times in 20:1–17,3 Burney attributes only 20.1*.3a.14a to the second source and all the others to a redactor. This position undermines Burney’s hypothesis that the use of different terminology to name Israel and Benjamin is a methodologically sound method to identify the first and second sources. In effect, Burney is unable to distinguish his “second source” from Moore’s redaction strata. Methodological problems in the compositional histories of the other four commentators will be presented in the detailed discussion of 20:1–17 following below. 1.2

Judges 20:1

Judg 20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to Beer-Sheva, and the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah.

‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ ִּת ָּק ֵהל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ָּכ‬‎ ‫ָה ֵע ָדה ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ְל ִמ ָּדן‬ ‫ד־ּב ֵאר ֶׁש ַבע וְ ֶא ֶרץ ַהּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫וְ ַע‬ ‫ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬

The narrative sequence in 20:1 describes the gathering of Israel at Mizpah in response to the call addressed to the community by the Levite’s messengers, “Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!” (19:30). Moore, Burney, Gray and Edenburg take the position that the second phrase in 20:1a (And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to Beer-Sheva and the land of Gilead) should be assigned to a redactor on the grounds that the noun ‫ֵע ָדה‬ (congregation) is a “priestly” lexeme that should therefore be dated later than the earliest composition stratum.4 Schulz assigns all of 20:1 to the redaction stratum responsible for the composition of Judges 20* with the exception of 3 20:1a.3a.3b.7a.13b.14a.14b.15a. 4 Schulz agrees that ‫ ֵע ָדה‬is a priestly term. She argues that the presence of priestly terms in Judges 20 is one of the key indicators that Judges 20 was not composed by the same author as Judges 19: “Bereits zu Beginn des Kapitels wird ein Unterschied zu Ri 19 sichtbar: Die Szenerie ist durch und durch kultisch geprägt (‫האלהים‬, ‫עם‬, ‫עדה‬, ‫ )קהל‬und hebt sich so markant von dem in Ri 19 vorherrschenden profanen Milieu ab. Dies erhärtet vorab die Vermutung, dass

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the phrase “and the land of Gilead” at the end of 20:1a which she attributes to a later redactor. As will be discussed below, I propose to attribute all of 20:1 to N, with the sole exception of the mention of the toponym Beer-Sheva. This hypothesis is supported by five arguments. First, if 20:1b (“to YHWH at Mizpah”) is assigned to N as I propose,5 the reference to the toponym Mizpah as the place of assembly for the sons of Israel provides a valuable clue to the dating of the earliest composition stratum. It is reasonable to assign this stratum to the period between the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, when Mizpah became the administrative capital of Judah under Babylonian rule, and circa 450 BCE when the Persians moved the administrative capital of Yehud to Jerusalem.6 Second, there is no persuasive reason to assign the phrase‎‫( וַ ִּת ָּק ֵהל ָה ֵע ָדה‬And the congregation assembled) in 20:1a to a redactor.7 As discussed, Moore, Burney, Gray, Arnold and Schulz treat the lexeme ‫ ֵע ָדה‬as “priestly” vocabulary and therefore assign the verse to a redactor. This position is based on circular reasoning that can be summarized as follows: (i) it is assumed that there is a fundamental distinction between P and non-P vocabulary; (ii) P vocabulary is later than non-P; therefore, (iii) it is concluded that a verse that uses the lexeme ‫ ֵע ָדה‬must be assigned to a later priestly redaction stratum. As discussed above, the dating criterion of distinguishing between P and non-P vocabulary is questionable.8 In contrast, Edenburg rejects the position that Judges 19–21 underwent a priestly redaction. She argues instead that the use of ‫ ֵע ָדה‬underwent a revival in the Persian period in texts that are not necessarily priestly. She states, “In fact, the term occurs several times in the Persian period Elephantine texts and is very frequent in nonbiblical texts at Qumran. Hence the biblical use of the term ‫ ֵע ָדה‬reflects an ideal view of prestate [sic] society and a retrojection of postexilic circumstances into a distant past.”9 However, Edenburg maintains the consensus view that verses containing the lexeme ‫ ֵע ָדה‬should nonetheless be assigned to a redaction stratum rather than to N. Edenburg’s position also seems to be based on circular reasoning. She appears to argue

5 6

7 8 9

Ri 20 nicht die ursprüngliche Fortsetzung von Ri 19 darstellt.” Schulz, Die Anhänge, 61; citations omitted. Pace Moore and Edenburg; contra Burney, Gray, Arnold and Schulz. See discussion of the political role of Mizpah and the religious role of Bethel during the Babylonian period in Chapter 7, Section 4 supra. See discussion of the dating of the move of the administrative capital of Judah from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area in Chapter 7, Section 4 supra. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Arnold, Schulz and Edenburg. See discussion of P and non-P vocabulary in Persian period texts in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.3 supra. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 136.

Compositional History of Judges 20

289

that (i) because N should probably be dated to the exilic period; and (ii) the use of the lexeme ‫ ֵע ָדה‬is a Persian/Hellenistic period phenomenon; therefore (iii) none of the occurrences of the lexeme ‫ ֵע ָדה‬in Judges 19–21 can be assigned to N. However, if the dating of N is pushed forward to the Persian period, as I am proposing, Edenburg’s argument that N does not use the lexeme ‫ֵע ָדה‬ becomes less persuasive. Third, the only material in 20:1 that I propose to assign to a redactor are the words, “Beer-Sheva and.”10 This position is in turn supported by three arguments. Primo, while the syntagma “from Dan to Beer-Sheva” is used seven times in the MT, none of these occurrences add a third toponym to the syntagma.11 This suggests the possibility of redactional activity in 20:1a. The first hypothesis that comes to mind is that a redactor interpolated “and the land of Gilead” after “from Dan to Beer-Sheva.”12 However, it is also possible that the underlying composition stratum read “from Dan to the land of Gilead” and that a redactor interpolated “Beer-Sheva and” in order to harmonize the verse with the customary syntagma “from Dan to Beer-Sheva.” Secundo, the latter hypothesis is supported by the fact that the syntax in 20:1b is different from that used in the customary formula. It can be observed that while the customary formula uses the syntagma ‫ד־ּב ֵאר ָׁש ַבע‬ ְ ‫ ִמדָּ ן וְ ַע‬‎, 20:1b reads, ‫ד־ּב ֵאר ֶׁש ַבע‬ ְ ‫לְ ִמדָּ ן וְ ַע‬. The use of the double preposition ‫ ְל ִמ‬in a formula “from X to Y” occurs in the following syntagmas: “from the smallest to the greatest,”13 “from man to beast,”14 “from man to woman,”15 “from one end of the heavens to the other,”16 and “from evil to good.”17 The possibility should therefore be considered that the phrase “from Dan to Beer-Sheva and the land of Gilead” is based on these 13 occurrences of the formula that begins ‫ ְל ִמ‬. However, the formula appears in all of the attested cases to use two opposites to imply inclusiveness. The mention of three toponyms in 20:1b, Dan, Beer-Sheva and Gilead, breaks this pattern and suggests redactional activity. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Contra Moore, Burney, Arnold and Edenburg who assign the entire phrase “from Dan to Beer-Sheva and the land of Gilead” to the same redaction stratum. 1 Sam 3:20; 2 Sam 3:10; 17:11; 24:2.15; 1 Ki 5:5. The order of the two toponyms is reversed in 1 Ch 21:2; 2 Ch 30:5; both verses form part of the Chronicler’s Sondergut. Pace Schulz. 2 Ki 23:2; Jer 31:34; 42:8; 2 Ch 15:13. The formula is reversed (from the greatest to the smallest) in Est 1:5.20. Exod 11:7; Jer 51:62. 2 Sam 6:19; 2 Ch 15:13. Deut 4:32. 2 Sam 13:22. The formula is also used in Zech 14:10 to refer to place names: “from Benjamin’s gate to the place of the First Gate […] and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s wine presses.”

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Tertio, although Dan and Beer-Sheva represent blind motifs in Judges 19–21, the land of Gilead will play an important role in 21:8–14. It is possible that the use of Dan and the land of Gilead as opposites implying inclusivity is based on the association of Dan and Gilead in the phrase, ‎‫ל־ה ָא ֶרץ‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיַ ְר ֵאהּו יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬ ‫ד־ּדן‬ ָ ‫ת־הּגִ ְל ָעד ַע‬ ַ ‫( ֶא‬And YHWH showed him all the land, that is, Gilead to Dan) in Deut 34:1. In conclusion, I propose that (i) the N material in 20:1 read, “And all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to the land of Gilead” and (ii) a redactor glossed the text to add “Beer-Sheva and” in order to harmonize the text with the typical phrase, “from Dan to Beer-Sheva.” 1.3

Judges 20:2

Judg 20:2aAnd the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of Israel, stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God, 2b400,000 men on foot, drawing the sword.

‫ל־ה ָעם ּכֹל‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו ִּפּנֹות ָּכ‬‎ ‫ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִּב ְק ַהל ַעם‬ ‫ֹלהים ַא ְר ַּבע ֵמאֹות ֶא ֶלף‬ ִ ‫ָה ֱא‬ ‫ִאיׁש ַרגְ ִלי ׁש ֵֹלף ָח ֶרב‬

Verse 20:2 develops and expands the information provided in 20:1. Moore, Burney, Gray, Arnold and Schulz assign the entire verse to a redactor. Edenburg argues that the N material consisted of the one-word phrase ‎‫( וַ ּיִ ְתיַ ְּצבו‬And they stationed themselves) and assigns the remainder of the verse to a redactor. These commentators base their view on the argument that the lexeme ‫ָק ָהל‬ (assembly) reflects priestly vocabulary, and in the case of Edenburg, late Persian period vocabulary.18 I disagree and propose to assign most of 20:2a to N as follows: “And they stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God.” I will argue that the rest of 20:2 should be attributed to one or more redactional strata. This hypothesis is supported by five arguments. First, as discussed, the argument that all “priestly” vocabulary should necessarily be assigned to a redactor is based on the assumption that the earliest composition stratum in Judges 19–21 is pre-exilic, or in the case of Edenburg, exilic. Once the dating of the first stratum is moved forward to the Persian period, as most scholars now agree,19 arguments relating to the late dating of so-called “priestly” vocabulary become problematic. As discussed, Schulz is the only commentator under review in this chapter who assigns all of Judges 19–21 18 19

Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 134–137. See discussion of the general consensus dating of Judges 19–21 in Chapter 8, Section 1 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 20

291

to the post-exilic period. However, she attributes Judges 19 and Judges 20 to different composition strata because of inter alia the distinction between the “profane” vocabulary in the former and the “priestly” vocabulary in the latter.20 As discussed, I find the distinction between P and non-P vocabulary as an argument in favor of different compositional strata in Persian-period texts to be unpersuasive. Second, Edenburg’s argument that the lexeme ‫ ָק ָהל‬as used in 20:2a should be dated to the time of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles is difficult to sustain. She states, “The partiality of late writers toward the term can be demonstrated by comparing the frequencies in Samuel-Kings (seven times) with those in Chronicles (thirty-two times).”21 While this comparison might indicate that late writers had a “partiality” in favor of using the lexeme ‫ ָק ָהל‬, the six occurrences of the lexeme in Samuel and Kings demonstrate to the contrary that ‫ ָק ָהל‬was also used in texts that are generally dated earlier than the time of the Chronicler. The methodologically problematic character of Edenburg’s linguistic dating is reinforced when it is noted that the lexeme ‫ ָק ָהל‬is used 11 times in Deuteronomy.22 In my view, there is no compelling reason to conclude that a mid-Persian period text such as the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19–21 would not use the lexeme ‫ ָק ָהל‬. Third, if the lexeme ‫ ָק ָהל‬poses a dating problem, it is because the noun is used in the double construct phrase ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫( ִּב ְק ַהל ַעם ָה ֱא‬in the assembly of the people of God). This phrase is a hapax in the MT.23 However, the syntagma ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ִּב ְק ַהל ַעם ָה ֱא‬is composed of elements attested in diverse parts of the MT. Primo, ‫ל־עם‬ ָ ‫ ְק ַה‬occurs in Jer 26:17 and Ps 107:32. Secundo, ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ִּב ְק ַהל ָה ֱא‬is attested in Neh 13:1. Tertio, ‫ ְק ַהל יְ הוָ ה‬is used in Num 16:3; Deut 23:1.2.3.8; Mic 2:5; 1 Ch 2:5. Quarto, ‎ ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ַעם ֱא‬occurs in 2 Sam 14:13. Quinto, ‫ ַעם־יְ הוָ ה‬is used in Judg 5:11.13; 2 Sam 1:12; 6:21; 2 Ki 9:6; Ezek 36:20 and Zeph 2:10. It can reasonably be argued that N created a new syntagma by combining ‫ל־עם‬ ָ ‫ ְק ַה‬with ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ַעם ֱא‬or ‎‫ ַעם־יְ הוָ ה‬. Fourth, as to the redactional activity in 20:2, it can be noted that while the protagonist (and subject of the verb) in 20:1a is “the congregation (‫) ָה ֵע ָדה‬,” 20:2a introduces two different collective protagonists, ‫ל־ה ָעם ּכֹל ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ָ ‫ִּפּנֹות ָּכ‬

20

21 22 23

“Bereits zu Beginn des Kapitels wird ein Unterschied zu Ri 19 sichtbar: Die Szenerie ist durch und durch kultisch geprägt (‫האלהים‬, ‫עם‬, ‫עדה‬, ‫ )קהל‬und hebt sich so markant von dem in Ri 19 vorherrschenden profanen Mileu ab. Dies erhärtet vorab die Vermutung, dass Ri 20 nich die ursprüngliche Fortsetzung von Ri 19 darstellt.” Schulz, Die Anhänge, 61. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 136, n. 106. Edenburg’s count of seven occurrences in Samuel-Kings should read six. Deut 5:22; 9:10; 10:4; 18:16; 23:2.3(×2).4(×2).9; 31:30. The corresponding term ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ λαοῦ in LXXAB 20:2a is also used in Judith 14:6.

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(the chiefs of all the people, all the tribes of Israel).24 As one of the distinctive thematic characteristics of Judges 19–21 is that the sons of Israel go to war without a leader or commanding general,25 the reference to the ‫ל־ה ָעם‬ ָ ‫ ִּפּנֹות ָּכ‬introduces a blind motif into the narrative. These “chiefs of all the people” appear on the narrative stage in 20:2a and then disappear. Similarly, the syntagma ‫( ּכֹל ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬all the tribes of Israel) in 20:2a is used in Judges 19–21 only two other times, in 20:10a; 21:5, verses that will also be attributed to a redactor on independent grounds.26 Fifth, the following verse, 20:2b, “400,000 men on foot, drawing the sword” is a nominal clause that adds detail to 20:2a. Although there is no a priori reason to treat all nominal clauses that add detail to the preceding Wayyiqtol phrase as redactional interpolations, there are two reasons that justify assigning 20:2b to a redactor.27 Primo, the reference to 400,000 men is the first occurrence of the use of exaggerated figures to number the collective characters in the narrative.28 I will attempt to demonstrate below that all of the passages with large numbers show signs of redactional activity. Secundo, the specific numbering of the sons of Israel as 400,000 men is a proleptic reference to the “400,000 men drawing the sword” in 20:17a. As 20:17a will be assigned to a redactor,29 it is likely that the reference in 20:2b was interpolated by the same or a later redactor. 1.4

Judges 20:3a

Judg 20:3aAnd the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.

‫י־עלּו‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִּכ‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְמעּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬‎ ‫ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬

Judges 20:3a appears to interrupt the narrative flow between 20:2b and 20:3b with the introduction of parenthetical background information. Moore and Arnold attribute the verse to a redactor while Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg assign it to the earliest composition stratum; none of the commentators provides an explanation for his or her position. I agree with Moore and 24 25 26 27 28

29

The LXXAB variants of 20:2a differ among themselves and with MT 20:2a. In particular, LXXB 20:2a does not contain a phrase equivalent to “the chiefs of all the people.” See discussion in Chapter 3, Section 2.1 supra. Edenburg attributes “all the tribes of Israel” in 20:2a to the earliest compositional stratum and the same syntagma in 20:10a to a redactor. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 30. Pace Burney and Schulz; contra Moore and Edenburg. Israel Finkelstein estimates that the population of the entire province of Yehud during the Persian period was about 12,000. Israel Finkelstein, “Territorial Extent,” 45. Oded Lipschits estimates the population of Yehud at about 25,000. Oded Lipschits, “Demographic Changes,” 364. Pace Moore and Burney; contra Schulz and Edenburg.

Compositional History of Judges 20

293

Arnold for two reasons. First, it can be observed that although the verb ‫עלה‬ ָ (to go up) is very common in the MT, it is used only rarely in Judges 20. Other than in 20:3a, the verb occurs elsewhere in Judges 20 only in the three “consultation with YHWH” scenes in which the sons of Israel go up to Bethel (20:18a.23a.26a) and YHWH instructs them to go up against Benjamin (20:23b.28b. 30a). In addition, the phrase, “Who did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah” will be used in 21:5.8. As will be discussed in detail below, I assign all of these passages to various redaction strata on criteria not related to their use of the verb ‫עלה‬ ָ .30 If this hypothesis is correct, there is reason to suspect that 20:3a should also be assigned to a redactor. Second, it is likely that the purpose of the parenthetical information in 20:3a – that Benjamin knew that the sons of Israel had assembled at Mizpah – is to lay the groundwork for 20:14, “And the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, to go out to the battle with the sons of Israel.” The interpolation of 20:3a thus provides an explanation as to how the sons of Benjamin had time to prepare their army to go out to the battle at Gibeah. Benjamin’s early knowledge of Israel’s intentions also serves to respond to reader queries whether a surprise attack on Gibeah might have been a better strategy. 1.5

Judges 20:3b–7

Judg 20:3bAnd the sons of Israel said: “Speak! How ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּד ְּברּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬3b‎ did this evil happen?” 4aAnd the Levite man, ‫יכה נִ ְהיְ ָתה ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת‬ ָ ‫ֵא‬ the husband of the woman who was murdered, ‫וַ ּיַ ַען ָה ִאיׁש ַה ֵּלוִ י ִאיׁש ָה ִא ָּׁשה‬4 responded. And he said: 4bTo Gibeah that belongs ‫אמר ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ַ ֹ ‫ַהּנִ ְר ָצ ָחה וַ ּי‬ to Benjamin, I came, myself and my concubine ‫ּופ ַילגְ ִׁשי ָללּון‬ ִ ‫אתי ֲאנִ י‬ ִ ‫יָמן ָּב‬ ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ to spend the night. 5aAnd the masters of Gibeah ‫וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו ָע ַלי ַּב ֲע ֵלי ַהּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיָ סֹּבּו‬5 rose up against me. And they circled around the ‫אֹותי ִּדּמּו‬ ִ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ָליְ ָלה‬ ַ ‫ָע ַלי ֶא‬ house by night because of me. 5bMe, they wanted ‫ת־ּפ ַילגְ ִׁשי ִעּנּו וַ ָּתמֹת‬ ִ ‫ַל ֲהר ֹג וְ ֶא‬ to kill. And my concubine they raped. And she ‫וָ א ֵֹחז ְּב ִפ ַילגְ ִׁשי וָ ֲאנַ ְּת ֶח ָה‬6 died. 6aAnd I took hold of my concubine. And I ‫ל־ׂש ֵדה נַ ֲח ַלת‬ ְ ‫וָ ֲא ַׁש ְּל ֶח ָה ְּב ָכ‬ cut here into pieces. And I sent her throughout all ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִּכי ָעׂשּו זִ ָּמה ּונְ ָב ָלה‬ the country of the inheritance of Israel, 6bfor they ‫ ִהּנֵ ה ֻכ ְּל ֶכם ְּבנֵ י‬7 ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ had done wickedness and folly in Israel. 7aBehold! ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָהבּו ָל ֶכם ָּד ָבר וְ ֵע ָצה‬ You are all sons of Israel. 7bEngage yourselves in ‫ֲהֹלם‬ discussion and counsel here!” 30

See discussion of the three consultation with YHWH scenes in Section 2.6 infra.

294

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In my view, 20:3b–7 should be attributed to a redactor.31 This hypothesis is supported by four arguments. First, the Levite’s reappearance in the plotline is rather abrupt. The sons of Israel say, “Speak! How did this evil happen?” in 20:3b, and the next verse states, “And the Levite man … responded” (20:4a). As the Levite is the principal protagonist in Judges 19, it is somewhat surprising that the narrator fails to describe his journey from his village in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim to attend the assembly at Mizpah. Similarly, the Levite’s disappearance from the narrative scene after his speech is left unexplained. The unexpected reappearance of the Levite in the narrative in 20:3b–7 thus raises a suspicion of redactional activity. Second, like the Levite’s previous speech in 19:18–19, his speech in 20:4–7 is particularly long (45 words). As previously discussed, I consider long speeches to be atypical of the first composition stratum and thus a sign of redactional Fortschreibung.32 Third, 20:3b–7 uses a lexical registry that comprises lexemes and syntagmas not attested elsewhere in Judges 19–21. This lexical registry includes the verbs ‫( ָר ַצח‬to murder; 20:3); ‫( ָה ַרג‬to kill; 20:5); ‫( מּות‬to die; 20:533); ‫( יָ ַהב‬to give; 20:7); the noun ‫( זִ ָּמה‬wickedness; 20:6b); the adverb ‫( ֲהֹלם‬here; 20:7b); and the expressions, ‫( ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת‬this evil; 20:3b34) and ‫ל־ׂש ֵדה נַ ֲח ַלת יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫( ְּב ָכ‬throughout all the countryside of the inheritance of Israel; 20:6a). Fourth, the unit 20:3b–7 opens with the phrase, “And the sons of Israel said, ‘Speak! (‫ ) ַּד ְּברּו‬How did this evil happen?’” (20:3b) and ends with the phrase, “Engage yourselves in discussion and counsel (‫ ָּד ָבר וְ ֵע ָצה‬‎) here!” (20:7b). These phrases may have been modeled on the last words of the Levite’s messengers in 19:30b (which has been assigned to N), “Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak! (‫ימּו־ל ֶכם ָע ֶל ָיה ֻעצּו וְ ַד ֵּברּו‬ ָ ‫) ִׂש‬.” If this hypothesis is correct, it supports the proposition that 20:3b–7 represents an expansion and development of N’s narrative in which the congregation decides to take punitive action against the inhabitants of Gibeah on the basis of the message that the Levite caused to be circulated in the community. The purpose of the interpolation in 20:3b–7 is to characterize the assembly of the people of God as a judicial institution in

31 32 33 34

Contra Moore and Schulz; pace Burney and Edenburg. It should be noted that neither Burney nor Edenburg provides an explanation for their attribution of 20:3b–7 to a redactor. See discussion of long speeches in Judges 19–21 in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.1 supra. This verb is also used in 20:13 which I will assign to a redactor on independent grounds. See discussion in Section 1.7 infra. This syntagma is also used in 20:12 which will be assigned to a redactor on independent grounds. See discussion in Section 1.7 infra.

Compositional History of Judges 20

295

which the entire community deliberates on a charge presented by an aggrieved party and then reaches a decision by consensus. 1.6

Judges 20:8–10

Judg 20:8aAnd all the people rose up as one man, saying: 8b“We shall not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not detour, not one man, to his house. 9aAnd now, this is the thing that we shall do to Gibeah. 9bAgainst her by lot! 10aAnd we shall take ten men of a hundred in all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand of ten thousand, to take provisions to the people, 10bto do for their coming to Geba in Benjamin, for all the folly that they did in Israel.

‫ל־ה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ָּכ‬8‎ ‫ֵלאמֹר לֹא נֵ ֵלְך ִאיׁש ְל ָא ֳהלֹו וְ לֹא‬ ‫וְ ַע ָּתה זֶ ה‬9 ‫נָ סּור ִאיׁש ְל ֵביתֹו‬ ‫יה‬ ָ ‫ַה ָּד ָבר ֲא ֶׁשר נַ ֲע ֶׂשה ַלּגִ ְב ָעה ָע ֶל‬ ָ ‫ְּב‬ ‫וְ ָל ַק ְחנּו ֲע ָׂש ָרה ֲאנָ ִׁשים‬10 ‫גֹורל‬ ‫ּומ ָאה‬ ֵ ‫ַל ֵּמ ָאה ְלכֹל ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ָל ֶא ֶלף וְ ֶא ֶלף ָל ְר ָב ָבה ָל ַק ַחת‬ ‫בֹואם ְלגֶ ַבע‬ ָ ‫ֵצ ָדה ָל ָעם ַל ֲעׂשֹות ְל‬ ‫ל־הּנְ ָב ָלה ֲא ֶׁשר ָע ָׂשה‬ ַ ‫יָמן ְּכ ָכ‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

The narrative segment in 20:8–10 contains a long speech (39 words) spoken by “all the people.” As will be discussed below, there is a significant change in vocabulary that suggests that 20:8 and 20:9–10 should not be attributed to the same compositional stratum.35 In the final version of the text, the people’s speech is a collective response to the last words of the Levite’s speech to the assembly of the people of God: “Behold! You are all sons of Israel. Engage yourselves in discussion and counsel here!” (20:7). However, if 20:3b–7 is attributed to a redactor, as I have proposed, the people’s speech in 20:8 can be read as a continuation of the plotline in 19:30–20:2. The Levite’s messengers urge all the men of Israel, “Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And Speak!” (19:30b). The congregation then assembles as one man at Mizpah (20:1) in the assembly of the people of God (20:2) and all the people rise up as one man to make a short collective speech (20:8): “We shall not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not detour, not one man, to his house.” The final part of the people’s speech in 20:9–10 is a redactional interpolation.36 This hypothesis is supported by four arguments. First, the lexical registry in this narrative sequence introduces lexemes not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. These include (i) the infinitive construct forms of the verbs ‫( ָל ַקח‬to take; 20:10a), ‫ ָע ָׂשה‬, and ‫( ּבוא‬to do and to come; 20:10b); (ii) the nouns ‫ּגֹורל‬ ָ (lot; 20:9b) and ‫ֵצ ָדה‬ 35 36

Pace Moore; contra Burney, Schulz and Edenburg. Pace Moore, Burney and Edenburg. It should be noted that none of these commentators explains why he or she attributes 20:9–10 to a redactor.

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(provisions; 20:10a); and (ii) the syntagma ‫ל־הּנְ ָב ָלה‬ ַ ‫( ְּכ ָכ‬for all the folly; 20:10b). Second, the motif of casting lots to select men to carry provisions to the army is a blind motif that does not recur in the narrative intrigue. The most telling sign of redactional activity in 20:9–10 is perhaps the use of the syntagma ‎‫( וְ ַע ָּתה‬and now) at the beginning of 20:9a. This stylistic formula occurs hundreds of times in the MT. However, ‫ וְ ַע ָּתה‬is used only one other time in Judges 19–21, in 20:13a, a verse that will be assigned to a redactor on independent grounds. Third, there are reasons for dating 20:9–10 to the time of the Chronicler. As the motif of selecting people by lot to provide services to the community is only used in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles,37 the interpolation in 20:9–10 can be dated to the early Hellenistic period. The more specific motif of selecting one out of ten people is used in Neh 11:1.38 It can also be noted that the infinitive construct with genitive suffix ‫בֹואם‬ ָ ‫( ְל‬for their coming) is used elsewhere in the MT only in Ezr 3:8. If my hypothesis that the earliest composition stratum was written during the first half of the Persian period is correct, then passages such as 20:9–10 that show the influence of the Chronicler should be attributed to a redactor and dated to the early Hellenistic period. 1.7

Judges 20:11–14

Judg 20:11And all the men of Israel were gathered to the city as one man, united. 12aAnd the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin saying: 12b“What is this evil that has happened among you? 13aAnd now, hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out evil from Israel.” 13bBut the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel. 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel.

37 38

‫ל־איׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ֵסף ָּכ‬11‎ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֲח ֵב ִרים‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְלחּו ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֲאנָ ִׁשים‬12 ‫יָמן ֵלאמֹר ָמה‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ׁש ְב ֵטי ִבנ‬ ִ ‫ְּב ָכ‬ ‫ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת ֲא ֶׁשר נִ ְהיְ ָתה ָּב ֶכם‬ ‫ת־ה ֲאנָ ִׁשים‬ ָ ‫וְ ַע ָּתה ְּתנּו ֶא‬13 ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל ֲא ֶׁשר ַּבּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ְ ֵ‫ְּבנ‬ ‫יתם ּונְ ַב ֲע ָרה ָר ָעה ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫ּונְ ִמ‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וְ לֹא ָאבּו (כך) [ ְּבנֵ י] ִּבנ‬ ‫יהם‬ ֶ ‫ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע ְּבקֹול ֲא ֵח‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו ְבנ‬14 ‫ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ן־ה ָע ִרים ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה ָל ֵצאת‬ ֶ ‫ִמ‬ ‫ם־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬

Neh 10:35–37; 11:1; 1 Ch 24:5–19.31; 25: 8–31; 26:13–22. “And the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem. And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city. But nine-tenths [remained] in the cities.” Neh 11:1; NAS translation.

Compositional History of Judges 20

297

The first verse in the unit 20:11–14, “And all the men of Israel gathered themselves (‫ )וַ ּיֵ ָא ֵסף‬to the city as one man, united” (20:11) uses vocabulary that is generally consistent with the earliest composition stratum in 20:1–10.39 It can be noted that the Nif‘al form of the verb ‫ ָא ַסף‬occurs only one more time in Judges 19–21, in 20:14, the last verse of the unit 20:11–14: “And the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves (‫ )וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו‬from the cities to Gibeah, to go out to the battle with the sons of Israel.” These two verses form a thematic pair that can be read together. However, the two elements of the pair are separated by 20:12–13. This raises the possibility that the intervening material may be a redactional interpolation.40 Four arguments can be advanced in favor of this hypothesis. First, the phrase “And all the men of Israel gathered themselves to the city [Gibeah] as one man, united” in 20:11 tends to indicate that the decision to launch a punitive military action against the sons of Benjamin has already been taken and that the hostilities are about to begin. The thematic development in 20:12–13 – demanding the extradition of the guilty parties to put them to death (rather than punishing the whole tribe of Benjamin for the crimes of the sons of Belial) – seems thematically intrusive.41 Second, the vocabulary in 20:12a (“And the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin, saying” introduces “tribal” terminology to refer to the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin. The syntagma ‫ ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬is used elsewhere in Judges 19–21 in 20:10a; 21:5a.15a.42 The first occurrence has already been assigned to a redactor on independent grounds,43 and the remaining two will be as well.44 The sons of Benjamin are described as being 39 40 41

42 43 44

Edenburg assigns 20:11 to a redactor without explanation. Pace Moore, Burney and Arnold; contra Schulz and Edenburg. To avoid the thematic contradiction with 20:11, Barry G. Webb argues that the purpose of the demand to extradite the guilty parties in 20:12–13 is “to justify the action about to be taken, and perhaps buy time for necessary preparations. […] The failure of negotiation has been made all but inevitable by developments that have occurred in the previous two episodes.” Webb, Judges, 479. In order to substantiate the thematic continuity between 20:11 and 20:12–13, Webb is compelled to reduce the importance of the demand for extradition to a ploy. I disagree with Webb’s analysis on the grounds that 20:12–13 introduces an important theological point into the earliest composition stratum: It is the failure of the sons of Benjamin to comply with the extradition order (rather than the gang-rape and murder of the Levite’s wife by a crowd of hooligans) that justifies the corporate punishment of all Benjamin. See discussion in Section 2.7.3 infra. The plural syntagma “tribes of Benjamin” in 20:12a raises a text critical problem. As discussed, it is my position that the peculiar use of the plural is intentional and not a scribal error. See discussion of the text critical problem in 20:12a in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.5 supra. See discussion in Section 1.6 supra. See discussion in Chapter 11, Sections 1.6 and 2.8 infra.

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a “tribe” elsewhere in Judges 19–21 only in 21:6.17, verses that will be assigned to a redactor on independent grounds.45 In my view, tribal terminology is not present in N. Third, it can be observed that 20:12b is thematically and syntactically similar to the question put to the Levite by the sons of Israel in 20:3b which has been assigned to a redactor on independent grounds: Judg 20:3b[…] Speak! How did this evil happen? Judg 20:12bWhat is this evil that has happened among you?

‫יכה נִ ְהיְ ָתה הָ ָר ָעה‬ ָ ‫ ַּד ְּברּו ֵא‬‎ ‫הַ ּזֹאת‬ ‫ ָמה הָ ָר ָעה הַ ּזֹאת ֲא ֶׁשר נִ ְהיְ ָתה‬‎

‫ָּב ֶכם‬

The syntagma ‫ ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת‬does not occur elsewhere in Judges 19–21.46 This suggests that 20:12b is part of a redactional interpolation that should be assigned to the same stratum as 20:3b or to a later stratum that constructed 20:12b on the basis of 20:3b. Fourth, 20:13 contains intertextual allusions to 1 Sam 11:12 and Deut 17:12: Judg 20:13aAnd now, hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out evil from among Israel. 13bBut the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel. 1 Sam 11:12bHand over the men. And we shall put them to death. Deut 17:12And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve YHWH your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die. And you will burn out the evil from among Israel.

‫וְ ַע ָּתה ְּתנ ּו אֶ ת־הָ אֲ נ ִָׁשים‬‎

‫יתם‬ ֵ ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל ֲא ֶׁשר ַּבּגִ ְב ָעה וּנְ ִמ‬ ְ ֵ‫ְּבנ‬ ‫וּנְ בַ עֲ ָרה ָר ָעה ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל וְ לֹא ָאבּו‬ ‫יָמן לִ ְׁשמ ַֹע ְּבקֹול‬ ִ ְ‫(כך) [ ְּבנֵ י] ִּבנ‬

‫יהם ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֶ ‫ֲא ֵח‬

‫יתם‬ ֵ ‫ ְּתנ ּו הָ ֲאנ ִָׁשים וּנְ ִמ‬‎

‫ וְ ָה ִאיׁש ֲא ֶׁשר־יַ ֲע ֶׂשה ְבזָ דֹון‬‎ ‫ל־הּכ ֵֹהן ָהע ֵֹמד‬ ַ ‫ְל ִב ְל ִּתי ְׁשמ ַֹע ֶא‬ ‫ֹלהיָך אֹו‬ ֶ ‫ְל ָׁש ֶרת ָׁשם ֶאת־יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ‫ּומת ָה ִאיׁש ַההּוא‬ ֵ ‫ל־הּׁש ֵֹפט‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫ו ִּב ַע ְר ּ ָת ָה ָרע ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל‬

It may reasonably be argued that the brief allusion to 1 Sam 11:12b indicates that the redactor responsible for 20:12–13 was either the same redactor as the one responsible for the interpolation of the Levite’s butchering of his wife’s corpse in 19:29–30 or a later redactor seeking to add an additional intertextual 45 46

See discussion in Chapter 11, Sections 2.2 and 2.8 infra. The syntagma is used in Jer 40:2; 44:23; Ezek 6:10; Jon 1:7.8. The related syntagma ‎‫ּכל־ה ָר ָעה‬ ָ ‫( ַהּזֹאת‬all this evil) occurs in 1 Sam 12:20; 1 Ki 9:9=2 Ch 7:22; Neh 13:18; Dan 9:13; Job 2:11.

Compositional History of Judges 20

299

reference to 1 Sam 11 to the text. However, the ideological/theological purpose of the allusion to 1 Sam 11:12b is, in my view, to create a link to Deut 17:12 in which the failure to obey the decision of a priest or judge (and by analogy, the assembly of the people of God) is a crime punishable by death. 1.8

Judges 20:15–17

Judg 20:15aAnd the sons of Benjamin from the cities on that day were numbered 26,000 men drawing the sword, 15bbesides the inhabitants of Gibeah who were numbered 700 chosen men. 16aOut of all this people, 700 chosen men were left-handed; 16ball of them could sling a stone at a hair and never miss. 17aAnd the men of Israel besides Benjamin, they were numbered 400,000 men drawing the sword; 17ball these were men of war.

‫יָמן ַּבּיֹום ַההּוא‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ָּפ ְקדּו ְבנֵ י ִבנ‬15‎ ‫ֵמ ֶה ָע ִרים ֶע ְׂש ִרים וְ ִׁש ָּׁשה ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ ‫ׁש ֵֹלף ָח ֶרב ְל ַבד ִמּי ְֹׁש ֵבי ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ‫ִה ְת ָּפ ְקדּו ְׁש ַבע ֵמאֹות ִאיׁש ָּבחּור‬ ‫ ִמּכֹל ָה ָעם ַהּזֶ ה ְׁש ַבע ֵמאֹות ִאיׁש‬16 ‫ָּבחּור ִא ֵּטר יַ ד־יְ ִמינֹו ָּכל־זֶ ה ק ֵֹל ַע‬ ‫ל־ה ַּׂש ֲע ָרה וְ לֹא יַ ֲח ִטא‬ ַ ‫ָּב ֶא ֶבן ֶא‬ ‫וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִה ְת ָּפ ְקדּו ְל ַבד‬17 ‫יָמן ַא ְר ַּבע ֵמאֹות ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ ִ ְ‫ִמ ִּבנ‬ ‫ׁש ֵֹלף ָח ֶרב ָּכל־זֶ ה ִאיׁש ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬

The narrative unit 20:15–17 describes the numbering of the two armies prior to the commencement of the war. Although no location is specified for these two events, it can be inferred that the men of Israel had gathered to be numbered in the fields and open areas in front of the city gates of Gibeah47 and the sons of Benjamin had gathered within the city itself.48 The army of the sons of Israel counts 400,000 men drawing the sword (20:17) and the army of the sons of Benjamin, 26,000 men drawing the sword (20:15a). The headcount of 400,000 soldiers is used one other time in the MT, in 2 Ch 13:3. The Chronicler states that the army of Abijah counted 400,000 men while the army of Jeroboam numbered 800,000. As the armies of the two kings are not numbered in 1 Ki 15:7, the passage on which 2 Ch 13:3 is based, it is likely that the motif of a Judean army composed of 400,000 men dates to the time of the Chronicler.49 As the position that N used realistic head-count and casualty figures, while exaggerated figures should be assigned to a redactor who was a contemporary of the Chronicler, is nothing more than a hypothesis, the assignment of verses to different composition strata on the basis of the distinction between realistic and exaggerated figures needs to be confirmed on independent grounds, on 47 48 49

See Judg 20:11. See Judg 20:14. A more developed demonstration of the literary dependency of R3 material on 2 Ch 13:3 will be presented in Section 2.3 infra.

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a verse-by-verse basis. In the case of 20:15–17, this hypothesis is supported by three arguments. First, 20:15a shows signs of literary dependency on 20:14a, which has been assigned to N. Verse 20:14a reads, “And the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities (‎‫ן־ה ָע ִרים‬ ֶ ‫ ”) ִמ‬to Gibeah. Verse 20:15a adds the information, “And the sons of Benjamin from the cities (‫ן־ה ָע ִרים‬ ֶ ‫ ) ִמ‬on that day were numbered 26,000 men drawing the sword.” Although it is possible that N repeated the syntagma “from the cities” in two successive verses, it is more likely that the redundancy signals a redactor’s intent to introduce in 20:15a an expansion and development of 20:14.50 Second, 20:15b introduces a digression: the sons of Benjamin were numbered 26,000 men “besides the inhabitants of Gibeah who were numbered 700 chosen men.” Verse 20:16 introduces yet another digression: the description of an elite fighting unit of 700 left-handed men of Benjamin. As the themes of the inhabitants of Gibeah playing a role in the battle that is different from the other sons of Benjamin, and the constitution of an elite fighting unit of lefthanded soldiers, are blind motifs, is reasonable to suspect that 20:15b.16 should also be assigned to a redactor.51 Third, 20:16 uses vocabulary not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. the syntagma ‫( ִמּכֹל ָה ָעם ַהּזֶ ה‬from among all this people) in 20:16a is a hapax in the MT. However, the shorter syntagmas ‫ ִמּכֹל ָה ָעם‬and ‫ ָה ָעם ַהּזֶ ה‬are widely attested in the MT. The originality of the redactor is thus to have added the adjective ‫ ַהּזֶ ה‬to qualify “the people.” The demonstrative adjectives “this” and “these” to qualify a noun are used two other times in 20:1–17, in 20:3b.12a. Both of these occurrences have been assigned to a redactor on independent grounds.52 It should be noted that demonstrative adjectives will not be used at all in 20:18–48. The syntagma ‫ ָּכל־זֶ ה‬is used twice in 20:16 and nowhere else in Judges 19–21, and indeed, nowhere else in the MT other than Qoh 7:23; 8:9; 9:1(x×2) where it is used in a different context.

50 51

52

Contra Schulz and Edenburg. Schulz and Edenburg take the position that the first words of 20:15b (“besides the inhabitants of Gibeah”) form part of the earliest composition stratum while the remainder of the verse (“who were numbered 700 chosen men”) is a redactional interpolation. While Edenburg assigns 20:16 to N, Schulz assigns this verse to a redactor, precisely because the theme of an elite unit of left-handed soldiers does not play a functional role in the battles that will follow. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 75–76. It is not clear why Schulz does not use the blind motif argument to assign all of 20:15b to a redactor as well. See discussion in Sections 1.5 and 1.7 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 20

301

1.9 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 20:1– 17 as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 1.9.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 20:1–17 My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the ‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ ִּת ָּק ֵהל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ָּכ‬1a‎ congregation assembled as one man, from Dan ‫ָה ֵע ָדה ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ְל ִמ ָּדן‬ to […] the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah. ‫וְ ַעד־ […] ֶא ֶרץ ַהּגִ ְל ָעד‬ 2aAnd they […] stationed themselves in the ‫וַ ּיִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו‬2a ‫ ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬1b assembly of the people of God. 8aAnd all the ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם‬8a ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫[…] ִּב ְק ַהל ַעם ָה ֱא‬ people rose up as one man, saying: 8b“We shall ‫ ֵלאמֹר‬8b ‫ל־ה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ ָ ‫ָּכ‬ not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not ‫לֹא נֵ ֵלְך ִאיׁש ְל ָא ֳהלֹו וְ לֹא נָ סּור‬ detour, not one man, to his house.” 11And all the ‫ל־איׁש‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ֵסף ָּכ‬11 ‫ִאיׁש ְל ֵביתֹו‬ men of Israel gathered themselves to the city as ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ ָ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ one man, united. 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin ְ ‫ֲח ֵב ִרים‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו‬14a ‫ּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, ‫ן־ה ָע ִרים ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה‬ ֶ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel. ‫ם־ּבנֵ י‬ ְ ‫ ָל ֵצאת ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬14b ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

The earliest composition stratum in 20:1–17 presents a short but coherent narrative intrigue that moves the plot forward from the crime committed at Gibeah to the gathering of the sons of Israel to Gibeah “as one man, united” to punish the crime. In the previous episode, the Levite had sent a call for action to the community as whole that ends, “Set yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!” (19:30b). The sons of Israel respond to these imperative demands by assembling as one man to YHWH at Mizpah (20:1a.2a). All the people rise up as one man and declare their intention not to return to their homes until they have punished Gibeah (20:8). And indeed, all the men of Israel gather to Gibeah “as one man united” (20:11). N closes the narrative unit with a phrase that parallels 20:11, “And the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, to go out to the battle with the sons of Israel” (20:14). The narrative stage is now set for war. The reconstructed earliest composition stratum of 20:1–17 is internally consistent and shows stylistic affinities with the reconstructed earliest composition stratum of 19:1b–30. The episode is presented as a long series of Wayyiqtol phrases interspersed with a short speech spoken collectively by those present at the assembly of the people of God. The use of vocabulary such as

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“congregation” and “assembly” in 20:1–17 do not in my view justify assigning the text to a different composition stratum than the N stratum in Judges 19.53 The lexical registry in N indicates that the earliest composition stratum can be dated to a time prior to Chronicles. More precisely, the terminus post quem for the dating of N corresponds to the transfer of the administrative center of Yehud from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area; i.e., circa. 450 BCE. The theme of the assembling of the congregation of the sons of Israel at Mizpah to go out to war against Benjamin shows thematic and lexical similarities to the assembling of the sons of Israel at Shiloh in Josh 18:1a and 22:12 to go out to war to complete the conquest of the land, beginning with the territory apportioned to Benjamin: Judg 20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to Beer Sheva and the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah. Josh 18:1aAnd all the congregation of the sons of Israel assembled at Shiloh. And they set up the tent of meeting there. Josh 22:12[…] And all the congregation of the sons of Israel assembled at Shiloh, to go up against them in war.

‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ָּכל־ ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל וַ ִּת ָ ּקהֵ ל‬ ‫הָ ֵע ָדה ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ְל ִמ ָּדן‬

‫ד־ּב ֵאר ֶׁש ַבע וְ ֶא ֶרץ ַהּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫וְ ַע‬ ‫ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ָ ּקהֲל ּו ָּכל־עֲ ַדת ְּבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ‫ִׁשֹלה וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכינּו ָׁשם ֶאת־א ֶֹהל‬ ‫מֹועד‬ ֵ ‫וַ ִ ּי ָ ּקהֲל ּו ָּכל־עֲ ַדת ְּבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ‫יהם ַל ָּצ ָבא‬ ֶ ‫ִׁשֹלה ַל ֲעלֹות ֲע ֵל‬

In my view, it is more likely that Judges 19–21 is reworking material in Joshua than that a single P redactor edited both Joshua and Judges 19–21. The N material in Judges 19–21 can be interpreted as a pro-Golah text that understands the return from exile as a second conquest of the land, beginning in the Benjamin region. The Golah first settled in the Benjamin region because this was the only part of the Persian province of Yehud that had not undergone massive destruction during the Babylonian period. They may have settled more particularly in Mizpah, the administrative capital of Yehud during the first half of the Persian period, as the Golah’s return probably had Persian imperial support. 1.9.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:1–17 The redactional interpolations of R1 are indicated in bold type.

53

Contra Schulz.

Compositional History of Judges 20

20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to […] the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah. 2aAnd the leaders of all the people […] stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God. 3aAnd the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel went up to Mizpah. 3bAnd the sons of Israel said, “Speak! How did this evil happen?” 4aAnd the Levite man, the husband of the woman who was murdered, responded and said: 4b“To Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I came, myself and my concubine to spend the night. 5aAnd the masters of Gibeah rose up against me. And they surrounded me at the house by night. 5bMe, they wanted to kill. And my concubine they raped. And she died. 7aBehold! You are all sons of Israel. 7bEngage yourselves in discussion and counsel here!” 8aAnd all the people rose up as one man, saying: 8b“We shall not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not detour, not one man, to his house. 11And all the men of Israel gathered themselves to the city as one man, united. 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel. 16aOut of all this people, 700 chosen men were left-handed; 16ball of them could sling a stone at a hair and never miss.

303 ‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ ִּת ָּק ֵהל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ָּכ‬1a ‫ָה ֵע ָדה ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ְל ִמ ָּדן‬ ‫וְ ַעד־ […] ֶא ֶרץ ַהּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו‬2a ‫ ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬1b ‫ּ ִפנּ וֹ ת ּ ָכל־הָ ָעם […] ִּב ְק ַהל ַעם‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְׁש ְמע ּו ְּבנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן‬3a ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ָה ֱא‬

‫י־על ּו ְבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל הַ ּ ִמ ְצ ּ ָפה‬ ָ ‫ִּכ‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל דַּ ְּבר ּו‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬3b ‫אֵ יכָ ה נִ ְהיְ ָתה הָ ָר ָעה הַ ּזֹאת‬ ‫יש הָ ִא ּ ׁ ָשה‬ ׁ ‫יש הַ ּ ֵלוִ י ִא‬ ׁ ‫וַ ּי ַַען הָ ִא‬4a ‫הַ ִ ּג ְב ָע ָתה‬4b ‫ֹאמר‬ ַ ‫הַ ִּנ ְרצָ חָ ה וַ ּי‬ ‫אתי אֲנִ י ו ִּפי־‬ ִ ‫ֲשר לְ ִבנְ י ִָמן ּ ָב‬ ֶׁ ‫א‬ ‫וַ ּי ָֻקמ ּו ָעלַ י ּ ַבעֲ לֵ י‬5a ‫לַ גְ ִׁשי לָ לוּן‬ ‫הַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה וַ ָ ּיס ֹּב ּו ָעלַ י‬ ‫אוֹ ִתי דִּ ּמ ּו‬5b ‫אֶ ת־הַ ּ ַביִ ת לָ יְ לָ ה‬ ‫ת־פילַ גְ ִׁשי ִענּ ּו וַ ּ ָתמֹת‬ ִ ּ ֶ‫לַ ֲהרֹג וְ א‬ ‫הָ ב ּו‬7b ‫ ִה ּנֵה כֻ ְּלכֶ ם ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬7a ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם‬8a ‫לָ כֶ ם דָּ בָ ר וְ ֵעצָ ה ֲהלֹם‬

‫ל־ה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֵלאמֹר‬ ָ ‫ָּכ‬ ‫לֹא נֵ ֵלְך ִאיׁש ְל ָא ֳהלֹו וְ לֹא נָ סּור‬8b ‫ל־איׁש‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ֵסף ָּכ‬11 ‫ִאיׁש ְל ֵביתֹו‬ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ ָ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ ‫יָמן ִמן־‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו ְבנ‬a14a ‫ֲח ֵב ִרים‬ ‫ֶה ָע ִרים ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה ָל ֵצאת‬ ‫ם־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫ ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬14b ‫ ִמ ּכֹל הָ ָעם הַ ּזֶה ְׁשבַ ע ֵמאוֹ ת‬16a ֹ‫יש ּ ָבחוּר ִא ּ ֵטר יַד־יְ ִמינו‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ ‫ ּ ָכל־זֶה קֹלֵ ַע ּ ָבאֶ בֶ ן‬16b ׂ ַ ּ ַ‫אֶ ל־ה‬ ‫שעֲ ָרה וְ לֹא ַיח ֲִטא‬

The principal contribution of R1 is to introduce the Levite’s long speech in 20:3b–7* which reprises events already known to the reader from the narrator’s presentation of those events in 19:22–29. It will be recalled that R1’s interpolation of the Levite’s long speech to the old man of Gibeah in 19:18–19 also repeated events already known to the reader. From a literary perspective, the expansion of the plotline to include long speeches serves to slow down the pace of the narrative. However, in my view, the Levite’s speech to the assembly of the people of God also has an ideological/theological purpose: To emphasis that the gap between crime and punishment must be filled with judicial process in which the community deliberates on a charge presented by an aggrieved party and then reaches a decision by consensus.

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R1 also introduced the glosses concerning (i) Benjamin having heard about the assembly at Mizpah (20:3a) and (ii) Benjamin’s army consisting of 700 left-handed men (20:16). In my opinion, both of these glosses are intended to clarify ambiguities in the N stratum narrative. The first explains how the sons of Benjamin had the time to muster their army in anticipation of Israel’s attack. The second, the introduction of 700 left-handed warriors, is intended to explain the unexpected initial successes of the Benjaminite army in 20:21.25.54 Many commentators focus attention on the differences between the Levite’s recapitulation of the night of his concubine’s gang-rape and murder in 20:4–7 and the narrator’s initial presentation of those same events in 19:22–29. For example, Webb notes, In the narrator’s account the offenders demand that the host bring the Levite out so that they can ‘have sex with him’ (19:22). The Levite says that they intended to kill him (v. 5). […] In the absence of further information, what he says could conjure up a totally different scenario from the actual one; for example: his life was threatened; he escaped, but his concubine was caught and raped; he later recovered her body, and so on. […] The Levite is not a truth-teller, however, but a truth-manipulator and here it is Israel as a whole that is being manipulated. Hence its considered verdict (v.7) is compromised even before it is given, and will inevitably lead to flawed action; not true holy war, but a parody of it.55 Webb’s position is based on a synchronic reading of 19:22–26. However, if my hypothesis is correct that R3 reworked 19:22–29 to incorporate the intertextual allusions to Genesis 19, it can reasonably be argued that the Levite’s speech in 20:3b–5.7 is a fair recapitulation of the N material in 19:22–26. Diachronic analysis of 20:3b–7 raises an interesting hermeneutical problem. Commentators such as Webb draw theological significance from a comparison of two narrative units that are part of different composition strata. While the Levite can reasonably be viewed as a liar and a “truth-manipulator” in the final version of Judges 19–21, this is not the case in the N and R1 strata of the text. However, he becomes a liar and a “truth-manipulator” in 20:4–7 because of a later interpolation made by R3 to 19:22–26 rather than to any changes made to 20:4–7. This then raises the question whether (i) R3 intended to transform the Levite into a liar or (ii) the negative evaluation of the Levite perceived by the reader in 20:4–7 in the final version of the text is the accidental by-product of 54 55

Pace Schulz. Webb, Judges, 475; emphasis in original.

305

Compositional History of Judges 20

R3’s intention to harmonize 19:22–26 with Genesis 19. In my view, the second explanation is more probable than the first. If this hypothesis is correct, it supports Ricœur’s position that the interpretation of the final version of a written text involves a dialectical distanciation between “what the author meant and what the text means.”56 1.9.3 Second Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:1–17 The redactional interpolations of R2 are indicated in bold type. 20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to […] the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah. 2aAnd the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of Israel, stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God. 3aAnd the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel went up to Mizpah […]. 3bAnd the sons of Israel said, “Speak! How did this evil happen?” 4aAnd the Levite man, the husband of the woman who was murdered, responded and said: 4b“To Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I came, myself and my concubine to spend the night. 5aAnd the masters of Gibeah rose up against me. And they surrounded me at the house by night. 5bMe, they wanted to kill. And my concubine they raped. And she died. 7aBehold! You are all sons of Israel. 7bEngage yourselves in discussion and counsel here!”

56

‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ ִּת ָּק ֵהל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ָּכ‬1 ‫ָה ֵע ָדה ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ְל ִמ ָּדן‬ ‫וְ ַעד־[…] ְֶא ֶרץ ַהּגִ ְל ָעד ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה‬ ‫ל־ה ָעם‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו ִּפּנֹות ָּכ‬2 ‫ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬ ‫ּכֹל ִׁש ְבטֵ י יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִּב ְק ַהל ַעם‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְמעּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬3a ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ָה ֱא‬ ‫י־עלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬ ָ ‫ִּכ‬ ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּד ְּברּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬3b ]…[ ‫יכה נִ ְהיְ ָתה ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת‬ ָ ‫ֵא‬ ‫וַ ּיַ ַען ָה ִאיׁש ַה ֵּלוִ י ִאיׁש ָה ִא ָּׁשה‬4 ‫אמר ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ַ ֹ ‫ַהּנִ ְר ָצ ָחה וַ ּי‬ ‫ּופ ַילגְ ִׁשי ָללּון‬ ִ ‫אתי ֲאנִ י‬ ִ ‫יָמן ָּב‬ ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו ָע ַלי ַּב ֲע ֵלי ַהּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיָ סֹּבּו‬5 ‫אֹותי ִּדּמּו‬ ִ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ָליְ ָלה‬ ַ ‫ָע ַלי ֶא‬ ‫ת־ּפ ַילגְ ִׁשי ִעּנּו וַ ָּתמֹת‬ ִ ‫ַל ֲהר ֹג וְ ֶא‬ ‫ ִהּנֵ ה ֻכ ְּל ֶכם ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָהבּו‬7 ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ָּכל־‬8 ‫ָל ֶכם ָּד ָבר וְ ֵע ָצה ֲהֹלם‬ ‫ָה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֵלאמֹר לֹא‬

“With written discourse, however, the author’s intention and the meaning of the text cease to coincide. This dissociation of the verbal meaning of the text and the mental intention of the author gives to the concept of inscription its decisive significance, beyond the mere fixation of previous oral discourse. Inscription becomes synonymous with the semantic autonomy of the text, which results from the disconnection of the mental intention of the author from the verbal meaning of the text, of what the author meant and what the text means. The text’s career escapes the finite horizon lived by its author. What the text means now matters more than what the author meant when he wrote it.” Paul Ricœur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 29–30.

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8aAnd all the people rose up as one man, saying: 8b“We shall not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not detour, not one man, to his house. 11And all the men of Israel were gathered to the city as one man, united. 12aAnd the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin saying: 12b“What is this evil that has happened among you? 13aAnd now, hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out the evil from among Israel.” 13bBut the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel. 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel. 16aOut of all this people, 700 chosen men were left-handed; 16ball of them could sling a stone at a hair and never miss.

‫נֵ ֵלְך ִאיׁש ְל ָא ֳהלֹו וְ לֹא נָ סּור ִאיׁש‬ ‫ל־איׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ֵסף ָּכ‬11 ‫ְל ֵביתֹו‬ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ֲח ֵב ִרים׃‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬

‫וַ ִ ּי ְׁשלְ ח ּו ִׁש ְבטֵ י יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ֲאנ ִָׁשים‬12‎ ‫ל־ש ְבטֵ י ִבנְ י ִָמן לֵ אמֹר ָמה‬ ִׁ ָ‫ְּבכ‬ ‫ֲשר נִ ְהיְ ָתה ּ ָבכֶ ם‬ ֶ ׁ ‫הָ ָר ָעה הַ ּזֹאת א‬ ‫וְ ַע ּ ָתה ְּתנ ּו אֶ ת־הָ ֲאנ ִָׁשים ְּבנֵי־‬13 ‫יתם‬ ֵ ‫ֲשר ּ ַב ִ ּג ְב ָעה וּנְ ִמ‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ְבלִ ּי ַַעל א‬ ‫וּנְ בַ עֲ ָרה ָר ָעה ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל וְ לֹא אָ ב ּו‬ ‫קול‬ ֹ ‫(כך) [ ְּבנֵי] ִּבנְ י ִָמן לִ ְׁשמ ַֹע ְּב‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו‬14 ‫אֲחֵ יהֶ ם ְּבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬

‫ן־ה ָע ִרים ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה‬ ֶ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ ‫ם־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫ָל ֵצאת ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ ‫ ִמּכֹל ָה ָעם ַהּזֶ ה ְׁש ַבע ֵמאֹות‬16 ‫ִאיׁש ָּבחּור ִא ֵּטר יַ ד־יְ ִמינֹו ָּכל־זֶ ה‬ ‫ל־ה ַּׂש ֲע ָרה וְ לֹא‬ ַ ‫ק ֵֹל ַע ָּב ֶא ֶבן ֶא‬ ‫יַ ֲח ִטא‬

The contribution of R2 in 20:1–17 is limited. It can be noted that all of the material interpolated by R2 is permeated by language that characterizes the two protagonists as “tribes.” The interpolation of R2’s narrative sequence in 19:12–13 concerning the sending of envoys to Benjamin to demand the extradition of the sons of Belial for punishment has a clear ideological/theological purpose. It can be noted that the N and R1 material presents the planned attack on Gibeah as an appropriate collective punishment of an entire city for a crime committed by certain hooligans of Gibeah. R2 interpolates an entire episode in 20:12–13 in which the sons of Benjamin send a delegation to the tribe of Benjamin demanding, “Hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death.” As the entire tribe of Benjamin refuses to comply with an order issued by the assembly of the people of God, R2 provides a new justification for the punishment of Gibeah as well as the entire tribe of Benjamin. R2 thus transforms N’s “corporate” punishment of all the inhabitants of Gibeah for a crime committed by specific individuals into a punishment of the entire tribe of Benjamin for the “collective” crime of one tribe failing to respect a judicial decision issued by the community as a whole.57 57

I am following Vincent Sénéchal’s distinction between “collective” and “corporate” punishment. “Par rétribution collective, nous entendrons le fait qu’un groupe qui a commis une faute collective – c’est-à-dire une faute où chacun des membres est impliqué – est puni collectivement. Par rétribution corporative, nous comprendrons le fait qu’un individu ou

307

Compositional History of Judges 20

1.9.4 Third Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:1–17 The redactional interpolations of R3 are indicated in bold type. 20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to Beer-Sheva, and the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah. 2aAnd the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of Israel, stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God, 2b400,000 men on foot, drawing the sword. 3aAnd the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel went up to Mizpah. 3bAnd the sons of Israel said, “Speak! How did this evil happen?” 4aAnd the Levite man, the husband of the woman who was murdered, responded and said: 4b“To Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I came, myself and my concubine to spend the night. 5aAnd the masters of Gibeah rose up against me. And they surrounded me at the house by night. 5bMe, they wanted to kill. And my concubine they raped. And she died. 6aAnd I took hold of my concubine. And I cut her into pieces. And I sent her to all the open territory of the inheritance of Israel 6bfor they had done wickedness and folly in Israel. 7aBehold! You are all sons of Israel. 7bEngage yourselves in discussion and counsel here!” 8aAnd all the people rose up as one man, saying: 8b“We shall not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not detour, not one man, to his house. 9aAnd now, this is the thing that we shall do to Gibeah. 9bAgainst her by lot! 10aAnd we shall take ten men of a hundred in all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand of ten thousand, to take provisions to the people, 10bto do for their coming to Geba in

‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ ִּת ָּק ֵהל ָה ֵע ָדה‬ ְ ‫ ָּכ‬1 ‫ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד ְל ִמ ָּדן וְ ַעד־ ְּבאֵ ר‬ ‫ׁ ֶשבַ ע וְ ֶא ֶרץ ַהּגִ ְל ָעד ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו ִּפּנֹות ָּכל־‬2 ‫ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬ ‫ָה ָעם ּכֹל ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִּב ְק ַהל‬ ‫ֹלהים אַ ְר ּ ַבע ֵמאוֹ ת אֶ לֶ ף‬ ִ ‫ַעם ָה ֱא‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְמעּו‬3a ‫יש ַרגְ לִ י ׁשֹלֵ ף חָ ֶרב‬ ‫י־עלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִּכ‬ ִ ְ‫ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬3b ‫ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬ ‫יכה נִ ְהיְ ָתה ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת‬ ָ ‫ַּד ְּברּו ֵא‬ ‫וַ ּיַ ַען ָה ִאיׁש ַה ֵּלוִ י ִאיׁש ָה ִא ָּׁשה‬4 ‫אמר ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ַ ֹ ‫ַהּנִ ְר ָצ ָחה וַ ּי‬ ‫ּופ ַילגְ ִׁשי ָללּון‬ ִ ‫אתי ֲאנִ י‬ ִ ‫יָמן ָּב‬ ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו ָע ַלי ַּב ֲע ֵלי ַהּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיָ סֹּבּו‬5 ‫אֹותי ִּדּמּו‬ ִ ‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת ָליְ ָלה‬ ַ ‫ָע ַלי ֶא‬ ‫ת־ּפ ַילגְ ִׁשי ִעּנּו וַ ָּתמֹת‬ ִ ‫ַל ֲהר ֹג וְ ֶא‬ ָ‫וָ אֹחֵ ז ְּב ִפילַ גְ ִׁשי וָ ֲאנ ְַּתחֶ ה‬6 ‫ֲש ְּלחֶ הָ ְּבכָ ל־שְׂ ֵדה ַנחֲלַ ת‬ ַ ׁ ‫וָ א‬ ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִּכי ָעשׂ ּו זִ ּ ָמה וּנְ בָ לָ ה‬ ‫ ִהּנֵ ה ֻכ ְּל ֶכם ְּבנֵ י‬7 ‫ְּביִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬

‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָהבּו ָל ֶכם ָּד ָבר וְ ֵע ָצה‬ ‫ל־ה ָעם ְּכ ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיָ ָקם ָּכ‬8 ‫ֲהֹלם‬ ‫ֶא ָחד ֵלאמֹר לֹא נֵ ֵלְך ִאיׁש‬ ‫ְל ָא ֳהלֹו וְ לֹא נָ סּור ִאיׁש ְל ֵביתֹו‬

ׂ ֶ ֲ‫ֲשר נַע‬ ‫שה‬ ֶ ׁ ‫וְ ַע ּ ָתה זֶה הַ דָּ בָ ר א‬9 ‫וְ לָ ַק ְחנ ּו‬10 ‫לַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה ָעלֶ יהָ ְּבגוֹ ָרל‬ ‫עֲ שָׂ ָרה ֲאנ ִָׁשים לַ ּ ֵמאָ ה לְ כֹל‬ ‫ִׁש ְבטֵ י יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ו ֵּמאָ ה לָ אֶ לֶ ף‬ ‫וְ אֶ לֶ ף לָ ְרבָ בָ ה לָ ַקחַ ת צֵ ָדה לָ ָעם‬ ‫לַ עֲ שׂ וֹ ת לְ בוֹ אָ ם לְ גֶבַ ע ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬ ‫ְּככָ ל־הַ ְּנבָ לָ ה א ׁ ֲֶשר ָעשָׂ ה וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו‬ ‫ל־איׁש‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ֵסף ָּכ‬11 ‫ְּביִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬

‫ל־ה ִעיר ְּכ ִאיׁש ֶא ָחד‬ ָ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬

un groupe puisse pâtir des fautes ou bénéficier des mérites d’un autre individu ou groupe au nom d’un lien de solidarité, le plus souvent ethnique.” Vincent Sénéchal, Rétribution et intercession dans le Deutéronome (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 126.

308 Benjamin, for all the folly that they did in Israel.” 11And all the men of Israel were gathered to the city as one man, united. 12aAnd the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin saying: 12b“What is this evil that has happened among you? 13aAnd now, hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out the evil from among Israel.” 13bBut the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel. 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel. 15aAnd the sons of Benjamin from the cities on that day were numbered 26,000 men drawing the sword, 15bbesides the inhabitants of Gibeah who were numbered 700 chosen men. 16aOut of all this people, 700 chosen men were left-handed; 16ball of them could sling a stone at a hair and never miss. 17aAnd the men of Israel besides Benjamin, they were numbered 400,000 men drawing the sword, 17ball these were men of war.

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‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְלחּו ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬12‎‫ֲח ֵב ִרים׃‬ ‫יָמן ֵלאמֹר‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ׁש ְב ֵטי ִבנ‬ ִ ‫ֲאנָ ִׁשים ְּב ָכ‬ ‫ָמה ָה ָר ָעה ַהּזֹאת ֲא ֶׁשר נִ ְהיְ ָתה‬ ‫ת־ה ֲאנָ ִׁשים‬ ָ ‫וְ ַע ָּתה ְּתנּו ֶא‬13 ‫ָּב ֶכם‬ ‫יתם‬ ֵ ‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל ֲא ֶׁשר ַּבּגִ ְב ָעה ּונְ ִמ‬ ְ ֵ‫ְּבנ‬ ‫ּונְ ַב ֲע ָרה ָר ָעה ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וְ לֹא ָאבּו‬ ‫יָמן ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע ְּבקֹול‬ ִ ְ‫(כך) [ ְּבנֵ י] ִּבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו‬14 ‫יהם ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֶ ‫ֲא ֵח‬ ‫ן־ה ָע ִרים ַהּגִ ְב ָע ָתה‬ ֶ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ ‫ם־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫ָל ֵצאת ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְת ּ ָפ ְקד ּו ְבנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן ּ ַביּוֹ ם‬15a ‫הַ הוּא ֵמהֶ ָע ִרים ֶעשְׂ ִרים וְ ִׁש ּ ׁ ָשה‬ ‫לְ בַ ד‬15b ‫יש ׁשֹלֵ ף חָ ֶרב‬ ׁ ‫אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ ‫ִמ ּי ְֹׁשבֵ י הַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה ִה ְת ּ ָפ ְקד ּו ְׁשבַ ע‬ ‫ ִמּכֹל ָה ָעם‬16 ‫יש ּ ָבחוּר‬ ׁ ‫ֵמאוֹ ת ִא‬

‫ַהּזֶ ה ְׁש ַבע ֵמאֹות ִאיׁש ָּבחּור‬ ‫ִא ֵּטר יַ ד־יְ ִמינֹו ָּכל־זֶ ה ק ֵֹל ַע ָּב ֶא ֶבן‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫וְ ִא‬17 ‫ל־ה ַּׂש ֲע ָרה וְ לֹא יַ ֲח ִטא‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִה ְת ּ ָפ ְקד ּו לְ בַ ד ִמ ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬ ‫יש ׁשֹלֵ ף‬ ׁ ‫אַ ְר ּ ַבע ֵמאוֹ ת אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ ‫יש ִמלְ חָ ָמה‬ ׁ ‫חָ ֶרב ּ ָכל־זֶה ִא‬

The contribution of R3 in 20:1–17 is quite extensive. The numbering of the sons of Israel as 400,000 men on foot drawing the sword (20:2b.17) is probably an allusion to the 400,000 strong army of Abijah in 2 Ch 13:3. The elaboration of the Levite’s speech to include reference to his butchering of his concubine’s corpse in 20:6 serves to “update” the speech to reflect R3’s own interpolation of the corpse-cutting scene in 19:29. R3 also interpolated a new narrative unit, 20:9–10, that introduces a blind motif into the narrative intrigue – the casting of lots to select 10 percent of the sons of Israel who will serve as provisioncarriers in the war. It has been demonstrated that the motif of casting lots to select men to provide services to the community is only used in EzraNehemiah and Chronicles, and the more specific motif of selecting one out of ten people to serve is used in Neh 11:1. However, I am unable to explain the purpose of this blind motif in 20:9–10. These two verses require further research and analysis.

Compositional History of Judges 20

2

309

Compositional History of Judges 20:18–31a

The narrative unit 20:18–31a follows a “3+1 day” structure.58 Israel will consult with YHWH three times before engaging in three successive battles. The events that take place on the first and second day, and the preparations for war on the third day, are described in 20:18–31a. The third battle itself will be the subject of 20:31b–48. It can be noted as a preliminary matter that the “3+1 day” structure in 20:18–31a is awkward from a literary perspective. The plotline describes events that appear to take place over a seven-day period, as follows: (i) Israel travels from Mizpah to Bethel to consult with God (20:18); (ii) Israel “rises up in the morning” the next day to go to war with Benjamin (20:19–20) and Benjamin slaughters 22,000 sons of Israel “that day” (20:21); (iii) the men of Israel then “continued to array for battle in the place where they had arrayed the first day” (20:22); (iv) Israel then travels to an unnamed sanctuary where “they wept before YHWH until evening. And they inquired of YHWH […]” (20:23); (v) Israel goes out to battle with Benjamin, presumably the next morning, “[a]nd they again destroyed 18,000 men of the sons of Israel […]” (20:24–25); (vi) Israel travels from Gibeah to Bethel where they weep and fast “that day until evening” and offer sacrifices and consult with YHWH (20:26–28); and (vii) Israel confronts Benjamin the next morning for the third battle (20:29–31). All of these events are presented in the final version of the text as having taken place on three successive days. The problem posed by the incongruence of the complex narrative intrigue in 20:18–31a with the “3+1 day” literary structure suggests that the chronological structure may have been added to the text in a redaction stratum. The status quæstionis of the compositional history of 20:18–31a will be discussed in Section 2.1 below. A detailed analysis of the narrative unit will be presented in Sections 2.2 to 2.5 below. Conclusions will be presented in Section 2.6 below. 2.1 The Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of 20:18–31a The four compositional history models reach different conclusions concerning 20:18–31a. Moore posits that only two verses in the narrative unit can be assigned to the earliest composition stratum, 20:19.29. He thus views all three consultation with YHWH scenes and the battle scenes on the first two days as redactional interpolations. He assigns the first consultation scene to his RP and the second and third scenes to his R1. Burney attributes most of 20:18–31a to his first and second sources, J and X. He attributes the first consultation scene 58

See discussion of the “3+1 day” literary structure in Chapter 3, Section 2.4 supra.

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to RP and the second and third scenes to X. According to Burney, there is no consultation with YHWH scene in J. Although Moore and Burney use different methodological models, it can be noted that (i) the material in 20:18–31a that Burney assigns to his second source, X, overlaps considerably with the material that Moore assigns to his R1; and (ii) the material that Burney assigns to RP overlaps considerably with the material that Moore also assigns to RP. Gray follows Burney.59 Arnold follows Moore in identifying 20:19.29 as the only two verses present in the earliest composition stratum and assigns the rest of the narrative unit to his RD and his final “Levitical” redactor, RL. As Arnold does not provide an explanation for his proposed compositional history or a break-down of interpolated material between RD and RL, his position cannot be properly analyzed. Schulz attributes the earliest composition stratum of 20:18–31a to a redactor working after the N stratum in Judges 19 was completed. She assigns the third consultation scene to this earliest composition stratum and the other two to later redactors. In contrast, Edenburg attributes practically all of the narrative unit to the earliest composition stratum. She thus views all three consultation scenes and the first two battle scenes as part of N. 2.2

Judges 20:18

Judg 20:18aAnd they rose up. And they went up to ‫ית־אל וַ ּיִ ְׁש ֲאלּו‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ֵב‬‎ Bethel. And they inquired of God. And the sons ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִמי‬ ְ ֹ ‫אֹלהים וַ ּי‬ ִ ‫ֵב‬ of Israel said: “Who shall go up for us at the begin‫ה־ּלנּו ַב ְּת ִח ָּלה ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ָ ‫יַ ֲע ֶל‬ ning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?” ‫אמר יְ הוָ ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫יָמן וַ ּי‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ִע‬ 18bAnd YHWH said: “Judah at the beginning.” ‫הּודה ַב ְּת ִח ָּלה‬ ָ ְ‫י‬ As Israel had already gathered to Gibeah and numbered their soldiers in 20:14–17, the reader can reasonably expect that hostilities will now commence. Indeed, 20:18 begins with the phrase, “And they rose up.” However, the verse continues with “And they went up to Bethel. And they inquired of God.” As discussed, Moore, Burney, Gray, Arnold and Schulz attribute the first consultation scene to a redactor.60 I agree with the consensus view for three reasons. First, 20:18 shows close textual associations with Judg 1:1–2:

59 60

Soggin, the most recent proponent of the two-source hypothesis does not address the compositional history of 20:18–31a. Contra Edenburg. Edenburg’s position will be discussed in the paragraphs that follow.

Compositional History of Judges 20

Judg 20:18aAnd they rose up. And they went up to Bethel. And they inquired of God. And the sons of Israel said: “Who shall go up for us at the beginning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?” 18bAnd YHWH said, “Judah at the beginning.” Judg 1:1And it came to pass after the death of Joshua. And the sons of Israel inquired of YHWH, saying, “Who shall go up for us to the Canaanites at the beginning, to fight against them?” 1:2And YHWH said, “Judah shall go up. Behold, I have given the land into his hand.”

311 ‫ית־אל וַ ִ ּי ְׁשאֲל ּו‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ֵב‬ ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ֹ ‫אֹלהים וַ ּי‬ ִ ‫ֵב‬ ָ ּ ֶ‫ִמי יַעֲ ל‬ ‫ה־לנ ּו בַ ְּת ִח ּ ָלה ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ‫ֹאמר יְ הוָ ה‬ ֶ ‫יָמן וַ ּי‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ִע‬ ‫יְ הו ָּדה ַב ְּת ִח ָּלה‬ ‫הֹוׁש ַע וַ ִ ּי ְׁשאֲל ּו‬ ֻ ְ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַא ֲח ֵרי מֹות י‬‎ ‫ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּביהוָ ה ֵלאמֹר ִמי‬ ָ ּ ֶ‫יַעֲ ל‬ ‫ל־ה ְּכנַ ֲענִ י ּ ַב ְּת ִח ּ ָלה‬ ַ ‫ה־לנ ּו ֶא‬ ‫ֹאמר יְ הוָ ה יְ הו ָּדה‬ ֶ ‫ְל ִה ָּל ֶחם ּבֹו וַ ּי‬ ‫ת־ה ָא ֶרץ‬ ָ ‫יַ ֲע ֶלה ִהּנֵ ה נָ ַת ִּתי ֶא‬ ‫ְּביָ דֹו‬

As Judg 20:18 appears to contain an intentional allusion to Judg 1:1–2, it can reasonably be argued that the redactor who interpolated 20:18 wanted to harmonize Judges 19–21 with Judges 1. Second, the motif of Judah leading the battle against Benjamin in 20:18 is a “blind motif” because Judah will not in fact lead the battle against the sons of Benjamin in Judges 20.61 To the contrary, all the sons of Israel, acting as one man, will confront the sons of Benjamin in all three battles. As discussed, the introduction of blind motifs into a narrative is often an indicium of redactional activity. I have attempted to demonstrate above that the blind motifs of homosexual rape and the Levite’s butchering of his concubine’s corpse in Judges 19 should be attributed to a redactor. It can be noted that the blind motif in 20:18, like the two blind motifs in Judges 19, occur in verses that make intertextual allusions to other texts. Third, the interpolated material in 20:18 is framed by Wiederaufnahmen. Verse 20:18 begins ‫( וַ ּיָ ֻקמּו‬And they rose up). This phrase is repeated in 20:19a: ‎ ‫ל‬‎ ‫( וַ ּיָ קּומּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵא‬And the sons of Israel rose up). The use of defective spelling in one phrase and full spelling in the other supports the hypothesis that there is redactional activity in 20:18 because the second reference to “and they rose up” using full spelling was penned by the redactor who interpolated the material between the two Wiederaufnahmen.

61

It should be noted that the Levite’s woman is “from Bethlehem of Judah” (19:1b). It could be argued that Judah should lead the attack on Benjamin because the victim of the gangrape and murder committed at Gibeah was from the tribe of Judah. However, this theme is not developed in the narrative intrigue. To the contrary, Judges 19–20 appears to treat the Levite who resides in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim as the victim of the crime.

312

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Edenburg concurs that the references to Judah in 20:18 should be attributed to a redactor. However, she argues that the redactor constructed his text by substantially emending an underlying text that Edenburg assigns to the earliest composition stratum. She states, “The oracular consultation before the first battle sets the pattern for the subsequent days and must have been part of N1’s narrative, but a later reviser (probably R2) changed the formulation in order to spotlight Judah.” She reconstructs the underlying verse to read, “And the sons of Israel said: ‘Who shall go up [Shall I go up] for us at the beginning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?’ And YHWH said, ‘Judah at the beginning [Go up!]’” As these emendations of the text are not attested in any of the Greek or other variants of the verse, Edenburg’s interpretation of 20:18 is conjectural. Edenburg’s position that the first consultation scene “sets the pattern for the subsequent days and must have been part of N1’s narrative” is an assumption and not an argument. It can just as easily be posited that a redactor patterned the first consultation scene on the second in order to introduce an intertextual reference to Judg 1:1–2. 2.3

Judges 20:19–21

Judg 20:19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in the morning. 19bAnd they camped by Gibeah. 20aAnd the men of Israel went out to the battle with Benjamin. 20bAnd the men of Israel arrayed for battle with them at Gibeah.21aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out from Gibeah. 21bAnd they destroyed in Israel that day 22,000 men to the ground.

‫וַ ּיָ קּומּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּב ֶֹקר‬19‎ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִאיׁש‬20 ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲחנּו ַע‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ִא ָּתם ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ַ ‫ִמ ְל ָח ָמה ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו‬21 ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִחיתּו‬ ַ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ ‫ְביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּיֹום ַההּוא ְׁשנַ יִ ם‬ ‫וְ ֶע ְׂש ִרים ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש ָא ְר ָצה‬

The consultation with YHWH scene in 20:18 is followed by a long description of the preparations for military engagement (20:19–21a), which in turn is followed by a brief report that Benjamin “destroyed in Israel that day 22,000 men to the ground” (20:21b). The narrative sequence does not describe the battle or otherwise explain how the smaller army of Benjamin managed to cause 22,000 casualties among the sons of Israel. There is an absence of scholarly consensus on the compositional history of 20:19–21. Moore assigns 20:19 to his earliest composition stratum and 20:20–21 to his R1. Burney attributes 20:20 to his first source J, and 20:19.21 to his second source X.62 Schulz assigns 20:20–21 to her 62

Burney argues that 20:20 and 20:21 should be assigned to different strata because the former uses the terminology “men of Israel/Benjamin” and the latter “sons of Israel/sons of Benjamin.”

Compositional History of Judges 20

313

earliest composition stratum and 20:19 to a redactor. Edenburg assigns all of 20:19–21 to the earliest composition stratum. I disagree with all four interpretations of 20:19–21. I propose to assign 20:19–20a to the earliest composition stratum and 20:20b–21 to a redactor. This hypothesis is supported by three arguments. First, the atypical repetition of the same subject, “the men of Israel” in two consecutive Wayyiqtol phrases, 20:20a and 20:20b, suggests that the two verses should be assigned to different composition strata. Second, 20:20b uses a syntagma, “they arrayed for battle with them,” that indicates that the verse was composed by a late redactor who knew Chronicles. There are only two other verses in the MT that use the pattern they/he arrayed + against them/with him + battle, Gen 14:8 and 2 Ch 13:3: Judg 20:20bAnd the men of Israel arrayed against ‫וַ ּי ַַע ְרכ ּו ִא ּ ָתם ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ them for battle at Gibeah. ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫ִמלְ חָ ָמה ֶא‬ Gen 14:8aAnd the king of Sodom and the king of ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֲעמ ָֹרה‬ ֶ ‫ְך־סד ֹם‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ֶמ ֶל‬ Gomorrah and the king of Admah and the king )‫ּומ ֶלְך) ְצבֹיִ ים‬ ֶ ‫ּומ ֶלְך ַא ְד ָמה‬ ֶ of Zeboiim and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֶּב ַלע ִהוא־צ ַֹער‬ ֶ [‫[ ְצבֹויִ ם‬ went out. 8bAnd they arrayed against them ‫וַ ּי ַַע ְרכ ּו ִא ּ ָתם ִמלְ חָ ָמה ְּב ֵע ֶמק‬ for battle in the valley of Siddim. ‫ַה ִּׂש ִּדים‬ 2 Ch 13:3aAnd Abijah began the battle with ‫ת־ה ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ְּב ַחיִ ל‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיֶ ְאסֹר ֲא ִבּיָ ה ֶא‬ an army of valiant warriors, 400,000 chosen ‫ע־מאֹות ֶא ֶלף‬ ֵ ‫ּבֹורי ִמ ְל ָח ָמה ַא ְר ַּב‬ ֵ ִ‫ּג‬ men. 13bAnd Jeroboam arrayed with him for ‫ִאיׁש ָּבחּור וְ יָ ָר ְב ָעם ָע ַר ְך ִע ּמ ֹו‬ battle with 800,000 chosen men, warriors of ‫ִמלְ חָ ָמה ִּב ְׁשמֹונֶ ה ֵמאֹות ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ valor. ‫ָּבחּור ּגִ ּבֹור ָחיִ ל‬ In my view, Judg 20:20b is an intertextual allusion to both Gen 14:8 and 2 Ch 13:3. The first allusion creates a thematic association between the Benjaminites and the king of Sodom who engaged in battle with the sons of Israel (Gen 14:8–11). The second allusion evokes a comparison between the army of the 400,000 sons of Israel drawing the sword (Judg 20:2b.17) and Abijah’s army of 400,000 chosen men (2 Ch 13:3). These allusions shed light on the midrash-like technique used by R3. It can be imagined that the redactor searched his memory of scripture for references to an army of 400,000 men and found 2 Ch 13:3. The phrase in 2 Ch 13:3 ‫( וְ יָ ָר ְב ָעם ָע ַרְך ִעּמֹו ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬And Jeroboam arrayed with him for battle) then led the redactor to the practically identical phrase ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ִא ָּתם‬ ‫( ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬And they arrayed with them for battle) in Gen: 14:8b. As this phrase is part of a pericope about, inter alia, the king of Sodom, and Gibeah has already been associated with Sodom as an evil city in 19:22–24, the double intertextual allusion in Judg 20:20b adds hermeneutical meaning to the underlying composition stratum on which this redactor was working.

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The double intertextual allusion in Judg 20:20b provides an important clue as to the dating of this redactional interpolation. The story of the war between Abijah and Jeroboam in 2 Ch 13:3–21 (including its reference to 400,000 fighting men in 2 Ch 13:3) forms part of the Chronicler’s Sondergut. Similarly, Gen 14:8–11 is also generally considered to be a late text.63 It is therefore likely in my view that R3 should be dated later than the Chronicler. Third, if my hypothesis that 20:15–18 should be assigned to one or more redaction strata is correct, 20:19a would have followed 20:14a in the earliest composition stratum: 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel. 19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in the morning. 19bAnd they camped near Gibeah. 20aAnd the men of Israel went out to the battle with Benjamin.

‫ן־ה ָע ִרים‬ ֶ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ָא ְספּו ְבנ‬14a‎ ‫לָ צֵ את לַ ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה‬14b ‫הַ ִ ּג ְב ָע ָתה‬ ‫וַ ּיָ קּומּו‬19 ‫ם־בנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ְּ ‫ִע‬

‫ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיַ ֲחנּו‬ ‫וַ ּיֵצֵ א ִאיׁש‬20a ‫ַעל־הַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה‬ ‫ם־בנְ י ִָמן‬ ִּ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל לַ ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה ִע‬

The thematic and lexical parallelism between 20:14 and 20:19–20a supports the hypothesis that they should be assigned to the same composition stratum. 2.4

Judges 20:22–24

Judg 20:22aAnd the people, the men of Israel, ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַחּזֵ ק ָה ָעם ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬22‎ strengthened themselves. 22bAnd they continued ‫וַ ּי ִֹספּו ַל ֲער ְֹך ִמ ְל ָח ָמה ַּב ָּמקֹום‬ to array for battle in the place where they had ‫ר־ע ְרכּו ָׁשם ַּבּיֹום ָה ִראׁשֹון‬ ָ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬ arrayed the first day. 23aAnd the sons of Israel went ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וַ ְּיִבּכּו‬23 up. And they wept before YHWH until evening. ‫ד־ה ֶע ֶרב וַ ּיִ ְׁש ֲאלּו‬ ָ ‫ִל ְפנֵ י־יְ הוָ ה ַע‬ And they inquired of YHWH, saying: “Shall I ‫אֹוסיף ָלגֶ ֶׁשת‬ ִ ‫ַביהוָ ה ֵלאמֹר ַה‬ continue to draw near for the battle with the sons ‫יָמן ָא ִחי‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ of Benjamin, my brother?” 23bAnd YHWH said, ‫אמר יְ הוָ ה ֲעלּו ֵא ָליו‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ “Go up against him.” 24And the sons of Israel drew ‫ל־ּבנֵ י‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיִ ְק ְרבּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬24 close to the sons of Benjamin the second day. ‫יָמן ַּבּיֹום ַה ֵּׁשנִ י‬ ִ ְ‫ִבנ‬

63

Kratz, Composition of the Narrative Books, 260; Christoph Berner, “Abraham amidst Kings, Coalitions and Military Campaigns: Reflections on the Redaction History of Gen 14 and its Early Rewritings” in The Reception of Biblical War Legislation in Narrative Contexts, Proceedings of the EABS Research Group “Law and Narrative” (ed. C. Berner and H. Samuel; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 34.

Compositional History of Judges 20

315

The narrative unit in 20:22–24 adds additional events to the “first” day following Israel’s disastrous loss of 22,000 men. Following the battle, the sons of Israel go up to an unnamed sanctuary and consult with YHWH a second time. As discussed, the plotline for the first day is particularly muddled.64 One of the problems that has perplexed commentators for over a century is the confusion created by 20:22b. The narrator states that “they continued to array for battle in the place where they had arrayed the first day.” This is followed in 20:23 by the second consultation scene in which the sons of Israel go up to an unnamed sanctuary to weep before YHWH “until evening” and to consult with YHWH. It is difficult to imagine how the sons of Israel could be arraying for battle on the same day that they were weeping before YHWH until evening. Certain commentators attempt to resolve this problem by emending the text so that 20:22 follows, rather than precedes 20:23.65 As LXXAB support the MT on the order of the verses, and no variant manuscripts have been discovered, the proposed emendation of the order of the verses is methodologically subjective. In my view, the literary problem posed by 20:22 can be resolved more parsimoniously by attributing the second consultation scene in 20:23 to a redactor.66 The compositional history of 20:24 is more problematic. While Schulz attributes the second consultation scene in 20:23 to a redactor, she assigns 20:24 to her earliest composition stratum of Judges 20. I disagree and propose to assign 20:24 to the same redactor who interpolated the consultation scene. The consultation ends in 20:23 with a divine command: “Go up against him.” This command calls for execution which is provided in 20:24: “And the sons of Israel drew close to the sons of Benjamin the second day.” Although speculative, it is reasonable in my view to read 20:23–24 as an interpolated unit. 2.5

Judges 20:25–31a

Judg 20:25aAnd Benjamin went out from Gibeah to meet them the second day. And they again destroyed among the sons of Israel 18,000 men to the ground, 25ball these drawing the sword. 26aAnd all the sons of Israel and all the people went up. And they came to Bethel. And they

64 65 66

‫אתם‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִל ְק ָר‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִבנ‬25‎ ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה ַּבּיֹום ַה ֵּׁשנִ י וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִחיתּו‬ ַ ‫ִמ‬ ‫ִב ְבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל עֹוד ְׁשמֹנַ ת ָע ָׂשר‬ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ׁש ְֹל ֵפי‬ ֵ ‫ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש ָא ְר ָצה ָּכ‬ ‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ָכ‬26 ‫ָח ֶרב‬ ‫ית־אל וַ ְּיִבּכּו‬ ֵ ‫ל־ה ָעם וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ֵב‬ ָ ‫וְ ָכ‬

See discussion in Section 2 supra. See Burney, Judges, 448; Soggin, Judges, 293; Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 34. Pace Moore, Arnold and Schulz. See also, Groß, Richter, 876. Contra Burney, Gray and Edenburg.

316

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wept. And they sat there before YHWH. And ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָׁשם ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה וַ ּיָ צּומּו‬ they fasted that day until evening. 26bAnd they ‫ד־ה ָע ֶרב וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו‬ ָ ‫ּיֹום־ההּוא ַע‬ ַ ‫ַב‬ offered burnt offerings and peace offerings ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה‬ ְ ‫עֹלֹות‬ before YHWH. 27aAnd the sons of Israel inquired ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ֲאלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּביהוָ ה‬27 of YHWH 27b(for the ark of the covenant of God ‫ֹלהים ַּבּיָ ִמים‬ ִ ‫וְ ָׁשם ֲארֹון ְּב ִרית ָה ֱא‬ was there in those days. 28aAnd Pinehas the sons ‫ן־א ְל ָעזָ ר‬ ֶ ‫ּופינְ ָחס ֶּב‬ ִ 28 ‫ָה ֵהם‬ of Elezar, Aaron’s son, was standing before it in ‫ן־א ֲהר ֹן ע ֵֹמד ְל ָפנָ יו ַּבּיָ ִמים‬ ַ ‫ֶּב‬ those days), saying: “Shall I continue again to ‫אֹוסף עֹוד ָל ֵצאת‬ ִ ‫ָה ֵהם ֵלאמֹר ַה‬ go out for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, ‫יָמן ָא ִחי‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ם־ּבנ‬ ְ ‫ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ my brother, or shall I desist?” 28bAnd YHWH ‫אמר יְ הוָ ה ֲעלּו‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ם־א ְח ָּדל וַ ּי‬ ֶ ‫ִא‬ said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give him into ‫וַ ּיָ ֶׂשם‬29 ‫ִּכי ָמ ָחר ֶא ְּתנֶ ּנּו ְביָ ֶדָך‬ your hand.” 29And Israel set ambushes around ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל א ְֹר ִבים ֶא‬ Gibeah. 30aAnd the sons of Israel went up to ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬30 ‫ָס ִביב‬ the sons of Benjamin on the third day. 30bAnd ‫יׁשי‬ ִ ‫יָמן ַּבּיֹום ַה ְּׁש ִל‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ֶא‬ they arrayed towards Gibeah, as at other times. ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה ְּכ ַפ ַעם ְּב ָפ ַעם‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ֶא‬ 31aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out to meet ‫יָמן ִל ְק ַראת‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ְבנ‬31a the people. They were drawn away from the city. ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ָה ָעם ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמ‬ The narrative unit in 20:25–31a presents the events of the second day and the preparations for battle on the third day. As on the first day, Israel spends the second day battling with Benjamin in the morning and consulting with YHWH all evening. I propose to attribute the entire narrative unit 20:25–31a to one or more redactors.67 This position is supported by five arguments. First, it can be observed that the unit is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. The phrase ‫אתם‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִל ְק ָר‬ ִ ְ‫( וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִבנ‬And Benjamin went out to meet them” in 20:25aA is reprised in 20:31aA: ‫י־בנְ ִיָמן ִל ְק ַראת ָה ָעם‬ ִ ֵ‫( וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ְבנ‬And the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people). It is possible that the redactor responsible for the reprise intended to create an effect of alliteration between ‫אתם‬ ָ ‫ ִל ְק ָר‬and ‫ִל ְק ַראת‬ ‫ ָה ָעם‬. This suggests that all of the intervening material may be a redactional interpolation. Second, the “second” battle is presented as a battle report like the “first” battle rather than narrated as a battle scene like the “third” battle. In addition, the battle reports for the “first” and “second” day resemble each other:

67

Pace Moore, Arnold and Schulz. See also, Groß, Richter, 876. Contra Burney and Gray who assign 20:25–31a to their second source, and Edenburg who assigns the entire unit, with the exception of the references to Pinehas in 20:27b–28a, to the earliest composition stratum.

Compositional History of Judges 20

317

20:21bAnd they destroyed in Israel that day ‫וַ ּי ְַׁש ִחית ּו ְביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּיֹום ַההּוא ְׁשנַ יִ ם‬‎ 22,000 men to the ground. ‫יש אָ ְרצָ ה‬ ׁ ‫וְ ֶע ְׂש ִרים ֶא ֶלף ִא‬ : 20 25aBAnd they again destroyed among the ‫וַ ּי ְַׁש ִחית ּו ִב ְבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל עֹוד ְׁשמֹנַ ת‬‎‎‎ sons of Israel 18,000 men to the ground, 25ball ‫ל־א ֶּלה‬ ֵ ‫יש אָ ְרצָ ה ָּכ‬ ׁ ‫ָע ָׂשר ֶא ֶלף ִא‬ these drawing the sword. ‫ׁש ְֹל ֵפי ָח ֶרב‬ As the syntagma ‫ ִאיׁש ָא ְר ָצה‬is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21 (or indeed elsewhere in the MT), the possibility should be considered that these two verses were interpolated by a redactor.68 Third, the extent of the piety expressed by Israel in the third consultation scene – weeping, fasting and offering sacrifices – suggests that Israel is in mourning. This links the consultation scene in 20:26–28 to Israel’s loss of 18,000 men in the second battle reported in 20:25. This implies that the third consultation scene cannot be attributed to a stratum earlier than the second battle report in 20:25. Fourth, both the first and second battle reports use exaggerated figures; Israel loses 22,000 men and Benjamin suffers no casualties in 20:21 in the first battle, and Israel loses a further 28,000 men and Benjamin suffers no casualties in 20:25 in the second battle. It is my position that N does not use exaggerated numbers. Although this hypothesis is speculative, it is supported by the three independent arguments presented above that point to the conclusion that 20:25–31a was interpolated by a redactor. Fifth, as noted by many commentators, the third consultation scene underwent redactional activity. It can be noted that the series of Wayyiqtol phrases in 20:26–28 is interrupted by two nominal clauses in 20:27b–28aA that provide explanatory information: “for the ark of the covenant of God (‎‫ֲארֹון ְּב ִרית‬ ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ) ָה ֱא‬was there in those days (‫) ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was standing before it in those days (‫) ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם‬, saying …” The double use of the retrospective phrase “in those days” in a long nominal clause suggests that the parenthetical reference to the ark and Phinehas is a gloss added by a later redactor.69 This position is supported by the fact that the gloss interrupts two clauses that customarily go together: “And they inquired of YHWH … saying….”70 68 69 70

LXXAB 20:21b and 20:25a translate ‫ ִאיׁש ָא ְר ָצה‬literally as ἀνδρῶν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν. This syntagma is not used elsewhere in the LXX. Pace Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg. The LXX treats the redactional interpolation differently than the MT. LXXB eliminates the gap between, “And the sons of Israel consulted YHWH … saying” by moving the entire interpolation to the beginning of v. 27. LXXA takes a different approach and has Eleazar (rather than the sons of Israel) speak the words of inquiry addressed to YHWH.

318

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Israel’s preparations for the third battle with Benjamin are described in 20:29–31a. Verse 20:29 (“And Israel set ambushes [‫ ]א ְֹר ִבים‬around Gibeah)” raises two literary problems. First, it can be observed that while the noun ‫א ֵֹרב‬ (ambush) is plural in 20:29, this lexeme will be used in the singular in all sub­ sequent references to Israel’s ambush strategy in Judges 20.71 This problem is not present in LXXAB 20:29, which refers to “the sons of Israel” (rather than Israel) and to “an ambush” (rather than the ambushes). Certain commentators follow LXXAB and emend the plural ‫ א ְֹר ִבים‬to read in the singular.72 Second, Israel sets the ambushes “around Gibeah (‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה ָס ִביב‬ ַ ‫ ”) ֶא‬in 20:29. In all subsequent references to the ambush, it can be inferred that the ambush party attacks Gibeah from a single location on the perimeter of the city. Edenburg posits, without explanation, that a redactor transformed “ambush” into “ambushes” and added the adverb ‫ ָס ִביב‬at the end of 20:29.73 Edenburg thus argues that the earliest composition stratum of 20:29 conceived of the setting of a single ambush at (rather than around) Gibeah and that a redactor recrafted the verse to render it inconsistent with the plotline of 20:30 et seq. In my view, Edenburg’s emendation of 20:29 is conjectural and the MT witness should be preferred on the grounds of lectio difficilior potior.74 In addition, it can be observed that the use of “ambushes” in the plural and the use of the adverb ‫ ָס ִביב‬create an intra-textual allusion to 19:22a in which the sons of Belial surround the house in Gibeah where the Levite and his entourage are spending the night: Judg 19:22aBAnd Behold! The […] the sons of Belial surrounded the house […] Judg 20:29And Israel set ambushes around Gibeah.

‫י־ב ִלּיַ ַעל נ ַָס ּב ּו‬ ְ ֵ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה […] ְבנ‬‎‎

‫ת־ה ַּביִ ת‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיָ ֶׂשם יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל א ְֹר ִבים ֶא‬‎ ‫ָס ִביב‬

The ambushes surround Gibeah in 20:29 in the same way that the sons of Belial surrounded Gibeah in 19:22a. In my view, the plural noun ‫( א ְֹר ִבים‬ambushes) is used in MT Judg 20:29 to accentuate the parallelism with the plural “sons of Belial” in 19:22aB. The parallelism between 19:22a and 20:29 is also reflected in

71 72 73 74

20:33b.36b.37a.37b.38a. The only other occurrence of the plural ‫ א ְֹר ִבים‬is in Jer 51:12; see also the plural participle ‎‫ ְמ ָא ְר ִבים‬in Judg 9:25 and 2 Ch 20:22. Burney, Judges, 478; Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 57. Ibid. Pace BHS and BHQ.

Compositional History of Judges 20

319

the LXX which uses the verb κυκλόω in LXXB 19:22aB and the adverb κύκλῳ in LXXAB Judg 20:29.75 The Wiederaufnahme in 20:31aA (“And the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people”) is followed by the short asyndetic Qatal phrase‎‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמ‬ (They were drawn away from the city). As discussed, BHQ Judges considers that the spelling of the Hof‘al verbal form ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬is anomalous because of the retained nun and the vocalization of the first consonant with a qameṣ rather than a qibbuṣ. BHQ Judges thus emends the asyndetic Qatal phrase in the Hof‘al form to read as a Wayyiqtol phrase in the Nif‘al form. I have presented three arguments against the proposed change.76 As discussed, the spelling of the verbal form ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬with the retained nun is rare but not “anomalous” as BHQ Judges contends. According to Gesenius, the retention of the nun occurs eight times “and is always connected with the pause.”77 The possibility should therefore be considered that the use of an apparently “inappropriate” pausal form in a phrase that reads ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמ‬may indicate the presence of redactional activity in MT 20:31a. It is my position that the anomaly of the pausal form spelling of ‫( ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬they were drawn away) can be resolved if the following two words marked in the MT with the ’atnach – ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫( ִמ‬from the city) – are assigned to a redactor. It can be noted that 20:31aB is thematically and lexically similar to 20:32bB: Judg 20:31aBThey were drawn away from the city. Judg 20:32bBAnd we shall draw them away from the city to the highways.

‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמ‬‎ ‫ל־ה ְמ ִסּלֹות‬ ַ ‫ן־ה ִעיר ֶא‬ ָ ‫ּונְ ַת ְּקנֻ הּו ִמ‬‎

It can reasonably be argued that the two last words in 20:31aB, ‫ן־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫( ִמ‬from the city), were added by a redactor to harmonize MT 20:31a with 20:32b. If this hypothesis is correct, the asyndetic phrase in 20:31aB originally consisted of a single lexeme ‫( ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬they were drawn away), thereby justifying the use of the pausal form of the Qatal verb ‫ נָ ַתק‬in the Hof‘al form. 2.6 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 20:18– 31a as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 75 76 77

LXXA 19:22a uses the verb περικυκλόω. See discussion of the text critical problems in 20:31aB in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.8 supra. Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar § 66f.

b a

b

A

320

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2.6.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 20:18–31a My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in the morning. 19bAnd they camped near Gibeah. 20aAnd the men of Israel went out to the battle with Benjamin. 22aAnd the people […] strengthened themselves. 22bAnd they […] [arrayed] for battle […]. 25aAAnd Benjamin went out from Gibeah to meet them […].

‫וַ ּיָ קּומּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּב ֶֹקר‬19a‎ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא‬20a ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲחנּו ַע‬19b ‫ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ]…[ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַחּזֵ ק ָה ָעם‬22a ‫ם־ּבנְ ִיָמן‬ ִ ‫ִע‬ ]‫וַ ּי ִֹספּו ַל ֲער ְֹך] [וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו‬‎[22b ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִבנ‬25aA ‫ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ]…[ ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫אתם ִמ‬ ָ ‫ִל ְק ָר‬

The earliest composition stratum of 20:18–31a consists of an uninterrupted series of six Wayyiqtol phrases in which the sons of Israel rise up in the morning, camp against Gibeah, go out to the battle with Benjamin, strengthen themselves and array for battle. Benjamin then goes out from Gibeah to meet them. The two protagonists are prepared for war but hostilities have not yet commenced. 2.6.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:18–31a The redactional interpolations of R1 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. 19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in the morning. 19bAnd they camped near Gibeah. 20aAnd the men of Israel went out to the battle with Benjamin. 22aAnd the people […] strengthened themselves. 22bAnd they […] [arrayed] for battle […]. 25aAAnd Benjamin went out from Gibeah to meet them […]. 25aBAnd they […] destroyed among the sons of Israel 18,000 men to the ground, 25ball these drawing the sword. 26aAnd all the sons of Israel and all the people went up. And they came to Bethel. And they wept. And they sat there before YHWH. And they fasted that day until evening. 26bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before YHWH. 27aAnd the sons of Israel inquired of YHWH, 28a[…] saying: “Shall I continue […] to go out for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother, or shall

‫וַ ּיָ קּומּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּב ֶֹקר‬19a‎ ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא‬20a ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲחנּו ַע‬19b ‫ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ]…[ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַחּזֵ ק ָה ָעם‬22a ‫ם־ּבנְ ִיָמן‬ ִ ‫ִע‬ ]‫וַ ּי ִֹספּו ַל ֲער ְֹך] [וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו‬‎[22b ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִבנ‬25aA ‫ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ]…[ ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫אתם ִמ‬ ָ ‫ִל ְק ָר‬

‫וַ ּי ְַׁש ִחית ּו ִב ְבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬B25aB ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫מנַת ָעשָׂ ר אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ ֹ ‫[…] ְׁש‬ ‫ ּ ָכל־אֵ ּ ֶלה ׁשֹלְ פֵ י חָ ֶרב‬25b ‫אָ ְרצָ ה‬ ‫ל־בנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל וְ כָ ל־‬ ְּ ָ‫וַ ּיַעֲ ל ּו כ‬26aa ‫הָ ָעם וַ ָ ּיבֹא ּו בֵ ית־אֵ ל וַ ִ ּי ְב ּכ ּו‬ ‫וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו ׁ ָשם לִ ְפנֵי יְ הוָ ה וַ ּיָצוּמ ּו‬ 26b ‫בַ יּוֹ ם־הַ הוּא ַעד־הָ ָע ֶרב‬ ‫ֹלות ו ְּׁשלָ ִמים לִ ְפנֵי יְ הוָ ה‬ ֹ ‫וַ ּיַעֲ ל ּו ע‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְׁשאֲל ּו ְבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ּ ַביהוָ ה‬27a a ]…[ ‫או ִסף‬ ֹ ַ‫[…] לֵ אמֹר ה‬28a ‫ֵי־בנְ י ִָמן‬ ִ ‫ם־בנ‬ ְּ ‫לָ צֵ את לַ ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה ִע‬ ‫ֹאמר‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬28b ‫אָ ִחי ִאם־אֶ ְחדָּ ל‬

b

4a

Compositional History of Judges 20

I desist?” 28bAnd YHWH said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give him into your hand.” 30aAnd the sons of Israel went up to the sons of Benjamin […]. 30bAnd they arrayed towards Gibeah […]. 31aAAnd the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people. 31aBThey were drawn away […].

321 ‫יְ הוָ ה עֲ ל ּו ִּכי ָמחָ ר אֶ ְּתנֶנּ ּו‬ ‫וַ ּיַעֲ ל ּו ְבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬30a ‫ְבי ֶָד ָך‬ ‫וַ ּי ַַע ְרכ ּו‬30b ]…[ ‫ל־בנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ְּ ֶ‫א‬ ‫וַ ּי ְֵצא ּו‬31a ]…[ ‫אֶ ל־הַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה‬ ‫ֵי־בנְ י ִָמן לִ ְק ַראת הָ ָעם הָ נְ ְּתק ּו‬ ִ ‫ְבנ‬

]…[

R1 expands the N material in 19:25aB–31a* by introducing the theme of a first battle in which Israel unexpectedly loses 18,000 men following by weeping and fasting and offering sacrifices before consulting with YHWH. 2.6.3 Second Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:18–31a The redactional interpolations of R2 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. 19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in the morn‫וַ ּיָ קּומּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּב ֶֹקר וַ ּיַ ֲחנּו‬19‎ ing. 19bAnd they camped near Gibeah. 20aAnd ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬20a ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫ַע‬ the men of Israel went out to the battle with ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו‬21a ‫יָמן‬ Benjamin. 21aAnd the sons of Benjamin went ַ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַחּזֵ ק‬22a ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ out from Gibeah. 22aAnd the people, the men ]‫וַ ּי ִֹספּו ַל ֲער ְֹך‬‎[22 ‫יש יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ׁ ‫ָה ָעם ִא‬ of Israel, strengthened themselves. 22bAnd ‫וַ ּיַעֲ ל ּו‬323 ]…[ ‫[וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו] ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ they […] [arrayed for battle] […]. 23aAnd the ‫ְבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל וַ ִ ּי ְב ּכ ּו לִ ְפנֵי־יְ הוָ ה‬ sons of Israel went up. And they wept before ‫ַעד־הָ ֶע ֶרב וַ ִ ּי ְׁשאֲל ּו בַ יהוָ ה לֵ אמֹר‬ YHWH until evening. And they inquired of ‫ם־בנֵי‬ ְּ ‫ֶשת לַ ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה ִע‬ ֶ ׁ ‫הַ אוֹ ִסיף לָ ג‬ YHWH, saying: “Shall I continue to draw near ‫ֹאמר יְ הוָ ה עֲ ל ּו אֵ לָ יו‬ ֶ ‫ִבנְ י ִָמן אָ ִחי וַ ּי‬ for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my ‫ל־בנֵי‬ ְּ ֶ‫וַ ִ ּי ְק ְרב ּו ְבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל א‬24 brother?” 23bAnd YHWH said, “Go up against ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִבנ‬25a ]…[ ‫ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ him.” 24And the sons of Israel drew close to ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִחיתּו‬ ַ ‫אתם ִמ‬ ָ ‫ִל ְק ָר‬ the sons of Benjamin […]. 25aAnd Benjamin ‫ִב ְבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל […] ְׁשמֹנַ ת ָע ָׂשר‬ went out from Gibeah to meet them […]. And ‫ל־א ֶּלה ׁש ְֹל ֵפי‬ ֵ ‫ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש ָא ְר ָצה ָּכ‬ they […] destroyed among the sons of Israel ‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ָכ‬26 ‫ָח ֶרב‬ 18,000 men to the ground, 25ball these drawing ‫ית־אל וַ ְּיִבּכּו‬ ֵ ‫ל־ה ָעם וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ֵב‬ ָ ‫וְ ָכ‬ the sword. 26aAnd all the sons of Israel and all ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָׁשם ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה וַ ּיָ צּומּו‬ the people went up. And they came to Bethel. ‫ד־ה ָע ֶרב וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו עֹלֹות‬ ָ ‫ּיֹום־ההּוא ַע‬ ַ ‫ַב‬ And they wept. And they sat there before ְ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ֲאלּו‬a27a ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה‬ YHWH. And they fasted that day until evening. ‫וְ ׁ ָשם אֲרוֹ ן‬27b ‫ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּביהוָ ה‬ 26bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace ‫ְּב ִרית הָ ֱאל ִֹהים ּ ַב ּי ִָמים הָ הֵ ם‬ offerings before YHWH. 27aAnd the sons of ‫אֹוסף עֹוד ָל ֵצאת‬ ִ ‫[…] ֵלאמֹר ַה‬28a Israel inquired of YHWH, 28a[…] saying: “Shall I ‫יָמן ָא ִחי‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ם־ּבנ‬ ְ ‫ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ continue again to go out for the battle with ֶ ‫ִא‬ ‫אמר יְ הוָ ה ֲעלּו ִּכי‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬28b ‫ם־א ְח ָּדל‬

b

322 the sons of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I desist?” 28bAnd YHWH said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give him into your hand.” 30aAnd the sons of Israel went up to the sons of Benjamin […]. 30bAnd they arrayed towards Gibeah […]. 31aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people. They were drawn away […].

chapter 10

‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו‬030 ‫ָמ ָחר ֶא ְּתנֶ ּנּו ְביָ ֶדָך ָס ִביב‬ ]…[ ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנְ ִיָמן‬ ְ ‫ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו‬31a ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ‫יָמן ִל ְק ַראת ָה ָעם ָהנְ ְּתקּו‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬

]…[

R2 introduces the “second” consultation with YHWH scene in 20:23–24. I have attempted to demonstrate that the R2 consultation scene is lexically and thematically dependent on R1’s similar scene in 20:26–28*. In my view, R2’s addition of a second consultation scene has an ideological/theological purpose. In portraying Israel as having consulted with YHWH before going to battle, R2 harmonizes the narrative with the numerous other pericopes in the HB in which the sons of Israel consult with YHWH and seek his advice before attacking a foreign enemy. In addition, the interpolation adds an additional element of surprise to the narrative when the reader learns that Israel has lost the battle notwithstanding its prior consultation with YHWH. 2.6.4 Third Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:18–31a The redactional interpolations of R3 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. 18aAnd they rose up. And they went up to ‫וַ ּי ָֻקמ ּו וַ ּיַעֲ ל ּו בֵ ית־אֵ ל וַ ִ ּי ְׁשאֲל ּו‬18‎ Bethel. And they inquired of God. And the ‫ֹאמר ּו ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ְ ‫בֵ אל ִֹהים וַ ּי‬ sons of Israel said: “Who shall go up for us at ‫ה־לנ ּו בַ ְּת ִח ּ ָלה‬ ָ ּ ֶ‫ִמי יַעֲ ל‬ the beginning for the battle with the sons of ‫ם־בנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ְּ ‫לַ ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה ִע‬ Benjamin?” 18bAnd YHWH said: “Judah at the ‫ֹאמר יְ הוָ ה יְ הו ָּדה בַ ְּת ִח ּ ָלה‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬ beginning.” 19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in ‫וַ ּיָ קּומּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּבּב ֶֹקר‬19 the morning. 19bAnd they camped near Gibeah. ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִאיׁש‬20a ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲחנּו ַע‬ 20aAnd the men of Israel went out to the battle ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ִע‬ with Benjamin. 20bAnd the men of Israel arrayed ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ִא ָּתם ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬20b for battle with them at Gibeah. 21aAnd the sons ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫ִמ ְל ָח ָמה ֶא‬ of Benjamin went out from Gibeah. 21bAnd they ‫ן־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫יָמן ִמ‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ְבנ‬21a destroyed in Israel that day 22,000 men to the ‫וַ ּי ְַׁש ִחית ּו ְביִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ּ ַביּוֹ ם‬21b ground. 22aAnd the people, the men of Israel, ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫הַ הוּא ְׁשנַיִ ם וְ ֶעשְׂ ִרים אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ strengthened themselves. 22bAnd they continued ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַחּזֵ ק ָה ָעם ִאיׁש‬a22a ‫אָ ְרצָ ה‬ to array for battle in the place where they had ‫וַ ּי ִֹספ ּו לַ עֲ ר ְֹך ִמ ְל ָח ָמה‬22b ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ arrayed the first day. 23aAnd the sons of Israel ‫ר־ע ְרכ ּו ׁ ָשם ּ ַביּוֹ ם‬ ָ ‫ֲש‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ּ ַב ּ ָמקוֹ ם א‬ went up. And they wept before YHWH until eve‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬23 ‫אש ֹון‬ ׁ ‫הָ ִר‬ ning. And they inquired of YHWH, saying: “Shall ‫ד־ה ֶע ֶרב‬ ָ ‫וַ ְּיִבּכּו ִל ְפנֵ י־יְ הוָ ה ַע‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ֲאלּו ַביהוָ ה ֵלאמֹר‬

Compositional History of Judges 20

I continue to draw near for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother?” 23bAnd YHWH said, “Go up against him.” 24And the sons of Israel drew close to the sons of Benjamin the second day. 25aAnd Benjamin went out from Gibeah to meet them the second day. And they again destroyed among the sons of Israel 18,000 men to the ground, 25ball these drawing the sword. 26aAnd all the sons of Israel and all the people went up. And they came to Bethel. And they wept. And they sat there before YHWH. And they fasted that day until evening. 26bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before YHWH. 27aAnd the sons of Israel inquired of YHWH, 27b(for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. 28aAnd Pinehas the son of Eleazar, Aaron’s son, was standing before it in those days), saying: “Shall I continue again to go out for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I desist?” 28bAnd YHWH said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give him into your hand.” 29And Israel set ambushes around Gibeah. 30aAnd the sons of Israel went up to the sons of Benjamin on the third day. 30bAnd they arrayed towards Gibeah, as at other times. 31aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people. They were drawn away from the city.

323 ‫אֹוסיף ָלגֶ ֶׁשת ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ִ ‫ַה‬ ‫אמר יְ הוָ ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫יָמן ָא ִחי וַ ּי‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ִע‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְק ְרבּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬24 ‫ֲעלּו ֵא ָליו‬ 25a ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנְ ִיָמן ּ ַבי ֹּום הַ ּ ׁ ֵשנִ י‬ ְ ‫ֶא‬ ‫אתם ִמן־‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִל ְק ָר‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיֵ ֵצא ִבנ‬ ‫ַהּגִ ְב ָעה ּ ַבי ֹּום הַ ּ ׁ ֵשנִ י וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִחיתּו‬ ‫ִב ְבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל עוֹ ד ְׁשמֹנַ ת ָע ָׂשר‬ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ׁש ְֹל ֵפי‬ ֵ ‫ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש ָא ְר ָצה ָּכ‬ ‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ָכ‬26 ‫ָח ֶרב‬ ‫ית־אל וַ ְּיִבּכּו‬ ֵ ‫ל־ה ָעם וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ֵב‬ ָ ‫וְ ָכ‬ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָׁשם ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה וַ ּיָ צּומּו‬ ‫ד־ה ָע ֶרב וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו‬ ָ ‫ּיֹום־ההּוא ַע‬ ַ ‫ַב‬ ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה‬ ְ ‫עֹלֹות‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ֲאלּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ַּביהוָ ה‬27a ‫וְ ׁ ָשם אֲרוֹ ן ְּב ִרית הָ ֱאל ִֹהים‬27b ‫ו ִּפינְ חָ ס‬28a ‫ּ ַב ּי ִָמים הָ הֵ ם‬ ‫ּ ֶבן־אֶ לְ ָעזָ ר ּ ֶבן־אַ ֲהרֹן ע ֵֹמד לְ פָ נָיו‬ ‫אֹוסף עֹוד‬ ִ ‫ּ ַב ּי ִָמים הָ הֵ ם ֵלאמֹר ַה‬

‫אמר יְ הוָ ה ֲעלּו ִּכי ָמ ָחר ֶא ְּתנֶ ּנּו‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ׂ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬29 ‫ְביָ ֶדָך‬ ‫ָשם יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל א ְֹר ִבים‬ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו‬30 ‫אֶ ל־הַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה ָס ִביב‬ ‫יָמן ּ ַביּוֹ ם‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬ ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫ישי וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ֶא‬ ִׁ ִ‫הַ ּ ְׁשל‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ְבנ‬31a ‫ְּכפַ ַעם ְּבפָ ַעם‬ ‫ִל ְק ַראת ָה ָעם ָהנְ ְּתקּו ִמן־הָ ִעיר‬

R3 introduces the “first” consultation with YHWH scene in 20:18 and the “first” battle in which Israel suffers 22,000 casualties in 20:20b–21. The first consultation scene contains intertextual allusions to Judges 1. I have attempted to demonstrate that R3’s battle scene is lexically and thematically dependent on R1’s battle scene in 20:25a. R3 is thus responsible for introducing the “3+1 day” literary structure into the narrative unit and thus, probably unintentionally, creating a number of confusing incoherencies in the plotline. The R3 material includes the phrase, “And Israel set up ambushes around Gibeah” with its problematic use of the plural of ambush. This is the first mention of an ambush strategy in the text and can be interpreted as a proleptic reference to the narrative unit that will follow. The subtle intra-textual parallelism between (i) the sons of Belial who surrounded Gibeah with the intent to commit a crime and (ii) the ambushes that now surround Gibeah with the

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intent to punish a crime, is consistent with the ideological/theological purpose of R3 who views the link between crime and punishment as a “talionic” or “measure-for-measure” type of retribution.78 R3’s gloss in 20:27b–28aA, that introduces the figure of Phinehas and the ark of the covenant, confirms the late dating that has been proposed for the third redaction stratum; i.e., to the early Hellenistic period.79 3

Compositional History of Judges 20:31b–48

The narrative unit 20:31b–48 presents the military confrontation between Israel and Benjamin on the third long day of battle. The narrative intrigue appears to follow a relatively coherent chronological order between 20:31b (“And they [Benjamin] began to strike victims among the people […]”) and 20:35–36a (“And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day, all drawing the sword. And the sons of Benjamin saw that they were smitten”). The reader can reasonably assume that the sons of Benjamin have been vanquished on the third day of battle and that the war story has reached closure in 20:35. However, the narrative intrigue unexpectedly rebounds in 20:36b–37a: “And the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ambush they had set against Gibeah. And the ambush, they hurried. And they made a dash to Gibeah.” Because the total number of sons of Benjamin has been stated to be 26,700 (20:15a), the reader might assume that the events described in 20:36b et seq represent the resumption of hostilities between the sons of Israel and the 1,600 sons of Benjamin who survived the slaughter of the 25,100 in 20:35. However, this possibility must also be excluded because the narrative intrigue goes on to describe the subsequent killing of 18,000 men of Benjamin (20:44), then 5,000 more (20:45a), then another 2,000 men (20:45b) to conclude in 20:46: “And it came to pass that all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,100 men drawing the sword, all these were men of valor.” Although 20:46 appears to provide closure to the narrative intrigue of the war between Israel and Benjamin, the narrative rebounds again in 20:47–48. In addition to the

78 79

See, Yehoshua Amir, “Measure for Measure in Talmudic Literature and in the Wisdom of Solomon” in Justice and Righteousness: Biblical Themes and their Influence, JSOTSup 137 (ed. H.G. Reventlow and Y. Hoffman; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 29–46. See, e.g., the focus on the Phinehas figure in Ps 106:28–31; Sir 45:23–24; 1 Mac 2:26.54; 4 Mac 18:12; 4 Esd 1:29.

Compositional History of Judges 20

325

confusion in the flow of the plotline, the text contains a significant number of literary gaps and contradictions, and uses a variety of syntactical styles, that suggest the presence of multiple composition strata. The status quæstionis of the composition history of 20:31b–48 will be discussed in Section 3.1 below. A detailed analysis of the narrative unit will follow in Sections 3.2 to 3.6 below. Conclusions will be presented in Section 3.7 below. 3.1 The Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 20:31b–48 Of the seven commentators under review in this chapter, four of them – Moore, Burney, Gray and Soggin – share the view that the narrative unit 20:31b–48 can be broadly divided into three sequences, as follows. The first unit begins in 20:31b and ends with YHWH’s intervention in the battle and Israel’s destruction of 25,100 sons of Benjamin in 20:34b–36a. The second unit begins in 20:36b (“And the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ambush they had set against Gibeah”) and ends in 20:41 (“And the men of Israel, he turned. And the men of Benjamin were terrified, for he saw that he was smitten with disaster.” The third unit, 20:42–48 represents a conclusion. Moore, Burney, Gray and Soggin take the position that the sequence 20:31b– 36a* was composed later than the sequence 20:36b–41*. These four commentators differ however as to the compositional history of the concluding section, 20:42–48. Moore’s hypothesis is relatively simple. He assigns 20:36b–37a.38a–41a.44a.47 to the earliest composition stratum and 20:31b–36a.41b–43.44b–46.48 to his first post-exilic redactor (R1). Burney uses his methodology of assigning verses on the basis of different terms for the two protagonists to refine Moore’s hypothesis. Burney thus attributes 20:31b–36a to his second source, X, with the exception of two verses, 20:33a.34b, that he assigns to J. This J material reads “When all the men of Israel rose up from their place, they arrayed at Baal-tamar. But they did not know that disaster was close upon them.” For Burney, it is axiomatic that 20:33a should be attributed to J because of the use of the term “men of Israel.”80 However, when 20:34b is also assigned to J, the pronoun “they” logically refers to the men of Israel who “did not know that disaster was about to smite them.” Nonetheless, Burney’s commentary appears to treat “they” as referring to Benjamin notwithstanding the absence of an antecedent reference to Benjamin in the proposed J material. 80

It should be noted that the term “all the men of Israel” is used only in 20:11.33a. Burney assumes without explanation that these verses should be attributed to the same source that uses the term “men of Israel.”

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Burney assigns all of 20:36b–44a to J. Thus, like Moore, he treats the slaughter of the 18,000 men of Benjamin as the climax of that narrative sequence. While Moore appends 20:47 as the conclusion to his earliest composition stratum and 20:48 as the conclusion to R1, Burney reverses the order and assigns 20:47 to X and 20:48 to J. Although Burney does not explain his position, it can be surmised that he is arguing that the use of the term “men of Israel” in 20:48 justifies the assignment of the verse to J rather than to X. However, 20:48a reads, “When the men of Israel returned to the sons of Benjamin […].” According to Burney’s methodology, the term “men of Israel” should properly be paired with “Benjamin” rather than “sons of Benjamin.” Burney does not explain this deviation from his methodological model. Gray and Soggin are also proponents of the “two-source” model. Gray generally follows Burney. Soggin states that his composition history of 20:31b–48 “is close enough to that proposed by Moore.”81 This is true for 20:31b–42. However, Soggin’s analysis of 20:43–48 disagrees with both Moore and Burney. Arnold proposes a different approach to 20:31b–48. He attributes the entire narrative unit to the earliest composition stratum, subject to three redactional interpolations. First, he assigns 20:32 to RP for reasons that are not explained.82 Second, he attributes 20:34b–36a (YHWH smites Benjamin and the sons of Israel destroy 25,100 men in Benjamin that day) to his RP.83 Arnold is thus the first of the seven commentators to break with the hypothesis that 20:34b–36a functions as the narrative conclusion to an interpolated narrative unit in 20:31b–36a*. Third, Arnold also assigns 20:44–46 (the men of Israel kill 18,000 men of Benjamin, then 5,000 men, and then another 2,000 such that “all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword” (20:46) to RP.84 Arnold does not provide an explanation for this position. It can be inferred that Arnold treats this unit culminating in the final casualty figure of 25,000 Benjaminites as being thematically related to the interpolation in 20:34b–36b that culminates in the final casualty figure of 25,100 men. Although her approach is different, Schulz’s conclusion is not dissimilar to that of Arnold. Like Arnold, she starts from the premise that the narrative unit 20:31b–48 represents a thematically coherent literary unit into which a handful of redactional interpolations were added. Schulz assigns all of 20:31b–48 to her earliest composition stratum, with the exception of 20:36b–41.47 which she assigns to a redactor. It will be recalled that Moore, Burney, Gray and Soggin 81 82 83 84

Soggin, Judges, 294. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Soggin, Schulz and Edenburg. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Soggin and Schulz; pace Edenburg. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray and Soggin.

Compositional History of Judges 20

327

take the position that the sequence 20:31b–36a* was composed later than the sequence 20:36b–41*. Although Schulz shares the older consensus view that there is an important caesura in the text between 20:36a and 20:36b and 20:41 and 20:42, she takes the opposite view and argues that (i) 20:31b–36a* is older than 20:36b–41* and that (ii) 20:42–48 is the continuation of 20:31b–36a* (with the exception of a redactional interpolation in 20:47). In summary, Schulz takes the position that 20:31b–48 represents a largely continuous literary unit into which 20:36b–41 was interpolated. She solves the literary problem posed by the closure in 20:35–36a (YHWH’s smiting of Benjamin and the death of 25,100 men in Benjamin) being followed by a return to a previous point in the battle in 20:42 by arguing, following Revell and Satterthwaite, that the text uses a literary strategy involving flashbacks and flashforwards.85 Edenburg argues that a Babylonian period author composed most of 20:31b– 48 incorporating a series of older “poetic fragments.” She follows Arnold’s attribution of 20:34–36a (YHWH smote Benjamin) and 20:45–46 (all the fallen among Benjamin were 25,000 men) to the final redactor. In summary, there is a marked absence of consensus among the seven commentators concerning the compositional history of the narrative unit. Of the 98 half-verses in 20:31b–48, it can be noted that six of the seven commentators agree on the attribution of only four – 39b.40a.40b.41a, all of which are assigned to the earliest composition stratum. Schulz disagrees with this consensus and assigns these four half-verses to a redactor. Particular attention will be paid to these verses in the detailed discussion in the following sections. 3.2 Statement of the Problem As the plotline of 20:31b–48 does not proceed in chronological order and contains a number of repetitions, the compositional history of the narrative unit is clearly complex. This unit has been analyzed by all seven of the commentators under review in this chapter and no scholarly consensus has emerged. It is fair to say that 20:31b–48 merits a fresh look and the application of different methodological tools than those used to date. In my view, the narrative unit 20:31b–48 is characterized by three literary phenomena that require particular attention in analyzing its compositional history. First, the text contains five verses that can reasonably be interpreted as bringing the narrative intrigue to closure. From a literary perspective, 20:31b–48 is thus unusual because it appears to contain five different endings. Second, although repetition is considered to be a characteristic element of 85

Schulz, Die Anhänge, 90. See discussion of Revell and Satterthwaite in Chapter 3, Section 3.5 supra.

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literary style in biblical narratives,86 the number of lexical and thematic repetitions in 20:31b–48 is particularly significant. These repetitions may represent Wiederaufnahmen suggesting the presence of redactional activity. Third, there is an unusually dense use of clauses in 20:32–42a in which the subject precedes a Qatal verb (hereinafter, “S+Qatal phrases) that is not found elsewhere in Judges 19–21. This shift from a style characterized by use of the Wayyiqtol to a syntax in which Wayyiqtol phrases are repeatedly intercalated with S+Qatal phrases may indicate the presence of redactional activity. These three literary problems will be discussed in the following three sections. Problem Posed by the Phenomenon of Multiple Narrative Conclusions It can be observed that five verses can be identified between 20:31b–48 that appear to provide closure to a distinct narrative unit and which are then followed by a rebounding of action: 3.3

35aAnd YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day, 35ball drawing the sword. 36aAnd the sons of Benjamin saw that they were smitten. 37aAnd the ambush, they hurried. And they made a dash to Gibeah. 37bAnd the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword. 44aAnd 18,000 men from Benjamin fell, 44ball these were men of valor. 45And they turned around. And they fled toward the desert to the rock of Rimmon […]

86

‫יָמן ִל ְפנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיִ ּגֹף יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬‎ ‫יָמן ַּבּיֹום‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִחיתּו ְבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ְּב ִבנ‬ ‫ּומ ָאה‬ ֵ ‫ַההּוא ֶע ְׂש ִרים וַ ֲח ִמ ָּׁשה ֶא ֶלף‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְראּו‬‎‫ל־א ֶּלה ׁש ֵֹלף ָח ֶרב‬ ֵ ‫ִאיׁש ָּכ‬ ‫יָמן ִּכי נִ ּגָ פּו‬ ִ ְ‫י־בנ‬ ִ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ ‫וְ ָהא ֵֹרב ֵה ִחיׁשּו וַ ּיִ ְפ ְׁשטּו‬‎ ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיִ ְמׁש ְֹך ָהא ֵֹרב וַ ּיַ ְך‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ָ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְל ִפ‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫ה־ע ָׂשר ֶא ֶלף‬ ָ ָ‫יָמן ְׁשמֹנ‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְּפלּו ִמ ִּבנ‬‎ ‎‫י־חיִ ל‬ ָ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ַאנְ ֵׁש‬ ֵ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ִאיׁש ֶא‬ ‫ל־ס ַלע‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ ‫ָה ִרּמֹון‬

As stated by Robert Alter, “One of the most imposing barriers that stands between the modern reader and the imaginative subtlety of biblical narrative is the extraordinary prominence of verbatim repetition in the Bible. Accustomed as we are to modes of narration in which elements of repetition are made to seem far less obtrusive, this habit of constantly restating material is bound to give us trouble, especially in a narrative that otherwise adheres so evidently to the strictest economy of means.” Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative, 88.

Compositional History of Judges 20

46aAnd it came to pass that all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword, 46ball these were men of valor. 47aAnd they turned around. And they fled toward the desert, to the Rock of Rimmon […] 48aWhen the men of Israel returned, they struck them with the edge of the sword, from the citadel, to the cattle, to all they found. 48bAll the cities they found, they sent away with fire.

329 ‫יָמן ֶע ְׂש ִרים‬ ִ ְ‫ל־הּנ ְֹפ ִלים ִמ ִּבנ‬ ַ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ָכ‬‎ ‫וַ ֲח ִמ ָּׁשה ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש ׁש ֵֹלף ֶח ֶרב‬ ‫ל־א ֶּלה‬ ֵ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ַּבּיֹום ַההּוא ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה‬‎‫י־חיִ ל‬ ָ ‫ַאנְ ֵׁש‬ ‫ל־ס ַלע ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ֶ ‫ֶא‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָׁשבּו ֶא‬‎ ‫י־ח ֶרב ֵמ ִעיר ְמתֹם‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיַ ּכּום ְל ִפ‬ ‫ל־הּנִ ְמ ָצא ּגַ ם‬ ַ ‫ד־ּב ֵה ָמה ַעד ָּכ‬ ְ ‫ַע‬ ‫ל־ה ָע ִרים ַהּנִ ְמ ָצאֹות ִׁש ְּלחּו‬ ֶ ‫ָּכ‬ ‫ָב ֵאׁש‬

As a preliminary matter, it can be observed that these five “closures” contain a certain number of elements in common. First, 20:35–36a and 20:46–47a share the thematic parallel that the sons of Benjamin suffered a total of 25,100/25,000 casualties in the three-day war with Israel. However, the two casualty numbers differ by 100 men87 and there are no lexical parallels between the two 87

Most commentators treat the discrepancy between the 25,100 figure in 20:35a and the 25,000 figure in 20:46a as a mystery. As LXXAB support the different figures, it is difficult to argue that the final lexeme ‫ּומ ָאה‬ ֵ is a scribal error. Barry G. Webb states, “This does not tally exactly with the total of twenty-five thousand one hundred of verse 35, but it may include casualties inflicted in the assault on Gibeah itself (v. 34). In any case, given the realities of war and the imprecision of such terms as “fell,” “struck down,” and so on, discrepancies are only to be expected and, if anything, enhance the authenticity of the account.” Webb, Judges, 493–494. Paul Harlé claims to have resolved the mystery. He argues that the army of Benjamin was composed of 25 units of 1,000 men each, plus a special unit of 700 men of Gibeah. 20:35a refers therefore to the death of 25 complete units of 1,000 men while 20:46 refers more precisely to the 25 units of 1,000 men plus 100 men of Gibeah. This indicates that the 600 survivors were all men of Gibeah. Harlé, Juges, 258. Harlé does not address the problem posed by the survivors who are counted as 600 (20:47). If the total number of sons of Benjamin is 26,700 and the total of those who fell is 25,000 or 25,100, there should have been 1,700/1,600 survivors. Serge Frolov has proposed a solution to this problem. He emends 20:35 to read “1,100” rather than “25,100.” With this change, the total number of fallen Benjaminites rises to 26,100, leaving 600 survivors. Frolov states, “Although this conjecture is not supported by ancient witnesses, the number that it yields matches those found elsewhere in the chapter too precisely to be discounted […].” Frolov, Judges, 302. In addition to the methodological problem of proposing a textual emendation not supported by any extant textual witnesses, Frolov’s solution contradicts the plain meaning of 20:35a: “And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day.” If the number of deaths is reduced to 1,100, the battle described in 25:35a is transformed into an initial confrontation that will be followed by the subsequent encounters on the same day of battle in which

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sets of verses. Second, 20:27b and 20:48a share the thematic and lexical parallel that Israel “struck the city/them with the edge of the sword.” Third, 20:44– 45a and 20:46–47a share the thematic and lexical parallel that the surviving Benjaminites “fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon.” In addition, the phrase in 20:44a, “And 18,000 men from Benjamin fell,” uses the same casualty figure as 20:25a, “And they [the sons of Benjamin] destroyed among the sons of Israel 18,000 men to the ground.” Commentators using the synchronic approach explain the rebounding of the military action after the narrative closure in 20:35–36a with the argument that the apparent closure is a proleptic anticipatory conclusion that interrupts what is in fact a chronologically coherent narrative intrigue that begins in 20:31b and ends in 20:48.88 In contrast, commentators using the diachronic approach have long argued that 20:35–36a (YHWH smote Benjamin and 25,100 men were destroyed) represents the conclusion of a narrative unit delimited by 20:31b–36a* that was interpolated by a redactor into an earlier composition stratum text.89 However, these commentators disagree as to where the N stratum ends. Moore and Edenburg propose 20:44.47 (The death of 18,000 sons of Benjamin followed by flight to the rock of Rimmon). Burney and Gray propose 20:48 (Israel returns and strikes Benjamin with the edge of the sword). Soggin proposes 20:46 (25,000 men of Benjamin fell). Schulz proposes 20:46.48 (25,000 men of Benjamin fell and then the men of Israel returned to the sons of Benjamin). Particular attention will be paid in the detailed discussion that follows to the compositional history of the five closures in 20:31b–48. 3.4 Problem Posed by the Phenomenon of Repetition in Judges 20:31b–48 The number of lexical and thematic repetitions in 20:31b–48 is noteworthy. Each of these repetitions will be discussed below.

88

89

18,000, 5,000 and 2,000 more Benjaminites will fall. Frolov does not explain why (i) the phrase “And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel” would be linked to the first encounter of the day; (ii) the syntagma “that day” is used in 25:35a; or (iii) the closure of the long battle scene would state “And it came to pass that all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword.” As summarized by Paul Harlé, “La fin du v. 34, le v. 35 et le début du v. 36 sont de l’ordre, non plus du récit, mais du commentaire. Le narrateur interrompt provisoirement un récit qui va reprendre à nouveau frais au v. 36b. Il insère ici ce qui peut passer pour une conclusion anticipée : fatal aveuglement de Benjamin, victoire mise au compte du Seigneur lui-même, décompte des victimes. Cette anticipation projette son ombre sur les v. 36 à 48 qui redonnent, de manière plus détaillée, les éléments du combat déjà présentés aux v. 29a–34a […].” Harlé, Juges, 257. Pace Schulz, Die Anhänge, 90. Moore, Burney, Gray and Soggin. Moore cites Ernst Berteau’s 1845 commentary on Judges and Ruth as the first commentator to argue that 20:31b–36a constitutes the end of a discrete narrative unit.

Compositional History of Judges 20

331

3.4.1 Repetition in Judges 20:39b and 20:31b–32a It can be observed that 20:39b is thematically and lexically similar to 20:31b–32a: 31bAnd they began to strike victims among the people, as at other times, on the highways (one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah), in the field, about thirty men in Israel. 32aAnd the sons of Benjamin said: “They are smitten before us, as at the first.” 39bAnd Benjamin, he began to strike victims in the men of Israel, about thirty men, for they said: “Surely he is smitten before us, as in the first battle.”

‫וַ ּיָחֵ ּל ּו לְ הַ ּכוֹ ת ֵמהָ ָעם חֲלָ לִ ים‬‎31b‎

‫ְּכ ַפ ַעם ְּב ַפ ַעם ַּב ְמ ִסּלֹות ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ‫ית־אל וְ ַא ַחת‬ ֵ ‫ַא ַחת ע ָֹלה ֵב‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫ּגִ ְב ָע ָתה ַּב ָּׂש ֶדה ִּכ ְׁשל ִֹׁשים ִא‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬32a ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ֹאמר ּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ‫אשֹנָה‬ ׁ ‫נִ ָּג ִפים הֵ ם לְ פָ נֵינ ּו ְּכ ָב ִר‬ ‫יָמן הֵ חֵ ל לְ הַ ּכוֹ ת חֲלָ לִ ים‬ ִ ְ‫ּובנ‬ ִ 39b‎ ‫יש ִּכי‬ ׁ ‫ְּב ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִּכ ְׁשל ִֹׁשים ִא‬ ‫אָ ְמר ּו ַאְך נִ גּ וֹ ף נִ ָּגף הוּא לְ פָ נֵינ ּו‬ ‫אשֹנָה‬ ׁ ‫ַּכ ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה הָ ִר‬

In my view, the differences between the two pericopes can be attributed to a redactor who expanded 20:31b–32a. This position is supported by three arguments. First, the phrases “as at other times” and “as at the first” were introduced by R3 as analeptic references to the first two battles in which the sons of Israel were defeated. Second, the parenthetical gloss that identifies the “highways” as being two, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah, can reasonably be assigned to a redactor. Third, the lexeme ‫( ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬in Israel) is used four other times in Judges 19–21; in 20:6b.10b; 21:3a. The first two occurrences have been assigned to R3 on independent grounds and the third will be assigned to R3 as well.90 The repetition in these two sets of verses raises a literary problem. Simply put, why would the sons of Israel lose exactly 30 men a second time in 20:39b, after they had already “struck the city with the edge of the sword” (20:37bB)? Moore assigns 20:39b to N and 20:31b–32a to R1 but does not explain why 20:31b–32a is secondary or why a redactor would decide to create a doublet scene. Burney, Gray and Soggin assign 20:39b to the first source and 20:31b– 32a to the second source. The similarities between the two pericopes are thus explained as reflecting two different source traditions. Arnold attributes both sets of verses to N but does not explain the reasons for the repetition. Schulz assigns 20:31b–32a to the earliest stratum, with the exception of the final four words in 20:31b (in the field, about 30 men in Israel) which she attributes to a redactor. She also attributes 20:39b to a redactor. In effect, Schulz removes the principal element of redundancy between 20:31b–32a and 20:39b – the 90

For 20:6b.10b, see discussion in Section 1.9.4 supra. For 21:3a, see discussion in Chapter 11, Section 1.4 infra.

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repetition of the precise figure of “30 men in Israel” in 20:31b) – from the earliest stratum. She argues that the low casualty figure of 30 deaths is thematically out of place in 20:31b because it follows battle scenes in which tens of thousands have already been slaughtered.91 Edenburg assigns 20:39b as well as the initial Wayyiqtol phrase in 20:31b (“And they began to strike victims”) to N. She attributes the five nominal phrases that follow the first Wayyiqtol phrase in 20:31b to a redactor.92 I disagree with the seven commentators under review in this chapter on the relative dating of 20:31b–32a and 20:39b. In my view, 20:31b–32a* is part of N and 20:39b is a redactional interpolation. This position is supported by four arguments. First, although the particle ‫( ַאְך‬surely) as used in 20:39b is widely attested in the MT,93 it is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. Although not determinative, this tends to suggest that 20:39b was interpolated by a redactor. Second, as the use of ‫ ַאְך‬followed by an infinitive absolute followed by a finite verb is attested elsewhere in the MT,94 it is likely that the phrase ‫ַאְך נִ ּגֹוף נִ ּגָ ף הּוא‬ (surely, he is indeed smitten) in 20:39b should be read as a unit. However, it can be observed that the collocation in 20:39b uses an infinitive absolute followed by a participle followed by a pronoun. To the best of my knowledge, this formula is not attested elsewhere in the MT. This anomaly could be corrected in one of two ways. Primo, the Nif‘al infinitive absolute ‫ נִ ּגֹוף‬could be deleted from the text to read ‫( ַאְך נִ ּגָ ף הּוא‬surely, he is smitten). However, both LXXAB follow the MT in translating the anomalous phrase with a tautological repetition of the verb.95 Secundo, the Nif‘al participle ‫ נִ ּגָ ף‬could be revocalized in the Qatal as ‫נָ גַ ף‬. However, it can be noted that the LXXA translation of ‫נִ ּגֹוף נִ ּגָ ף‬ ‫ הּוא‬as τροπούμενος τροποῦται in fact uses a participle. On balance, I prefer to interpret the anomalous phrase ‫ ַאְך נִ ּגֹוף נִ ּגָ ף הּוא‬in MT 20:39b as a hapax suggesting that the verse should be attributed to a redactor. Third, the use of the infinitive absolute ‫ נִ ּגֹוף‬in 20:39b is noteworthy as the infinitive absolute is used only one other time in Judges 19–21 – in the typical phrase ‫יּומת‬ ָ ‫( מֹות‬he shall surely die) in 21:5b.96 As this verse will be attributed to R3 on independent grounds,97 it provides additional support for my position that 20:39b should also be attributed to a redactor. 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

Schulz, Die Anhänge, 87. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 53, 56–57. The particle ‫ ַאְך‬is attested at least once in every book of the Torah and the Nevi’im. Gen 27:30; 44:28; Num 18:15; Jer 26:15. LXXA 20:39b reads, πλὴν τροπούμενος τροποῦται. LXXB reads, πάλιν πτώσει πίπτουσιν. Contra Edenburg who identifies five additional infinitive absolutes in Judges 19–21: ‫נְ טֹות‬ (19:8); ‫( ֲחנֹות‬19:9); ‫( ֲעלֹות‬19:25.30); ‫( ֵּתת‬21:7). Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 128–129 fn66. I disagree with Edenenburg’s grammatical analysis of these five verbs. See detailed discussion of 21.5b in Chapter 11, Section 1.6 infra.

B

a

a

Compositional History of Judges 20

333

Fourth, 20:39b is introduced with a S+Qatal phrase and may, as will be discussed more fully below, form part of a narrative unit characterized by the dense use of S+Qatal phrases.98 On the basis of the foregoing, it is my position that 20:39b contains a sufficient number of unusual syntactical, lexical and grammatical peculiarities to exclude the possibility that it was composed by N.99 Furthermore, it is difficult to assign 20:39b to any of the three redaction strata of Judges 19–21 identified in this work. I will propose below that 20:39b may derive from an independent source and have been incorporated into the text by R3.100 3.4.2 Repetition in Judges 20:45a and 20:47a It can be noted that the phrase ‫ל־ס ַלע ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ֶ ‫יָמן וַ ּיָ נֻ סוּ ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ ִ ְ‫( וַ ּיִ פן ִבּנ‬And Benjamin turned. And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon) is repeated twice, in 20:45a.47a. This verbatim repetition of a narrative scene is unusual and may represent an example of the phenomenon of Wiederaufnahme suggesting the presence of redactional activity. The development of the text between 20:44 to 20:47 can be illustrated in the following chart, with the redactional interpolations indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahme are indicated in italics in the English translation. 44aAnd 18,000 men from Benjamin fell, 44ball ‫ה־ע ָׂשר‬ ָ ָ‫יָמן ְׁשמֹנ‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְּפלּו ִמ ִּבנ‬44a these were men of valor. 45aAAnd they turned ‫ל־א ֶּלה‬ ֵ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ ֶא‬44b ‫ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ around. And they fled toward the desert, to the ָ ‫ַאנְ ֵׁש‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו‬45aA ‫י־חיִ ל‬ rock of Rimmon. 45aBBut they gleaned 5,000 ‫ל־ס ַלע ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ֶ ‫ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ men on the highways. 45bAnd they followed ‫וַ יְ עֹלְ לֻה ּו ּ ַב ְמ ִס ּל ֹות ח ֲֵמ ׁ ֶשת‬45aB‎ after him until Gidom. And they struck ‫וַ ּי ְַד ִּביק ּו אַ ח ֲָריו‬45b ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫אֲלָ ִפים ִא‬ ּ ִ ‫ַע‬ among him 2,000 men. 46aAnd it came to ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫ד־ג ְדעֹם וַ ּי ַּכ ּו ִמ ּ ֶמנּ ּו אַ לְ ּ ַפיִ ם ִא‬ pass that all the fallen among Benjamin ‫וַ יְ ִהי כָ ל־הַ נּ ְֹפלִ ים ִמ ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬46a that day were 25,000 men drawing the ‫יש ׁשֹלֵ ף‬ ׁ ‫ֶעשְׂ ִרים וַ ח ֲִמ ּ ׁ ָשה אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ sword, 46ball these were men of valor. ‫ת־כל־אֵ ּ ֶלה‬ ָ ּ ֶ‫א‬b 46b ‫חֶ ֶרב ּ ַביּוֹ ם הַ הוּא‬ 47aAnd they turned around. And they fled ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו וַ ָ ּינֻס ּו‬47a ‫אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי־חָ יִ ל‬ toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon, ‫הַ ּ ִמ ְד ּ ָב ָרה אֶ ל־סֶ לַ ע הָ ִר ּמוֹ ן ׁ ֵש ׁש‬ 600 men. 47bAnd they stayed at the rock ‫וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו ְּבסֶ לַ ע ִר ּמ ֹון‬47b ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫ֵמאוֹ ת ִא‬ of Rimmon four months. ‫אַ ְר ּ ָב ָעה ח ֳָד ִׁשים‬ The hypothesis that the material between the Wiederaufnahmen is a redactional interpolation is supported by the fact that the theme of killing an 98 See detailed discussion of the use of S+Qatal phrases in Section 3.6 infra. 99 Pace Schulz; contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Soggin, Arnold and Edenburg. 100 See discussion in Section 3.7.4 infra.

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additional 5,000 and 2,000 sons of Benjamin is necessary to bring the total number of deaths from 18,000 in the underlying composition stratum to 25,000 in the redaction stratum. In my view, this represents solid evidence that the contradictory conclusions of a total of 18,000 and 25,000 deaths indicate that there are at least two composition strata in 20:31b–48. The question then arises whether 20:44–45aA (18,000 sons of Benjamin died and the survivors then turned around and fled to the Rock of Rimmon) should be attributed to the earliest composition stratum or to a redaction stratum prior to the one responsible for the interpolation in 20:45aB–47 (25,000 sons of Benjamin died and the survivors turned around and fled to the Rock of Rimmon). In my view, 20:44–45aA should be dated later than N.101 This position is supported by two arguments. First, the second battle scene in which Israel loses 18,000 men (20:25) has been attributed to R1.102 This makes it likely that the second mention of 18,000 casualties was not part of N and instead was interpolated by a redactor. Second, it can be argued that the parallelism between Israel’s and Benjamin’s defeats is not coincidental. For R1, the death of 18,000 sons of Benjamin is an appropriate “talionic” or “measure-for-measure” retribution for Benjamin’s slaughter of 18,000 men of Israel. 3.4.3 Repetition in Judges 20:37b and 20:48a It can be observed that the phrases “And the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword” (20:37b) resembles the phrase, “And the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword […]” (20:48a). As the syntagma “he/they struck the city/them with the edge of the sword” is frequently used to signal the climax of a battle scene,103 it is curious that the syntagma is used twice in 20:31b–48. The use of the formula in 20:48 seems to contradict the narrative coherence of the plotline. As it is stated in 20:46a that “it came to pass that all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword, all these were men of valor,” it is difficult to understand the meaning of the following verse, “And the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword …” After killing 25,000 sons of Benjamin, the reader can reasonably conclude that the battle has already ended and there is no reason to return to Benjamin to strike them with the edge of the sword. Arnold solves this problem by arguing that 20:48 follows 20:43 (“They surrounded Benjamin. They pursued them to the place of rest. They trod them 101 Pace Arnold; contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Soggin, Edenburg and Schulz. 102 See discussion in Section 2.6.2 supra. 103 See, e.g., Deut 13:16; 20:13; Josh 6:21; 10:28.30.32.35.37.39; 11:11.12.14.

Compositional History of Judges 20

335

down opposite Gibeah toward the east”). In my view, this position poses the same problem as in the final version of the text; i.e., it is not clear why Israel would return to the sons of Benjamin to strike them down after they have already “trod them down opposite Gibeah toward the east.” Edenburg solves the problem by arguing that 20:48 follows 20:44 (18,000 men from Benjamin fell). As she attributes 20:15a (the sons of Benjamin were numbered 26,000 men drawing the sword) to N, Edenburg’s proposed solution makes sense. Although she does not explain her position, it can be assumed that she is arguing that Israel returned to Benjamin after killing 18,000 men to strike the rest of the 26,000 sons of Benjamin with the edge of the sword. However, her position only makes sense if it is assumed that the exaggerated figures of 400,000 sons of Israel and 26,000 sons of Benjamin should be assigned to N. Edenburg argues that 20:48 is an intertextual reference to Josh 8:24:104 Judg 20:48And the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword, from the citadel, to the cattle, to all that they found. All the cities they found, they sent away with fire. Josh 8: 24bAnd all Israel returned to Ai. And they struck it with the edge of the sword.

‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ׁ ָשב ּו ֶא‬‎ ‫וַ ּי ַּכוּם לְ ִפי־חֶ ֶרב ֵמ ִעיר ְמתֹם‬ ‫ל־הּנִ ְמ ָצא‬ ַ ‫ד־ּב ֵה ָמה ַעד ָּכ‬ ְ ‫ַע‬ ‫ָשב ּו ָכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָה ַעי וַ ּי ַּכ ּו א ָֹתּה‬ ֻ ׁ ‫וַ ּי‬‎ ‫לְ ִפי־חָ ֶרב‬

To increase the parallelism between Judg 20:48 and Josh 8:24, Edenburg emends Judg 20:48a to read “And the men of Israel, they returned to the cities the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword, from man the citadel, to the cattle.” This emendation is not supported by any Greek or other variants of the text. She attributes the rest of the verse, “to all that they found. All the cities they found, they sent away with fire” to a redactor. In my view, the intertextual associations between Judg 20:48 and Josh 8:24 are weak for two reasons. First, the syntagma “to strike with the edge of the sword” is so common in the MT that it is overly speculative to argue that one usage of the syntagma shows literary dependency on another. Second, it can be noted that while Israel returns to the sons of Benjamin to strike them with the edge of the sword in Judg 20:48, Israel returns to Ai to strike the city with the edge of the sword in Josh 8:24b.105

104 Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 206. 105 As discussed, Edenburg overcomes this objection by emending 20:48a to read “And the men of Israel, they returned to the cities of Benjamin.”

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Verse 20:48a is followed by the phrase, “All the cities they found, they sent away with fire.” The twin motifs of “they struck them with the edge of the sword” and “they set the cities on fire” in 20:48 echo Josh 11:11 and Judg 18:27: Judg 20:48And the men of Israel, they returned to ‫ל־ּבנֵ י‬ ְ ‫ וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָׁשבּו ֶא‬‎ the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with ‫ִבנְ ִיָמן וַ ּי ַּכוּם לְ ִפי־חֶ ֶרב […]ּגַ ם‬ the edge of the sword […]. All the cities they ‫ָּכל־הֶ ָע ִרים ַהּנִ ְמ ָצאֹות ִׁש ְּלחּו‬ found, they sent away with fire. ‫בָ אֵ ׁש‬ Josh 11:11And they struck every living being who was ‫ר־ּבּה‬ ָ ‫ל־הּנֶ ֶפׁש ֲא ֶׁש‬ ַ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫וַ ּי ַּכ ּו ֶא‬‎ in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying ‫נֹותר‬ ַ ‫לְ ִפי־חֶ ֶרב ַה ֲח ֵרם לֹא‬ [them]; none of the living were left. And Hazor, he ‫ת־חצֹור ָׂש ַרף ּ ָבאֵ ׁש‬ ָ ‫ָּכל־נְ ָׁש ָמה וְ ֶא‬ burned with fire. Judg 18:27aBAnd they came to Laish, to a people ‫ל־עם ׁש ֵֹקט‬ ַ ‫ל־ליִ ׁש ַע‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ַע‬‎ quiet and secure. And they struck them with the ‫ּוב ֵֹט ַח וַ ּי ַּכ ּו אוֹ ָתם לְ ִפי־חָ ֶרב‬ edge of the sword. And the city, they burned with ‫וְ ֶאת־הָ ִעיר ָׂש ְרפּו בָ אֵ ׁש‬ fire. In my view, the most parsimonious explanation for the repetition of the motif of striking an enemy city or its inhabitants with the edge of the sword is that a redactor wanted to harmonize the final closure to Judg 20:31b–48 with that in Judg 18:27. The return to Benjamin for a decisive fourth battle also reflects the “3+1 day” literary structure of Judg 20:18–48 which I have attributed to R3. 3.5 Problem Posed by the Density of Subject+Qatal Clauses in 20:31b–48 The syntax in 20:31b–48 is unusual. While the previous narrative unit 20:18–31a follows a standard narrative syntax of Wayyiqtol phrases interspersed with dialog and a handful of nominal phrases, there is a dense concentration of Qatal phrases in which the subject precedes the verb in 20:32–42.106 Equally unusual is the series of three asyndetic Qatal phrases (i.e., a clause not joined to the previous phrase with a conjunctive waw) in 20:43. The unusual syntax used in 20:31b–48 can be compared with the more typical narrative style of 20:18–31a. The following charts illustrate the type of clauses used in each verse, where “W” means Wayyiqtol phrase; “Nom” means nominal (i.e., non-verbal) clause; “sQ” means a Qatal phrase in which the subject precedes the verb; “Sub” means a subordinate Qatal clause introduced by

106 20:32b.33a.34b.37a.38a.39b.40a.41a.41b.42a.

337

Compositional History of Judges 20

‫ ִּכי‬or ‫“ ; ֲא ֶׁשר‬aQ” means an asyndetic Qatal clause; and “Obj+Q” means a Qatal

phrase in which the phrase begins with the direct object, followed by the subject and then by the verb. 20:18–31a 18a W + W + W 18b W 19a W 19b W 20a W 20b W 21a W 21b W

20:31b–48 31b W + Nom 32a W 32b sQ 33a sQ + W 33b Nom 34a W + sQ 34b sQ 35a W + W 35b Nom 36a W

22a W 22b W 23a W + W + W 23b W 24 W 25a W 25b Nom 26a W+W+W+W+W 26b W 36b W + Sub 37a sQ + W 37b W + W 38a sQ 38b Nom 39a W 39b sQ + Sub 40a sQ 40b W + W 41a sQ + W

41b sQ 42a W + sQ 42b Nom 43a aQ+aQ+aQ 43b Nom 44a W 44b Nom 45a W + W + W 45b W + W 46a W

27a W 27b Nom 28a Nom 28b W 29 W 30a W 30b W 31a W+aQ

46b Nom 47a W + W 47b W 48a sQ + W 48b Obj+Q

The difference in syntactical style between the two narrative units is striking. The narrative unit 20:18–31a is a continuous series of Wayyiqtol phrases interrupted by dialog and an occasional nominal phrase. In contrast, the number of S+Qatal and aQ clauses used in 20:31b–48 is exceptionally high. I am not aware of any commentator who has noted the unusual syntax used in the narrative unit. In my view, this phenomenon is a threshold issue to be addressed in analyzing the compositional history of 20:31b–48 and will be discussed in detail in the following section. 3.6 Interpretation of Subject+Qatal Clauses The interpretation of S+Qatal clauses in narrative texts is problematic. Gesenius takes the position that a S+Qatal clause has the same syntactical purpose as a

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nominal clause.107 As the reasoning is complex (and not particularly obvious), Gesenius’ argument will be developed in detail in the following paragraphs. First, a fundamental distinction is made between nominal clauses and verbal clauses. Gesenius argues that the distinction between the two “is indispensable to the more delicate appreciation of Hebrew syntax (and that of the Semitic languages generally), since it is by no means merely external or formal, but involves fundamental differences of meaning. Nominal clauses with a substantive as predicate, represent something fixed, a state or in short, a being so and so; verbal-clauses on the other hand, something moveable and in progress, an event or action.”108 Second, Gesenius then posits that a S+Qatal clause is the functional equivalent of a nominal clause: “In the great majority of instances, however, the position of the subject at the beginning of a verbal-clause is to be explained from the fact that the clause is not intended to introduce a new fact carrying on the narrative, but rather to describe a state. Verbal-clauses of this kind approximate closely in character to nominal clauses, and not infrequently (viz. when the verbal form might just as well be read as a participle) it is doubtful [sic.] [probably should read, it can be questioned] whether the writer did not in fact intend a nominal clause.”109 Third, Gesenius reaches the conclusion that when the S+Qatal clause is connected to the preceding verbal clause by a conjunctive waw, the syntactical effect is “to lay stress upon some accompanying circumstance. This is especially the case, again, when the circumstantial appendage involves an antithesis.”110 The waw thus “corresponds to the Greek δὲ used to interpose an explanation.”111 In summary, Gesenius interprets a S+Qatal clause that is preceded by a waw (which is the case in all of the S+Qatal clauses in 20:31b–48) as a “circumstantial appendage” added to the preceding phrase in order “to lay stress upon some accompanying circumstance.” For Gesenius, the S+Qatal clause thus presents a “state” standing in relation to the “action” presented in the preceding Wayyiqtol clause. Gesenius’ position on the interpretation of S+Qatal clauses has been followed by most subsequent BH philologists, subject to developments which expand rather than contradict Gesenius. In his 2012 monograph on the verbal 107 A nominal clause is typically defined negatively as a clause that does not contain a finite verb. Nominal clauses thus include phrases containing only nouns, participles and/or infinitives. 108 Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar § 140.e; emphasis in original. 109 Ibid., § 142a; emphasis in original. 110 Ibid., § 142d; emphasis in original. 111 Ibid.; internal references omitted.

Compositional History of Judges 20

339

system of BH, Jan Joosten begins his analysis of the relationship between Wayyiqtol and non-Wayyiqtol phrases by stating, In biblical Hebrew narrative, different means may be used to indicate an interruption of the flow of events, where the narrator looks back or forward along the time line, or adds another dimension to the description of a given scene. The most interesting are those where no particle or adverb is used. Word order and the use of specific verbal forms suffice to indicate a deviation from the time line.112 While Gesenius treats both S+Qatal clauses and nominal clauses as “circumstantial appendages,” Joosten proposes a more nuanced definition. He divides the use of S+Qatal clauses into two categories. The first and most common is to provide circumstantial information concerning the preceding phrase in the same manner as a nominal clause.113 Second, the S+Qatal clause can be used at the beginning of a narrative sequence to provide background information concerning events that had transpired prior to the action described in the phrases that follow. Joosten cites as an example, Gen 4:1: ‫ת־חּוָ ה ִא ְׁשּתֹו‬ ַ ‫וְ ָה ָא ָדם יָ ַדע ֶא‬ ‫ת־קיִ ן‬ ַ ‫( וַ ַּת ַהר וַ ֵּת ֶלד ֶא‬When the man had known his wife Eve, she conceived and bore Cain) [translation by Joosten].114 In these cases, Joosten argues that the S+Qatal clause expresses temporal anteriority justifying use of the plusperfect in European languages.115 It can be noted that in Joosten’s system, the S+Qatal clause expresses anteriority in relation to the preceding Wayyiqtol phrase in the first category of usage, and in relation to the following Wayyiqtol phrase in the second category of usage. Tal Goldfajn approaches the issue of the meaning of the shift from the Wayyiqtol to the S+Qatal in a less formalistic manner than Niccacci, Zevit and Joosten. Although Goldfajn does not disagree that a S+Qatal clause may stand 112 Jan Joosten, The Verbal System of Biblical Hebrew: A New Synthesis Elaborated on the Basis of Classical Prose, Jerusalem Biblical Studies Vol. 10 (Jerusalem: Simor Ltd., 2012), 125. 113 Ibid., 131. Alviero Niccacci reaches a similar conclusion but describes the S+Qatal clause as being “subordinate” to the preceding Wayyiqtol phrase. Alviero Niccacci, “Basic Facts and Theory of the Biblical Hebrew Verb System in Prose” in Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible, Papers of the Tilburg Conference 1996 (ed. E. Van Wolde; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 199. 114 Joosten, Verbal System, 132. Thomas Lambdin notes that Gen 3:1; 4:1; 16:1; 21:1 begin with a S+Qatal clause. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, 162–165. 115 Ziony Zevit takes the position that all S+Qatal clauses express temporal anteriority in relation to the preceding Wayyiqtol phrase and should therefore be translated with a plusperfect. Ziony Zevit, The Anterior Construction in Classical Hebrew, SBL Monograph Series No. 50 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 15.

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in a temporal relationship with the preceding or following Wayyiqtol clause, she shifts the emphasis to the notion of continuity and discontinuity in the forward movement of the narrative intrigue. She states, The most obvious difference between qatal and wayyiqtol is, as we have seen, that while qatal tends by default to maintain the R [reference] time in the narrative, wayyiqtol, on the other hand, serves precisely to advance the R time forward. Thus whereas the qatal form interrupts/discontinues the narrative, Wayyiqtol has the opposite function, of continuing the narrative. […] It is because these forms are in fact both semantically and syntactically distinct that they can, in effect, interact as they do in many important ways. For one thing, if they ‘corresponded’ one to the other the fundamental effect of discontinuity which obtains from having a Wayyiqtol sentence followed by a qatal sentence would not be possible.116 In my opinion, Goldfajn’s insights are relevant to understanding the unusual syntax in 20:31b–48. I understand Goldfajn to mean that when the Wayyiqtol is used, the narrator is advancing the narrative intrigue with one action following sequentially after another. In contrast, when the S+Qatal is used, the narrator is interrupting the forward movement of the narrative intrigue to linger at that specific reference time to provide a comment or additional information. I understand Goldfajn to mean that the narrator uses two principal techniques to narrate a story. He moves the intrigue forward from action to action using the Wayyiqtol voice and he interrupts the forward movement of the intrigue using the S+Qatal and the asyndetic Qatal voice. To test this hypothesis, set forth below is a table that separates the Wayyiqtol phrases from the S+Qatal and a+Qatal phrases in 20:31b–43. Wayyiqtol Phrases

S+Qatal and a-Qatal Phrases

31bAnd they began to strike victims among the people, as at other times, on the highways (one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah), in the field, about 30 men in Israel. 32aAnd the sons of Benjamin said: “They are smitten before us, as at the first.” 116 Tal Goldfajn, Word Order and Time in Biblical Hebrew Narrative (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

341

Compositional History of Judges 20 (cont.)

Wayyiqtol Phrases

33aBAnd they arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar. 33bAnd the ambush of Israel was bursting out from its place, from the naked side of Geba. 34aAAnd 10,000 chosen men from all Israel came to face Gibeah.

35aAnd YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day, 35ball drawing the sword. 36aAnd the sons of Benjamin saw that they were smitten. 36bAnd the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ambush that they had set against Gibeah. 37aAnd they made a dash to Gibeah. 37bAnd the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword.

39aAnd the men of Israel turned in the battle.

S+Qatal and a-Qatal Phrases

32bAnd the sons of Israel, they said: “Let us flee and we shall draw them away from the city to the highways.” 33aAAnd all the men of Israel, they rose up from their place.

34aBAnd the battle, it was heavy. 34bBut they, they did not know that disaster was close upon them.

37aAAnd the ambush, they hurried.

38aThe sign between the men of Israel and the ambush, it was 38bto make an uplifting of smoke go up from the city.

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(cont.)

Wayyiqtol Phrases

40bAAnd Benjamin turned around backwards.

41aBAnd the men of Benjamin were terrified, 41bfor he saw that disaster was close upon him. 42aAAnd they turned around before the men of Israel on the desert road.

44aAnd 18,000 men from Benjamin fell, 44ball these were men of valor. 45aAAnd they turned around. And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon.

S+Qatal and a-Qatal Phrases

39bAnd Benjamin, he began to strike victims in the men of Israel, about 30 men, for they said: “Surely he is smitten before us, as in the first battle.” 40aBut the uplifting, it began to go up from the city in a column of smoke. 40bBAnd behold! The entirety of the city went up to the heavens. 41aAAnd the men of Israel, he turned.

42aBAnd the battle, it overtook him. 43aThey surrounded Benjamin. They pursued them to the place of rest. They made them march, 43bopposite Gibeah toward the east.

The following preliminary observations can be made with respect to the unit 20:31b–45aA. First, the only Wayyiqtol segment that is not followed by a S-Qatal segment is 20:35–36a (“And YHWH smote Benjamin […] And the sons of Benjamin saw they were smitten.”) This may suggest that 20:35–36a is a redactional interpretation. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that 20:35–36a interrupts the chronological progression of the plotline between 20:34 and 20:36b with a proleptic anticipation of the conclusion in 20:46. Second, although subjective, when the S+Qatal and a+Qatal phrases are separated from the Wayyiqtol phrases as set out above, each set of verses can be read sequentially as forming a coherent narrative sequence.

Compositional History of Judges 20

343

Third, the S+Qatal sequence shows thematic similarities with the story of Joshua’s conquest of Ai and contains two intertextual allusions to Joshua 8: Judg 20:40b[…] And Behold! The entirety of the city went up to the heavens. Josh 8:20a[…] And behold! The smoke of the city went up to the heavens.

‫וְ ִה ּנֵה ָעלָ ה ְכ ִליל־הָ ִעיר‬‎ ‫הַ ּ ׁ ָש ָמיְ ָמה‬ ‫וְ ִה ּנֵה ָעלָ ה ֲע ַׁשן הָ ִעיר‬‎ ‫הַ ּ ׁ ָש ַמיְ ָמה‬

Judg 20:32bAnd the sons of Israel, they said: “Let us ‫ּובנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָא ְמרּו‬ ְ ‎32b flee. And we shall draw them away from the city ‫נָנו ָּסה וּנְ ַת ְ ּקנֻה ּו ִמן־הָ ִעיר‬ to the highways.” ‫ל־ה ְמ ִסּלֹות‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ Josh 8:5I and all the people who are with me will ‫ל־ה ָעם ֲא ֶׁשר ִא ִּתי‬ ָ ‫וַ ֲאנִ י וְ ָכ‬5 draw near to the city. And it shall be that they will ‫ל־ה ִעיר וְ ָהיָ ה ִּכי־יֵ ְצאּו‬ ָ ‫נִ ְק ַרב ֶא‬ go out to meet us as at first and we shall flee before ‫אתנּו ַּכ ֲא ֶׁשר ָּב ִראׁש ֹנָ ה‬ ֵ ‫ִל ְק ָר‬ them. 6And they will pursue after us until we draw ‫וְ יָ ְצאּו ַא ֲח ֵרינּו‬6 ‫וְ נ ְַסנ ּו ִל ְפנֵ ֶיהם‬ them away from the city. For they will say: “They ‫יקנ ּו אוֹ ָתם ִמן־הָ ִעיר‬ ֵ ‫ַעד הַ ִּת‬ are fleeing before us as at first.” And we shall flee ‫אמרּו נָ ִסים ְל ָפנֵ ינּו ַּכ ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ְ ֹ ‫ִּכי י‬ before them. ‫יהם‬ ֶ ֵ‫ָּב ִראׁש ֹנָ ה וְ נַ ְסנּו ִל ְפנ‬ In contrast, the Wayyiqtol sequence in 20:31b–42a describes an ambush strategy without, in my opinion, any thematic or lexical parallels to Joshua 8.117 For the reasons discussed above, I propose to assign the Wayyiqtol phrases and the S+Qatal / a+Qatal phrases in 20:31b–45 to different composition strata. The compositional history of the unit can be explained in two different ways. First, the Wayyiqtol segment and Qatal segment were originally separate 117 Contra Edenburg who identifies a number of lexical parallels to Joshua 7–8 in the Wayyiqtol verses in 20:31b–42a that I do not find persuasive. (Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 203–217.) For example, she argues that the lexemes “field,” and “30 men” in 20:31b are borrowed from the use of the word “field” in Josh 8:24 and the word “30 men” from “36 men” in Josh 7:5. It can be noted that the lexeme “field” is extremely common and “30 men” is also used in 1 Sam 9:22; 2 Sam 23:13; Jer 38:10; 1 Ch 11:15. The syntagma “36 men” in Josh 7:5 is not attested elsewhere in the MT. Edenburg argues that the phrase “they are smitten before us as at first (‎‫ ”) ְּכ ָב ִראׁש ֹנָ ה‬in Judg 20:32a is borrowed from “They are fleeing before us as at first (‎‫ ”) ָּב ִראׁש ֹנָ ה‬in Josh 8:6. Not only are the verbs in the two phrases different, but the syntagma translated as “as at first” is not the same. The syntagma ‫ ְּכ ָב ִראׁש ֹנָ ה‬as used in Judg 20:32a is also attested in 1 Ki 13:6; Isa 1:26; Jer 33:7.11. In contrast, the syntagma ‫ ָּב ִראׁש ֹנָ ה‬as used in Josh 8:6 is widely attested. Edenburg posits that the phrase “the ambush of Israel was bursting from its place” in 20:33b is borrowed from “the ambush quickly arose from its place” in Josh 8:19. It can be noted that the verbs in the two phrases are different and the syntagma ‫( ִמ ְּמקֹמֹו‬from its place) is widely used in the MT (Gen 13:4; Num 10:13.14; Deut 17:7; Josh 8:5.6.33; 2 Sam 20:18; 1 Ki 17:13; 20:9.17; Isa 60:9; Zech 12:7; Prov 20:21.) Finally, it can be observed that the intertextual references that Edenburg notes in the series of consecutive Wayyiqtol phrases in Judg 20:31b–36b occur in Joshua in the following order: 8:24; 7:5; 8:6; 8:19: 8:2.

B

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narrative units from different source traditions that were combined by a redactor. This hypothesis would represent a revival of the “two-source” model using a different criterion for distinguishing between the two sources than the criteria used by Burney, Gray and Soggin. Second, the author of the Wayyiqtol unit made use of the older Qatal unit to create an original composition. This hypothesis resembles Edenburg’s position that most of 20:31b–48 should be assigned to N who incorporated older poetic fragments into his original composition. These possibilities will be discussed below. 3.7 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 20:31b–48 as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 3.7.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 20:31b–48 My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 31bAnd they began to strike victims among the ‫וַ ּיָ ֵחּלּו ְל ַהּכֹות ֵמ ָה ָעם ֲח ָל ִלים‬31b‎ people […], on the highways […], in the field, ‫[…] ַּב ְמ ִסּלֹות […] ַּב ָּׂש ֶדה‬ about thirty men in Israel. 32aAnd the sons of 32a ‫ֹלׁשים ִאיׁש ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫ִּכ ְׁש‬ Benjamin said: “They are smitten before us […].” ‫יָמן נִ ּגָ ִפים ֵהם‬ ִ ְ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ 33aBAnd they arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar. ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ְּב ַב ַעל‬33aB ]…[ ‫ְל ָפנֵ ינּו‬ 34AaAnd 10,000 chosen men from all Israel ‫וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ִמּנֶ גֶ ד ַלּגִ ְב ָעה‬34aA ‫ָּת ָמר‬ came to face Gibeah. 36bAnd the men of Israel ‫ֲע ֶׂש ֶרת ֲא ָל ִפים ִאיׁש ָּבחּור‬ gave a place to Benjamin because they relied ‫וַ ּיִ ְּתנּו‬36b ‫ִמ ָּכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ on the ambush they had set against Gibeah. ‫יָמן ִּכי‬ ִ ְ‫ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָמקֹום ְל ִבנ‬ 37aBAnd they made a dash to Gibeah. 37bAnd ‫ל־הא ֵֹרב ֲא ֶׁשר ָׂשמּו‬ ָ ‫ָב ְטחּו ֶא‬ the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפ ְׁשטּו‬37aB ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ with the edge of the sword. 39aAnd the men of ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְמׁש ְֹך ָהא ֵֹרב וַ ּיַ ְך‬37b ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ Israel turned in the battle. 40bAnd Benjamin ‫ְך‬‎ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲה ֹפ‬39a ‎‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ָ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְל ִפ‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ turned around backwards. 41aBAnd the men of ַ ‫ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬40b‎‫ּב ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬‎ Benjamin were terrified, 41b[…] for disaster was ‫וַ ָּיִּב ֵהל ִאיׁש‬B41aB‎‫יָמן ַא ֲח ָרי ו‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ close upon him. 42aAnd they turned around ‫יָמן […] ִּכי־נָ גְ ָעה ָע ָליו ָה ָר ָעה‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ […]. 45aA[…] And they fled towards the desert to ‫[…] וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו‬45aA ]…[ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬42a‎ the rock of Rimmon. ‫ל־ס ַלע ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ֶ ‫ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ As in the N material in 20:18–31a, N’s narrative intrigue in 20:31b–48 is highly focused on the city of Gibeah. The scene opens with Israel suffering an initial loss of 30 men on the highway and in the fields and ends with Israel striking Gibeah with the edge of the sword and Benjamin’s flight to the desert. While the standard motif of striking an enemy city with the edge of the sword typically

B

a

345

Compositional History of Judges 20

includes reference to the slaughter of all the inhabitants,118 there is no mention of a slaughter of the sons of Benjamin in N’s material. The purpose of Israel’s attack on Gibeah appears to be to capture the city and to force its inhabitants to flee to the desert, to the rock of Rimmon. Although the location of the rock of Rimmon is unknown, it is likely that the desert to which the sons of Benjamin fled lies to the east of Gibeah and possibly in trans-Jordan. When viewed from an early Persian period perspective, the ideological/theological purpose of the N unit is to establish that the sons of Benjamin had been exiled from Yehud to the east. N’s perspective on the fate of the sons of Benjamin dovetails with the characterization in Ezra-Nehemiah of one of the Golah’s principal opponents, Tobiah, as “the Ammonite,” notwithstanding his Hebrew name and his family relationship with a priest serving at the temple in Jerusalem.119 3.7.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:31b–48 The redactional interpolations of R1 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. 31bAnd they began to strike victims among the people […], on the highways […], in the field, about thirty men in Israel. 32aAnd the sons of Benjamin said: “They are smitten before us […].” 33aBAnd they arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar. 34AaAnd 10,000 chosen men from all Israel came to face Gibeah. 36bAnd the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ambush they had set against Gibeah. 37aBAnd they made a dash to Gibeah. 37bAnd the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword. 39aAnd the men of Israel turned in the battle. 40bAnd Benjamin turned around backwards. 41aBAnd the men of Benjamin were terrified, 41b[…] for disaster was close upon him. 42aAnd they turned around before the men of Israel on the desert road. 44aAnd 18,000 men from Benjamin fell, 44ball these were men of valor. 45aAAnd they turned around. And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon.

‫וַ ּיָ ֵחּלּו ְל ַהּכֹות ֵמ ָה ָעם ֲח ָל ִלים‬31b ‫[…] ַּב ְמ ִסּלֹות […] ַּב ָּׂש ֶדה‬ ‫ֹלׁשים ִאיׁש ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫ִּכ ְׁש‬ ‫יָמן נִ ּגָ ִפים ֵהם‬ ִ ְ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬32a ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ְּב ַב ַעל‬33aB ]…[ ‫ְל ָפנֵ ינּו‬ ‫וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ִמּנֶ גֶ ד ַלּגִ ְב ָעה‬34aA ‫ָּת ָמר‬ ‫ֲע ֶׂש ֶרת ֲא ָל ִפים ִאיׁש ָּבחּור‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְּתנּו‬36b ‫ִמ ָּכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫יָמן ִּכי‬ ִ ְ‫ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָמקֹום ְל ִבנ‬ ‫ל־הא ֵֹרב ֲא ֶׁשר ָׂשמּו ֶאל־‬ ָ ‫ָב ְטחּו ֶא‬ ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפ ְׁשטּו ֶא‬37aB ‫ַהּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְמׁש ְֹך ָהא ֵֹרב וַ ּיַ ְך‬37b ‫וַ ּיַ ֲהפְֹך‬39a ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ָ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְל ִפ‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ַ ‫ ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ ‫וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬40b‎‫ּב ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬‎ ‫וַ ָּיִּב ֵהל ִאיׁש‬B41aB‎‫יָמן ַא ֲח ָרי ו‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ ‫יָמן […] ִּכי־נָ גְ ָעה ָע ָליו ָה ָר ָעה‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ ‫יש יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ׁ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו לִ ְפנֵי ִא‬42a‎

‫וַ ִ ּי ּ ְפל ּו ִמ ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬44a ‫אֶ ל־דֶּ ֶר ְך הַ ּ ִמ ְד ּ ָבר‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫ָה־עשָׂ ר אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ ָ ‫מנ‬ ֹ ‫ְׁש‬ 45aA ‫ת־כל־אֵ ּ ֶלה אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי־חָ יִ ל‬ ָ ּ ֶ‫א‬44b ‫ל־ס ַלע‬ ֶ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬

118 See, e.g., Deut 13:16; 20:13; Josh 6:21; 10:28.30.32.35.37.39; 11:11.12.14. 119 Neh 13:4.7.

‫ָה ִרּמֹון‬

BA

346

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The principal purpose of the first redaction stratum is to expand the battle story to include a scene in which Israel slaughters 18,000 sons of Benjamin. This scene parallels R1’s introduction of the battle scene on the “second” day in 20:24–25 in which Benjamin slaughters 18,000 sons of Israel. Israel’s victory on the “third” day is thus presented as a “talionic” or “measure-for-measure” retribution for Benjamin’s initial violence on the battle field. My position that the battle scene in 20:42–45* should be attributed to a redactor is supported by the fact that R1s interpolation is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. 3.7.3 Second Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:31b–48 The redactional interpolations of R2 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahmen are indicated in italics in the English translation. 31bAnd they began to strike victims among the ‫וַ ּיָ ֵחּלּו ְל ַהּכֹות ֵמ ָה ָעם ֲח ָל ִלים‬31b‎ people […], on the highways […], in the field, ‫[…] ַּב ְמ ִסּלֹות […] ַּב ָּׂש ֶדה‬ about thirty men in Israel. 32aAnd the sons of ‫ֹלׁשים ִאיׁש ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫ִּכ ְׁש‬ Benjamin said: “They are smitten before us […].” ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנְ ִיָמן נִ ּגָ ִפים ֵהם‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬32a 33aBAnd they arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar. ‫וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ְּב ַב ַעל‬33aB ]…[ ‫ְל ָפנֵ ינּו‬ 34AaAnd 10,000 chosen men from all Israel ‫וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ִמּנֶ גֶ ד ַלּגִ ְב ָעה‬34aA ‫ָּת ָמר‬ came to face Gibeah. 36bAnd the men of Israel ‫ֲע ֶׂש ֶרת ֲא ָל ִפים ִאיׁש ָּבחּור‬ gave a place to Benjamin because they relied ‫וַ ּיִ ְּתנּו‬36b ‫ִמ ָּכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ on the ambush they had set against Gibeah. ‫יָמן ִּכי‬ ִ ְ‫ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָמקֹום ְל ִבנ‬ 37aBAnd they made a dash to Gibeah. 37bAnd ‫ל־הא ֵֹרב ֲא ֶׁשר ָׂשמּו‬ ָ ‫ָב ְטחּו ֶא‬ the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפ ְׁשטּו‬37aB ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ with the edge of the sword. 39aAnd the men of ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְמׁש ְֹך ָהא ֵֹרב וַ ּיַ ְך‬37b ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ Israel turned in the battle. 40bAnd Benjamin ָ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְל ִפ‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲהפְֹך‬39a ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ turned around backwards. 41aBAnd the men of ‫וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬b40b‎‫ ַּב ִּמ ְל ָח ָמהה‬‎‫ ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ Benjamin were terrified, 41b[…] for disaster was ‫וַ ָּיִּב ֵהל ִאיׁש‬41aB ‫יָמן ַא ֲח ָריו‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ close upon him. 42aAnd they turned around ‫יָמן […] ִּכי־נָ גְ ָעה ָע ָליו ָה ָר ָעה‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ before the men of Israel on the desert road. ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו ִל ְפנֵ י ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶאל־‬a42a‎ 44aAnd 18,000 men from Benjamin fell, 44ball ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְּפלּו ִמ ִּבנ‬44a ‫ֶּד ֶרְך ַה ִּמ ְד ָּבר‬ these were men of valor. 45AaAnd they turned ‫ה־ע ָׂשר ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ ָ ָ‫ְׁשמֹנ‬ around. And they fled toward the desert, to the 45aA‫י־חיִ ל‬ ָ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ַאנְ ֵׁש‬ ֵ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ ֶא‬44b rock of Rimmon. 45aBBut they gleaned 5,000 ‫ל־ס ַלע‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ men on the highways. 45bAnd they followed ‫וַ יְ עֹלְ לֻה ּו ּ ַב ְמ ִס ּל ֹות‬B45aB‎‫ָה ִרּמֹון‬ after him until Gidom. And they struck among ‫ ַו ּי ְַד ִּביק ּו‬45b ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫ח ֲֵמ ׁ ֶשת אֲלָ ִפים ִא‬ ּ ִ ‫אַ ח ֲָריו ַע‬ him 2,000 men. 46aAnd it came to pass that ‫ד־ג ְדעֹם וַ ּי ַּכ ּו ִמ ּ ֶמנּ ּו‬ all the fallen among Benjamin that day were ‫וַ יְ ִהי כָ ל־הַ נּ ְֹפלִ ים‬46a ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫אַ לְ ּ ַפיִ ם ִא‬ 25,000 men drawing the sword, 46ball these ‫ִמ ִּבנְ י ִָמן ֶעשְׂ ִרים וַ ח ֲִמ ּ ׁ ָשה אֶ לֶ ף‬ were men of valor. 47aAnd they turned around. 46b ‫יש ׁשֹלֵ ף חֶ ֶרב ּ ַביּוֹ ם הַ הוּא‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of ‫וַ ִ ּי ְפנ ּו‬a47a ‫ת־כל־אֵ ּ ֶלה אַ נְ ׁ ֵשי־חָ יִ ל‬ ָ ּ ֶ‫א‬ Rimmon […]. ‫וַ ָ ּינֻס ּו הַ ּ ִמ ְד ּ ָב ָרה אֶ ל־סֶ לַ ע הָ ִר ּמוֹ ן‬

Compositional History of Judges 20

347

The second redaction stratum adds further material to the end of the narrative. After killing 18,000 sons of Benjamin, the body count is increased to 25,000 men by interpolating short scenes in which an additional 5,000 men are gleaned on the highways and then 2,000 more. The interpolation in 20:45– 46a is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. 3.7.4 Third Redaction Stratum of Judges 20:31b–48 The redactional interpolations of R3 are indicated in bold type. 31bAnd they began to strike victims among the ‫וַ ּיָ ֵחּלּו ְל ַהּכֹות ֵמ ָה ָעם ֲח ָל ִלים‬31b‎ people as at other times, on the highways (one ‫ֲשר‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ְּכפַ ַעם ְּבפַ ַעם ַּב ְמ ִסּלֹות א‬ ‫אַ חַ ת עֹלָ ה בֵ ית־אֵ ל וְ אַ חַ ת‬ of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah) in the field, about thirty men in Israel. ‫ֹלׁשים ִאיׁש‬ ִ ‫ִ ּג ְב ָע ָתה ַּב ָּׂש ֶדה ִּכ ְׁש‬ 32aAnd the sons of Benjamin said: “They are ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬32 ‫ְּביִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ‫אשֹנָה‬ ׁ ‫נִ ּגָ ִפים ֵהם ְל ָפנֵ ינּו ְּכבָ ִר‬ smitten before us, as at the first.” 32bAnd the sons of Israel, they said: “Let us flee and we ‫ו ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל אָ ְמר ּו נָנו ָּסה‬ shall draw them away from the city to the high- ‫וּנְ ַת ְ ּקנֻה ּו ִמן־הָ ִעיר אֶ ל־הַ ְמ ִס ּלוֹ ת‬ ways.” 33aAnd all the men of Israel they rose up ‫יש יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ָקמ ּו‬ ׁ ‫וְ כֹל ִא‬33 from their place. And they arrayed themselves ‫ִמ ְּמקוֹ מוֹ וַ ּיַ ַע ְרכּו ְּב ַב ַעל ָּת ָמר‬ at Baal-tamar. 33bAnd the ambush of Israel was ‫וְ א ֵֹרב יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵמגִ ַיח ִמ ְּמקֹמֹו‬ bursting out from its place, from the naked side ‫וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ִמּנֶ גֶ ד‬34 ‫ִמ ַּמ ֲע ֵרה־גָ ַבע‬ of Geba. 34AaAnd 10,000 chosen men from all ‫ַלּגִ ְב ָעה ֲע ֶׂש ֶרת ֲא ָל ִפים ִאיׁש‬ Israel came [pl.] to face Gibeah. 34aBAnd the ‫ָּבחּור ִמ ָּכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וְ הַ ִּמ ְלחָ ָמה‬ battle, it became heavy. 34bBut they, they did ‫ּ ָכבֵ ָדה וְ הֵ ם לֹא י ְָדע ּו ִּכי־נֹגַ ַעת‬ not know that disaster was close upon them. ‫וַ ִ ּיגּ ֹף יְ הוָ ה‬35 ‫עֲ לֵ יהֶ ם הָ ָר ָעה‬ 35aAnd YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. ‫ת־בנְ י ִָמן לִ ְפנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ִּ ֶ‫א‬ And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men ‫וַ ּי ְַׁש ִחית ּו ְבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ְּב ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ in Benjamin that day, 35ball these drawing the ‫ּ ַבי ֹּום הַ הוּא ֶעשְׂ ִרים וַ ח ֲִמ ּ ׁ ָשה‬ sword. 36aAnd the sons of Benjamin saw that ‫יש ּ ָכל־אֵ ּ ֶלה ׁשֹלֵ ף‬ ׁ ‫אֶ לֶ ף ו ֵּמאָ ה ִא‬ they were smitten. 36bAnd the men of Israel gave ‫י־בנְ ִיָמן ִּכי נִ ּגָ פּו‬ ִ ֵ‫וַ ּיִ ְראּו ְבנ‬36 ‫חָ ֶרב‬ a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְּתנּו ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָמקֹום ְל ִבנ‬ ambush they had set against Gibeah. 37aAAnd ‫ל־הא ֵֹרב ֲא ֶׁשר ָׂשמּו‬ ָ ‫ִּכי ָב ְטחּו ֶא‬ the ambush, it hurried. 37aBAnd it made a dash ‫יש ּו‬ ׁ ‫וְ הָ א ֵֹרב הֵ ִח‬37 ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ to Gibeah. 37bAnd the ambush advanced. And ‫ל־הּגִ ְב ָעה וַ ּיִ ְמׁש ְֹך‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפ ְׁשטּו ֶא‬ it struck all the city with the edge of the sword. ‫ל־ה ִעיר‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ָהא ֵֹרב וַ ּיַ ְך ֶא‬ 38aAnd the sign between the men of Israel and ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫וְ הַ ּמוֹ ֵעד הָ יָה לְ ִא‬38 ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ָ ‫ְל ִפ‬ the ambush, it was 38bto make an uplifting of ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִעם־הָ א ֵֹרב הֶ ֶרב‬ smoke go up from the city. 39aAnd the men of ‫לְ הַ עֲ לוֹ ָתם ַמשְׂ אַ ת הֶ ָע ׁ ָשן‬ Israel turned in the battle. 39bAnd Benjamin, ‫וַ ּיַ ֲהפְֹך ִאיׁש־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬39 ‫ִמן־הָ ִעיר‬ he began to strike victims in the men of Israel, ‫ַּב ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה ו ִּבנְ י ִָמן הֵ חֵ ל לְ הַ ּכוֹ ת‬ about 30 men, for they said: “Surely he is ‫יש־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִּכ ְׁשל ִֹׁשים‬ ׁ ‫חֲלָ לִ ים ְּב ִא‬ smitten before us, as in the first battle.” ‫יש ִּכי אָ ְמר ּו אַ ְך נִ גּ וֹ ף נִ ָּגף הוּא‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬

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40aAnd the uplifting, it began to go up from ‫וְהַ ּ ַמשְׂ אֵ ת הֵ חֵ ּ ָלה‬40 ‫אשֹנָה‬ ׁ ‫הָ ִר‬ the city in a column of smoke. 40bBenjamin ‫לַ עֲ לוֹ ת ִמן־הָ ִעיר ַע ּמוּד ָע ׁ ָשן וַ ּיִ ֶפן‬ ‫יָמן ַא ֲח ָריו וְ ִה ּנֵה ָעלָ ה‬ turned around backwards. And behold! The ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ entirety of the city went up to the heavens. ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫וְ ִא‬41 ‫ְכלִ יל־הָ ִעיר הַ ּ ׁ ָש ָמיְ ָמה‬ 41aAnd the men of Israel, he turned. And the ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל הָ פַ ְך וַ ָּיִּב ֵהל ִאיׁש ִּבנ‬ men of Benjamin were terrified. 41bfor he saw ‫ ִּכי ָראָ ה ִּכי־נָ גְ ָעה ָע ָליו ָה ָר ָעה‬‎ that disaster was close upon him. 42aAAnd they ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו ִל ְפנֵ י ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬42 turned around before the men of Israel on the ‫ל־ּד ֶרְך ַה ִּמ ְד ָּבר וְ הַ ִּמ ְלחָ ָמה‬ ֶ ‫ֶא‬ desert road. 42aBAnd the battle, it overtook him. ָ ‫ִה ְד ִּב‬ ‫ֲשר ֵמהֶ ָע ִרים‬ ֶ ׁ ‫יק ְתה ּו וַ א‬ 42bAnd those from the cities were destroying ‫ ִּכ ְּתר ּו‬43 ֹ‫יתים אוֹ תוֹ ְּבתוֹ כו‬ ִ ‫ַמ ְׁש ִח‬ him in the midst of him. 43aThey surrounded ‫ת־בנְ י ִָמן ִה ְר ִדיפֻ ה ּו ְמנוּחָ ה‬ ִּ ֶ‫א‬ Benjamin. They pursued them to the place ‫ִה ְד ִריכֻ ה ּו ַעד נֹכַ ח הַ ִ ּג ְב ָעה‬ of rest. They made them march, 43bopposite ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְּפלּו ִמ ִּבנ‬44 ‫ח־ש ֶמ ׁש‬ ָ ׁ ‫ִמ ּ ִמזְ ַר‬ Gibeah, toward the east. 44aAnd 18,000 men ‫ה־ע ָׂשר ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ ָ ָ‫ְׁשמֹנ‬ from Benjamin fell, 44ball these were men of ָ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ַאנְ ֵׁש‬ ֵ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬45 ‫י־חיִ ל‬ valor. 45aAnd they turned around. And they fled ‫ל־ס ַלע ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon. But ‫וַ יְ ע ְֹל ֻלהּו ַּב ְמ ִסּלֹות ֲח ֵמ ֶׁשת‬ they gleaned 5,000 men on the highways. 45bAnd ‫ֲא ָל ִפים ִאיׁש וַ ּיַ ְד ִּביקּו ַא ֲח ָריו‬ they followed after him until Gidom. And they ‫ַעד־ּגִ ְדעֹם וַ ּיַ ּכּו ִמ ֶּמּנּו ַא ְל ַּפיִ ם‬ struck among him 2,000 men. 46aAnd it came ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ל־הּנ ְֹפ ִלים ִמ ִּבנ‬ ַ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ָכ‬46 ‫ִאיׁש‬ to pass that all the fallen among Benjamin that ‫ֶע ְׂש ִרים וַ ֲח ִמ ָּׁשה ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש‬ day were 25,000 men drawing the sword, 46ball ‫ׁש ֵֹלף ֶח ֶרב ַּבּיֹום ַההּוא‬ these were men of valor. 47aAnd they turned ָ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ַאנְ ֵׁש‬ ֵ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ‫וַ ּיִ ְפנּו‬47 ‫י־חיִ ל‬ around. And they fled toward the desert, to the ‫ל־ס ַלע ָה ִרּמֹון‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה ִּמ ְד ָּב ָרה ֶא‬ rock of Rimmon, 600 men. 47bAnd they stayed ‫יש וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו ְּבסֶ לַ ע‬ ׁ ‫ׁ ֵש ׁש ֵמאוֹ ת ִא‬ at the rock of Rimmon four months. 48aAnd ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫וְ ִא‬48 ‫ִר ּמוֹ ן אַ ְר ּ ָב ָעה ח ֳָד ִׁשים‬ the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of ‫ל־בנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ְּ ֶ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ׁ ָשב ּו א‬ Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge ‫וַ ּי ַּכוּם לְ ִפי־חֶ ֶרב ֵמ ִעיר ְמתֹם‬ of the sword, from the citadel, to the cattle, to ‫ד־בהֵ ָמה ַעד ּ ָכל־הַ ִּנ ְמצָ א ַּגם‬ ְּ ‫ַע‬ all that they found. 48bAll the cities they found, ‫ּ ָכל־הֶ ָע ִרים הַ ִּנ ְמצָ אוֹ ת ִׁש ְּלח ּו‬ they sent away with fire. ‫בָ אֵ ׁש‬ The third redaction stratum introduces substantial changes to the underlying R2 stratum text. These interpolations include the following. First, R3 incorporated the S+Qatal and a+Qatal phrases into the text. I have argued that these phrases may have formed part of an independent narrative concerning the war between Israel and Benjamin that shows thematic and lexical similarities to the story of the conquest of Ai in Joshua 8. If this hypothesis is correct, the purpose of R3 might have been to create an expanded “erudite” edition of 20:31b–48 that included this independent source material.

Compositional History of Judges 20

349

Second, R3 introduced the anticipatory closure in 20:35 concerning the death of 25,100 sons of Benjamin “all these drawing the sword” that mirrors the R2 closure in 20:46 in which “all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword.” The phrase ‫ת־ּבנְ ִיָמן ִל ְפנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיִ ּגֹף יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬ (And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel) provides a clue to the dating of the R3 stratum. The phrase shows close lexical and thematic similarities with 2 Ch 13:15 and 2 Ch 14:11: Judg 20:35aAAnd YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. 2 Ch 13:15aAnd it came to pass that the men of Judah raised a war cry. 15bAnd God, he smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. 16aAnd the sons of Israel fled from Judah. And God gave them into their hands. 2 Ch 14:11And YHWH smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah. And the Ethiopians fled.

‫יָמן לִ ְפנֵי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫וַ ִ ּיגּ ֹף יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬‎ ‫הּודה וְ הָ ֱאל ִֹהים‬ ָ ְ‫ וַ יְ ִהי ְּב ָה ִר ַיע ִאיׁש י‬‎ ‫נָגַ ף ֶאת־יָ ָר ְב ָעם וְ ָכל־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל לִ ְפנֵי‬

‫ וַ ּיָ נּוסּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎‫יהּודה‬ ָ ִ‫ֲא ִבּיָ ה ו‬ ‫ֹלהים ְּביָ ָדם‬ ִ ‫הּודה וַ ּיִ ְּתנֵ ם ֱא‬ ָ ְ‫ִמ ְּפנֵ י י‬

‫ּכּוׁשים לִ ְפנֵי ָא ָסא‬ ִ ‫ת־ה‬ ַ ‫וַ ִ ּיגּ ֹף יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬‎ ‫ּכּוׁשים‬ ִ ‫הּודה וַ ּיָ נֻ סּו ַה‬ ָ ְ‫וְ לִ ְפנֵי י‬

As neither of these 2 Chronicles passages has a synoptic parallel in Kings, it is reasonable to conclude that the phrase in Judg 20:35a, “And YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel” shows the influence of the Chronicler and should therefore be attributed to a redactor who worked at the same time as, or later than, the Chronicler. Third, R3 adds a final coda to the narrative in 20:48 that appears to have two purposes. Primo, the return of Israel to the sons of Benjamin to strike them with the edge of the sword in 20:48 supports the “3+1 day” literary structure that R3 had introduced to overlay 20:18–31a with its three consultation with YHWH scenes and three battle scenes. The final slaughter and burning of cities thus provide the events for the final fourth day. Secundo, I have argued that 20:48 is intended to harmonize the closure of the battle scene in Judg 20:31b–48 with that of Judg 18:27–29. This suggests that R3 worked on the text of Judges 19–21 after it had been added as an appendix to the book of Judges. 4

Chapter Summary

Judges 20 is a complex “action-packed” narrative unit containing numerous contradictions and repetitions. The earliest composition stratum of Judges 20 is relatively short. The narrative intrigue in N moves from the collective decision

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taken by the sons of Israel to punish Gibeah, to the gathering of the troops for battle against the sons of Benjamin, to the striking of Gibeah “by the edge of the sword,” to Benjamin becoming terrified, to the flight of the men of Benjamin to the desert. Interestingly, N does not describe the battle or provide a casualty count for the number of slain sons of Benjamin. Instead, the N material concludes with the flight of the sons of Benjamin to the rock of Rimmon. Although the location of the rock of Rimmon is unknown, it is likely that the desert to which the sons of Benjamin fled lies to the east of Gibeah and possibly in trans-Jordan. When viewed from an early Persian period perspective, the ideological/theological purpose of the N unit is to establish that the inhabitants of Gibeah have been punished for their crime and the sons of Benjamin have been exiled from Yehud to the east. N’s perspective on the fate of the sons of Benjamin dovetails with the characterization in Ezra-Nehemiah of one of the Golah’s principal opponents, Tobiah, as “the Ammonite,” notwithstanding his Hebrew name and his family relationship with a priest serving at the temple in Jerusalem. R1 expands and develops the compact N material. First, R1 brings the Levite back on stage to give a long speech in 20:3–7. The purpose of this interpolation is to characterize the assembly of the people of God as a judicial institution in which the entire community deliberates on a charge presented by an aggrieved party and then reaches a decision by consensus. Second, R1 introduces a battle scene in 20:25–31a* in which the sons of Israel suffer 18,000 casualties, travel to Bethel to weep and fast, and to consult with YHWH as to whether they should continue to battle with Benjamin or desist. This material is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. This interpolation provides an implicit explanation for Israel’s loss of 18,000 men – the sons of Israel had failed to consult with YHWH before the battle. Third, R1 introduces another battle scene in which the sons of Benjamin suffer 18,000 casualties. This material is also bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. R1 thus presents Israel’s victory over Benjamin as a “talionic” or “measure-for-measure” retribution for Benjamin’s initial violence on the battle field. R2 further develops and expands the still relatively spare N-R1 material. First, R2 introduces scenes in 20:9–13* that use “tribal” vocabulary to describe the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin. Second, R2 builds on R1’s consultation with YHWH scene following the disastrous battle in which Israel loses 18,000 men to create a second consultation with YHWH scene in 20:23–24. The purpose of this interpolation appears to be to correct the inference in R1 that Israel had not consulted with YHWH prior to attacking Benjamin. Curiously, this pious interpolation undercuts R1’s explanation for why Israel suffered an initial defeat by Benjamin. Third, R2 expands the battle in R1 that ends in 18,000 casualties for Benjamin with another scene in 20:45–47 in which Israel kills an

Compositional History of Judges 20

351

additional 7,000 men to bring the total Benjaminite casualties to 25,000. This sequence is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. The lexical registry of R2 shows dependence on Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. The Fortschreibung process continues with R3’s interpolation of yet another consultation with YHWH scene in 20:18 that is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen and another battle scene in 20:21b that ends in Israel’s loss of 22,000 men. The purpose of this additional consultation scene and battle scene is to overlay the N-R2 material in Judges 20 with a “3+1 day” structure. R3’s significant changes to 20:31b–43 are particularly perplexing. These interpolations intersperse S+Qatal clauses and a+Qatal clauses into the N-R2 material in this unit which consists of a series of sequential Wayyiqtol phrases. The purpose of R3’s interpolations are not clear. In my opinion, the S+Qatal clauses and a+Qatal clauses can be read consecutively in a coherent manner and recount a story that shows dependency on the conquest of Ai narrative in Joshua 8. Although speculative, it is possible that this material represents an independent source tradition that R3 incorporated into Judges 20 to create a sort of expanded “erudite” edition of the text. R3’s redactional methodology consisted of breaking up the verses in the independent source and interspersing them with the underlying N-R2 material in 20:31b–43.

chapter 11

Compositional History of Judges 21 The purpose of this chapter is to apply the methodological principles outlined in Chapter 8 to Judges 21 in order to identify and date the earliest composition stratum of the text and the redactional interpolations introduced in subsequent composition strata. The ideological/theological orientations of each stratum will be discussed and signs of “anti-Benjamin” bias will be explored. For ease of discussion, the compositional history of Judges 21 will be divided into three parts. Section 1 will analyze Judges 21:1–5; Section 2, Judges 21:6–23a; and Section 3, Judges 21:23b–25. The status quæstionis of the compositional history of Judges 21 will be presented before the detailed analysis of each of the three narrative units. The principal theme of Judges 21 is the finding of wives for the 600 surviving sons of Benjamin who had sought refuge at the rock of Rimmon. According to the final version of the text, wives are found in a two-step process. First, the sons of Israel slaughter all the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead, with the exception of the young virgin women. They then give Benjamin “the women whom they had let live from among the women of Yabesh-Gilead” (21:14a). The narrative intrigue then introduces a surprise: “But they did not find enough for them” because only 400 virgins were found in Yabesh-Gilead (21:14b). This problem is solved in the second step of finding wives for Benjamin in 21:15–23a. The sons of Israel command Benjamin to abduct dancing girls at an annual festival in Shiloh and to take them as wives. “And the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they took wives in accordance with their number from among the dancers whom they had stolen” (21:23a) In addition to the principal theme of finding wives for Benjamin, Judges 21 develops three subsidiary themes that are artfully interwoven with the principal theme. These include (i) the swearing of an oath by the sons of Israel committing them not to give their daughters in marriage to Benjamin; (ii) the swearing of a second oath to punish any group that did not heed the all-Israel call to war against Benjamin; and (iii) the decision of the sons of Israel to relent from pursuing the surviving Benjaminites who had fled to the Rock of Rimmon and to declare peace. In my view, the presence of thematic and lexical similarities in the development of the “finding wives for Benjamin” motif, first in Yabesh-Gilead and then in Shiloh, together with literary problems in the integration of the three subsidiary themes into the narrative as a whole, suggest the presence of redactional activity in Judges 21.

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_013

353

Compositional History of Judges 21

1

Compositional History of Judges 21:1–5

Stylistically, the narrative unit in 21:1–5 is rather disjointed. The passage opens in 20:1 with a S+Qatal clause that introduces a short speech spoken collectively by the sons of Israel: “A man from among us will not give his daughter to Benjamin as wife.” A series of three Wayyiqtol phrases then follow in 20:2 that describe a journey to Bethel where the people sat until evening before God, lifted up their voices, and wept a great weeping. This sequence is followed in 20:3 by a short speech spoken collectively by the people, “Why, YHWH, God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, for one tribe to be missing today from among Israel?” The Wayyiqtol narration of sequential events resumes in 21:4 with a ‫ וַ יְ ִהי‬clause describing the building of an altar and the offering of burnt offerings and peace offerings on the following day. The unit concludes in 21:5a with a second speech spoken collectively by the people, “Who is it that did not go up to the assembly from among all the tribes of Israel to YHWH?” The narrator adds a final explanatory comment in a ‫ ִּכי‬clause in 21:5b, “For the great oath had been [sworn] against whomever did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah, saying, ‘He will surely die.’” 1.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:1–5 Of the seven commentators reviewed in Chapters 9 and 10, only five – Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg – discuss the compositional history of Judges 21. Exceptionally, all five commentators substantially agree on the compositional history of Judges 21:1–5 as set forth in the following chart.1

21:1a 21:1b 21:2a 21:2b 21:3a 21:3b

Moore, 1895

Burney, 1918

Gray, 1986

Schulz, 2016

Edenburg, 2016

1 1 2 2 2 2

1 1 3 3 3 3

1 1 3 3 3 3

1 1 3 3 3 3

1 1 3 3 3 3

1 The numbers 1, 2 and 3 in the chart correspond to the first, second and third composition strata proposed by each commentator. It should be recalled that Schulz, unlike the other commentators, posits that the earliest composition stratum of Judges 21 is later than the earliest composition stratum of Judges 20. As Edenburg proposes only two composition strata, I am equating her redaction stratum with the third composition stratum of Moore, Burney and Gray.

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(cont.)

21:4a 21:4b 21:5a 21:5b

Moore, 1895

Burney, 1918

Gray, 1986

Schulz, 2016

Edenburg, 2016

3 3 3 3

3 3 3 3

3 3 3 3

3 3 2 2

3 3 3 3

The points of common ground among the five commentators can be summarized as follows. First, all five assign 21:1 to the earliest composition stratum. Second, Burney, Gray and Edenburg interpret the narrative that begins in 21:1 as being interrupted by a long interpolation in 21:2–5 added by the final redactor. Moore disagrees. He views 21:2–3 as the introduction to the narrative unit in 21:6–14a, which he attributes to R1, and limits the redactional activity of the final redactor to 21:4–5. Schulz posits that 21:1 is the introduction to the narrative unit in 21:15–25* and that 21:5 is the introduction to the narrative unit in 21:9–14. I disagree with all five commentators and propose to explore the possibility that an ideological/theological distinction can be observed between (i) the Wayyiqtol verses that narrate a series of sequential events in 21:2.4 and (ii) the series of speeches spoken collectively by the sons of Israel that are interspersed in 21:1.3.5. In my view, a redactor is responsible for the interpolation of the speeches. His intent was two-fold: First, to “overwrite” the ideological/ theological perspective in the underlying Wayyiqtol material. Second, to transform 21:1–5 into a general “introduction” to the Yabesh-Gilead and Shiloh units for the purpose of shaping the reader’s understanding of those two narrative units. 1.2

Judges 21:1

Judg 21:1aAnd the men of Israel, they had sworn ‫וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל נִ ְׁש ַּבע ַּב ִּמ ְצ ָּפה ֵלאמֹר‬‎ at Mizpah, saying: 1bA man from among us will ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ִאיׁש ִמ ֶּמּנּו לֹא־יִ ֵּתן ִּבּתֹו ְל ִבנ‬ not give his daughter to Benjamin as wife. ‫ְל ִא ָּׁשה‬ In my view, 21:1 does not form part of the earliest composition stratum.2 This position is supported by two arguments. 2 Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg.

Compositional History of Judges 21

355

First, the oath motif in 21:1 interrupts the forward thrust of the narration of consecutive events between 20:48 (the closure of the final episode of the war between Israel and Benjamin) and 20:2 (the celebration of a cultic event at Bethel). The narrator effectively pauses in the recounting of the story to inform the reader of an undisclosed event that had occurred much earlier in the plotline: “And they, the men of Israel, had sworn at Mizpah, saying: A man from among us will not give his daughter to Benjamin as wife.” The narrator’s withholding of this important information from the reader until after the war with Benjamin had been concluded, rather than disclosing it in the reference time of 20:1–11 when the event occurred, raises the possibility that the oath motif may be a redactional interpolation. Second, the narrator’s disclosure of the withheld information concerning the oath taken at Mizpah in 21:1 seems out of place. Although narrators often interrupt the flow of the plotline to make comments about the events that have occurred, it is difficult to explain why the narrator would interrupt the chronological narration of the story to introduce the marriage prohibition motif between 20:48 and 21:2 rather than elsewhere in the text. The theme of refusing to give daughters to Benjamin will not be developed until 21:7 when the sons of Israel say, “What shall we do for them, for those who remain, for wives? But as for us, we swore an oath by YHWH not to give them wives from among our daughters.” It is unlikely that an author would introduce a new motif by interrupting the narrative flow between 20:48 and 21:2, and then fail to develop the new motif until 21:7. Furthermore, it is peculiar that an author would “remind” the reader in 21:7 of the oath that had just been described in 21:1. 1.3

Judges 21:2

Judg 21:2aAnd the people came to Bethel. And they sat there until evening before God. 2bAnd they lifted up their voice. And they wept a great weeping.

‫ית־אל וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ָה ָעם ֵּב‬‎ ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ד־ה ֶע ֶרב ִל ְפנֵ י ָה ֱא‬ ָ ‫ָׁשם ַע‬ ‫קֹולם וַ ְּיִבּכּו ְּב ִכי גָ דֹול‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו‬

The text returns to the Wayyiqtol in 21:2. As Wayyiqtol narration, 21:2 necessarily recounts events that are subsequent to those described in preceding verses. In the final version of the text, the narration in 21:2 picks up after the events described in 20:48: “And the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword, from the citadel to the cattle, to all that they found. All the cities they found, they sent away

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with fire.”3 The reader can reasonably expect that the cultic event described in 21:2 is intended to offer thanks to God for Israel’s stunning military victory over Benjamin. However, most commentators interpret the final Wayyiqtol phrase, ‫( וַ ְּיִבּכּו ְּב ִכי גָ דֹול‬And they wept a great weeping), to mean that the cultic event at Bethel is intended to express mourning over the near extermination of the tribe of Benjamin. As stated by Edenburg, “Following the victory, it might be expected that they would sacrifice thanksgiving offerings. Instead, they offer sacrifice after lamenting the outcome of the war, which is thus represented as a pyrrhic victory.”4 In my view, this position is an overreading of the verse based on the assumption that 21:2 and the dialog in 21:3 should be assigned to the same composition stratum. When 21:2 is read independently of 21:3, there is no reason to assume that the cultic event at Bethel is anything other than an offering of thanks to God for Israel’s victory over Benjamin. This position is supported by two arguments. First, it can be observed that the cultic event at Bethel in 21:2 shows thematic and lexical similarities to the beginning of the much longer consultation with YHWH scene in 20:26–28: 20:26aAnd all the sons of Israel and all the people went up. And they came to Bethel. And they wept. And they sat there before YHWH. And they fasted that day until evening. 21:2aAnd the people came to Bethel. And they sat there until evening before God. 2bAnd they lifted up their voices. And they wept a great weeping.

‫ל־ה ָעם‬ ָ ‫ל־ּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל וְ ָכ‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו ָכ‬‎ ‫וַ ָ ּיבֹא ּו בֵ ית־אֵ ל וַ ִ ּי ְב ּכ ּו וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו‬ ‫ׁ ָשם לִ ְפנֵי יְ הוָ ה וַ ּיָ צּומּו‬ ‫ּיֹום־ההּוא ַעד־הָ ָע ֶרב‬ ַ ‫ַב‬ ‫וַ ָ ּיבֹא ָה ָעם ּ ֵבית־אֵ ל וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו‬‎ ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ׁ ָשם ַעד־הָ ֶע ֶרב לִ ְפנֵי ָה ֱא‬ ‫קֹולם וַ ִ ּי ְב ּכ ּו ְּב ִכי גָ דֹול‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו‬

It can be noted that the principal difference between 20:26a and 21:2 is that the phrase “And they fasted that day” is intercalated in 20:26a between the shared motifs of “sitting before YHWH/God until evening” and “weeping.” The absence of fasting in 21:2 supports the proposition that the cultic event described in that verse is intended to express thanksgiving for Israel’s military victory rather than mourning for a catastrophic event, as is the case in 20:26a.

3 If my hypothesis concerning the extent of the N material in Judges 20 is correct, 21:1 would have followed 20:45a in the earliest composition stratum. See discussion in Chapter 10, Section 3.7.1 infra. 4 Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 61.

Compositional History of Judges 21

357

Second, the motif of “weeping” as a strong emotional response to a happy event is attested elsewhere in the HB.5 Third, the syntagma ‫( וַ ְּיִבּכּו ְּב ִכי גָ דֹול‬And they wept a great weeping) is attested elsewhere in the MT only in 2 Sam 13:36; 2 Ki 20:3=Isa 38:3. The rarity of the syntagma and the lexical parallels with 2 Sam 13:36 may suggest that Judg 21:2 is based on 2 Sam 13:36: Judg 21:2aAnd the people came to Bethel. And they ‫ית־אל וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָׁשם‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ָה ָעם ֵּב‬‎ sat there until evening before God. And they ‫ֹלהים וַ ִ ּישְׂ א ּו‬ ִ ‫ד־ה ֶע ֶרב ִל ְפנֵ י ָה ֱא‬ ָ ‫ַע‬ lifted up their voices. And they wept a great ‫קוֹ לָ ם וַ ִ ּי ְב ּכ ּו ְּב ִכי גָ דוֹ ל‬ weeping. 2 Sam 13:36And it came to pass after he had finished ‫ וַ יְ ִהי ְּכ ַכֹּלתֹו ְל ַד ֵּבר וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬‎ speaking. Behold! The sons of the king arrived. ‫י־ה ֶּמ ֶלְך ָּבאּו וַ ִ ּישְׂ א ּו קוֹ לָ ם‬ ַ ֵ‫ְבנ‬ And they lifted up their voices. And they wept. ‫ל־ע ָב ָדיו‬ ֲ ‫ם־ה ֶּמ ֶלְך וְ ָכ‬ ַ ַ‫וַ ִ ּי ְב ּכ ּו וְ ג‬ And the king and all his servants also wept a very ‫ּ ָבכ ּו ְּב ִכי ָּגדוֹ ל ְמאֹד‬ great weeping. The emotionally charged event described in 2 Sam 13:36 follows the discovery that the messenger’s report to David that “Absalom has struck down all the king’s sons, and not one of them is left” (2 Sam 13:30) is in fact false. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the lifting of voices and great weeping in 2 Sam 13:36 express joy and thanksgiving, as in Judg 21:2, rather than mourning. 1.4

Judges 21:3

Judg 21:3aAnd they said: “Why, YHWH, God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, 3bthat one tribe is missing today among Israel?”

‫ֹלהי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫אמרּו ָל ָמה יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬‎ ‫ָהיְ ָתה ּזֹאת ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ְל ִה ָּפ ֵקד‬ ‫ַהּיֹום ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵׁש ֶבט ֶא ָחד‬

The lifting of voices and weeping at Bethel in 21:2 is followed by a short speech spoken collectively by the sons of Israel: “And they said: ‘Why, YHWH, God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, for one tribe to be missing today from among Israel?” As this speech is followed in 21:4 by a resumption of the narration of the cultic events occurring at Bethel (building an altar and offering sacrifices), consideration should be given to the possibility that the speech in 21:3

5 See, e.g., Gen 33:4 (Jacob’s reconciliation with Esau); Gen 42:24.30; 45:2.14.15; 46:29 (the Joseph story); Ezr 3:12 (the laying of the foundation of the second temple); 2 Sam 13:36 (David’s learning that all of his sons have not in fact been assassinated).

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is a redactional interpolation to be assigned to a different composition stratum than 21:2.6 This interpretation is supported by four arguments. First, the theme of regretting that Benjamin has become a lost tribe of Israel is presented three times in Judges 21, in 21:3b.6b.15b. It can be observed that 21:3b and 21:6b are lexically similar, suggesting that one verse may be based on the other: 21:3aAnd they said: “Why, YHWH, God of Israel, ‫ֹלהי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫אמרּו ָל ָמה יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬‎ has this happened in Israel, 3bthat one tribe is ‫ָהיְ ָתה ּזֹאת ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ְל ִה ָּפ ֵקד‬ missing today from among Israel?” ‫הַ יּוֹ ם ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל ׁ ֵשבֶ ט אֶ חָ ד‬ 21:6bAnd they said: “One tribe from among Israel ‫אמרּו נִ גְ ַּדע הַ יּוֹ ם ׁ ֵשבֶ ט אֶ חָ ד‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬‎ has been hewn off today. ‎‫ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ However, while 21:6b is anchored in the broader context of the theme of finding wives for Benjamin, 21:3 is not. The two verses appear to have a different ideological/theological purpose. Verse 21:3 is cast in the form of a plaintive question posed to YHWH and thus encourages the reader to understand the war between Israel and Benjamin to be, in Edenburg’s words, a “pyrrhic victory” because one tribe is now “missing from among Israel.” In contrast, 21:6–7 states as a matter of fact that one tribe has been hewn off and focuses the reader’s attention on the future catastrophe that will happen in Israel if wives are not found “for those who remain.” The motif of finding wives for Benjamin will be discussed in detail below. At this point in the analysis, it can be noted that the difference in ideological/theological purpose between 21:3 and 21:6–7 suggests that they should be assigned to different composition strata and that 21:3b is probably secondary to 21:6b. Second, the characterization of Israel as the “tribes of Israel” permeates Judges 21. The syntagma ‫( ֵׁש ֶבט ֶא ָחד‬one tribe) is used in 21:3b.6b;7 the syntagma ‫ל־ׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫( ָּכ‬all the tribes of Israel), in 21:5a; the syntagma ‫ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ (tribes of Israel) in 21:8a.15b; and the singular noun ‫ ֵׁש ֶבט‬in 21:17b.24a. I have attempted to demonstrate above that there are no references to the tribes of Israel in the N or R1 strata of Judges 19–20.8 6 Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg. 7 This syntagma is used elsewhere in the MT only in 1 Ki 11:13.36 in connection with the “tearing apart” of Solomon’s kingdom and the reduction of Solomon’s descendants to kingship over “one tribe.” 8 The syntagma ‫ל־ׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫( ָּכ‬all the tribes of Israel) in 20:2a.10a is used in verses that have been attributed to the R3 stratum for independent reasons and the syntagma ‫ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ (the tribes of Israel) in 20:12a is used in a verse that has been attributed to the R2 stratum for independent reasons.

Compositional History of Judges 21

359

Third, although the syntagma ‫ֹלהי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫( יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬YHWH, God of Israel) occurs widely in the MT, it is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. The deity is referred to as ‫יְ הוָ ה‬, ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ֱא‬or ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ ָה ֱא‬in Judges 19–21, but never with a second name in apposition. The unique use of ‫ֹלהי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫ יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬in 21:3a thus increases the likelihood that the verse was interpolated by a redactor.9 Fourth, the syntagma ‫( ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬in Israel) as used in 21:3 (“Why has this happened in Israel?) is attested elsewhere in Judges 19–21; in 20:6b.10b.21b.31b; 21:3b.25a. It has been demonstrated above that all four of the occurrences of the syntagma prior to 21:3b should be attributed to a redactor for independent reasons. It will be demonstrated below that 21:25 is also a redactional interpolation. This accumulation of evidence suggests that 21:3 should also be assigned to a redactor. 1.5

Judges 21:4

Judg 21:4aAnd it came to pass the next day that the people awakened early. And they built an altar there. 4bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

‫וַ יְ ִהי ִמ ָּמ ֳח ָרת וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו‬‎ ‫נּו־ׁשם ִמזְ ֵּב ַח‬ ָ ‫ָה ָעם וַ ְּיִב‬ ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו עֹלֹות‬

The narration of the cultic events at Bethel as described in 21:2 resumes in 21:4. As discussed, most commentators attribute this verse to a late redaction stratum in part on the grounds that the building of an altar for burnt offerings and peace offerings at Bethel contradicts the statement in 20:26 that the sons of Israel had already sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings at Bethel, presumably on an already existing altar. As stated by Edenburg, “This scene ends with construction of an altar on which offerings are made (v. 4), but similar offerings were made previously in 20:26 without the necessity of constructing a new altar. These irregularities may indicate that the fourth scene at Bethel was developed separately from the previous scenes that took place there on the eve of each battle.”10 Edenburg’s position assumes that the consultation with YHWH scene in 20:26–28 forms part of the earliest composition stratum. 9

10

Edenburg argues that the syntagma ‫ֹלהי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֵ ‫ יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬is a sign of late BH. She cites as evidence the occurrence of the expression 12 times in the Chronicler’s Sondergut, six times in Ezra and one time in Malachi. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 61. Although this argument supports my position that 21:3 should be assigned to a later composition stratum than 21:2.4, Edenburg’s position is undercut by the fact that the syntagma ‫ֹלהי‬ ֵ ‫יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ‫ יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬is used 69 times (according to my count) in the MT between Joshua and Ezekiel, and is attested at least once in every book. In my view, the syntagma is too widely attested in the MT to assign it a late date without independent corroborating evidence. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 60.

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As I have attempted to demonstrate that none of the consultation with YHWH scenes in Judges 20 should be attributed to N,11 consideration should be given to the possibility that the Bethel scene in 21:2.4 forms part of the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19–21.12 The binary syntagma, ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים‬ ְ ‫( עֹלֹות‬burnt offerings and peace offerings) is rare, being used in the MT only in Judg 20:26; 21:4; 2 Sam 6:17.18=1 Ch 16:1–2; 2 Sam 24:25=1 Ch 21:26; 1 Ki 9:25. The case of 2 Sam 24:25 is instructive as it shows lexical similarities with Judg 21:4: Judg 21:4aAnd it came to pass the next day that the ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִמ ָּמ ֳח ָרת וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו ָה ָעם‬‎ people awakened early. And they built an altar ‫ֹלות‬ ֹ ‫ּ־שם ִמזְ ּ ֵבחַ וַ ּיַעֲ ל ּו ע‬ ָ ׁ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְבנו‬ there. 4bAnd they offered burnt offerings and ‫ו ְּׁשלָ ִמים‬ peace offerings. 2 Sam 24:25aAnd David built an altar there to YHWH. ‫וַ ִ ּיבֶ ן ׁ ָשם ָּדוִ ד ִמזְ ּ ֵבחַ ַליהוָ ה‬‎ And he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. ‫ֹלות ו ְּׁשלָ ִמים‬ ֹ ‫וַ ּי ַַעל ע‬ Although not determinative, the lexical similarities between Judg 21:4 and 2 Sam 24:25 support the hypothesis that 21:4 forms part of the earliest composition stratum that has been dated to a period earlier than that of the Chronicler.13 1.6

Judges 21:5

Judg 21:5aAnd the sons of Israel said: “Who is it that did not go up to the assembly of Israel from all the tribes of Israel to YHWH?” 5bFor the great oath was [sworn] against whomever did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah, saying “He will surly die.”

‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִמי ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬‎‎ ‫ל־ׁש ְב ֵטי‬ ִ ‫א־ע ָלה ַב ָּק ָהל ִמ ָּכ‬ ָ ֹ‫ל‬ ‫בּועה‬ ָ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ִּכי ַה ְּׁש‬ ‫א־ע ָלה‬ ָ ֹ ‫דֹולה ָהיְ ָתה ַל ֲא ֶׁשר ל‬ ָ ְ‫ַהּג‬ ‫ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה ֵלאמֹר מֹות‬ ‫יּומת‬ ָ

The narration of building an altar and offering sacrifices, presumably in thanksgiving for Israel’s victory over Benjamin, is followed in 21:5 by a short speech spoken collectively by the sons of Israel. The narration of consecutive events then resumes again in 21:6a. As with the short speech in 21:3, consideration should be given to the possibility that 21:5 should be assigned to a

11 12 13

See discussion in Chapter 10, Section 1.9 supra. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg. This position assumes that 2 Sam 24:25 should also be dated prior to the time of the Chronicler, the demonstration of which is beyond the scope of this work.

Compositional History of Judges 21

361

different composition stratum than 21:2.4.14 This position is supported by three arguments. First, the speech in 21:5 is introduced by the Wayyiqtol phrase, ‫אמרּו ְּבנֵ י‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫( יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬And the sons of Israel said). The preceding verse reads, “And it came to pass the next day that the people awakened early. And they built an altar there. And they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.” The introductory phrase in 21:5 points to the possibility of redactional activity for two reasons. Primo, the protagonist is typically referred to as “they” in a series of Wayyiqtol phrases in which the protagonist has already been identified. Secundo, the identity of the protagonist shifts from “the people” in 21:4 to the “sons of Israel” in 21:5. Second, it can be noted that the interrogative pronoun ‫ ִמי‬is used three times in Judges 19–21, all in speeches spoken collectively by the sons of Israel, in 20:18; 21:5.8. Verse 21:5 shows lexical and/or thematic similarities to the two other occurrences: 20:18aAnd the sons of Israel said: “Who shall go up for us at the beginning, for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?” 21:5aAnd the sons of Israel said: “Who is it that did not go up to the assembly from among all the tribes of Israel to YHWH? 21:8aAnd they said: “Is there one from among the tribes of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?”

‫ֹאמר ּו ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִמי‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬‎‎ ‫־ּלנּו ַב ְּת ִח ָּלה ַל ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ ָ ‫יַעֲ לֶ ה‬

‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ם־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫ִע‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִמי ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ‫ֹא־עלָ ה ַב ָּק ָהל ִמ ָּכל־ ִׁש ְבטֵ י‬ ָ ‫ל‬

‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל אֶ ל־יְ הוָ ה‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו ִמי ֶא ָחד ִמ ּ ִׁש ְבטֵ י‬ ‫ֹא־עלָ ה‬ ָ ‫ֲשר ל‬ ֶ ׁ ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל א‬ ‫אֶ ל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬

The doublet nature of 21:5 and 21:8a raises the possibility that one verse is based on the other and that they should be assigned to different composition strata.15 It can be observed that one of the key differences between the two verses is that 21:8a uses the syntagma ‫( ִמ ִּׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬from among the tribes of Israel) while 21:5a uses ‫־ׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ִ ‫( ִמ ּ ָכל‬from among all the tribes of Israel). As discussed, the syntagma “the tribes of Israel” is used in 20:12a and that verse has been assigned to R2 on independent grounds. In contrast, the syntagma “all the tribes of Israel” is used in 20:2a.10 and those verses have been assigned to R3 on independent grounds. It is thus reasonable to assign 21:5a to R3 and 21:8a to R2. As discussed, 20:18a has been attributed to R3.16 Although speculative, 14 15 16

Pace Schulz; contra Moore, Burney, Gray and Edenburg. Pace Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg. Pace Moore, Burney Gray, Arnold and Schulz; contra Edenburg; see discussion in Chapter 10, Section 2.2 supra.

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it can be argued that the parallelism between ‫ ִמי יַ ֲע ֶלה‬in 20:18a and ‫ִמי ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ‫א־ע ָלה‬ ָ ֹ ‫ ל‬in 21:8a suggests that both verses should be assigned to the same composition stratum; i.e., R3. Third, the lexical registry in 21:5 contains a number of lexemes not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. These include (i) the interrogative syntagma, ‫ִמי ֲא ֶׁשר‬ (who is it that?);17 (ii) the syntagma, ‫דֹולה‬ ָ ְ‫בּועה ַהּג‬ ָ ‫( ַה ְּׁש‬the great oath), which is a hapax in the MT;18 (iii) the syntagma‎ ‫( ַל ֲא ֶׁשר‬concerning whoever); and (iv) the syntagma ‫יּומת‬ ָ ‫( מֹות‬he will surely die) that is frequently used in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. 1.7 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 21:1–5 as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 1.7.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 21:1–5 My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 2aAnd the people came to Bethel. And they sat there until evening before God. 2bAnd they lifted up their voices. And they wept a great weeping. 4aAnd it came to pass the next day that the people awakened early. And they built an altar there. 4bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

‫ית־אל‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא ָה ָעם ֵּב‬2‎ ‫ד־ה ֶע ֶרב ִל ְפנֵ י‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָׁשם ַע‬ ‫קֹולם וַ ְּיִבּכּו‬ ָ ‫ֹלהים וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו‬ ִ ‫ָה ֱא‬ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִמ ָּמ ֳח ָרת‬4 ‫ְּב ִכי גָ דֹול‬ ‫נּו־ׁשם‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו ָה ָעם וַ ְּיִב‬ ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים‬ ְ ‫ִמזְ ֵּב ַח וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו עֹלֹות‬

According to my reconstruction of the earliest composition stratum in Judges 20, the N material concludes, “And the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword (20:37b). And the men of Israel turned in the battle (20:39a). And Benjamin turned around backwards (20:40b). And the men of Benjamin were terrified, for disaster was close upon them (20:41*). And they turned around (20:42a*). And they fled towards the desert to the rock of Rimmon (20:45aA).”19 In my view, the narrative thread in N resumes with the trip to Bethel, where the sons of Israel lifted up their voices and wept a great weeping (21:2), and built an altar and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings (21:4). The purpose of this cultic event is to offer thanksgiving to YHWH for Israel’s victory over Benjamin. 17 18 19

The syntagma is also used in Exod 32:33; 2 Sam 10:11; Qoh 9:4. The corresponding syntagma in LXXAB 21:5b ὅρκος μέγας is also a hapax in the LXX. See discussion in Chapter 10, Section 3.7.1 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 21

363

1.7.2 Redaction Strata of Judges 21:1–5 In my opinion, neither R1 nor R2 added any material to the N stratum of 21:1–5. However, R3 substantially rewrote the N text as indicated in bold type. 21:1aAnd they, the men of Israel, had sworn at Mizpah, saying: 1b“A man from among us will not give his daughter to Benjamin as wife.” 2aAnd the people came to Bethel. And they sat there until evening before God. 2bAnd they lifted up their voices. And they wept a great weeping. 3aAnd they said: “Why, YHWH, God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, 3bfor one tribe to be missing today from among Israel?” 4aAnd it came to pass the next day that the people awakened early. And they built an altar there. 4bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. 5aAnd the sons of Israel said: “Who is it that did not go up to the assembly from among all the tribes of Israel to YHWH?” 5bFor the great oath was [sworn] against whomever did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah, saying, “He will surly die.”

‫יש יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל נִ ְׁש ּ ַבע ּ ַב ּ ִמ ְצ ּ ָפה‬ ׁ ‫וְ ִא‬1 ‫יש ִמ ּ ֶמנּ ּו לֹא־יִ ּ ֵתן‬ ׁ ‫לֵ אמֹר ִא‬ ‫וַ ּיָבֹא‬2 ‫ִּב ּתוֹ לְ ִבנְ י ִָמן לְ ִא ּ ׁ ָשה‬

‫ית־אל וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָׁשם‬ ֵ ‫ָה ָעם ֵּב‬ ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ד־ה ֶע ֶרב ִל ְפנֵ י ָה ֱא‬ ָ ‫ַע‬ ‫קֹולם וַ ְּיִבּכּו ְּב ִכי גָ דֹול‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו‬

‫ֹאמר ּו לָ ָמה יְ הוָ ה ֱאלֹהֵ י‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬3 ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל הָ יְ ָתה ּזֹאת ְּביִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ‫לְ ִה ּ ָפ ֵקד הַ יּוֹ ם ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל ׁ ֵשבֶ ט‬ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ִמ ָּמ ֳח ָרת וַ ּיַ ְׁש ִּכימּו‬4 ‫אֶ חָ ד‬

‫נּו־ׁשם ִמזְ ֵּב ַח וַ ּיַ ֲעלּו‬ ָ ‫ָה ָעם וַ ְּיִב‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו ְּבנֵי‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬5 ‫ּוׁש ָל ִמים‬ ְ ‫עֹלֹות‬

‫ֹא־עלָ ה‬ ָ ‫ֲשר ל‬ ֶ ׁ ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל ִמי א‬ ‫ל־ש ְב ֵטי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ִׁ ‫בַ ָ ּקהָ ל ִמ ּ ָכ‬ ‫אֶ ל־יְ הוָ ה ִּכי הַ ּ ְׁשבו ָּעה‬ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶ ׁ ‫הַ ְ ּגדוֹ לָ ה הָ יְ ָתה לַ א‬ ‫ֹא־עלָ ה אֶ ל־יְ הוָ ה הַ ּ ִמ ְצ ּ ָפה‬ ָ ‫ל‬ ‫מות יו ָּמת‬ ֹ ‫לֵ אמֹר‬

The N narrative material is effectively “overwritten” by R3 in 21:1.3.5 with the introduction of the themes of (i) the oath that had been sworn concerning the prohibition of marriage with Benjamin; (ii) Israel’s regret that a tribe has been exterminated; and (iii) the second oath prescribing death to anyone who had not heeded the all-Israel call to assemble at Mizpah. As these three themes will be developed in detail in 21:6–23a, I interpret the R3 material as reflecting the redactor’s attempt to create a general “introduction” to Judges 21. In my view, R3 interpolated the theme of Israel’s regret in 21:3 – between two lines of narrative that were continuous in the underlying N stratum (21:2.4) – in order to transform the cultic event at Bethel from a thanksgiving ceremony into a mourning ceremony. 2

Compositional History of Judges 21:6–23a

As discussed, there are two narrative units in Judges 21 that focus on the motif of finding wives for Benjamin – 21:6–14 (the Yabesh-Gilead unit) and 21:15–23a

364

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(the Shiloh unit). Commentators have long noted the thematic and lexical similarities between the two units. It can be noted in passing that the units 21:6–14 and 21:15–23a are the same length.20 Topographical references play an important role in both 21:6–14 and 21:15–23a. The first narrative unit focuses on a place called Yabesh-Gilead. The toponym is mentioned in 21:6–14 and nowhere else in Judges 19–21. As the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead will be slaughtered and their orphaned daughters will be forced into marriages with Benjaminites, it is fair to say that 21:6–14 contains an “anti-Yabesh-Gilead” Tendenz that mirrors the “anti-Benjamin” bias in Judges 19–21 as a whole. Brief mention is also made in 21:12b of another locality, Shiloh, which is described as Israel’s “camp” from which the sons of Israel attacked Yabesh-Gilead and to which they brought the 400 young virgin women captured in the destruction of Yabesh-Gilead. The unit 21:15–23a focuses entirely on Shiloh. As mentioned, Shiloh is described as a camp of the sons of Israel in 21:12b. In contrast, there is no mention of the sons of Israel being present in Shiloh in 21:15–23a. Instead, Israel speaks to Benjamin at an undisclosed location and commands the sons of Benjamin to go to Shiloh (21:20). While 21:6–14 justifies the taking of women from Yabesh-Gilead on the grounds that their fathers had not heeded the allIsrael call to battle, no explanation is given in 21:15–23a for the choice of Shiloh as the place from which Benjamin should take wives. Did the men of Shiloh participate in the military action against Benjamin? Are they sons of Israel? The possibility should be considered that the narrator intends the reader to understand that Shiloh is a “non-Israelite” city and that the marriage of sons of Benjamin with daughters of Shiloh constitute “mixed marriages.” The explicit anti-Yabesh-Gilead Tendenz in 21:6–14 and the implicit anti-Shiloh bias in 21:15–23a will be explored below. 2.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:6–23a Moore, Burney, Gray and Schulz agree that 21:6–14* and 21:15–23a* should be assigned to different composition strata. They disagree however on the extent of redactional activity in each narrative unit and the relative dating of the two units. Edenburg takes a different approach and argues that that the two-step process for finding wives, first in Yabesh-Gilead and then in Shiloh, as described in the final version of the text, forms part of the earliest composition stratum.

20

Each unit takes up 14 lines of text in the BHS; I have not counted the words.

365

Compositional History of Judges 21

The absence of consensus among the four commentators under review in this chapter concerning the compositional history of 21:6–23a is indicated in the following chart.21

21:6a 21:6b 21:7a 21:7b 21:8a 21:8b 21:9a 21:9b 21:10a 21:10b 21:11a 21:11b 21:12a 21:12b 21:13a 21:13b 21:14a 21:14b 21:15a 21:15b 21:16a 21:16b 21:17a 21:17b 21:18a 21

Moore, 1895

Burney, 1918

Gray, 1967

Schulz, 2016

Edenburg, 2016

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 3 3 1 1 1

2 2 1 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2

2 2 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 1+3 1+3 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2

4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 3 3 3 3 1+3 3 1 1 1+3 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

The numbers 1, 2 and 3 in the chart correspond to the first, second and third composition strata proposed by each commentator. The number 4 corresponds to Schulz’s final “Ausgleichende Redaktion.” It should be noted that I am equating Burney’s and Gray’s “second source” with the second composition stratum of Moore. It should be recalled that Schulz, unlike the other commentators, posits that the earliest composition stratum of Judges 21 is later than the earliest composition stratum of Judges 20. As Edenburg proposes only two composition strata, I am equating her redaction stratum with the third composition stratum of Moore, Burney and Gray.

366

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(cont.)

21:18b 21:19a 21:19b 21:20a 21:20b 21:21a 21:21b 21:22a 21:22b 21:23a

Moore, 1895

Burney, 1918

Gray, 1967

Schulz, 2016

Edenburg, 2016

1 1+3 3 1 1 1 1 1+3 1 1+3

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1+3 1 1

Moore’s approach is simple and straightforward. He assigns the narrative unit in 21:15–23a to the earliest composition stratum (subject to a handful of short glosses) and all of 21:6–14 to a redactor. Moore posits, “These verses [21:6–14] bear throughout the marks of a very late age; the account of the expedition against Jabesh in Gilead is an imitation of Num. 31, which itself belongs to a tertiary stratum in P.”22 Schulz follows Moore in the relative dating of 21:15–23a as being earlier than 21:6–14. However, Schulz identifies 21:6–8 as a late addition to 21:6–14. Burney takes the opposite approach to Moore. He argues that 21:6–14* is the older narrative unit and should be assigned to J on the grounds that “the involving of Jabesh of Gile‘ad in the odium which falls upon Gibe‘ah and upon the whole tribe of Benjamin fits in so well with the theory that the story as a whole makes an attack upon the memory of Saul that it is difficult to suppose that the whole Jabesh-narrative was only inserted as a very late afterthought.”23 Gray agrees with Burney that 21:15–23a is secondary to 21:6–14. However, Gray sees more redactional activity in 21:6–14* than Burney. In particular, Gray treats the motif in 21:10–11 of slaughtering all the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead save the young virgin women as a redactional interpolation that overlays a non-violent presentation of finding wives for Benjamin in the earliest composition stratum. Edenburg follows Gray’s position. This issue merits close attention and will be addressed in the detailed discussion of 21:6–23a below. 22 23

Moore, Judges, A New English Translation, 96. Burney, Judges, 456; internal citations omitted.

Compositional History of Judges 21

367

In summary, there are three fundamental problems concerning the compositional history of Judges 21 that remain unresolved. The first concerns the relationship between 21:6–14* and 21:15–23a* that both address the motif of finding wives for Benjamin. The various hypotheses that have been proposed to date include (i) the finding wives motif in the Yabesh-Gilead unit and the finding wives motif in the Shiloh unit are doublets and should be assigned to different source traditions, with the Yabesh-Gilead unit being the earlier tradition (Burney) or the later tradition (Gray); (ii) the Shiloh unit forms part of the earliest composition stratum and the Yabesh-Gilead unit is a secondary elaboration that was interpolated by a redactor to expand and develop the plotline of Judges 21 (Moore and Schulz); and (iii) shorter versions of both the Yabesh-Gilead and Shiloh units formed part of the earliest composition stratum, which were then expanded and developed by the redactor (Edenburg). The second problem concerns the composite nature of 21:9–14 which is affirmed by Burney, Gray and Edenburg and rejected by Moore and Schulz. There is common ground among Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg that the underlying composition stratum in 21:9–14 told a story about finding wives in Yabesh-Gilead. However, Gray and Edenburg assign the references to the slaughter of the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead in 21:10–11 to a redactor. This position creates an ellipsis in the narrative intrigue leaving the unit without any description of the method used by the sons of Israel to compel the virgin young women of Yabesh-Gilead to marry Benjaminites. Was military action used as proposed in 21:10–11? Did the sons of Israel persuade the fathers of Yabesh-Gilead to part with their daughters voluntarily as proposed in the Shiloh unit? The third problem in Judges 21 relates to the selection of ‫( ֵיָביׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד‬YabeshGilead), rather than another tribe, region or locality, to play the role of villain in the narrative unit 21:8–14.24 All of the commentators under review in this chapter interpret the selection of Yabesh-Gilead as villain to be related to the association of that toponym with the life-story of Saul as recounted in Samuel. In my view, consideration should be given to the possibility that the group that did not heed the all-Israel call to battle was “Gilead” in the earliest composition stratum and that R3 interpolated the word “Yabesh” before Gilead to introduce the thematic association with the life-story of Saul. These three problems in 21:6–23a will be addressed in the detailed discussion that follows.

24

The toponym “Yabesh-Gilead” is used in 21:8b.21:9b.10b.12a.14a.

368 2.2

chapter 11

Judges 21:6a

Judg 21:6aAnd the sons of Israel relented toward his brother Benjamin.

‫וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ ‫יָמן ָא ִחיו‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫ֶא‬

The meaning of the Nif‘al phrase ‫ וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו‬is problematic. Most translators and commentators interpret it to mean something like “they felt compassion for their brother Benjamin.”25 In contrast, JPS Tanakh proposes “They relented toward their kinsmen, the Benjaminites.” Edenburg follows JPS Tanakh, without explanation. I agree with Edenburg. If my hypothesis is correct that the N stratum in 21:1–5 understood the cultic event at Bethel to be an offering of thanksgiving for Israel’s military victory, the interpretation of ‫ וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו‬as “And they felt compassion” may be an overreading of the text based on the redactional interpolation in 21:3. It is more parsimonious to interpret the verb in 21:6a to mean that the sons of Israel “relented” toward Benjamin; i.e., that they decided to hold back their hand and not seek to pursue the sons of Benjamin who had fled to the desert. This position is supported by the considerable number of passages that use the Nif‘al form of the verb to refer to YHWH’s holding back his anger/his hand and relenting from following through on an otherwise justified action of punishment,26 as shown in the following three examples (NAS translation): Exod 32:12bTurn from your burning anger. Relent from harming your people. 2 Sam 24:16aWhen the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, YHWH relented from the disaster. And he said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough! Now relax your hand!” Jer 15:16bI will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you. I am tired of relenting! Jer 20:16aAnd let that man be like the cities which YHWH overthrew without relenting.

25 26

‫ׁשּוב ֵמ ֲחרֹון ַא ֶּפָך וְ ִה ּנָחֵ ם‬

‫ל־ה ָר ָעה ְל ַע ֶּמָך‬ ָ ‫ַע‬ ִ‫רּוׁש ַלם‬ ָ ְ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ַלח יָ דֹו ַה ַּמ ְל ָאְך י‬‎ ‫ל־ה ָר ָעה‬ ָ ‫ְל ַׁש ֲח ָתּה וַ ִ ּי ּנָחֶ ם יְ הוָ ה ֶא‬ ‫אמר ַל ַּמ ְל ָאְך ַה ַּמ ְׁש ִחית ָּב ָעם‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ‫ַרב ַע ָּתה ֶה ֶרף יָ ֶדָך‬ ‫יתְך‬ ֵ ‫וָ ַאט ֶאת־יָ ִדי ָע ַליִ ְך וָ ַא ְׁש ִח‬‎ ‫יתי ִה ּנָחֵ ם‬ ִ ‫נִ ְל ֵא‬ ‫וְ ָהיָ ה ָה ִאיׁש ַההּוא ֶּכ ָע ִרים‬‎ ‫ר־ה ַפְך יְ הוָ ה וְ לֹא נִ חָ ם‬ ָ ‫ֲא ֶׁש‬

“They were sorry for” (Moore, NAS; “They were moved to pity” (Burney, TOB); “they had compassion for” (Gray, Soggin, Matthews, Niditch, Webb, Schulz, NRSV). Exod 32:12; Isa 57:6; Jer 15:6; 18:8; 20:16; 42:10; Ezek 24:14; Joel 2:13.14; Zech 8:14; Jon 3:9.10; 4:2.

Compositional History of Judges 21

369

It can be noted that while all of the passages cited above refer to YHWH’s relenting from taking otherwise justified punitive action, the party relenting in 21:6 is the sons of Israel. The question then arises whether 21:6a should be assigned to N or to a redactor who worked on a composition stratum after N but before the redactor who transformed 21:1–5 into a general “introduction” to Judges 21. In my view, 21:6a can reasonably be assigned to R1 on the basis of his use of the syntagma ‫ָא ִחיו‬ (his brother). As previously discussed, the lexeme ‫ ָאח‬is not used in the N stratum of Judges 19–20. It is first used by R1 in the consultation with YHWH scene in 20:26–28 and then repeated by R2 and R3 in 19:23; 20:13.23.28. The ideological/theological purpose of the redactional interpolation of 21:6a is to introduce the motif of reconciliation between Israel and Benjamin and thereby soften the anti-Benjamin bias in N’s underlying composition stratum. 2.3

Judges 21:6b–8a

Judg 21:6bAnd they said: “One tribe from among ‫אמרּו נִ גְ ַּדע ַהּיֹום ֵׁש ֶבט‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬6b‎ Israel has been hewn off today. 7aWhat shall we ‫ ַמה־ּנַ ֲע ֶׂשה ָל ֶהם‬7 ‫ֶא ָחד ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ do for them, for those who remain, for wives? ‫ּנֹות ִרים ְלנָ ִׁשים וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו נִ ְׁש ַּב ְענּו‬ ָ ‫ַל‬ 7bBut as to us, we swore an oath by YHWH not ‫ת־ל ֶהם‬ ָ ‫ַביהוָ ה ְל ִב ְל ִּתי ֵּת‬ to give them wives from among our daughters.” ֵ ‫ִמ ְּב‬ ‫אמרּו ִמי‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬8 ‫נֹותינּו ְלנָ ִׁשים‬ 8aAnd they said: Is there one among the tribes ‫ֶא ָחד ִמ ִּׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֲא ֶׁשר‬ of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?” ‫א־ע ָלה ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה‬ ָ ֹ‫ל‬ Judges 21:6b–8a introduces a long run-on speech spoken collectively by the sons of Israel. The motif of the “tribes of Israel” is referenced twice in the speech. I have attempted to demonstrate above that there are no references to the tribes of Israel in the N stratum of Judges 19–20. The syntagma ‫( ּכֹל ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬all the tribes of Israel) in 20:2a.10a is used in verses that have been attributed to the R3 stratum for independent reasons and the syntagma ‫( ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬the tribes of Israel) in 20:12a in a verse attributed to the R2 stratum for independent reasons. Similarly, the syntagma ‫( ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬from among Israel) in 21:6b is not used in the N stratum of Judges 19–20. It is used once in 20:13, in a narrative sequence assigned to R2. The occurrence of both ‫ ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬and ‫ ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬in 21:6b–8a provides a reasonable basis for assigning the speech to R2.

370 2.4

chapter 11

Judges 21:8b–9

Judg 21:8bAnd behold! No one came from YabeshGilead to the camp, to the assembly. 9aAnd the people were numbered. 9bAnd behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead.

‫ל־ה ַּמ ֲחנֶ ה‬ ַ ‫א־איׁש ֶא‬ ִ ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה לֹא ָב‬‎ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ָּפ ֵקד‬‎‫ל־ה ָּק ָהל‬ ַ ‫ִמ ֵּיָביׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד ֶא‬ ‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי‬ ְ ‫ין־ׁשם ִאיׁש ִמ‬ ָ ‫ָה ָעם וְ ִהּנֵ ה ֵא‬ ‫ֵיָבׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד‬

It can be observed that the introductory particle ‫( וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬And behold!) is used to introduce 21:8b as well as 21:9b. The possibility should be considered that this repetition is an example of Wiederaufnahme suggesting that the material between the repetition – “No one came from Yabesh-Gilead to the camp, to the assembly. And the people were numbered” – is a redactional interpolation.27 This argument is supported by the fact that the thematic redundancy between 21:8b–9a and 21:9b tends to suggest that one is an expansionary explanation of the other. As discussed, there is reason to suspect that the toponym in the earliest composition stratum of 21:9b was “Gilead” and that R3 interpolated the toponym “Yabesh” before Gilead in order to introduce a thematic association with the life-story of Saul. As is well known, all seven references to Yabesh-Gilead outside of Judg 21:8–14 refer to a locality with close connections to Saul.28 The passages that connect Yabesh-Gilead to Saul also refer to the locality as “Yabesh” (as opposed to Yabesh-Gilead).29 It can be observed that Yabesh-Gilead is never characterized in Samuel as a locality that failed to heed a call to battle. However, the motif of failing to heed an all-Israel call to battle is explicitly addressed in the so-called “Song of Deborah” in Judges 5. One of the essential elements of the plotline in the Song of Deborah is that several groups failed to heed the call. These groups include the “divisions of Reuben,” Gilead, Dan and Asher.30 The association of trans-Jordanian tribes with reluctance to fight alongside the sons of Israel is also addressed in Numbers 32.31 When certain trans-Jordanian tribes express unwillingness to cross the Jordan to fight 27 28 29 30 31

Contra Moore, Burney, Gray and Schulz. Edenburg attributes 21:8b to a redactor but treats 21:9a as part of N. 1 Sam 11:1.9; 31:11; 2 Sam 2:4.5; 21:12; 1 Ch 10:11. 1 Sam 11:1.3.5.9.10; 31:12.13; 1 Ch 10:12 (×2). The lexeme “Yabesh” also occurs as a personal name in 2 Ki 15:10.13.14; i.e., the father of the usurper king Shallum. Judg 5:15–17. See, Olivier Artus, “Numbers 32: The Problem of the Two and a Half Transjordanian Tribes and the Final Composition of the Book of Numbers” in Torah and the Book of Numbers (ed. C. Frevel, T. Pola and A. Schart; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 367–382.

Compositional History of Judges 21

371

in Canaan with the sons of Israel, they are strongly criticized by Moses. The problem is resolved with a compromise: “And Moses said to them [Eleazar and Joshua], ‘If the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben, everyone who is armed for battle, will cross with you over the Jordan in the presence of YHWH, and the land will be subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession’” (Num 32:29; NAS translation).32 It is my position that the toponym mentioned in 21:9b.10b, verses that will be attributed to N, originally read “Gilead.” R3 then changed the text to read “Yabesh-Gilead” and added the additional references to Yabesh-Gilead in 21:8b.12a.14a. This position is supported by three arguments. First, the thematic parallels to Gilead as having failed, or having been reluctant, to heed an all-Israel call to battle in Judges 5 and Numbers 32, respectively, make it more likely that the similarly situated villain in Judg 21:6–14 was Gilead rather than Yabesh-Gilead. Second, glossing a text with a one word “plus” is an edit that a redactor would have found easier to add than changing Gilead to another toponym. Third, when viewed from the perspective of the early Persian period, it is reasonable to argue that the Golah viewed Judeans living in trans-Jordan as opponents to their claim for leadership over Yehud and thus would have reason to villainize them in their texts.33 2.5

Judges 21:10–12

Judg 21:10aAnd the congregation sent there 12,000 men from among the sons of valor. 10bAnd they commanded them, saying: Go! And strike the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children. 11aBehold! Here is the thing you shall do: 11bEvery male and every woman who has known the bed

32

33

‫חּו־ׁשם ָה ֵע ָדה‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְל‬10‎ ‫ים־ע ָׂשר ֶא ֶלף ִאיׁש ִמ ְּבנֵ י‬ ָ ֵ‫ְׁשנ‬ ‫אֹותם ֵלאמֹר ְלכּו‬ ָ ‫ֶה ָחיִ ל וַ יְ ַצּוּו‬ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי ֵיָבׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫יתם ֶא‬ ֶ ‫וְ ִה ִּכ‬ ֶ ‫ְל ִפ‬ ‫וְ זֶ ה‬‎11 ‫י־ח ֶרב וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬ ‫ַה ָּד ָבר ֲא ֶׁשר ַּת ֲעׂשּו ָּכל־זָ ָכר‬ ‫ל־א ָּׁשה י ַֹד ַעת ִמ ְׁש ַּכב־זָ ָכר‬ ִ ‫וְ ָכ‬

See also, Deut 3:15–20. The thematic thread of the story in Numbers 32 is pursued in Joshua 18. This text confirms that Joshua indeed gave the trans-Jordanian tribes their land of possession. However, another unexpected crisis arises when it is discovered that the trans-Jordanian tribes had built an altar by the Jordan. This conflict leads to a threatened war against the trans-Jordanian tribes that is then resolved with a compromise. The relevance of Joshua 18 to Judges 21 will be discussed in Section 3.5.1 infra. The figure of Tobiah “the Ammonite” is portrayed as an opponent of the Golah in Nehemiah. See discussion in Chapter 7, Section 3.3 supra.

372

chapter 11

of a male, you shall devote to destruction.” 12aAnd they found among the inhabitants of YabeshGilead 400 virgin girls who had not known a man, in relation to the bed of a male. 12bAnd they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיִ ְמ ְצאּו ִמ‬12 ‫ַּת ֲח ִרימּו‬ ‫ֵיָביׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד ַא ְר ַּבע ֵמאֹות נַ ֲע ָרה‬ ‫תּולה ֲא ֶׁשר לֹא־יָ ְד ָעה ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫ְב‬ ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ְל ִמ ְׁש ַּכב זָ ָכר וַ ִּיָביאּו‬ ‫ל־ה ַּמ ֲחנֶ ה ִׁשֹלה ֲא ֶׁשר ְּב ֶא ֶרץ‬ ַ ‫ֶא‬ ‫ְּכנָ ַען‬

The unit 21:10–12 presents the motif of slaughtering the inhabitants of YabeshGilead, save the young virgin women, in order to find wives for Benjamin. As mentioned, Gray’s interpretation of 21:10–11 as a redactional interpolation is innovative and merits close attention. He argues that 21:8 was followed by 21:12 in the underlying composition stratum.34 Edenburg reaches the same general conclusion as Gray but delimits the underlying composition stratum slightly differently.35 Gray and Edenburg thus conceive of the underlying composition stratum as containing a thematic ellipsis in relation to the method used by the sons of Israel to convince the fathers of the 400 virgin girls to give their daughters to Benjamin in marriage. They view the violent method described in 21:10–11 as a “filling-out” of the ellipsis by a redactor. Edenburg states, If the purpose of the expedition to Jabesh was to execute the punitive measures prescribed by the oath in verse 5, then it is difficult to understand why all the inhabitants – including women and children – were put to death, with the exception of the marriageable virgins. From this it is clear that the main purpose of the section is to provide brides for the remaining Benjaminites within the strictures of the proscription that Israelites had taken upon themselves. This purpose could have been realized, without recourse to a military expedition simply by investigating who had not participated in the assembly; since the absentees were not partner to the proscription, their daughters would be permitted in marriage to the Benjaminites.36 34

35

36

Gray’s reconstruction of the underlying stratum is: “8aAnd they said: ‘Is there one from among the tribes of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?’ 8bAnd behold! No one came from Yabesh-Gilead to the camp, to the assembly. 12aAnd they found from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls who had not known a man […]. 12bAnd they brought them to the camp.” Gray, Judges, Ruth and Joshua, 392. Edenburg reconstructs the N material in 21:8–12 as reading “8aAnd they said: ‘Is there one from among the tribes of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?’ 9aAnd the people were numbered. 9bAnd behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead. 12aAnd they found from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls who had not known a man […].” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 71–72. Ibid., 62–63; citations omitted.

Compositional History of Judges 21

373

While it is possible that the narrative intrigue in the underlying composition stratum would solve the problem of finding wives for Benjamin in a nonviolent manner simply by traveling to Yabesh-Gilead where “they found […] 400 young virgin girls” (21:12a), it is more likely that the narrative intrigue in the underlying composition stratum included a description of the method used by the sons of Israel to take the women from their fathers in Yabesh-Gilead in order to give them to Benjamin. I therefore consider the separation of 21:10–11 from 21:12 to be unconvincing. I will propose instead that a literary distinction can be made between (i) the motif of punishing Gilead/Yabesh-Gilead for its failure to heed the allIsrael call to battle (21:8–10*) and (ii) the motif of finding wives for Benjamin (21:7.11–12.14*). I will attempt to demonstrate that the former motif is part of the earliest composition stratum while the latter is an interpolation by R2 that is modeled on 21:15–23a. I will argue that R2 intended to “overwrite” the theme of punishing Gilead/Yabesh-Gilead by giving it a more palatable purpose; i.e., finding wives for Benjamin. R3 then added intertextual allusions to Numbers 31 to the R2 material. This hypothesis will be developed below. Verse 21:10a states, “And the congregation sent there 12,000 men from among the sons of valor” to Yabesh-Gilead. The syntagma ‫( ְּבנֵ י ֶה ָחיִ ל‬sons of valor; with a definite article) is a hapax in the MT.37 A similar syntagma ‫י־חיִ ל‬ ָ ֵ‫( ְּבנ‬sons of valor; without a definite article) is attested in Deut 3:18; Judg 18:2; 2 Sam 2:7; 13:28; 2 Ki 2:16; 1 Ch 5:18; 26:7.9.30.32; 2 Ch 26:17; 28:6.38 The lexeme ‫( ֶה ָחיִ ל‬with the definite article) is used in the related syntagma ‫ּבֹורי ַה ַחיִ ל‬ ֵ ִ‫( ּג‬mighty ones of valor) in Josh 1:14; 6:2; 8:3; 10:7; 2 Ki 15:20; 24:14. However, the same collocation is used without the definite article (‫ּבֹורי ָחיִ ל‬ ֵ ִ‫ )ּג‬in 2 Ch 14:8; 17:13.14.16; 25:6; 26:12; Neh 11:14; Dan 3:20. The transformation of the syntagma from ‫ּבֹורי ַה ַחיִ ל‬ ֵ ִ‫ּג‬ (with definite article) to ‫ּבֹורי ָחיִ ל‬ ֵ ִ‫( ּג‬without definite article) in late texts such as Chronicles, Nehemiah and Daniel suggests that use of the lexeme ‫ּבֹורי ָחיִ ל‬ ֵ ִ‫ּג‬ (without definite article) is typical of late texts. The use of the syntagma ‫ְּבנֵ י‬ ‫( ֶה ָחיִ ל‬with definite article) in Judg 21:10a thus implies that the verse may be dated prior to the time of the Chronicler. On this basis, I tentatively assign 20:10a to N, subject to one redactional gloss relating to the numbering of the

37 38

The corresponding syntagma in LXXAB 21:10a, τῶν υἱῶν τῆς δυνάμεως, is also a hapax in the LXX. It should be noted that the seven occurrences in Chronicles do not have parallels in Kings. Further research is required to determine whether the use of the syntagma in the five other attested occurrences in the MT might be a sign of late dating of those verses.

374

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men of valor as “12,000.” As the number of warriors sent by Moses to slaughter the Midianites in Num 31:5 is 12,000, and it will be demonstrated below that 21:11 contains an intertextual allusion to Numbers 31, I propose to interpret the phrase, “12,000 men from among” in 21:10a as a redactional interpolation intended to harmonize 21:8–11 with Numbers 31. The underlying N stratum thus read ‫חּו־ׁשם ְּבנֵ י ֶה ָחיִ ל‬ ָ ‫( וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְל‬And the congregation sent there the sons of valor). Edenburg justifies her treatment of 21:10a as a redactional interpolation on the basis of the use of the lexeme ‫( ֵע ָדה‬congregation). As discussed, she considers both ‫ ֵע ָדה‬and ‫( ָּק ָהל‬assembly) to constitute “priestly vocabulary”39 and therefore attributes all of the verses in Judges 19–21 that use these lexemes to her redaction stratum.40 I have attempted to demonstrate that using the distinction between P and non-P vocabulary as used in Genesis-Joshua as a criterion to identify composition strata in a late text such as Judges 19–21 is methodologically unsound.41 As discussed, the lexeme ‫ ָּק ָהל‬occurs 11 times in Ezra-Nehemiah and 22 times in Chronicles. In contrast, ‫ ֵע ָדה‬is never used in Ezra-Nehemiah or the Chronicler’s Sondergut. It is more parsimonious to conclude that while ‫ ָּק ָהל‬is typical of late texts in the MT, ‫ ֵע ָדה‬is not. If my hypothesis that N was composed prior to Chronicles is correct, there is no reason to assume that the use of ‫ ֵע ָדה‬in Judges 19–21 cannot be attributed to N. It can be observed that 21:10b shows lexical similarities to 21:20a: 21:10bAnd they commanded them saying: “Go! ‫יתם‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ צַ ּו ּו אוֹ ָתם לֵ אמֹר לְ כ ּו וְ ִה ִּכ‬‎ And you shall strike the inhabitants of Yabesh‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ֶ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי ֵיָבׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד ְל ִפ‬ ְ ‫ֶא‬ Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women ‫וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬ and children.” 21:20aAnd they commanded the sons of ‫ת־בנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ְּ ֶ‫(וַ יְ צַ ו) [וַ יְ צַ ּו ּו] א‬‎ Benjamin saying: “Go! And you shall lie in wait in ‫לֵ אמֹר לְ כ ּו וַ ֲא ַר ְב ֶּתם ַּב ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ the vineyards.” In addition to the lexical parallelism between 21:10b and 21:20a, the imperative “Go” is followed by a second command in both verses formulated in the Weqatal. If my hypothesis that 21:6–14* is a secondary elaboration of 21:15–23a* is correct,42 the redundancy between 21:10b and 21:20a can be explained on 39 40 41 42

Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 135–136. The term “congregation” is used in Judg 20:1; 21:10.13.16. The term “assembly” is used in 20:1.2; 21:5.8. See discussion in Chapter 8, Section 2.2.3 supra. Pace Moore and Schulz; contra Burney, Gray and Edenburg.

Compositional History of Judges 21

375

literary grounds. It can reasonably be argued that R2 reused R1’s phrase in 21:20a “And they commanded them saying: ‘Go! And you shall …’” in constructing his account in 21:10b of finding wives for Benjamin in Gilead/Yabesh-Gilead. The command to the sons of valor in 21:10b is “And you shall strike the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children.” When 21:8–10 is read as a unit, it can reasonably be concluded that its purpose is to present the punishment of Gilead/Yabesh-Gilead for failing to heed the all-Israel call to battle. Nothing in the unit suggests any relationship to the motif of finding wives for Benjamin. Indeed, the punishment – striking all of the men, women and children of Gilead/Yabesh-Gilead by the edge of the sword – logically excludes the possibility of finding wives for Benjamin. This supports the hypothesis that the motif of finding wives for Benjamin in 21:6– 14 was interpolated by a redactor to overlay the motif of punishing Gilead/ Yabesh-Gilead. In my view, R2, the redactor who introduced the motif of finding wives for Benjamin in 21:6–14, recrafted 21:10b to harmonize it with R1’s “command” motif in 21:20–22. R2’s Weqatal phrase ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ֶ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי ֵיָבׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד ְל ִפ‬ ְ ‫יתם ֶא‬ ֶ ‫( וְ ִה ִּכ‬And you shall strike the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead by the edge of the sword) may have read as a Wayyiqtol phrase such as ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ֶ ‫( וַ ּיַ ּכּום ְל ִפ‬And they struck them by the edge of the sword) as in 20:48a or ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ָ ‫ל־ה ִעיר ְל ִפ‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫( וַ ּיַ ְך ֶא‬And he struck all of the city by the edge of the sword) as in 20:37b. If this hypothesis is correct, the N material in 21:10 can be reconstructed to read “And the congregation sent there the sons of valor. And they struck the inhabitants of Gilead by the edge of the sword.” The redactor’s transformation of “And they struck” into “And you shall strike” in 21:10b served the purpose of harmonizing 21:10b with the “command” motif in 21:20–22. However, it also creates a literary problem in the final version of the text; namely, the men of valor are not reported as having executed the command to slaughter the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead. Burney attempts to solve this problem by adding at the end of 21:11 the phrase, “And they did thusly,” which appears at the end of 21:11b in LXXB (but not LXXA) as καὶ ἐποίησαν οὕτως and in the parallel command-execution passage in MT 21:23a as ‫ׂשּו־כן‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲע‬. Burney’s proposed emendation of MT 21:10b on the basis of LXXB 21:11b is not persuasive for three reasons. First, it is more likely that a verse confirming the proper execution of a command would be added as a “plus” to an underlying Vorlage in which it was absent than deleted by a later scribe from the underlying text in which such verse was present. Second, the “plus” in LXXB is not supported by LXXA, the supposedly earlier of the two LXX Judges versions. Third, the wording of the plus in LXXB 21:11b (καὶ ἐποίησαν οὕτως) is identical

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to LXXAB 21:23a=MT 21:23a. This suggests that LXXB (or the scribe responsible for the Hebrew Vorlage from which the LXXB translator worked) modeled the “plus” in 21:11b on the phrase in 21:23a. It is not clear whether the final two words of 20:10b, ‫( וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬And the women and the children) form part of N or should be interpreted as a redactional interpolation. The syntagma ‫ וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬occurs elsewhere in the MT in Deut 2:34; 3:6; 20:14; 31:12; Josh 8:35. In my view, the motif of killing all the women and children in 21:10b contradicts the instructions in 21:11b to kill only the women “who have known the bed of a male.” As it is likely that 21:11 is a redactional interpolation, it is unlikely that the same redactor would interpolate two motifs that contradict each other. Although it is possible that the phrase “And the women and children” was interpolated by R1 before the interpolation of 21:11 by R2, it is more parsimonious to treat the syntagma ‫וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים‬ ‫ וְ ַה ָּטף‬as the last two words of the N material in 21:10.43 It is generally agreed that 21:11 should be attributed to a redactor because of its lexical and thematic similarities to Numbers 31:17–18:44 Judg 21:11aBehold! Here is the thing you shall do: ‫וְ זֶ ה ַה ָּד ָבר ֲא ֶׁשר ַּת ֲעׂשּו ּ ָכל־זָ כָ ר‬‎ 11bEvery male and every woman who has known ‫ל־א ּ ׁ ָשה י ַֹד ַעת ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב־זָ כָ ר‬ ִ ָ‫וְ כ‬ the bed of a male, you shall devote to destruction. ‫ַּת ֲח ִרימּו‬ Num 13:17aAnd now, kill every male among the ‫וְ ַע ָּתה ִה ְרגּו כָ ל־זָ כָ ר ַּב ָּטף‬17‎ children. 17bAnd every woman who has known a ‫ל־א ּ ׁ ָשה י ַֹד ַעת ִאיׁש לְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב‬ ִ ָ‫וְ כ‬ man, in the bed of a male, kill! 18aAnd every child ‫וְ כֹל ַה ַּטף ַּבּנָ ִׁשים‬18 ‫זָ כָ ר ֲהר ֹגּו‬ among the women who has not known the bed of ‫ֲא ֶׁשר לֹא־י ְָדע ּו ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב זָ כָ ר‬ a male, 18bkeep them alive for yourselves! ‫ַה ֲחיּו ָל ֶכם‬ I concur with this position. However, Edenburg goes further and posits that (i) the reference to Phineas son of Eleazar in Judg 20:28 is an allusion to Num 31:6; (ii) the syntagma “all of the cities” in Judg 20:48 is an allusion to Num 31:10; and (iii) the infinitive construct ‫( ְל ִה ָּפ ֵקד‬to be missing) in Judg 21:3 is an allusion to the use of the Qatal phrase ‫( וְ לֹא־נִ ְפ ַקד‬he is not missing) in Num 31:49. In my opinion, the most that can be said with certainty is that (i) Judg 21:11 introduces a lexical registry not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21 which suggests that it was interpolated by a redactor and (ii) the thematic motif of slaughtering all the inhabitants of Gilead/Yabesh-Gilead save the young virgin women was probably borrowed from Numbers 31.

43 44

Contra Edenburg. Pace Moore, Burney, Gray, Edenburg.

Compositional History of Judges 21

377

Judges 21:12a consists of a Wayyiqtol phrase (“And they found among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls”), followed by an ’asher clause – “who had not known a man, in relation to the bed of a male.” Gray and Edenburg take the position that while 21:10–11* is a redactional interpolation, 21:12a should be attributed to N, with the exception of the last two words in the verse, ‫( ְל ִמ ְׁש ַּכב זָ ָכר‬in relation to the bed of a male), which they attribute to a redactor. I disagree with this position for two reasons. First, “And they found from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls” should be assigned in my view to R2, the redactor who introduced the “finding wives for Benjamin” motif into 21:10–12. Second, I see no reason to attribute the ’asher clause in 21:12aB to two different composition strata as proposed by Gray and Edenburg. It can be noted that 21:12aB is lexically similar to Num 31:17b: Judg 21:12aAAnd they found from among the inhab‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי ֵיָביׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיִ ְמ ְצאּו ִמ‬‎ itants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls 12aBwho ‫תּולה ֲא ֶׁשר‬ ָ ‫ַא ְר ַּבע ֵמאֹות נַ ֲע ָרה ְב‬ had not known a man, in the bed of a male. ‫יש לְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב זָ כָ ר‬ ׁ ‫לֹא־י ְָד ָעה ִא‬ Num 31:17bAnd every woman who has known a ‫יש לְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב‬ ׁ ‫ל־א ָּׁשה י ַֹד ַעת ִא‬ ִ ‫וְ ָכ‬ man, in the bed of a male, kill! ‫זָ כָ ר ֲהר ֹגּו‬ In my view, it is more parsimonious to attribute all of 21:12aB to the same redactor who interpolated 21:11 with its intertextual references to Numbers 31; i.e., R3. 2.6

Judges 21:13–14

Judg 21:13aAnd all the congregation sent [messengers]. ‫ל־ה ֵע ָדה וַ יְ ַד ְּברּו‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְלחּו ָּכ‬13‎ And they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנְ ִיָמן ֲא ֶׁשר ְּב ֶס ַלע‬ ְ ‫ֶא‬ the rock of Rimmon. 13bAnd they proclaimed peace ‫ִרּמֹון וַ ּיִ ְק ְראּו ָל ֶהם ָׁשלֹום‬ to them. 14aAnd Benjamin returned at that time. And ‫יָמן ָּב ֵעת ַה ִהיא‬ ִ ְ‫וַ ּיָ ָׁשב ִּבנ‬14‎ they gave them the women whom they had let live ‫וַ ּיִ ְּתנּו ָל ֶהם ַהּנָ ִׁשים ֲא ֶׁשר ִחּיּו‬ from among the women of Yabesh-Gilead. 14bBut ‫א־מ ְצאּו‬ ָ ֹ ‫ִמּנְ ֵׁשי ֵיָבׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד וְ ל‬ they did not find enough for them. ‫ָל ֶהם ֵּכן‬ From a literary perspective, 21:13–14 appears to contain a double narrative closure. First, “[…] And they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon. And they proclaimed peace to them” (21:13). Second, “And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had let live from among the women of Yabesh-Gilead. But they did not find enough of them” (21:14). The second closure is directly associated with the motif of finding wives for Benjamin as developed by R2. Although the first closure does not contradict the second, it can reasonably be argued that the

378

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first closure is not an essential element of the plotline in 21:10–14. When read without 21:13, 21:12.14 tells a coherent story: “And they found …400 virgin girls” (21:12a). “And they brought them to the camp at Shiloh” (21:12b). “And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women” (21:14a). Consideration should therefore be given to the possibility that 21:13 should be attributed to a different composition stratum than 21:12.14.45 As will be discussed below, it is my position that the motif of speaking with the sons of Israel and proclaiming peace in 21:13 follows 21:6a (“And the sons of Israel relented towards his brother Benjamin”) and should therefore be assigned to R1, the redactor who first introduced the theme of reconciliation between Israel and Benjamin. If this hypothesis is correct, 21:13 is not an interpolation into 21:12–14 but rather the reverse is true; 21:12–14 is an interpolation that overlays 21:13. The syntagma ‫ל־ה ֵע ָדה‬ ָ ‫ ָּכ‬in 21:13a is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21, thereby suggesting that all or part of the phrases ‫ל־ּבנֵ י‬ ְ ‫ל־ה ֵע ָדה וַ יְ ַד ְּברּו ֶא‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְלחּו ָּכ‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫( ִבנ‬And all the congregation sent [messengers] and they spoke to the sons of Benjamin) may be a redactional interpolation. Edenburg treats ‫ל־ה ֵע ָדה וַ יְ ַד ְּברּו‬ ָ ‫ָּכ‬ as the interpolated material but does not explain her reason. I propose to interpret the complete phrase ‫ל־ה ֵע ָדה‬ ָ ‫ וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְלחּו ָּכ‬as a gloss added by R3 to an underlying N stratum that began ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנְ ִיָמן‬ ְ ‫( וַ יְ ַד ְּברּו ֶא‬And they spoke to the sons of Benjamin). The purpose of the gloss is to use the motif of sending messengers to fill in the ellipsis of how the sons of Israel, who were at Bethel, could speak with the sons of Benjamin, who were at the Rock of Rimmon. 2.7

Judges 21:15–18

Judg 21:15aAnd the people, they relented toward Benjamin, 15bfor YHWH had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. 16aAnd the elders of the congregation said: “What shall we do for those who remain, for women?” 16b(For they have been exterminated from among Benjamin, the woman.) 17aAnd they said, “A possession of a remnant for Benjamin! 17bAnd a tribe will not be blotted out from among Israel. 18aBut as to us, we cannot give them wives from among our daughters.” 18b(For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying: “Cursed be he who gives a woman to Benjamin.”) 45

‫י־ע ָׂשה‬ ָ ‫יָמן ִּכ‬ ִ ְ‫וְ ָה ָעם נִ ָחם ְל ִבנ‬15‎ ‫יְ הוָ ה ֶּפ ֶרץ ְּב ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫אמרּו זִ ְקנֵ י ָה ֵע ָדה‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬16‎ ‫ּנֹות ִרים ְלנָ ִׁשים‬ ָ ‫ַמה־ּנַ ֲע ֶׂשה ַל‬ ‫יָמן ִא ָּׁשה‬ ִ ְ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְמ ָדה ִמ ִּבנ‬ ‫יטה‬ ָ ‫אמרּו יְ ֻר ַּׁשת ְּפ ֵל‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬17‎ ‫יָמן וְ לֹא־יִ ָּמ ֶחה ֵׁש ֶבט‬ ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ ‫נּוכל‬ ַ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו לֹא‬18‎ ‫ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫נֹותינּו‬ ֵ ‫ת־ל ֶהם נָ ִׁשים ִמ ְּב‬ ָ ‫ָל ֵת‬ ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְּבעּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵלאמֹר‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ָארּור נ ֵֹתן ִא ָּׁשה ְל ִבנ‬

Contra Moore, Burney, Gray and Schulz. Edenburg attributes 21:12–14 to N with the exception of 21:12b which she assigns to a redactor for the reasons discussed above.

Compositional History of Judges 21

379

I have attempted to demonstrate above that the motif in 21:6–14 of finding wives for Benjamin in Yabesh-Gilead is the product of redactional activity by R2 who intended to over-write (i) the underlying N motif of punishing Gilead for having failed to heed the all-Israel call to battle (21:8–10*) as well as (ii) the R1 motif of reconciling with Benjamin and proclaiming peace (21:6.14a*), with a narrative intrigue that is based on the finding wives for Benjamin in Shiloh motif in 21:15–23a. The purpose of this section and the one that follows is to demonstrate on independent grounds that the finding wives for Benjamin in Shiloh motif in 21:15–23a should be assigned to an earlier composition stratum than the finding wives for Benjamin in Yabesh-Gilead motif in 21:6–14. The crux of the problem lies in the interpretation of the doublet-like material in 21:6–7 and 21:15–18: 6aAnd the sons of Israel relented toward his ‫וַ ִ ּי ּ ָנחֲמ ּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶאל־ ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬‎ brother Benjamin. 6bAnd they said: “One tribe ‫אמרּו נִ גְ ַּדע ַהּיֹום‬ ְ ֹ ‫ָא ִחיו וַ ּי‬ from among Israel has been hewn off today. ‫ׁ ֵשבֶ ט ֶא ָחד ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ׂ ֶ ֲ‫ה־נַע‬ 7aWhat shall we do for them, for those who ‫שה ָל ֶהם לַ נּ וֹ ָת ִרים‬ ּ ‫ַמ‬ remain, for wives? 7bBut as to us, we swore an oath ‫לְ נ ִָׁשים וַ ֲאנ ְַחנ ּו נִ ְׁש ּ ַב ְענ ּו‬ by YHWH not to give them wives from among our ‫ַביהוָ ה ְל ִב ְל ִּתי ּ ֵתת־לָ הֶ ם‬ daughters.” ‫ִמ ְּבנוֹ ֵתינ ּו ְלנָ ִׁשים‬ 15aAnd the people, they relented toward Benjamin, ‫י־ע ָׂשה‬ ָ ‫וְ ָה ָעם נִ חָ ם ְל ִבנְ י ִָמן ִּכ‬‎ 15bfor YHWH had made a breach in the tribes of ‫יְ הוָ ה ֶּפ ֶרץ ְּב ִׁש ְב ֵטי יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ Israel. 16aAnd the elders of the congregation said, ‫אמרּו זִ ְקנֵ י ָה ֵע ָדה ַמה־‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ ׂ ֶ ֲ‫ּנַע‬ “What shall we do for those who remain, for ‫שה לַ נּ וֹ ָת ִרים לְ נ ִָׁשים‬ women.” 16b(For they had been exterminated from ‫יָמן ִא ָּׁשה‬ ִ ְ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְמ ָדה ִמ ִּבנ‬ among Benjamin, the women). 17aAnd they said: ‫יטה‬ ָ ‫אמרּו יְ ֻר ַּׁשת ְּפ ֵל‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬ “A possession of a remnant for Benjamin! 17bAnd ‫יָמן וְ לֹא־יִ ָּמ ֶחה ׁ ֵשבֶ ט‬ ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ a tribe will not be blotted out from among Israel.” ‫נּוכל‬ ַ ‫ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל וַ ֲאנ ְַחנ ּו לֹא‬ 18aBut as to us, we cannot give them women from ‫לָ ֵתת־לָ הֶ ם נָ ִׁשים ִמ ְּבנוֹ ֵתינ ּו‬ among our daughters.” 18b(For the sons of Israel ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְּבע ּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵלאמֹר‬ had sworn, saying: “Cursed be he who gives a ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ָארּור נ ֵֹתן ִא ָּׁשה ְל ִבנ‬ woman to Benjamin). Notwithstanding the thematic and lexical similarities between 21:6–7 and 21:15–18, there are also important differences between the two passages. First, the near destruction of Benjamin is described as an act of YHWH in 21:15b (“for YHWH had made a breach in the tribes of Israel”). In contrast, 21:6b uses the Nif‘al verbal form ‫ נִ גְ ַּדע‬in the phrase, “One tribe from among Israel has been hewn off today.” Thus, while 21:15b places the blame for the destruction of Benjamin on YHWH, 21:6b discreetly shifts responsibility away from YHWH.

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Second, the two phrases with the strongest thematic and lexical similarities, 21:16a=21:7a and 21:18a=21:7b, can be distinguished. Both 21:16a and 21:18a are followed by ‫ ִּכי‬clauses that do not have parallels in 21:7–8. The first ‫ ִּכי‬clause states, “for they have been exterminated from among Benjamin, the women” (21:16b) and the second, “for the sons of Israel had sworn, saying: ‘Cursed be he who gives a woman to Benjamin’” (21:18b).46 These two parenthetical comments are problematic because they contain information that, according to the final version of the text, the reader already knows. As the motif of finding wives for Benjamin is a two-step process in the final version of the text, with 400 wives being taken in Yabesh-Gilead and then another 200 at Shiloh, there is no reason for the narrator to belatedly remind the reader in 21:16b that all Benjaminite women had in fact been exterminated or in 21:18b that the sons of Israel had sworn not to give daughters in marriage to Benjamin. This redundancy suggests that 21:6–7 and 21:15–18 should be assigned to different composition strata. In my opinion, it is more likely that the references to the extermination of the Benjaminite women and the oath concerning intermarriage in 21:15–18 were integral to the composition stratum of that unit than that they were added by a redactor to remind readers of what they already know. If this hypothesis is correct, it provides additional support for my position that 21:15–23a* is earlier than 21:6–14*. The hypothesis that 21:6–7 is a secondary reprise of 21:15–18 is supported by the fact that both units are introduced with closely parallel phrases: ‫וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו‬ ‫יָמן ָא ִחיו‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫( ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬And the sons of Israel relented toward his brother Benjamin) in 21:6a and ‫“( וְ ָה ָעם נִ ָחם ְל ִבנְ ִיָמן‬And the people, they relented toward Benjamin”) in 21:15a. In my view, 21:15a can be interpreted as a Wiederaufnahme of 21:6a. If this hypothesis is correct, it follows that the redactor who interpolated the motif of finding wives for Benjamin in Yabesh-Gilead in 21:6–14 ended his interpolation in 21:15a with a repetitive resumption of the first verse in the underlying text on which he was working; namely, 21:6a.47 46

47

Most commentators treat the former clause as forming part of the speech and the latter clause as a parenthetical comment added by the narrator after the conclusion of the speech. As both ‫ ִּכי‬clauses convey background information to the reader, it is preferable in my opinion to treat them both as parenthetical comments of the narrator that interrupt the speech. Moore, Burney, Gray and Edenburg reach the same conclusion that 21:15a is later than 21:6a, but on grounds other than the phenomenon of Wiederaufnahme. According to Moore, all of 21:15–24 is later than 21:6–14, a position not shared by the other commentators. Burney, Gray and Edenburg assign 21:6a to their first source, Mizpah tradition, earliest composition stratum, respectively, and assign 21:15a to the final redactor. None provides an explanation for the redactor’s repetition of 21:6a in 21:15a. Schulz argues to the contrary that 21:6a is later than 21:15a.

Compositional History of Judges 21

2.8

381

Judges 21:19–23a

Judg 21:19aBehold! [There is] the festival of YHWH ‫אמרּו ִהּנֵ ה ַחג־יְ הוָ ה ְּב ִׁשלֹו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬19‎ at Shiloh from days to days” (which is north of ‫ימה ֲא ֶׁשר ִמ ְּצפֹונָ ה‬ ָ ‫יָמ‬ ִ ‫ִמּיָ ִמים‬ Bethel, from east of the sun to the highway that ‫ית־אל ִמזְ ְר ָחה ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש‬ ֵ ‫ְל ֵב‬ goes up from Bethel toward Shechem, 19band ‫ית־אל‬ ֵ ‫ִל ְמ ִס ָּלה ָהע ָֹלה ִמ ֵּב‬ from the south of Lebonah.) 20aAnd they com‫ּומּנֶ גֶ ב ִל ְלבֹונָ ה‬ ִ ‫ְׁש ֶכ ָמה‬ manded the sons of Benjamin, saying: 20b“Go! ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫(וַ יְ ַצו) [וַ יְ ַצּוּו] ֶא‬20 And you shall lie in wait in the vineyards. 21aAnd ‫ֵלאמֹר ְלכּו וַ ֲא ַר ְב ֶּתם ַּב ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ you will see. And behold! If the daughters of ‫יתם וְ ִהּנֵ ה ִאם־יֵ ְצאּו‬ ֶ ‫ ְּור ִא‬21 Shiloh go out to whirl in the dances, then go out ‫נֹות־ׁשילֹו ָלחּול ַּב ְּמחֹלֹות‬ ִ ‫ְב‬ from the vineyards. And you shall seize for your‫ן־ה ְּכ ָר ִמים וַ ֲח ַט ְפ ֶּתם‬ ַ ‫אתם ִמ‬ ֶ ‫יצ‬ ָ ִ‫ו‬ selves, each man his woman, from among the ‫ָל ֶכם ִאיׁש ִא ְׁשּתֹו ִמ ְּבנֹות ִׁשילֹו‬ daughters of Shiloh. 21bAnd you shall go to the ִ ְ‫וַ ֲה ַל ְכ ֶּתם ֶא ֶרץ ִּבנ‬ ‫וְ ָהיָ ה‬22 ‫יָמן‬ land of Benjamin. 22aAnd it will come to pass that ‫יהם‬ ֶ ‫בֹותם אֹו ֲא ֵח‬ ָ ‫ִּכי־יָ בֹאּו ֲא‬ their fathers or brothers will come to quarrel with ‫( ָלרֹוב) [ ָל ִריב] ֵא ֵלינּו וְ ָא ַמ ְרנּו‬ us. And we shall say to them: ‘Be gracious to them ‫אֹותם ִּכי לֹא‬ ָ ‫יהם ָחּנּונּו‬ ֶ ‫ֲא ֵל‬ for we did not take a woman for each man in the ‫ָל ַק ְחנּו ִאיׁש ִא ְׁשּתֹו ַּב ִּמ ְל ָח ָמה‬ battle. 22bNor did you give [them] to them at this ‫ִּכי לֹא ַא ֶּתם נְ ַת ֶּתם ָל ֶהם ָּכ ֵעת‬ time [such that] you would incur guilt.’”23aAnd ּ ‫ֶּת ְא ָׁש‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ׂשּו־כן ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲע‬23a ‫מו‬ the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they carried ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים ְל ִמ ְס ָּפ ָרם‬ away wives in accordance with their number ‫ן־ה ְּמח ְֹללֹות ֲא ֶׁשר ּגָ זָ לּו‬ ַ ‫ִמ‬ from among the dancers who they had abducted. The narrative unit 21:19–22 presents the command given by the sons of Israel to Benjamin for finding wives: They are to abduct “daughters of Shiloh” who go out to dance at an annual festival and then return to the land of Benjamin (21:20b–21a). The command is executed by the sons of Benjamin in 21:23a: “And the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they took wives (‫ )וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים‬in accordance with their number from among the dancers whom they had stolen.” It can be noted that the syntagma ‫ וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים‬has an ambiguous meaning in Hebrew. It can be interpreted literally to mean “And they carried off women.” This interpretation is not inappropriate in the context of the command “And you shall catch for your yourselves, each man his woman, from among the daughters of Shiloh” in 21:21a. However, as is well known, the syntagma ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים‬ is used in late texts in place of the more widely used ‫ וַ ּיִ ְקחּו ָל ֶהם נָ ִׁשים‬to mean “they took wives.”48 The latter interpretation is preferable for two reasons. First, the verb ‫ נָ ָׂשא‬is not used elsewhere in the MT with “woman/women” as 48

See, e.g., Ezr 9:2.12; 10:44; Neh 13:25; 2 Ch 11:21; 13:21; 24:3; Ruth 1:4.

382

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the direct object other than in the context of marriage.49 Second, LXXAB 21:23a understands ‫ וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים‬to mean καὶ ἔλαβον γυναῖκας, the same expression generally used in the LXX to translate ‫וַ ּיִ ְקחּו ָל ֶהם נָ ִׁשים‬. It is thus fair to conclude that the abduction of the daughters of Shiloh refers to a type of marriage by capture.50 The lexical registry in 21:23a thus supports the hypothesis that 21:15–23a* was composed by a redactor working at the time of, or later than, the Chronicler. In my view, this excludes the possibility of attributing 21:15–23a* to the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19–21.51 It can be noted that the command and execution verses in 21:20–21.23a are interrupted by a digression in 21:22 introduced by the syntagma ‫( וְ ָהיָ ה ִּכי‬And it will come to pass when). Although the syntagma is widely attested in the MT, it is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. The digression evokes the possibility that the men of Shiloh might enter into dispute with the sons of Israel for having allowed Benjamin to abduct their daughters as wives; it also presents the legal position that the sons of Israel could take in response. I propose to attribute all of 21:22 to a later redaction stratum that 21:20–21.23 for three reasons.52 First, it can be observed that while 21:20–21 presents a command addressed to the surviving sons of Benjamin (“And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying” (21:20a), the speech continues in 21:22 with a concern that is only of interest to the sons of Israel (“And it will come to pass when their fathers or brothers come to dispute with us. And we shall say to them […]”). In addition, there is no subsequent narration that this possibility in fact came to pass. Second, the lexical registry in 21:22 includes a number of lexemes and syntagmas not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. These include (i) the syntagma ‫( וְ ָהיָ ה ִּכי‬it will come to pass when); (ii) the verb ‫( ִריב‬to enter into dispute); (iii) the verb ‫( ָחנַ ן‬to be gracious); and (iv) the verb ‫( ָא ַׁשם‬to incur guilt). Third, from a literary perspective, 21:22 interrupts the flow of the plotline from the command “[…] And you shall catch for yourselves, each man his wife, from among the daughters of Shiloh” (21:21a) to the execution of the command, “And the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they married wives in accordance with their number” (21:23a).

49 50 51 52

Compare Num 31:9, Deut 21:10–11 and 2 Ki 5:2 in which the verb ‫( ָׁש ָבה‬to take captive) is used to describe the taking of women from a defeated enemy. See Southwood, Marriage by Capture, for a detailed discussion of the cross-cultural parallels between the Shiloh episode in Judges 21 and the modern institution of marriage by capture. Pace Schulz but for other reasons; contra Moore, Burney, Gray and Edenburg. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg.

Compositional History of Judges 21

383

2.9 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 21:6– 23a as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 2.9.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 21:6–23a My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 9bBut behold! No one was there from among the ‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי‬ ְ ‫ין־ׁשם ִאיׁש ִמ‬ ָ ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ֵא‬9b inhabitants of […] Gilead. 10aAnd the congregation ‫חּו־ׁשם‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְל‬10a ‫[…] ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ sent there […] the sons of valor. 10b[…] And [they ]‫[…] [וַ ּיַ ּכּו‬10b ‫[…] ְּבנֵ י ֶה ָחיִ ל‬ struck] the inhabitants of […] Gilead by the edge ‫י־ח ֶרב‬ ֶ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי […] ּגִ ְל ָעד ְל ִפ‬ ְ ‫ֶא‬ of the sword, and the women and the children. ‫וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬ It will be recalled that the N stratum in 21:1–5 presented the people’s trip to Bethel where they built an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings in thanksgiving for Israel’s victory over Benjamin (21:2.4). The N stratum continues in 21:9b with a surprise: the sons of Israel discover that there is no one in attendance at the cultic event at Bethel from among the inhabitants of Gilead (Yabesh-Gilead in the final version of the text) (21:9b). Gilead’s punishment for failing to heed the all-Israel call to battle against Benjamin in my reconstruction of 21:10b (“And they struck the inhabitants of Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children”) mirrors the punishment of Gibeah in 20:37b (“And they struck all the city with the edge of the sword”). The ideological/theological purpose of the N stratum text is to focus the reader’s attention on the importance of the community acting by consensus to punish crimes committed by groups – the inhabitants of Gibeah and the inhabitants of Gilead – that form part of the community. This focus on acting by consensus to self-regulate the community could have its Sitz im Leben in the early Persian period when the imperial authorities may have delegated local police power to the Golah in the province of Yehud. In addition to the strong “anti-Benjamin” bias that runs throughout the N stratum text, the N material in 21:9b–10* also presents an “anti-Gilead” Tendenz. When viewed from the perspective of the Golah during the early Persian period, the inhabitants of the Benjamin and trans-Jordanian regions shared one important trait in common: they are both Judean communities who remained in the land during the Babylonian period and had political, economic and religious interests that clashed with those of the Golah. This bias reflects the Golah’s view that their claim of political authority over Yehud was

a

a

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opposed by the inhabitants of the Benjamin and trans-Jordanian regions of the former kingdom of Judah who remained in the land during the Babylonian period.53 2.9.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 21:6–23a The R1 interpolations are indicated in bold type. 6aAnd the sons of Israel relented towards his brother Benjamin. 9bBut behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of […] Gilead. 10aAnd the congregation sent there […] the sons of valor. 10bAnd […] [they struck] the inhabitants of […] Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children. 13a[…] And they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon. 13bAnd they proclaimed peace to them. 16aAnd the elders of the congregation said: “What shall we do for those who remain, for wives?” 17aAnd they said: “A survivor inheritance for Benjamin. 18aBut as to us, we cannot give them wives from among our daughters.” 18b(For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying: “Cursed be he who gives a woman to Benjamin”). 19aAnd they said: “Behold! [There is] the festival of YHWH at Shiloh from days to days […] 20aAnd they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying: 20b“Go! And you shall lie in wait in the vineyards. 21aAnd you shall see. And behold! If the daughters of Shiloh go out to whirl in the dances, then you will go out from the vineyards. And you shall catch for yourselves, each man his woman, from among the daughters of Shiloh. 21bAnd you shall go to the land of Benjamin. 23aAnd the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they took wives in accordance with their number […]. 53

See discussion in Chapter 7, Section 3.3 supra.

‫וַ ִ ּי ּ ָנחֲמ ּו ְּבנֵי יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬6a ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ֵאין־‬9b ‫ל־בנְ י ִָמן אָ ִחיו‬ ִּ ֶ‫א‬

‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי […] ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫ָׁשם ִאיׁש ִמ‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְל‬10a ‫חּו־ׁשם ָה ֵע ָדה […] ְּבנֵ י‬ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי‬ ְ ‫[…] [וַ ּיַ ּכּו] ֶא‬10b ‫ֶה ָחיִ ל‬ ‎‫י־ח ֶרב וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים‬ ֶ ‫[…] ּגִ ְל ָעד ְל ִפ‬ ‫[…] וַ יְ ַד ְּבר ּו‬13a ‫וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬

‫ֲשר ְּבסֶ לַ ע‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ל־בנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן א‬ ְּ ֶ‫א‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְק ְרא ּו לָ הֶ ם ׁ ָשלוֹ ם‬13b ‫ִר ּמ ֹון‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו זִ ְקנֵי הָ ֵע ָדה‬ ְ ‫ ַו ּי‬16 ׂ ֶ ֲ‫ה־נַע‬ ‫שה לַ נּ וֹ ָת ִרים לְ נ ִָׁשים‬ ּ ‫ַמ‬ ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְמ ָדה ִמ ִּבנְ י ִָמן ִא ּ ׁ ָשה‬ ‫יטה‬ ָ ֵ‫ֹאמר ּו יְ ֻר ּ ׁ ַשת ּ ְפל‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬17a a ‫וַ ֲאנ ְַחנ ּו לֹא נוּכַ ל‬18 ‫לְ ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ‫לָ ֵתת־לָ הֶ ם נ ִָׁשים ִמ ְּבנוֹ ֵתינ ּו‬ ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְּבע ּו ְבנֵי־יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל לֵ אמֹר‬ ‫אָ רוּר נ ֵֹתן ִא ּ ׁ ָשה לְ ִבנְ י ִָמן‬ ֹ‫ֹאמר ּו ִה ּנֵה חַ ג־יְ הוָ ה ְּב ִׁשלו‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬19a )‫(וַ יְ צַ ו‬20 ]…[ ‫ימה‬ ָ ‫ִמ ּי ִָמים י ִָמ‬ ‫ת־בנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן לֵ אמֹר‬ ְּ ֶ‫[וַ יְ צַ ּו ּו] א‬ ‫לְ כ ּו וַ א ֲַר ְב ּ ֶתם ּ ַב ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ ‫יתם וְ ִה ּנֵה ִאם־י ְֵצא ּו‬ ֶ ‫ו ְּר ִא‬21 ‫ֹלות‬ ֹ ‫ת־שילוֹ לָ חוּל ּ ַב ְּמח‬ ִׁ ֹ‫ְבנו‬ ‫אתם ִמן־הַ ְּכ ָר ִמים וַ ח ֲַט ְפ ּ ֶתם‬ ֶ ָ‫וִ יצ‬ ‫יש ִא ְׁש ּתוֹ ִמ ְּבנוֹ ת‬ ׁ ‫לָ כֶ ם ִא‬ ‫ִׁשילוֹ וַ הֲלַ ְכ ּ ֶתם אֶ ֶרץ ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬ ‫וַ ּיַעֲ שׂ וּ־כֵ ן ְּבנֵי ִבנְ י ִָמן וַ ִ ּישְׂ א ּו‬23a ]…[ ‫נ ִָׁשים לְ ִמ ְס ּ ָפ ָרם‬

Compositional History of Judges 21

385

The R1 stratum adds a new narrative intrigue to the brief N material in Judges 20. Picking up on the elliptical statement in N that the sons of Benjamin were terrified and had fled to the desert, R1 interpolates a long narrative unit in which Israel wants to find wives for the surviving sons of Benjamin stranded at the rock of Rimmon. The solution is to authorize the sons of Benjamin to travel to Shiloh in order to abduct young women dancing at an annual festival and take them home to Benjamin as wives. In response to the implicit question why the sons of Israel did not offer their own daughters to Benjamin in marriage, R1 responds that the sons of Israel had sworn an oath forbidding “intermarriage” with Benjamin. This ban on intermarriage with those who had remained in the land during the Babylonian period reflects the Golah perspective on marriages with “foreign women from the people of the land” as expressed in Ezra 10 and Nehemiah 13. The sons of Israel provide a means for the survivors of Benjamin to marry; they may abduct young dancing girls at the annual festival of Shiloh and take them as wives. The question thus arises why R1 would select this geographical location for finding wives for Benjamin.54 Edenburg argues that “[t]he mention of Shiloh in reference to yearly festivals and difficulties in producing issue creates an associative link to the opening of the book of Samuel. Moreover, by establishing literary blood ties with Benjamin, the narrator may be setting the stage for the future abandonment of Shiloh by YHWH (1 Sam 4; Jer 7:12,14).”55 Edenburg’s position is supported by the fact that the distinctive syntagma, ‫ימה‬ ָ ‫יָמ‬ ִ ‫( ִמּיָ ִמים‬from year to year) is used in both 1 Sam 1:3a and Judg 21:19a in relation to the sanctuary at Shiloh.56 However, it can be noted that Shiloh is also referenced in the last verse of Judges 18: Judg 18:31And they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the days that the house of God was at Shiloh.

‫יכה‬ ָ ‫ת־ּפ ֶסל ִמ‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּיָ ִׂשימּו ָל ֶהם ֶא‬ ‫ֲא ֶׁשר ָע ָׂשה ָּכל־יְ ֵמי ֱהיֹות ֵּבית־‬ ‫ֹלהים ְּב ִׁשֹלה‬ ִ ‫ָה ֱא‬

On the assumption that Judges 19–21 represent an appendix belatedly added to Judges 17–18,57 it can reasonably be argued that the negative references to Shiloh at the end of Judges 21 are intended to mirror the negative references to 54

55 56 57

Southwood seeks to demonstrate the “many correlations which exist between the text and modern examples of marriage by capture.” Southwood, Marriage by Capture, 1. She does not however address the significance of Shiloh as the place where such a marriage by capture occurs. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 112–13. Pace Schulz, Die Anhänge, 115n422. The syntagma is also used in Exod 13:10; Judg 11:40 and 1 Sam 2:19. See discussion in Chapter 8, Section 1 supra.

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Shiloh at the end of Judges 18. In effect, the narrative intrigue in Judges 19–21 ends where it began; in Shiloh. However, it is likely that the selection of Shiloh as the place where the surviving remnant of Benjamin will find wives is more than a literary device intended to foreshadow the beginning of 1 Samuel 1 or to reprise the ending of Judges 18. In my view, the theological/ideological importance of Shiloh in 21:6–23a lies in the simple fact that the town was located in the province of Samaria. Although Shiloh is not mentioned in Ezra-Nehemiah or Chronicles, the toponym is used in Jeremiah and Psalm 78 to refer to YHWH’s punishment of Samaria, as if Shiloh were the principal city in Samaria.58 When viewed from the perspective of the Golah community during the Persian period, the inhabitants of Samaria are “foreigners.”59 The motif of finding wives for Benjamin in Shiloh is presented in 21:15–23 as a magnanimous gesture on the part of the sons of Israel to enable Benjamin to survive and ultimately flourish. However, the “finding wives for Benjamin” motif has a polemical dimension. Because the surviving Benjaminites married Samarian women from Shiloh, all of their descendants will necessarily be the product of mixed marriages with “foreign” wives.60 This polemical “re-founding myth” of Benjamin thus transforms all of the inhabitants of the Benjamin region into a people of mixed blood with whom “true” sons of Israel (i.e., the Golah community) should not intermarry. From the Golah perspective, the “people(s) of the land” (i.e., the inhabitants of the Benjamin region who remained in the land during the Babylonian period) are thus doubly othered; they are to be held apart from the Golah because their forefathers had committed the crime at Gibeah and because their foremothers were Samarians 58

59 60

Jer 7:12.14; 26:6.9; Ps 78:59–60. I am grateful to Sophie Ramond for the reference to Psalm 78. It is generally agreed that the site of Khirbet Seilun, identified with Shiloh, was destroyed in the 11th century BCE and remained uninhabited until the final third of Iron II (8th to 7th centuries BCE) when a small settlement was refounded. Israel Finkelstein, Shiloh: The Archaeology of a Biblical Site, Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series 10 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1993), 371–389. The fact that Shiloh was a ruined city during the Persian period strengthens the polemical nature of the narrative’s characterization of the inhabitants of the Benjamin region as descended from forefathers who had committed the crime at Gibeah and foremothers who were foreigners from a city in Samaria that had also been destroyed. Ezr 4:10.17; Neh 3:34. Contra Southwood. As discussed, Southwood takes the contrary position that the daughters of Shiloh are Israelites and that their abduction by the Benjaminites gives rise to endogamous marriages. For Southwood, the polemical dimension of the text lies in the fact that readers would understand that marriages by capture are not fully legitimate. See discussion of Southwood’s position in Chapter 4, Section 4.2 supra.

b

Compositional History of Judges 21

387

from Shiloh. The relative dating of R1 in relation to N has been determined on the basis of literary indicia. As it is impossible to fix an absolute date for the stratum, it is possible that R1 worked about one generation later than N. 2.9.3 Second Redaction Stratum of Judges 21:6–23a The redactional interpolations of R2 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahme are indicated in italics in the English translation. 6aAnd the sons of Israel relented toward his brother Benjamin. 6bAnd they said: “One tribe from among Israel has been hewn off today. 7aWhat shall we do for them, for those who remain, for wives? 7bBut as to us, we swore an oath by YHWH not to give them wives from among our daughters.” 8aAnd they said: “Is there one from among the tribes of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?” 8bAnd behold! No one came from […] Gilead to the camp, to the assembly. 9aAnd the people were numbered. 9bAnd behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of […] Gilead. 10aAnd the congregation sent there […] the sons of valor. 10bAnd they commanded them, saying: “Go! And strike the inhabitants of […] Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children. 12aAnd they found from among the inhabitants of […] Gilead 400 virgin girls […]. 13aBAnd they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon. 13bAnd they proclaimed peace to them. 14aAnd Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women […]. 14bBut they did not find enough for them. 15aAnd the people, they relented toward Benjamin. 16aAnd the elders of the congregation said: “What shall we do for those who remain, for wives?” 16b(For they had been exterminated from among Benjamin, the woman). 17aAnd they said: “A survivor inheritance for Benjamin. 18aBut as to us, we cannot give them wives from among our daughters.”

‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬6

‫ֹאמר ּו נִ גְ דַּ ע הַ יּוֹ ם ׁ ֵשבֶ ט‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬6b ‫ָא ִחיו‬ ׂ ‫ה־נַעֲ ֶשה לָ הֶ ם‬ ּ ‫ ַמ‬7 ‫אֶ חָ ד ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ‫לַ נּ וֹ ָת ִרים לְ נ ִָׁשים וַ ֲאנ ְַחנ ּו נִ ְׁש ּ ַב ְענ ּו‬ ‫בַ יהוָ ה לְ ִבלְ ִּתי ּ ֵתת־לָ הֶ ם‬ ‫ֹאמר ּו ִמי‬ ְ ‫וַ ּי‬8a ‫ִמ ְּבנוֹ ֵתינ ּו לְ נ ִָׁשי‬ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶ ׁ ‫אֶ חָ ד ִמ ּ ִׁש ְבטֵ י יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל א‬ ‫ֹא־עלָ ה אֶ ל־יְ הוָ ה הַ ּ ִמ ְצ ּ ָפה‬ ָ ‫ל‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫א־א‬ ִ ָ‫וְ ִה ּנֵה לֹא ב‬8b ‫אֶ ל־הַ ּ ַמ ֲחנֶה ִמ […] ִ ּג ְל ָעד‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְת ּ ָפ ֵקד הָ ָעם וְ ִהּנֵ ה‬9 ‫אֶ ל־הַ ָ ּקהָ ל‬

‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי […] ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫ין־ׁשם ִאיׁש ִמ‬ ָ ‫ֵא‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְל‬10a ‫חּו־ׁשם ָה ֵע ָדה […] ְּבנֵ י‬ ‫וַ יְ צַ ּו ּו אוֹ ָתם לֵ אמֹר‬10b ‫ֶה ָחיִ ל‬ ]…[ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי‬ ְ ‫יתם ֶא‬ ֶ ‫לְ כ ּו וְ ִה ִּכ‬ ‫י־ח ֶרב וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬ ֶ ‫ּגִ ְל ָעד ְל ִפ‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְמ ְצא ּו ִמי ֹּו ְׁשבֵ י […] ִ ּג ְל ָעד‬12a ‫אַ ְר ּ ַבע ֵמאוֹ ת נַעֲ ָרה ְבתוּלָ ה‬

‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫וַ יְ ַד ְּברּו ֶא‬13aB ‎]…[ ‫וַ ּיִ ְק ְראּו‬13b ‫ֲא ֶׁשר ְּב ֶס ַלע ִרּמֹון‬ ‫ָשב ִּבנְ י ִָמן ּ ָב ֵעת‬ ָ ׁ ‫וַ ּי‬14a ‫ָל ֶהם ָׁשלֹום‬

]…[ ‫הַ ִהיא וַ ִ ּי ְּתנ ּו לָ הֶ ם הַ ּנ ִָׁשים‬

‫ֹא־מ ְצא ּו לָ הֶ ם ּ ֵכן‬ ָ ‫וְ ל‬

‫אמרּו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬16 ‫וְ הָ ָעם נִ חָ ם לְ ִבנְ י ִָמן‬15a ‫ּנֹות ִרים‬ ָ ‫זִ ְקנֵ י ָה ֵע ָדה ַמה־ּנַ ֲע ֶׂשה ַל‬ ‫יָמן ִא ָּׁשה‬ ִ ְ‫ְלנָ ִׁשים ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְמ ָדה ִמ ִּבנ‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫יטה ְל ִבנ‬ ָ ‫אמרּו יְ ֻר ַּׁשת ְּפ ֵל‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬17a ‫ת־ל ֶהם‬ ָ ‫נּוכל ָל ֵת‬ ַ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו לֹא‬18 ‫נֹותינּו ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְּבעּו‬ ֵ ‫נָ ִׁשים ִמ ְּב‬ ‫ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵלאמֹר ָארּור נ ֵֹתן‬ ִ ְ‫ִא ָּׁשה ְל ִבנ‬ ‫אמרּו ִהּנֵ ה‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬19a ‫יָמן‬ ‫ימה‬ ָ ‫יָמ‬ ִ ‫ַחג־יְ הוָ ה ְּב ִׁשלֹו ִמּיָ ִמים‬ )‫(וַ יְ ַצו‬20

388

chapter 11

18b(For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying: ‫יָמן ֵלאמֹר‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫[וַ יְ ַצּוּו] ֶא‬ “Cursed be he who gives a woman to Benjamin). ‫ ְּור ִא ֶיתם‬21 ‫ְלכּו וַ ֲא ַר ְב ֶּתם ַּב ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ 19aAnd they said: “Behold! [There is] the festival ‫נֹות־ׁשילֹו ָלחּול‬ ִ ‫וְ ִהּנֵ ה ִאם־יֵ ְצאּו ְב‬ of YHWH at Shiloh from days to days […] 20aAnd ‫ן־ה ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ ַ ‫אתם ִמ‬ ֶ ‫יצ‬ ָ ִ‫ַּב ְּמחֹלֹות ו‬ they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying: ‫וַ ֲח ַט ְפ ֶּתם ָל ֶכם ִאיׁש ִא ְׁשּתֹו‬ 20b“Go! And you shall lie in wait in the vineyards. ‫ִמ ְּבנֹות ִׁשילֹו וַ ֲה ַל ְכ ֶּתם ֶא ֶרץ‬ 21aAnd you shall see. And behold! If the daughִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ׂשּו־כן ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲע‬23a ‫יָמן‬ ters of Shiloh go out to whirl in the dances, then ]…[ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים ְל ִמ ְס ָּפ ָרם‬ you will go out from the vineyards. And you shall catch for yourselves, each man his woman, from among the daughters of Shiloh. 21bAnd you shall go to the land of Benjamin. 23aAnd the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they took wives in accordance with their number […]. In the R1 stratum text, the plotline moves from the punishment of Gilead to proclaiming peace to Benjamin, to finding wives for Benjamin in Shiloh. R2’s redactional activity is limited to 21:6b–15a and is bracketed by the R1 phrase, “And the sons of Israel relented toward his brother Benjamin” in 21:6a and R2’s Wiederaufnahme, “And the people, they relented toward Benjamin” in 21:15a. The intervening material transforms the N + R1 narrative about the punishment of Gilead and the reconciliation with Benjamin into a substantially longer narrative that is focused on the motif of finding wives for Benjamin in Gilead. The R2 interpolations overwrite and thereby overwhelm the underlying material. The powerful R1 phrases, “And they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon. And they proclaimed peace to them” in 21:13 become submerged in R2’s revised text with the addition of 21:12 and 21:14. R2 effectively turns on its head the methodological principle that a verse that interrupts the flow of the plotline may be a redactional interpolation. By adding two thematically consecutive verses concerning the finding of wives for Benjamin (21:12.14) around 21:13, R2 diminishes the narrative impact of Israel’s speaking with Benjamin and declaring peace. R2 thus transforms the motif of punishing Gilead for its failure to heed the all-Israel call to battle into a means for finding wives for Benjamin. To achieve this result, R2 introduces the motif of the two-step process in which the sons of Israel first look to Gilead and then to Shiloh to find wives for Benjamin. The question thus arises why R2 elected to repeat the motif of finding wives for Benjamin a second time. Two possibilities come to mind. First, R2 wanted to prolong the reader’s sense of enjoyment of the picaresque tale of finding wives for Benjamin among the dancing girls of Shiloh by adding a similar story as a sort of “prequel” to 21:15–23a. Second, R2 wanted to further polemicize the

Compositional History of Judges 21

389

pretended mixed ancestry of the descendants of Benjamin living in Yehud – they become the offspring of daughters of trans-Jordanian Gilead as well as Samarian Shiloh. This expansion of the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the N-R1 strata furthers the “othering” of Benjamin by linking the inhabitants of the Benjamin region with the Golah’s principal external enemies according to Ezra-Nehemiah, Sanballat of Samaria and Tobiah of Ammon. 2.9.4 Third Redaction Stratum of Judges 21:6–23a The redactional interpolations of R3 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahme are indicated in italics in the English translation. 6aAnd the sons of Israel relented towards his brother Benjamin. 6bAnd they said: “One tribe from among Israel has been hewn off today. 7aWhat shall we do for them, for those who remain, for wives? 7bBut as to us, we swore an oath by YHWH not to give them wives from among our daughters.”8aAnd they said: “Is there one from among the tribes of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?” 8bAnd behold! No one came from Yabesh-Gilead to the camp, to the assembly. 9aAnd the people were numbered. 9bAnd behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead. 10aAnd the congregation sent there 12,000 men from among the sons of valor. 10bAnd they commanded them, saying: “Go! And strike the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children. 11aBehold! Here is the thing that you shall do: 11bEvery male and every woman who has known the bed of a male, you shall devote to destruction.” 12aAnd they found from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls who had not known a man, in relation to the bed of a male. 12bAnd they brought them to the camp at Shiloh (which is in the land of Canaan). 13aAAnd all the congregation sent [messengers]. 13aBAnd they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon. 13b And they proclaimed peace to them. 14aAnd Benjamin returned at that time. 14aAnd they gave

‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ל־ּבנ‬ ִ ‫וַ ּיִ ּנָ ֲחמּו ְּבנֵ י יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֶא‬6‎ ‫אמרּו נִ גְ ַּדע ַהּיֹום ֵׁש ֶבט‬ ְ ֹ ‫ָא ִחיו וַ ּי‬ ‫ ַמה־ּנַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬7 ‫ֶא ָחד ִמּיִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ּנֹות ִרים ְלנָ ִׁשים וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו‬ ָ ‫ָל ֶהם ַל‬ ‫נִ ְׁש ַּב ְענּו ַביהוָ ה ְל ִב ְל ִּתי‬ ‫נֹותינּו ְלנָ ִׁשי‬ ֵ ‫ת־ל ֶהם ִמ ְּב‬ ָ ‫ֵּת‬ ‫אמרּו ִמי ֶא ָחד ִמ ִּׁש ְב ֵטי‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬8 ‫א־ע ָלה‬ ָ ֹ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֲא ֶׁשר ל‬ ‫ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה ַה ִּמ ְצ ָּפה וְ ִהּנֵ ה לֹא‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ֵ‫יש אֶ ל־הַ ּ ַמ ֲחנֶה ִמ ּיָב‬ ׁ ‫א־א‬ ִ ָ‫ב‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְת ּ ָפ ֵקד‬9 ‫ִ ּגלְ ָעד אֶ ל־הַ ָ ּקהָ ל‬ ‫ין־ׁשם ִאיׁש‬ ָ ‫הָ ָעם וְ ִה ּנֵה ֵא‬ ‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי יָבֵ ׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ְ ‫ִמ‬

‫חּו־ׁשם ָה ֵע ָדה‬ ָ ‫וַ ּיִ ְׁש ְל‬10 ‫יש ִמ ְּבנֵ י‬ ׁ ‫ֵים־עשָׂ ר אֶ לֶ ף ִא‬ ָ ‫ְׁשנ‬ ‫אֹותם ֵלאמֹר ְלכּו‬ ָ ‫ֶה ָחיִ ל וַ יְ ַצּוּו‬ ְ ‫יתם ֶא‬ ֶ ‫וְ ִה ִּכ‬ ‫ת־יֹוׁש ֵבי יָבֵ ׁש ּגִ ְל ָעד‬ ‫וְ זֶה‬11 ‫י־ח ֶרב וְ ַהּנָ ִׁשים וְ ַה ָּטף‬ ֶ ‫ְל ִפ‬

‫ֲשר ּ ַתעֲ שׂ ּו ּ ָכל־זָ כָ ר‬ ֶ ׁ ‫הַ דָּ בָ ר א‬ ‫ל־א ּ ׁ ָשה י ַֹד ַעת ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב־זָ כָ ר‬ ִ ָ‫וְ כ‬ ‫ּיֹוׁש ֵבי‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיִ ְמ ְצאּו ִמ‬12 ‫ּ ַתח ֲִרימ ּו‬ ‫יש ּגִ ְל ָעד ַא ְר ַּבע ֵמאֹות‬ ׁ ֵ‫יָב‬ ‫ֲשר לֹא־י ְָד ָעה‬ ֶ ׁ ‫תּולה א‬ ָ ‫נַ ֲע ָרה ְב‬ ‫יש לְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ַכב זָ כָ ר וַ ּי ִָביא ּו‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶ ׁ ‫אוֹ ָתם אֶ ל־הַ ּ ַמ ֲחנֶה ִׁשלֹה א‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְׁשלְ ח ּו‬13‎‫ְּבאֶ ֶרץ ְּכנ ַָען‬ ‫ל־ּבנֵ י‬ ְ ‫ּ ָכל־הָ ֵע ָדה וַ יְ ַד ְּברּו ֶא‬

‫יָמן ֲא ֶׁשר ְּב ֶס ַלע ִרּמֹון‬ ִ ְ‫ִבנ‬ ‫וַ ּיָ ָׁשב‬14 ‫וַ ּיִ ְק ְראּו ָל ֶהם ָׁשלֹום‬

390 them the women whom they had let live from among the women of Yabesh-Gilead. 14bBut they did not find enough for them. 15aAnd the people, they felt pity for Benjamin 15bfor YHWH had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. 16aAnd the elders of the congregation said: “What shall we do for those who remain, for wives?” 16b(For they had been exterminated from among Benjamin, the woman). 17aAnd they said: “A survivor inheritance for Benjamin. 17bAnd a tribe will not be blotted out from among Israel.” 18aBut as to us, we cannot give them wives from among our daughters.” 18b(For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying: “Cursed be he who gives a woman to Benjamin). 19aAnd they said: “Behold! [There is] the festival of YHWH at Shiloh from days to days (which is north of Bethel, from east of the sun to the highway that goes up from Bethel toward Shechem, 19band from the south of Lebonah).” 20aAnd they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying: 20b“Go! And you shall lie in wait in the vineyards. 21aAnd you shall see. And behold! If the daughters of Shiloh go out to whirl in the dances, then you will go out from the vineyards. And you shall catch for yourselves, each man his woman, from among the daughters of Shiloh. 21bAnd you shall go to the land of Benjamin. 22aAnd it will come to pass when their fathers or brothers come to dispute with us, we shall say to them, “Be gracious to us concerning them, for we did not take a woman for each man in the battle, 22bAnd you will not be giving [them] to them at this time [such that] you would incur guilt.” 23aAnd the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they took wives in accordance with their number from among the dancers whom they had stolen.

chapter 11

‫יָמן ָּב ֵעת ַה ִהיא וַ ּיִ ְּתנּו ָל ֶהם‬ ִ ְ‫ִּבנ‬ ‫ֲשר ִח ּי ּו ִמ ְּנ ׁ ֵשי‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ַהּנָ ִׁשים א‬ ‫א־מ ְצאּו ָל ֶהם‬ ָ ֹ ‫יָבֵ ׁש ִ ּגלְ ָעד וְ ל‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫וְ ָה ָעם נִ ָחם ְל ִבנ‬15‎‫ֵּכן‬

‫י־עשָׂ ה יְ הוָ ה ּ ֶפ ֶרץ ְּב ִׁש ְב ֵטי‬ ָ ‫ִּכ‬ ‫אמרּו זִ ְקנֵ י ָה ֵע ָדה‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬16 ‫יִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬

‫ּנֹות ִרים ְלנָ ִׁשים‬ ָ ‫ַמה־ּנַ ֲע ֶׂשה ַל‬ ‫יָמן ִא ָּׁשה‬ ִ ְ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְמ ָדה ִמ ִּבנ‬ ‫יטה‬ ָ ‫אמרּו יְ ֻר ַּׁשת ְּפ ֵל‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬17 ‫יָמן וְ לֹא־יִ ּ ָמחֶ ה ׁ ֵשבֶ ט‬ ִ ְ‫ְל ִבנ‬ ‫נּוכל‬ ַ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו לֹא‬18 ‫ִמ ִ ּישְׂ ָראֵ ל‬ ‫נֹותינּו‬ ֵ ‫ת־ל ֶהם נָ ִׁשים ִמ ְּב‬ ָ ‫ָל ֵת‬ ‫ִּכי־נִ ְׁש ְּבעּו ְבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ֵלאמֹר‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ָארּור נ ֵֹתן ִא ָּׁשה ְל ִבנ‬ ‫אמרּו ִהּנֵ ה ַחג־יְ הוָ ה ְּב ִׁשלֹו‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ ּי‬19 ‫ֲשר ִמ ְּצפוֹ נָה‬ ֶ ׁ ‫ימה א‬ ָ ‫יָמ‬ ִ ‫ִמּיָ ִמים‬ ‫לְ בֵ ית־אֵ ל ִמזְ ְרחָ ה הַ ּ ׁ ֶש ֶמ ׁש‬ ‫לִ ְמ ִס ּ ָלה הָ עֹלָ ה ִמ ּ ֵבית־אֵ ל‬ ‫ְׁשכֶ ָמה ו ִּמ ּ ֶנגֶב לִ לְ בוֹ נָה‬

‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ת־ּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ְ ‫(וַ יְ ַצו) [וַ יְ ַצּוּו] ֶא‬20 ‫ֵלאמֹר ְלכּו וַ ֲא ַר ְב ֶּתם ַּב ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ ‫יתם וְ ִהּנֵ ה ִאם־יֵ ְצאּו‬ ֶ ‫ ְּור ִא‬21 ‫נֹות־ׁשילֹו ָלחּול ַּב ְּמחֹלֹות‬ ִ ‫ְב‬ ‫ן־ה ְּכ ָר ִמים‬ ַ ‫אתם ִמ‬ ֶ ‫יצ‬ ָ ִ‫ו‬ ‫וַ ֲח ַט ְפ ֶּתם ָל ֶכם ִאיׁש ִא ְׁשּתֹו‬ ‫ִמ ְּבנֹות ִׁשילֹו וַ ֲה ַל ְכ ֶּתם ֶא ֶרץ‬ ‫וְהָ יָה ִּכי־ ָיבֹא ּו‬22 ‫ִּבנְ י ִָמן‬

)‫אֲבוֹ ָתם אוֹ אֲחֵ יהֶ ם (לָ רוֹ ב‬ ‫[לָ ִריב] אֵ לֵ ינ ּו וְ אָ ַמ ְרנ ּו אֲלֵ יהֶ ם‬ ‫חָ נּ וּנ ּו אוֹ ָתם ִּכי לֹא לָ ַק ְחנ ּו‬ ‫יש ִא ְׁש ּתוֹ ּ ַב ּ ִמלְ חָ ָמה ִּכי‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ ‫לֹא אַ ּ ֶתם נְ ַת ּ ֶתם לָ הֶ ם ּ ָכ ֵעת‬ ‫יָמן‬ ִ ְ‫ׂשּו־כן ְּבנֵ י ִבנ‬ ֵ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲע‬23 ‫ּ ֶת ְא ׁ ָשמ ּו‬

‫וַ ּיִ ְׂשאּו נָ ִׁשים ְל ִמ ְס ָּפ ָרם‬

‫אֲשר ָּגזָ ל ּו‬ ֶ ׁ ‫לות‬ ֹ ְ‫ִמן־הַ ּ ְמחֹל‬

Compositional History of Judges 21

391

The redactional activity of R3 represents an expansionary development of the N-R2 stratum. The interpolations of R3 include (i) the intertextual allusions to Numbers 13 in 21:10a.11.12. 14a;61 (ii) the interpolation of the toponym “Yabesh” to transform Gilead into Yabesh-Gilead; (iii) the digression in 21:22 concerning the possibility that the men of Shiloh might enter into dispute with the sons of Israel over the abduction of their daughters; (iv) the explanatory geographical comment concerning the location of Shiloh in 21:19; (v) the gloss in 21:13aA concerning the sending of messengers that is intended to fill-in the ellipse in R1 to explain how the sons of Israel could speak with the sons of Benjamin who were at the Rock of Rimmon; and (iv) several glosses intended to harmonize 21:6–14 with 21:15–23a. By changing the group that failed to heed the all-Israel call to battle from the inhabitants of Gilead to the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead, R3 transforms the ideological/theological perspective of the narrative. To readers familiar with the book of Samuel, Yabesh-Gilead is a locality closely associated with Saul and the land of Benjamin. In changing Gilead to Yabesh-Gilead, R3 introduces an allusion to Saul that encourages the reader to understand Saul the Benjaminite as the descendant of gang-rapists and murderers from Gibeah, Samarian women and trans-Jordanian women. The “anti-Benjamin” Tendenz that characterizes the N, R1 and R2 strata texts is thus reread by R3 as an “antiSaul” bias that anticipates the negative evaluation of Saul in certain parts of Samuel. The R3 stratum can be dated with relative confidence to the time of the Chronicler when the conflict between the Golah and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region had long been resolved. 3

Compositional History of Judges 21:23b–25

Judges 19–21 concludes with a triple closure. The first brings the adventures of the sons of Benjamin to a close: “And they went. And they came back to their inheritance. And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them” (21:23b). The second relates to the sons of Israel: “And the sons of Israel went forth from there at that time, each man to his tribe and to his family. And they went out from there each man to his inheritance” (21:24). The third appears to provide closure to Judges 19–21 as a macro-narrative: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” (21:25). It will be argued below that 21:23b–25 is a composite text in which the closure in the earliest

61

As discussed, R3 is responsible for the interpolation of almost all of the intertextual allusions in Judges 19–21.

392

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composition stratum was elaborated and developed by successive generations of redactors. 3.1 Status Quæstionis of the Compositional History of Judges 21:23b–25 There is common ground among the five commentators under review in this chapter that the first closure, 21:23b, should be assigned to the same composition stratum as 21:23a. There is however an absence of consensus on the compositional history of 21:24–25. Moore and Schulz attribute 21:24 to the same redactor who interpolated 21:6–14* (the finding wives in the Yabesh-Gilead unit). Burney, Gray and Edenburg attribute 21:24a and 21:24b to different composition strata. The methodological criterion used by Burney to distinguish between 21:24a and 21:24b is that the former begins “And the sons of Israel went forth from there …” and the latter, “And they went out from there …” As discussed, Burney argues that all verses that use the term, “sons of Israel” should be assigned to the second source and verses that can be viewed as thematic doublets and use pronouns to identify the protagonists should be assigned to the other source. Gray follows Burney. In contrast, Edenburg attributes most of 21:24a to N and all of 21:24b to a redactor, without explanation. It can be inferred that she considers that the use of the noun ‫ נַ ֲח ָלה‬in 21:23b and 21:24b is inconsistent with N vocabulary and that the last two words in 21:23b and all of 21:24b should therefore be assigned to a redactor. While Moore, Burney, Gray and Edenburg assign 21:25 to a late redactor, Schulz attributes the verse to the earliest composition stratum of Judges 21. 3.2

Judges 21:23b

Judg 21:23bAnd they went. And they returned to their inheritance. And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them.

‫וַ ּיֵ ְלכּו וַ ּיָ ׁשּובּו ֶאל־נַ ֲח ָל ָתם‬23b‎ ‫ת־ה ָע ִרים וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו‬ ֶ ‫וַ ְּיִבנּו ֶא‬ ‫ָּב ֶהם‬

From a literary perspective, 21:23b provides closure to the R1 motif of finding wives for Benjamin in Shiloh. In 21:23a, the sons of Benjamin execute the command given them by the sons of Israel in 21:19–22 and “they took wives in accordance with their number.” The unit concludes in 21:23 with four short Wayyiqtol phrases: ‫ת־ה ָע ִרים וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָּב ֶהם‬ ֶ ‫( וַ ּיֵ ְלכּו וַ ּיָ ׁשּובּו ֶאל־נַ ֲח ָל ָתם וַ ְּיִבנּו ֶא‬And they went. And they returned to their inheritance. And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them). The syntagma ‫( וַ ּיָ ׁשּובּו ֶאל־‬and they returned to X) is frequently used to close chapters62 and identifiable narrative units 62

Gen 18:33; Num 24:25; Josh 10:43; 1 Sam 26:25; 2 Sam 12:31; 2 Ki 2:25; 3:27; 1 Ch 16:43; 2 Ch 14:14. The syntagma serves as a transition to open a chapter in Gen 32:1; 2 Ch 19:1.

Compositional History of Judges 21

393

within chapters.63 The double syntagma ‫( וַ ּיֵ ְלכּו וַ ּיָ ׁשּובּו‬and they went and they returned) is also used in Gen 32:1; Num 24:25; Exod 4:18; Judg 1:16; 1 Ki 17:5; 2 Ki 19:36=Isa 37:37. Edenburg treats the phrase ‫( ֶאל־נַ ֲח ָל ָתם‬to their inheritance) at the end of 21:23a as a redactional interpolation without providing an explanation. I consider her position to be conjectural. It can be observed that of the 19 occurrences of “he/they returned” in verses in the MT that close a chapter or an identifiable narrative unit within a chapter, all of them use syntax in which “he/they returned” is followed by “to [a place].” It is therefore likely that the syntagma ‫ וַ ּיֵ ְלכּו וַ ּיָ ׁשּובּו‬in N would have been followed by a locative term. The closing phrase “And they returned to their inheritance” is followed by an additional two phrases: ‫ת־ה ָע ִרים וַ ּיֵ ְׁשבּו ָּב ֶהם‬ ֶ ‫( וַ ְּיִבנּו ֶא‬And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them). From a literary perspective, these two phrases are thematically dependent on the verse, “All the cities they found, they sent away with fire” in 20:48b. It follows that 21:23bB should be assigned to the same (or a later) composition stratum as (than) 20:48b. I propose to assign the phrases “And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them” at the end of 21:23a to R3.64 It can be observed that 20:48b and 21:23B show thematic and lexical similarities to Judg 18:27–28, the story of the building of the city of Dan on the ruins of Laish: Judg 20:48aAnd the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword, from the citadel, to the cattle, to all that they found. 48bAll the cities they found, they sent away with fire. Judg 18:27bAnd they came to Laish, to a people quiet and secure. And they struck them with the edge of the sword. And the city, they burned with fire. Judg 21:23bBAnd they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them. Judg 18:28bAnd they rebuilt the city. And they dwelled in it.

‫ל־ּבנֵ י‬ ְ ‫וְ ִאיׁש יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָׁשבּו ֶא‬‎ ‫יָמן וַ ּי ַּכוּם לְ ִפי־חֶ ֶרב ֵמ ִעיר‬ ִ ְ‫ִבנ‬ ‫ד־ּב ֵה ָמה ַעד‬ ְ ‫ְמתֹם ַע‬ ‫ל־הּנִ ְמ ָצא ּגַ ם ָּכל־הֶ ָע ִרים‬ ַ ‫ָּכ‬ ‫ַהּנִ ְמ ָצאֹות ִׁש ְּלחּו בָ אֵ ׁש‬ ‫ל־עם ׁש ֵֹקט‬ ַ ‫ל־ליִ ׁש ַע‬ ַ ‫וַ ּיָ בֹאּו ַע‬ ‫ּוב ֵֹט ַח וַ ּי ַּכ ּו אוֹ ָתם לְ ִפי־חָ ֶרב‬ ‫וְ ֶאת־הָ ִעיר ָׂש ְרפּו בָ אֵ ׁש‬

‫וַ ִ ּי ְבנ ּו אֶ ת־הֶ ָע ִרים וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו ּ ָבהֶ ם‬ ‫וַ ִ ּי ְבנ ּו אֶ ת־הָ ִעיר וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו בָ ּה‬

These parallels suggest that (i) 20:48b and 21:23bB should be attributed to the same composition stratum and (ii) this set of verses in Judges 20–21 is dependent on Judges 18, or vice versa. I propose to assign 20:48b and 21:23bB to R3 63 64

See, e.g., Gen 21:32; Exod 4:18; 2 Sam 19:40; 20:22; 2 Ki 14:14; 1 Ch 20:3; 2 Ch 31:1; 34:7. Contra Moore, Burney, Gray, Schulz and Edenburg who assign all of 21:23 to the same composition stratum, subject to Edenburg’s proposal to treat the syntagma “to their inheritance” at the end of 21:23b as a redactional interpolation.

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and to interpret its similarities with Judg 18:27–28 as an intertextual allusion intended to compare the rebuilt Benjaminite cities with Dan, a cultic site that is negatively evaluated in Judges 17–18. The anti-Benjamin Tendenz in Judges 19–21 is thus reinforced by this discrete allusion to the supposedly syncretistic cultic practices and illegitimate priesthood of the Danites.65 3.3

Judges 21:24

Judg 21:24aAnd the sons of Israel went from there at that time, each man to his tribe and to his family. 24bAnd they went out from there each man to his inheritance.

‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ ‫ָּב ֵעת ַה ִהיא ִאיׁש ְל ִׁש ְבטֹו‬ ‫ּול ִמ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתֹו וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ִמ ָּׁשם ִאיׁש‬ ְ ‫ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬

The closure in 21:23b is followed by a second ending in 21:24: ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬ ‫ּול ִמ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתֹו וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ִמ ָּׁשם ִאיׁש ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬ ְ ‫( ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ָּב ֵעת ַה ִהיא ִאיׁש ְל ִׁש ְבטֹו‬And the sons of Israel went forth from there at that time, each man to his tribe and to his family. And they went out from there each man to his inheritance.) As discussed, Burney, Gray and Edenburg assign 21:24a and 21:24b to different composition strata. Moore and Schulz attribute all of 21:24 to the same redactor who interpolated 21:6–14* (the finding wives in Yabesh-Gilead unit). I propose instead to assign 21:24 to N with the exception of the phrase ‫ָּב ֵעת ַה ִהיא ִאיׁש ְל ִׁש ְבטֹו‬ ‫ּול ִמ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתֹו‬ ְ (at that time, each man to his tribe and to his family) at the end of 21:24a. This position is supported by six arguments. First, as discussed, the motif of the sons of Israel and the sons of Benjamin constituting “tribes” is not used in any of the material in Judges 19–21 that has been attributed to N or R1. While the syntagma ‫( ִאיׁש ְל ִׁש ְבטֹו‬each to his tribe) has a familiar ring, it is actually a hapax in the MT.66 Second, the syntagma ‫( ִאיׁש ְל ִמ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתו‬each to his family) has a close parallel in the phrase ‫ל־מ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתֹו ָּת ֻׁשבּו‬ ִ ‫( וְ ִאיׁש ֶא‬And you shall return each man to his family) in Lev 25:10. The lexeme ‫מׁש ָּפ ָחה‬ ְ (family) is not used elsewhere in Judges 19–21. Third, the closest parallel to ‫( ִאיׁש ְל ִׁש ְבטֹו ְּול ִמ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתֹו‬each man to his tribe and to his family) in 21:24aB is probably Judg 18:19b:

65 66

“And the sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image. And Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh [or possibly, Moses], he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land” (Judg 18:30). The corresponding syntagma in LXXAB 21:24a, εἰς τὴν φυλὴν αὐτο, is also a hapax in the LXX.

Compositional History of Judges 21

Judg 21:24aBeach man to his tribe and to his family. Judg 18:19bIs it better for you to be a priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?”

395 ֹ‫ִאיׁש לְ ִׁש ְבטוֹ וּלְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ַפ ְח ּתו‬ ‫יֹותָך כ ֵֹהן ְל ֵבית ִאיׁש‬ ְ ‫ ֲהטֹוב ֱה‬‎ ‫יֹותָך כ ֵֹהן לְ ׁ ֵשבֶ ט‬ ְ ‫ֶא ָחד אֹו ֱה‬ ‫וּלְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ָפחָ ה ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬

It is thus possible that a late redactor interpolated ‫ ִאיׁש ְל ִׁש ְבטֹו ְּול ִמ ְׁש ַּפ ְחּתֹו‬into the text as an intertextual allusion to Judg 18:19 after Judges 19–21 had been added as an appendix to Judges. Fourth, it can be observed that the phrases ‫( וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬And they went forth) in 21:24aA and ‫( וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬And they went out) in 21:24bA are thematically similar. Notwithstanding the lexical difference, it is my position that the phrase ‫ וַ ּיֵ ְצאּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬should be interpreted as a Wiederaufnahme of the phrase ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬. It can be argued that the redactor considered that the use of the Hitpa‘el form of ‫ ָה ַלְך‬in 21:24aA meaning “to go forth in different directions” was confusing and he elected to “improve” the underlying text by changing the verb to the more common Qal form of the verb ‫ יָ ָצא‬in the Wiederaufnahme in 21:24bA. This argument is supported by LXXAB which read καὶ περιεπάτησαν ἐκεῖθεν in the place of ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬.67 If this hypothesis is correct, the intervening material – “at that time, each man to his tribe and to his family” – would constitute a redactional interpolation, and the following material – ‫ִאיׁש ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬ (each man to his inheritance) – should be interpreted as the continuation of the N material in 21:24aA. Fifth, the syntactical use of ‫ ִאיׁש‬+ a preposition + a place to mean “each man to his [place]” is well attested in the MT.68 The specific syntagma, ‫ִאיׁש ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬ is also attested in Josh 24:28; Judg 2:6; 21:23b; Jer 12:15; and Neh 11:20. The syntagma serves as a closure formula in Josh 24:28 and Judg 2:6 and possibly in Jer 12:15 and Neh 11:20 as well. In my view, there is no compelling reason to assign this closing formula to a stratum later than N.69 67 68

69

It can be noted that the LXX translates the Hitpa‘el form of ‫ ָה ַלְך‬using the verb διέρχομαι in Josh 18:4 and Ps 105:13. See, e.g., every man to his “tent” (Judg 7:8; 1 Sam 4:10; 13:2; 2 Sam 18:17; 19:8; 20:1=2 Ch 10:16; 20:22; 2 Ki 14:12=2 Ch 25:22; Jer 37:10); every man to his “house” (1 Sam 10:25;1 Ki 12:24=2 Ch 11:4; 1 Ki 22:17=2 Ch 18:16; 1 Ch 16:43); every man to his “inheritance” (Josh 24:28; Judg 2:6; 21:24b; Jer 12:15; Neh 11:20); every man to his “city” (1 Sam 8:22; 1 Ki 22:36; Neh 7:6); and every man to his “possession” (Deut 3:20). Pace Burney and Gray; contra Moore, Schulz and Edenburg. Schulz argues that the phrases “And the sons of Israel went forth from there” in 21:24a and “And they went out from there” in 21:24b refer back to the “camp at Shiloh” in 21:12b. On this basis, she takes the position that 21:24ab should be assigned to the same redactor who interpolated the finding wives in Yabesh-Gilead unit. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 117. Edenburg argues, “The formula in verse 24b is reminiscent of the editorial links in Josh 24:28 and Judg 2:6 […] and may have been

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Sixth, the syntagma ‫( ִמ ָּׁשם‬from there) may provide a clue to the dating of 21:24a. It is used 12 times in Samuel and 14 times in Kings. In contrast, ‫ִמ ָּׁשם‬ is used only once in the Chronicler’s Sondergut,70 once in Ezra-Nehemiah (in a citation from or allusion to a passage in Deuteronomy),71 and never in Daniel, Jonah or Esther. This differential distribution of ‫ ִמ ָּׁשם‬suggests that the syntagma predates Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles and may have fallen into disuse at the time of composition of these late books. If this hypothesis is correct, it is reasonable to assign all of 21:24a to N, the only composition stratum in Judges 19–21 that in my view predates the time of the Chronicler. 3.4

Judges 21:25

Judg 21:25aIn those days there was no king in Israel. 25bEach man did the right [thing] in his eyes.

‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ ‫ִאיׁש ַהּיָ ָׁשר ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬

The third closure formula in 21:25, ‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ִאיׁש ַהּיָ ָׁשר ְּב ֵעינָ יו‬ ‫יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬, consists of two asyndetic nominal phrases: “In those days, there was no king in Israel. Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes.” The first phrase in 21:25a is identical to Judg 17:6a and 18:1a, and is similar to the phrase ‫וַ יְ ִהי ַּבּיָ ִמים‬ ‫ּומ ֶלְך ֵאין ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ֶ ‫( ָה ֵהם‬And it came to pass that in those days there was no king in Israel) in 19:1a. In contrast, the use of the two phrases together in 21:25a.25b is only attested in Judg 17:6b and 21:25b. I have attempted to demonstrate that the formulae in 17:6a, 18:1a, 19:1a and 21:25a serve to close a narrative unit.72 The second phrase ‫ ִאיׁש ַהּיָ ָׁשר ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬in 17:6b and 21:25b expands the closure formula with an evaluative comment about those days in which there was no king in Israel. Clearly, these related closure formulae serve to integrate the narrative units in Judges 17–21 into a coherent whole. However, it is not clear why the second phrase is only used in two of the four related closure formulae. This issue will be addressed in the paragraphs that follow.

70 71 72

patterned upon them. If so, they may derive from R2.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 69. Edenburg appears to be arguing that because the phrase, “each man to his inheritance” constitutes a “transitional link” added by a redactor in Josh 24:28 and Judg 2:6, the phrase must have been added by a redactor in Judg 21:24b for the same reason. The compositional histories of Josh 24:28 and Judg 2:6 are beyond the scope of this work. However, even if Edenburg is correct that these two verses should be attributed to a redactor, it does not necessarily follow that Judg 21:24b should necessarily be assigned to a redactor. If the N stratum in Judges 19–21 is dated later than Josh 24:28 and Judg 2:6, it is more parsimonious to posit that N borrowed the closure formula from one of those two passages or from Jer 12:15 in which it is also used. 2 Ch 26:20. The syntagma occurs in Neh 1:9 in a passage that is a citation or allusion to Deut 30:4. See detailed discussion of the refrains in Judg 17:6a.b.,18:1a; 19:1a,21:25a in Chapter 2, Section 1 supra.

Compositional History of Judges 21

397

The related closure formulae that punctuate Judges 17–21 raise two diachronic issues. First, whether (i) a single editor added all of the similar refrains in Judges 17–21 at one time or (ii) 21:25 was interpolated in the final redaction stratum of Judges 19–21 in order to harmonize that narrative with the already existing narratives in Judges 17–18. Second, whether 21:25a and 21:25b should be assigned to the same composition stratum. As to the question of the relative dating of the closure formulae in 17:6; 18:1a; 19:1a and 21:25, Edenburg argues that 21:25 is later than the earlier formulae on the grounds that the negative evaluative tone in the formula, “Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes,” is appropriate in the context of the apostasy and idolatry described in Judges 17–18 but out of place in the context of the protagonists’ conduct in Judges 19–21.73 I concur with Edenburg’s position that a redactor added 21:25 in order to harmonize Judges 19–21 with Judges 17–18.74 As to the question of the relative dating of 21:25a and 21:25b, Edenburg argues that the two verses should be assigned to the same composition stratum.75 She states, “Moreover, it has been noted that the judgment formula [in 17:6b and 21:25b] seems to interact with Deuteronomistic idiom and ideology, since for the Deuteronomistic scribes, to do right in one’s own eyes is the inverse of doing right in the eyes of YHWH (cf. Deut 12:8,25,28).”76 In my view, Edenburg’s position is problematic for three reasons. First, it can be noted that the phrase in 25:25a (“In those days, there was no king in Israel”) is used in Judg 18:1a, and in a similar phrase in Judg 19:1a, without the so-called “judgment” formula found in 17:6b and 25:25b. Consideration should therefore be given to the possibility that either or both of the “judgment” formulae in 17:6b

73

74

75 76

Edenburg states, “[…] it is questionable whether the overall narrative presents a picture of anarchy, since the tribes act promptly and spontaneously to enforce social norms and punish their abrogation. In addition, it is unlikely that a king could have averted the assault at Gibeah or avenged the death of the concubine more effectively than the concerted action taken by the tribes in the narrative. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the offenses represented in the Gibeah story were ever under the jurisdiction of monarchic authorities. Thus, even if the chronological designation and judgment formula further the purpose of the story of Micah’s image, they are not appropriate to the context of the Gibeah story. Therefore, I conclude that the formulas were borrowed from the Micah story and affixed to frame the Gibeah story, with the purpose of creating a semblance of continuity between the adjacent narratives.” Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 296–297. Contra Schulz who argues that the formula in 19:1a forms part of the earliest composition stratum of Judges 17–21 and that the formulae in 17:6 and 21:25 were added when Judges 19* was expanded with framing narratives in Judges 17–18* and Judges 20–21*. Schulz, Die Anhänge, 242–243. Pace Moore, Burney, Gray and Schulz. Edenburg, Dismembering the Whole, 296; emphasis in original; citations omitted. Pace Schulz, Die Anhänge, 117.

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and 21:25b should be assigned to a different composition stratum than the “in those days” formulae in 17:6a, 18:1; 19:1a and 21:25a. Second, Edenburg’s assumption that “for the Deuteronomistic scribes, to do right in one’s own eyes is the inverse of doing right in the eyes of YHWH” is questionable. Phrases similar to “he did the right [thing] in his eyes” are in fact rarely attested in the MT. The closest parallels to Judg 17:6b and 21:25b are in Deut 12:8; Jer 40:4.5: ׂ ֶ ֲ‫ָשר ְּב ֵעינָיו יַע‬ Judg 17:6bEach man did the right [thing] in his eyes. ‫שה‬ ָ ׁ ‫יש הַ ּי‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ ׂ ֶ ֲ‫ָשר ְּב ֵעינָיו יַע‬ Judg 21:25bEach man did the right [thing] in his ‫שה‬ ָ ׁ ‫יש הַ ּי‬ ׁ ‫ִא‬ eyes. Deut 12:8You shall not do at all what we are doing ‫לֹא ַתעֲ שׂ וּן ְּככֹל ֲא ֶׁשר ֲאנַ ְחנּו‬ ‫ָשר‬ ָ ׁ ‫יש ָּכל־הַ ּי‬ here today. Each man [doing] the right [thing] ׁ ‫ע ִֹׂשים ּפֹה ַהּיֹום ִא‬ in his eyes. ‫ְּב ֵעינָיו‬ Jer 40:4bLook! The whole land is before you. ‫ל־ה ָא ֶרץ ְל ָפנֶ יָך ֶאל־טֹוב‬ ָ ‫ְר ֵאה ָּכ‬ ָ ‫ָשר ְּב ֵעינ‬ Go wherever is good and right in your eyes ָ ׁ ‫וְ ֶאל־הַ ּי‬ ‫ֶיך ָל ֶל ֶכת‬ to go.” ‫ָׁש ָּמה ֵלְך‬ Jer 40:5bAnd stay with him among the people or ‫וְ ֵׁשב ִאּתֹו ְּבתֹוְך ָה ָעם אֹו‬ ָ ‫ָשר ְּב ֵעינ‬ go wherever is right in your eyes to go. ‫ֶיך ָל ֶל ֶכת ֵלְך‬ ָ ‫ֶא‬ ָ ׁ ‫ל־ּכל־הַ ּי‬

Of the three related passages, only Deut 12:8 appears to hint at the possibility that doing right in one’s own eyes is the inverse of doing right in the eyes of YHWH. In my view, a single reference to doing right in one’s own eyes in Deuteronomy-Kings is insufficient to draw the inference that “each man did the right [thing] in his eyes” is, as Edenburg argues, a Deuteronomistic motif that should be treated as the equivalent of “they did evil in the eyes of YHWH.” Third, the hypothesis that 21:25b should be attributed to a later composition stratum than 21:25a is supported by the LXX variants of 17:6 and 21:25: ‫ ַּבּיָ ִמים‬‎M T Judg 17:6a ‫ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך‬ ‫ ִאיׁש‬17:6b ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫הַ ּי ׁ ָָשר ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬

‎M T Judg 21:25a

‫ַּבּיָ ִמים ָה ֵהם ֵאין ֶמ ֶלְך‬ ‫יש‬ ׁ ‫ ִא‬21:25b ‫ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫הַ ּי ׁ ָָשר ְּב ֵעינָיו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬

LXXB Judg 17:6aἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ 17:6bἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει : LXXA Judg 21 25aἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις LXXB Judg 21:25aἐν δὲ ταῖς ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν Ισραηλ 25bἀνὴρ ἕκαστος τὸ βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ 25bἀνὴρ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐποίει ἐποίει LXXA Judg 17:6aἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ισραηλ 17:6bἀνὴρ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει

Compositional History of Judges 21

399

The following agreements and disagreements among the variants can be observed. First, MT 17:6a.b. and MT 21:25a.b. are lexically identical. Second, both LXXAB 17:6a and 21:25a are lexically identical77 and appear to track closely the MT version of these two verses. Third, LXXA 17:6b and LXXA 21:25b are lexically identical except that (i) the noun τὸ ἀγαθὸν is used in 17:6b and τὸ εὐθὲς in 21:25b and (ii) the syntagma ἀνὴρ is used in 17:6b and ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in 21:25b. Fourth, LXXB 17:6b and 21:25b are lexically identical except that (i) the phrase ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ is used in 17:6b and ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ in 21:25b. The principal difference between LXXA 17:6b and LXXB 17:6b is significant. The former states, “each man did the good [thing] in his eyes” and the latter “each man did the right [thing] in his eyes.” The former differs from the MT variant and the latter conforms to the MT variant. The syntagma ‫הַ ּטוֹ ב ְּב ֵעינֶ יָך‬ (and collocations using his/her/your/their eyes) is used 12 times in MT Samuel and synoptic verses in MT Chronicles.78 Of the 12 occurrences in Samuel and Chronicles, the LXX translates ‫ ַהּטֹוב‬11 times as τὸ ἀγαθὸν.79 It is therefore reasonable to consider the possibility that (i) the phrase ἀνὴρ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει in LXXA 17:6b may reflect an earlier Vorlage that read ‫ִאיׁש הַ ּטוֹ ב‬ ‫ ְּב ֵעינָ יו יַ ֲע ֶׂשה‬and (ii) the phrase ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει in LXXB 17:6b is based on a later Vorlage that is close to the MT. It can reasonably be argued that this later proto-Masoretic Vorlage introduced the change in 17:6 from “the good [thing]” to “the right [thing]” in order to harmonize the text with 21:25b. If this hypothesis is correct, it provides an example of “crossfertilization” or “secondary scribal coordination” in which an earlier text (17:6b) is edited to harmonize it with a later text (21:25b). However, the absence of parallelism between LXXB 17:6b (ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐποίει) and LXXB 21:25b (ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐποίει) adds an additional complexity to the problem.80 As is well known, the LXX translates ‫ ְּב ֵעינָ יו‬as either ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ or as ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ. The question then arises why the LXXB translator would use ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ in 17:6b and ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ in 21:25b to translate identical verses. Three possible explanations come to mind. First, the translator varied his style and did not consider the parallelism between the two verses to be significant. Second, Judges 17–18 and Judges 19–21 were translated at different times, 77 78 79 80

The one difference between the two witnesses is that LXXB adds δὲ after ἐν at the beginning of 17:6a and 21:25a. 1 Sam 1:23; 3:18; 11:10; 14:36.40; 2 Sam 10:12=1 Ch 19:13; 2 Sam 19:19.28.39; 24:22=1 Ch 21:23. The syntagma is also used in Gen 16:6, Judg 10:15; 19:24. The sole exception among the 12 occurrences is 2 Sam 19:19 in which )‫וְ ַל ֲעׂשֹות ַהּטֹוב ( ְּב ֵעינָ ו‬ ]‫ [ ְּב ֵעינָ יו‬is translated καὶ τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ. Harlé does not comment on the lexical difference between LXXB 17:6b and 21:25b.

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reflecting the likelihood that Judges 19–21 was belatedly added to the book of Judges as an appendix. Third, both LXXAB worked from a Vorlage that included all of Judges 17–21 with the exception of 21:25b. On this hypothesis, later translators added 21:25b to LXXAB in order to bring the Greek texts closer to the proto-MT text. The possibility that 21:25b may have been the last addition to MT Judges 19–21, and that the LXX was subsequently updated to harmonize it with a more recent Vorlage, is the hypothesis that seems the most likely. This position is supported by the fact that LXXA 21:25b contains an unusual grammatical construction not found elsewhere in LXXA Judges or indeed elsewhere in the LXX. It will be recalled that ‫ ִאיׁש‬is translated as ἀνὴρ in LXXA Judg 17:6b and as ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in LXXA Judg 21:25b. The noun ‫ ִאיׁש‬is used to mean “each man” 12 times in MT Judges. LXXA Judges translates the word as ἀνὴρ in eight cases,81 as ἕκαστος in three cases,82 and as ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in LXXA 21:25b. It should be noted that the syntagma ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος is a hapax in the LXX.83 The ungrammaticality of ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος may indicate that LXXA 21:25b was translated by a later translator than the other 11 verses in Judges in which ‫( ִאיׁש‬each man) is consistently translated as either ἀνὴρ or ἕκαστος. This change in translation style supports the hypoth� esis that 21:25b was absent from the Vorlage on which the principal translator of Judges 17–21 worked and was added later by a different translator in order to harmonize the LXXA text with LXXB 21:25b and/or the later proto-Masoretic Vorlage itself. In summary, the compositional history of MT 21:25 is complex. It appears clear that the closure formula in 21:25a (“In those days there was no king in Israel”) is dependent on the closure formulae in 17:6a, 18:1a and 19:1a. The second closure formula in 21:25b is probably dependent on 17:6b. However, the analysis of LXXA 17:6b and 21:25b indicates that the former is based on an earlier Vorlage than the MT variant of that verse and the latter was added belatedly to LXXA after the translation of Judges 19–21 had already been completed.84 This supports my position that the second closure formulae in 21:25b was added to the MT in the latest redaction stratum of Judges 19–21, possibly in a stratum that post-dates R3.

81 82 83 84

Judg 7:7.8; 9:55; 16:5; 17:6; 21:21.22.24. Judg 2:6; 7:21; 9:49. Harlé does not comment on the syntagma ἀνὴρ ἕκαστος in LXXA 21:25b. I have not reviewed the status quæstionis on the issue of whether there are other verses in LXXA that show signs of late redaction to harmonize them with a later Vorlage or with LXXB. This question merits further attention and research.

401

Compositional History of Judges 21

3.5 Conclusions For the reasons discussed above, it is possible to identify certain parts of 21:23b–25 as interpolations added to the earliest composition stratum by one or more later redactors, as set forth below. 3.5.1 Earliest Composition Stratum of Judges 21:23b–25 My reconstruction of the N text is set out below. 21:24aAnd the sons of Israel went forth from there […], 24b[…] each man to his inheritance.

]…[ ‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬‎ ‫ִאיׁש ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬

The N stratum reaches closure following the reconstructed unit in 21:9–10*, “But behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of Gilead. And the congregation sent there the sons of valor. And they struck the inhabitants of Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children.” After the episode of sending the men of valor to punish the inhabitants of Gilead, the sons of Israel “went forth from there, each man to his inheritance.” The syntagma ‫ ִאיׁש ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬serves as a closure formula in Josh 24:28 and Judg 2:6. The reuse of this formula in 21:24a can be interpreted as the recycling of a literary device. However, the reuse of this formula in 21:24a may also have an ideological/ theological purpose. It is possible that N’s motif of the punishment of Gilead is a subversive rereading of the motif of reconciliation with Gilead in the story of the trans-Jordanian altar in Josh 22:9–34. As this story is the last narrative episode in Joshua before Joshua’s testament in Joshua 23 and Joshua’s long speech in Joshua 24 that ends with the phrase, “And Joshua sent away the people, each to his inheritance” (Josh 24:28), it can be argued that the N material in Judg 21:8– 10 seeks to provide the reader with a new ending to Joshua. In Josh 22:9–34, when the sons of Israel hear about the transgression of the tribes living in the land of Gilead, “the whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled at Shiloh to go up against them in war” (Josh 22:12). However, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, is able to reach a compromise and the war is averted. In the N material in Judg 21:8–10, when the transgression of Gilead is discovered, “the congregation sent there the sons of valor and they struck the inhabitants of Gilead with the edge of the sword, and the women and children.” N thus “re-writes” the fate of the inhabitants of Gilead. Reconciliation is replaced by total destruction.85 As if to emphasize his disagreement with Josh 22:9–34, N concludes 85

Barbara E. Organ compares the war against Benjamin in Judges 20 with the threatened war against the trans-Jordanian tribes in Joshua 22. She concludes, “this is the war that

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his episode concerning the punishment of Gilead with the closure formula in Josh 24:28. The reasons for N’s “anti-Gilead” bias have been discussed above. 3.5.2 First Redaction Stratum of Judges 21:23b–25 The redactional interpolations of R1 are indicated in bold type. 21:23bAnd they went. And they returned to their inheritance […].24aAnd the sons of Israel went forth from there […], 24b[…] each man to his inheritance.

‫וַ ּיֵלְ כ ּו וַ ּי ָׁשוּב ּו אֶ ל־ ַנחֲלָ ָתם‬23b

‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם‬24a ]…[ ‫[…] ִאיׁש‬24b ]…[ ‫ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬

The phrases “And they went. And they returned to their inheritance” follow directly after “And they married wives in accordance with their number” in 21:23a and thus provides closure to R1’s long interpolation of the story of finding wives for Benjamin at Shiloh in 21:13–23a. The R1 closure formula “And they went. And they returned to their inheritance” is modeled on the N closure formula “And the sons of Israel went forth from there, each man to his inheritance” in 21:24*. 3.5.3 Second and Third Redaction Strata of Judges 21:23b–25 In my view, R2 did not interpolate any material in the unit 21:23b–25. The redactional interpolations of R3 are indicated in bold type. Examples of Wiederaufnahme are indicated in italics in the English translation. 21:23bAnd they went. And they returned to their inheritance. And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them. 24aAnd the sons of Israel went forth from there at that time, each man to his tribe and to his family. 24bAnd they went out from there, each man to his inheritance. 25aIn those days there was no king in Israel.

‫וַ ּיֵ ְלכּו וַ ּיָ ׁשּובּו ֶאל־נַ ֲח ָל ָתם‬23b

‫וַ ִ ּי ְבנ ּו אֶ ת־הֶ ָע ִרים וַ ּי ְֵׁשב ּו ּ ָבהֶ ם‬

‫וַ ּיִ ְת ַה ְּלכּו ִמ ָּׁשם ְּבנֵ י־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬24 ֹ‫יש לְ ִׁש ְבטו‬ ׁ ‫ּ ָב ֵעת הַ ִהיא ִא‬

‫וּלְ ִמ ְׁש ּ ַפ ְח ּתוֹ וַ ּי ְֵצא ּו ִמ ּ ׁ ָשם ִאיׁש‬ ‫ ּ ַב ּי ִָמים הָ הֵ ם אֵ ין‬25a ‫ְלנַ ֲח ָלתֹו‬ ‫ֶמלֶ ְך ְּביִ שְׂ ָראֵ ל‬

The R3 interpolations expand and develop the underlying composition stratum with inter- and intra-textual references. The phrases, “And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them” connects the closure in Judges 21 with (i) the closure in Judges 20 (“All the cities they found, they sent away with fire”) as well as (ii) Judg 18:27–28 (“And the city, they burned with fire […]. And they rebuilt might have been waged against the Transjordanian tribes had a solution not been found.” Barbara E. Organ, “Pursuing Phinehas: A Synchronic Reading,” CBQ 63, 2 (2001): 215.

Compositional History of Judges 21

403

the city. And they dwelled in it”). The phrase “each man to his tribe and to his family” connects the closure with Judg 18:19 (“to a tribe and a family in Israel”) and, at the same time, develops the motif of “each man to his inheritance” in N and R1. Finally, the phrase, “In those days there was no king in Israel” links the closure of Judges 21 with the narrative closures in Judg 17:6a, 18:1a, and 19:1a. I have argued that the final verse, 21:25b (“Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes”), may have been added by a post-R3 redactor, probably after 100 CE, to link that verse with 17:6b. 4

Chapter Summary

Only a handful of verses in Judges 21 can be attributed to N. The narrative intrigue in the earliest composition stratum reaches a turning point in Judges 20 with the striking of the city of Gibeah with the edge of the sword and the terrified flight of all the sons of Benjamin to the desert. The narrative thread in N then resumes in 21:2.4 with a trip to Bethel where the sons Israel offer sacrifices in thanksgiving to YHWH for their victory over Benjamin. However, the action rebounds with the unexpected discovery that the inhabitants of Gilead had not come to Bethel to celebrate, presumably because they had not in fact participated in the all-Israel war against Benjamin. Israel sends a fighting force to Gilead to strike the inhabitants of Gilead by the edge of the sword as they had previously done to the inhabitants of Gibeah. The ideological/theological purpose of the N stratum in Judges 21 is to stress the importance of the community acting by consensus to punish crimes committed by members of the community. When viewed from the perspective of the Golah, the inhabitants of the Benjamin and trans-Jordanian regions shared one important trait in common: they are both Judean communities who had remained in the land during the Babylonian period and had political, economic and religious interests that clashed with those of the Golah during the early Persian period. As previously discussed, the most likely setting for the N stratum is the first half of the Persian period. The transfer of the administrative capital of Yehud from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area in circa 450 BCE provides a reasonable terminus ad quem for the stratum. The R1 stratum adds a new narrative intrigue to the brief N material in Judges 21. Picking up on the elliptical statement in N that the sons of Benjamin were terrified and had fled to the desert, R1 interpolates a long narrative unit in which Israel wants to find wives for the surviving sons of Benjamin stranded at the rock of Rimmon. The solution is to authorize the sons of Benjamin to travel to Shiloh in order to abduct young women dancing at an annual festival

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and take them home to Benjamin as wives. In response to the implicit question why the sons of Israel did not offer their own daughters to Benjamin in marriage, R1 responds that the sons of Israel had sworn an oath forbidding “intermarriage” with Benjamin. The ideological/theological purpose of this new narrative unit is to develop and expand the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the N material. Benjamin is doubly “othered” in R1. First, the ban on intermarriage with Benjamin transforms the inhabitants of the Benjamin region into “foreigners.” Second, the selection of Shiloh as the location for finding wives for Benjamin is ideologically/theologically significant. As a Samarian city, the daughters of Shiloh are “foreigners” in relation to Yehud. Because all of the surviving sons of Benjamin married Samarians, their descendants are transformed in the minds of the Golah into people of mixed blood. The relative dating of R1 in relation to N has been determined on the basis of literary indicia. As it is impossible to fix an absolute date for the stratum, it is possible that R1 worked about one generation later than N. The R2 material introduces a short narrative unit that is based on the R1 story of finding wives for Benjamin at Shiloh. R2 effectively overwrites the brutality of Israel’s total destruction of Gilead with a new narrative intrigue in which Israel finds wives for Benjamin among the daughters of Gilead. This new material in 21:6b–14* is bracketed by Wiederaufnahmen. According to R2, the descendants of Benjamin thus have Ammonite as well as Samarian maternal ancestors. This expansion of the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the N-R1 strata furthers the “othering” of Benjamin by linking the inhabitants of the Benjamin region with the Golah’s principal external enemies, Sanballat of Samaria and Tobiah of Ammon, as described in Ezra-Nehemiah. The relative dating of R2 in relation to R1 has been determined on the basis of literary indicia, and in particular on the introduction of “tribal” vocabulary into the text. Although speculative, R2 could be a contemporary of the Chronicler. The principal contribution of R3 is to craft an introduction to Judges 21 in 21:1–5 that serves to unite the two narratives of finding wives for Benjamin in both Gilead and Shiloh. This introduction overwrites underlying N material in 21:2.4. R3’s overwriting technique appears to have the ideological/theological purpose of transforming N’s cultic celebration at Bethel from one of giving thanks to YHWH for the victory over Benjamin to mourning the elimination of one tribe from among Israel. This attempt to soften the anti-Benjamin Tendenz of the N-R2 strata is also evident in R3’s interpolation of the phrase “And they [the sons of Benjamin] rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them” (21:23:b*) in the conclusion to the narrative. According to R3, the war with Benjamin ends where it began, when the sons of Benjamin gathered from “the cities” to confront the sons of Israel (20:14). R3 is also responsible for the

Compositional History of Judges 21

405

interpolation of the toponym “Yabesh” before “Gilead.” The anti-Ammonite Tendenz in N-R2 is thus transformed into an allusion to the life of Saul in which the town of Yabesh-Gilead plays a prominent role. The R3 stratum can be dated with relative confidence to the time of the Chronicler when the conflict between the Golah and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region had been long resolved.

Conclusions and Perspectives for Further Research I have attempted to demonstrate in this monograph that Judges 19–21 was composed during the first half of the 5th century BCE and underwent three redactions. The earliest composition stratum was authored by a scribe closely identified with the Golah community. The first two redactions were probably completed during the late Persian period, and the final redaction during the early Hellenistic period. It is my position that the anti-Benjamin Tendenz in the narrative reflects economic, political and ideological tensions during the early Persian period between the Golah and the people who had remained in Judah during the Babylonian period and who lived primarily in the Benjamin region. This position is supported by archeological and survey data concerning differential population levels and settlement activity in the Benjamin region and the rest of Judah during the Babylonian period. There is an absence of scholarly consensus concerning the history of Judah during the first 150 years following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. According to my reconstruction of this history, population levels and settlement activity in Judah declined dramatically during the Babylonian period, except in the Benjamin region and the Bethlehem area where economic and religious life remained essentially unchanged. Mizpah was the administrative capital of the province under Babylonian rule and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region were sufficiently prosperous to support a number of urban centers. These centers included Mizpah, Gibeah, Bethel and Gibeon, the first three of which figure prominently in Judges 19–21. This situation remained largely unchanged during the first 50 years or so of Persian rule. Members of the Golah community returned to Judah in successive waves during the early Persian period where they encountered the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region. Tensions arose between these two groups. I have identified six likely issues of contention between the two groups. First, the earliest composition stratum of Ezra-Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1–6;13*; the so-called Nehemiah Memoire) supports the proposition that the Golah community returned to Judah with the intention of exercising a leadership role over the autochthonous inhabitants of the land. It is therefore likely that tensions arose between (i) the “old” elite who lived in the urban centers of the Benjamin region and had established working relationships with the Babylonian administration based in Mizpah and (ii) the “new” elite who arrived from Babylon with the support of the new Persian imperial administration. Second, my interpretation of the Nehemiah Memoire indicates that the principal domestic opponents of the Golah were the ‫( ח ִֹרים‬nobles) and ‫ְסגָ נִ ים‬

© William Krisel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004499355_014

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407

(prefects). I interpret the “nobles” as referring to the autochthonous elite of the Benjamin region and the “prefects” as local functionaries appointed by the Babylonian administration who were probably recruited from among the inhabitants of the Benjamin region. It is likely that the administrative function of the prefects remained unchanged when the Babylonian regime was taken over by the Persians. If this hypothesis is correct, the Nehemiah Memoire provides implicit support for the proposition that relations between the Golah and economic and political elites in the Benjamin region were conflictual. Third, the administrative capital of Yehud – and thus the center of political and economic life in the province – was transferred from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area. Although the date and reasons for this change are not clear, it is likely that Mizpah ceased to be the provincial capital in about 450 BCE and that the shift to Ramat Rahel may have been related to the Golah’s rebuilding activities in Jerusalem. This change would have threatened the interests of those inhabitants of the province – rich as well as poor – whose political, social and economic lives had been centered in and around Mizpah for over a century. Fourth, I have argued more precisely that the economic situation of a large number of the inhabitants of the Benjamin region – especially those engaged in olive and grape cultivation which requires processing to produce oil and wine – is linked to the urban centers in the region where they live. The transfer of the capital from the Benjamin region to the Jerusalem area would thus have had a negative impact on a large number of the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region. It is therefore likely that the Golah’s opponents during the Persian period included not only the wealthy landowners in the Benjamin region but also the artisans, tradesmen, administrative functionaries, priests and scribes who lived in the urban centers of the Benjamin region as well as a large portion of the rural population of Benjamin whose economic activity depended on those urban centers. Fifth, it is likely that the Golah’s intention to establish the rebuilt Jerusalem temple as the central (and probably unique) cultic site in Yehud would have been opposed by the priests of Bethel and lay people who venerated that sanctuary. Sixth, archaeological and survey data indicate that the prosperous sons of Benjamin of the Babylonian period underwent a significant reversal of fortune during the Persian period. While population levels and settlement activity in the Benjamin region gradually declined, they improved in the rest of Judah. It is likely that the transfer of the administrative capital of Yehud from Mizpah to Ramat Rahel in the Jerusalem area was a significant contributing factor in this demographic and economic change.

408

Conclusions and Perspectives for Further Research

When read in the light of archaeological and survey data, Judges 19–21 can be interpreted as a narrative mise en scène of the historical conflict between the Golah and the inhabitants of the Benjamin region and the ultimate success of the Golah in establishing political, economic and religious dominance over Yehud. The victory of the Golah over the autochthonous inhabitants of the Benjamin region is presented in Judges 19–21 as being the result of divinelyapproved military action by the “sons of Israel” against the “sons of Benjamin.” Interestingly, the war story genre in Judges 19–21 is mirrored in the Nehemiah Memoire. Nehemiah 4 describes the builders of the Jerusalem walls as carrying a trowel in one hand and a spear in the other, in anticipation of an imminent attack by the Golah’s enemies. While the war motif in both narratives is probably a literary device, the Golah’s ultimate political, economic and religious domination over the Benjamin region is historically rooted. Judges 19–21 may thus be understood as forming part of a “foundation myth” of the Golah community; i.e., a set of narratives that portray a people’s migration to a new land in which their successful settlement is achieved by warfare and dispossession of the autochthonous inhabitants of the land. The Nehemiah Memoire and Judges 19–21 use different strategies for “othering” the autochthonous inhabitants of the land. The former presents the Golah’s opponents as non-Judeans supported by certain elite elements of the local population. The Golah self-identifies as the “sons of Israel” in the Nehemiah Memoire1 but does not explicitly identify its domestic opponents as Benjaminites. In contrast, the latter openly identifies the “other” as the sons of Benjamin but veils the association between the sons of Israel and the Golah. Judges 19–21 “others” the sons of Benjamin in three ways. First, the near extinction of Benjamin in Judges 20 recalls the conquest stories in Joshua in which the “foreign” inhabitants of the land are exterminated. The sons of Benjamin are thus implicitly identified in the narrative with Canaanites. Second, the implicit treatment of Benjaminites as Canaanites is reinforced by the triple repetition of an oath prohibiting the marriage of daughters of Israel with sons of Benjamin in Judg 21:1.7.18. Third, after the population of Benjamin had been reduced to 600 men, the sons of Israel arrange for the survivors to take brides in trans-Jordanian Gilead and Samarian Shiloh. The narrative thus “others” the descendants of Benjamin as having forefathers who committed a heinous crime against the Levite’s concubine and foremothers who lived outside the borders of Yehud. In reviewing the results of my research in this monograph, there is one important question that remains unresolved: I have not been able to identify 1 Neh 1:6(×2); 2:10; 13:2.

Conclusions and Perspectives for Further Research

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the author of the earliest composition stratum of Judges 19–21 more precisely than to state that he shared the ideological/theological perspective of the Golah. It is possible that this author formed part of the scribal school that Thomas Römer argues was responsible for the “Golah Redaction” of the HB.2 The passages that Römer specifically assigns to the Golah redaction are all in Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges 2–3, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.3 My research concerning the polemical bias against the inhabitants of the Benjamin region in Judges 19–21 suggests that further research is warranted to determine whether an anti-Benjamin Tendenz can be discerned in other biblical texts that would justify their attribution to the Golah redaction of the HB.4 2 According to Römer, “An important number of biblical texts from the Persian period establish a sharp distinction between the Golah, an elite community, and the ‘people of the land’, the rural population which had remained in Palestine during the Babylonian occupation. This Golah perspective can be detected in some late additions in the Deuteronomistic History as well as in certain passages in the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel which probably also underwent, at least partially, Deuteronomistic editing. The returned elite from Babylon considered itself as the ‘real Israel,’ which therefore excluded the entire non-exiled population. […] There were certainly members of the Deuteronomistic group amongst the elite that the Persians ordered back to Jerusalem for the purpose of administrative business. They brought with them the exilic edition of the Deuteronomistic History and revised it to make it fit the new challenges of the Persian period.” Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 168–169. 3 Römer attributes the following passages in the DH to the Golah Redaction: Deut 7:1–5; 12:2–7; 9:1–6; 14:2–21; 23:1–9; 25:17–19; Josh 23:4–8.10.12.16b; Judg 2:13.17.20–23; 3:1–6; 1 Ki 11:1*.2.3b.6– 8; 2 Ki 17.24–33. Ibid., 170–172. 4 An anti-Benjamin Tendenz can be discerned on a preliminary basis in (i) Jacob’s “blessing” of Benjamin in Gen 49:8–12.27; (ii) the erasure of Benjamin from the tribal list in Judg 1:1–34; (iii) the reference to Benjamin’s failure to drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem and resulting cohabitation with the Jebusites “until this day” in Judg 1:21; (iv) the characterization of the anonymous soldier who brings bad news from the battle front that results in the death of Eli as a man of Benjamin in 1 Sam 4:12–22; and (v) the characterization of Sheba, the son of Bikri, as a Benjaminite in 2 Sam 20:1 which contradicts his description as a “man from the hill country of Ephraim” in 2 Sam 20:21.

appendix

Translation of Judges 19–21 The following is a translation of my reconstruction of the final composition stratum of the Vorlage of Judges 19–21. Later changes made during the transmission process of the text are indicated in the footnotes. As it is typical in BH to place the verb before the subject and in English to place the subject before the verb, I have translated all typical BH phrases with the subject before the verb. To highlight the atypical BH semantic style in which the subject precedes the verb, I have translated these phrases atypically in English as subject, followed by pronoun, followed by verb; i.e., “And the day, it was very subdued.” 19:1bAnd it came to pass that there was a Levite man sojourning in the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine-wife, from Bethlehem of Judah.1 2aAnd his concubine transgressed against him.2 And she went away from him to the house of her father, to Bethlehem of Judah. 2bAnd she was there the days of four months. 3aAnd her husband rose up. And he went after her, to speak to her heart, to bring her back.3 (And his servant boy was with him and a pair of donkeys.) 3bAnd she brought him into to the house of her father. And the father of the girl saw him. And he rejoiced to meet him. 4aAnd his father-in-law, the father of the girl, laid hold of him. And he dwelled with him three days. 4bAnd they ate. And they drank. And they stayed the night there. 5aAnd it came to pass that it was the fourth day. And they awakened early in the morning. And he rose up to go. 5bBut the father of the girl said to his son-in-law: “Sustain your heart with a morsel of bread. And afterward you may go.” 6aAnd they sat. And they ate, the two of them together. And they drank. 6bAnd the father of the girl said to the man: “Please, agree to stay the night! And may your heart be glad.” 7aBut the man rose up to go. 7bAnd his father-in-law urged him strongly. And he came back. And he stayed the night there. 1 In my view, 19:1a (“And it came to pass in those days that there was no king in Israel”) is the last verse of the preceding narrative unit, 18:1b–19:1a. See discussion in Chapter 2, Section 2.1 supra. 2 The phrase “and his concubine transgressed against him” replaces the phrase “and she was furious with him” in the earliest composition stratum of the text. The MT variant, “and she whored against him,” represents a late change introduced during the textual transmission process. See discussion in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.1 supra. 3 Following the Qere, ‫ להׁשיבה‬vocalized as ‫יבּה‬ ָ ‫( ַל ֲה ִׁש‬to bring her back). In an earlier composition stratum the lexeme was vocalized as ‫יבּה‬ ָ ‫( ְלה ִֹׁש‬to marry her). See discussion in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.2 supra.

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8aAnd he awakened early in the morning on the fifth day, to go. But the father of the girl said: “Please! Sustain your heart!” Wait until the stretching forth of the day!” 8bAnd the two of them ate. 9aAnd the man rose up to go, he and his concubine, and his servant boy. 9bBut his father-in-law, the father of the girl, said to him: “Behold! The day has withdrawn to become evening. Please! Stay the night! Behold! The day is preparing its camp. Stay the night here! And may your heart be glad. And you will awaken early tomorrow to be on your way. And you will go to your tent.” 10aAB But the man was not willing to stay the night. And he rose up. And he went. 10aCAnd he came near Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). 10bAnd with him was the pair of saddled donkeys. And his concubine was with him. 11aThey were close to Jebus. And the day, it was very subdued. 11bAnd the servant boy said to his lord: “Go! Please, let us detour into this city of the Jebusites. And let us spend the night there.” 12aAnd his lord said to him: “We shall not detour into a foreign city with no sons of Israel. 12bAnd we shall move on to Gibeah.” 13aAnd he said to his servant boy: “Go! And we shall draw near to one of the places. 13bAnd we shall spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.” 14aAnd they moved on. And they went. 14bAnd the sun went down on them, near Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin. 15aAnd they made a detour there, to come to spend the night in Gibeah. 15bAnd he came. And he sat in the town square. But there was no man gathering them into the house to spend the night. 16aAnd behold! An old man was coming from his work, from the field, in the evening. (And the man was from the hill country of Ephraim. And he was sojourning in Gibeah. 16bBut the men of the place were Benjaminite.) 17aAnd he raised his eyes. And he saw the wayfaring man in the town square. 17bAnd the old man said: “Where are you going. And from where do you come?” 18aAnd he said to him: “We are travelling from Bethlehem of Judah to the recesses of the hill country of Ephraim. I am from there. And I had walked as far as Bethlehem of Judah. 18bAnd I frequent the house of YHWH. But there is no man gathering me into his house. 19aAnd even straw, even fodder there are for our donkeys. And even bread and wine there are for me, for your maidservant, and for the servant boy with your servants. 19bThere is lacking not a thing.” 20aAnd the old man said, “Peace to you. Just let whatever you lack be upon me. 20bJust do not spend the night in the town square.” 21aAnd he brought him into his house. And he gave provender to the donkeys. 21bAnd they washed their feet. And they ate. And they drank. 22aThey were making glad their heart. And behold! The men of the city, the men of the sons of Belial, they encircled the house, beating violently on the door. 22bAnd they said to the man, the master of the house, the elder, saying: “Bring out the man who came to your house. And we shall know him.” 23aAnd the master of the house went out to them. And he said to them: “Do not, my brothers. Please do not do evil. 23bAs this man has come to my house, do not do

Translation of Judges 19–21

413

this folly. 24aBehold my maiden daughter and his concubine. Please, let me bring them out. Rape them! Do to them what is good in your eyes! 24bBut do not do to this man this thing of folly.” 25aBut the men were not willing to listen to him. And the man took hold of his concubine. And he brought [her] out to them outside. 25bAnd they knew her. And they abused her all the night until morning. And they sent her away at the rise of dawn. 26aAnd the woman came back at the turning of the morning. 26bAnd she fell at the entrance of the house of the man where her lord was until the light. 27aAnd her lord rose up in the morning. And he opened the doors of the house. And he went out to go on his way. 27bBut behold! The woman, his concubine, was falling at the entrance of the house, her hands on the threshold. 28aAnd he said to her, “Arise! Let us go!” But no one answered. 28bAnd he took her on the donkey. And the man rose up. And he went to his place. 29aAnd he came to his house. And he took the knife. And he took hold of his concubine. And he cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces. 29bAnd he sent her into all the territory of Israel. 30aAnd so it was that that all [those] who saw said: “Nothing has ever happened or been seen like this, from the day of the going up of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, until this day. 30bSet yourselves upon it! Give counsel! And speak!’” 20:1aAnd all the sons of Israel went out. And the congregation assembled as one man, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and the land of Gilead, 1bto YHWH at Mizpah. 2aAnd the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of Israel, stationed themselves in the assembly of the people of God, 2b400,000 men on foot, drawing the sword. 3aAnd the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel had gone up to Mizpah. 3bAnd the sons of Israel said, “Speak! How did this evil happen?” 4aAnd the Levite man, the husband of the woman who was murdered, responded and said: 4b“To Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I came, myself and my concubine to spend the night. 5aAnd the masters of Gibeah rose up against me. And they circled around the house by night because of me. 5bMe, they wanted to kill. And my concubine they raped. And she died. 6aAnd I took hold of my concubine. And I cut her into pieces. And I sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel 6bfor they had done wickedness and folly in Israel. 7aBehold! You are all sons of Israel. 7bEngage yourselves in discussion and counsel here!” 8aAnd all the people rose up as one man, saying: 8b“We shall not go, not one man, to his tent. And we shall not detour, not one man, to his house. 9aAnd now, this is the thing that we shall do to Gibeah. 9bAgainst her by lot! 10aAnd we shall take ten men of a hundred in all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand of ten thousand, to take provisions to the people, 10bto do for their coming to Geba in Benjamin, for all the folly that they did in Israel.” 11And all the men of Israel gathered themselves to the city as one man, united.

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12aAnd the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribes of Benjamin saying: 12b“What is this evil that has happened among you? 13aAnd now, hand over the men, the sons of Belial, who are in Gibeah. And we shall put them to death. And let us burn out evil from Israel.” 13bBut the sons of Benjamin were not willing to listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel. 14aAnd the sons of Benjamin gathered themselves from the cities to Gibeah, 14bto go out to the battle with the sons of Israel. 15aAnd the sons of Benjamin from the cities on that day were numbered 26,000 men drawing the sword 15bbesides the inhabitants of Gibeah who were numbered 700 chosen men. 16aOut of all this people, 700 chosen men were left-handed. 16bAll of them could sling a stone at a hair and never miss. 17aAnd the men of Israel besides Benjamin, they were numbered 400,000 men drawing the sword. 17bAll these were men of war. 18aAnd they rose up. And they went up to Bethel. And they inquired of God. And the sons of Israel said: “Who shall go up for us at the beginning for the battle with the sons of Benjamin?” 18bAnd YHWH said: “Judah at the beginning.” 19aAnd the sons of Israel rose up in the morning. 19bAnd they camped near Gibeah. 20aAnd the men of Israel went out to the battle with Benjamin. 20bAnd the men of Israel arrayed for battle with them at Gibeah. 21aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out from Gibeah. 21bAnd they destroyed in Israel that day 22,000 men to the ground. 22aAnd the people, the men of Israel, strengthened themselves. 22bAnd they continued to array for battle in the place where they had arrayed the first day. 23aAnd the sons of Israel went up. And they wept before YHWH until evening. And they inquired of YHWH, saying: “Shall I continue to draw near for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother?” 23bAnd YHWH said, “Go up against him.” 24And the sons of Israel drew close to the sons of Benjamin the second day. 25aAnd Benjamin went out from Gibeah to meet them the second day. And they again destroyed among the sons of Israel 18,000 men to the ground. 25bAll these were drawing the sword. 26aAnd all the sons of Israel and all the people went up. And they came to Bethel. And they wept. And they sat there before YHWH. And they fasted that day until evening. 26bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before YHWH. 27aAnd the sons of Israel inquired of YHWH, 27b(for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. 28aAnd Phinehas the son of Eleazar, Aaron’s son, was standing before it in those days) saying: “Shall I continue again to go out for the battle with the sons of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I desist?” 28bAnd YHWH said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give him into your hand.” 29And Israel set ambushes around Gibeah. 30aAnd the sons of Israel went up to the sons of Benjamin on the third day. 30bAnd they arrayed towards Gibeah, as at other times. 31aAnd the sons of Benjamin went out to meet the people. They were drawn away from the city. 31bAnd they began to strike victims among the people as at other times, on the highways (one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah), in

Translation of Judges 19–21

415

the field, about 30 men in Israel. 32aAnd the sons of Benjamin said: “They are smitten before us, as at the first.” 32bAnd the sons of Israel, they said: “Let us flee. And we shall draw them away from the city to the highways.” 33aAnd all the men of Israel rose up from their place. And they arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar. 33bAnd the ambush of Israel, it burst out from its place, from the naked side of Geba. 34AaAnd 10,000 chosen men from all Israel came to face Gibeah. 34aBAnd the battle, it became heavy. 34bBut they did not know that disaster was close upon them. 35aAnd YHWH smote Benjamin before Israel. And the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men in Benjamin that day, 35ball these drawing the sword. 36aAnd the sons of Benjamin saw that they were smitten. 36bAnd the men of Israel gave a place to Benjamin because they relied on the ambush that they had set against Gibeah. 37aAnd the ambush, they hurried. And they made a dash to Gibeah. 37bAnd the ambush advanced. And it struck all the city with the edge of the sword. 38aAnd the meeting up of the men of Israel and the ambush, it happened, 38bin order to make an uplifting of smoke go up from the city. 39aAnd the men of Israel turned in the battle. 39bAnd Benjamin, he began to strike victims in the men of Israel, about 30 men, for they said: “Surely he is smitten before us, as in the first battle.” 40aAnd the uplifting, it began to go up from the city in a column of smoke. 40bAnd Benjamin turned around backwards. And behold! The entirety of the city went up to the heavens. 41aAnd the men of Israel, he turned. And the men of Benjamin were terrified, 41bfor he saw that he was smitten with disaster. 42aAAnd he turned around4 before the men of Israel on the desert road. 42aBAnd the battle, it overtook him. 42bAnd those from the cities were destroying him in the midst of him. 43aThey surrounded Benjamin. They chased him to the place of rest. They trod him down, 43bopposite Gibeah toward the east. 44aAnd 18,000 men from Benjamin fell. 44bAll these were men of valor. 45aAnd they turned around. And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon. And they gleaned him on the highways, 5,000 men. 45bAnd they followed after him until Gidom. And they struck among him 2,000 men. 46aAnd it came to pass that all the fallen among Benjamin that day were 25,000 men drawing the sword. 46bAll these were men of valor. 47aAnd they turned around. And they fled toward the desert, to the rock of Rimmon, 600 men. 47bAnd they stayed at the rock of Rimmon four months. 48aAnd the men of Israel, they returned to the sons of Benjamin. And they struck them with the edge of the sword, from the citadel, to the cattle, to all that they found. 48bMoreover, all the cities they found, they sent away with fire.

4 The MT variant of 20:42aA reads in the plural, “And they turned around.” I have argued that the anomalous use of the plural can be explained by dittography of the similar phrases “And they turned around” in 20:45a.47a. See discussion in Chapter 1, Section 1.1.9 supra.

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appendix

21:1aAnd the men of Israel, they had sworn at Mizpah, saying: 1bA man from among us will not give his daughter to Benjamin as wife. 2aAnd the people came to Bethel. And they sat there until evening before God. 2bAnd they lifted up their voices. And they wept a great weeping. 3aAnd they said: “Why, YHWH, God of Israel, has this happened in Israel, 3bthat one tribe is missing today from among Israel?” 4aAnd it came to pass the next day that the people awakened early. And they built an altar there. 4bAnd they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. 5aAnd the sons of Israel said: “Who is it that did not go up to the assembly from among all the tribes of Israel to YHWH?” 5bFor the great oath was [sworn] against whomever did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah, saying, “He will surely die.” 6aAnd the sons of Israel relented toward his brother Benjamin. 6bAnd they said: “One tribe from among Israel has been hewn off today. 7aWhat shall we do for them, for those who remain, for wives? 7bBut as to us, we swore an oath by YHWH not to give them wives from among our daughters.” 8aAnd they said: “Is there one from among the tribes of Israel that did not go up to YHWH at Mizpah?” 8bAnd behold! No one came from Yabesh-Gilead to the camp, to the assembly. 9aAnd the people were numbered. 9bAnd behold! No one was there from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead. 10aAnd the congregation sent there 12,000 men from among the sons of valor. 10bAnd they commanded them, saying: “Go! And you shall strike the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead by the edge of the sword, and the women and the children. 11aBehold! Here is the thing you shall do: 11bevery male and every woman who has known the bed of a male, you shall devote to destruction.” 12aAnd they found from among the inhabitants of Yabesh-Gilead 400 virgin girls who had not known a man, in relation to the bed of a male. 12bAnd they brought them to the camp at Shiloh (which is in the land of Canaan). 13aAnd all the congregation sent [messengers]. And they spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon. 13bAnd they proclaimed peace to them. 14aAnd Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had let live from among the women of Yabesh-Gilead. 14bBut they did not find enough for them. 15aAnd the people, they relented toward Benjamin 15bfor YHWH had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. 16aAnd the elders of the congregation said: “What shall we do for those who remain, for wives?” 16b(For they had been exterminated from among Benjamin, the woman). 17aAnd they said: “A possession of a remnant for Benjamin. 17bAnd a tribe will not be blotted out from among Israel. 18aBut as to us, we cannot give them wives from among our daughters.” 18b(For the sons of Israel had sworn, saying: “Cursed be he who gives a woman to Benjamin). 19aAnd they said: “Behold! [There is] the festival of YHWH at Shiloh from days to days (which is north of Bethel, from east of the sun to the highway that goes up from Bethel toward Shechem, 19band from the south of Lebonah).”

Translation of Judges 19–21

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20aAnd they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying: 20b“Go! And you shall lie in wait in the vineyards. 21aAnd you shall see. And behold! If the daughters of Shiloh go out to whirl in the dances, then you will go out from the vineyards. And you shall seize for yourselves, each man his woman, from among the daughters of Shiloh. 21bAnd you shall go to the land of Benjamin. 22aAnd it will come to pass when their fathers or brothers come to quarrel with us, we shall say to them, ‘Be gracious to us concerning them, for we did not take a woman for each man in the battle, 22bAnd you will not be giving [them] to them at this time [such that] you would incur guilt.”’ 23aAnd the sons of Benjamin did thusly. And they took wives in accordance with their number from among the dancers whom they had abducted. 23bAnd they went. And they returned to their inheritance. And they rebuilt the cities. And they dwelled in them. 24aAnd the sons of Israel went forth from there at that time, each man to his tribe and to his clan. 24bAnd they went out from there, each man to his inheritance. 25aIn those days there was no king in Israel.5 5 In my view, MT 21:25b (“Each man did the right [thing] in his eyes”) is a late interpolation, probably added during the textual transmission phase. See discussion in Chapter 11, Section 3.4.

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436

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Wong, Gregory T.K. Compositional Strategy of the Book of Judges: An Inductive, Rhetorical Study. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Yamada, Frank M. Configurations of Rape in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary Analysis of Three Rape Narratives. New York: Peter Cary Publishing, 2008. Yee, Gale A. “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17–21 and the Dismembered Body.” Pages 138– 160 in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Edited by G.A. Yee. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Zakovitch, Yair. “Inner-Biblical Interpretation.” Pages 92–118 in Reading Genesis: Ten Methods. Edited by R. Hendel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Zeelander, Susan. Closure in Biblical Narrative. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Zevit, Ziony. The Anterior Construction in Classical Hebrew. SBL Monograph Series. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. Zimmerli, Walther. Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Chapters 1–24. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979. Zorn, Jeffrey R. “Tell en Nasbeh and the Problem of the Material Culture of the Sixth Century.” Pages 413–447 in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Edited by O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003.

Index of Modern Authors Ackerman, Susan 105n Albertz, Rainer 187 Alexander, Philip S. 19n Alter, Robert 99, 215, 269, 328n Amir, Yehoshua 324n Amit, Yairah 3n, 81n, 114, 127n, 153, 154n, 155–159, 162, 166, 168 Anderson, Bradford A. Anderson, James 191–192 Arnold, Patrick M. 171n, 202n, 209, 215–216, 237–238, 240n, 257, 269, 286–288, 289n, 290, 292–293, 297n, 310, 315n, 316n, 326–327, 330–331, 333n, 334n Artus, Olivier 370n

Carr, David M. 67n, 132n, 226 Carter, Charles E. 181, 202n Carroll, Robert P. 178–180, 182, 185, 188–189, 196 Cazeaux, Jacques 166, 114 Chalcroft, David J. 2n, 111

Bach, Alice 105n Baden, Joel S. 228n Bal, Mieke 105n, 241n Baroni, Raphaël 83n, 84n Barr, James 14n Barstad, Hans M. 180–182, 185–186 Barthélemy, Dominique 11, 30n, 43n Bedford, Peter R. 182 Begg, Christopher T. 21 Beldman, David J. H. 2n, 110n Ben Zvi, Ehud 169 Berner, Christoph 314n Betlyon, John W. 175 Blenkinsopp, Joseph 127n, 155–159, 162, 168,182,190–191 Block, Daniel 105n Bourquin, Yvan 99, 117n Brett, Mark G. 99n Brettler, Marc 2n, 127n, 152, 154–155 Bright, John 178 Burney, Charles F. 152, 102, 209, 212–215, 234n, 235, 235n, 237, 246n, 256–257, 267n, 268, 270, 273n, 286–288, 289n, 290, 292, 294n, 285n, 297n, 309–310, 312, 315n, 316n, 317n 318n, 325–326, 330–331, 333n, 334n, 353–354,355n, 358n, 360n, 361n, 364–357, 370, 374n, 375, 376n, 378n, 380n, 382n, 392, 393n, 394, 395n, 397n Butler, Trent C. 112

Edelman, Diana 3n, 127n, 154–155, 158–159, 162, 174–175, 183–184, 191, 195n, 199–201, 203n Edenburg, Cynthia 9n, 75, 78, 79n, 127, 130– 131, 134–143, 209, 218–223, 227, 234n, 236, 238n, 240n, 246n, 257, 267n, 270, 271n, 273n, 275, 286–292, 294n, 295n, 296n, 300n, 310, 312–313, 315n, 317n, 318, 326n, 327, 330, 332, 333n, 334n, 335, 343n, 344, 353–354, 355n, 356, 358n, 359, 360n, 361n, 364–368, 370, 372, 374, 376–378, 378n, 380n, 382n, 385, 392–393, 393n, 394, 395n, 397–398 Eynikel, Eric 81n

Darshan, Guy 116n, 205n, Davies, Philip R. 127n, 157–159, 162, 168, 183–184, 186–187,190–191  de Pury, Albert 2n, 111, 209–210 Dever, William G. 169n Dorsey, David A. 202n Driver, Godfrey R. 11

Faust, Avraham 172n, 174, 187 Feldman, Ariel 19n Fernández Marcos, Natalio 9–10, 12, 22–25, 28, 32–38, 40–49, 51–52 Finkelstein, Israel 170n, 171n, 196n, 200–201, 292n, 386n Fishbane, Michael 129n Fried, Lisbeth S. 194n Frolov, Serge 74, 78, 329n, 330n Gangloff, Frédéric 183 Genette, Gérard 128n Gesundheit, Shimon 227 Godot, Yuval 192n Goldfajn, Tal 339, 340

438 Grabbe, Lester L. 169, 187, 193n Grätz, Sebastian 195n Gray, John 78, 102, 305, 212–214,236n, 237, 237n, 240n, 241, 246n, 257, 286–288, 290, 292, 310, 316n, 317n, 325–326, 330–331, 333n, 334, 353–354, 355n, 358n, 360n, 361n, 364–367, 370, 372, 374n, 376n, 377, 378n, 380n, 382n, 392, 393n, 394, 395n, 397n Groß, Walter 315n, 316n Harlé, Paul 17, 19, 25n,26, 30n, 31n, 67n, 68n, 329n, 330n, 399n, 400n Harrington, Daniel J. 20n, 22n Hobbs, T. Ray 1n Jacobson, Howard 20, 21n Japhet, Sara 255n, 256n Jones-Warsaw, Koala 105n Joosten, Jan 227n, 339 Kessler, Rainer 188–189, 191 Klein, Lillian R. 2n, 111 Knoppers, Gary N. 95n Korpel, Marjo C. A. 77n Kratz, Reinhard G. 70n, 209–210, 253n, 314n Lagrange, Marie-Joseph 102 Lambdin, Thomas 82n, 339n Lange, Armin 44n Lanoir, Corinne 2n, 75–78, 112–113, 121, 127n, 140n, 160n, 161, 241n Lasine, Stuart 104, 106, 107–109, 113 Lestienne, Michel 58n  Leiman, Shnayer Z. 6n Lemche, Niels P. 184 Lemmelijn, Bénédicte 19n, 45n, 49–50, 87n Leonard, Jeffrey M. 130n Levin, Christoph 60, 60n, 70n, 209, 211 Levinson, Bernard M. 129n Lipschits, Oded 170, 170n, 172–176, 181–182, 184, 192n, 198n, 292n Liverani, Mario 152, 185, 187 Macchi, Jean-Daniel 186–187, 193–197 MacDonald, Dennis R. 130n

Index of Modern Authors Marguerat, Daniel 85n, 99, 117n Matthews, Victor H. 2n, 112 McCarter Jr., P. Kyle 54n Miller, Geoffrey D. 128n Monroe, Lauren A. S. 1n Moore, George F. 11–12, 102, 151, 209, 215–216, 234n, 236, 240n, 241, 246–247n, 248n, 256–257, 267, 260, 273n, 286–290, 293, 294n, 295n, 297n, 309–310, 312, 315n, 316n, 317n, 325–326, 330, 333n, 334n, 353–354, 355n, 358n, 360n, 361n, 364–367, 370, 374n, 3776n, 378n, 380n, 382n, 392, 393n, 394, 395n, 397n Morgenstern, Julian 237n Müller, Reinhard 47n, 60, 60n, 70n Nelson, Richard D. 2, 54n Niccacci, Alviero 339, 339n Niditch, Susan 1n, 25n, 63, 115–118, 244n Nihan, Christophe 183–184, 186–187, 191, 193–197, 228–229, 231 Noth, Martin 62–63, 209 Oden, Robert 116n Organ, Barbara E. 401n Pakkala, Juhu 47n Popper, Karl 225 Rabin, C. 237n Ramond, Sophie 88n, 129n, 386n Revell, Ernest J. 91n, 327 Ricœur, Paul 305, 305n Riffaterre, Michael 131n Römer, Thomas 2n, 111, 183–184, 191, 209–210, 408 Roth, Wolfgang M. W. 81n Russell, Bertrand 215–216 Saldarini, Anthony J. 22n Satterthwaite, Philip E. 91n, 327 Schneider, Tammi J. 2n, 111 Schulz, Sarah 25n, 26n, 62n, 70n, 153–154, 159, 164–165, 210n, 216–217, 236, 238, 240, 240n, 241n, 243n, 252, 260n, 270, 273n, 286–288, 289n, 290, 292, 294n,

439

Index of Modern Authors 295n, 297n, 300n, 302n, 304n, 310, 312, 315n, 316n, 317n,326–327, 330–331, 333n, 334n, 353–354, 355n, 358n, 360n, 361n, 364–367, 370, 374n, 378n, 380n, 382n, 385n, 392, 393n, 394, 395n, 397n Sénéchal, Vincent 306n Silberman, Neil Asher 170n, 171n Singer-Avitz, Lilly 171n Smith, Anthony D. 1n Soggin, J. Alberto 31, 62n, 74, 78, 102–103, 209, 212, 214, 236n, 257, 268–270, 286n, 310n, 315n, 325–326, 330–331, 334n, 344 Soisalon-Soininen, Ilmari 17, 19 Sokoloff, Michael 13 Sommer, Benjamin D. 128n, 129, 133n Sonnet, Jean-Pierre 100, 117n, 129n Southwood, Katherine E. 113, 382n, 385n, 386n Stern, Ephraim 173, 179–180 Sternberg, Meir 84n  Stone, Ken 123n

Torrey, Charles C. 177n Tov, Emanuel 9n, 48n, 49n Trebolle Barrera, Julio 30n, 36n, 43n, 47n Trible, Phyllis 103–106 Ulrich, Eugene 48n, 49n Vermeylen, Jacques 183n, 186–189, 191 Webb, Barry G. 2n, 53, 62n, 63, 63n, 75, 77–78, 110, 113, 123, 164, 297n, 304, 329n Weinfeld, Moshe 116n Wellhausen, Julius 101–103, 209–211 Williamson, Hugh G. M. 193n Wong, Gregory T. K. 2n, 112 Yee, Gale A. 2n, 111, 157n Zevit, Ziony 339n, 340 Zimmerli, Walther 241n Zorn, Jeffrey R. 173, 175

Index of Ancient Sources Genesis 3:1 82n, 339n 4:1 82n, 339n 6:4 117n, 118n 12:11–15 124 14:8 313–314 16:1 82n, 339n 16:6 67n 18:33 89n, 272n, 392n 19:4–8 135–144, 269 20:1–14 124n 21:1 82n, 339n 21:32 393n 22:1–18 275 22:24 241n 25:6 241n 26:6–11 124n 27:30 332n 30:43 62n, 91n 31:18 26n 32:1 89n, 272n, 392n, 393 33:1 266n 33:4 367n 34:3 24n, 244n 35:22 241n 36:12 241n 42:21 122n 42:24 357n 42:30 357n 44:28 332n 45:2 357n 45:3 222 45:14–15 357n 46:29 357n 50:21 24n, 244n Exodus 2:11 118n 4:18 393 6:9 122n 10:22–24 81n 11:7 289n 12:51 62n, 91n 13:10 385n 15:22–25 81n

16:19–20 122n 29:17 275n 32:12 368 32:33 362n Leviticus 1:6 275, 275n 1:12 275n 8:20 275n 25:10 394 Numbers 14:11 16n 14:15 165n 14:23 16n 14:41 21 16:3 291 16:22 56–57 16:30 16n 18:15 332n 22:10 276n 24:25 89n, 272n, 392n, 393 31:5 374 31:17–18 376–377 32:1–32 161 32:17 221 32:29 371 Deuteronomy 2:34 376 3:6 376 3:15–20 161, 371n, 373 3:26 13–14 4:32 289n 4:41 44 5:22 291n 9:10 291n 10:4 291n 12:8 398 13:5 34n 13:14 121n 13:16 334n 17:2 21 17:7 34n 17:12 34, 122n, 298–299

441

Index of Ancient Sources 18:6 276n 18:16 291n 19:19 34n 20:13–14 334n, 376 22:21–22 34n 22:24 34n 23:1–4 291 23:8–9 291 24:3–4 26 24:7 34n 25:5 26 26:13 21 28:37 26n 29:36 26n 30:4 396n 31:12 376 31:20 16n 31:30 291n 32:19 16n 32:35 221 34:1 290 Joshua 1:10–18 44, 161, 373 2:3 138, 276n 2:15–16 81n 3:2–5 18, 81n 6:2 373 6:21 334n 7:9 136 7:11 21 7:15 21 8:3 373 8:5 376 8:14–28 136n, 213–214, 335 10:3 276n 10:6–7 276n, 373 10:25 42 10:28–39 334n 10:43 392n 11:11–14 334n, 336 13:5 44 14:12 42n 18:1 302 19:12 44 19:27 44 19:34 44 15:4 18

22:1–34 161, 302, 401 23:16 21 24:28 395, 396n, 400 Judges 1:1–2 310–312 1:16 393 2:6 68n, 395, 396n 2:15 17 2:17 22, 122n 3:10 58n, 59n 5:11–17 291, 370n 6:16 165n 6:27–32 136n, 58n 7:7–13 68n, 239, 400n 7:21 68n 8:5 343 8:17 136n 8:20 343 8:27 22 8:31 240, 240n 8:33 22 9:25 318n 9:49 68n 9:55 68n, 400n 10:2–3 58n, 59n 10:15 67n 11:1 22 11:39–40 62n, 91n, 385n 12:1 18 12:7–14 58n, 59n 13:1–2 54–57, 60 13:5 54 14:18 136n 15:20 54, 56, 58n 16:1 22 16:5 68n, 400n 16:31 54n, 58n 17:1 56, 64–65, 242 17:6 62–68, 64n, 68n, 118n, 165, 396–400 17:7–9 65n, 71n, 163, 239n, 242 17:10 72, 239 17:13 239n 18:1 62–63, 64n, 66, 118n, 165, 396–398, 400 18:2 65, 373 18:3 239n

442 Judges (cont.) 18:5–6 239 18:13 65 18:15 239n 18:19 394–395 18:27–28 336, 393–394, 402 18:30–31 394n, 395 19:1–10aB 83–86, 234–256 19:1 56, 61–65, 71n, 117n, 163, 165, 235–236, 238–239, 242–243, 354–255, 282, 396–398, 400 19:2 10–23, 50–51, 65, 71n, 120, 143, 163, 238, 243–244, 255 19:3 24–27, 42n, 50–51, 244–245, 247, 249–250, 252, 255, 266, 282 19:4 35, 72n, 120, 235, 255 19:5 72n, 235, 246–247, 248 19:6 72n, 246–248, 252–253, 255 19:7 72n, 226 19:8 28–29, 65, 71n, 226, 246–248 19:9 29, 35, 42n, 143, 226, 235, 246–248, 253 19:10aC-21 256–267 19:10 143, 247, 258, 265–266 19:11 28–29, 36, 46n 19:12 256–258, 265–266 19:13 256 19:14 29n, 256–259, 264 19:15 256–257, 259 19:16 65, 242, 259–260, 260n, 265 19:17 259n, 260–261 19:18 65, 173, 239n, 242 19:19 72n 19:20 259n, 260n 19:22–30 89, 267–284, 304–305 19:22 35–36, 121, 121n, 135–139, 144, 259n, 260n, 269, 271, 318–319 19:23 139–140, 144, 269, 271 19:24 67n, 141n, 142–144, 268–270 19:25 143, 271–272 19:26–28 143, 272–273, 276 19:27 35 19:28 42n 19:29 31, 269, 273–279 19:30 29–32, 42n, 46, 46n, 51–52, 269–270, 274, 276–279, 294–295

Index of Ancient Sources 20:1–17 285–309 20:1 57, 165–166, 165n, 287–290, 302 20:2 166, 290–292, 295, 313, 361 20:3–7 43n, 35, 239, 292–294, 298, 300, 304, 331 20:8–10 43n, 57, 165, 165n, 292, 295–297, 331, 361 20:11–14 32–34, 36n, 57, 121, 121n, 165, 165n, 296–298, 299n, 300, 361 20:14–46 90–91 20:15–17 44, 292, 299–300, 313–314, 335 20:18–31a 225, 309–324 20:18 119, 164, 229, 293, 310–312, 323, 361–362 20:19–21 69–70, 312–314, 317, 323 20:22–24 34–36, 43n, 46n, 119, 293, 314–315, 322 20:25 316–317, 323, 330, 334 20:26–28 118n, 119, 166, 217, 293, 317, 322, 324, 330, 356, 359–360 20:29 318 20:30 293 20:31b-48 225, 324–351 20:31–32 36–37, 46, 46n, 219, 222, 223, 316, 319, 331–332, 343 20:33 219, 222, 223, 318n, 325 20:34 219 20:35–36 120, 221, 318n, 325 328, 342, 349 20:37 219, 221, 318n, 328, 331, 334, 375, 383 20:38 219, 318n 20:39 219, 221, 331–333 20:40 219, 222, 343 20:41 219–220, 222 20:42 37–38, 44, 46n, 220 20:43 36, 39–40, 46, 46n, 219–220, 334 20:44–45 37, 39, 43, 222–223, 328, 330, 333–334 20:46 324, 329, 334, 342 20:47–48 37, 39, 85n, 92, 219, 262, 324, 329–330, 333–336, 349, 355, 375, 393 21:1–5 92–93, 166, 292–293, 297, 332, 353–363, 368–369

443

Index of Ancient Sources 21:6–23a 92–93, 293, 298, 363–391 21:6b-8a 298, 293, 355, 358, 362, 368–369, 378–380 21:8b-9 166, 370, 401 21:8–14 69, 70, 161, 162n, 166, 276n, 371–378, 383, 388 21:15–23a 44, 41, 44, 46, 46n, 68n, 69, 70, 94–94, 120, 166, 297–298, 358, 374–376, 378–382, 385, 400n 21:23b-25 62–62, 64n, 66–68, 68n, 94, 118n, 163, 164–165, 358, 391–405 1 Samuel 1:1–4 54–57, 60, 70n, 385 1:9 70n 1:11 55 1:17 54n 1:20 54n 1:23–24 67n, 170n, 399n 1:27–28 54n 2:12 121n 2:19 385n 3:1–2 118n 3:18 67n, 399n 3:20 289n 3:21 70n 4:1–5 70n 4:12–13 70n 4:18 55n, 58, 58n 5:9–10 136n 6:7 26 7:13–17 54–56, 58, 59n 8:5–6 58, 59n 8:19–20 58, 122n 9:1–2 60, 162 9:21 32–33, 261n 10:25–27 62n, 69, 91n, 121n 11:1–11 67n, 160, 165n, 259n, 275–277, 278n, 370n, 399n 11:12 298–299 12:20 298n 13:2 259n 13:15–16 259n 14:16 259n 14:36 67n, 399n 14:40 67n, 399n

15:13 71 15:24 21 15:34 258, 259n 17:1 259n 17:12 65, 243 18:30 62n, 91n 20:19–20 81n 20:38 220 22:7 260, 261n 23:5 26n 24:16–17 58n 25:17 121n 25:25 121n 25:39 26 26:25 392n 28:1 61n, 118n 28:14 260n 28:21 222 30:14 259n 30:20 26n 30:22 26n 31:11–13 161, 370n 2 Samuel 1:12 291 2:4–5 71, 370n 2:7 373 3:7–8 241n 3:10 289n 3:16 250 4:1 222 5:13 241n 6:17–19 289n, 360 6:21 291 10:11–12 67n, 362n, 399n 11:3 276n 11:5 276n 11 :17 136n 12:10 100n 12:14 16n 12:25 276n 12:31 392n 13:12 141, 271n 13:22 289n 13:28 373 13:30 357 13:36 357 14:13 291

444 2 Samuel (cont.) 15:16 241n 15:18 18 16:7 121n 16:21–23 118n, 241n 17:11 289n 19:3 259n 19:6 241n 19:8 24n, 244n 19:12 276n 19:15 165n 19:19 67n, 399n 19:28 67n, 399n 19:39–40 67n, 393n, 399n 20:1 121n 20:3 241n 20:22 393n 21:2 258 21:6 259n 21:11–12 241n, 370n 23:29 259n 24:2 289n 24:15–16 289n, 368 24:22 67n, 399n 24:24–25 42n, 357, 360 1 Kings 1:38 26n 1:52 34n 2:36 276n 2:42 276n 3:9 58n 3:28 58n 5:5 289n 5:22 276n 6:32 28n 7:44 58n 8:32 58n 9:9 298n 9:20 258–259 9:25 360 11:3 241n 11:13 358n 11:36 358n 14:10 34n 14:25 255 15:7 299 15:22 259n

Index of Ancient Sources 17:5 393n 20:7 34n 20:10 276n 20:25 42 20:49 256 21:10–14 121n, 276n 21:21 34n 21:35 56–57 22:7–8 42n 22:23–24 34n, 42n 22:48 62n 2 Kings 1:15 42n 2:16 373 2:19 136n 2:25 392n 3:7 276n 3:11–12 42n 3:26–27 42n, 62n, 91n, 392n 5:8 276n 6:2 62n 6:9 276n 6:16 42 6:19 26n 8:8 42n 8:12 34n 9:6 291 10:5 276n 10:32–33 44, 118n 14:1 259n 14:14 393n 15:5 58n 15:20 373 15:25 266n 15:37 118n 17:27 26n 18:4 118n 18:12 21 19:36–37 62n, 91n, 393n 20:1 118n 20:3 357 20:10 28n 21:12 34n 22:16 34n 23:2 289n 23:17 136n 23:22 58, 58n

445

Index of Ancient Sources 24:14–15 26n, 373 25:20 26n Isaiah 5:24 16n 10:14 16n 10:29 258, 259n 24:5 21 33:15 18 34:10 18 37:37 393n 38:3 357 40:2 24n, 244n 45:1 28n 57:6 368n 61:9 277n 62:10 18 Jeremiah 2:35 42n 7:12 386n 7:14 386n 10:5 42 12:15 395, 396n 15:6 368n 15:10 58n 15:16 368 16:8 42 18:8 368n 19:10 42n 20:11 42n 20:16 368 26:6 386n 26:9 386n 26:15 332n 26:17 291 31:34 289n 34:18 21 39:13 276n 40:2 298n 40:4–5 398 42:8 289n 42:10 368n 44:23 298n 51:12 289n, 318n Ezekiel 2:6 42n

6:10 298n 9:5 18 16:17 42n 23:20 240, 241n, 252n 23:23 41 24:14 368n 25:9 44 36:20 291 37:26 42n 40:7–9 44 43:6 44 Hosea 2:16 24n, 244n 3:4 61 4:4 58n 5:8 258 6:7 21 8:1 21 9:9 160 10:3 61 10:9 160 Joel 2:13–14 368n Amos 7:10 276n Jonah 1:7–8 298n 1:17–2:10 81n 3:9–10 368n 4:2 368n Micah 2:5 291 4:9 62n 7:6 72n Nahum 3:7 277n Zephaniah 2:10 291 Zechariah 14:10 289n

446 Psalms 7:1 261n 9:24 16n 10:13 16n 17:3 21n 35:1 58n 64:8 277n 73:22 58n 74:1 11 74:10 16n 74:18 16n 77:8 11 78:21–62 13–15, 386n 89:38–39 13–15 102:12 28n 107:32 291 108:11 16n 109:23 28n 144:2 28n Job 2:11 298n 5:12 26 5:19 222 12:20 26 12:24 26 Proverbs 6:34–35 85n 7:13–15 86n, 250n 7:22 250 8:29 21n 14:16 13n 16:27 121n 20:2 13–15 26:17 13 30:14 275 30:27 62n Ruth 1:1–2 71, 71n 1:4 381n 1:14 72n 2:8 18 2:11 72n 2:13 24n, 244n 2:18–19 72n 2:20 71

Index of Ancient Sources 2:23 72n 3:1 72n 3:6 72n 3:16–17 72n Song of Songs 6:8–9 240n Qohelet 2:25 221 7:23 300n 8:3 222 8:9 300n 9:1 300n 9:4 362n Lamentations 2:6 16n 3:31 11 Esther 1:2 118n 1:5 289n 1:20 289n 2:5 158 2:7 26 2:14 240n 2:21 118n 3:3 21n Daniel 3:2 276n 3:20 373 5:2–3 241n 9:11 21 9:13 298n 10:5 56–57 Ezra 2:21–32 176, 201, 201n, 202n 3:1 165n, 203n 3:8 296 3:12 357n 4:10 386n 4:17 386n 6:16 203n 6:21 203n 7:7 203n

447

Index of Ancient Sources 8:3–12 266n 8:14 266n 8:18 239n 8:33 266n 9:2 381n 9:12 381n 10:2 27n, 282 10:10 27n, 282 10:14 27n, 282 10:17–18 27n, 282 10:44 381n Nehemiah 1:6 203n, 408 1:9 396n 2:7 195n 2:9–10 195n, 203n, 408 2:16 195, 195n 3:1 195n 3:7 195n 3:9 195n 3:12 195n 3:14–20 195n, 202 3:22 195n 3:28 195n 3:34 386n 4:1–3 194 4:8 195n 4:10–14 194, 195n 5:7 195, 195n 5:12 195n 5:14–15 195n 5:18 195n 6:10–14 194 6:17–19 194–195 7:6 201n 7:25–32 201, 201n, 202, 202n 7:37 176 8:1 165n 8:14 203n 8:17 203n 9:1 203n 10:35–37 296n 10:40 203n 11:1 296, 308 11:14 373 11:20 395 11:31–35 167, 176

13:1–2 203n, 291, 408 13:4–5 195, 195n 13:7 194, 195 13:10–11 195, 195n 13:13 195n 13:17–18 298n 13:25 381n 13:27 27, 27n, 282 13:29–30 195n 1 Chronicles 1:32 241n 2:5 291 2:15 164n 2:46 241n 2:48 241n 3:9 241n 5:18 373 7:14 241n 8:12–13 176 10:2 164n 10:11–14 164n, 370n 11:4–5 258 11:14 265 11:31 259n 12:18 164n 12:28 266n 13:6 259n 15:29 62n, 91n 16:1–2 360 16:43 382n 19:13 67n, 399n 20:3 393n 21:2 289n 21:23 67n, 399n 21:26 360 24:5–31 295n 25:8–31 295n 26:7–32 295n, 373 27:12 261n 29:26 164n 2 Chronicles 2:2 276n 7:22 298n 10:16 164n 11:21 241n, 381n 12:2 256

448 2 Chronicles (cont.) 13:3 299, 308, 313–314 13:7 121n 13:15 349 14:8 373 14:11 349 14:14 392n 15:13 289n 17:13–18 266n, 373 19:1 392n 20:22 318n 20:25–27 81n 21:10 256 24:3 381n 25:6 373 25:21 259n 26:12 373 26:17 266n, 373 26:20 396n 28:6 373 30:5 289n 30:22 24n, 244n 31:1 393n 32:24 118n 34:7 393n 35:18 59n 36:6 26n 36:15 276n Judith 14:6 291n

Index of Ancient Sources 2 Maccabees 4:30 240 Sirach 19:21 21 23:5 21 23:22–27 85n 31:10 21 46:13–20 59n 1 Esdras 1:20 59n Pseudo-Philo LAB 45–47 19–21 Dead Sea Scrolls 1QJudg 44 4QJudga 44 4QJudgb 44 Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 12:19 124 Targum Jonathan Judges 2:17 22 8:27 22 8:33 22 11:1 22 16:1 22 19:2 22