Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures V: Comprising the Contents of Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Vol. 8 9781463219178

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Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures V

Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and its Contexts 6

The series Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and its Contexts publishes academic works dealing with study of the Hebrew Bible, ancient Israelite society and related ancient societies, biblical Hebrew and cognate languages, the reception of biblical texts through the centuries, and the history of the discipline. Volumes in the series include monographs, collective works, and the printed version of the contents of the important on-line

Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures V

Comprising the Contents of Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, vol. 8

Edited by

Ehud Ben Zvi

9

34 2009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2009 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2009

‫ܝ‬

9

ISBN 978-1-60724-326-7

Printed in the United States of America

ISSN 1935-6897

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. 8 (2008) The Noun ‫’( ִאישׁ‬îš) in Biblical Hebrew: A Term of Affiliation Rabbi David E. S. Stein .................................................................................1 The Friends of Antiquities (in Heb. ‫)נאמני עתיקות‬: The Story of an Israeli Volunteer Group and Comparative Remarks Raz Kletter.....................................................................................................29 The Vav-Prefixed Verb Forms in Elementary Hebrew Grammar John A. Cook ................................................................................................53 Elisha and The Miraculous Jug of Oil (2 Kgs 4:1-7) Yael Shemesh ................................................................................................71 The Elisha Stories as Saints’ Legends Yael Shemesh ................................................................................................93 The Doings of the Wicked in Qohelet 8:10 Aron Pinker .................................................................................................141 Beyond Purity and Danger: Mary Douglas and The Hebrew Bible Ronald Hendel and Saul M. Olyan ..........................................................167 Mary Douglas and Anthropological Modernism Ronald Hendel ............................................................................................171 The Relationship between the Sacrificial Laws and the Other Laws in Leviticus 19 Alfred Marx .................................................................................................183 Mary Douglas’s Holiness/Wholeness Paradigm: Its Potential for Insight and its Limitations Saul M. Olyan..............................................................................................197 v

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

The Problem of Magic and Monotheism in the Book of Leviticus Rüdiger Schmitt ..........................................................................................207 Deciphering a Definition: The Syntagmatic Structural Analysis of Ritual in the Hebrew Bible David P. Wright..........................................................................................221 Imagining Ezekiel Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo ...............................................................231 Did Rashi Notice a Janus Parallelism in Ezek 20:37? Herb Basser .................................................................................................265 Moses Outside the Torah and the Construction of a Diaspora Identity Thomas Römer ...........................................................................................269 Characterizing Esther from the Outset: The Contribution of the Story in Esther 2:1–20 Jonathan Jacobs ..........................................................................................283 “The Editor Was Nodding” A Reading of Leviticus 19 in Memory of Mary Douglas Moshe Kline ................................................................................................297 Saul as a Just Judge in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews Michael Avioz .............................................................................................367 The Temple in the Book of Haggai Elie Assis......................................................................................................377 Psalm 133: A (Close) Reading F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp.................................................................................389 In Search of The Ancient Name of Khirbet Qeiyafa Nadav Na'aman ..........................................................................................421 Khirbet Qeiyafa: Sha’arayim Yosef Garfinkel...........................................................................................429 Letters of Kings about Votive Offerings, The God of Israel and the Aramaic Document in Ezra 4:8–6:18 Andrew E. Steinmann................................................................................439 Shaaraim – The Gateway to the Kingdom of Judah Nadav Na'aman ..........................................................................................455 Late Biblical Hebrew and The Qumran Pesher Habakkuk Ian Young ....................................................................................................461

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REVIEWS KUSATU (Kleine Untersuchungen zur Sprache des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt; ed. Reinhard Lehmann) 6 (2006). Reviewed by Gary Martin.................................................................... 507 Nava Bergman, THE CAMBRIDGE BIBLICAL HEBREW WORKBOOK: INTRODUCTORY LEVEL Reviewed by Robert D. Holmstedt ................................................... 511 Steve A. Wiggins, A REASSESSMENT OF ASHERAH, WITH FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF THE GODDESS Reviewed by Joseph Azize .................................................................. 515 Steven L. McKenzie, HOW TO READ THE BIBLE: HISTORY, PROPHECY, LITERATURE—WHY MODERN READERS NEED TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR FAITH TODAY Reviewed by Brian P. Irwin ................................................................ 520 William M. Schniedewind and Joel H. Hunt, A PRIMER ON UGARITIC: LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND LITERATURE Reviewed by Charles Halton............................................................... 522 Mark S. Smith, THE RITUALS AND MYTHS OF THE FEAST OF THE GOODLY GODS OF KTU/CAT 1.23: ROYAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF OPPOSITION, INTERSECTION, INTEGRATION, AND DOMINATION Reviewed by Steve A. Wiggins ........................................................... 525 Thomas Römer, THE SO-CALLED DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY: A SOCIOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL AND LITERARY INTRODUCTION Reviewed by Barbara Green ............................................................... 527 Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, PRIESTLY RITES AND PROPHETIC RAGE: POSTEXILIC PROPHETIC CRITIQUE OF THE PRIESTHOOD Reviewed by T. M. Lemos ................................................................. 530 Tallay Ornan, THE TRIUMPH OF THE SYMBOL: PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION OF DEITIES IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE BIBLICAL IMAGE BAN Reviewed by Bernard F. Batto............................................................ 533

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

James Robson, WORD AND SPIRIT IN EZEKIEL Reviewed by D. Nathan Phinney ....................................................... 536 Jill Middlemas, THE TROUBLES OF TEMPLELESS JUDAH Reviewed by Ken Ristau...................................................................... 539 John Jarick, ed., SACRED CONJECTURES: THE CONTEXT AND LEGACY OF ROBERT LOWTH AND JEAN ATRUC Reviewed by David A. Bosworth....................................................... 541 Robert Rezetko, SOURCE AND REVISION IN THE NARRATIVES OF DAVID’S TRANSFER OF THE ARK: TEXT, LANGUAGE, AND STORY IN 2 SAMUEL 6 AND 1 CHRONICLES 13, 15-16 Reviewed by Keith Bodner ................................................................. 545 Jon D. Levenson, RESURRECTION AND THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL: THE ULTIMATE VICTORY OF THE GOD OF LIFE Reviewed by Alan Lenzi ...................................................................... 548 Linda Day, Carolyn Pressler, eds., ENGAGING THE BIBLE IN A GENDERED WORLD: AN INTRODUCTION TO FEMINIST BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN HONOR OF KATHARINE DOOB SAKENFELD Reviewed by Irene Nowell .................................................................. 551 Randall Heskett, MESSIANISM WITHIN THE SCRIPTURAL SCROLL OF ISAIAH Reviewed by Phillip J. Long................................................................ 553 Robert Wright, THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON: A CRITICAL EDITION OF THE GREEK TEXT Reviewed by Kenneth Atkinson......................................................... 557 James L. Kugel, THE LADDER OF JACOB: ANCIENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BIBLICAL STORY OF JACOB AND HIS CHILDREN Reviewed by Dan Clanton .................................................................. 560 George W. E. Nickelsburg, RESURRECTION, IMMORTALITY, AND ETERNAL LIFE IN INTERTESTAMENTAL JUDAISM AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY Reviewed by Dan Clanton .................................................................. 564 Keith Bodner, DAVID OBSERVED: A KING IN THE EYES OF HIS COURT Reviewed by Ellen White .................................................................... 569 Luke Emehiele Ijezie, THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HEBREW WORD ‫עם‬ (PEOPLE) IN SAMUEL-KINGS Reviewed by Garrett Galvin ............................................................... 571 Melody D. Knowles, CENTRALITY PRACTICED: JERUSALEM IN THE RELIGIOUS PRACTICE OF YEHUD AND THE DIASPORA IN THE PERSIAN PERIOD Reviewed by Jeremiah Cataldo ........................................................... 574

TABLE OF CONTENTS Giovanni Garbini, MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE BIBLE Reviewed by David Bergen ................................................................ 577 James W. Watts, RITUAL AND RHETORIC IN LEVITICUS: FROM SACRIFICE TO SCRIPTURE Reviewed by Bernon P. Lee ............................................................... 580 Calum Carmichael, ILLUMINATING LEVITICUS: A STUDY OF ITS LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVES Reviewed by William Gilders.............................................................. 582 Michael Malessa, UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR VERBALEN VALENZ IM BIBLISCHEN HEBRÄISCH Reviewed by Richard Benton ............................................................. 586 Mark Gray, RHETORIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN ISAIAH Reviewed by Michael Duggan ............................................................ 588 Russell E. Gmirkin, BEROSSUS AND GENESIS, MANETHO AND EXODUS: HELLENISTIC HISTORIES AND THE DATE OF THE PENTATEUCH Reviewed by Joyce Rilett Wood ......................................................... 591 Stefanie U. Gulde, DER TOD ALS HERRSCHER IN UGARIT UND ISRAEL . Reviewed by Mark W. Hamilton........................................................ 594 Gerald A. Klingbeil, BRIDGING THE GAP: RITUAL AND RITUAL TEXTS IN THE BIBLE Reviewed by Michael Allen Daise...................................................... 597 Brian D. Russell, THE SONG OF THE SEA: THE DATE OF COMPOSITION AND INFLUENCE OF EXODUS 15:1-21 Reviewed by Shawn W. Flynn ............................................................ 601 Oren Tal, THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF HELLENISTIC PALESTINE: BETWEEN TRADITION AND RENEWAL Reviewed by Gunnar Lehmann ........................................................ 604 John L. Thompson, READING THE BIBLE WITH THE DEAD: WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM THE HISTORY OF EXEGESIS THAT YOU CAN'T LEARN FROM EXEGESIS ALONE Reviewed by Amanda W. Benckhuysen............................................ 606 Bruce K. Waltke, A COMMENTARY ON MICAH Reviewed by Carolyn J. Sharp............................................................. 609 N. Wyatt, WORD OF TREE AND WHISPER OF STONE, AND OTHER PAPERS ON UGARITIAN THOUGHT Reviewed by Mark S. Smith ................................................................ 611 Elizabeth Boase, THE FULFILMENT OF DOOM? THE DIALOGIC INTERACTION BETWEEN THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS AND THE PREEXILIC/EARLY PROPHETIC LITERATURE Reviewed by Dianne Bergant.............................................................. 615

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Lee Martin McDonald, THE BIBLICAL CANON: ITS ORIGINS, TRANSMISSION, AND AUTHORITY Reviewed by Alex Jassen ..................................................................... 617 William Foxwell Albright, ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL Reviewed by Carl S. Ehrlich ............................................................... 620 Dianne Bergant, ISRAEL’S STORY: PART ONE Reviewed by John Kaltner .................................................................. 624 David M. Carr, WRITING ON THE TABLET OF THE HEART: ORIGINS OF SCRIPTURE AND LITERATURE Reviewed by Wesley Hu ..................................................................... 627 Tiberius Rata, THE COVENANT MOTIF IN JEREMIAH’S BOOK OF COMFORT: TEXTUAL AND INTERTEXTUAL STUDIES OF JEREMIAH 30-33 Reviewed by Bob Becking................................................................... 629 John Van Seters, THE EDITED BIBLE: THE CURIOUS HISTORY OF THE “EDITOR” IN BIBLICAL CRITICISM Reviewed by Yehoshua Gitay ............................................................. 632 William S. Morrow, PROTEST AGAINST GOD: THE ECLIPSE OF A BIBLICAL TRADITION Reviewed by William Irwin ................................................................ 634 Victor H. Matthews, STUDYING THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES: A GUIDE TO SOURCES AND METHODS Reviewed by Bruce Power................................................................... 637 Victor H. Matthews, 101 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ON THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL Reviewed by Todd Hibbard................................................................ 640 Walter Brueggemann, LIKE FIRE IN THE BONES: LISTENING FOR THE PROPHETIC WORD IN JEREMIAH Reviewed by Briana Lee ...................................................................... 642 Joseph Blenkinsopp, OPENING THE SEALED BOOK: INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH IN LATE ANTIQUITY Reviewed by Judith H. Newman ....................................................... 644 Francisco Javier del Barco del Barco, CATÁLOGO DE MANUSCRITOS HEBREOS DE LA COMUNIDAD DE MADRID Reviewed by Colette Sirat.................................................................... 646 Paul M. Joyce, EZEKIEL: A COMMENTARY Reviewed by Marvin A. Sweeney ....................................................... 650 Benno Jacob, THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE: GENESIS, AUGMENTED EDITION Reviewed by John Van Seters............................................................. 653

TABLE OF CONTENTS Ehud Ben Zvi, HISTORY, LITERATURE AND THEOLOGY IN THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES Reviewed by Steven L. McKenzie...................................................... 656 James L. Kugel, PRAYERS THAT CITE SCRIPTURE Reviewed by Andrea K. Di Giovanni ............................................... 659 Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline, eds. SEEKING THE FAVOR OF GOD. VOLUME 1: THE ORIGINS OF PENITENTIAL PRAYER IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM Reviewed by Andrea K. Di Giovanni ............................................... 661 Sariana Metso, THE SEREK TEXTS Reviewed by Jean Duhaime ................................................................ 664 Theodore A. Perry, GOD’S TWILIGHT ZONE: WISDOM IN THE HEBREW BIBLE Reviewed by Timothy Senapatiratne ................................................. 667 Korpel, Marjo C. A.; Oesch, Josef M. (eds.), UNIT DELIMITATION IN BIBLICAL HEBREW AND NORTHWEST SEMITIC LITERATURE Reviewed by Matthias Hopf ............................................................... 669 Thomas Krüger, Manfred Oeming, Konrad Schmid, and Christoph Uehlinger (eds), DAS BUCH HIOB UND SEINE INTERPRETATIONEN. BEITRÄGE ZUM HIOB-SYMPOSIUM AUF DEM MONTE VERITÀ VOM 14.-19AUGUST 2005 Reviewed by Philippe Guillaume ....................................................... 675

PREFACE The present publication includes all the articles and reviews published electronically in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures vol. 8 (2008). A companion including volume 9 (2009) will be published in 2010. The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures provides freely available, prompt, academically responsible electronic publication in the area. By doing so, it fulfills the important academic needs, and particularly in relation to the prompt and effective dissemination of knowledge and eventually in the creation of new knowledge through discursive interactions in ways. It successfully disseminates knowledge in a way that is not limited by a person’s ability to access recent scholarship. As such it opens increased possibilities for scholars in Third World countries, public libraries anywhere, graduate students and interested public. In addition, it is the policy of the Journal to include, and disseminate not only contributions of established scholars but also appropriate contributions of scholars in their first stages in the field. JHS’s authors and readers have come from different countries and such it contributes to a scholarly conversation that is not restricted by geographical boundaries. The Journal has grown substantially in the number of published contributions through the years, but it is still run in the main by volunteers. The journal is and has always been a demanding work of love. It is in this context that I want to mention its editorial board. It consists of Adele Berlin, Philip R. Davies, Michael V. Fox, William K. Gilders, Gary N. Knoppers, Robert A. Kugler, Francis Landy, Niels Peter Lemche, Hanna Liss, John L. McLaughlin, Hindy Najman, Scott B. Noegel, Saul M. Olyan, Gary A. Rendsburg, Gene M. Tucker and Jacob L. Wright. I thank all of them. John McLaughlin served as Review Editor since January 2004 to July 1, 2008. He deserves much praise and all the credit for the excellent reviews included here. I am particularly thankful to him and so should the readers of the journal. Beginning July 1, 2008, a team of Review Editors has taken his place. Konrad Schmid is the Review Editor for books published in xiii

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

("continental") Europe in any language except Spanish; Mark J. Boda serves as Review Editor for books published in North America or anywhere in the English speaking world and Maria-Teresa Ortega Monasterio is the Review Editor for books published in Spanish, whether in Spain or anywhere in the world. (Publishers in the UK and Ireland may send books for review to either Mark J. Boda or Konrad Schmid. Publishers of books in Catalan, Portuguese, or any other language spoken in the Iberian peninsula may send books to Maria-Teresa Ortega Monasterio and publishers in Asia and Africa may send books to any of the three). I thank the three of them. Karl Anvik, University of Alberta, has provided technical support for JHS. Sonya Kostamo, with the help of Katie Stott, prepared the present manuscript. A substantial number of individuals contributed to the preparation of articles and reviews during this year or to aspects of this manuscript. I thank them all. I would like to thank in particular the Arts Resource Centre, the Faculty of Arts, and the dept. of History and Classics at the University of Alberta for their continuous support. It is pleasure to acknowledge a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, and the willingness of Library and Archives Canada to archive the journal. All of them contribute much to the success of JHS. Finally, I would like to thank George Kiraz for publishing the printed version of JHS through Gorgias Press, for understanding the importance of maintaining the freely available electronic version of the journal, and for his own role in the development of open-access electronic academic journals. As I complete this preface and go over the many explicit thanks—and in my mind also those that are implicit here, or minimally mentioned—I can only think of how well they reflect the basic fact that the continuous existence of this open access journal and its present publication in hard copy are the result of a work of love carried out by and through so many willing hands. Ehud Ben Zvi University of Alberta, General Editor, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures

ABBREVIATIONS You will need to work through the whole document and find all the abbreviations that have been used and list these here, with name in full. You can refer to the abbreviations pages of previous volumes of JHS for the titles in full or many commonly used Journals and resources. If you find any in the current volume that can’t be identified using the earlier lists try searching for it on the internet or consult with Ehud. Here is an example of how to format the abbreviations AASF AASOR AAR AB ABD ABRL ACJS ADPV AJS ANES ANET AOAT AOTC ASOR ASV ATD AuOr AUSS BA BAR

Annales Academiae scientiarum fennicae Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research American Academy of Religion Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Anchor Bible Reference Library Annual of the College of Jewish Studies Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins Association for Jewish Studies Ancient Near Eastern Studies Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B. Pritchard. 3d ed.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Alter Orient und Altes Testament Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries American School of Oriental Research American Standard Version Das Alte Testament Deutsch Aula orientalis Andrews University Seminary Studies Biblical Archaeologist Biblical Archaeology Review xv

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

BASOR

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bulletin for Biblical Research F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907) Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentum Biblical Hebrew Biblica Biblical Interpretation Biblica et orientalia Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament. Edited by M. Noth and H. W. Wolff. Babylonian Talmud Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by J. Sasson. 4 vols. New York, 1995 Catholic Biblical Quarterly Cambridge Commentary on the New English Bible Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Context of Scripture Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Edited by D. J. A. Clines. Sheffield, 1993– Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Deutsch Verein zur Erforschung Palsätinas Early Biblical Hebrew Eretz Israel Egypt Exploration Fund English Standard Version Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Freiburger Zeitshrift für Philosophie und Theologie

BBR BDB BEATAJ BH Bib BibInt BibOr BJRL BJS BKAT B.T. BZAW CANE CBQ CNEB CHANE COS DCH DJD DPV EBH EI EEF ESV FAT FOTL FRLANT FZPT

ABBREVIATIONS GAT GKG GTJ HALOT HAR HBS HCSB HS HSM HTR HUCA IAA IBC ICC IDAM IEJ IES IOSCS JANES JAOS JB JBL JBQ JETS JHS JJS JNES JNSL JPS JQR JSOT JSOTSup JSS JTS KAT

Gundrisse zum Alten Testament Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Translated by A. E. Cowley. 2d. ed. Oxford, 1910. Grace Theological Journal The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament Hebrew Annual Review Herder’s Biblical Studies Holman Christian Standard Bible Hebrew Studies Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Israel Antiquities Authority International Bible Commentary International Critical Commentary Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums Israel Exploration Journal Israel Exploration Society International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Jerusalem Bible Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Bible Quarterly Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Publication Society Jewish Quarterly Review Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Kommentar zum Alten Testament

xvii

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

LBH LCL LXX MH MSIA

Late Biblical Hebrew Loeb Classical Library Septuagint Mishnaic Hebrew Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Masoretic Text The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land Neue Echter Bibel New Century Bible New Century Bible Commentary New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Version New International Version, Inclusive Language Edition New Jerusalem Bible Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text New Jewish Publication Society Translation New Living Translation New Revised Standard Version Oriental Institute Publications Old Testament Essays Old Testament Guides Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studiën Palestine Exploration Quarterly Palestine Exploration Fund Qumran Hebrew Revista de interpretación bíblica latino-americana Revised Standard Version Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Society of Biblical Studies Seminar Papers Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament

MT NEAEHL NEchtB NCB NCBC NICOT NIV NIVI NJB NJPS NJPSV NLT NRSV OIP OTE OTG OTL OtSt PEQ PEF QH RIBLA RSV SBAB SBL SBLDS SBLSCS SBLSP SHCANE SJOT

ABBREVIATIONS SSN STDJ TA TBC TDOT ThStKr TNIV VT VTSup WBC WMANT WTJ ZAH ZAW

Studia semitica neerlandica SubBi Subsidia biblica Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Tel Aviv Torch Bible Commentary G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.) Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1974–) Theologische Studien und Kritiken Today's New International Version Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Westminster Theological Journal Zeitschrift für Althebraistik Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

xix

THE NOUN ‫’( ִאישׁ‬Ί) IN BIBLICAL HEBREW: A TERM OF AFFILIATION RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN FREELANCE JUDAICA EDITOR

“The last place to look for the meaning of a word is in the dictionary.” —Harold P. Scanlin1

One of the most frequent nouns in the Hebrew Bible is ‫( ִאישׁ‬and its functional plural, ‫) ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬, appearing well over two thousand times.2 Lexicons and grammars generally gloss it as “man” (adult male). However, my own semantic analysis suggests that ‫ ִאישׁ‬functions very differently in biblical Hebrew than the conventional view allows. Most often, it seems to be a term of affiliation; that is, the noun denotes relationship either to a “The Study of Semantics in General Linguistics,” in Walter P. Bodine, ed. Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), p. 134. 2 This article, which I dedicate to the memory of my gracious mother-in-law, Nicole Uffer (d. 3 Feb. 2008), is based on my presentation to the Biblical Lexicography section of the Society of Biblical Literature on Nov. 19, 2007. I thank Prof. Carol Meyers (Duke Univ.) for patiently critiquing several iterations of my understanding of ‫ ִאישׁ‬during our work on The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006), for which I served as the revising editor. I am grateful also to Dr. Reinier de Blois (Editor, Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew) for his tutelage, as well as to Rabbis Ivan Caine and Vivie Mayer (Reconstructionist Rabbinical College), Dr. Laurence Kutler, and Professors Adele Berlin (Univ. of Maryland), Alan Crown (Univ. of Sydney, emeritus), Edward Greenstein (Bar-Ilan Univ.), Stephen Kaufman (Hebrew Union College/Cincinnati), Samuel Meier (Ohio State Univ.), Bruce Waltke (Reformed Theological Seminary), and Ziony Zevit (American Jewish Univ.) for their thoughtful responses to my queries on the semantics of ‫ ִאישׁ‬. I also thank the anonymous reviewers. 1

1

2

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

group or to another party. Only occasionally and incidentally does ‫ִאישׁ‬ connote an “adult male.” My analysis treats in a more cursory way the feminine counterpart term ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬, which appears in the Bible some 781 times, roughly one-third as often as ‫אישׁ‬. ִ It evaluates the semantic correspondences between the two terms mainly for what they say regarding ‫אישׁ‬. ִ

PRIOR SCHOLARSHIP ON ‫ ִאישׁ‬AS A TERM OF AFFILIATION More than thirty years ago, the late Alison Grant examined 2174 instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬in the Bible.3 She classified each instance according to the nature of its reference—most basically, whether it was particular or general. Latent in her article are the distributions shown in the following table. Types of Reference

Frequency of usage

Any or each member of a defined group or class

74%

Particular individual (definite or indefinite)

20%

Anyone (undefined group)

4%

General human reference

1% 99%

Grant found that at most 20% of all instances of the noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬point to a particular individual (with either definite or indefinite reference). In nearly 3 out of 4 cases, ‫ ִאישׁ‬denotes any or each member of a defined group or category of persons. The distribution is so lopsided that one can hardly gainsay that most biblical instances of this word situate the referent in relation to a group.4 Grant drew the following conclusion: Alison M. Grant, “’Adam and ’Ish: Man in the OT,” Australian Biblical Review 25 (1977), pp. 2–11. Grant checked all instances that she could locate. According to TLOT (below, n. 10), the common noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬occurs 2183 times in the Bible; per DCH (below, n. 8), 2179 times; per Accordance 7.4 (Bible software), 2187. The discrepancy of 1% does not affect Grant’s overall results or principal conclusions. 4 Grant’s report did not present a complete tabulation of how she categorized every instance of the words under study. Arguably the reader or the present author might well prefer to classify some instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬differently. However, because most instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬are uncontroversial, chances are that any such reclassification would not appreciably affect the basic result. 3

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

3

’ish . . . relates primarily to an individual as a member of a particular group. . . . [An] ’ish . . . would not be thought of as an individual with an independent existence, . . . but always in relation to [a] particular group or community. (pp. 9–10)

In other words, ‫ ִאישׁ‬appears to be a term of affiliation. Yet Grant’s insight into the nature of ‫ ִאישׁ‬hardly figures into recent lexicography, as can be seen by checking six standard lexical reference works published since her article appeared. The first meaning (implicitly or explicitly the primary meaning) listed in those works is as follows: • “Connotes primarily the concept of man as an individual.”5 • “Biologically male nature.”6 • “Man in a general sense, with further specification via opposition.”7 • “Usually man, person, often without contextual emphasis on gender.”8 • “The basic meaning of ʾîš is man, and it is the opposite of ʾîššâ, woman.”9 • “The word’s basic meaning is ‘man’ (the mature male in contrast to the woman).”10 Even such a brief glance is sufficient to show that the lexicographers have not perceived ‫ ִאישׁ‬to be an intrinsically relational term.11 Although 5 Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (1980), edited by R. Laird Harris; entry 83a on ‫ ִאיש‬by Thomas E. McComiskey. 6 “biol. männliches Wesen” (my transl.), Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament (1987), by Wilhelm Gesenius, 18th edn., rev. Rudolph Meyer and Herbert Donner, pp. 50–51. 7 “Hombre. En sentido genérico, que se puede especificar por polarización, es decir, contrapuesto a otro” (my transl.), Diccionario Biblico Hebreo-Español [= DBHE] (1993), edited by Luis Alonso-Schökel. 8 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew [= DCH] (1993), edited by David J.A. Clines, Vol. 1: 221–22. 9 New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (1997), edited by Willem A. VanGemeren; entry #408 by Victor P. Hamilton, pp. 388–90. This entry cites Alison Grant’s article yet does not engage her conclusions. 10 Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament [= TLOT] (1997), edited by Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, transl. Mark E. Biddle; entry by J. Kühlewein, pp. 98–104. 11 A more comprehensive examination of the cited articles yields the same result—as does consultation of the following six earlier reference works, listed in chronological order: The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon [= BDB] (1906), based on the work of Wilhelm Gesenius, p. 35; Ensîqlopedyâ miqrāʾît (1950), ed. Eleazar Sukenik, pp. 273–274; Osar lĕshôn ha-miqrāʾ (1957), ed. S.

4

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

some lexicons do indicate that ‫ ִאישׁ‬occasionally bears the sense of someone who stands in relationship to a group or party (e.g., “retainers,” “governor,” “escorts”), the cases that they then cite tend to signal affiliation syntactically—via a possessive suffix or a genitive construction—rather than stating that ‫ ִאישׁ‬alone may bear this meaning. However, Grant’s finding warrants a second look because of other, nonlinguistic scholarship during the past three decades. Various scholars have applied social science methodologies to reconstruct the society of ancient Israel and its neighbors. They have consistently concluded that ancient Near Eastern societies were group-oriented rather than individualoriented, and personal identity was viewed in relational terms.12 Of course, a conceptual group orientation does not necessarily determine the meaning of any particular word in that culture’s language. Even so, it does commend to Loewenstamm and Y. Blau, pp. 100–101; The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament [= HALOT] (1967), edited by Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm (transl. Richardson, 2001), Study Edn., Vol. 1: 43–44; Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. Botterweck and Ringgren [= TDOT] (transl. 1974), entry on ‫ ִאישׁ‬by N. P. Bratsiotis, Vol. 1: 222–35; Qônqôrdansyâ hădāshâ (Hebrew), ed. Abraham Even-Shoshan (1977; 4th edn., 1982), p. 49. 12 Those scholars’ statements, listed in chronological order, include the following: “In the ancient world, . . . individuals were first and foremost members of a group.” —Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel (1996), pp. 3, 374. “The primary means of maintaining [social] order [was the] opposition between [competing] groups—families, clans, . . . lineages, and tribes.” —Paula McNutt, Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel (1999), p. 78. “In kinship-based communities [like ancient Israel], persons . . . interact with one another . . . to a large extent on the basis of blood descent.” —Timothy Willis, The Elders of the City: A Study of the Elders-Laws in Deuteronomy (2001), p. 21. “A person was not an autonomous entity but someone’s father, mother, daughter, son, grandparent, and so forth. These terms designated behavior as much as biology.” —Carol Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” in Families in Ancient Israel (1997), pp. 21–22. “The ‘household’ . . . provides the template for social interaction at all levels. . . Subordinates are either ‘sons’ or ‘servants’ of the person in authority, [and] superiors are ‘fathers’ or ‘masters.’ ” —J. David Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (2001), pp. 70–71.

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

5

us a procedural preference: when we have a choice between two plausible ways to construe ‫אישׁ‬, ִ the one that warrants consideration first is the one closest to ancient Near Eastern realities and concepts. In this article, therefore, I investigate the validity of Grant’s conclusion regarding the semantics of ‫אישׁ‬, ִ using the tools of modern linguistics. Specifically, I examine whether ‫אישׁ‬, ִ in its primary (that is, most frequently attested) sense, intrinsically denotes relationship or affiliation.

PARADIGMATIC (COMPARATIVE) ANALYSIS ‫ אִ ישׁ‬versus ‫אָדָ ם‬ Grant’s article mainly contrasts the usage of the noun ‫ ָא ָדם‬with that of ‫אישׁ‬, ִ because both words were usually considered similar enough to lie in the same semantic domain. In conducting that paradigmatic analysis, Grant’s interest was to clarify the meaning of ‫ ָא ָדם‬in Genesis 1–3; she paid attention to ‫ ִאישׁ‬because it might shed light on ‫ ָא ָדם‬. Thus she tallied the referents of all of the Bible’s instances of ‫ ָא ָדם‬in the same way as she did for ‫אישׁ‬. ִ After her initial tally, Grant hypothesized that a biblical author would employ the word ‫ ִאישׁ‬when thinking of either a particular individual or group of individuals, or any member of a particular group; whereas the text uses the word ‫ ָא ָדם‬to refer either to humankind, human beings in general, or any human being. She then conducted a second tally. She found that out of some 2700 instances, at most a dozen could possibly be said not to fit the hypothesis. Grant concluded that the two words are employed so differently that the burden of proof would seem to be on those who think that these two words belong in the same semantic domain. The essential semantic distinctions are dramatic and robust. As we have seen, ‫ ִאישׁ‬usually situates its referent as “a member of a group or category,” whereas less than 2% of the instances of ‫( ָא ָדם‬that is, 13 cases) could possibly be said to refer to someone as part of a group. And whereas 20% of instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬refer to a particular individual, no instances of ‫ ָא ָדם‬do so, apart from one special case: the mythical progenitor of the human species.13 Grant concluded— correctly, in my view—that the terms ‫ ִאישׁ‬and ‫ ָא ָדם‬cannot be considered

Grant cited also Josh 14:15 as referring to a particular individual, but more precisely it is a class reference to a progenitor. 13

6

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

synonyms.14 The following chart graphically illustrates Grant’s spotlight on the semantic contrast of the two words. Key Semantic Contrasts of ’ish and ’adam Frequency Distribution of Each Noun’s Referents

80% 60% ’ish ’adam

40% 20% 0% Any or each member of a defined group or class

Particular individual (aside from Adam the progenitor)

General human reference

‫ אִ ישׁ‬versus ‫בֵּן‬ Now let us compare ‫ ִאישׁ‬to another noun, ‫בּן‬,ֵ which is unquestionably a term of affiliation. Someone who is a ‫ ֵבּן‬is not a lone individual, but rather She wrote: “The two words may be sharply distinguished in meaning . . . almost without exception throughout the whole of the Hebrew OT” (p. 2). In certain situations ‫ ִאישׁ‬and ‫ ָא ָדם‬at first glance do seem interchangeable; the Bible sometimes uses them as a stock word pair (e.g., 2 Kgs 7:10; Isa 2:9; Jer 2:6). This apparent synonymity can be explained simply: in such cases, the group of which an ‫ ִאישׁ‬is the member is the entire human race. The two terms (‫ ִאישׁ‬and ‫ ) ָא ָדם‬are then functionally synonymous within that very limited context, even though they approach their referent from different angles. Laurence Kutler, who correctly stresses the biblical use of ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a military term whereas ‫ ָא ָדם‬is not, unfortunately overlooks Grant’s work, whose results undermine his assertion that “’îš and ’ādām are close but not identical synonyms. . . . Each verse must be scrutinized on its own merit” (“A Structural Semantic Approach to Israelite Communal Terminology,” JANES 14 [1982], pp. 69–77; 73–74). 14

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

7

is a ‫ ֵבּן‬of somebody or something else. Thus, if ‫ ִאישׁ‬is indeed a relational term, its nature should become clearer through our comparison. As it happens, ‫ ֵבּן‬is one of the Bible’s most frequently occurring words, appearing nearly five thousand times—more than twice as often as ‫אישׁ‬. ִ Fortunately, for the purposes of this article a schematic comparison between ‫ ִאישׁ‬and ‫ ֵבּן‬will prove to be sufficiently conclusive. The two nouns seem similar to each other—and unlike ‫— ָא ָדם‬in the following six ways: 1. Both ‫ ִאישׁ‬and ‫ ֵבּן‬can point to a specific party, which enables delineation of relationship.15 ‫ץ־עוּץ ִאיּ֣ וֹב ְשׁ ֑מוֹ‬ ֖ ‫( ִ ֛אישׁ ָה ָ ֥יה ְב ֶ ֽא ֶר‬Job 1:1) ‫וּשׁ ֖מוֹ ֶא ְביָ ָ ֑תר‬ ְ ‫־א ִח ֔טוּב‬ ֲ ‫ימ ֶל ְ֙ך ֶבּן‬ ֶ֙ ‫־א ָ֗חד ַל ֲא ִח‬ ֶ ‫( וַ יִּ ָמּ ֵ ֣לט ֵבּן‬1 Sam 22:20) 2.

Both of our nouns can ascribe membership in a genus (that is, affiliation with a group) even to non-human entities.16

‫ח־לָך֛ ִשׁ ְב ָ ֥עה ִשׁ ְב ָ ֖עה ִ ֣אישׁ וְ ִא ְשׁ ֑תּוֹ‬ ְ ‫הוֹרה ִ ֽתּ ַקּ‬ ֗ ָ ‫( ִמ ֣כֹּל׀ ַה ְבּ ֵה ָ ֣מה ַה ְטּ‬Gen 7:2) ‫ל־הכּ ֵֹ֔הן‬ ַ ‫יוֹנ֑ה ֶא‬ ָ ‫( ִיָב ֙א ְשׁ ֵ ֣תּי ת ִ ֹ֔רים ֥אוֹ ְשׁ ֵנ֖י ְבּ ֵ ֣ני‬Num 6:10) 3.

Both can express relationship with a person, as is made clear by a possessive suffix:17 ‫( ְבּ ָ ֑נהּ‬Gen 21:10)

4.

‫ישׁהּ‬ ֖ ָ ‫( ִא‬Gen 16:3)

Both can refer to a human being in terms of membership in a category. Here, for example, are instances where the two nouns are treated as roughly parallel in function:18

15 The first example introduces the character Job; the second focuses on a priest’s sole surviving son. Similarly, both ‫ ִאישׁ‬and ‫ ֵבּן‬form plurals and are countable entities: ‫( ִשׁ ְב ִעים ָבּנִ ים‬Judg 8:30); ‫( ִשׁ ְב ָעה ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬Jer 52:25). In contrast, ‫ ָא ָדם‬is never plural in the biblical corpus and is not countable (cf. Num 31:46). 16 In the first example, God instructs Noah to take representative animals; the second example refers to birds fit for use in a priestly ritual. 17 “Her son” and “her husband,” respectively. In contrast, in the biblical corpus ‫ ָא ָדם‬never takes a possessive suffix. 18 The first example describes Saul’s search for qualified warriors; the second describes the character of those who gathered around a treasonous outlaw. Other ֖ ָ ‫( ֶב‬1 Sam 20:31) and examples that indicate membership in a category: ‫ן־מוֶ ת‬

8

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES ‫־חיִ ל וַ יַּ ַא ְס ֵ ֖פהוּ ֵא ָ ֽליו׃‬ ַ֔ ‫בּוֹר וְ ָכל־ ֶבּן‬ ֙ ִ‫( וְ ָר ָ֨אה ָשׁ ֜אוּל ָכּל־ ִ ֤אישׁ גּ‬1 Sam. 14:52) ‫( וַ יִּ ָקּ ְב ֣צוּ ָע ֗ ָליו ֲאנָ ִ ֤שׁים ֵר ִק ֙ים ְבּ ֵנ֣י ְב ִל ַ֔יּ ַעל‬2 Chr 13:7) 5.

Both can refer to a constituent of a group that is signified by a collective term:19 ‫ן־ה ָע ֙ם ַבּיּ֣ וֹם ַה ֔הוּא ִכּ ְשׁ ֹ֥ל ֶשׁת ַא ְל ֵ ֖פי ִ ֽאישׁ׃‬ ָ ‫( וַ יִּ ֤ ֹפּל ִמ‬Exod 32:28) ‫־א ָ ֽדם׃‬ ָ ‫( ֽל ֹא־יֵ ֵ ֥שׁב ָשׁ ֙ם ִ֔אישׁ וְ ֽל ֹא־יָ ג֥ וּר ָ ֖בּהּ ֶבּן‬Jer 49:18)

6.

Both can refer to a group that is expressed in construct terms—that is, where the group is identified as comprised of its individual members: ‫( ָכּל־ ְבּ ֵנ֣י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֑אל‬Josh 10:24)

‫( ָכּל־ ִ ֣אישׁ יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ֗אל‬Exod 34:32)

From these six similarities I provisionally conclude that ‫ ִאישׁ‬functions like the relational term ‫בּן‬.ֵ That is, both nouns relate individual members to a group, and vice-versa. And their focus on relationship transcends even the boundary of humankind, to include other entities. Thus it seems to me that ‫( ִ ֥אישׁ ָ ֖מוֶ ת‬1 Kgs 2:26); ‫ן־חיִ ל‬ ַ֔ ‫( ֶבּ‬1 Sam 14:52) and ‫( ִ ֣אישׁ ָ ֑חיִ ל‬Judg 3:29); ‫( ֶבן־נָ ִ ֖ביא‬Amos ֲ ‫( ֶבּ‬Isa 19:11) and ‫( ִ ֥אישׁ ָח ָ ֖כם‬1 Kgs 2:9). 7:14) and ‫( ִ ֥אישׁ נָ ִ ֖ביא‬Judg 6:8); and ‫ן־ח ָכ ִ ֥מים‬ Likewise, a chief servant is called ben bāyīt (Gen 15:3, Eccl 2:7) or hā-ʾîš ʾăšer ʿal hā-bāyīt (Gen 43:19) or hā-ʾîš (43:17). Both terms also indicate national ִ ‫( ִא‬1 Sam 30:11) and ‫ֽי־מ ְצ ַ ֛ריִ ם‬ ִ ‫( ְבּ ֵנ‬Ezek 16:26). In contrast, only membership:֙‫ישׁ־מ ְצ ִרי‬ once in the biblical corpus does the word ‫ ָא ָדם‬arguably form a construct relation of any kind: ‫( ָא ָ ֣דם ְ ֭בּ ִליַּ ַעל ִ ֣אישׁ ָ ֑אוֶ ן‬Prov 6:12), the first two words of which can be ְ ‫( ֶבּ‬1 Sam 25:17). likened to ‫( ִ ֣אישׁ ְ֭בּ ִליַּ ַעל‬Prov 16:27) and to ‫ן־בּ ִליַּ ַעל‬ 19 The first example counts the dead after a police operation, treating ‫ ִאישׁ‬as the individual correlate of ‫— ַעם‬a pairing that E. A. Speiser already noted (“‘People’ and ‘Nation’ of Israel,” JBL 79 [1960]: 160) and Kutler affirmed (“A Structural Semantic Approach,” 77; above, n. 14); in the second example, for the collective ‫ ָא ָדם‬, the individual correlate is ‫ן־א ָדם‬ ָ ‫ ֶבּ‬, a term that occurs more than ninety times. Both Speiser and Kutler assert meanwhile that ‫ ָא ָדם‬is the individual correlate of the collective term ‫ ;גּוֹי‬the only evidence offered, however, is the expression ‫ל־א ָ ֣דם ָי ַֽחד׃‬ ָ ‫( וְ ַעל־גּ֖ וֹי וְ ַע‬Job 34:29), yet this example is inconclusive, because there ‫ ָא ָדם‬can also be read as a general term for “humankind,” like the parallelism of ‫ל־בּ ָשׂר‬ ָ ‫ ָכּ‬and ‫ ָא ָדם‬in Job 34:15, or between ‫ גּוֹיִ ם‬and ‫ ָא ָדם‬in Jer 49:15 and Ps 94:10. Nor does the presence of ‫ יָ ַחד‬necessarily imply a subsidiary ordering of terms; cf. Deut 12:22; 2 Sam. 14:16; Jer 48:7; Ps 49:3.

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

9

these two words may be said to lie in the same semantic domain of “relational” terms. As for contrasts in the usage of the two nouns, I will mention one that seems instructive. When a group is identified via a plural construct term such as ‫בּנֵ י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ֗אל‬,ְ one might then expect that its constituent members are identified via the singular ‫בּן‬,ֵ but that is often not the case. Rather, the constituent member of a ‫בּנֵ י‬-defined ְ group is an ‫אישׁ‬: ִ ‫( ִאישׁ ִמ ְבּנֵ י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל‬1 Sam 9:2) rather than, say, ‫ ֵבּן ִמ ְבּנֵ י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל‬or simply ‫בּן־יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל‬.ֶ As will be demonstrated below, the usage rule in biblical Hebrew seems to be: whenever a member is typifying or representing such a group, this is conveyed via ‫אישׁ‬, ִ not via ‫בּן‬.ֵ

LEXICAL AND CONTEXTUAL MEANINGS My analysis of hundreds of instances suggests that the primary (most common) sense of the noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬refers to types of affiliations and relationships that together in English can be designated only by several overlapping terms. Today one cannot be sure whether the native Hebrew speaker considered these situationally defined types to be distinct senses of the word ‫אישׁ‬. ִ (Hebrew did not force the speaker to make a distinction.) At any rate, the remainder of this article will treat what in English are three semantic nuances of ‫אישׁ‬: ִ participant member, representative member, and representative. All three nuances involve relationship (with another party) or affiliation (with a group). In Hebrew these three nuances may have been considered a single lexical semantic domain. Let me now introduce what I, as a contextually oriented translator, have perceived as distinct English equivalents for the biblical Hebrew usage of ‫אישׁ‬, ִ within each of the three aforementioned nuances. A later section will give examples. Participant Member An ‫ ִאישׁ‬can simply be a member of the group in question, as Grant mentioned. Likewise, ‫ ִאישׁ‬seems to be the appropriate word choice for situations where a person is a participant—such as a party to a marriage, a legal proceeding, a transaction, a contract, or a conflict.

10

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Representative Member Another nuance of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is to refer to a typical or characteristic exemplar of the group in question. In this sense, any single member “represents” the other members of the group because they are interchangeable for purposes of the discussion. In English translation, these usages are rendered variously as: one, each (one), anyone, or someone.20 Representative on Behalf of Others The third related nuance is “representational”—that is, an ‫ ִאישׁ‬possesses the authority to stand for the group, or to act on behalf of the group, or to act on behalf of another party. In English terms, these meanings include: ruler, leader, notable, or householder; representative, delegate, or commissioner; agent, emissary, or envoy; deputy or subordinate; scion or heir.

PROCEDURAL NOTES The next section will examine characteristic examples from each of the above three nuances of lexical meaning, in order to further demonstrate my contention that ‫ ִאישׁ‬is intrinsically a relational or affiliational term—at least in most of its biblical attestations. But first, two procedural notes. Spotting Both of the Noun’s Referents A relational term has, in effect, not one referent but two: a direct referent and an indirect one. In the case of our noun ‫אישׁ‬, ִ it points directly to the individual (member or party or representative), while indirectly it refers to the group or situation or party with which that ‫ ִאישׁ‬is affiliated. And our noun functions so as to relate those two referents to each other. Depicted schematically, the meaning of our word has three aspects:

My classification transcends the distinction drawn by grammarians who discuss “someone” as being a “weak” meaning of ‫ ִאישׁ‬, and “each/every” as being a “strong” meaning. See Heinrich Ewald, Syntax of the Hebrew Language of the Old Testament, transl. from the 8th German edn. by James Kennedy (London: T & T Clark, 1891; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004), §§ 278b, 294b(2); Paul Joüon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, transl. and rev. by T. Muraoka (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991), Vol. II § 147.b–c. 20

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

11

To understand how ‫ ִאישׁ‬is functioning in a given instance, the listener or reader must discern both referents. In many cases, however, the indirect referent is not stated outright; it must be inferred from the situation.21 Avoiding Syntactic Markers of Affiliation In biblical Hebrew, one can easily convey a sense of affiliation between a given noun and something else via syntactic markers—either a construct relationship (such as ‫ ) ַאנְ ֵשׁי ָדוִ ד‬or a possessive pronominal suffix (such as ‫) ָדּוִ ד וַ ֲאנָ ָשׁיו‬. In order to clarify whether ‫ ִאישׁ‬functions as a term of affiliation on its own, the following analysis focuses on instances where the Bible employs ‫ ִאישׁ‬or ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬as absolute nouns.22

SYNTAGMATIC (CONTEXTUAL) ANALYSIS Collocated Verbs Evidence in support of viewing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation comes from looking at the collocated verbs. With regard to the proposed nuance of ‫ ִאישׁ‬as “participant member (of a group),” one would expect to find ‫ ִאישׁ‬correlated with verbs that presume group membership. That is, only those individuals who are members of the group in question would be involved in the action described by the verb. For example, consider the verb ‫“( קבץ‬gathered”), . . .‫( וַ ִיּ ְֽת ַק ְבּ ֣צוּ ֠ ֵא ָליו ָכּל־ ִ֨איש‬1 Sam 22:2) ‫וַ יִּ ְהי֣ וּ ִע ֔מּוֹ ְכּ ַא ְר ַ ֥בּע ֵמ ֖אוֹת ִ ֽאישׁ׃‬ The following groups appear in the Bible as direct objects of this verb: ‫ל־ה ָעם‬ ָ ‫הוּדה • יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל • ָכּ‬ ָ ְ‫ְפּ ִל ְשׁ ִתּים • ִמ ְצ ַריִ ם • י‬ 21 For more on how to identify the indirect referent of ‫ ִאישׁ‬, see further below, especially the Discussion. 22 As identified via Accordance 7.4, of the Bible’s 2187 instances of our noun, 73% are in absolute form (1331 singular, 273 plural).

12

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

And in context, the constituents of these groups are designated by the following terms: ‫ִאישׁ • ַאח • ָח ֵבר • זָ ֵקן • ֵבּן • ַבּ ַעל‬ The first five words on this list are relational terms. By virtue of being on such a list, the implication is that the last word, ‫אישׁ‬, ִ is a relational term as well.23 I observed the same phenomenon with regard to other verbs that similarly presume group membership: ‫“( קהל‬assembled”), ‫זעק‬ (“mustered”), ‫“( אסף‬brought together”), and ‫“( לקט‬collected”). Examples of where ‫ ִאישׁ‬can be construed as a “participant member” include: ‫יכה ִ ֽנ זְ ֲע ֔קוּ‬ ָ֔ ‫ם־בּ֣ית ִמ‬ ֵ ‫ים ֲא ֶשׁ ֙ר ִע‬ ֙ ‫( וְ ָה ֲאנָ ִ֗שׁים ֲא ֶ ֤שׁר ַבּ ָבּ ִתּ‬Judg 18:22) ‫יקים‬ ִ֔ ‫( וַ ִיּ ְֽת ַל ְקּ ֤טוּ ֶאל־יִ ְפ ָתּ ֙ח ֲאנָ ִ ֣שׁים ֵר‬Judg 11:3) Correlated Group Nouns Another line of evidence to suggest that ‫ ִאישׁ‬can denote a “participant member” is its correlation with collective group nouns. For example:24 ‫ל־ה ֵע ָ ֖דה ִתּ ְק ֽצֹף׃‬ ָ ‫( ָה ִ ֤אישׁ ֶא ָח ֙ד יֶ ֱח ָ֔טא וְ ַ ֥על ָכּ‬Num 16:22) ‫( ִכּי֩ ְב ִמ ְצ ֨ ַער ֲאנָ ִ֜שׁים ָ ֣בּאוּ ׀ ֵ ֣חיל ֲא ָ ֗רם‬2 Chr 24:24) That is, the individual correlate of ‫“( ֵע ָדה‬community”) and of ‫“( ַחיִ ל‬army”) is ‫אישׁ‬. ִ Similarly, as we saw earlier, ‫ ִאישׁ‬is also the individual correlate of ‫ַעם‬ (“people, fighting force”). Thus, it seems to me that the recurring idiom ‫( ְכּ ִאישׁ ֶא ָחד‬literally, “like one ʾîš”) makes sense quite directly if understood to mean “like a group that has only one member.” ָ ‫( וַ יָּ֙ ָק ֙ם ָכּ‬Judg 20:8) ‫ל־ה ֔ ָעם ְכּ ִ ֥אישׁ ֶא ָ ֖חד‬

The indirect referent of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is thus defined by the verb; that is, the group in question consists of those who are gathered. 24 In the first example, Moses and Aaron speak while trying to calm God down during Korah’s rebellion. The Contemporary Torah (above, n. 2) thus reads: “When one member sins, will you be wrathful with the whole community?” The second example is describing the success of Aram’s army against that of Judah. 23

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

13

With the Preposition of Membership A further line of evidence for a “membership” sense of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is the frequency and variety of similar constructions in which ‫אישׁ‬, ִ in context, can only mean “one member out of the specified group.” The preposition ‫ ִמן‬is a key part of this construction, as these examples show: ‫( וְ ֵ֨אין ִ֜אישׁ ֵמ ַאנְ ֵ ֥שׁי ַה ַ ֛בּיִ ת ָ ֖שׁם ַבּ ָ ֽבּיִ ת׃‬Gen 39:11) ‫( וַ ֵיּ ֶ֥לְך ִ ֖אישׁ ִמ ֵבּ֣ית ֵלִו֑י‬Exod 2:1) ‫ישׁ ִמ ֵבּ֣ית יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ֔אל‬ ֙ ‫( ִ ֥אישׁ ִא‬Lev 17:3) ‫יוֹאב‬ ֑ ָ ‫ישׁ ָע ַ ֣מד ָע ֔ ָליו ִ ֽמנַּ ֲע ֵ ֖רי‬ ֙ ‫( וְ ִא‬2 Sam 20:11) Narrative Presumption of Membership Occasionally, the construction of a narrative seems to presume that ‫ ִאישׁ‬has a “membership” sense. Consider the case of the ‫ ִאישׁ‬who is gathering wood on the sabbath day: ‫וַ יִּ ְהי֥ וּ ְב ֵנֽי־יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֖אל ַבּ ִמּ ְד ָ ֑בּר‬

(Num 15:32)

ְ ‫ַו‬ ‫ֽ יִּמ ְצ ֗אוּ ִ ֛אישׁ ְמק ֵ ֹ֥שׁשׁ ֵע ִ ֖צים ְבּי֥ וֹם ַה ַשּׁ ָ ֽבּת׃‬ The perpetrator, who is identified only as an ‫אישׁ‬, ִ is soon stoned to death in punishment for the deed. Now, the relevant laws about observing the Sabbath apply only to Israelites (Exod 35:1–3). So how is it that the readers are supposed to realize that this fellow is an Israelite? The way that this passage makes the best narrative sense is to presume that the audience should know that ‫ ִאישׁ‬means “a member of the group just mentioned.”25 Partner in Marriage The universally recognized nuance of ‫ ִאישׁ‬as “husband,” which occurs in more than seventy biblical instances, can be seen as an expression of our noun’s “participant member” sense.26 That is, the noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬serves to 25 To convey the relational nuance of ‫ ִאישׁ‬in translation, I have construed the verb impersonally and rendered the clause ‫ ַוֽ יִּ ְמ ְצ ֗אוּ ִ ֛אישׁ ְמק ֵ ֹ֥שׁשׁ ֵע ִ ֖צים‬as: “one of their fellows was found gathering wood” (The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (NY: URJ Press, 2008). 26 The King James Version (KJV) renders ‫ ִאישׁ‬as “husband” 77 times. All 12

14

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

denote (the male) partner or party to the marriage, which is our noun’s implied indirect referent. Examples of ‫ ִאישׁ‬in the context of marriage, often counterposed with ‫א ָשּׁה‬, ִ include the following.27 ‫ת־עו ָֹנֽהּ׃‬ ֲ ‫( וְ נִ ָ ֥קּה ָה ִ ֖אישׁ ֵמ ָע ֹ֑ון וְ ָה ִא ָ ֣שּׁה ַה ִ֔הוא ִתּ ָ ֖שּׂא ֶא‬Num 5:31) ָ ‫( וְ ִא‬Num 30:7) ‫֑יה‬ ָ ‫יה ָע ֶל‬ ָ ‫ם־הי֤ וֹ ִ ֽת ְהיֶ ֙ה ְל ִ֔אישׁ וּנְ ָד ֶ ֖ר‬ ְ ‫יכם נָ ִ֗שׁים וְ ֶא‬ ֶ֜ ֵ‫וּק ֨חוּ ִל ְבנ‬ ְ (Jer 29:6) ‫ת־בּנֽ ֵוֹת ֶיכ ֙ם ְתּנ֣ וּ ַ ֽל ֲאנָ ִ֔שׁים‬ In such situations, the sense of “husband” is easily explained by viewing our noun as an intrinsically relational term. Meanwhile, the feminine counterpart term ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬likewise is understood to mean “wife” in similar contexts. Such correspondence in usage corroborates the proposed “(male) party to a marriage” interpretation of ‫אישׁ‬. ִ 28 Party to a Proceeding The noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬is sometimes used conspicuously in the context of a legal proceeding, dispute, or violent conflict.29 Examples include the prescription of legal procedures:30 lexicons cited above list “husband” as a meaning of ‫ ִאישׁ‬. However, only a few of them (HALOT, TDOT, DBHE; above, nn. 8 and 11) recognize this sense—albeit rarely—even in the absence of a possessive pronoun (e.g., “her ‫)” ִאישׁ‬. 27 The first example ends the passage about a ritual for a husband who accuses his wife of adultery; the second example conditions a woman’s freedom to make vows on whether she has a husband; and the third example encourages matchmaking. 28 The correspondence in usage also explains why the feminine term is used even for slave-wives and concubines (Gen 16:3; 25:1 [in light of v. 6]; 30:4; Judg 19:1). Further, it undercuts a statement by Carol Meyers in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (above, n. 25), which infers from a lexical fact—that ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬means both “woman” and “wife”—that “a woman’s identity was virtually inseparable from her status as a married woman” (p. xli). Rather, the primary sense of ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬appears to be “(female) affiliate,” for which the most salient English rendering in marriage-related contexts is “wife.” Thus, what the word ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬says about “a woman’s identity” is only that the Bible almost always expresses that concept in relational terms—just as it does for a man’s identity. 29 “Conspicuous” usage means that the noun could be either omitted or replaced with a pronoun and the passage would still make grammatical sense. 30 The first example discusses how a party is to be compensated for having

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

15

. . . ‫ת־א ָשׁמוֹ‬ ֲ ‫( וְ ֵה ִ ֤שׁיב ֶא‬Num 5:7–8) ‫וְ נָ ַ֕תן ַל ֲא ֶ ֖שׁר ָא ַ ֥שׁם ֽלוֹ׃‬ ‫ם־אין ָל ִ֜אישׁ גּ ֵֹ֗אל ְל ָה ִ ֤שׁיב ָה ָא ָשׁ ֙ם ֵא ֔ ָליו‬ ֵ֨ ‫וְ ִא‬ ‫ר־ל ֶ ֥הם ָה ִ ֖ריב … ִל ְפ ֵ ֤ני ַה ֽכֹּ ֲהנִ ֙ים‬ ָ ‫ֽי־ה ֲאנָ ִ ֛שׁים ֲא ֶשׁ‬ ָ ‫( וְ ָע ְמ ֧דוּ ְשׁ ֵנ‬Deut. 19:17) The same conspicuous usage of ‫ אִישׁ‬is found in direct speech:31 ‫ת־ה ְפּ ִל ְשׁ ִ ֣תּי ַה ֔ ָלּז‬ ַ ‫ישׁ ֲא ֶ ֤שׁר יַ ֶכּ ֙ה ֶא‬ ֙ ‫( ַמה־יֵּ ָע ֶ֗שׂה ָל ִא‬1 Sam 17:26) ‫ן־מוֶ ת ָה ִ ֖אישׁ ָהע ֶ ֹ֥שׂה ֽז ֹאת׃‬ ָ֔ ‫( ִ ֣כּי ֶב‬2 Sam 12:5) ִ ְ‫( ו‬1 Kgs 21:10) ֒ ‫ֽי־ב ִליַּ ַע ֮ל נֶ גְ דּוֹ‬ ְ ‫הוֹשׁיבוּ ְשׁ ַ֨ניִ ם ֲאנָ ִ ֥שׁים ְבּ ֵנ‬ Similar to such instances are those that designate both parties as ‫אישׁ‬: ִ 32 ‫( ִמ ְשׁ ַ ֤פּט ֱא ֶמ ֙ת ַ ֽי ֲע ֶ֔שׂה ֵ ֥בּין ִ ֖אישׁ ְל ִ ֽאישׁ׃‬Ezek 18:8) ‫( וְ נִ ַ ֣גּשׂ ָה ֔ ָעם ִ ֥אישׁ ְבּ ִ ֖אישׁ וְ ִ ֣אישׁ ְבּ ֵר ֵ ֑עהוּ‬Isa 3:5) ֹ ‫ישׁו‬ ֔ ‫( וַ יַּ ֙כּוּ ִ ֣אישׁ ִא‬1 Kgs 20:20) Both types of usage are easily explained by viewing our noun as an intrinsically relational term, whose indirect referent is the set of interested parties to the proceeding in question, while the direct referent is one of the parties. Meanwhile, the feminine counterpart term ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬likewise is used

been wronged; the second example discusses the disposition of a legal dispute. 31 The first example is young David’s question regarding the reward for whoever challenges Goliath, who has twice demanded an ‫ ִאישׁ‬with whom he can fight (vv. 8, 10); the second example is King David’s condemnation of the guilty party in Nathan’s parable; and the third example is Queen Jezebel’s secret instructions to arrange for false witnesses so as to condemn Naboth. 32 The first example states that doing justice is part of the characterization of a righteous person; the second example, that divine punishment of the Judahites will involve mutual oppression; and the third example describes the progress of a battle. Compare the construct expressions ‫“( ִאישׁ ִריב‬disputant”) in Judg 12:2, Isa 41:1, Jer 15:10, and Job 31:35; and ‫“( ִאישׁ ִמ ְל ָחמוֹת‬party to war”) in 2 Sam 8:10 (= 1 Chr 18:10), Isa 42:12, and 1 Chr 28:3. See also 1 Sam 2:25.

16

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

conspicuously to mean a “party” in similar contexts.33 Such correspondence in usage corroborates the proposed interpretation of ‫אישׁ‬. ִ As Characteristic of a Group of Human Beings Let us move to the second basic nuance of ‫אישׁ‬, ִ namely, where it denotes a typical or characteristic exemplar—what I call a “representative member.” By all accounts, one frequently attested meaning of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is “each one” in a group. Consider this example from the episode in which Abram and his nephew Lot part company: ‫( וַ יִּ ָ ֣פּ ְר ֔דוּ ִ ֖אישׁ ֵמ ַ ֥על ָא ִ ֽחיו׃‬Gen 13:11) If ‫ ִאישׁ‬is intrinsically about affiliation, then this usage is easy to explain. As stated earlier, ‫ ִאישׁ‬functions so as to relate a direct referent to an indirect one. It points (indirectly) to the group and (more directly) to its individual members. Here—as defined by the plural verb—the “group in question” consists of those kin who are now separating from each other. The individual members of that group, as they part ways, are momentarily interchangeable with regard to the action described. It is in this sense that each one is an ‫אישׁ‬. ִ 34 Corroboration of this understanding of ‫ ִאישׁ‬comes from the corresponding usage of ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬in distributive or reciprocal references within a specifically female group.35 As Characteristic of a Group with Non-Human Members On some two dozen occasions, ‫ ִאישׁ‬means “each one” in a group that is defined by the verb—as discussed above—yet that group comprises direct referents that are not individual human beings. For example: ‫ישׁ ְבּ ַ ֣נ ֲח ָל ֔תו יִ ְד ְבּ ֕קוּ ַמ ֖טּוֹת ְבּ ֵ ֥ני יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֽאל׃‬ ֙ ‫( ִכּי־ ִא‬Num 36:9) Here our noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬relates a group (“those who shall remain attached” to their landholding) to its members, but the group’s members are not individuals. Rather, each member is one of “the tribes” of the Israelites. E.g., Exod 2:7; Deut 22:14; 1 Kgs 3:16; Ezek 23:2. Alternatively, rather than describing the situation in English in terms of member-and-group, one could characterize Abram and Lot as parties to the proceeding, that is, to the action being described. See the previous sub-section. 35 Exod 3:22; Jer 9:19; Ruth 1:8. 33 34

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

17

Biblical Hebrew similarly applies ‫ ִאישׁ‬to the elements of many other abstract sets: households (Exod 12:4; Num 1:52, 2:2, 2:34); Israelite clans or lineages (Num 26:54, 35:8); nations (Gen 10:5b; Zeph 2:11); foreign deities (2 Kgs 18:33; Isa 36:18); and spiritual creatures with wings and multiple faces (Ezek 1:9, 11, 12, 23). Our noun also designates various concrete inanimate objects: split halves of animal carcasses (Gen 15:10); Leviathan’s scales (Job 41:9); engraved stones on the high priest’s breastplate (Exod 28:21); brackets for bronze lavers (1 Kgs 7:30); images of cherubim (Exod 25:20, 37:9); and stars in the sky (Isa 40:26).36 This remarkably wide range of application makes perfect sense if ‫ ִאישׁ‬is indeed a term of affiliation. It then functions in all such cases according to its primary sense as “representative member”: whenever one has in view a group or set that is comprised of interchangeable members, ‫ ִאישׁ‬is the word that enables a Hebrew speaker to refer to each of them. As Alison Grant noted, the scope of such entities cited above “suggests that the word ‫ ִאישׁ‬itself carries the meaning ‘each one (of a group)’ rather than meaning ‘man.’ ” (p. 9). This is a strong argument in favor of construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a relational term.37 And further corroboration comes from the fact that the feminine equivalent ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬is used in a corresponding manner.38 Representing a Group as Its Authority As stated above, a third nuance of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is as a “representative”—one who is authorized to stand for the group (or another party), or to act on their (or its) behalf. Grant does not mention this sense as intrinsic to ‫אישׁ‬, ִ nor do the lexicons cited above. Yet even without proceeding systematically, I have 36 Inexplicably, Robert Alter states in his commentary (The Five Books of Moses: A Translation and Commentary [NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004]) that ‫“ ִאישׁ‬is a word applied to animate beings, not to things,” an assertion already disproved circa 1160 by Abraham Ibn Ezra, ad loc. 37 The sense of “each” is conventionally explained as a case of semantic extension, whereby ‫ ִאישׁ‬was initially used to mean “a man,” and then “each man,” and later “each human,” and eventually “each member” of some non-human set. While such development is possible, it would have required greater conceptual leaps than the hypothesis offered here. 38 E.g., Exod 26:3 (cloths); Isa 34:15 (buzzards); Ezek 1:9 (wings); Zech 11:9 (sheep).

18

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

found that more than 10% of the instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬employ it in a grammatically absolute and syntactically conspicuous manner in this sense.39 Representational function is thus a significant part of the semantic range of this noun. When Genesis describes the growth of Jacob’s wealth, the usage of ‫ִאישׁ‬ is anomalous enough (per the conventional view) that the critical scholar Claus Westermann opined that “there is no reason for the designation.”40 ‫אד‬ ֹ ֑ ‫אד ְמ‬ ֹ ֣ ‫( וַ יִּ ְפ ֥ר ֹץ ָה ִ ֖אישׁ ְמ‬Gen. 30:43) ‫חוֹת וַ ֲע ָב ִ ֔דים וּגְ ַמ ִ ֖לּים וַ ֲחמ ִ ֹֽרים׃‬ ֙ ‫וּשׁ ָפ‬ ְ ‫ֽוַיְ ִהי־לוֹ֙ ֣צ ֹאן ַר ֔בּוֹת‬ In this passage, the direct referent of ‫ ָה ִאישׁ‬is evidently the previous verse’s last noun, which is ‫יַ ֲעקֹב‬. But the usage is conspicuous: if in our verse the stated subject ‫ ָה ִאישׁ‬were left out, its two verbs (with their masculine inflections) would still unquestionably refer back to Jacob. The wording prompts the text’s audience to construe ‫ ִאישׁ‬in some meaningful sense— which would not be “adult male,” because Jacob’s social gender is neither in question nor particularly germane. Looking to the narrative context, we see that Jacob has expressed a concern that drives this whole passage: “It is high time that I do something for my own household (‫( ”) ַבּיִ ת‬v. 30, transl. Speiser). That is, Jacob was a householder responsible for four wives and many children, yet he lacked an independent means of supporting them. Now, however, we are told that his wealth increases (literally “bursts”)—and it is Jacob who becomes the trustee of all the assets detailed. The context thus suggests that the sense of ‫ ִאישׁ‬here has to do with his position as representing the entire corporate household.41 The term conveys his relationship to that household (v. 30), which is the indirect referent of ‫ ָה ִאישׁ‬in our verse. For a list of more than two hundred instances, see my memorandum “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Man’? The Noun ’ish in Biblical Hebrew: A Reconsideration,” http://home1.gte.net/res0z77f/ContempTorahpg.htm (Part II). Furthermore, such usage is consistent with the way that the Bible employs the term’s bound forms in dozens of instances. See also Anton Jirku, “Der ‘Mann von Tob,” (2 Sam 10:6.8),” ZAW 62 (1950): 319; Alan D. Crown, “An Alternative Meaning for ‫ ִאישׁ‬in the Old Testament,” VT 24 (1974): 110–112; Marvin L. Chaney, “Whose Sour Grapes? The Addressees of Isaiah 5:1–7 in the Light of Political Economy,” Semeia 87 (1999): 112, 116. 40 Genesis 37–50: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), p. 484. 41 TDOT (above, n. 11) recognizes the meaning “office or rank” for ‫ ִאישׁ‬, but 39

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

19

In short, the text’s composer(s) apparently presumed that its original audience would grasp that ‫ ִאישׁ‬here means something like the English term “family patriarch.” Selecting a Certain Number of Representatives from a Group A second example from the book of Genesis further illustrates the sense of ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a duly authorized “representative.” The narrator relates that after Joseph’s father Jacob and his extended family arrive in Egypt, Joseph the vizier prepares them for an audience with the king: ‫וּ ִמ ְק ֵ ֣צה ֶא ָ֔חיו ָל ַ ֖ קח ֲח ִמ ָ ֣שּׁה ֲאנָ ִ ֑שׁים וַ יַּ ִצּ ֵג֖ם ִל ְפ ֵנ֥י ַפ ְר ֽעֹה׃‬

(Gen 47:2)

This usage of ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬is conspicuous; the initial clause could easily have omitted the term, saying ‫“( וְ ָל ַקח ֲח ִמ ָשּׁה ִמ ְק ֵצה ֶא ָחיו‬having taken five from among his brothers”). In other words, the text has gone out of its way here to employ ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬, giving the word extra significance: those who are chosen are not merely ‫“( ַא ִחים‬brothers”)—they are more specifically ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬. The co-text further strengthens the importance here of ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬: as the late E. A. Speiser pointed out, the word ‫“( ִמ ְק ֵצה‬from among”) serves to emphasize Joseph’s selectivity.42 And in the context of a larger pool of available candidates, the verb ‫ ָל ַקח‬connotes an act of conscious selection. Taken together, the verse’s wording prompts the audience to read ‫ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬ meaningfully—and not as “adult males,” for that fact is both known and irrelevant. The narrative context conveys that Joseph is designating some of his brothers to represent them all. Such a sense for ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬fits the verse’s syntax perfectly, in contrast to any other recognized sense, yielding: “Having from among his brothers selected five representatives, . . .” In short, the text’s composer(s) presumed that its original audience would grasp that ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬relates the selected individuals to the larger group of brothers (the indirect referent) whom they will be representing.

only with a genitive construction. HALOT (also n. 11) recognizes “rank” or “position,” but only with a genitive or an appositive construction. 42 The Anchor Bible: Genesis (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1962), ad loc. Nevertheless, Speiser did not render ‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬directly in this clause, translating it as follows: “he had picked several of his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh.”

20

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Choosing Representatives: Various Verbs and Various Groups For selecting a specified number of representatives from a group, the Bible includes eleven other instances with the same basic construction that uses the verb ‫ ָל ַקח‬.43 The various human groups from which selection is made include: Israelite tribes; Gideon’s servants; Israelite warriors; the king’s servants; privy counselors; citizens of another country; and resident elders. (Arguably all of those chosen are men, but maleness is incidental to the activity of selection.) Four similar cases that employ different verbs, all of which use ‫ ִאישׁ‬conspicuously in a selection from a larger pool of persons, are: ִ ֞ ‫( ֶא ְס ָפ‬Num 11:16) ֒ ‫ישׁ ִמזִּ ְק ֵנ֣י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵאל‬ ֮ ‫ה־לּי ִשׁ ְב ִ ֣עים ִא‬ . . .‫ל־עם ַה ִמּ ְל ָח ָ ֖מה‬ ֥ ַ ‫הוֹשׁ ַע וְ ָכ‬ ֛ ֻ ְ‫( וַ ָ ֧יּ ָ קם י‬Josh 8:3) ‫בּוֹרי ַה ַ֔חיִ ל‬ ֣ ֵ ִ‫ישׁ גּ‬ ֙ ‫ֹלשׁים ֶ ֤א ֶלף ִא‬ ִ֨ ‫הוֹשׁ ַע ְשׁ‬ ֻ ‫וַ יִּ ְב ַ ֣חר ְ֠י‬ ‫צוֹת ֩ם‬ ָ ‫י־דן ׀ ִ ֽמ ִמּ ְשׁ ַפּ ְח ָ֡תּם ֲח ִמ ָ ֣שּׁה ֲאנָ ִ ֣שׁים ִמ ְק‬ ֣ ָ ֵ‫( וַ יִּ ְשׁ ְל ֣חוּ ְבנ‬Judg 18:2) ‫ים ִמ ָבּ ָ֔ניו‬ ֙ ‫ן־לנוּ ִשׁ ְב ָ ֤עה ֲאנָ ִשׁ‬ ָ ֜ ‫( יֻ ַתּ‬2 Sam 21:6) Again the groups to be represented are varied: elders, troops, a tribal clan, and descendants. Most striking is an instance using ‫ ָל ַקח‬for selection from a group, in which our noun ‫ ִאישׁ‬refers not to humans but rather to animals: ‫ח־לָך֛ ִשׁ ְב ָ ֥עה ִשׁ ְב ָ ֖עה ִ ֣אישׁ וְ ִא ְשׁ ֑תּוֹ‬ ְ ‫הוֹרה ִ ֽתּ ַקּ‬ ֗ ָ ‫( ִמ ֣כֹּל ׀ ַה ְבּ ֵה ָ ֣מה ַה ְטּ‬Gen 7:2) These animals are headed onto Noah’s Ark, where they will represent their species, not only as typical specimens but also as those designated to act on behalf of their species as progenitors. As with the non-human applications of ‫ ִאישׁ‬discussed earlier, this one makes perfect sense if we construe ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a relational term. Note that ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬functions the same way as does ‫ ִאישׁ‬in this passage. It designates a specifically female representative of each species.44 Once again, the usage of ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬corroborates the relational nature of ‫אישׁ‬. ִ

Gen 7:2 (which is discussed separately, below, page 18); Deut 1:23; Josh 3:12; 4:2; Judg 4:6; 6:27; 1 Sam 24:3; Jer 38:10; 52:25; Ezek 33:2; and Ruth 4:2. 44 For another instance where ‫שּׁה‬ ָ ‫ ִא‬designates non-human representatives, see Zech. 5:9. 43

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

21

SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

Construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a relational term is preferable to the conventional view, for affiliation is more consistent with ancient Near Eastern thought categories and Israelite social structure. ‫ ִאישׁ‬hardly behaves like the standalone term ‫א ָדם‬, ָ whereas it characteristically behaves like the relational term ‫בּן‬.ֵ Even without syntactic markers of affiliation: • the Bible deploys ‫ ִאישׁ‬with verbs that presume group membership; • the Bible collocates ‫ ִאישׁ‬with collective nouns as the individual correlate; • the Bible uses ‫ ִאישׁ‬in constructions that single out one of the members of a group; and • the Bible places ‫ ִאישׁ‬conspicuously in constructions and situations that prompt the reader to construe it as a term of affiliation. The widely recognized biblical nuances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬as “husband” and as “each” or “any” member (of a group or category) are easily explained by construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation. These usages account for >3% and 74% of all instances, respectively. More than 1% of biblical instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬refer to entities other than individual human beings. Such usage is easily explained by construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation. More than 1 out of 10 biblical instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬bear a representational sense that is best understood as a type of affiliation. All told, at least 87% of biblical instances of ‫ ִאישׁ‬can be accounted for by construing it as a term of affiliation, and some usages are best explained in just this way.

DISCUSSION This article began with the suggestion that ‫ ִאישׁ‬intrinsically conveys affiliation. It tested the word’s usage to see how far this hypothesis could be sustained. It presumed a semantic coherence for ‫ ִאישׁ‬unless the linguistic evidence would compel us to conclude otherwise. We have seen that not only does the Bible seem to employ ‫ ִאישׁ‬most of the time in a manner consistent with a relational sense, but also a sense of

22

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

affiliation repeatedly generates meaning from what are otherwise anomalous or conspicuous usages of ‫אישׁ‬. ִ 45 Thus the hypothesis appears to offer a simple yet elegant explanation for how ‫ ִאישׁ‬usually functions—an explanation that seems superior to the conventional view that the primary meaning of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is “adult male.” The analysis has treated biblical Hebrew as a single linguistic system. Although Robert Holmstedt has rightly called such an approach into question,46 the hypothesis that ‫ ִאישׁ‬is primarily a relational term is not sensitive to this assumption. It is therefore a valid simplification for the purposes of this article. Furthermore, my research thus far seems to confirm the assumption of uniformity with regard to ‫אישׁ‬. ִ The usage within the Bible is strikingly consistent. The three lexical nuances discussed above appear repeatedly across the whole range of biblical genres, registers, dialects, postulated source documents, and historical stages. Application to Other Instances The fact that the Bible’s composers usually employed ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation is no guarantee that they always did so. Words can have senses that are unrelated to each other. Without having examined every instance of ‫ ִאישׁ‬in the Bible, I mean only to claim that the affiliational aspect of ‫ ִאישׁ‬is its primary (most frequent) sense. Being the primary sense, it is the first one to try upon encountering a given instance of the word in question.47 The burden of proof is then on whoever would assert that the context justifies construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as something other than a term of affiliation. In expecting ‫ ִאישׁ‬to be a meaningful term, I draw a contrast with the linguist Martin Joos’s rule of thumb that lexicographers should assume the least possible meaning for a hapax (otherwise unknown) word in context, due to the “redundancy of natural language” (see Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning, rev. edn. [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994], pp. 153–155). To this editor’s eye, the Bible is a carefully crafted work, in which the artifice and economy of wording make it rather unlike natural language. When ‫ ִאישׁ‬is repeatedly conspicuous by its presence or is employed as a leading word, such usage indicates a semantic significance. 46 “Issues in the Linguistic Analysis of a Dead Language, with Particular Reference to Ancient Hebrew,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Vol. 6, Art. 11 (2006), pp. 2–21. 47 Mark Strauss, “Current Issues in the Gender-Language Debate,” in Glen G. Scorgie et al., eds., The Challenge of Bible Translation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), pp. 133–34. 45

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

23

Our noun’s relational aspect may not be obvious in many cases. Contemporary readers—who are accustomed to viewing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a standalone term—will easily spot the noun’s direct referent, yet they may find its indirect referent relatively challenging to identify. In the simplest cases, the text designates the indirect referent explicitly. Sometimes it is stated before the word ‫( ִאישׁ‬as shown here in blue; “the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob [as their paterfamilias]”): ‫מוֹת ְבּ ֵנ֣י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ֔אל ַה ָבּ ִ ֖אים ִמ ְצ ָ ֑ריְ ָמה ֵ ֣את יַ ֲע ֔קֹב‬ ֙ ‫( וְ ֵ֗א ֶלּה ְשׁ‬Exod 1:1) ‫יתוֹ ָ ֽבּאוּ׃‬ ֖ ‫וּב‬ ֵ ‫ִ ֥אישׁ‬ In other instances, the indirect referent appears after the word ‫ִאישׁ‬ (here, “members of the household”): ‫( וְ ֵ֨אין ִ֜אישׁ ֵמ ַאנְ ֵ ֥שׁי ַה ַ ֛בּיִ ת ָ ֖שׁם ַבּ ָ ֽבּיִ ת׃‬Gen 39:11) Often, however, the indirect referent is only implied. It may require some practice to perceive how ‫ ִאישׁ‬functions in such an instance to relate its two referents to each other. To triangulate an implied referent, the text employs a wide variety of constructions, as three further examples will illustrate. 1. Joseph (as the vizier of Egypt) employs ‫ ִאישׁ‬in order to single out a member of the group: ‫ה־לּי ֔ ָע ֶבד‬ ֣ ִ ֶ‫יע ְבּיָ ֗דוֹ ֚הוּא יִ ְהי‬ ַ ‫( ה ִָ֡אישׁ ֲא ֶשׁר֩ נִ ְמ ָ֨צא ַהגָּ ִ֜ב‬Gen 44:17) In so doing, Joseph refers implicitly to all of his eleven brothers—for the stated condition applies in potential to any of them (“the one [in whose possession the goblet is found]).” The indirect referent is thus the entire party of travelers. 2. The narrator employs ‫ ִאישׁ‬to point at the unnamed party who attacks Jacob: ‫ישׁ ִע ֔מּוֹ ַ ֖עד ֲע ֥לוֹת ַה ָ ֽשּׁ ַחר׃‬ ֙ ‫( וַ יִּ וָּ ֵ ֥תר יַ ֲע ֖קֹב ְל ַב ֑דּוֹ וַ יֵּ ָא ֵ ֥בק ִא‬Gen 32:25) In the process, the narrator defines an indirect referent: the group consisting of participants in that conflict. (In this regard, Jacob could likewise be termed an ‫אישׁ‬. ִ 3. When counterposed with a term for the Deity, refers indirectly to the human species (of which any given ‫ ִאישׁ‬is a member), as in Balaam’s poetic pronouncement: ‫ן־א ָ ֖דם וְ יִ ְתנֶ ָ ֑חם‬ ָ ‫וּב‬ ֶ ‫יכ ֵ֔זּב‬ ַ ‫( ֣ל ֹא ִ ֥אישׁ ֵאל֙ ִ ֽו‬Num 23:19)

24

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

In this case, humankind as a divisible group is implicitly contrasted with God’s singularity. Implications for Stating English Equivalence In English dictionaries, grammars, and commentaries on the Bible it is a common practice to gloss ‫ ִאישׁ‬as “man.” The foregoing analysis suggests that such a practice is misleading, because the two words correspond poorly with regard to affiliation. In biblical Hebrew, ‫ ִאישׁ‬generally (and perhaps always) retains the flavor of affiliation, whereas the English word “man” often lacks that sense. In 1624, the English poet John Donne famously penned the gender-inclusive statement “No man is an island, entire of itself”; yet if a biblical Hebrew writer were to express such a thought using ‫אישׁ‬, ִ it would be a tautology. While the word “man” does convey affiliation in certain constructions, it unfortunately fails to do so in most of the contexts in which ‫ ִאישׁ‬appears in the Bible.48 Given such a limited semantic correspondence between ‫ ִאישׁ‬and “man,” a more fitting general gloss would appear to be an “affiliate,” or possibly “participant” or “party.”49 Implications for Translation What affects an isolated gloss can also affect the contextual translation of certain passages. For example, the subject of Judg 18:7 is a small band of warriors on a mission: ‫כוּ ֲח ֵ ֣מ ֶשׁת ָה ֲאנָ ִ֔שׁים וַ יָּ ֖בֹאוּ ָ ֑ליְ ָשׁה‬ ֙ ‫וַ יֵּ ְל‬ for which ‫ ֲח ֵמ ֶשׁת ָה ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬is rendered as “the five men” almost universally, even in translations that have attempted to be gender-sensitive (NRSV, NLT, TNIV).50 When the NIVI rendition appeared (England, 1996) and See further § VII.G.4 of my memorandum “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Man’?” (above, n. 39). 49 On why a gloss for ‫ ִאישׁ‬in English should be gender neutral (despite the existence of a feminine counterpart to ‫)אישׁ‬, ִ in Part V of my memorandum “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Man’?” (above, n. 39) or—more formally and precisely—my article “The Grammar of Social Gender in Biblical Hebrew,” Hebrew Studies, Vol. XLIX (2008), pp. 7–26; http://tinyurl.com/GrammarGender. 50 Key to abbreviations in this subsection (in order of their appearance): NRSV = New Revised Standard Version; NLT = New Living Translation; TNIV = Today’s New International Version; NIVI = New International Version, Inclusive Language Edition; KJV = King James Version; HCSB = Holman Christian 48

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

25

rendered the phrase as “the five of them,” D. A. Carson objected that because the referent is to warriors (who are presumably males), “there is no good reason to change from ‘men’ to some gender-neutral form.”51 However, construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation provides such a reason. Without questioning the presumption that these five figures are all males, it should be noted that the narrator refers to them via a term that clearly calls attention to their affiliation with their tribe (as well as to the non-feminine social gender of at least one of their number). When the narrator first identified these ‫( ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬in verse 2 of the passage; see above), the sense of affiliation was specifically representational. The NIVI rendering as “the five of them” signifies affiliation, and thus it conveys the Hebrew term’s most relevant meaning, which the conventional rendering does not. In this respect, rendering Judg 18:7 with the word “men” sacrifices some accuracy in translation. Another example of how the findings of this article affect translation is in Exod 32:28, which, as we saw above, treats ‫ ִאישׁ‬as the individual correlate of ‫ ַעם‬. In other words, ‫ ַעם‬is here the indirect referent of ‫אישׁ‬: ִ ‫ן־ה ָע ֙ם … ִכּ ְשׁ ֹ֥ל ֶשׁת ַא ְל ֵ ֖פי ִ ֽאישׁ׃‬ ָ ‫ִמ‬ This verse’s wording says nothing about social gender; in context, our noun simply means “members of the group in question.”52 Rendering the phrase as “of the people . . . three thousand men” (KJV) may have been defensible in 1611, when the word “men” still had a primarily gender-neutral cast. In contemporary English, however, “men” is predominantly a male term, so that a similar rendering today (“three thousand men among the people,” HCSB; “three thousand men of the people,” Alter, ESV) overtranslates the male gender-marker of ‫אישׁ‬. ִ 53 A rendering that expresses affiliation (e.g., Standard Bible; ESV = English Standard Version; NJPS = New Jewish Publication Society version. 51 The Inclusive-Language Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), p. 139. 52 Mark L. Strauss correctly notes that in this case “it is difficult to discern whether to take ’îsh as inclusive or exclusive” (Distorting Scripture? The Challenge of Bible Translation and Gender Accuracy [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998], p. 107). The text’s wording itself is agnostic on this question, while context gives little indication as to the social gender of the ‫ ַעם‬in view. 53 On how the male gender-marker in ‫ ִאישׁ‬is suppressed by the grammatical construction of this verse, see “The Grammar of Social Gender in Biblical

26

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

“three thousand of the people,” NJPS, NRSV, NIV, TNIV; or “three thousand of the men”54) more accurately conveys the main semantic feature of our noun, albeit at the cost of one-to-one correspondence with Hebrew wording, which some translators seek. Implications for Exegesis Construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation solves a number of exegetical cruxes that have resulted from understanding it as “adult male.” For example, at Gen 4:1, when Eve first gives birth, she bestows the name Cain and ִ ‫ ָק ִ ֥נ‬.” Claus Westermann notes the classic explains it via the clause “…‫יתי ִ ֖אישׁ‬ difficulty, “namely that the word ‫ ִאישׁ‬cannot mean the newly born child and that it never occurs with the meaning ‘male child.’ ” He therefore opines that Eve “sees in the child she has borne the (future) man.”55 However, in light of the Bible’s abiding interest in population increase, the ancient audience would probably perceive this inaugural infant as remarkable foremost for his being an addition to the human species. And if ‫ ִאישׁ‬is a term of affiliation, then what Eve is saying would make perfect sense in context: “I have created a member [of humankind] . . .” Likewise in Exodus, when Pharaoh’s courtiers conspicuously propose that “‫ ” ָה ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬of the Israelite slaves be dispatched to worship their deity …‫ת־ה ֲאנָ ִ֔שׁים וְ ַי ַֽע ְב ֖דוּ‬ ֣ ָ ‫( ַשׁ ַלּ ֙ח ֶא‬Exod 10:7) they do not mean “the men” (as opposed to “the women”; so translations such as RSV, NJPS, NLT, ESV, HCSB), nor do they mean “the people” in general (so NRSV, NIV, TNIV). Rather, the courtiers take for granted that every ethnic group recognizes that particular officials or elders can represent the populace on certain occasions. Thus the courtiers’ proposal is: send their authorized representatives. This reading explains why Pharaoh then asks Moses, “Who in particular are the ones to go?” (‫ ; ִ ֥מי וָ ִ ֖מי ַהה ְֹל ִ ֽכים‬v. 8). Hebrew” (above, n. 49). That article’s findings, when taken in combination with the findings of this article, call into question § A.4 of the Colorado Springs Guidelines for Translation of Gender-Related Language in Scripture (1997), which states that ‫“ ִאישׁ‬should ordinarily be translated ‘man’ and ‘men.’ ” The guidelines are available at www.bible-researcher.com/csguidelines.html). 54 This would be the more accurate translation if one were to argue that the particular ‫ ַעם‬in view was entirely male (as is sometimes the case). 55 Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994), p. 290.

RABBI DAVID E. S. STEIN

27

As Rabbi Moses Nachmanides commented more than seven hundred years ago: “Pharaoh initially wanted [only] leaders and elders to go—‫ ֲאנָ ִשׁים‬who would be ‘designated by name’ ” (at 10:8, quoting Num 1:17). As biblical words go, ‫ ִאישׁ‬is not a trivial term. It functions as a theme word in the book of Genesis, and it is a key term in the interpretation of certain passages. Consequently, if this article’s thesis withstands scrutiny it should significantly affect the prevailing plain-sense exegesis of famous verses in the biblical text.56 It should also alter our contemporary view of androcentrism in the Hebrew Bible. At least linguistically, the Bible does not treat adult males as “the measure of all things,” despite the claims of many contemporary interpreters—both feminists and complementarians among them.

CONCLUSION This article confirms the thrust of Alison Grant’s (largely ignored) finding that an ‫ ִאישׁ‬would “be thought of always in relation to [a] particular group or community.” It has also confirmed Grant’s perception of a “membership” sense of ‫אישׁ‬. ִ Our conclusions go further than did Grant’s, in two main respects. First, we have identified related nuances for ‫—אישׁ‬most ִ importantly, that this noun can convey representation. Taken together, the “affiliational” nuances account for at least 87% of all biblical instances of the word. And we have added to Grant’s list of instances that seem to be best explained by construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬relationally. Therefore, it appears that in biblical Hebrew, ‫ ִאישׁ‬intrinsically denotes affiliation. The second conclusion beyond Grant’s work is an ancillary one. In the process of investigating the behavior of the word ‫ ִאישׁ‬we have seen that its feminine counterpart, ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬, functions in much the same way. This correspondence suggests that ‫ ִא ָשּׁה‬is also a term of affiliation. Lexically speaking, the relational meaning of ‫ ִאישׁ‬exists independently of the male semantic content that ‫ ִאיש‬can bear by virtue of its having a feminine counterpart. Although ‫ ִאישׁ‬can connote “an adult male,” that meaning is found in a small minority of the word’s instances, as determined

56 For application to the interpretation of three such passages (Gen 18:2, 19:5, and Num 30:3), see Part VIII of my memorandum “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Man’?” (above, n. 39).

28

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

by the context. In most cases, the maleness of the word ‫ ִאישׁ‬is not a salient feature. Construing ‫ ִאישׁ‬as a term of affiliation (and for the same reasons also ‫ ) ִא ָשּׁה‬holds great promise and thus bears further investigation—in biblical and epigraphic Hebrew, in subsequent versions of Hebrew, and in other Semitic languages in which a cognate term appears.

THE FRIENDS OF ANTIQUITIES (IN HEB. ‫)נאמני עתיקות‬: THE STORY OF AN ISRAELI VOLUNTEER GROUP AND COMPARATIVE REMARKS RAZ KLETTER INSTITUTE OF HISTORY, TALLINN UNIVERSITY 1. BACKGROUND When the state of Israel was established in 1948 it had almost no resources for maintaining its archaeological sites and historical monuments. The Palestine Archaeological Museum (“Rockefeller Museum”), with its rich collections and administrative archives, became part of East Jerusalem and was held by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. All Israelis were refused access to the Museum by Jordan; even the one Israeli representative on the international body that managed the Museum was denied access. Israel’s feeble efforts to find some compromise or even to divide the Museum assets through either the British Government or UNESCO failed (Kletter 2006:174-192). Although relatively few local, small Museums and archaeological collections dating from the British Mandate Period existed in the area that eventually became Israel in 1948, some of those that were suffered badly through the 1948 war, acts of looting, and vandalism that occurred in Caesarea, Megiddo, Jerusalem and other places (Kletter 2006:19-33). The Hebrew University of Jerusalem was the only institute of Higher Education with a Department of Archaeology. Thus the number of academic positions for archaeologists in Israel was very limited. Almost from scratch the State established a new “Antiquities Unit” that was affiliated first to the Public Works Department and to the Ministry of Education since 1949. In 1955 it became the Israel Department of 29

30

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Antiquities and Museums (IDAM for short; for convenience sake, I shall use this term also for the period before 1955). The IDAM started with barely 15 workers. Most of them came from the former British Mandatory Department of Antiquities. They occupied a few rooms and shared a library that numbered about one hundred books. Even the manager of the new unit, Shmuel Yeivin (see picture 1) had no separate room for himself at first. Only three supervisors were responsible for the preservation of all the archaeological sites and historical monuments in the area of the State. Many sites, especially near the borders, were either under military rule at the time or could not be reached by public transport. Moreover, inspectors lacked cars. In 1953 a “guards’ battalion,” numbering 20 guards at its height, was established. . They all lacked formal archaeological education. Most of them were placed as stationary guards, but one guard alone could not adequately protect large sites such as Megiddo or Ashkelon (Kletter 2006:117-132). For example, the antiquities guard stationed at Atlit (a large Crusader fortress south of Haifa) had to travel each week by public transport to Hadera to fetch foodstuffs and to receive his salary; he lacked official documents to prove his position and was dependent upon the goodwill of the authorities of the Atlit military base. In 1957 the army occupied most of the ancient site, eliminating the need for an antiquities guard. Yeivin tried for years to secure a legal basis for the guards. Without it, as stated clearly in an official legal advice, guards could neither detain persons caught in the act of robbing antiquities nor demand the return of the looted antiquities. All a guard could do was to ask politely for the person’s name and address, information the later was not obliged to give (Kletter 2006:130). The situation of ancient sites in Israel was aggravated by two processes over which the fledgling IDAM had little influence. First, there was the process of destruction associated with war and its aftermath. All wars damage human archaeological heritage sites and the 1948 war in Palestine/Israel was not different (Kletter 2006:1-30). Moreover, considerable damage to ancient sites was caused by the destruction of many deserted Arab villages and urban quarters (even in cities of a mixed Arab-Jewish population, such as Tiberias): many of these places were situated upon ancient sites or incorporated ancient remains (Kletter 2006:42-64). In addition, the need the State of Israel had to maintain a large army ready for battle forced the building of many new army bases and border fortifications, as well as space for training units, which at times occurred at the expense of ancient sites. Jean Perrot was almost targeted by such a training unit once while

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excavating a site in the Negev. Some large coastal sites (that naturally occupied the few natural harbors) were occupied by the army—including Dor, Appolonia-Arsuf and Atlit. A border post facing Syria was built on the ancient city of Susita, east of the Sea of Galilee (Kletter 2006:37-40). Development was the second process that damaged human archaeological heritage sites in Israel during the early years of the State. Between 1948 and 1953 a million new immigrants arrived in Israel, more than doubling the pre-war Jewish population of 600,000. The massive development this caused included—not only the foundation of new settlements and towns and the enlarging of existing ones, but also an unprecedented number of development projects that changed the landscape completely (roads, factories, plantation of forests, development of agricultural fields; Kletter 2006:64-81). Economic reality, which rendered many unemployed, forced the creation of a welfare system. Indeed, the large excavations of the 1950s and early 1960s in Israel were all carried out and made possible by the existence of ‘cheap’ welfare workers (Kletter 2006:133-149). The pressures of development were such that there were a considerable number of official bodies dealing with the creation of new villages and kibbutzim, and some that did not always work ‘by the rules’. In some cases new temporary camps for immigrants (ma’abarot) were built right on ancient tells. IDAM protested once this was discovered but its protests were mainly ignored (Kletter 2006:66-68)

2. THE CREATION OF THE FRIENDS OF ANTIQUITIES Given this background, the idea to use volunteers to help preserve Israel’s archaeological heritage is not surprising. We find the idea first expressed even before the State was established. On December 16, 1947 senior Hebrew archaeologists met to discuss the future of archaeology in Palestine. This was at a time when the creation of two states was envisioned- one Jewish and one Arab—in which some basic services would be shared and cooperation maintained. According to detailed minutes and a short report (GL44868/7, Kletter 2006:1-2) the participants recommended that the future Department of Antiquities of the Hebrew state would maintain close contacts with the general public and engage in education for the safekeeping of antiquities through a body called Hever Shoharey ‘Atiqot (“Band of Antiquities Enthusiasts”). However, no action was possible in the first half of 1948 to fulfill this recommendation since the conditions at the

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time were so difficult. Also, it is not known who conceived of the idea in the first place. Shmuel Yeivin realized from the first days of the IDAM that its workforce was extremely limited and started to prepare a body of volunteers. The history of the first decade of the volunteers is documented mainly by file GL.444866/3 of the Israel State Archive, which consists mostly of correspondence within the IDAM (as a result, many of these documents were not numbered and one can refer to them only by the general file number and by date). Another major source about the early history of the volunteers is the IDAM’s newsletter in Hebrew - the “Alon” of which six volumes appeared between 1949 and 1957. Yeivin began to create the body of volunteers in the second half of 1948. He did this mainly by approaching people whom he met while touring the country or in work meetings in the IDAM premises, mainly in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv. He would explain the roles of the future body and ask them to join it as members. It was never meant to be a large-scale body, open to the general public. On the contrary, the concept was to nominate one volunteer at each village or Kibbutz who would be responsible for the surrounding region as well. In large cities, four or five volunteers would be selected. The term coined for these volunteers was “Friends of Antiquities” (‫נאמני עתיקות‬, hereafter, mainly “Friends”). They would be the unofficial and unpaid “eyes and ears” of the IDAM, appointed from among local amateurs interested in archaeology. In close contact with the IDAM, they were supposed to notify it about new discoveries or sites in danger. The “Friends” would also help to run local collections, arrange exhibitions and assist in educating the general public (Alon I:3-4; IEJ 1:248). Initially the body envisioned was called “Band of Enthusiasts of Antiquities” (e.g., in the meeting of December 1947). Soon after the term “Friends of Antiquities” was coined for the volunteers. For a short while both terms were used by Yeivin. But, in fact, only the “Friends of Antiquities” existed. The “Band” never materialized, and later this term was never mentioned. The first practical act in the creation of the body of volunteers took place in early August 1948. Still using the “enthusiasts,” the IDAM sent a “memorandum” to those considered candidates for the new body. : Letter of Memorandum Sent to Antiquities Enthusiasts

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To Mr. ........ At ......... [These details were to be filled by hand]. D[ear] S[ir], I am glad to inform you that an Antiquity Unit has been established in the state of Israel. It is the wish of this unit to closely cooperate with all parts of the nation. For that [aim], we are going to organize a “band of antiquities enthusiasts” and we will be happy if you agree to be a representative of this band at .......... [Place to be filled by hand]. This position of honor is related to certain acts, which we hope that you will not find too difficult to fulfill, such as: to be interested in the state of antiquities in your settlement and the near surroundings; to gather news about new finds or discoveries and inform the IDAM; to make suggestions about keeping and saving antiquities, etc. Explicit directions will be sent to you after we shall have your agreement [to join the new body]. Respectfully yours, Head of the IDAM (copies in GL44889/3, No. 1171a).

In the course of the 1950’s and 1960’s this type of application form underwent a few, minor changes. Not everybody was enthusiastic about becoming an enthusiast. Pesach Bar-Adon, then at Kibbutz Merhavia and considered to be a ‘type’ (sort of ‘bohemian’ or ‘eccentric’) answered thus: To: Mr. Sh. Yeivin, Manager of the Antiquities Unit in the State of Israel. Dear Sir, In answering your undated form, which I have received this week, I hereby announce that I do not accept any position of honor, until further notices... (GL44889/3) Yeivin explained in the first IAA newsletter (Alon) from 1949 that:

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES This trial is new in our land. Its planners and participants do not know yet the right way to choose for it to flourish... We hope that daily work and practical experience will teach the faithfuls and us what to do, what to beware of, and what to avoid. For that reason, we also publish this newsletter (Alon 1:3).

The first newsletter included explicit instructions, admittedly of a tentative nature, for the activity of the new volunteers. They were defined as the eyes and ears of the IDAM, expected to: Keep what survives and be aware of what is found… The Land of Israel, a land with a past of many generations, is rich in events, full of historical remains and antiquities on each and every step. The current activities of war, fortification works, defensive digging, bombing and removal of ruins may expose graves, remains of walls and buildings or detached antiquities... (Alon 1:4).

The “Friends” were instructed to arrive with great haste to any endangered site and try to persuade owners of property or managers of development works to temporarily stop the work. However, the “Friends” lacked official authority and could not order the cessation of work. They were advised to promise those in power that the IDAM did not intend to disturb the work, but only wished to check the antiquities, and not to “grasp treasures.” Another way to persuade contractors or landowners was to tempt them by national arguments: to explain to them that antiquities are a direct link between “our present and our past.” Such arguments were based on the high nationalistic sentiments of that period. The “Friends” were asked to report a discovery by submitting a descriptive report of the find as soon as possible, preferably written shortly upon discovery and including drawings, photographs, and a description of the grounds, walls, pottery, etc. Since “only experts can excavate properly,” “Friends” were not allowed to dig independently in order not to damage antiquities. “Friends” were allowed to remove antiquities from a site only in cases of emergency when the antiquities faced immediate danger; in such cases they were required to notify the IDAM immediately. Since few phones and cars existed in Israel in those years, notification was usually made by letters- even by scraps and pieces of paper (Zetalach in Yiddish). Telegrams could be used in cases of emergency, but the IDAM did not encourage this method, because of the cost it incurred (Alon I:3-5, 18-21).

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New members were appointed by recommendation of existing “Friends” or IDAM workers. Some people applied on their own accord, but not everyone was admitted. Yeivin insisted that dealers and private collectors of antiquities could not serve as “Friends,” even if they were reliable and were highly knowledgeable in their area (GL44844/8, No. 2 of 9.10.48). (However, later this rule was not strictly applied for owners of minor collections). Extant rejection letters reveal various reasons. For example, an applicant was deemed too young or lacking sufficient knowledge. One woman was rejected because she reputedly travelled too often, rendering her unavailable for safekeeping sites near her home. In another case recorded in September 1952, a doctor from Tel-Aviv was rejected because “there are already a considerable number of “Friends” from Tel-Aviv, so we can not appoint more.” News about the new body spread in 1949 through several newspapers (e.g., a letter by Eli Rothschild kept in GL1430/14 No. 6703; and the Jerusalem Post from 7.7.1949). Ha’aretz newspaper published the story how “Friends” discovered a mosaic floor near a temporary camp of immigrants in 1949 at Sha’ar ha-Aliyah, south of Haifa. Until the creation of the Ma’abarot this camp was cramped with immigrants. Living conditions there were very hard (cf. Segev 1984:129): The speedy action of the “Friends” can prevent damage... an example can be given by the discovery of a mosaic floor opposite of the Sha’ar ha-Aliyah camp near Haifa. A driver of a bulldozer brought up a stone that looked to him ancient. It was noticed by one of the “Friends” at Haifa - an owner of a delicatessen shop by profession and an amateur archaeologist by tendency. He went to the place together with another “Friend,” a police sergeant by profession, and both began to excavate carefully, till they reached the mosaic floor. Immediately, they photographed the site and notified the IDAM in Jerusalem (Ha’aretz 8.4.1951).

The mosaic floor, which was part of a monastery, was excavated and published by Dothan (1951). However, not everybody was aware of the new body of volunteers. In July 1949, a certain Franz Hichenberg from TelAviv who applied to the IDAM, suggested the establishment of an association of amateur archaeologists “in towns and villages;” he was apparently unaware that a similar body already existed. Hichenberg himself became a dedicated “Friend.”

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The IDAM started to activate new “Friends.” The young and very energetic Ruth Amiran, then Supervisor of the Northern district, wrote on 21.12.1948 to the appointed “Friend” from Kibbutz Manara, Y. Goldman: Since in your letter of August 8th, 1948, you have taken the role of a member on behalf of the “Band of Antiquities Enthusiasts” at your place; I apply to you in the following request... In my tour of the Galilee a week after it was conquered I saw a few ancient places while passing near Manara, one of which is Sheikh ‘Ubeid…. I ask you to visit this place and collect sherds and in due course send them to the IDAM GL44866/3). Amiran assumed that Goldman could find the said site and knew how to collect relevant sherds. Other “Friends” were in need of some education and training before would be able to perform such tasks.

3. HEADACHES OF ORGANIZATION By the early 1950s the IDAM had gathered a body of faithful members, but it required constant administration. Members changed their names into Hebrew, moved from place to place, or stopped volunteering without notice. In one case a woman wrote to the IDAM that the Alon newsletter arrived at the Kibbutz, but the appointed “Friend” was on a mission, so she volunteered to replace him. Another wrote that he was happy to accept the position of “Friends” and will be free for activities “at home before 8:00 and after 20:00, as well as on weekends.” Yet another sent a letter asking for a recommendation to the police in order to acquire a pistol. Franz Hichenberg from Mapu St., Tel-Aviv (whom we have already met) became Peretz Tura of Patai Street, Giva’atim (a neighboring city). He did receive a letter from the IDAM, which was sent to his old address. However, on 1.8.1956 he asked the IDAM to register new details- apparently not for the first time: Subject: your letter of 29.7.56, no. 1687. 1. I hereby acknowledge receipt of your said letter- It seems to me you have made archaeological excavations in your drawers and on that occasion found some letters of mine that survived so far unanswered. Since you are busy, probably, in surveying your correspondence, I ask you to register immediately my new accurate address. -Thanks to the blessed Giva’taim municipality, which was kind enough to name the street where we live (formerly, having no other alternative, it was named after the nearby street); it even gave a number to our house.

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2. As for your questions: “Friend” of the Department—I am ready to continue to carry this titlethough no sites as yet were discovered in Giv’ataim. Even the “ancient city of Giv’ataim,” that is, the neighborhood of Kiryat Yoseph, also called Khap neighborhood, lacks important antiquities [he was unaware of Chalcolithic burials discovered in the 1930s in Giv’ataim, later excavated by V. Sussman and S. Ben-Arieh]. Association of “Friends” abroad—the difficulties related to this plan [of mine] are not as great as you assume. I believe that there is interest among Jews and Gentiles in this field. The land of Israel can also give something to the big world, not just send employees to raise funds… I think it is possible to issue short, precise booklets and use the same photos [that are published in Israel] in English... The market available for such leaflets abroad, and for enlisting volunteers to the IDAM, exists among Rabbis, schoolteachers, Priests, etc. Nice drawings and short, factual descriptions will win the hearts and will also furnish cultural relations between Israel and abroad (GL44866/3).

At first the IDAM management (Yeivin and Ben-Dor) dealt with the “Friends” on a personal basis. Later the growth of the IDAM did not allow them to continue this personal mode of contact. During the 1960s, the connection between the “Friends” and the IDAM was maintained by district inspectors, each in his/her specific district. For example, Ram Gophna, working as an IDAM supervisor in the central district, reported on 7.1.1963: Subject: “Friends” at Kibbutz Hazerim. About three years ago the “Friend” at this place, Y. Meshorer, quit, and we have lost connection [with him]. Recently, there has been an awakening among some of the older members of the Kibbutz... I recommend nominating member G. El’ad as a faithful of antiquities at this place (GL44866/3)

The activities of the “Friends” had to be financed by IDAM funds, which were severely constrained (Kletter 2006:41, 279, 262, 303-304, 312 Table 6). However the costs were low, at least during the 1950s: no more than 1000 Israeli Liras per year. IDAM’s sponsorship of “Friends” was

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minimal at this stage: “Friends” received the Newsletter (Alon) for free and some of their discoveries were published in it. More expensive activities, such as general conferences for “Friends,” were developed only later (see below). The large majority of “Friends” were not professional archaeologists. There is, of course, no sharp line of division between professional and amateur archaeology; the boundaries also vary for each period and country. For the present article, professional archaeology can be defined roughly as that performed by academics (holding a BA degree or higher) related to institutes of higher education, the IEJ, the museums, or the IDAM. Although “Friends” could report a new or a damaged site, they could not always identify the period or understand whether a a find was common or rare. In 1952 Ruth Amiran saw a leaflet published by the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London which outlined its membership details. Established in 1936-7, this London-based association required that its members pay one guinea per year; in turn a member would be permitted to use the facilities, such as the institute library. Amiran sent the page to Yeivin and suggested that the “Friends” be organized on similar grounds: Perhaps we should move the friends to a structure of an association which pays something and gets something in return.... Really, why must we do everything free of charge?(GL44889/3). Yeivin did not like this suggestion and marked on the edge of her proposal: “It is completely unreasonable and the two cases bear no similarity at all.”

In 1949 the “Friends,” who were not numerous at the time, received maps which were made on a scale of 1:20,000; these were to be marked with new discoveries (GL44889/3 No. 481). Ben-Dor, Deputy Director of the IDAM, sent one map to Shlomoh Kamai from Tarbikha-Shomeriya in the Galilee on 28.9.1949, explaining to him: You ought to fix clear signs for each type of antiquities, for example: U – cave, * – Tell, O – pit, # – ancient building remains... In due course we will send you more signs GL44889/3). Such cartographic equipment led to the surprising arrest of Dr. Y. Kaplan, the famous pioneer of archaeology in the Tel-Aviv area. In early 1950, Kaplan, armed with this IAA map and an aerial photo (rare gadgets usually not held by Israeli civilians in those years), was surveying an area near an army camp. Walking with such a map (All

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1:20,000 maps were considered confidential) and an aerial photo, looking carefully at the ground as if searching for something, Kaplan was clearly not strolling for fresh air. Finding his activity suspicious, soldiers arrested Kaplan. Almost certainly Kaplan was walking near a large army base at Ramat Gan, looking for a fortress that he (later) identified as part of a Hellenistic period line of fortifications of King Alexander Yanneus (Kaplan 1993:1455). Yeivin wrote to Yigael Yadin, then Chief of Staff of the army: I must explain that Mr. Kaplan surveyed the area looking for remains of a large building- perhaps a fortress- on the ground. He seemed to identify its remains from the aerial photo. Mr. Kaplan told me that he showed the officer who arrested him the copy of the IDAM letter, nominating him as a “Friend”... Therefore, on behalf of the IDAM, I wish to ask you two things: A. In relation to the case of Mr. Kaplan, I’d ask that both the map and the aerial photo taken from him at the time of his arrest will be returned; for it is difficult to get new maps now, and completely impossible to receive a new British aerial photo. B. Can a general order be issued to the army, to take into consideration letters of nomination of “Friends” on behalf of the Band of Antiquities Enthusiasts? Where there is no real reason to doubt the intention of a certain person, this letter of nomination can be considered sufficient justification; so that holders of such letters can stay and explore antiquities... (GL44875/10 No. 2562).

A decade later the IDAM was requested to surrender the same 1:20,000 maps for security reasons. On 12.3.59 Y. Landau, the IDAM archivist, wrote to the manpower division of teaching at the Ministry of Education asking to locate an address of one “Friend,” a teacher with which the IDAM, “had relations in 1950-51. We wrote him about the map twice on 30.12.57 and 20.1.58, but received no answer” (GL44889/3 No. 1100). Ruth Amiran wondered about criteria for the “Friends”: A. On nominating the “Friends”: We ought to set certain rules in nominating and choosing “Friends” that will allow us to somehow “test” a nominee, of course without his knowledge.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES For example: 1. As a first step, suggest to the nominee to correspond with the IDAM about antiquities in his area. With time, he will widen his scope of knowledge and enterprise, and the amount of time he is ready to sacrifice to the goal. 2. Only later and after consultations, to suggest nomination [to him/her] (GL44889/3, letter 8.7.1949).

4. THE “FRIENDS” GROW Lists of “Friends” were published in the newsletter of the IDAM (Alon) during the 1950’s. In January 1949 there were 10 “Friends” on army service and 27 civilians (Alon 1). The numbers rose fast, reaching 61 civilians and just 3 army men in March 1950 (Alon 2:3, inner back page). These statistics signify a return to civilian life, a result of the release from duty of the 1948 soldiers. In 1953 there were 76 civilians and 7 army members (Alon 4:back cover). By 1955 the “Friends” consisted of about one hundred in 85 settlements (Yeivin 1955b:3). In 1957 there were 125 civilians and 3 army “Friends.” Around 1958, about a decade after the body was created, there were 173 “Friends” in 140 towns and settlements (Alon 5-6: back cover; Yeivin 1960:2). A slightly lower number appears in another source (128 “Friends” in 102 settlements, Yeivin, GL44883/12 report p. 2). In the same year the IDAM had only 60 employees including the antiquities guards. The establishment of the body of volunteers was a success by all counts, a fact that contributed greatly to the very limited manpower of the IDAM. Attention should be paid to the very low number of soldier “Friends” throughout the 1950s. Soldiers, mostly young persons, did not join this body, or were not considered desirable candidates. . This was before some army generals developed a habit of collecting antiquities as status symbols. This did occur later, largely under the influence of General Moshe Dayan (Kletter 2004). Naturally, such activities completely negated the values of the “Friends.” However, it seems that during the 1950’s the Israeli army remained largely outside the so-called “cult of antiquities,” unlike the politicians. After 1958 the Alon ceased to exist, and lists of “Friends” were no longer published. Yet the body continued to grow and to flourish, reaching its zenith during the 1960s. A letter written in June 1962 mentions that there were about 180 “Friends.” Part of this growth can be attributed to the growing survey activity of that period. When Aharoni conducted his Galilee survey in 1956 he used volunteers from the area, and some were asked to join the “Friends.” When the Association for Survey (Hebrew Agudah le-

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Seker) was established in 1962, with the (explicit) aim of surveying the entire country, volunteers on the survey teams were also asked to join the “Friends.” Many “Friends” came from kibbutzim and from communal circles among whom the concept of “knowledge of the land” (Yedi’at Ha’Aretz) flourished. This situation also reflected the high status of members of kibbutzim during the period: they were considered an elite group in Israel. Practical reasons also played a part: the kibbutz allocated “cultural days” for members of kibbutzim, which they could employ for cultural activities such as archaeology (Y. Porat, interview 12.11.02). Individual working people, such as those living in cities, did not have free “culture days.” Yeivin expressed the wish to organize a conference of “Friends” in 1948, but hoped that their legal position could be sorted out beforehand. In 1952 a few “Friends” were invited to attend a seminar held for IDAM archaeologists (GL44866/3, 14.11.1951). A high-school education was required in order to attend. The IDAM even supplied free accommodation in Jerusalem, in return for commitment for future work in excavations for at least one summer month (when “Friends” could take a leave from their jobs). The seminar lasted from January to March 1952, with 130 hours of study. Joe Shadur, a “Friend” from Kibbutz Nirim, participated in two small “Friends” meetings in Jerusalem in the 1950s (pers. comm. 2004). One such meeting was mentioned in the press (Ha’aretz, 24.12.55, by A. Haimi). At least five general conferences were organized for “Friends” in the following years: 1. The first general conference of “Friends” was held in March 1958, but very little is known about it. Yeivin estimated (letters, GL.1430/14) that eighty “Friends” would participate. The cost was about four hundred Israeli Liras (IL 1.80 = US $ 1.00 in 1954, IL 3.00 = US $ 1.00 in 1962), including bed and breakfast for two nights in a youth hostel, presumably only for lecturers. 2. A second conference was organized four years later, in April 22-24, 1962 (during the Easter holiday). B. Mazar lectured about the Israelite [=Iron Age] period and the “Friends” visited the IDAM museum. The conference was opened by a lecture given by Avraham Biran (the IDAM manager 1962-1974) who said: “In the “Friends” I see the conscience of those who like antiquities. They indeed are those who stand guard… They are the ones who should alert us to action and to salvage” (HA 3:1). Biran stressed that antiquities are not a private property of the IDAM, but a

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cultural, national property, which is only entrusted to the IDAM for safekeeping (HA 3, 1962:1-2). 3. A third conference was carried out in 1963 in the IDAM premises, Jerusalem, with more than a hundred “Friends” in attendance (HA 6, 1963:28-29). Abba Eban, then Minister of Education and Culture, sealed the lectures. File GL44868/6 still contains some un-used breakfast coupons for Nakhshon club, Ben Yehuda Street 4, Jerusalem, courtesy of the IDAM. Presumably they belonged to “Friends” who were late on arrival or who had to cancel their attendance. One of them was Shimon Dar, later a Professor at Bar-Ilan University. “Friends” were also invited to attend the annual archaeological conference of the IES in 1965. 4. The next general conference took place in July 3-5th, 1966, in what was the new Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Excavations and surveys were the main topic. More than a hundred and fifty “Friends” attended this conference (HA 20, 1966:25). Biran described the new draft of the law of antiquities, Binyamin Mazar spoke on surveying, and Joshua Prawer gave the final lecture. 5. Yet another general conference of “Friends” was held after the 1967 war on 25-26 March 1968 at the Rockefeller building.. The general topic was the survey of the new (occupied) territories. Clearly, Biran continued Yeivin’s policy in trying to maintain and develop the “Friends” during the 1960s. Later—perhaps because of the large numbers of “Friends” and the rising costs—only smaller regional meetings were held for “Friends,” aimed at strengthening the relations between various IDAM districts and the “Friends” associated with them.

5. THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE VOLUNTEERS The lack of legal status for the “Friends” was a perennial problem for the IDAM throughout these years (see picture 2). In 1949 some “Friends” asked for a document that would indicate their official status and give them some authority in dealing with those who damage sites. However, since they had no official status, all they received was a general letter of support that mentioned their title. A letter between Emmanuel Ben-Dor (IDAM’s deputy) and Yeivin, dated 17.2.1949, documents an early case of a “Friend” who requested a letter of nomination to help him to fulfill his role. Ben Dor wrote to Yeivin: As you remember, [Avraham] Frankel of Haifa sat in the office when you gave Ruth [Amiran] your answer about documents for the members

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of the Band [of Enthusiasts]. Probably, you did not notice that he was sitting right there, or else, surely you would not have given the answer in such an upset tone… [Unfortunately, this answer is not specified further]. Anyway, he [Frankel] was very offended and wanted to resign from the band (and he is one of the very best!). Ruth pleaded with him [to stay] and asked him to wait. I suggest giving him a certificate and later draw a line [meaning not to give to others], on the excuse that we received orders from above. The certificate can be worded as follows: Member Avraham Frankel is a “Friend” on behalf of the Band of Enthusiasts of Antiquities under the IDAM, in the area of Haifa and the Carmel Mountain. Mr. Frankel is allowed to visit all the ancient places in his area and to make photos. The authorities and the public are asked to help him in fulfilling his role (GL44889/3).

While an official certificate was discussed in this case, we do not know if it was finally issued; even if so, it was an exception and not the norm. The only case, to the best of my knowledge, in which an official certificate of a sort was issued for a “Friend” in those early years concerned Emil RosenerModigliani. He was at the time a resident of Gedera, south of Tel Aviv, who was appointed as a “Friend” on 11.12.50 following the recommendation of Mrs. Cassuto. 1 Mr. Rosener-Modigliani brought ancient lamps from Qatra (a former Arab village) to the IDAM.2 It was agreed that Mr. Rosener-Modigliani could keep architectonic parts at his home until the IDAM could take them to Jerusalem. He also asked for and received a 1:20,000 Map. Some time later he moved to Rome. The IDAM sent him a certificate on 20.3.1955, probably in response to a request. It is the only such certificate that exists in English: 1 Bice Cassuto, the wife of the famous scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951). Their eldest daughter, Dr. Milka Cassuto, served as librarian in the Rockefeller Museum and later in the IDAM. I did not find other documentation regarding Emil Rosener, nor on his relationship to the Jewish Italian family Modigliani, famous for the painter Amadeo Modigliani. 2 Qatra was occupied first by “Yugoslavian [Jewish] immigrants, but most of them moved elsewhere and Yemenite [Jews] took their place... In the mosque of the village, under the plaster, one sees capitals and there are granite and marble columns in the village…” (GL44866/3).

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES To Whom It May Concern This is to certify that Mr. Emil Rosener is a member of the “Friends” affiliated to the IDAM in Israel, and as such a corresponding member of that body in his place of residence. The “Friends” greatly help the work of the IDAM throughout Israel, and foster close co-operation between the IDAM and the public in the preservation and care of cultural heritage in this country. (Signed) S. Yeivin GL44866/3).

Apparently it was not sufficient and Mr. Rosener replied thus: Via Saint Bon 9, Rome, 25th April 1955 To: Direction, Department of Antiquities, Jerusalem Sehr geehrter Herr Director Jewin, Von einer Reise zuruckgekehrt finde ich Ihr Schreiben von 20. Maerz und danke Ihnen fuer Ihren freundlichen Begleitbrief. Beiliegend sende ich das “Certificat” zurueck. Das Department bestaetigt mir die Mitgliedschaft zu einem privaten Verein, dessen Mitgleid ich in Wirklichkeit gar nicht bin. Die Definition eines Neeman lautet: “Ehrenamtlicher Mitarbeiter des Department of Antiquities, der in seinem Wohnsitz die funktion eines Inspektors ausebt... (GL44866/3 No. 6488).

Mr. Roesener apparently believed that his activities as a “Friend” were not a private matter, and that he enjoyed a status similar to that of an employee of the IDAM who fulfills the position of an inspector of antiquities. Yeivin sent him the following reply on 2.5.1955: I am sorry that the certificate which I gave you in my last letter could not, so it seems, help you to achieve your goal. I do not know whence you have taken the definition of the role of the “Friends.” In the nomination document, which we issue to the “Friends,” it is said explicitly that they represent the “Band of Antiquities Enthusiasts” affiliated to the Department.... Naturally, it is only a role of honor. The IDAM has often expressed its gratitude to the “Friends” for their kind

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and dedicated help, but nobody ever thought of placing them as inspectors of antiquities... Inspectors are given certain authorities according to the Antiquities Ordinance; these authorities can be vested only in official employees of the government, whose scientific training and practical experience of work enable them to be employed in such duties. You surely would agree that such conditions do not apply to the “Friends” GL44866/3 No. 6488a).

Personal documents (on green papers) were issued to the “Friends” in 1962 for the first time. Legend has it that the first ‘green card’ was given to Sh. Avidan, the famous commander of Giv’ati Brigade from Kibbutz Ein ha-Shofet (see Jackier and Dagan 1995:199-200; Alon 5-6:48, no. 39). The drafts for the cards survived, dated May 1962. Still, the “Friends” lacked a legal position. The IDAM intended to include the “Friends” in future antiquities legislation, but the legislation was constantly postponed. Although Yeivin had commenced work on a general Antiquities Law in 1949, it was not until 1978 that one was finally passed. In 1959 regulations that arranged the status and duties of the antiquities guards were issued (file GL1430/12 is dedicated to these regulations). However, the “Friends” remained outside the scope of these regulations. In June 1962, before the green certificates for the “Friends” were issued, the IDAM asked Ruth Staner, the legal advisor to the Ministry of Education, for a legal opinion. On 13.6.1962 Staner replied: The term “Friend” is not recognized by Law, neither in the Ordinance of 1929 or that of 1935... The 1935 Ordinance knows a “policeman” (called then Noter), whose authorities are also defined in the 1959 regulations [but this relates to the guards, not to the “Friends”]. I do not see it as a good idea to nominate people to positions, which do not exist by Law, although it is done out of the best intentions. I fear even more giving documents that lend such people special positions, unrecognized by Law. The very request for such documents comes in order to “show off” [le-nafnef] with them, in front of other citizens GL44889/3 No. 990).

Biran suggested a postponement of the legal discussions, and a continuation of certificate distribution nevertheless (GL44889/3), and so was it. In a letter dated 4.4.1966 to a “Friend” from Kefar Rupin, Ina Pomerantz (then secretary of the IDAM) promised that while the British

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Mandatory Law did not recognize “Friends,” a proper section was being prepared for them in the proposal for a new Antiquities Law, which was currently under preparation (GL44889/3 No. 2685). This Law finally passed in 1978. However, the “Friends” were not mentioned in it, or in the IAA law of 1989, perhaps because by that time they were no longer considered important.

6. DETERIORATION AND CESSATION OF ACTIVITY During the 1980s the “Friends” experienced a period of rapid deterioration in their activity. In this period their numbers dwindled to a few dozens at the most. Documentation of this deterioration is hard to find, because the documents of this period are not yet opened for research (in Israel state archive documents are closed for 30 years), or have not yet been deposited in the State Archive. Perhaps people tend to stress (and to document) more successes than failures. With the establishment of the IAA in 1989, and after forty years of archeological interest and work, the “Friends” ceased their operations. It seems that questions revolving around insurance and responsibility for damage that might be caused by “Friends” had made an impact. In one case in the late 1980’s, a grandfather who was a “Friend” and a child from a kibbutz in the north of the country were killed when a cave collapsed as they were looking for antiquities (Y. Porat, interview 12.11.03; I did not find written data about this case). The IDAM was also embarrassed by the fact that some “Friends” developed the habit of collecting antiquities, as well as excavating without proper authorization. One archeologist, who asked to remain anonymous, reports that a “Friend” made an excavation at Tell Kedesh in Galilee without the consent of the IDAM, “for the sake of educating schoolchildren.” On another occasion in the 1980’s, a “Friend” reputedly became so excited, that he started a fire to weed out thorns in order to gain a better view of “the mystery of Roman Tiberias,” which resulted in a wild fire alarm. During the 1950s, in view of the hard conditions and lack of employees, collecting or even small-scale “cleaning digs” by “Friends” were not always condemned. The IDAM was aware that some “Friends” also collected antiquities, and at least tried to stop this habit (letters in GL44866/3). On 11.1.1950 Yeivin summarized a visit he had made to Tiberias with N. Zori and N. Mardinger. The last was a “Friend”: It was spoken with him about a complete prohibition to carry excavations; he said and stressed that he does not excavate, only collects

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and registers what lies on ground. Even in the cave that he wrote us about entering, he did not excavate, but collected what was lying there. I stressed again the need not to move any object which is not lying on the surface, and to register exactly the place [of each object] (GL44866/3).

Joe Shadur from Kibbutz Nirim in the Negev (interview, December 2003) remembered that there was a clear rule in the 1950s that “Friends” should not excavate. However, when the “Friends” discovered the mosaic floor of the synagogue at Nirim they could not restrain themselves and started to expose it. Often, when the IDAM learned about the existence of antiquities somewhere, a “Friend” was appointed in order to register and supervise them. Dr. E. Yannai of the IAA started his archaeological career as a “Friend” with a collection that he managed in his locality (pers. comm. 2003). Often the “Friends” did not report, (or were late in reporting) damage caused by their own settlements. Y. Porat, who started to work as a member of the IDAM in 1969, remembered the years when the “Friends” were no longer considered a prestigious group. They did not have much spare time, as most of them were working people; they were not professional archaeologists; and they did not receive sufficient financial support form the IDAM. (pers. comm., 2003). By the 1980s illicit diggings and collecting by “Friends” became unbearable in the eyes of the IDAM. The times were changing: the public obsession with antiquities and archaeology was declining in Israel, as well as the desire to volunteer. With the creation of more academic institutions and increasing demand for formal academic degrees for excavatiors archeology became a more professionaized vocation.

7. OTHER VOLUNTEERS IN ARCHAEOLOGY Amateur archaeologists preceded professional archaeology and remained alongside even after the later was born. Still today amateur archaeologists remain common. The lines between amateurs and professionals are not always clear-cut, but discussion of this issue deserves a separate article; what follows here is but a tentative and brief review. In the history of archaeology one can easily discern the period of ‘learned societies’ that spanned mainly from the second half of the 19th to the early 20th centuries CE. A few examples of such societies include the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF), the Deutsche Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas (DPV), and the Israel Exploration Society (IES). Lists of such societies, history pages of many of them and

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criteria for definition can be found in the Scholarly Societies Project presently available at www.scholarly-societies.org/archaeol_soc.html. The histories and the activities of many of these learned societies are well documented. Such societies were usually based on voluntarily membership; open to the public in general; and members normally paid dues. The societies’ main aims are to promote a certain academic field by holding conferences, joining and promoting academic research, publishing journals, working for education of the community, etc. Many such societies were formed before the establishment of official, government-related Departments of Antiquities. Although some of their duties have been assumed by the later, many societies continue to exist and are crucial for the development and maintenance of connections between professional archaeology/state archaeology and the public. In Jordan a voluntarily society called “Friends of Antiquities of Jordan” has been in existence since 1958. In cooperation with the authorities, universities and other bodies, it aims to protect and preserves sites and promote awareness of heritage in the community (http://www.foa.com.jo). Membership is free and members pay dues; hence the nature of this body is similar to that of learned societies, but dissimilar to the “Friends” in Israel. Groups of archeological volunteers exist in various countries without necessarily forming a strict “learned society.” One example is the organization of Dutch volunteers that combines several earlier separate organizations (Erfgoed Nederland, http://www.erfgoednederland.nl). Archaeological societies exist in many countries today, e. g. India (the Indian Archaeological Society), Germany (Deutscher Archäologen Verband), Canada (the Canadian Archaeological Association, the Ontario Archaeological Society), The United Kingdom (The British Arcaheological Association, founded 1843), the United States (Society for American Archaeology), and France (Société Française d’Archéologie, founded 1834). To the best of my knowledge the “Friends” in Israel are unique in that they were created by, and are affiliated with an official state agency in spite of being a voluntary body. Membership was not open to all: It was conditional on appointment by the IDAM, but no membership fees were imposed. In some societies membership is also not open to all. For example, in the Society of Antiquities of London (established 1751), fellows are elected by secret ballot. Only existing fellows can propose new ones, who must win four ‘yes’ to every ‘no’. Candidates have to be “excelling in the knowledge of antiquities and history of this and other nations” (see www.sal.org.uk).

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Yet, fellows pay annual fees and are not elected by a state body. Thus, the position of the “Friends” was not similar to that usually associated with members of ‘learned societies.” It is perhaps better to compare the “Friends” in Israel with other cultural, volunteer groups that evolved at times of “national awakening.,” Archaeology often occupies a major part in national ‘awakenings’ (Anderson 1983; Smith 1991; Gellner 1983; for archaeological aspects see Shenan 1989; Kohl and Fawcett 1995), however, often there are no official and professional bodies to take care of archeological finds. One example is the period of “national awakening” in Estonia at the end of the 19th century, in which archaeological amateurs were engaged in the first general inventory of sites. Jaan Jung (himself not a professional archaeologist) created this first inventory with the help of a network of local “correspondents,” who sent him data about ancient sites (Jung 1898; 1899; 1910). By 1896 Jung had received 428 such messages about antiquities. A second inventory of sites, carried out in the 1920s when Estonia was independent, was performed with the help of students of archaeology. A third inventory (in the 1960s) was made by professional archaeologists (Tvauri 2006:248, 259; Lang 2006:27). Similar stages of development can be seen in Israel. In both countries the national awakening and the first years of independence were marked by strong national feelings and a heightened awareness of the status of archaeology (Kletter 2006:314-319)

8. IN SUM The “Friends” in Israel were unique in that, to the best of my knowledge, despite being a voluntarily body, it was nevertheless created by and affiliated with an official state agency. Unlike most learned societies membership was not free; it was conditional on appointment by the IDAM, and no membership fees applied. Thus, the position of the “Friends” was not similar to that of members of ‘learned societies.” In the first two decades of Israel’s nationhood, when IDAM consisted of too few workers, the “Friends” were crucial in reporting endangered or damaged sites. “Friends” have discovered important sites and reported damage to sites that later proved to be important. A few examples include: the discovery and retracing of the course of the Islamic aqueduct to Ramla (Y. Zelinger, pers. comm. 2003); the site of the Nirim Synagogue in the Negev (Joe Shadur, interview 17.11.03; Levi 1960:77); and a Byzantine monastery near Haifa (Dothan 1951); and they also reported General Dayan’s theft of antiquities

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(see picture 3). However, part of this activity remains unpublished (Kletter 2004). The Israeli “Friends” were not related to the concept of foreign volunteers who joined archaeological excavations in Israel. Before the 1960’s initiatives to encourage foreign volunteers were mostly unsuccessful due to the availability of cheap, local welfare workers who were operative during the 1950’s. The situation changed in the 1960’s, when more foreign volunteers workers came to Israel. At its height the “Friends” numbered several hundred members. Many “Friends” were distinguished individuals and later became well-known professional archaeologists. A number of notable figures include Rafael Frankel (later of Haifa University, ancient agriculture specialist); Shmuel Avitzur (history of technology in Israel); Y. Braslevski (leader of youth tours and collector of folk tales); Mordechai Gichon (intelligence officer, later classical archaeologist, Tel Aviv University); Rehavam Ze’evi (a general, Head of the Eretz Israel Museum, later a Minister); Claire Epstein (famous for her work on the Chalcolithic period in the Golan Heights); Ya’acov Meshorer (numismatist, curator of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem); Zecharia Kallai (Professor of Historical Geography, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem); Elisha Linder (a founder of underwater archaeology in Israel); Raphael Giveon (Egyptologist, Tel Aviv University); Shmaryahu Gutman (excavator of Gamla); Ya’acov Kaplan (affiliated to Tel Aviv municipality, excavating many sites in its area); and Sh. Avidan (commander of the Giv’ati brigade in 1948). An important contribution the “Friends” made was the publication of the IDAM newsletter (Alon). This was the sole archaeological publication of the IDAM during its first eight years, except for some very minor site guidebooks. The newsletter set the format for the later journal Hadashot Archaeologiyot (HA or “Excavations and Surveys in Israel”), which appeared in 1963 and is still published today. The contribution of the “Friends” was important especially in the first years of modern Israeli nationhood. This being the case, it is surprising that nothing has been written about the “Friends” to date. Their existence is almost unknown outside Israel. In November 2002, the IAA decided to renew the activity of “Friends,” and about 300 applications were received by late 2003. Some members of parliament were given the status of “Friends,” in hopes that they will serve as an archaeological lobby. The role of these new volunteers is still unclear, however the connection to the wide

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public is vital for the IAA, and for Israeli archaeology in general. If the new volunteers will carry the old tradition with pride, in another fifty years they too will deserve a written history of their own.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My interest in the subject began when I worked in the IAA, at a time when the renewal of the body of volunteers was considered. I was sent to locate archival material in the Israel state archive, and as a result wrote a short summary, published in Hebrew (Kletter 2004). I wish to thank the IAA, as well as the workers of the reading room at Israel State Archive, Jerusalem, for their help. The present paper is also based on material collected later in conversations with former “Friends” and archaeologists. I wish to thank Tsvika Gal, Yosef (Sefi) Porat, Ram Gophna, Y. Zelinger, Eli Yannai, Margaret Steiner, Evelyn van den Steen and the late Joe Shadur, who discussed with me several points and contributed from their time and knowledge. Hebrew documents were translated as faithfully as possible, with few (mainly stylistic) modifications, and for the sake of convenience the acronym IDAM and abbreviated “Friends” were used also in the translations of documents. Since nothing has been published so far on the “Friends” the list of references (below) is not long. I hope that following the publication of this article more data about the “Friends” may come to light.

REFERENCES Alon. 1949-1957. Bulletin of the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums. 6 Volumes (Hebrew). Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Dotahn, M. 1955. Excavations of a Monastery near Sha’ar Ha-’aliyah. Israel Exploration Journal 5:96–102. Gellner, E. 1983. Nationas and Nationalism. London. HA. 1962- Hadashot Arcaheologiyot (Hebrew). English version: “Excavations and Surveys in Israel.” Jerusalem: IDAM/IAA. Internet Journal since 2006. Jackier, E. and Dagan, S. 1995. Shimon Avidan. The Man who Became a Brigade. Daliya: Ma’arechet. Jung, J. 1898. Muiniasaja teadus Eestlaste maalt II. Jurjew (Tartu). Jung, J. 1899. Muiniasaja teadus Eestlaste maalt I. Jurjew (Tartu). Jung, J. 1910. Muiniasaja teadus Eestlaste maalt III. Tartu.

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Kaplan, J. 1993. Tel-Avi – Jaffa. In: Stern, E. ed. The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Jerusalem: IES: p. 1455. Kletter, R. 2004. IAA Newsletter Dvar Avar 5:18-19 (Hebrew). Kletter, R. 2006. Just Past? The Making of Israeli Archaeology. London: Equinox. Kohl, P.L. and Fawcett, C. eds. 1995. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lang, V. 2006. The History of Archaeological Research (up to the late 1980s). in: Lang, V. et als. Eds. Arcaheological Research in Estonia 1865-2005 (Estonian Archaeology I). Tartu: Tartu University Press: 13-40. Levi, Sh. 1960. The Synagogue at Maon (Nirim). Eretz Israel 6: 77-93 (Hebrew). Segev, T 1984. 1949- The First Israelis. Tel Aviv. Hebrew. Shenan, J.S. ed. 1989. Arcaheological Approaches to Cultural Identity. London. Smith, A.D. 1991.National Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Tvauri, A. 2006. The Conservation of Arcaheological Heritage in Estonia. In: Lang, V. et als. Eds. Arcaheological Research in Estonia 1865-2005 (Estonian Archaeology I). Tartu: Tartu University Press: 247-266.

Picture 1 The second President of Israel, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (sec. from left) and his wife, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, (third from left) visiting the excavations of Shmuel Yeivin (left) at Ceasarea, 1955. Photo from the IAA archive, no. 12779

Picture 2 Draft for a new Ordinance of Antiquities written by Yeivin, late 1949. This draft stipulates the role of “Friends of Antiquities,” to be nominated for life-time by the Director of the IDAM. From the Israel State Archive.

Picture 3 M. Prausnitz, 30.9.1959, describing how Y. Ben-Yosef, a “Friend of Antiquities,” reported looting of antiquities by Moshe Dayan at Kibbutz Yas’ur. From the Israel State Archive.

THE VAV-PREFIXED VERB FORMS IN ELEMENTARY HEBREW GRAMMAR JOHN A. COOK ASBURY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 1. INTRODUCTION The last few decades have given rise to a strange state of affairs in Hebrew studies.1 On the one hand, renewed discussions of the Hebrew verb and the application of linguistics to understanding the verbal system in Biblical Hebrew have continued unabated.2 On the other hand, the appearance of new elementary grammars of Biblical Hebrew has increased tremendously over the same period of time.3 Oddly, however, there seems to be very little influence between these two trends: the elementary grammars seem all but unaware of the verb discussion of the past decades and even the last century. Part of the reason may be a pragmatic attitude on the part of 1 This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the 2007 National Association of Professors of Hebrew Annual Meetings, in a session entitled “The Hebrew Verb: Advances in Linguistics and Pedagogy.” I want to thank the other participants and attendees for their feedback. 2 Examples (since 1990), Andersen 2000; Buth 1992, 1994; DeCaen 1995, 1999; Cook 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006; del Barco 2003; Eskults 1990; Dallaire 2002; Dobbs-Allsopp 2000; Furuli 2006; Gentry 1998; Goldfajn 1998; Gropp 1991; Hatav 1997, 2004, 2006; Heller 2004; Joosten 1992, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2006; Ljungberg 1995; Niccacci 1990, 1994, 1997, 2006; Roglund 2000, 2003; Shulman 1996, 2000; Talstra 1997; Warren 1998. 3 Examples (since 1990), Bergman 2005; Bartlet 2000; Bornemann 1998; de Claissé-Walford 2002; Dobson 2005; Ellis 2006; Futato 2003; Garrett 2002; Hostetter 2000; Kelley 1992; Kittel, Hoffer, and Wright 1989 (2d ed. 2004); Martin 1993; Pratico and van Pelt 2001; Rocine 2000; Ross 2001; Seow 1995 (2d ed.); Vance 2004; Walker-Jones 2003.

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Hebrew instructors, something like, “If it ain’t broke, doesn’t fix it.” In other words, even if the long-standing explanations of the Hebrew verbal system found in the grammars are not exactly accurate, they “work” well enough at the elementary level, so let the students figure out the “correct” analysis later on in their course of study. Another reason for this disconnect may be the fact that the field is still so reliant on older reference grammars and lexica, so that it is felt that students need to at least be familiar with the older nomenclature and theories in order to intelligibly use the available resources. In any case, this state of affairs is disturbing pedagogically, both because students deserve the most accurate grammar description of Biblical Hebrew and not just the most expedient, and because the traditional description has tended to portray the Hebrew verbal system as this strange beast without any parallel among human languages. In this short article I want to counter the disconnect between recent research on the Hebrew verb and the continued proliferation of elementary grammars by showing how modern linguistics, and particularly linguistic typology, provides a means of describing the Biblical Hebrew verbal system as “human.” That is, the verbal meanings and its configuration as a system are paralleled in other languages and make sense with what is known about verbal systems across the world’s languages. Anyone who has struggled to help students get past the “strangeness” of Biblical Hebrew can appreciate the importance of explaining the verbal system in a way that is both more accurate and more linguistically plausible to students than the traditional explanations. Practical considerations lead me to restrict my remarks to the vavprefixed verb forms, which simply means that I am not going to engage extensively with the long-standing debate over tense, aspect, and modality. I will begin with a survey of the traditional approach to the vav-prefixed forms, according to which they are usually labeled the conversive or consecutive forms, and I will illustrate how this traditional approach is entrenched in most of the grammars of the past century and up to the present. This survey provides a foil against which I want to present an updated understanding of the verbal system, informed by linguistic typology, with illustrations of how this understanding can be conveyed to first-year students.

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2. BIBLICAL HEBREW VERB THEORY AS REFLECTED IN ELEMENTARY GRAMMARS There is a parallel development between the linguistic study of tense, aspect, and mood or modality and the study of the Biblical Hebrew verb. When in the 1940s Reichenbach (1947) reinvigorated the philosophical and linguistic discussion of tense with his reference point theory, Hebraists were engaged in reanalyzing the Biblical Hebrew verbal system in terms of Bauer’s (1910) tense-model of Semitic (e.g., Blake 1946, 1951; Hughes 1955, 1962). Similarly, a renewed interest in aspect among linguists, marked by Comrie’s (1976) brief but influential book, was paralleled by the renewed debates of the 1980s and 1990s over tense and aspect in Biblical Hebrew (see note 2 above). True then to this pattern, the latest shift in the past couple decades to a renewed linguistic interest in mood and modality is reflected in the recent focus on modality in Biblical Hebrew (e.g., DeCaen 1995; Dallaire 2002; Shulman 1996, 2002; Warren 1998). However, despite all the debates and recent advances in our understanding of the Biblical Hebrew verbal system, these accomplishments are all but unnoticed in the recent spate of introductory grammars. For example, the following description of the vav-prefixed forms appears in the grammar by Kittel, Hoffer, and Wright: It is a stylistic device of Biblical Hebrew when narrating a series of past events to begin the narrative with an affix form of the verb and to continue it with a series of verbs in the prefix form with vav conversive. . . . When a vav ‫ ו‬is attached to the front of an affix form of the verb, it usually serves to give it a future tense translation. Hence the vav “reverses” the tense. The name vav reversive is an analogic extension of the vav conversive for the affix (Kittel, Hoffer, and Wright 1989: 387– 88; 2d ed. 2004).

This description of the vav-prefixed forms as having a special “converting” form of the vav appears already early in the sixteenth century, as described by Elias Levitas: Notice, when you want to convert a past into a future you place a vav with a šwa in front of it, as in the case of ‘keep’ in ‘And Yhwh will keep…’ [‫ושׁמר‬, Deut 7:12], which is like ‘and he will keep’ [‫]וישׁמר‬. Likewise, ‘And the sons of Israel shall keep the Sabbath’ [‫ושׁמרו‬, Exod 31:16]. It is like ‘and they shall keep’ [‫]וישׁמרו‬. . . . And notice that the style in the Bible is

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES to use a past in place of a future and a future in place of a past (my translation; cited in Leo 1818: 226).

Admittedly, however, few grammars continue to embrace the conversive theory as wholeheartedly as Kittel, Hoffer, and Wright. More frequently, they cite the conversive as one alternative alongside the consecutive theory, as illustrated in the following passage from Bornemann’s grammar: To express consecutive narration in the past the first verb is in the perfect (completed action) or its equivalent, and all the following verbs are in the imperfect and prefixed with · ַ‫ …ו‬. This narrative device is called vav consecutive imperfect. . . . For consecutive narration in the present or future the process is simply reversed. The first verb is in the imperfect (incomplete action) or its equivalent (including the imperative), and all the following verbs are in the perfect and prefixed with ‫ ו‬pointed exactly like the simple conjunction ְ‫( ו‬Bornemann 1998: 80–82).

This consecutive relationship, which Bornemann leaves unexplored, was explained by Ewald over a century earlier as follows: But as, in creation, through the continual force of motion and progress, that which has become, and is, constantly modifies its form for something new; so, in thought, the new advances which take place (and thus, then) suddenly changes the action which, taken by itself absolutely, would stand in the perfect, into this tense, which indicates becoming— the imperfect. . . . As, therefore, in the combination previously explained [i.e., vav-consecutive imperfect], the flowing sequence of time or thought causes that which has been realized, and exists, to be regarded as passing over into new realization; so in the present case [i.e., vav-consecutive perfect], it has the effect of at once representing that which is advancing towards realization, as entering into full and complete existence. Hence, each of the plain tenses gracefully intersects the other, by interchanging with its opposite (Ewald 1879: 20, 22–23).

A third understanding of the vav-prefixed forms, which generally masquerades under the label of consecutive, is illustrated by Hostetter: “From these examples it can be seen that the verb that stands first in such a series determines both the time (past or future) and the mood (indicative or subjunctive) of the verbs that come next” (Hostetter 2000: 84). Compare Hostetter’s statement with Gell’s early nineteenth-century explanation of what was termed the vav-inductive theory:

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When Verbs are connected in Hebrew (the connexion being generally indicated by the sign ‫ ו‬prefixed to the latter), the Power, whether temporal or modal, of the first or Governing Verb is communicated from it, and inducted into the Verb following. And whatever be the power proper to the latter Verb, it still retains its use subordinately; but that which is inducted becomes the prevailing power. If a third Verb follows in connexion, and so on, the power communicated from each successive Verb to that next following, without destroying its proper subordinate power, is the same as was previously inducted into the former (Gell 1818: 8; quoted in McFall 1982: 25).

Another early nineteenth-century theory, called the vav-relative theory, is also preserved in recent grammars, as illustrated by Futato: “The vav-relative is a special use of the conjunction vav (‫ )ו‬when attached to a pf or impf verb. This vav ‘relates’ the verb to which it is attached to a previous verb” (Futato 2003: 162). Compare Futato’s explanation with that of Schoeder’s description of the vav-relative on the imperfect form: Apart from these various usages, the Future [yiqtol] has yet another, unique and peculiar to the Hebrews, in that it receives the force of our Past, and designates a matter as truly past; not however by itself nor absolutely, but viewed in relation to some preceding past event. When different events are to be narrated that follow the one from the other in some kind of continuous series, the Hebrews consider the first as past, the others, however, that follow, as future on account of the preceding. Consequently, this describes something that, in relation to another past event, is itself later and future; it may be called the Future relative (Schroeder 1824: 239–40, my translation from the Latin).

Finally, Ellis presents a mixture of theories, as seen in the following excerpts from his recently published grammar: Perfect and imperfect verbs can also take a vav consecutive (vav cons) which has two functions. One is to convey the idea of a conjunction, just as the simple vav conj does. The other is to invert the meaning of the verb’s tense, so that a perfect verb with a vav cons has generally the same meaning as an imperfect, and an imperfect verb with a vav cons has roughly the same meaning as a perfect verb. . . . A perf + vav cons typically follows another clause or phrase which establishes the action in a text as incomplete, then the perf + vav cons continues the incomplete action. As

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES the term “consecutive” implies, vav cons usually appears in a language sequence that is governed by the temporal sense of a preceding verb or phrase. . . . An imperfect with vav cons (impf + vav cons) typically follows another clause or phrase which establishes the action in a text as completed, then the impf + vav cons continues the notion of completed action (Ellis 2006: 160, 161, 164).

This treatment contains elements of the conversive, consecutive, and inductive theories, all of which have roots traceable back two centuries or more. Sadly the advances in our understanding of the Hebrew verb are not influencing the recent generation of introductory grammars.

3. UPDATING THE DESCRIPTION OF THE BIBLICAL HEBREW VERBAL SYSTEM

What are those linguistic advances that have been made in the understanding of the vav-prefixed forms? Briefly, they are the following: first, comparative data have led to a fairly wide-spread consensus that two separate forms underlie the imperfect and the vav-prefixed imperfect; second, likewise comparative data have shown, by contrast, that the perfect form and the vav-prefixed perfect are a single conjugation; third, research on word order and the traditional modal forms of jussive, cohortative, and imperative has shown that the vav-prefixed perfect form is more closely aligned syntactically and semantically with these modal forms, than with the non-modal or indicative forms. I will elaborate on each of these three points in turn. The idea that the imperfect and vav-prefixed imperfect are two separate conjugations with distinct origins is widespread in the literature (see esp. Rainey 1986). This conclusion is based most notably on two pieces of evidence: the one is the comparative data of Akkadian, which has a prefixed past verbal conjugation (i.e., iprus); the other is evidence in the Amarna correspondence that the ancient Canaanite scribes likewise had a past prefix conjugation in their native West Semitic language, the precursor of Hebrew. This analysis of the vav-prefixed imperfect is prevalent enough to be appearing in elementary grammars, albeit in most cases relegated to footnotes. An example of this historical explanation prominently given is in the following quote from Seow’s grammar: In fact, the yiqtōl form has two different origins: *yaqtulu for imperfect and *yaqtul for the preterite (referring to past situations). But early in

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the evolution of the Hebrew language, final short vowels disappeared and so the imperfect form (*yaqtulu > *yaqtul) became identical to the preterite (*yaqtul). In time, *yaqtul (i.e., either imperfect or preterite) developed to yiqtol. Thus, the yiqtol form may be imperfect or preterite. In its latter function, of course, there is some overlap with the perfect. (Seow 1995: 225–26)

By contrast, the comparative data related to the perfect with the vav-prefix exhibit a situation quite unlike that just summarized regarding the vavprefixed imperfect. On the one hand, there is no evidence for two historically distinct suffixed conjugations—the perfect and vav-prefixed perfect are one and the same, morphologically speaking. On the other hand, the phenomenon of the perfect form expressing non-past or modal nuances alongside its past-perfective indicative sense is widespread in Semitic, including in Classical Arabic (Wright 1962: 2.14–17), Ethiopic (Dillman [1899] 1974: 548), Imperial Aramaic (Folmer 1991) and Syriac (Nöldeke [1904] 2001: 203–5, 265), Ugaritic (Tropper 2000: 715), Phoenician (Krahmalkov 1986), and Amarna Canaanite (Rainey 1996: 355–65). In particular, in these languages and in Biblical Hebrew modal meanings are correlated with the perfect form when it appears with a conjunction at the beginning of a conditional protasis or apodosis clause, as illustrated by example (1). ָ ‫ת־א ִביו וְ ָעזַ ב ֶא‬ ָ ‫א־יוּכל ַהנַּ ַער ַל ֲעזֹב ֶא‬ ַ ֹ‫ל‬ (1) ‫ת־א ִביו וָ ֵמת׃‬ The boy is unable to leave his father. If he leaves his father, then he (i.e., his father) will die (Gen. 44:22) At this point there is an important parallel between the vav-prefixed perfect and the traditional modal system in Biblical Hebrew. Revell (1989) and some of his students have developed an analysis in recent years showing that the prefix-pattern conjugations (imperfect, jussive, cohortative, and imperative) forms are syntactically distinct from the indicative forms in that they consistently appear in verb-subject word order. Revell (1989) argued that the imperfect appears at the head of its clause when it expresses modal or non-indicative meanings, and within its clause when expressing indicative meanings. Shulman (1996) demonstrated that in more than 96% of the occurrences of imperatives and morphologically distinct jussives and cohortatives in Genesis through 2 Kings, the forms appear at the beginning of their clause. DeCaen (1995) noted the syntactic similarity of the vav-prefixed forms and the imperative-jussive-cohortative

60

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

modal system in Biblical Hebrew and argued that the vav-prefixed forms are modal conjugations. On the strength of the comparative data, however, I disagree with half of DeCaen’s argument: rather, it is only the vav-prefixed perfect that is truly comparable with the modal system, meaning that it is both syntactically and semantically comparable. Thus, I hold that the vav-prefixed perfect form is a syntactically distinct modal use of the perfect conjugation in Biblical Hebrew. This modal use of the perfect is analogous with the modal use of the imperfect, which is syntactically distinct from the indicative imperfect in the same way (see Revell 1989). I would tentatively posit that the development of this modal use of the perfect conjugation came from its widely evidenced use in conditional clauses through a “conventionalization of implicature” (Dahl 1985: 11). In other words, the perfect became prevalent enough in conditional clauses, in which its modal nuance derived from the modal (protasis-apodosis) syntactic construction, that eventually that implied modal meaning came to be seen as integral with the form when used in VS position, so that it could be used apart from the protasis-apodosis context and still retain the associated modal meaning. This explanation is consonant with the available data and the way in which languages may develop new meanings for existing forms. The implications of these conclusions based on comparative evidence is that the Biblical Hebrew verbal system looks much different than the traditional portrayal, so much so that I would argue we need to approach our treatment of it in a wholly different manner than in the traditional descriptions.

4. TEACHING THE MODAL PERFECT TO ELEMENTARY HEBREW STUDENTS

In particular, I want to make three suggestions toward a different approach to the Biblical Hebrew verbal system based on the analysis of the vav-prefixed forms that I have just presented. As so many other Hebrew teachers, I too have turned to writing my own grammar. Thus, I will illustrate how the theory of the Hebrew verb I have just described can be presented to first-year students by citing portions of an unpublished grammar that I have co-authored with Robert Holmstedt of the University of Toronto (Cook and Holmstedt 2007).4 A draft of the grammar may be freely downloaded: http://individual.utoronto.ca/holmstedt/Textbook.html 4

JOHN A. COOK

61

First, the vav-prefixed forms should not be treated as analogous or identical phenomena. They deserve separate treatments in the grammar discussion and descriptions that relate them to something with which the students are familiar or at least with which they are more familiar than Hebrew grammar. Thus, for example, in Cook and Holmstedt the vav-prefixed imperfect is labeled the “past narrative” form and described as follows: Languages typically use a past tense or perfective aspect verb form for narrating past events (e.g., English Simple Past). Some languages, however, may devote a particular verb form entirely to literary narrative (e.g., French Passé Simple). In Biblical Hebrew an archaic past tense verb predominates and is mostly restricted to past narrative passages (Cook and Holmstedt 2007: 57).

The modal use of the perfect is presented in the grammar without any reference to the distinct and separate phenomenon of the past narrative form, as illustrated by the following excerpt: The Perfect Conjugation was described in Lesson 4 as expressing perfective aspect. The Perfect is also used to express non-indicative modality. . . . The most common modal function of the Perfect is to mark (semantically) subordinate clauses. These are equivalent to English clauses beginning with ‘if/when/so that/in order that/because’, i.e., conditional, purpose, result, or causal clauses. . . . The modal use of the Perfect is distinguished from the indicative by its word order: the Perfect functioning modally will have a verb-subject word order (Cook and Holmstedt 2007: 53).

Admittedly, teaching beginning students of Biblical Hebrew to distinguish forms based on word order is a challenge, thus there is a certain practicality required, as evidenced by the following note appended to the preceding quote: Often the subject is not explicit in BH clauses; in such cases, it is impossible to identify whether a perfect is used modally or not based on the word order. However, because most modal Perfects are prefixed with the vav conjunction, the presence of the conjunction is a good introductory way to distinguish the modal from the indicative use of the verb. (Cook and Holmstedt 2007: 53).

62

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Note, however, that while this note directs the student to pay some attention to the prefixed vav, it is not because the conjunction in any way contributes to the form or meaning of the modally used perfect. Rather, given Biblical Hebrew’s predilection for coordinated clauses, the vavconjunction is a useful indicator of the clause boundary. This presentation of the modal perfect raises two difficulties that deserve to be addressed further. First, there is the issue of word order in Biblical Hebrew. While the analysis of the modal perfect presented here does not require adopting the word order theory espoused in the grammar, it makes more sense when taken together with it. The word order view underlying the grammar is that Biblical Hebrew has a basic subject-verb word order in indicative clauses, and a verb-subject word order in nonindicative or modal clauses, as illustrated by the contrastive examples in (2) and (3). ַ ‫וְ ָא ִביו ָשׁ ַמר ֶא‬ (2) Indicative (subject-verb order) ‫ת־ה ָדּ ָבר‬ ‘and his father kept the word’ (Genesis 37:11) (3) Modal (verb-subject order) ‫וּב ַאשׁ ַהיְ אֹר‬ ָ ‫ר־בּיְ אֹר ָתּמוּת‬ ַ ‫וְ ַה ָדּגָ ה ֲא ֶשׁ‬ ‘And the fish that are in the Nile will die so that the Nile stinks’ (Exodus 7:18) Alongside this basic word-order division between indicative and nonindicative clauses, virtually all of the grammatical function words in Biblical Hebrew cause triggered inversion, so that clauses in which these words appear have verb-subject word order, regardless of whether they are modally indicative or non-indicative (see example 4 below). On this basis, the past narrative form is explained as being verb-subject word order not because it has a modal meaning, but because it consistently undergoes triggered inversion, perhaps because of a function word that is preserved now only in the doubling of the form’s prefix (example 5; and see Holmstedt forthcoming). ִ ‫ִכּי־יָ ְדעוּ ָה ֲאנָ ִשׁים ִכּ‬ (4) ‫י־מ ִלּ ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה הוּא ב ֵֹר ַח‬ ‘because the men knew that he was fleeing from Yhwh’ (Jonah 1:10) ָ ‫וַ יָּ ָקם יוֹנָ ה ִל ְבר ַֹח ַתּ ְר ִשׁ‬ (5) ‫ישׁה ִמ ִלּ ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה‬ ‘Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from before Yhwh’ (Jonah 1:3) The other difficulty with this presentation of the modal perfect is how to bring first-year students to an understanding of a complex notion like

JOHN A. COOK

63

subjunctive modality—aside from the issue of how best to label it. In teaching I have tended to employ the notion of “contingent modality” to describe the modal perfect, and in fact we include the term in a couple of places in our grammar.5 To speak of contingent situations with respect to a given situation is to employ the same sort of temporal-spatial metaphor that is so frequently used to explain tense and aspect. In the case of modality, indicative or non-modal statements refer to the given or at-hand situation, whereas non-indicative or contingent modalities relate other states of affairs to the given situation in some sort of contingent manner, such as conditionally, temporally, or imperatively. In each case, the situation referred to by the modal form is in some way “irreal” versus the given “real” or “actual” situation. As illustrated in the following diagram, this concept of contingent modality might be schematized as a sort of mental mapping diagram, in which the central event is viewed as the actual or real situation, and the various irreal situations are related to the real one via various contingency notions.

The result of all of this is a very different sort of configuration of the Biblical Hebrew verbal system than portrayed in the traditional theories. The following chart is the summary of the verbal system presented in Cook and Holmstedt (2007: 88): In preparing this article I discovered that I am not the first to employ the term “contingency” for these non-indicative meanings in Biblical Hebrew; Yates (1954: 130) notes that “the Subjunctive Mood is the mood of contingency.” 5

64

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

SUFF INDICATIVE FUNCTION

‫ ָפּ ַקד‬Perfect: perfective (whole view of situation) Past Narrative (Preterite): past event in

PREF

‫ ) ַו(יִּ ְפקֹד‬narrative (or poetry)

Imperfect: imperfective (partial view of

‫ יִ ְפקֹד‬situation) SUFF MODAL

PREF

‫ )וּ( ָפ ַקד‬Modal Perfect: contingent modality/command Modal Imperfect: command or wish (it is

‫ יִ ְפקֹד‬negated with ‫)לֹא‬

Jussive: command or wish (any person; it is

FUNCTIONS PREF

‫ יִ ְפקֹד‬negated with ‫)אל‬ ַ

Imperative: command or wish (2nd person

‫ ְפּקֹד‬only; cannot be negated)

This chart shows that the indicative-modal distinction is the most salient one in the Hebrew verbal system. Within each of these domains the various conjugations of the suffixed and prefixed pattern function with complementary or overlapping meanings. The vav-prefixed forms are listed with the vav conjunction in parentheses to indicate that their meanings are in no way dependent on the semantics of the prefixed conjunction.

5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, I hope I have persuaded the reader that (1) we should teach good, linguistically informed understandings of the verbal system of Biblical Hebrew to beginning students, and (2) we can teach such theories in a way that is understandable to first-year language students without resorting to misleading and inaccurate explanations from past centuries.

JOHN A. COOK

65

REFERENCES Andersen, T. David 2000 The Evolution of the Hebrew Verbal System. ZAH 13/1: 1–66. Bartlet, Andrew H. 2000 Fundamental Biblical Hebrew. St. Louis: Concordia. Blake, Frank R. 1946 The Form of Verbs after Waw in Hebrew. JBL 65: 51–57. 1951 A Resurvey of Hebrew Tenses. Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici 103. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. Buth, Randall 1992 The Hebrew Verb in Current Discussions. Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics 5: 91–105. 1994 Methodological Collision Between Source Criticism and Discourse Analysis: The Problem of “Unmarked Temporal Overlay” and the Pluperfect/Nonsequential wayyiqtol. Pp. 138–54 in Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, ed. Robert D. Bergen. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Claissé-Walford, Nancy de 2002 Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Textbook. St. Louis: Chalice. Comrie, Bernard 1976 Aspect. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cook, John A. 2001 The Hebrew Verb: A Grammaticalization Approach. ZAH 14/2: 117–43. 2002 The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System: A Grammaticalization Approach. Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison. 2004 The Semantics of Verbal Pragmatics: Clarifying the Roles of Wayyiqtol and Weqatal in Biblical Hebrew Prose. JSS 49/2: 247–73. 2005 Genericity, Tense, and Verbal Patterns in the Sentence Literature of Proverbs. Pp. 117–33 in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients: Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Ronald L. Troxel, Kelvin G. Friebel, and Dennis R. Magary. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 2006 The Finite Verbal Forms in Biblical Hebrew Do Express Aspect. JANESCU 30: 21–35. Cook, John A., and Robert D. Holmstedt 2007 Ancient Hebrew: A Student’s Grammar Based on Biblical Texts:

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Unpublished Ms. (Draft available for download at http://individual.utoronto.ca/holmstedt/Textbook.html.) Dahl, Östen 1985 Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Blackwell. Dallaire, Hélèna 2002 The Syntax of Volitives in Northwest Semitic Prose. Ph.D. diss., Hebrew Union College. DeCaen, Vincent 1995 On the Placement and Interpretation of the Verb in Standard Biblical Hebrew Prose. Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, Toronto. 1999 A Unified Analysis of Verbal and Verbless Clauses within Government-Binding Theory. Pp. 109–31 in The Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Approaches, ed. Cynthia L. Miller. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. del Barco, Francisco Javier del Barco 2003 Profecía y Sintaxis: El Uso de las Formas Verbales en los Profetas Menores Preexílicos [Prophecy and Syntax: the Use of the Verbal Forms in the PreExilic Minor Prophets]. Textos y Estudios “Cardenal Cisneros” de la Biblia Palíglota Matritense 69. Madrid: Instituto de Filología. Dillmann, August [1899] 1974 Ethiopic Grammar. Trans. James A. Chrichton. 2d ed. Amsterdam: Philo Press. Dobbs-Allsopp, F W 2000 Biblical Hebrew Statives and Situation Aspect. JSS 45/1: 21–53. Dobson, John H. 2005 Learn Biblical Hebrew. Carlisle, PA: Piquant. Ellis, Robert Ray 2006 Learning to Read Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Grammar. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Eskhult, Mats 1990 Studies in Verbal Aspect and Narrative Technique in Biblical Hebrew Prose. Studia Semitica Upsaliensia 12. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Ewald, Heinrich 1879 Syntax of the Hebrew Language of the Old Testament. Trans. James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. Folmer, Margaretha L. 1991 Some Remarks on the Use of the Finite Verb Form in the Protasis of Conditional Sentences in Aramaic Texts from the Achaemenid Period. Pp. 56–78 in Studies in Hebrew and Aramaic Syntax, ed. K. Jongeling, H. L. Murre-Van ven Berg, and L. van Rompay. Leiden:

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Brill. Furuli, Rolf J. 2006 A New Understanding of the Verbal System of Classical Hebrew An Attempt to Between Semantic and Pragmatic Factors. Oslo: Awatu. Futato, Mark 2003 Beginning Biblical Hebrew. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Garrett, Duane A. 2002 A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew. Nashville: Broadman & Holman. Gell, Philip 1818 Observations on the Idiom of the Hebrew Language. London. Gentry, Peter J. 1998 The System of the Finite Verb in Classical Biblical Hebrew. HS 39: 7–39. Goldfajn, Tal 1998 Word Order and Time in Biblical Hebrew Narrative. Oxford Theological Monographs. New York: Oxford University Press. Gropp, Douglas M. 1991 The Function of the Finite Verb in Classical Biblical Hebrew. HAR 13: 45–62. Hatav, Galia 1997 The Semantics of Aspect and Modality: Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew. Studies in Language Companion Series 34. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 2004 Anchoring World and Time in Biblical Hebrew. Journal of Linguistics 40: 491–526. 2006 The Deictic Nature of the Directives in Biblical Hebrew. Studies in Language 30/4: 733–75. Heller, Roy L. 2004 Narrative Structure and Discourse Constellations: An Analysis of Clause Function in Biblical Hebrew Prose. Harvard Semitic Studies 55. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Holmstedt, Robert D. forth. Word Order and Information Structure in Ruth and Jonah. JSS. Hostetter, Edwin C. 2000 An Elementary Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Biblical languages. Hebrew 1. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Hughes, James A. 1955 The Hebrew Imperfect with Waw Conjunctive and Perfect with Waw Consecutive and their Interrelationship. Masters Thesis, Faith Theological

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Seminary. Some Problems of the Hebrew Verbal System with Particular Reference to the Uses of the Tenses. Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow, Glasgow. Joosten, Jan 1992 Biblical weqatal and Syriac waqtal Expressing Repetition in the Past. ZAH 5/1: 1–14. 1997 The Indicative System of the Biblical Hebrew Verb and its Literary Exploitation. Pp. 51–71 in Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible: Papers of the Tilburg Conference 1996, ed. Ellen van Wolde. Leiden: Brill. 1999 The Long Form of the Prefixed Conjugation Referring to the Past in Biblical Hebrew Prose. HS 40: 15–26. 2002 Do the Finite Verbal Forms in Biblical Hebrew Express Aspect? JNESCU 29: 49–70. 2006 The Disappearance of Iterative WEQATAL in the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System. Pp. 135–53 in Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typology and Historical Perspectives, ed. Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz. Institute for Advanced Studies 1. Jerusalem: Magnes /Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kelley, Page H. 1992 Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Grammar. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Kittel, Bonnie Pedrotti, Vicki Hoffer, and Rebecca Abts Wright 1989 Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University. [2d ed. 2004] Krahmalkov, Charles R. 1986 The Qatal with Future Tense Reference in Phoenician. JSS 31/1: 5– 10. Leo, C. 1818 An Examination of the Fourteen Verses Selected from Scripture, by Mr. J. Bellamy, as a Specimen of His Emendation of the Bible. Classical Journal 17: 221–40. Ljungberg, Bo-Krister 1995 Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Some Theories of the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System. Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics 7/3: 82–96. Martin, James D. 1993 Davidson's Introductory Hebrew Grammar. 27th ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. McFall, Leslie 1962

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1982 The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System. Sheffield: Almond. Niccacci, Alviero 1990 The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose. Trans. W. G. E. Watson. JSOT Supplement Series 86. Sheffield: JSOT Press. 1994 On the Hebrew Verbal System. Pp. 117–37 in Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, ed. Robert D. Bergen. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. 1997 Basic Facts and Theory of the Biblical Hebrew Verb System in Prose. Pp. 167–202 in Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible: Papers of the Tilburg Conference 1996, ed. Ellen van Wolde. Leiden: Brill. 2006 The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Poetry. Pp. 247–68 in Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typology and Historical Perspectives, ed. Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz. Institute for Advanced Studies 1. Jerusalem: Magnes /Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Nöldeke, Theodor [1904] 2001 Compendious Syriac Grammar. Trans. James A. Crichton. Reprint ed. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Pratico, Gary D., and Miles V. Van Pelt 2001 Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Rainey, Anson F. 1986 The Ancient Hebrew Prefix Conjugation in the Light of Amarnah Canaanite. HS 27/1: 4–19. 1996 Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by the Scribes from Canaan. Vol. 2, Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Verbal System. Handbuch der Orientalistik 25. Leiden: Brill. Reichenbach, Hans 1947 Elements of Symbolic Logic. London: Collier-Macmillan. Revell, E. J. 1989 The System of the Verb in Standard Biblical Prose. HUCA 60: 1– 37. Rocine, B. M. 2000 Learning Biblical Hebrew: A New Approach Using Discourse Analysis. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing. Rogland, Max 2000 The Hebrew "Epistolary Perfect" Revisited. ZAH 13/2: 194–200. 2003 Alleged Non-Past Uses of Qatal in Classical Hebrew. Studia Semitica Neerlandica 44. Assen: Van Gorcum. Ross, Allen P. 2001 Introducing Biblical Hebrew. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.

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Schroeder, N. W. 1824 Insititutiones ad Fundamenta Linguae Hebraicae. 4th ed. Glasguae: Prelum Academicum. Seow, C. L. 1995 A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew. 2d ed. Nashville: Abingdon. Shulman, Ahouva 1996 The Use of Modal Verb Forms in Biblical Hebrew Prose. Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, Toronto. 2000 The Function of the ‘Jussive’ and ‘Indicative’ Imperfect Forms in Biblical Hebrew Prose. ZAH 13/2: 168–80. Talstra, Eep 1997b Tense, Mood, Aspect and Clause Connections in Biblical Hebrew. A Textual Approach. JNSL 23/2: 81–103. Tropper, Josef 2000 Ugaritische Grammatik. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 273. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Vance, Donald R. 2004 Introduction to Classical Hebrew. Leiden: Brill. Walker-Jones, Arthur 2003 Hebrew for Biblical Interpretation. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Warren, Andy 1998 Modality, Reference and Speech Acts in the Psalms. Ph.D., University of Cambridge, Cambridge. Wright, W. [1896–98] 1962 A Grammar of the Arabic Language. 3d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yates, Kyle Monroe 1954 The Essentials of Biblical Hebrew. Rev. ed. New York: Harper. [1st ed. 1927]

ELISHA AND THE MIRACULOUS JUG OF OIL (2 KGS 4:1-7)) YAEL SHEMESH DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE, BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY, ISRAEL 1. INTRODUCTION Scholars who have studied the Elisha stories as literature have tended to focus on the longer narratives (chiefly 2 Kgs 4:8-37 and 2 Kgs 5), while neglecting the shorter miracle tales, which they dismiss as simple and undeveloped. 1 I believe this approach is mistaken. Through a close literary analysis of one of the short stories—that of the miraculous jar of oil in 2 Kgs 4:1-7—I want to demonstrate that these stories are on a higher artistic level than one might suppose, and employ various literary devices, including analogy.2 In addition, the stories are a faithful expression of the people’s veneration of Elisha. Through a close reading of the story, paying attention to the literary genre of the Elisha cycle in general and of the episode of the miraculous jar of oil in particular, I will attempt to arrive at a better understanding both of the story and of the unique figure of Elisha, as he is portrayed in the Bible.3 See, for example, W. Brueggemann, 2 Kings (Atlanta: Knox Prees, 1982), p. 18; A. Rofé, The Prophetical Stories (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), pp. 13-40 (esp. 13, 18, 27). 2 In my doctoral dissertation, written under the guidance of Prof. Uriel Simon, and completed in 1997, I sought to corroborate this argument through an analysis of the stories of the healing of the waters of Jericho (2 Kgs 2:19-22), “Baldhead” (ibid., 23-25), the bitter stew made edible (2 Kgs 4:38-41), and the multiplication of the food (ibid., 42-44). See Y. Shemesh, “The Stories of Elisha: A Literary Analysis,” Ph.D. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 1997, pp. 138-186 (in Hebrew). The story addressed here was not analyzed there. 3 On the benefits of a combination of close reading and genre criticism see, for 1

71

72

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

My basic axiom has already been stated by Meir Weiss: “The style of the creation in all its manifestations is not only a matter of aesthetics but also a matter of expressiveness.”4 I begin by considering the location of the story and its interrelations with its immediate environment—the account of the Moabite war, which precedes it (Chapter 3), and the three miracle tales that follow it in Chapter 4 (§2). Next I look closely at the story itself: first its structure (§3), and then a close reading that constitutes the bulk of this paper (§4). In this analysis I hope to demonstrate the high artistic level of this brief narrative, on the one hand, and to buttress my assertion that, generically, the Elisha stories are saints’ legends, on the other.5 The close reading will uncover, among other things, the parallel that the story draws between Elisha and the Lord, Who delivers Israel from bondage—a parallel that has not previously been noted in the research literature. After examining the story in isolation I will consider another parallel that cannot be missed—the one between this story, which describes a food miracle effected by Elisha, and the food miracle performed by Elijah (1 Kgs 17:8–16). I will show that this parallel, too, illuminates Elisha’s unique personality and the unique quality of the stories about him—a result of their literary genre (§5).

2. THE LOCATION OF THE STORY IN THE BOOK OF KINGS The fourth chapter of 2 Kings comprises four stories, which report five miracles worked by Elisha: the miraculous jar of oil (vv. 1-7), the miraculous birth and subsequent resurrection of the son of the Shunammite matron (vv. 8-37), the stew that he makes edible (vv. 38-41), and the multiplication of the barley bread and grain (vv. 42-44). The first two stories tell how Elisha helps individuals, in both cases a woman;6 the last two example, J. Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” JBL 88 (1969), pp. 6-7; B. O. Long, “Some Recent Trends in the Form Criticism of Old Testament Narratives,” WCJS/Bible 7 (1981), pp. 63-72. 4 M. Weiss, The Bible from Within: The Method of Total Interpretation (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), pp. 21-22. 5 On the Elisha stories as hagiography see Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 13-74, as well as my article, “The Elisha Stories as Saints’ Legends,” elsewhere in this volume. 6 Although there are, of course, differences between the two women: the first is desperately poor, the second well-to-do. The first needs relief from her economic plight, whereas the second supports the prophet and hosts him in her house whenever he passes through her city. The first calls on the prophet for help,

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stories recount his assistance to a large group of people, the disciples of the prophets who live around him in Gilgal. The first and last stories in the chapter involve a miracle that affects food—liquid food in the former case and solid food in the latter. In both miracles the assistance he renders goes beyond the immediate need, reflected in the use of the root ‫יתר‬: you and your sons can live on the rest (‫( ”)בנותר‬v. 7); “they shall eat and have some left over (‫( ”)והותר‬v. 43). The narrator adds that Elisha’s promise is fulfilled: “When they had eaten, they had some left over (‫)ויותירו‬, as the Lord had said” (v. 44).7 The account of the miraculous jar of oil has several linguistic links with the preceding story, which deals with the war of the three kings against Moab (2 Kings 3). Both stories employ the verbal forms of the root ‫יצק‬ (“who poured water on the hands of Elijah” [2 Kgs 3:11]; “pour into all those vessels” [2 Kgs 4:4]; “she poured” [2 Kgs 4:5]) and the root ‫נסע‬ (“they withdrew [‫ ]ויסעו‬from him” [2 Kgs 3:27]; “remove [‫ ]תסיעי‬the full ones” [2 Kgs 4:4]). There may also be a phonetic link in the similarity of the verb ‫‘ נשׂא‬respect’ employed by Elisha (2 Kgs 3:14) and the noun ‫נשׁה‬ ‘creditor’ used by the woman (2 Kgs 4:1). But the most important link between the two stories is thematic: the nature of the miracle—the miraculous filling of the dry streambed and of the jars—is similar. This thematic link is reinforced by the use made in both stories of the root ‫מלא‬ ‘fill’ in association with the miraculous deed. In the story of the Moabite war Elisha prophesies, “that stream-bed shall be filled with water” (2 Kgs 3:17), and the narrator reports the fulfillment of the prophecy: “the country was filled with water” (v. 20). In the story of the miraculous jar of oil Elisha instructs the woman, “remove the full ones” (2 Kgs 4:4), and the jars indeed fill up miraculously until all have been used, as reported by the narrator: “When the vessels were full” (v. 6). Thus in both stories Elisha satisfies a desperate need. In the first he is involved in rescuing the armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom from death by thirst, when the dry streambed whereas the second rejects his offers of assistance. On the distinctions between the two women, see R. L. Cohn, 2 Kings (Berit Olam; Collegeville, Minnesota 2000), p. 25. I believe that the reason for presenting two such different figures, both of whom are ultimately helped by the prophet, in different ways, is to depict the broad spectrum of the beneficiaries of Elisha’s miracles as well as their diverse character. 7 Compare N. Levine, “Twice as Much of Your Spirit: Pattern, Parallel and Paronomasia in the Miracles of Elijah and Elisha,” JSOT 85 (1999), pp. 25-46 (p. 29).

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fills up with water; in the second he rescues the widow of one of the disciples of the prophets from her destitution, which threatened the enslavement of her sons, by filling the empty jars with oil. An even stronger link is that between the story of the miraculous jar of oil and the episode that follows it, the miraculous birth of a son to the Shunammite matron and his later resurrection (2 Kgs 4:8-37). In both of them Elisha helps a woman who calls herself “your maidservant” (vv. 2 and 16).8 In the first story he saves the widow’s sons from slavery; in the second he works a miracle that provides the Shunammite with a son and several years later brings him back to life. Both stories present the woman as deserving the prophet’s assistance, although in the episode of the miraculous jar of oil it is the woman who attests to her own (admittedly vicarious) merit (“your servant feared the Lord” (v. 1), whereas in the story of the birth and resurrection of the Shunammite’s son her virtues are asserted by the narrator, through the details of the plot, and by Elisha, who, wanting to reward the woman for her goodness, tells her: “You have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you?” (v. 13). In addition, the closing of the door as a precondition for the miracle is a detail common to both stories (vv. 4 and 5; 21 and 33).9 There are stylistic and linguistic ties between the stories, too: Elisha’s question to the Shunammite matron, “What can we do for you?” (v. 13), repeated to Gehazi in the next verse (“What then can be done for her?” [v. 14]), echoes almost word for word his question of the widow: “What can I do for you?” (v. 2). The Shunammite matron’s statement, “I have come to know” (v. 9), remind us of the widow’s “you know” (v. 1).10 Linguistically, both stories are notable for the Aramaism of the final yod in the secondperson feminine singular: ‫( לכי‬v. 2), ‫( שכניכי‬v. 3), ‫ נשיכי‬and ‫( בניכי‬v. 7) in the first tale; ‫( אתי‬v. 16) and ‫( הלכתי‬v. 23) in the second tale.11 This was noticed by Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, p. 50. Alongside the similarities there are of course differences. In the first story, the woman is desperately poor and cries out to Elisha for help, whereas in the second story the woman is rich and deflects Elisha’s offers of assistance. 9 This was noted by T. R. Hobbs, 2 Kings (WBC 13; Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1985), p. 49. But the widow has to be told by Elisha to close the door (4:4, 5), whereas the Shunammite matron understands on her own that she must close the door on her son’s body, which she has laid out on the prophet’s bed (4:21). 10 U. Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives (trans. by L. J. Schramm; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), p. 256. 11 This was noted by A. Šanda, Die Bücher der Könige (EHAT 9/2; Münster: 8

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There are also structural reasons for the juxtaposition of the story of the Shunammite matron, which concludes with the resurrection of her son, with that of the miraculous jar of oil: the editor of the Elisha cycle wanted to draw a parallel between Elisha’s miracles and those performed by his master Elijah: the story of Elijah’s resuscitation of the son of the widow of Zarephath is preceded by an episode in which “The jar of flour did not give out, nor did the jug of oil fail” (1 Kgs 17:16). But whereas in 1 Kings 17 the miracle of the flour and oil benefits the same woman whose son Elijah restores to life, and the two events can be seen as scenes of one story,12 here there are two different women and two separate stories, although linked by many bonds. The story of the miraculous jar of oil is the first in the Elisha cycle that recounts the deliverance of an individual—the widow of one of the disciples of the prophets.13 The story has no national or political significance.14 After a story that shows Elisha acting on the national plane and assisting the armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom in their war against Moab (chapter 3), the spotlight switches to the private domain, where we find that Elisha does not scorn small deeds and is willing to assist a single family in Israel—a widow and her two orphan sons. This is also the first story that provides evidence of the new relations forged between Elisha and the disciples of the prophets after the power struggle between them, Aschendorff, 1912), p. 79; J. Gray, I & II Kings: A Commentary (2nd edition; OTL 9; London: S.C.M. Press, 1970), p. 467. 12 See Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, pp. 159-168. 13 The miracles of individual deliverance found later in the Elisha cycle are the birth and resurrection of the son of the Shunammite matron (4:8-37), the healing of Naaman’s leprosy (ch. 5), making the borrowed axhead float to the surface for one of the disciples of the prophets (6:1-7), Elisha’s injunction to the Shunammite matron to leave the country, which stems from his prophetic foreknowledge of the seven years of famine that are about to strike the land, followed by the sequence of events based on the miraculously coincidental timing that ends with the king’s returning her lost property to her (8:1-6), and the resurrection of the corpse that comes into contact with Elisha’s bones (13:20-21). 14 Pace A. Winters, “Una Vasija de Aceite: Mujer, Deudas y Comunidad (II Reyes 4:1-7),” RIBLA 14 (1993), pp. 53-59, who asserts that Elijah and Elisha headed a resistance movement to the house of Ahab, a movement that fought against the introduction of Baal worship to Israel by the royal house and was motivated in addition by the economic hardship of many in the country. But there is no support for this argument in the biblical text, or for her conjecture that the widow is one of the female prophets active in the community (ibid., p. 57).

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described in the story of his consecration (2 Kgs 2:1-18).15 After Elisha serves as the patron of the widow of one of the disciples of the prophets, his assistance to the disciples themselves, as described in the sequel (chiefly 4:38-41, 42-44, dealing with food-related miracles, but also 6:1-7) is a natural continuation to the story.16

3. THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY Although short, the story consists of three scenes, distinguished by changes of place and partial changes of characters, as follows: Scene 1: The widow’s appeal to Elisha and the prophet’s instructions (vv. 1-4). Characters: The widow of one of the disciples of the prophets and Elisha Location: Elisha’s residence (unspecified place) Scene 2: The miraculous flow of oil (vv. 5-6) Characters: The widow and her sons Place: the Widow’s residence (unspecified place) Scene 3: Elisha tells the widow how to benefit from the miracle (v. 7) Characters: The widow and Elisha Place: Elisha’s residence The story begins with the desperate widows’ cry for help to Elisha (v. 1) and concludes with Elisha’s instructions to the widow, which ends with the words “live on the rest” and removes the cause of her distress (v. 7). Its 15 On the power struggle between Elisha and the disciples of the prophets in the story of Elisha’s consecration as a prophet (2 Kgs 2:1-18), see Shemesh, “The Stories of Elisha,” pp. 107, 120-121, 131-137. And compare J. G. Butler, Elisha: The Miracle Prophet (Clinton: LBC Pub., 1994), p. 31, who notes that the disciples of the prophets, when they address Elisha at the start of the story (2:3, 5), are eager to show off their wisdom and superior knowledge. 16 The disciples of the prophets were in some respect prophets in training, or, as Maimonides wrote: “Those who aspire to prophecy are called ‘the disciples of the prophets’. Even though they concentrate their attention, it is possible that the Divine Presence will rest upon them, and it is possible that it will not rest upon them” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah, 7,5 [ed. E. Touger; New York: Moznaim, 1989]). According to the Elisha cycle there were communities of disciples of the prophets in Gilgal, Bethel, and Jericho. We may assume that they lived a life of poverty. On the disciples of the prophets in Elisha’s period and their links with Elisha see Shemesh, “The Stories of Elisha,” pp. 117-120.

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basic structure, like all of the stories in chapter 4 and stories of miraculous deliverance in general, is “a movement from trouble to well-being.”17 And this takes place in the wake of intervention by the man of God. All three scenes begin with an action taken by the widow: in the first scene she cries to Elisha for assistance (v. 1), in the second scene she goes and carries out his instructions (v. 5), and in the last scene she returns (v. 7) and tells him what has happened. The widow’s sons, who are the subject of her appeal, are active only in the second scene, when they help their mother fill the jars of oil. But they are also mentioned in the other scenes. In the first scene, at the beginning of the story, their mother mentions them in the context of her misery: “The creditor is coming to seize my two children to be his slaves” (2 Kgs 4:1). In the third scene, in the sentence that concludes the story, Elisha’s instructions to the widow include them in her new-found relief: “you and your sons can live on the rest” (2 Kgs 4:7). Elisha is active in the first and third scenes. Although he is not present in the second scene, which reports the occurrence of the miracle, his spirit dominates it, both at the start, when the widow is following his instructions, and at the end, when the miracle he promised takes place.

4. A CLOSE READING SCENE 1: THE WIDOW’S APPEAL TO ELISHA AND THE PROPHET’S INSTRUCTIONS (VV. 1-4) The story begins when the wife of one of the disciples of the prophets (we do not yet know that she is a widow) cries out to Elisha (v. 1). Her first words indicate the initial cause of her misery—her husband is dead, she is deep in debt (we cannot know whether the debt was incurred by her husband, who died before he could repay it, or whether it was created after his death, as a result of the worsening of the family’s economic situation), and the creditor intends to collect what he is owed by selling her sons into slavery, if she cannot pay. In the Bible, appeals for help are almost always addressed to the Lord or the king.18 This one, however, is addressed to the man of God, Elisha. Brueggemann, 2 Kings, p. 17 (emphasis in the original). Cries for help to the Lord: Ex. 8:8 [12]; 14:10, 15; 15:25; Num. 12:13; Judg. 10:12; Ps. 77:2 [1], etc. Cries for help to a Gentile king: Gen. 41:55; Ex. 5:15. Cries for help to an Israelite king: 1 Kgs 20:39; 2 Kgs 6:26; 8:3, 5. An exception is the 17 18

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When a person petitions the king for help, the context is almost always that of the king as the supreme judicial authority, and the petitioner is asking for justice.19 This is not the situation in the present narrative. The woman is not going to a court of law, but to the man of God. Her appeal is a cry for help by a person in distress, not a request for protection under the law: the widow has no legal grounds to sue the creditor, who is acting according to the law, even if not mercifully. Biblical law, like the other legal codes of the ancient near East, permitted the enslavement of children in order to pay off a debt.20 The creditor was fully entitled to take a borrower or his son as slaves if the debt was not repaid (Isa. 50:1; Amos 2:6 and 8:6). The widow’s appeal to Elisha comprises three statements (v. 1): Your servant (‫ )עבדָך‬my husband is dead, and you know how your servant feared the Lord. And now the creditor is coming to seize my two children to be his slaves (‫)לעבדים‬. The woman’s factual exposition is made part of the plot rather than being stated by the narrator by way of setting the stage. This form of narration makes the woman’s appeal to Elisha more dramatic. It highlights the depths of her misery on the one hand and her respect for Elisha on the other, as expressed by the manner in which she addresses him. The woman begins with her husband’s death and continues with the problem associated with her two sons.21 Despite her wretchedness, she leaves herself almost totally out of the appeal and is not the subject of any of the three statements she makes. The subject of the first statement is her dead husband; of the second statement, Elisha (the main clause) and her late husband (the subordinate clause); and of the third statement, the Israelites’ appeal to Moses (Num 11:2), the widow’s appeal to Elisha in our story (2 Kgs 4:1), the appeal to Elisha by the disciples of the prophets (2 Kgs 4:40), and the request for help made to Elisha by one of the disciples of the prophets (2 Kgs 6:5). 19 See 1 Kgs 20:39; and, in the Elisha cycle, 2 Kgs 6:26; 8:3, 5. 20 See Exod 21:7; Isa 50:1; Neh 5:5. According to article 117 of the code of Hammurabi, a man may sell his wife and sons into slavery for a limited term of three years. On the biblical law that permits selling one’s sons into slavery see J. Van Seters, “The Law of the Hebrew Slave,” ZAW 108 (1996), pp. 534-546. 21 Similarly, the wise woman of Tekoa, who disguises herself as a widow, begins by stating that her husband has died (2 Sam 14:5) and then continues at once to her plight, also associated with her sons (2 Sam 14:6-7). Elisha, unlike David, cannot act on the judicial level and bend the law to help the widow; unlike David, though, he can work a miracle to deliver her.

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creditor. She herself intrudes only through the possessives attached to “my husband” and “my two children.” The first two statements relate to the past, and the third to the future: Should the widow not find a way to repay the debt, the creditor will collect it by enslaving her two sons. The first and third statements present facts associated with the woman’s distress: she has already lost her husband and is liable to find herself alone in her house after her two sons are also taken away from her. The middle sentence, which divides her past sorrow from her future sorrow, is a moral evaluation of her late husband’s piety. This assessment is presented by the woman as a fact, supported by Elisha’s conjectured knowledge thereof: “you know how your servant feared the Lord.”22 It is intended, of course, to support her right to petition him for help, by virtue of her late husband, who was Elisha’s servant and God-fearing. The emphasis on her husband’s loyalty both to the man of God and to his God allows the widow to emphasize Elisha’s moral responsibility for seeing to the welfare of his “servant’s” family.23 The content and style of the widow’s attestation of her late husband’s righteousness recall Obadiah’s justification of himself to Elijah (1 Kgs 18:914). On the surface the situations are similar: Obadiah is pointing out to Elijah the injustice of the situation in which he finds himself: he, who saved 100 disciples of the prophets from death, is now himself in peril of death. Similarly, the widow presents her case, noting that her late husband “feared the Lord,” just as Obadiah says of himself, “your servant has feared the Lord from my youth” (1 Kgs 18:12).24 Both of them rely on the prophet’s knowledge: “My lord has surely been told” (1 Kgs 18:13), says Obadiah to Elijah; “and you know” (2 Kgs 4:1), cries the widow to Elisha.

For the use of the idiom “you know” as indicating the speaker’s entitlement, see also Jacob to Laban, Gen 30:26, 29. 23 Compare Bergen, Elisha and the End of Prophetism (JSOTSup 286; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 84; R. L. Cohn, 2 Kings (Berit Olam; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 2000), p. 25. 24 It is this similarity that underlies the ancient tradition that identifies the widow’s unnamed husband with Obadiah. See Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 9, 4,2; Targum Jonathan on 2 Kgs 4:1; Pesiqta deRav Kahana 2,5. It is interesting that Levine (“Twice as Much of Your Spirit,” pp. 28-29) also assumes that the widow is Obadiah’s wife, even though there are no grounds for this assumption in the biblical text. Obadiah is described as Ahab’s majordomo (1 Kgs 18:3) and not as one of the disciples of the prophets. 22

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

But there is also a significant difference between the two situations. Obadiah is accusing Elijah that his command, “Go tell your lord: Elijah is here!” (1 Kgs 18:8), will bring disaster on his head.25 His emotional protest is meant to persuade the prophet to rescind his request. On the other hand, the widow is not trying to persuade Elisha to withdraw a potentially disastrous order, but to rouse him to act on her behalf. In other words, Elijah is being asked to refrain from action, so as not to cause harm to his interlocutor, whereas Elisha is being asked to act, so as to help his. The woman does not provide the prophet with details of her unbearable poverty, which has no doubt become worse since her husband’s death and left her close to starvation (only later, after the prophet inquires, does she tell him that all she has in the house is one small jug of oil). She limits herself to a brief presentation of the consequences of her bleak situation, which grieves her more than anything else—the creditor’s intention to enslave her sons. Like the people of Jericho (2 Kgs 2:19), the widow does not make an explicit request to Elisha, but only hints of her need, by making him aware (even if only in part) of her sad situation. Of this form of request Alexander Rofé noted: The attitude of fear and admiration towards the Man of God is also evident in the way in which he is addressed. Instead of a direct request for his assistance, his petitioners merely state their troubles. This indirect appeal expresses the intense faith of the common people in the ability of the Man of God to render aid and succor, but at the same time allows him the possibility of not intervening and still preserving his selfrespect. It can be said that the miracles performed by Elisha, his small acts of deliverance, are carried out by request, though the request is a silent one.26

The woman begins her petition with the words “your servant my husband.” Thus from the outset she speaks respectfully, referring to her husband as Elisha’s servant (and later to herself as his maidservant).27 She even puts her On Elijah’s public image as one who wreaks catastrophe, see Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, pp. 173-174, 177. 26 Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 16-17. 27 On respectful speech see G. Brinn, “Respectful Forms of Speech and Address in Biblical Language,” Molad n.s. 1 (1975), pp. 506-514 (in Hebrew). Other characters who address Elisha respectfully are the disciples of the prophets as a 25

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husband’s relationship to Elisha, “your servant,” before her own relationship to him (“my husband”), which is another way of showing respect for Elisha.28 The widow’s remarks create an inclusio: she begins with “your servant” (‫ )עבדָך‬and finishes with “slaves” (‫)לעבדים‬. This inclusio indicates that the situation is unfair and provides Elisha with an incentive to take action. How can he allow the children of someone who was his ‫( עבד‬metaphorically, meaning one of his loyal followers) to become ‫( עבדים‬slaves in the literal sense of the word)? Another way in which she emphasizes the injustice and loss liable to befall her is by juxtaposing “my children” with “his,” the creditor’s—as if to say to Elisha, the children are my children, but the creditor wants to make them his slaves. In various passages the Bible describes the Lord as delivering widows and orphans29 and as concerned to provide their needs.30 He hears their cries (Ex. 22:22 [RSV v. 23]), just as he hears the cry of the poor debtor oppressed by his creditor (v. 26 [27]). Our story combines these two elements: its beneficiaries are a widow and her orphan children, who are also debtors unable to repay a loan. The man of God, Elisha, like the Lord Himself, hears the cry of the poor indebted widow and delivers her and her orphan children.31 As the first scene progresses, readers oscillate between hope and despair as to whether Elisha will be able to rescue the widow and her sons. collective character (2 Kgs 2:16), one of the disciples of the prophets (6:3), Naaman (5:15, 17, 18), Gehazi (5:25), and Hazael (8:13), all of whom refer to themselves as Elisha’s “servant,” as well as the Shunammite matron, who calls herself “your maidservant” (4:16). But only here is the person described as Elisha’s servant not the speaker, but an offstage character—the speaker’s late husband. 28 Compare how Judah presents Jacob to Joseph—“your servant my father” (Gen 44:24, 27, 30), “your servant our father” (Gen 44:31)—and how David is described by Solomon in his prayer to the Lord: “Your servant my father David” (1 Kgs 3:6; 8:24, 25, 26). 29 Ps 68:6 [5]: “The father of orphans and judge of widows.” See also Deut 10:18; Mal 3:5; Ps 146:9, et passim. 30 Deut. 26:12-13 et passim. 31 As he responded to the plea by one of the disciples of the prophets whose borrowed axhead had sunk in the Jordan River (2 Kgs 6:5-6). On all of the parallels between Elisha and the Lord in the Elisha cycle, see Y. Shemesh, “‘I Am Sure He is a Holy Man of God’ (2 Kgs 4:9): The Unique Figure of Elisha,” And God Said, “You Are Fired”: Elijah and Elisha (ed. M. M. Caspi and J. T. Greene; Texas: Bibal Press, 2007), pp. 15-54 (on pp. 35-41).

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The very fact of her petition opens the door to hope. Elisha’s reply, in the form of the question—“what can I do for you?” (v. 2)—makes us fear that he cannot help her.32 It seems as if the prophet means that his hands are tied, because the creditor is indeed entitled to take her children. Without a pause, however, he seems to resolve to help her by means of a miracle,33 asking, “what have you in the house?” Neither the widow nor readers understand what he is getting at, although the question arouses hope that he does intend to do something to help her, using whatever remains in her pantry. The idea seems to be that a miracle must have some anchor in the real world and cannot be created out of nothing.34 The widow’s reply, “Your maidservant has nothing at all in the house,” seems to sound the death knell for the hopes created by the prophet’s question. But the qualification, “except a jug of oil,” opens another crack for hope, although it is difficult for readers, and certainly for the widow, to imagine how she could be delivered by the one tiny jug of oil that she still owns.35 The beginning of Elisha’s reply, “Go and borrow vessels outside” (v. 3) may give the impression that he intends to help her through some natural means, by advising her what she can do to support herself, but the continuation, “empty vessels,” catches her and us by surprise and indicates that we are about to experience some sort of miracle. If Elisha spoke with greater directness—“go and borrow empty jars from outside”—the effect of surprise would be lost. The story of the miraculous jar of oil alternates between two poles: emptiness and fullness. Elisha asks the woman what she has in the house (‫)מה יש לך‬, and she replies that she has nothing (‫ )אין …כל בבית‬there. In the 32 Cf. Gen 27:37; 1 Sam 10:2. This is also the argument of A. W. Pink, Gleanings from Elisha: His Life and Miracles (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), p. 64; M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB 11; [New York]: Doubleday, 1988), p. 56; Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 13, 17. 33 Just as he exchanged his proposal of natural assistance to the Shunammite matron (2 Kgs 4:13) with a miracle he could perform for her (vv. 15-17). 34 Similarly, the miracle of the multiplication of food by Elisha (2 Kgs 4:42-44) and the food-related miracles performed by Jesus (Matt 14:13-21; 15:32-39; Mark 6:30-44; 8:1-9; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14). 35 ‫אסוך‬, a hapax, seems to be derived from the root ‫‘ סוך‬anoint’ and to denote a small clay container for liquids. On its shape, see J. L. Kelso, The Ceramic Vocabulary of the Old Testament (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Supplementary Studies 5-6; New Haven 1948), §§22, 26, 35; A. M. Honeyman, “The Pottery Vessels of the Old Testament,” PEQ (1939), p. 79.

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first scene the emphasis is on emptiness: the woman’s husband has died, the creditor is going to take away her sons, too, and she has nothing in the house. Elisha’s instruction that she borrow empty vessels from her neighbors is astonishing: how can she be saved by empty vessels, which seem to be part and parcel of the sad picture of her empty house? But when he goes on, “pour [oil] into all those vessels, removing the full ones” (v. 4), the mystery is solved. The story is raised to the level of the miraculous and the pole of fullness. The prophet is telling the widow that a miracle will enable her to pour oil from the one small jug she has and fill an unlimited number of vessels, as many as she can collect from her neighbors.36 In contrast to the picture of dearth that she paints—“Your maidservant has nothing at all (‫ )אין…כל‬in the house” (v. 2)—Elisha instructs her to borrow vessels (‫)כלים‬ from all her neighbors (v. 3) and to “pour into all those vessels (‫”)כל הכלים‬ (v. 4). The play on words in the widow’s statement and Elisha’s instructions (‫ כל‬,‫ )כלים‬and the repetition of the word “all” (‫ )כל‬by both of them emphasize the contrast between the present bareness of the house and the imminent solution, which will be achieved through the vessels she must collect from all of her neighbors, following the prophet’s instructions. There is another instance of borrowing vessels from one’s neighbors, as the Lord instructs Moses: “Each woman shall borrow from her neighbor and the lodger in her house vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and clothing, and you shall put these on your sons and daughters, despoiling the Egyptians” (Exod 3:22). There are a number of words in common between the Lord’s instruction to Moses (Exod 3:21-22) and Elisha’s to the woman (vv. 2-4): 2 Kgs 4:2-4 What have you in the house? (v. 2) Go and borrow vessels outside, … empty vessels, empty vessels (v. 3) behind your sons (v. 4)

Exod 3:21-22 The lodger in her house (v. 22) you will not go away empty-handed (v. 21) each woman shall borrow vessels of silver and vessels of gold (v. 22) you will not go away empty-handed (v. 21) you shall put these on your sons (v. 22)

Another miracle of a flask of oil, perhaps inspired by our story, is recounted in the Talmud (B. Shab. 21b). According to the story there, in the times of the Hasmoneans a single cruse of oil found in the Temple, which should have been enough to keep the candelabrum in the sanctuary burning for only one night, miraculously sufficed for eight days. The difference is that, in that case, the quantity of oil was not unlimited, but only enough to last until new oil could be produced. 36

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The situations, of course, are different. The widow’s neighbors have not been exploiting her the way Egyptians exploited the Israelites during their years of slavery, so she is not despoiling them, but only asking them for help. We may be certain that she returned the borrowed vessels after selling the oil. But the two scenes also have much in common. In both stories there is an instruction to borrow vessels from neighbors and we read of the economic benefit produced after the words of the Lord or the man of God were obeyed. What is more, in both cases it is a question of delivery from slavery. It is hard to believe that the linguistic and plot similarities are coincidental. Rather the story of the miraculous jar of oil was intentionally written so as to call to mind the Lord’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, which also included His concern for their future prosperity. In the same way, Elisha delivers the widow’s sons from slavery and provides for the economic security of mother and sons (v. 7). This resemblance between Elisha and the Lord is part of the broader picture presented by the Elisha stories, which draws a number of parallels between the man of God and his God,37 an analogy that indicates the extent to which the people and the authors of the stories about him venerated Elisha. Two other poles of the story are “inside” and “outside.” The woman goes out of her house in order to appeal to Elisha in the first scene, returns to her house and witnesses the great miracle that takes place inside it in the second scene, and goes back to Elisha to report to him about the miracle in scene three. The movement between outside and inside is duplicated in the prophet’s instructions in the first scene: as against “Go and borrow vessels outside,” an action that requires public knowledge (v. 3), the rest of his instruction, “then come in and shut the door behind you and your sons” (v. 4) means keeping the miracle private, inside the walls of her house, in the protected space behind the closed door. The miracle of the resurrection of the Shunammite matron’s son also takes place behind a closed door, evidently for reasons associated with magic.38

SCENE 2: THE MIRACULOUS FLOW OF OIL (VV. 5-6) This scene begins with the words “she went from him,” creating an impression of the widow’s prompt obedience to Elisha’s instructions, which began with the imperative “go” (v. 3). Elisha told her to “come in and shut 37 38

For more on this topic, see above, n. 31. This is the view of Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, p. 17.

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the door behind you and your sons” (v. 4), and she does precisely as instructed: “she shut the door behind herself and her sons” (v. 5). He instructed her to “pour” (v. 4), and we are told that this is what she did: “she poured” (v. 5). But one significant element of the prophet’s directions is not repeated in the account of their execution: borrowing jars from all of her neighbors. This makes it hard to know whether she complied with both parts of his instructions (to go to all her neighbors and to ask them for as many empty containers as possible) meticulously. It is easy to imagine how uncomfortable she might feel about such an action, which would make her seem strange to her neighbors. Certainly her request aroused their curiosity: why does our destitute neighbor need so many jars? We are not told whether she was allowed to tell them the reason for her request—that she was following the orders of the man of God. In any case, it must have been the topic of the day in her neighborhood. Because the elliptical description omits the stage of borrowing jars on the execution side, we are allowed to speculate that the woman asked for fewer vessels than she could have received, both because of the unpleasantness of the request and because of a natural sense of urgency, stemming from her desire to know whether the man of God’s words would be fulfilled and her one small jug of oil would fill up all the empty jars, rescuing her and her sons from their misery. So we may conjecture that when she told her son, “bring me another vessel,” and he replied, “there are no more vessels” (v. 6), her joy at the sight of all the full jars was accompanied by a feeling of disappointment that she had not been more scrupulous about complying with Elisha’s instructions to collect as many jars as possible.39 The scene concludes with the words “the oil stopped [sc. flowing],” which is another miracle: the wondrous flow of oil ended precisely when it was no longer possible to derive any benefit from it, in the absence of additional containers to hold it. Had the oil continued to flow the blessing might have turned into a curse—a common motif in folklore. That the flow ended precisely at the right moment is an indication of Elisha’s total control of the miracle, even when he is not present.40

39 Cf. R. S. Wallace, Readings in 2 Kings: An Interpretation arranged for Personal and Group Bible Study (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1996), p. 41. 40 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 257.

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SCENE 3: ELISHA TELLS THE WIDOW HOW TO BENEFIT FROM THE MIRACLE (V. 7) The woman, who went away from Elisha in the previous scene (“she went from him” [v. 5]) to follow his instructions and make preparations for the miracle, now returns to report to him what happened (“She came and told the man of God” [v. 7]). At the start of the story she “cried out” to him (v. 1); at its conclusion there is no longer a need for crying, but only to deliver her report (“she … told”), which was certainly very excited and grateful. We should note that she does not dare do anything with the oil until she receives explicit instructions on the matter from Elisha. The reverence with which she treats the oil, acquired miraculously, is evidence of her reverence for the person who caused the miracle. Elisha tells her what readers could have supplied on their own—that she should sell the oil and pay her debts. In the ancient Near East, olive oil was an essential commodity for both rich and poor; it had many uses—dietary staple, medicine, and fuel for clay lamps.41 Clearly the woman had no trouble disposing of her stock of oil. “And you and your sons can live on the rest” (v. 7) indicates that the miracle exceeded the original need that had caused her to appeal to Elisha—a way to procure her sons’ freedom. The proceeds from the sale of the oil will allow her not only to pay her debts to the creditor and free her sons from slavery, but also to live on “the rest.” In contrast to the destitution described by the woman at the start of the story—“Your maidservant has nothing at all in the house” (v.2)—it ends with “the rest,” which indicates the new situation that now prevails in the widow’s home. Similarly, whereas the story begins with the widow’s plaint, “your servant my husband is dead,” it concludes with the prophet’s promise that “you and your sons can live on the rest.”42

On the importance of olive oil and its many uses see P. J. King and L. E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), pp. 9798; F. S. Frick, “‘Oil From a Flinty Rock’ (Deuteronomy 32:13): Olive Cultivation and Olive Oil Processing in the Hebrew Bible—a Socio-materialist Perspective,” Semeia 86 (1999) pp. 3-17 (esp. pp. 11-15). 42 Cf. Levine, “Twice as Much of Your Spirit,” p. 32. 41

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5. A COMPARISON OF ELISHA’S FOOD-RELATED MIRACLE (2 KGS 4:1-7) WITH ELIJAH’S (1 KGS 17:8-16) There is a story somewhat similar to ours in the Elijah cycle. The resemblances are unmistakable between them: the two prophets—Elijah and Elisha—work a food-related miracle for a widow (Elijah provides his with flour and oil; Elisha, with oil). In each case, before the miracle the widow’s house is totally bare. The widow of Zarephath makes it plain to Elijah that all she has left is “a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a cruse” (1 Kgs 17:12). The widow of one of the disciples of the prophets tells Elisha that all she has in her house is a “jug of oil” (2 Kgs 4:2). In both stories we are told that the widow obeys the prophet’s instructions (explicitly or implicitly): “She went and did as Elijah had spoken” (1 Kgs 17:15); “she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons; … she poured” (2 Kgs 4:5) But alongside the similarities there are significant differences: 1. Elijah works the miracle for a Gentile woman. Elisha, who is deeply involved in the life of his people, works it for an Israelite woman who is the widow of one of the disciples of the prophets. 2. Elijah’s food-related miracle begins with his asking the widow for something to drink and eat. By contrast, it is the Israelite widow who comes to Elisha with a (silent) request that he deliver her from her misery—the imminent enslavement of her sons. 3. Elijah performs his miracle only after subjecting the widow to two severe tests. First, he calls out to the widow, who is busy gathering wood, and asks her “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so I can drink” (1 Kgs 17:10). This is a test of her character: will the woman agree to stop working and do a favor for a thirsty stranger, in a time of severe drought? Next he puts her to a test of faith. After the widow explains that she cannot satisfy his second request to bring him some bread, because her cupboard is almost bare, with just enough flour and oil to provide one last meal for herself and her son, Elijah takes an oath in the name of the Lord that if she shares her pittance with him and feeds him before feeding herself and her son (in contrast to individuals’ natural instincts to provide for their families and themselves first and only then for other people, especially if they are utter strangers) she will not want for food

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES until the drought is over (vv. 12-15). The widow’s obedience to Elijah attests that she believes in the divine promise he conveys and passes the test of faith. Elisha, by contrast, does not put the woman to a test before performing the miracle for her.43 4. Elijah himself benefits from the miracle he performs, whereas Elisha gains nothing from his wondrous deed. 5. The nature of Elijah’s miracle is not readily apparent. Do the cruse of oil and jar of flour keep renewing themselves, as happens in the house of the Israelite widow?44 Or is it merely that the widow of Zarephath suddenly finds other and seemingly natural sources of sustenance (such as wages for work that she or Elijah performs for neighbors), so that there is no shortage of flour and oil throughout the drought? The second explanation detracts from the impression of the miracle. No such question exists when it comes to Elisha’s overt miracle. 6. The Lord is present and involved in Elijah’s miracle. The story begins with the Lord’s word to Elijah—“Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have designated a widow there to feed you” (1 Kgs 17:9)45— and concludes with the food-related miracle, “just as the Lord had spoken through Elijah” (1 Kgs 17:16). Elijah declares to the widow that the Lord will perform a miracle for her: “For thus said the Lord the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not give out and the cruse of oil shall not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth’ ” (1 Kgs 17:14). For the narrator, too, the wonder is “just as the Lord had spoken through Elijah” (1 Kgs 17:16). By contrast, the Lord is not a character in the story of Elisha and the miraculous jar of oil. He is mentioned only when the widow notes, with reference to her dead husband, that “your servant feared the Lord” (2 Kgs 4:1). Unlike Elijah, Elisha does not use the formulaic “thus said the Lord” and the miracle is attributed to him, not to the Lord.

Cf. Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 132-133. This is the opinion of Gray, I & II Kings, p. 482. 45 Here we should understand ‫ צויתי‬not as “commanded” but as “ordained that such will be” (see 2 Sam 17:14 and 1 Kgs 17:4). The widow, of course, is not aware of YHWH’s decision. 43 44

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These differences between the food-related miracle performed by Elijah and by Elisha are in keeping with the different ways in which the two prophets are depicted in their respective story cycles. The Elijah stories portray him as a messenger-prophet, zealous for the Lord but aloof from his people. Although the popular view of Elijah in Jewish folklore, from the talmudic period to the present, sees him as working miracles to deliver individuals and the community, in the Bible itself Elijah performs only two miracles at his own initiative, both of them for the widow of Zarephath who provides him with lodgings, and then only after he has subjected her to two harsh tests, one of character and one of faith.46 Elisha, on the other hand, although referred to as a “prophet,” is usually not characterized as a messenger-prophet, but rather as “a holy man of God” (2 Kgs 4:9), endowed with supernatural powers, which he uses to work miraculous rescues of individuals and communities.47 He performs these miracles at his The other miraculous deliverance with which Elijah is associated, the end of the drought (1 Kings 18), comes at the Lord’s initiative rather than his own. 47 The difference between the two is also reflected in their names. Elijah’s name, which means “YHWH is God,” reflects his zealousness for the Lord and his campaign to impose pure monotheism in Israel and stamp out the syncretistic cult. Elisha’s name, which links el ‘God’ with the verb ‫‘ ישע‬deliver’, is appropriate to the centrality of miraculous deliverances in the stories about him. See, for example, R. D. Moore, God Saves: Lessons from the Elisha Stories (JSOTSS 95; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), p. 147; M. Garsiel, Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns (trans. from the Hebrew edition [1988] by P. Hackett, revised edition; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991), p. 219. The other side of the coin is the three miracles Elisha performs to punish those who displease him. The children who jeer at his baldness are mangled by two she-bears after he curses them in the name of the Lord (2 Kgs 2:23-25). Gehazi, who disobeys Elisha’s stated refusal to accept a gift from Naaman, and then lies to his master, is stricken with leprosy, which will cling to him and his descendants forever (2 Kgs 5:27). The king’s adjutant, who questions Elisha’s prophecy of deliverance from the siege of Samaria, sees the fulfillment of the prophecy with his own eyes, but does not enjoy it (just as Elisha told him would happen), because he is trampled to death in the gate by the people (2 Kgs 7:2, 17-20). Punitive miracles, frequent in hagiography, are another means of exemplifying and exalting the saint’s powers. See, for example, I. Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration Among the Jews in Morocco (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), pp. 51-53 et passim. It may be that the punitive side of Elisha’s character is reflected in his father’s name, ‫שפט‬ ‘Shaphat,’ which is related to ‫‘ משפט‬justice’. 46

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own initiative rather than as the representative of the Lord. In most cases, including the miraculous jar of oil, he does not address the Lord in prayer before performing a miracle. The Elisha stories emphasize the role of the man of God in the miraculous event and downplay that of God himself.48

6. CONCLUSION The short episode of Elisha and the miraculous jar of oil (2 Kgs 4:1-7), like the other stories about him, is designed to extol Elisha and attest to his supernatural powers. It is the first account in the Elisha cycle that deals with the miraculous deliverance of an individual. Nevertheless, because the miracle is performed for the widow of one of the disciples of the prophets, it foreshadows the relationship of patron and devoted followers that will emerge later in the cycle (2 Kgs 4:38-44; 6:1-7). In the story, the movement from the pole of emptiness to the pole of fullness emphasizes the magnitude of the miracle that Elisha performs. The widow’s attitude toward Elisha throughout the story is evidence of her reverence and respect for him. A comparison of her plea to Elisha (2 Kgs 4:1) with Obadiah’s to Elijah (1 Kgs 18:9-14), and a comparison of the entire story with the food-related miracle performed by Elijah (1 Kgs 17:816) shows that the Elijah stories and Elisha stories belong to different literary genres and that the characters of the two prophets are depicted in quite different ways. Elijah, too, is said to have effected great miracles (though many fewer than Elisha). Many scholars point to the similarity between the two prophets, on the basis of the miracles they worked, and ignore the material differences between the stories about Elijah and those about Elisha and between the figures of Elijah and Elisha. For example, Richard Elliott Friedman writes that the effect of the miracle stories associated with the two prophets is “to produce a picture of humans who are more in control of miraculous power than anyone preceding.”49 But this statement suits Elisha better than Elijah, in whose miracles the Lord is a conspicuous presence. The Elijah narratives are prophetic stories that emphasize the power and marvels of the Lord, whereas those about Elisha are chiefly 48 Although, of course, it does not eliminate God’s role, since it is assumed that the man of God receives his supernatural powers from God Himself. 49 R. E. Friedman, The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1995), p. 132.

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hagiographic and emphasize the powers of Elisha the wonder-worker. The Elijah stories depict a messenger-prophet, zealous for the Lord, and aloof from his people, whereas the Elisha stories portray a holy man of God, endowed with supernatural powers, who lives among his people and works miraculous deliverance for individuals and the community. There is also a parallel drawn between Elisha and the Lord, manifested in the fact that Elisha, like the Lord, is concerned for widows and orphans, rescues people from slavery, and provides for the economic well-being of those whom he delivers from bondage. This resemblance is part of the broad picture painted by the Elisha stories, which draw analogies, within limits, between Elisha and the Lord Himself. This phenomenon, which is unparalleled in the Bible—certainly in the scale and intensity found in the Elisha cycle—is yet another way of emphasizing the unique character of Elisha, the holy man of God endowed with supernatural powers.50

I would like to thank Beit Shalom of Japan for its generous support, which made this research possible. 50

THE ELISHA STORIES AS SAINTS’ LEGENDS YAEL SHEMESH DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE, BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY, ISRAEL The present article seeks to define the literary genre of the Elisha cycle of stories. Let me state at the outset that I agree with the widespread view that these tales are intended to praise Elisha and belong to the genre of Saints’ legends or prophetic hagiography.1 But many have challenged this classification, which has generally been made intuitively and not been backed by solid proofs;2 some scholars have assigned all or some of the By contrast, some of the categories proposed for the Elisha stories—such as “prophet narrative” or “prophet legend”—seem to blur their distinctive character. For the former, see O. Plöger, “Die Prophetengeschichte der Samuel – und Königsbücher,” dissertation, Griefswald 1937, pp. 39-40 [this work is not available to me]. He proposes subcategories as well: “Prophet deed story” and “prophet word story.” His idea has been accepted by other scholars, such as: G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Munich: C. Kaiser, 1968), vol. 2:42 n. 2; R. M. Hals, “Legend: A Case Study in OT Form-Critical Terminology,” CBQ 34 (1972), pp. 166-176. Hals notes the problems with the term “legend” and proposes “prophet story” instead (p. 176). Similarly, De Vries and others would categorize the Elisha cycle as “prophet legends” (see S. J. De Vries, Prophet Against Prophet [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], p. 52). He accepts “prophet legend” as a broad category, which he then breaks down into distinct sub-categories that he applies to the Elisha stories (pp. 118-119). But his approach, which distinguishes, for example, between “later legitimation collection” and “early legitimation collection,” strikes me as artificial and as making no contribution to a better understanding of the stories. I believe that none of these proposals are suitable for the Elisha stories, because they obscure their distinctiveness and do not express their unmistakable veneration of Elisha and the intention to lionize the prophet. A prophet legend/story, it seems to me, may be any story about the words or deeds of a prophet, even an anonymous prophet, and the message, rather than the prophet, is at the center of interest (e.g., the story in 1 Kings 13). 2 An exception is A. Rofé, The Prophetical Stories (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), 1

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stories to different categories. What is more, in recent years we have been increasingly exposed to the argument that one or another of the Elisha stories, or even the entire cycle, is critical of the prophet, as a subversive reading of the text makes clear. For this reason, before I defend the genre assignment I accept I will review and refute the opinions voiced by various scholars (Part I). Next I will parry the contention that the Elisha stories disparage the prophet (Part II). Finally, I will show that the Elisha stories were motivated by strong admiration for him and do in fact belong to the genre of the saints’ legend (Part III).

1. FIVE GENRES PROPOSED FOR THE ELISHA STORIES A. A POLEMIC AGAINST BAAL WORSHIP

According to Bronner, the Elijah and Elisha cycles are polemics against Canaanite mythology and Baal worship.3 To support her contention she lists various motifs she asserts are common to Ugaritic and Canaanite literature and to the Elijah and Elisha stories: fire, rain, grain and oil, healing, revival of the dead, the ascent to heaven, and rivers. She also notes the open conflict between Elijah and Baal worshipers in 1 Kings 18 and the explicit taunt at Baal by Elijah’s mocking, “Shout louder! After all, he is a god. But he may be in conversation, he may be detained, or he may be on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and will wake up” (1 Kgs 18:27). She also identifies an anti-Baal polemical intent in stories that have a strong ethical cast: the incidents of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21) and of the siege of Dothan (2 Kgs 6:8-23), which ends with Elisha’s release of the prisoners. She maintains that the Bible employs these literary devices to assail Canaanite mythology, which has no ethical dimension. This line indicates, however, just how far Bronner has gone in twisting the Elijah and Elisha stories to fit her definition of them as polemics against Baal worship. It is true that the central topic of the Elijah cycle is his open opposition to Baal pp. 13-74, but he too fails to deal with other positions advanced in the literature. 3 L. Bronner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha as Polemics against Baal Worship (Leiden: Brill, 1968). See also: J. R. Battenfield, “YHWH’s Refutation of the Baal Myth through the Actions of Elijah and Elisha,” Israel’s Apostasy and Restoration: Essays in Honor of Roland K. Harrison (ed. A. Gileadi; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988), pp. 19-37; F. E. Woods, Water and Storm Polemics against Baalism in the Deuteronomic History (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), pp. 95-121 (to be mentioned below).

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worship (1 Kings 17-19, 2 Kings 1); but this theme hardly comes up in the Elisha stories. What is more, the motifs listed by Bronner are universal;4 most of them are anchored in the biblical tradition in general and in that of the Exodus in particular. The frequent occurrence of such motifs in distant and unrelated cultures is not astonishing, since it stands to reason that fundamental human experiences, such as the desire to overcome death, illness, famine, and childlessness, would produce stories with common motifs. Thus the mere presence of shared motifs says nothing about any intentional link between one story and another. Only a close literary analysis can discover such things. As Moore notes, however, Bronner does not offer such an analysis.5 Unlike Bronner, who found an anti-Baal polemic in all of the Elijah and Elisha stories, Woods proposes that it exists only where it is explicit (such as 2 Kings 1) or where the motif of water and storm is prominent (such as 2 Kgs 2:1-18), because Baal was the lord of the storm and controlled water. Among the Elisha stories he cites the following passages as anti-Baal polemics: 2 Kgs 2:8-14 (crossing the Jordan); 2:19-22 (healing the waters of Jericho); 3:4-27 (providing water in the desert); 5:1-19 (healing Naaman of his leprosy by having him immerse himself in the Jordan); 6:1-7 (making the iron axe-head float); 6:24-8:1 (stories about famine and the royal aide-de-camp’s sarcastic reference to “windows in the sky” in the first of these [7:2]).6 Wood’s overall thesis is that such a polemic against Baal imbues all of the Deuteronomist literature, from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings. But it is far from clear whether the Elijah and Elisha stories are Deuteronomist. Many believe that they predate that corpus,7 noting in 4 A glance at Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, shows that all of the motifs mentioned by Bronner are widespread in world literature. For a discussion devoted specifically to the motifs shared by the Elijah and Elisha stories and world literature, see T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament: A Comparative Study (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 498-525. 5 R. D. Moore, God Saves: Lessons from the Elisha Stories (JSOTSup 95; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), p. 39. For additional criticism of Bronner’s thesis, see P. A. H. de Boer, “Leah Bronner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha as Polemics against Baal Worship [Review],” VT 19 (1969), pp. 267-269. 6 Woods, Water and Storm Polemics against Baalism, pp. 103-111. 7 See, for example: R. Kittel, Die Bücher der Könige (HK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1900), p. 186, who thinks that the Elisha stories were written in 780-760 BCE; R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper, 1948), p. 408; B. Lehnart, Prophet und König im Nordreich Israel (Leiden: Brill,

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particular that the Elisha stories (as well as the Elijah cycle) makes no reference to the centralization of the cult at a single site or of the shrines in Bethel and Dan, which aroused the wrath of the Deuteronomist editor of the book of Kings. B. EXALTING THE INSTITUTION OF PROPHECY

Long maintains that the Elisha stories are intended to exalt the institution of prophecy in general, and not just Elisha.8 He infers this from a study of the Sitz im Leben of the miracle stories about shamans, found in various cultures in North America, Central Asia, and central India. All of these stories were composed, he holds, in a period when shamanism was losing its luster and needed to be rehabilitated. This, he asserts, is the social background of the Elisha stories as well. Long claims that the Hebrew Bible provides abundant evidence of a popular enmity toward prophets, as well as skepticism and outright disbelief in their vocation; and the Elisha stories are intended to counter these.9 Like Bronner, however, Long does not ground his thesis in the details of the stories whose genre he would define. His sociological and anthropological method ignores the literary aspect and focuses on an attempt to discover the social background of shamanistic miracle stories. He does acknowledge that “unfortunately, we do not really know a great deal about the social settings for any of these traditions from Middle India, or for that matter, from Siberia, North America, or Africa.”10 But this lack of knowledge does not prevent him from arguing that what all these traditions have in common is that they were recounted in periods when shamanism was on the wane among the people.

2003), who argues that the stories about Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha are a preDeuteronomistic northern tradition. For a survey of the literature on the date of composition of the Elisha stories, see M. Avioz, “The Book of Kings in Recent Research (Part II),” Currents in Biblical Research 5(1) (2006), pp. 11-57 (p. 28). 8 B. O. Long, “The Social Setting for Prophetic Miracle Stories,” Semeia 3 (1975), pp. 46-63. 9 Ibid., p. 57. Long seems to have recanted this idea, however, since in his commentary on 2 Kings, published 16 years later, he defines most of the Elisha stories as “legends” and “prophet legends” intended to exalt Elisha himself. See B. O. Long, 2 Kings (FOTL 10; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 34, 35, 50, 61 et passim. 10 Long, “The Social Setting,” p. 55.

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As for the idea itself, I see no contradiction between lionizing a particular prophet and bolstering the status of prophecy in general: quite the contrary, since the latter depends on the former. Nevertheless, the Elisha stories clearly concentrate on the prophet himself. In the account of his prophetic consecration (2:1-18), all the sons of the prophets are depicted as grossly inferior to him in their powers; nevertheless, they challenge his prowess repeatedly.11 This unflattering picture of the sons of the prophets shows that even if the Elisha stories indirectly enhance the reputation of the prophetic institution, this is not their main goal. The fact that Elisha is an extraordinary figure, and certainly not a model or type of the typical biblical prophet undercuts Long’s argument. C. RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL SATIRE AGAINST THE ROYAL HOUSE

Unlike Bronner and Long, who would define the genre of the entire Elisha cycle without a literary analysis of the individual stories, LaBarbera defines the genre of three stories based on a literary analysis. In his dissertation, an expansion of an earlier article he wrote on 2 Kgs 6:8-7:20, he maintains that the three stories in 2 Kings 5, 6:8-23, and 6:24-7:20 are religious and social satire directed against the socioeconomic elite of the Kingdom of Israel in the ninth century BCE.12 He holds that all three stories focus on the social tensions between an elite that is drawn to Baal worship and the lower class of peasant farmers, who are loyal to the Lord. All three depict the king of Israel (2 Kings 5; 6:24-7:20) or the king of Aram (2 Kgs 6:8-23) as helpless. In the latter two stories, with their parallel scenes of the king in consultation with his ministers, the king is depicted as misinterpreting the situation (6:11 and 7:12). Pace LaBarbera, the tension in the stories is not between the ruling class and the peasant class but between the king and the prophet of the Lord. The critical shafts directed against the king or his aide-de-camp, on whose arm he leans (2 Kgs 7:2), have nothing to do with the regime’s unjust treatment of the people, but with the king’s relations with Elisha. In the story of the siege of Dothan the king and the prophet are on good terms, See Y. Shemesh, “The Stories of Elisha: A Literary Analysis,” Ph.D. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 1997, pp. 107, 120-121, 131-137. 12 See R. D. LaBarbera, “The Man of War and the Man of God: Social Satire in 2 Kings 6:8-7:20,” CBQ 46 (1984), pp. 637-651; idem, “Social Religious Satire in the Elisha Cycle,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley 1986 [Ann Arbor, Michigan 1989]). 11

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which is why LaBarbera has to invoke the king of Aram, who attempts to take Elisha prisoner (2 Kgs 6:13-14), to demonstrate the presence of a critical attitude toward the royal house. What is more, the Israelite common folk hardly appear in these stories, and when they do they are not depicted in a particularly flattering light. The woman’s complaint to the king (6:2629) exposes the harsh reality of mothers who eat their children during the siege of Samaria.13 Furthermore, the woman’s grievance is not that she was forced into such an appalling situation, but that the woman with whom she made the agreement has reneged on the bargain and hidden her son. The manner in which she presents her case makes it difficult for readers to identify with her suffering. There is no support in the Elijah and Elisha cycles for LaBarbera’s basic assumption that only the upper class in Israel was attracted to the Baal cult, whereas the lower classes worshiped the Lord.14 Elijah castigates “all the people”: “How long will you keep hopping between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; and if Baal, follow him!” (1 Kgs 18:21). By their mute response, “the people answered him not a word,” they corroborate the charge of syncretism that the prophet has lodged against them. As for the Elisha stories, there is nothing in them about Baal worship; certainly one cannot infer any correlation between social class and loyalty to the Israelite religion from their silence on the subject. D. A POLEMIC AGAINST THE HOUSE OF OMRI

Some scholars, taking a sociological perspective, reach a conclusion similar to LaBarbera’s, but add that the main thrust of the stories is to strip the House of Omri of its legitimacy and set up the House of Jehu in its place. The conflict they find in the story is not religious, but socioeconomic.15 See the criticism of LaBarbera by Moore (God Saves, p. 126) and S. Lasine (“Jehoram and the Cannibal Mothers [2 Kings 6.24-33]: Solomon’s Judgment in an Inverted World,” JSOT 50 [1991], pp. 27-53 [p. 38]). Unlike Lasine, I do not believe that the story is meant to condemn the women for eating their children, but only to illustrate the intensity of the hunger by means of such a shocking incident. Nevertheless, it is quite implausible that a story whose goal is to depict the people in a favorable light would include such an episode. 14 LaBarbera, “The Man of War,” p. 637. 15 See mainly T. H. Renteria, “The Elijah/Elisha Stories: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of Prophets and People in Ninth-Century B.C.E. Israel,” Elijah and Elisha in Socioliterary Perspective (ed. R. B. Coote; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 75-126. So, too, J. A. Todd, “The Pre-Deuteronomistic Elijah Cycle,” ibid., pp. 1-35; and 13

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But this theory lacks even the barest support in the text. Only 2 Kings 3 refers to a king of the House of Omri by name; in all the others we always read of an anonymous “king of Israel.” It seems only logical that a story that targets a particular dynasty would not omit the name of the king(s) in question. In the short miracle tales about the assistance that Elijah and Elisha render to individuals (1 Kgs 17:8-16 and 17-24; 2 Kgs 4:1-7 and 6:17) and groups (2 Kgs 2:19-22; 4:38-41; 42-44), Renteria sees criticism of the House of Omri as responsible for the grave situation in which the people found themselves under its rule. But this argument, too, is left without proof. The Elijah stories in 1 Kings 17 are set, not in Israel, but in Sidon. The Elisha stories do take place in Israel, but none of them are set in a particular reign; we cannot know whether the king at the time was of the House of Omri or of the House of Jehu. Renteria assumes that the misery reflected in the stories is proof that a king of the House of Omri was on the throne at the time; but this is simply begging the question. E. DIDACTIC SALVATION STORIES

Like LaBarbera, Moore employs a literary analysis to determine the genre of 2 Kings 5, 6:8-23, and 6:24-7:20, but reaches a different conclusion. He sees all three as didactic salvation stories that teach that the Lord saved His people in one of the most difficult periods in its history.16 He maintains that the perpetual Aramean threat of the ninth century BCE provoked serious doubts in Israel, especially among royal circles, about the credibility of the tradition of the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan; namely, that the Lord comes to the defense of His people and fights against its enemies.17 These stories, according to Moore, are meant to buttress this tenet. His main evidence for this genre assignment is the emphasis in the stories on the

also, to some extent, S. D. Hill, “The Local Hero in Palestine in Comparative Perspective,” ibid., pp. 37-73. 16 This is also the interpretation proposed by B. Uffenheimer (Early Prophecy in Israel [trans. D. Louvish; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999], p. 462) for the story of the siege of Samaria (2 Kgs 6:24-7:20). He argues that “the whole story may be classified as a typical prophetic war tale, which leaves no room for heroic action by a human agency: the only hero here is God Himself.” 17 Moore accepts Lind’s idea about the influence of the Exodus tradition on the Elisha cycle. See M. C. Lind, “Paradigm of Holy War in the Old Testament,” Biblical Research 16 (1971), pp. 16-31 (p. 30); idem, Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980), pp. 138-144.

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Aramean threat, on the one hand, and the prevalence of motifs associated with divine salvation, on the other. Of the three stories, he says, the siege of Samaria (6:24-7:20) is the least amenable to classification as hagiography; because it is hard to see how Elisha’s taking refuge behind a locked door (6:32) is compatible with praise for him.18 One of the weak points in Moore’s theory is his failure to prove that the background of these three stories is in fact the bitter warfare between Israel and Aram in the ninth century. In the account of Naaman’s miraculous cure, this conflict has only a secondary significance and is reported to us only in the exposition that sets the scene for the story (5:1-2). If the conflict with the Arameans and a demonstration that the Lord delivers His people from the enemy were the cruxes of the story, as Moore believes, we would expect a conclusion along the lines of “the Aramean bands stopped invading the land of Israel” (2 Kgs 6:23). Not only is there no such ending to the story of Naaman; the Aramean commander is not even present in the last scene. I do not mean to deny that one goal of the three stories is to exalt the name of the Lord. They certainly demonstrate His ability to save all Israel (6:8-23; 6:24-7:20) or an individual (chapter 5). In two of the stories the deliverance is indeed from the Aramean enemy (6:8-23; 6:24-7:20). In the third story, by contrast, it is precisely the representative of that enemy, the Aramean commander Naaman, whom the Lord delivers from his illness (chapter 5). Thus the Lord’s power is universal and not limited to a particular type of danger or a particular nation for whom He performs miracles. I do not, however, agree with Moore that exaltation of the Lord, and not of the prophet Elisha, is the main point of these stories. The status of the Lord and the status of His prophet Elisha are necessarily intertwined, of course. In my reading, these stories give greater weight to the latter.19 The last scene of the Naaman pericope, in which Gehazi and Elisha occupy center stage, demonstrates the prophet’s power to see what is hidden from others and to miraculously infect the transgressor with leprosy. Thus the story teaches that the prophet has the ability not only to heal the leprosy that afflicts a sick person, but also to invert the situation and inflict leprosy on a healthy individual. It is important to emphasize that in the 18 19

Moore, God Saves, p. 110. See also the succinct criticism by Avioz, “The Book of Kings,” p. 26.

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closing scene neither the narrator nor the characters mention the Lord. The miracle of Gehazi’s leprosy is attributed to Elisha and not to the Lord. As Gunkel notes, the two mirror-image miracles, curing and causing leprosy, equate Elisha with God as one who has the power to slay and to heal.20 In the story of the siege of Dothan (2 Kgs 6:8-23) it is the Lord who opens the eyes of Elisha’s lad (v. 17), deprives the Arameans of clear sight (v. 18) and then restores it (v. 20). Note, though, that the Lord does this in response to Elisha’s prayers. The fact that a fiery chariot and horses are sent from heaven to protect Elisha is an indication not only of the Lord’s power and might, but also of the lofty status of the man of God. Similarly, Elisha’s miraculous ability to see the heavenly troop that surrounds him enhances his reputation. Another supernatural ability associated with vision is recounted in the exposition. Elisha knows the location of the Aramean ambuscades and warns the king of Israel against them, “time and again” (6:8-10). In other words, Elisha is endowed with clairvoyance, the ability to know an event or scene that is beyond the range of his physical senses. The Lord is not mentioned in the exposition in connection with this extraordinary power wielded by Elisha. Elisha’s words of encouragement to his servant, “Have no fear; there are more on our side than on theirs” (6:16), is cited by Moore as proof that the story belongs to the genre of the “Wars of the Lord.”21 But this encouraging remark is not spoken by the Lord to the rescuer He has appointed for His people, as in the case of Joshua,22 or by the Lord directly to the people of Israel,23 but by Elisha to his servant. This reassuring statement plays no role in the plot, given that the fear that paralyzes the lad has no bearing on its development. On the other hand, the remark is important conceptually, serving as another indication of Elisha’s supernatural powers: not only does he enjoy Divine protection, he can also perceive the heavenly reality that surrounds him. The story of the siege of Samaria (2 Kgs 6:24-7:20) seems to come closer to the genre proposed by Moore. The town is delivered because “the Lord had caused the Aramean camp to hear a sound of chariots, a sound of horses—the din of a huge army” (7:6). But this story, too, reflects the supernatural powers with which Elisha is endowed. I find it hard to H. Gunkel, Geschichten von Elisa (Berlin: K. Curtius [1925]), p. 45. Moore, God Saves, p. 132. 22 Josh 8:1; 10:8; 11:6. 23 E.g., Deut 7:18; 20:1; Isa 10:24. 20 21

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understand Moore’s argument that the scene of the prophet’s locking his door against those who have come to kill him tarnishes his character. For precisely in this scene we encounter another example of Elisha’s clairvoyance: sitting in his home he perceives that the king has ordered his execution (6:32). The rest of the story also reflects his supernatural powers: he foretells the miraculous delivery of the city, which seems utterly impossible at the time. What is more, the mockery of the king’s aide-decamp causes Elisha to add his own portent, directed against the skeptic himself: “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it” (7:2). The end of the story reiterates the fulfillment of Elisha’s enigmatic prediction (vv. 17-20). In addition to the various proposed definitions of the literary genre of the entire Elisha cycle or of some of its tales, which we have reviewed above, there are suggestions about individual stories, such as Marcus’ argument that “Go Away, Baldhead” (2 Kgs 2:23-25) is an anti-prophetic satire24 and Amit’s contention that the story of the Shunammite’s son (2 Kgs 4:8-37) is a development story intended to teach the prophet a lesson.25 What all of these proposals have in common is their assertion that stories that recount Elisha’s miracles are in fact critical of him. The validity of this approach, which seems to be winning more and more adherents, is examined in the next section.

2. DO THE ELISHA STORIES CRITICIZE THE MAN OF GOD? Not all scholars who have dealt with the Elisha stories agree that they honor and esteem him. Some have found a critical bent in one story or another, or even in the entire cycle. Here I will summarize the main points of this argument, in the biblical sequence of the stories, along with my responses.

2.1 “GO AWAY, BALDHEAD” (2 KGS 2:23-25) The Indictment This brief episode, in which the prophet’s curse results in the death of 42 children, provokes great unease for many scholars who have addressed it. 24 D. Marcus, “The Boys and the Bald Prophet,” in From Balaam to Jonah: AntiProphetic Satire in the Hebrew Bible (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), pp. 43-65. 25 Y. Amit, “A Prophet Tested: Elisha, the Great Woman of Shunem, and the Story’s Double Message,” Biblical Interpretation 11 (2003), pp. 279-294.

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Gray, followed by Jones, is astonished by the inclusion of this anecdote— which, they say, does no credit to the prophet—in the Bible.26 Marcus reads the story as an anti-prophetic satire, just as he reads the incident of Balaam and his donkey (Num 22:21-35), the lying prophet of Bethel (1 Kings 13), and the book of Jonah.27 He emphasizes that the boys are small28 and that Elisha’s reaction is quite disproportionate to their assault on his dignity.29 Elisha, in this view, abuses his powers and in fact inclines toward the dark side.30

The Rebuttal Although I understand and share the moral revulsion that many have with this story, I cannot accept the attempts to “rescue” the story ethically at the price of what I see as total rejection of the author’s intention and of the genre—the saints’ legend.31 In the biblical view of things, all contact with the sacred realm is life-threatening. This is why the Israelites are warned before the revelation at Sinai, “Beware of going up the mountain or touching the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death: no hand shall touch it, but he shall be either stoned or shot; beast or man, he shall not live.” (Exod. 19:12-13).32 This is why people are in mortal fear after an encounter with the Lord (Deut 5:5, 20-24) or with an angel (Judg 6:22; 13:22). There is also an inherent danger in approaching too close to the sanctuary, which belongs to the realm of the holy. Hence the Israelites are warned, “any outsider who encroaches shall be put to death” J. Gray, I & II Kings: A Commentary (2nd edition; OTL 9; London: S.C.M. Press, 1970), p. 479; G. H. Jones, 1 and 2 Kings (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), vol. 2:389. See also R. S. Wallace (Reading in 2 Kings: An Interpretation arranged for Personal and Group Bible Study [Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1996], pp. 28-29), who argues that we must not assume that the narrator or Elisha was proud of what happened and thinks that Elisha probably remembered the incident with a sense of shame. 27 Marcus, “The Boys and the Bald Prophet.” 28 Ibid., pp. 49, 50-51. 29 Ibid., pp. 51, 65. 30 Ibid., pp. 64-65; Q. R. Conners, “Elijah and Elisha: A Psychologist’s Perspective,” Master of the Sacred Page: Essays and Articles in Honor of Roland E. Murphy (ed. K. J. Egan and C. E. Morrison; Washington: Carmelite Institute, 1997), pp. 235-242 (p. 239). 31 See below, §3. 32 See also Exod. 19:21-24; 24:1-2; Deut. 5:5, 20-24. 26

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(Num 1:51; 3:10, 38; 18:7); this ban even applies to the Kehathites, members of the tribe of Levi (Num 4:15, 20). The use of “foreign fire”— evidently a flame not taken from the perpetual fire on the sacrificial altar— results in the deaths of Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:1-2). Any abuse of a sacred object, such as the Temple vessels (Daniel 5) or the holy ark,33 brings in its wake severe punishment, even when done inadvertently and with good intentions, as in the case of Uzzah (2 Sam 6:6-7). It is against this background that we must understand the story: the boys who offended the “holy man of God” (2 Kgs 4:9) are punished for sacrilege.34 It is important to understand that punishment of those who offend the dignity of a holy man, even slightly, is an important convention of saints’ legends. It is an affirmation, no less than the salvation miracles they work, of their great power and intimacy with the Lord.35 This is why Alexander Rofé asserts that “not the ethical categories of good and evil are relevant in this and in the other stories, but those of the sacred and profane.”36 Although there is much to be said for this argument, I believe that the story presents the boys who tease the prophet as deserving their punishment. It does so by means of various rhetorical devices, as I have tried to show in

See 1 Samuel 5, especially vv. 10-11; 6:19; 2 Sam. 6:6-7. Cf. J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), p. 62; T. R. Hobbs, 2 Kings (WBC 13; Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1985), p. 24; Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, p. 16. 35 See: E. Marcus, “The Oicotype of the ‘Desecrator’s Punishment’ (AT* 771),” Studies in Aggadah and Jewish Folklore 7 (1983), pp. 337-366 (in Hebrew); H. BarItzhak, “The ‘Saints’ Legend’ as a Genre in Jewish Folk-Literature,” Ph.D. dissertation, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 1987, pp. 71-72, 107, 108, 265, 312 (in Hebrew). Although Bar-Itzhak studied saints’ legends in the folklore of Jewish communities, many of her insights are valid for the genre in general and not just for folklore. See also the index to I. Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration Among the Jews in Morocco (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), s.vv. “curse” and “offense against saint.” Among the examples he cites are that of a Jewish woman who became pregnant after making a pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Makhluf ben Yosef Abuhatsira, but lost her first-born son and then her second son because she did not give them the saints’ name (p. 52); a Jew who broke a pitcher belonging to the holy man Rabbi Hayyim Pinto the Younger and died a few days later after being cursed by him; and a physician who died the day after chasing a holy man from his house (p. 53). 36 Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 15-16. 33 34

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my analysis of the story.37 Here I will briefly review my argument. On the assumption that the boys are from Jericho (Elisha has to turn around to see them [v. 24a]),38 their ingratitude toward the prophet is contemptible. Although he has just made their town’s formerly toxic water supply drinkable (2 Kgs 2:19-22), they come out of the city not to provide him with an honor guard, as we might have expected, but to humiliate him and shout him out of town,39 mocking him as “baldhead.” Unfortunately we lack sufficient data about how readers in antiquity would have understood Elisha’s baldness. Some believe that it was a natural phenomenon and that the children’s ridicule targets an aesthetic defect.40 Others hold that Elisha had a shaven pate, which, they believe, was one of the hallmarks of prophets in Israel,41 similar to the custom among priests in Egypt, many of whom had polled heads and were consequently referred to as “bald ones.”42 The advocates of this view argue that in the ancient Near East men generally covered their heads, especially when traveling, meaning that the boys could not see Elisha’s scalp. But they inferred that he was bald because they knew that he was a prophet (perhaps because of the prophet’s cloak he wore). Support for the idea that Elisha’s is a ritual baldness may Shemesh, “The Stories of Elisha,” pp. 148-163. See: H.-C. Schmitt, Elisa: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur vorklassischen nordisraelitischen Prophetie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1972), p. 180; Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, vol. 2:389; Y. Zakovitch, “ ‘Go away, baldhead, Go away, baldhead’: Exegetical Circles in Biblical Narrative,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 8 (1985), pp. 7-23 (p. 16) (in Hebrew). The variant “he turned after them” in MS Alexandria and MS Vatican of the Septuagint does not reflect a different Vorlage used by the translator but represents a correction or emendation based on the translator’s assumption that the boys were from Bethel. 39 Rashi explains that ‫‘ ֲע ֵלה‬go up’ means “go up [i.e., away] from here.” So, too, Schmitt, Elisa, p. 180; M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB 11; [New York]: Doubleday, 1988), p. 38. For examples of the root ‫ עלה‬plus the preposition ‫ מן‬in the sense of “go away,” see Num 16:24, 27; 2 Sam 2:27; 1 Kgs 15:19; 2 Kgs 12:19; Jer 37:5. 40 See, for example: H. Gressmann, Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung und Prophetie Israels (2nd edition; Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1921), p. 290; Hobbs, 2 Kings, p. 24; Cogan and Tadmor, II Kings, p. 38. 41 See, for example, A. Šanda, Die Bücher der Könige (EHAT 9/2; Münster: Aschendorff, 1912), pp. 14-15; Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel, pp. 68-69; Gray, I & II Kings, p. 480; Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, vol. 2:389-390. 42 A. Macalister, “Baldness,” A Dictionary of the Bible (ed. J. Hastings; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908), vol. 1:234-235 (p. 235). 37 38

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perhaps be found in the description of the ceremony for purifying the Levites before they could begin ministering in the sanctuary, which includes shaving their entire bodies (Num 8:7).43 If we accept this conjecture, the children intended to insult Elisha as a prophet rather than as a private individual, which makes their offense even more serious. Another possibility, considering that this story follows immediately upon Elisha’s prophetic consecration and has close links with it,44 is that Elisha shaved his hair in mourning for the loss of his master, Elijah. Despite the ban in Deuteronomy, “you shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead” (Deut 14:1), various biblical texts indicate that shaving the head was a common mourning practice in Israel.45 If so, the disrespectful children were offending not only Elisha, but also the memory of Elijah, which of course compounds their felony. As noted, we do not have enough information to choose among these options. But even if we assume that the boys’ sin was the least serious of these and that they were teasing Elisha for an aesthetic defect—natural baldness—their action constituted a severe attack on the dignity of the holy man, which cannot be ignored or forgiven. The reduplication of their taunt, “Go away, baldhead” (v. 23), indicates that the children repeated their gibe over and over. Remember, too, that dozens of boys took part—more than the number who died, since we are told that the she-bears mangle 42 “of them” (v. 24). The large number of children, plus the repetition of their rude remark, amplifies their sin and gives some idea of Elisha’s distress. The narrator precedes the neutral verb “they said” (‫ )ויאמרו‬with the loaded verb “they jeered” (‫[ ויתקלסו‬v. 23]). The root ‫ קלס‬denotes scorn and derision (Ezek 16:31; 22:5; Hab 1:10), as demonstrated by the occurrences of the noun ‫( ֶק ֶלס‬Jer 20:8; Ps 44:14; 79:4), as well as the noun ‫ ַק ָלּ ָסה‬, which is parallel to the noun ‫‘ ֶח ְר ָפּה‬reproach, shame’ (Ezek 22:4). The story portrays the boys’ punishment as measure for measure: they sin by speaking lightly of Elisha and are punished through speech—the Cf. Lev 14:8-9; Num 6:9, 18. On the links between the “Baldhead” episode (2 Kgs 2:23-25), Elisha’s consecration (ibid., 1-18), and the detoxification of the waters of Jericho (ibid., 1922), see Shemesh, “The Stories of Elisha,” pp. 149-151. 45 See: Isa 3:24; 22:12; Jer 7:29; 16:6; 41:5; Ezek 7:18; Amos 8:10; Micah 1:16. See also G. J. Botterweck, “‫ גלח‬gillach,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament 3 (1974), pp. 10-12. 43 44

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prophet’s curse. The parallel between the crime and the punishment is amplified by the play on words derived from the roots ‫ קלס‬and ‫ קלל‬which have the first two consonants in common and are associated with proximate semantic fields: ‫ קלס‬denotes mockery and abuse, which is also one of the senses of the ‫קלל‬,46 though not in our story. The children’s sin follows their first action—they “came out of the town” (v. 23); their punishment follows the action of the she-bears, the instrument of their punishment—they “came out of the woods” (v. 24). The root ‫‘ יצא‬come out’, used in both statements, and the phonetic and graphic similarity between the nouns ‫‘ עיר‬town’ and ‫‘ יער‬woods’ indicate that the structural and semantic principle of measure for measure continues to hold sway in the description of the punishment.47 To sum up, the story of Elisha’s consecration to prophecy (2 Kgs 2:118) is followed immediately by two short tales in praise of him, which recount how Elisha consolidated his status as Elijah’s legitimate heir. The two episodes seem to contradict each other, since the first is a miracle of deliverance and the second a miracle of punishment. The truth, though, is that the stories are complementary. Only the combination of the two opposed stories provides a full picture of the two facets of the man of God and highlights his full powers. Elisha keeps children from dying in the first story and causes children to die in the second story. The placement of the two stories adjacent to each other and immediately after the consecration story foreshadows Elisha’s characterization as a prophet and a holy man of God, who acts mercifully with those who merit favor but punishes the wicked.

2.2 ELISHA AND THE SHUNAMMITE MATRON (2 KGS 4:8-37) The Indictment This story seems to have been the target of most of the critical shafts aimed at Elisha.48 The prophet is indicted for announcing a miraculous birth of his E.g., 1 Sam 2:30; 2 Sam 16:7; Jer 42:18; Eccl 7:21. The Akkadian verb qullulu, too, means to offend a person’s honor, and is used as an antonym to kubbutu (cognate with the Hebrew kāvôd). 47 This was noted by Zakovitch, “Go Away, Baldhead,” pp. 11-12. 48 See, for example: R. Alter, “How Convention Helps Us Read: The Case of the Bible’s Annunciation Type-Scene,” Prooftexts 3 (1983), pp. 115-130 (p. 126); E. Fuchs, “The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the 46

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own accord, rather than in the name of the Lord, as in every other miraculous birth story in the Bible,49 and for doing so even though the Shunammite matron makes it plain that she expects no reward from him. Her son’s subsequent death is taken to be an annulment of the miracle.50 Simon even sees it as an indication that the Shunammite was right and Elisha wrong: the boy’s death is a retrospective confirmation of the fear she expressed immediately after Elisha’s announcement that she would become a mother: “Please, my lord, man of God, do not delude your maidservant” (v. 16). He understands the woman to be expressing her “profound doubt that she is worthy of such a miracle.” The source of this doubt is her “pious humility.” The matron, as he reads the story, is afraid of being disappointed by “a miracle that cannot last.”51 According to this Hebrew Bible,” Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (ed. A. Yarbo Collins; Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 117-136 (p. 128); Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 29-30; B. O. Long, “A Figure at the Gate: Readers, Reading, and Biblical Theologians,” Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (ed. G. M. Tucker et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 166-186; idem, 2 Kings, pp. 61-62; M. E. Shields, “Subverting a Man of God, Elevating a Woman: Role and Power Reversals in 2 Kings 4,” JSOT 58 (1993), pp. 59-69; F. van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Great Woman of Shunem and the Man of God: A Dual Interpretation of 2 Kings 4.8-37,” A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 218-230. P. J. Kissling, Reliable Characters in the Primary History: Profiles of Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha (JSOTSS 224; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 189, 196; J. Siebert-Hommes, “The Widow of Zarephath and the Great Woman of Shunem: A Comparative Analysis of Two Stories,” On Reading Prophetic Texts (ed. B. Becking and M. Dijkstra; Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 231-250; U. Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives (trans. by L. J. Schramm; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 227-262; W. J. Bergen, Elisha and the End of Prophetism (JSOTSup 286; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 97-104; M. Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem: 2 Kings 4.8-37 and 8.1-6 Read in Conjunction,” JSOT 91 (2000), pp. 109-127; Amit, “A Prophet Tested.” 49 See, for example, Bergen’s criticism (Elisha and the End of Prophetism, pp. 99, 101, 104) of Elisha for usurping the role of God. See also Amit’s claim (“A Prophet Tested,” p. 287) that Elisha “behaves arrogantly toward God” when he imposes the miracle on Him. 50 See, for example, Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” pp. 65-66; Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 282. 51 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, pp. 242-243. Similarly Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 62, argues that the Shunammite matron’s “do not delude your maidservant” (4:16) alludes to her son’s death.

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reading, the Shunammite asks Elisha not to work a miracle, but the prophet, confident in his abilities and certain that his generous hostess merits a miracle, ignores her protest. Consequently he is responsible for the calamity of her son’s death, in that he gave her a son who was not viable. It is clear to Simon that the Shunammite wants a son but is afraid that she is not worthy of a miraculous birth. Other scholars, however, mainly of the feminist persuasion, reject the notion that motherhood is her goal. It follows that Elisha imposed his gift on her, one that reflects the patriarchal idea that every woman yearns for a son.52 Shields even associates the woman’s reaction to the promise of a son, “Please, my lord, man of God, do not delude your maidservant” (v. 16) with biblical rape stories,53 noting that this pattern of the negative hortative ‫ ַאל‬plus the vocative, followed by another negative and a verb, occurs elsewhere only in the stories of the concubine in Gibeah (Judg 19:23) and of Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam 13:12).54 Another critical point leveled against Elisha is that, flouting the convention found when a previously barren woman has a child, the Shunammite’s son remains nameless and has no national role to play or other vocation that would justify his miraculous birth.55 Elisha’s limited knowledge, as reflected by his acknowledgement that “the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me” (2 Kgs 4:27), is also interpreted to his detriment.56 He clearly had no prophetic knowledge of the death of the boy whose miraculous birth he announced. See mainly Shields (“Subverting a Man of God,” pp. 62, 63, 67), who sees vv. 11-16 as a parody of the annunciation type-scene (p. 63). See also: Dijk-Hemmes, “The Great Woman of Shunem,” pp. 225, 228; Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” pp. 287288. According to Amit (p. 288), Elisha works a miracle that serves his needs more than those of the Shunammite matron. 53 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 62. So too, in her wake, D. Jobling, “A Bettered Woman: Elisha and the Shunammite in the Deuteronomic Work,” The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation (ed. F. C. Black et al.; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), pp. 177-192 (p. 180); S. B. Plate, “The Gift that Stops Giving: Hélène Cixous’s ‘Gift’ and the Shunammite Woman,” Biblical Interpretation 7 (1999), pp. 113-132 (on pp. 126-127). 54 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 62. But see 2 Sam. 13:25, for a sentence with a similar structure in a context not associated with rape. 55 Ibid., p. 63; Bergen, Elisha and the End of Prophetism, p. 97; Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 282. 56 See, for example: Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 65, 66; DijkHemmes, “The Great Woman of Shunem,” p. 228; Kissling, Reliable Characters, pp. 52

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As for Elisha’s dispatch of Gehazi to revive the boy, it has been argued that Elisha continues to underestimate the severity of the situation and of the response required. Gehazi’s failure to revive the boy is considered to be Elisha’s failure.57 The Shunammite matron, who stubbornly insists that the prophet be directly involved, once again demonstrates that her understanding is superior to his.58 In light of all this, Simon argues that the story’s purpose is not to praise Elisha or showcase his miracles, but “to investigate the interaction between his ability to work miracles and his human limitations.” Elisha requires assistance from the beneficiary of the miracle, who, it is true, cannot perform miracles, but is nevertheless blessed with greater powers of understanding. Only when Elisha recognizes this and follows her lead can he fully realize his prophetic talents.59 Simon argues further that the story of the birth and revival of the Shunammite’s son depicts Elisha and Gehazi as sharing the concept of prophecy depicted in the short legends that present the prophet’s powers as unlimited and above reproach. The story, which does not share this view, for all that it was prevalent and accepted, is intended to demonstrate the peril that lurks for the man of God if he has too much confidence in his powers, as well as to teach his followers that his holiness does not make him immune to human frailty.60 Shields and Amit are even harsher in their censure of Elisha. They maintain that the story employs a narrative technique that permits reading on two levels. On the first level it is a legend that praises the prophet; on a deeper level, however, it exposes Elisha’s weaknesses, subverts the first level, and reveals the criticism that lies beneath the praise.61 According to Amit, such a reading entails the definition of a new genre, the “development story”: In a development story the miracles are meant not only to impress the prophet’s surrounding society and the readers of the story but also to teach the prophet a lesson and to suggest to readers that, although he 189-190; Siebert-Hommes, “The Widow of Zarephath,” pp. 240, 249; Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” p. 118. 57 Fuchs, “The Literary Characterization of Mothers,” p. 128; Bergen, Elisha and the End of Prophetism, p.101. 58 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, pp. 249-250. 59 Ibid., p. 235. 60 Ibid., pp. 233, 258. 61 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God”; Amit, “A Prophet Tested.”

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possesses super-human powers, the prophet is only a human being with human failings.62

Even though Elisha works two great miracles for the woman, his relationship toward her comes in for fierce criticism. Scholars emphasize his attempt to preserve his distance from her, manifested in the fact that she must speak to him through Gehazi and that he never addresses her by her name. Worse still, he refers to her (three times) as “this Shunammite woman” (vv. 12, 25, 36), which is disrespectful, as in similar uses of the deictic elsewhere in the Bible.63 Amit lists other biblical stories that criticize a prophet: Numbers 20:113, where the target is Moses; 1 Samuel 16:1-13, where the target is Samuel; and the book of Jonah, which is critical of its main character. The point of these stories, she asserts, is to draw a clear line between the prophets and the Lord.64 She includes 2 Kings 4:8-37 in this genre of criticism of prophets.65

The Rebuttal I begin with the last point, insisting that we pay attention to the difference between Amit’s examples and our story. The criticism of Moses (Num 20:113), Samuel (1 Sam 16:1-13) and Jonah is open and explicit. Here, by contrast, there is no overt disapproval of the prophet. But is it even possible to find covert censure, as so many scholars believe? On the surface there seems to be something to the argument that the story of the Shunammite matron is critical of Elisha, who works a miracle that does not last and fails in his first attempt to revive the boy. But even if we accept this line, we must not ignore the fact that the story centers on Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 279. Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” pp. 61-62; Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 285. There is no real difference between ha-zot (vv. 12 and 36) and ha-laz (v. 25). 64 Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 291. 65 But see a different view, which she advanced in an earlier article: Y. Amit, “Why were the Matriarchs Barren?” Reading Genesis: Women Write about Genesis (ed. R. Ravitzky; Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth-Sifrei Hemed, 1999), pp. 127-137 (in Hebrew). There she wrote, “The birth and revival of the Shunammite’s son, whose mortal peril could have been expected, illuminate the power and place of prophets, who could work miracles and redeem barren women and announce God’s continued involvement in the life of the people” (p. 137). See also her remarks at the bottom of p. 136. 62 63

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two great miracles. This is why Simon writes that “the man of God is described as a great and wonderful man but susceptible to human frailties.”66 The criticism of Elisha that Simon finds in the story is strictly circumscribed and never casts doubt on his supernatural powers. We can add that the depiction of the Shunammite’s superior insight about everything associated with her son’s life is perfectly compatible with the secondary use that the story makes of the genres of the miraculous birth and deliverance from death.67 Because it is the woman who bears children and guarantees the continuation of the human race, many stories illustrate how “the Holy One, blessed be He, endowed woman with more understanding than the man” (B Niddah 45b); hence it is the woman’s resourcefulness that overcomes barrenness, saves her son’s life,68 or saves lives in general.69 So praise of the Shunammite matron does not necessarily imply criticism of Elisha. A story can contain more than one positive character and need not be a dichotomy between a praiseworthy woman and a blameworthy man of God.70

Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 261. See ibid., p. 279 n. 59. 68 On these two roles of women in biblical narrative, see the table in ibid., p. 36, in the column headed “The woman’s wisdom and resourcefulness.” See also (and especially) Y. Amit, “ ‘Manoah Promptly Followed his Wife (Judges 13.11): On the Place of the Woman in Birth Narratives,” A Feminist Companion to Judges (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), pp. 146-156. 69 For example, Rahab saved the two spies and her entire family (Joshua 2). The woman of Thebez saved the townspeople from being burned alive in their tower by killing Abimelech (Judg. 9:53). A woman from Bahurim hid the young priests Jonathan and Ahimaaz and kept them from being captured by Absalom’s men (2 Sam. 17:18-20). A woman of Abel Beth-Maacah negotiated with Joab and saved the town from destruction by killing Sheba son of Bichri, who had fled there (2 Sam. 20:16-22). Esther saved her people from genocide. In the Apocrypha, Judith rescued her town and people from the Assyrian invader. On women as lifesavers in the Bible, see U. Simon, Seek Peace and Pursue it (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth, 2002), pp. 185-196 (in Hebrew). 70 This seems to be the basic approach of the feminist critic T. Frymer-Kensky, “The Shunammite,” Reading the Women of the Bible (New York: Schocken Books, 2002), pp. 64-73. She focuses on the Shunammite and illuminates her great and unusual character, but not by criticizing the male lead in the story, Elisha, for whom she reserves a few kind words about his greatness, wonder-working powers, and good intentions toward the Shunammite. 66 67

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What is more, I believe that the story can be interpreted in a different way, one that actually depicts Elisha as a supremely moral person. Elisha recognizes the debt he owes his generous hostess and seeks to provide her with some recompense for everything she has done for him and his servant.71 After the Shunammite matron rejects his offer to intervene on her behalf with the authorities, he does not give up, but continues to look for a way to reward her. With Gehazi’s help he finally discovers what this well-off woman who lives among her people is missing, and replaces his previous offer of pulling strings for her, which she declined, with the proclamation of a miraculous birth: “At this season next year, you will be embracing a son” (v. 16). The circumstances—an overwhelming desire to reward the Shunammite matron for her generosity—lead Elisha to intervene in a domain that is elsewhere reserved to the Lord. I believe that this is an expression of the strong admiration of Elisha, who like God himself, could grant the miracle of a child to a barren woman,72 rather than criticism that he did so of his own initiative. It bears noting that outside the Bible, miraculous births worked by saints are extremely common in saints’ legends to the present time. The argument advanced by Shields and others, mentioned above, that the Shunammite matron doesn’t want a son at all, ignores the social reality of the biblical era as well as the woman’s own response. She does not tell By contrast, Plate (“The Gift that Stops Giving”) criticizes Elisha for his stubborn insistence on rewarding the Shunammite for her kindness to him, which—he claims—turns her selfless generosity into a barter deal. Building on Hélène Cixous’ theory of gender differences with regard to gifts, he explains that Elisha’s need to respond to his hostess’s benefactions stems from his unwillingness to be in her debt. 72 This understanding of the miraculous birth in Shunem can be traced back to the Midrash (Deut. Rab. 10:3). To support his statement that “everything that God does, the righteous do,” the homilist invokes several miracles performed by Elisha and Elijah, beginning with this one. The same view is evident in what R. Aha stated in the name of R. Jonathan: “There are three keys which the Holy One, blessed be He, does not give over into the hands of an emissary: the key to the womb, for it is said, And the Lord … opened her womb (Gen 29:31); … Nevertheless, when it pleased the Holy One, blessed be He, to do so, He gave the keys over to righteous men. The key to the womb of a barren women, God gave over to Elisha, [for it is said], When the time cometh round, thou shalt embrace a son (2 Kgs 4:16)” (Midrash Shoher Tov on Ps 78, §5; in The Midrash on Psalms [trans. W. G. Braude; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959], vol. 2:25 [slightly modified]). 71

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the prophet that she does not want a son, but pleads with him not to delude her. It is from the very intensity of her fear that we learn the intensity of her desire to hold a son in her arms.73 It is hard to understand the woman’s response, “Please, my lord, man of God, do not delude your maidservant” (v. 16), as reflecting a fear that the child would not survive.74 Such thinking, two steps ahead, seems to be quite implausible, given that the Shunammite is not blessed with prophetic knowledge. It is more likely that her doubt concerns the mere possibility that she might conceive and bear a child. Pace Shields and others, nothing in the Shunammite’s answer proves that she does not want a son. Quite the contrary. We may assume that as a woman with no sons, the Shunammite has had her fill of false hopes that she might be delivered of a boy. As the years passed, and especially after her husband grew old (v. 14), she must have despaired that she would ever hold a son, and learned to live with her disappointment. It was this resigned acceptance of her destiny that was threatened by the prophet’s announcement. This is why the Shunammite asks Elisha not to reignite vain hopes.75 Her reaction should be compared to the disbelieving laughter of Abraham and Sarah when they are told that she will have a son (Gen 17:17; 18:12). Their internal monologues inform us that their skepticism about God’s promise is related to their advanced age. So it is not astonishing that the Shunammite matron, whose husband Gehazi has described as “old” (v. 14), is hard put to believe the prophet’s declaration. Nor should we make an issue of the fact that the woman doubts this pronouncement by someone whom she has called “a holy man of God” (v. 9); Abraham, the father of the nation, doubted an unequivocal promise made by the Lord Himself. Her incredulity when she hears the promise contributes retrospectively to increasing the miracle.76 Indeed, despite the matron’s fears, the immediate continuation of the story is the 73 Cf. C. V. Camp, “1 and 2 Kings,” Women’s Bible Commentary, expanded edition (ed. C. A. Newsom and S. H. Ringe; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 102-117 (p. 113). 74 This is the interpretation of Rashi, David Kimhi, and Gersonides; as noted, it is also how Simon understands the women’s anxiety (Reading Prophetic Narratives, pp. 242-243). 75 Cf. O. Thenius, Die Bücher der Könige (2nd edition; Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1873), p. 288; Gray, I & II Kings, p. 496. 76 See Y. Zakovitch, The Concept of the Miracle in the Bible (trans. S. Himelstein; Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1991), p. 44; Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 45.

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precise realization of Elisha’s promise: “The woman conceived and bore a son at the same season the following year, as Elisha had said to her” (v. 17). Here, I believe, the prophet’s role and moral responsibility vis-à-vis the Shunammite could be at an end. Were this no more than a story of a miraculous birth, it would include the newborn child’s future vocation and we would expect to follow him into adulthood and see how he realizes his destiny. In this case, however, the miraculous birth paradigm is secondary. The true focus is not the child, who remains anonymous, but the miracleworker and his power. This is why the birth itself does not guarantee the boy’s survival and he is subject to the slings and arrows of life’s fortunes like any other human being. Had the narrator wanted to indicate that Elisha worked a miracle that cannot last, we would expect the realization of his promise to be followed immediately by something like “some time later the son of the Shunammite woman died.”77 Instead, the narrator informs us that the child grew up and provides a realistic description of the circumstances of his death: “The child grew up. One day, he went out to his father among the reapers. [Suddenly] he cried to his father, ‘Oh, my head, my head!’ ” (vv. 18-19). We are to understand that after staying out too long under the broiling harvest sun the child succumbed to heatstroke or sunstroke, as frequently happens in hot climates.78 But the Shunammite matron, a mother who fights for her son’s life and knows that only Elisha’s direct intervention can restore him, gives a broad interpretation to the man of God’s responsibility toward her and initiates a series of actions to exploit the prophet’s supernatural powers to bring her son back to life. The woman who has always maintained her distance from Elisha, who built him an attic room to provide him with maximum privacy, and who, when summoned to hear his promise of a miracle to benefit her was careful to stand in the doorway and not enter the room (v. 15), now lays her dead son on the prophet’s own bed in that very room. There are two possible explanations for this. It may simply be a technical matter: she Cf. the account of the death of the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kgs 17:17). 78 This view can be traced back to the Jerusalem Talmud, where it is expressed by R. Mana (J Yebamoth 15:2 [14d]). It is shared by, among others, Isaac Abravanel, Commentary on the Former Prophets (Jerusalem: Torah Vadaath Press, 1955), p. 617 (in Hebrew); Thenius, Die Bücher der Könige, vol. 2:288; Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, vol. 2:406. 77

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wants to conceal what has happened from others, and the best place to do this is the prophet’s room, which no one will enter. Alternatively, there may be an element of magic here, reflecting the notion, common in saints’ legends, that the personal effects of holy people absorb their sanctity and acquire their own intrinsic power to work miracles.79 Elisha’s bed, on which he lay whenever he came to Shunem (see v. 11), is such an object. By laying her son in the closed domain of the man of God, in his room, on his bed, she can suspend the process of death, even if she cannot restore the boy to life. Only the direct involvement of the man of God himself can work such a wonder. The Shunammite matron understands this very well, which is why she hurries off on the long journey to Elisha’s residence on Mt. Carmel. Elisha, who suspects that her arrival, when it is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath, is an indication of distress, does not wait for her to reach him, but immediately orders Gehazi to “run at once to meet her, and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?’ ”(v. 26). That the child is the last one he asks about indicates not only that he has no prophetic knowledge of the boy’s death,80 but also that his suspicions about the reason for her visit are not focused on the son at all. Thus we learn that the concern he evinces for the Shunammite is not motivated by a sense of responsibility for her calamity, but by a sincere wish to help the woman who has been so generous to him. The woman, in her clear knowledge that only Elisha can deliver her from her misery, dismisses Gehazi with the laconic “it is well” (v. 26); but then, belying her calm answer, she hurries up to the prophet and takes hold of his feet (v. 27). This is how she indicates that a great calamity has overtaken her. The reaction of Gehazi, who would defend his master’s dignity by pushing the woman away, represents the standard attitude toward the holy man of God. It is not meant to make Gehazi look bad, but rather to illuminate Elisha, by way of contrast, in a positive light.81 As opposed to the normative aversion that Gehazi feels for the woman’s atypical behavior, Elisha understands that now is neither the time nor the circumstances to For this idea, see I. Genuz, “The Belongings of Tsaddikim as Treasures of Virtues,” Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division D, vol. 2 (1989), pp. 29-31 (Hebrew section). 80 As is noted by Šanda, Die Bücher der Könige, vol. 2:32; Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 246. 81 On the use of minor characters as a device for the moral evaluation of the protagonist, see Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 268. 79

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stand on his dignity: “Let her alone, for she is in bitter distress; and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me” (v. 27). His admission that he lacked prophetic knowledge makes it clear that it was not from disinterest or apathy that he did not help the Shunammite woman in her distress, but solely because he did not know what had befallen her. We may infer from this that had he known her trouble he would not have waited for her to come to him but would have taken immediate action on her behalf. Note that Elisha’s knowledge is described as deficient in the short tales that almost all agree are intended to praise Elisha (2 Kgs 4:2; 6:6). Evidently critical scholars expect the man of God to demonstrate supernatural powers even more than his own devotees and admirers did. Elisha realizes that only some serious distress could cause the woman to behave in this unrestrained fashion; but he does not know what it is. From her plaintive cry, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say: ‘Don’t mislead me’?” (v. 28), he infers that the calamity has to do with the son who was born as a result of his blessing. I believe that these words also provide a new interpretation for her earlier reluctance to hear the promise of a child. Looking back, the Shunammite matron can present her skepticism that she might conceive and bear a son as anxiety about a miracle that could not last.82 Now Elisha, who accepts this interpretation and the woman’s rebuke, displays moral greatness. Close attention to what the woman says indicates that while she makes it clear that the reason she has come involves her son, she does not say that he is dead.83 I believe that this explains the sequence of events in the rest of the story. Evidently Elisha fails to understand that the boy was dead and infers that he is seriously ill or has fainted.84 Consequently he believes it 82 This is also the understanding of G. W. Savran, Telling and Retelling: Quotation in Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 99. 83 The reason for this, I believe, is her feeling that if she says anything about it out loud she will make her son’s death real and irrevocable and put an end to her hopes that he may be revived by the man of God. Another possibility is her fear that if Elisha knew that the boy was dead he would believe that nothing further could be done in the matter and would not accompany her back to Shunem. 84 Cf. Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” p. 118. Roncace sees this as criticism of the prophet, who took action even before the Shunammite had had time to tell him that her son was dead, and may consequently have underestimated the gravity of the situation and thought that Gehazi could make matters right. My reading, by contrast, is that the woman had no intention of telling Elisha the full truth. In support of this, consider that during their long journey back to Shunem

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sufficient to send an emissary to effect a miraculous cure, using his staff and following his precise instructions. But the woman, who knows that her son is dead, and not merely ill, understands that in such an extreme case only Elisha’s direct intercession will avail. This is why she adamantly declares that “As the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you!” (v. 30). Here too Elisha demonstrates his greatness by accepting her terms and accompanying her back to Shunem. Gehazi’s inability to revive the boy retrospectively enhances Elisha’s own success,85 showing Elisha, Gehazi, and readers what the woman knew all along—that only the holy man of God could accomplish the impossible. Only when he reaches his room in the Shunammite woman’s house does Elisha discover that it is not a case of illness or faintness, but of death, and that he has been called to effect not a miraculous cure but a resurrection. The narrator does a good job of conveying the prophet’s surprise by suddenly presenting the story from his point of view, by means of the word ‫‘ והנה‬and there’:86 “Elisha came into the house, and there was the boy dead, laid out on his couch” (v. 32). This conveys nothing new to readers, whom the narrator has already informed that the child is dead. Hence I believe we must understand the verse as reporting Elisha’s sudden realization that the boy is dead. Elisha now understands that only a stubborn struggle for the boy’s life can restore him to his mother. Through a combination of prayer (whose content is not reported) and intensive physical exertion, which involves conveying the vital force from his own holy body to the child’s corpse,87 he succeeds in this greatest miracle of all.

she said nothing more about her son’s condition; it was only when Elisha reached her house and saw the boy with his own eyes that he realized he was dead (as I shall demonstrate below). 85 This is also the opinion of Gressmann, Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung, p. 294; Gray, I & II Kings, p. 93. Gressman compares Elisha’s success, after Gehazi fails to revive the child, with the cure worked by Jesus after the disciples fail to do so (Luke 9:37-42). 86 On the function of ‫ והנה‬as an indication of direct perception by characters, see: J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1975), pp. 50-51; A. Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: The Almond Press, 1983), pp. 62-63; S. Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), pp. 35-36. 87 See Gersonides on v. 34.

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Elisha’s miraculous resurrection exceeds that worked by his master Elijah in Zarephath (1 Kgs 17:17-24).88 In the first place, 2 Kgs 4:20 states explicitly that the Shunammite’s son is dead, so it is clear that Elisha brought him back to life. The matter is not so explicit in the case of Elijah, where the narrator is ambiguous, stating, not that the child is dead, but that “his illness grew worse, until he had no breath (‫ )נשמה‬left in him” (1 Kgs 17:17). A similar expression is used with regard to Daniel, who attests of himself that “no breath is left in me” (Dan 10:17), where the reference is to fainting rather than dying (see also Dan 10:9). Similarly, in her astonishment at Solomon’s wisdom and the lavishness of his court, the Queen of Sheba “was left breathless (‫( ”)רוח‬1 Kgs 10:5).89 The narrator’s use of the verb ‫וַ יֶּ ִחי‬ does not necessarily connote a miracle of resurrection, because the root ‫חיה‬ can also have the sense of healing (e.g., Josh. 5:8; 2 Kgs 1:2). The uncertainty as to whether the widow’s child really died contributes to the impression that Elisha is a more powerful miracle-worker than Elijah.90 Second, Elijah, who boarded with the widow when her son was left without breath, could begin his efforts to revive the child at once. But Elisha was on Mt. Carmel when the Shunammite’s son died, so that at least ten hours passed from the time of the child’s death until Elisha arrived in the woman’s home and began his efforts to revive the boy. This delay amplifies the miracle, since, as the story makes clear, time is of the utmost importance, for both the woman (v. 24) and for Elisha (v. 29).91 Why Elisha refers to his hostess as “this Shunammite woman” remains unclear, but I do not believe that it is meant disparagingly.92 The narrator never reports the woman’s name, so we cannot criticize Elisha for failing to address her by it.93 In fact, the deictic “this” or “that” is frequently used 88 Contrary to the view of Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” pp. 60-61; Siebert-Hommes, “The Widow of Zarephath”; H.-J. Stipp, “Vier Gestalten einer Totenerweckungserzählung (1 Kön 17,17-24; 2 Kön 4,8-37; Apg 9,36-42; Apg 20,712),” Biblica 80 (1999), pp. 43-77 (p. 70). 89 See also Judg 15:19; 1 Sam 30:12. 90 See: Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, p. 134; Kissling, Reliable Characters, p. 195. 91 Cf. Gressmann, Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung, p. 294 92 Neither does Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 326 n. 14, even though, as noted above, he does believe that the story is critical of Elisha in other respects. 93 Frymer-Kensky (Reading the Women of the Bible, pp. 64-65, 72-73) holds that the Shunammite matron is identified by her hometown because this is an important element in the identity and biography of a woman whose security derives from the fact that she lives among her relatives (4:13), later goes into exile at the prophet’s

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with no intention to belittle its referent, as we can see from “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?” (1 Sam 6:20) and many other passages.94 Note that after Elisha first tells Gehazi to “call this Shunammite woman” (v.12), he addresses her to express his gratitude: “You have gone to all this trouble for us” (v. 13). The parallel use of the deictic with reference to the woman and with reference to how she has treated him undercuts the argument that Elisha looks down at his hostess. Note, too, that all three times that Elisha refers to the Shunammite as “this Shunammite woman” he has good intentions toward her: in v. 25 he sends Gehazi to meet her, because of his concern at her unexpected arrival; the other two times it is associated with the miracles he performs for her (v. 12, when he wants to tell her the good tidings of the future birth; and v. 36, when he summons her after the child’s miraculous revival). The story concludes with the woman’s mute gesture of thanks: “She came and fell at his feet and bowed low to the ground; then she picked up her son and left” (v. 37). In her moments of joy, just as in her moments of grief, the woman falls at Elisha’s feet. But how great is the distance between her clasping his feet in despair (v. 27)—which, for all that it expresses her certainty that only Elisha can help her, is also an affront to his dignity—and the silent prostration that expresses her gratitude to the holy man of God who fought stubbornly to restore her dead son to life and to her arms. We see, then, that taken in isolation the story depicts Elisha as a wonder-worker and miracle-maker, but also as a moral figure who evinces true concern for the Shunammite’s fate. The death of her son spurs him to effect a miracle that exceeds the miracle of the annunciation of his birth. Consequently, from the overall perspective of the story, the boy’s temporary death cannot be viewed as an injury done by the prophet to the woman, just as it does not detract from his dignity. Furthermore, if we scrutinize the story in its broader context, the account of “all the great things that Elisha has done” (2 Kgs 8:1-6), we find that not only was the Shunammite matron not harmed by her son’s temporary death, but that in retrospect she actually gained by it. That miracle, which Gehazi has just been narrating to the king when she, by a miraculous concurrence, appears before him to plead her cause, advice, and finally returns to her hometown and has her property and rights restored by the king (8:1-6). 94 E.g., Gen 34:4; Exod 2:9; 15:1; Num 5:30; Deut 28:58; 29:20, 26; Judg 19:23, 24; 1 Sam 17:12; Jer 26:16; and, for ‫ ַה ָלּז‬, Judg 6:20 and 2 Kgs 23:17.

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accompanied by the son whom Elisha had restored, so impresses the king that he orders not only that her house and field be returned to her—the subject of her petition—but even what she had not dared dream of, that she be reimbursed for the harvests of the seven years when she was abroad (v. 6). Her son’s death and miraculous revival saved her from dispossession and penury many years later. Simon rightly argues that the account of “all the great things that Elisha has done” is an intrascriptural response95 to the story of the Shunammite matron.96 But whereas Simon sees this brief anecdote as a sort of corrective epilogue intended to refurbish Elisha’s tarnished prestige, I understand it as a complementary postscript, which shows that the woman’s close relationship with Elisha eventually helped her even in a domain that she had rejected when he proposed it—interceding on her behalf with the king (2 Kgs 4:13). I think that with regard to their attitude toward the prophet and to prophecy in general, the similarity between the two stories outweighs the difference. Both stories seem to imply that the prophet’s intervention in the Shunammite’s life (the miraculous birth; the advice based on prophetic knowledge, after which she leaves the country for seven years) harms her (the loss of the son and the loss of her property). In the event, however we find that in neither case was she—nor could she be—injured by the counsel of the holy man of God.97 Not only is the crisis provoked by his On the several varieties of intrascriptural exegesis, see M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). 96 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, pp. 230, 258-262. 97 This lesson is frequent in saints’ legends. In some of them the pious man’s action or advice seems to make the petitioner-beneficiary’s situation worse, but ultimately this proves not to be the case. See, for example, Shivhei ha-Besht (ed. S. A. Horodetsky; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1947), pp. 113-114 (in Hebrew). The story there is that a boy born as a result of the blessing given by the Baal Shem Tov, the eighteenthcentury founder of Hasidism, dies, only to return to life at the end of the circumcision ceremony. The dependence of that tale on the biblical account in 2 Kgs 4:8-37 is clear. With regard to seemingly bad advice that turns out to have been the key to salvation, see ibid., pp. 73-74, about the advice given by Dov Baer, the “Maggid of Mezhirech,” to two emissaries who consulted him. See also Qovez Eliyahu: Oral Tales (ed. H. A. Sternberg; Jerusalem: [Sternberg], 1983), pp. 22-23, §77 (in Hebrew). For a miraculous birth effected by a righteous man, which led to temporary difficulties, see the story there about a childless follower of the Baal Shem Tov, who had a son thanks to the latter’s blessing. When the boy grew up he abandoned religious observance and caused his father such pain that he was led to exclaim, “if only the boy had never been born!” Under the influence of the amulet 95

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intervention resolved (the revival of the son and the restoration of her property); after the fact it is clear that he helped her improve her situation. This improvement is not part of the story itself in Chapter 4 and must be derived from the broader literary context, the return of property in Chapter 8 as an indirect result of the miracle of her son’s resurrection. In Chapter 8, by contrast, the betterment of her situation is part and parcel of the story: had her property not been confiscated, she would not have petitioned the king when she returned to the country and would have lost the yield of her field for the time she was abroad. In sum, the message to be drawn from both stories is that Elisha’s intercession conveys only good to the beneficiary of the miracle, even if this is not apparent at first.

2.3 THE STORY OF NAAMAN (2 KINGS 5) The Indictment Zakovitch sees the story of the healing of Naaman as critical of Elisha.98 In his reading, Elisha is excessively proud and ignores his due subordination to the Lord. He bases this assertion chiefly on Elisha’s response to the king of Israel: “Let him come to me, and he will learn that there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kgs 5:8). Zakovitch attaches great weight to the distinction he would make between the term “the man of God” used by the narrator (v. 8a) and the term “prophet” used by the Israelite slave girl (v. 3) and Elisha himself. Noting that these terms are used to designate two different characters in the story of the man of God from Judah and the lying prophet of Bethel (1 Kings 13), he sees “man of God” as positive and “prophet” as derogatory.99 According to him, the author of the story in 1 Kings 13 attaches a higher value to the designation “man of God,” because it includes a direct reference to God, whose emissary he is, whereas “prophet” does not.100 It follows that Elisha, who refers to himself as a prophet, ignores his due subordination to the Lord. So too, according to Zakovitch, the words “to me” in the message he sends to the king of Israel are an expression of that the Baal Shem Tov had given the father, however, the son became a penitent skilled in getting others to repent their evil ways, precisely because of his nonobservant past (ibid., pp. 41-42, §124). 98 Y. Zakovitch, “Every High Official Has a Higher One Set Over Him”: A Literary Analysis of 2 Kings 5 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1985) (in Hebrew). 99 Ibid., pp. 29-30, 48-49. 100 Ibid., pp. 29-30.

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Elisha’s arrogance and egocentricity.101 He also disapproves of the fact that Elisha does not go out to meet Naaman, who is standing outside his door, but sends word to him via a messenger in order to impress him.102 For Zakovitch, it is only after Naaman has been humbled and come to recognize his subjection to the God of Israel and his prophet does Elisha, too, realize his own subordination to the Lord.103 Hence he is of the opinion that the point of the story is not Elisha’s miracles, but clarifying the concept of the hierarchy—“every high official has a higher one set over him” (Eccl. 5:7)—with the God of Israel highest of all.104 He adds that our story goes beyond Naaman’s recognition of the Lord and demands that Elisha, too, recognize his subordinate position to God.105

The Rebuttal As with the story of the birth and revival of the Shunammite’s son, no one disputes the magnitude of the two miracles that Elisha works in the Naaman pericope. Here too the criticism is of a moral order. Zakovitch’s interpretation of the story hangs on the supposed pejorative overtones of the word “prophet” used by Elisha (v. 8).106 It is true that the term is applied to both true prophets and false prophets and consequently can be intended either positively or negatively. But the sense depends on the context, and it is clear that when Elisha proclaims himself to be a prophet he is presenting himself as a prophet of the Lord who acts on behalf of that higher power. Nowhere in the Bible does a person refer to himself as a “man of God.”107 Wherever it is found it is employed by the narrator108 or 101 Ibid., pp. 50, 60. Similarly, Bergen maintains that Elisha is motivated by a desire to exalt his own name, not the Lord’s (Elisha and the End of Prophetism, p. 115). 102 Zakovitch, Every High Official, pp. 54-55. 103 Ibid., pp. 54, 134, 136. 104 Ibid., pp. 71-72, 133-136. 105 Ibid., p. 83. 106 Curiously, Gertel criticizes Elisha on precisely the opposite grounds: although Elisha does refer to himself as a prophet (2 Kgs 5:8), the stories about him call him a “man of God” instead. That his, he is not a prophet of the first rank, on the level of Moses, Samuel, and Elijah. See E. B. Gertel, “Moses, Elisha and Transferred Spirit: The Height of Biblical Prophecy? (part II),” JBQ 30 (2002), pp. 171-177 (p. 172). 107 Elijah’s “if I am a man of God” (2 Kgs 1:10, 12) is a provocative response to the vocative employed by the two unfortunate captains of fifty (vv. 9, 11).

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the other characters who address the man of God directly109 or are conversing among themselves about him.110 On the other hand, we do find messengers of the Lord who describe themselves as “prophets.”111 So there is nothing astonishing or unusual about Elisha’s referring to himself as a “prophet” and not as a “man of God.” When the king of Israel rends his garment and complains, “Am I God, to deal death or give life, that this fellow writes to me to cure a man of leprosy?” (v. 7), he is not questioning the Lord’s power of life and death, but only saying that he does not believe that the Lord will intervene in this case. He fails to draw the appropriate conclusion; namely, that to receive help from God one must turn to the man of God. His failure to think of the man of God constitutes a direct affront to Elisha’s status as a prophet and an indirect attack on the belief that the Lord acts in human history by means of His emissaries. Elisha’s retort to the king, “Why have you rent your clothes? Let him come to me, and he will learn that there is a prophet in Israel” (v. 8), echoes the king’s despairing “to me” in v. 7.112 Elisha is not boasting; he is merely proclaiming that the person who can work a miraculous cure is not the king of Israel, but the prophet in Israel. Because there is a prophet in Israel, the king’s strident despair is not justified. What is more, the first reference to Elisha as a “prophet” is made by the Lord, in his revelation to Elijah at Horev: “Anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah to succeed you as prophet” (1 Kgs 19:16). In the early days of Elisha’s prophetic career, however, Jehoram of Israel does not recognize him as the person to whom he should turn to inquire of the Lord. It is one of his courtiers who notes the presence of “Elisha son of Shaphat” in the camp, and Jehoshaphat of Judah who proclaims that “the word of the Lord is with him” (2 Kgs 3:12). Like Jehoram on that occasion, in our story the unnamed king of Israel does not think to refer Naaman to Elisha, even though his reputation as a man of God is now so well established that even a young Israelite girl has utter confidence in his powers (2 Kgs 5:3). We should accordingly understand Elisha’s statement as a fully warranted rebuke of the king. It is to the king, even more than to Naaman, that Elisha wishes to make clear that “there is a prophet in Israel” (v. 8). See: 1 Sam. 9:10; 1 Kgs 13:1; 2 Kgs 4:21, 25; 6:6, 9; 7:2; 13:19; et passim. See 1 Kgs 13:14; 17:18; 2 Kgs 1:9; 4:40; et passim. 110 1 Sam 9:6; 1 Kgs 13:26, 31; 2 Kgs 4:9; et passim. 111 Deut 18:15 (Moses); 1 Kgs 18:22 (Elijah); Ezek 2:5 (Ezekiel). 112 Zakovitch, Every High Official, p. 50 108 109

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Although this statement is intended to defend Elisha’s own status, it contains the implicit recognition that the Lord intervenes in human history to benefit His people; or, in the words of Malbim on 2 Kgs 5:8, “it is an indication of the divine presence and of [the Lord’s] attachment to them.”113 Many scriptural passages view the gift of prophets who act in His name and convey His words as an expression of the Lord’s benevolence to Israel.114 By contrast, the absence of true prophets or the failure of the prophets to receive and convey the word of the Lord is a manifestation of the removal of Divine providence.115 It is not clear why Elisha is deemed to be arrogant for sending a messenger instead of going out to meet Naaman himself. In fact, it represents Elisha’s rebuke to Naaman’s presumptuous arrival by horse and chariot all the way to the door of his house, in an attempt to impress the prophet with his status and military power and to spur him to make a greater effort to heal him.116 By staying indoors Elisha, solicitous of his own dignity, also defends the honor of prophecy in Israel and of the God of Israel. One might also say that Elisha sends a messenger precisely in order to minimize his own contribution to the miracle and to magnify the Lord’s role. This is clearly behind his refusal to cure the leprosy by magical means, as Naaman had expected (v. 11). To do so would be to emulate the wizards or shamans of the ancient world;117 Naaman would have acknowledged Elisha’s prowess as a magician, but no more. It is precisely the unconventional treatment he prescribes (which echoes the language of Lev 14:8-9 about the role of the priest in the ritual to heal leprosy118) that brings R. Meir Leibush Malbim, commentary ad loc. See Deut 18:15, 18; 1 Sam 3:19-21; Jer 29:15; Ezek 2:5; Hos 12:14; Amos 2:11; et passim. 115 See 1 Sam 28:6; 1 Kgs 22:22-23; Hos 4:5; Ps 74:9. 116 Abravanel, Commentary on the Former Prophets, p. 619. This is also the understanding of Gunkel, Geschichten von Elisa, p. 35; Gray, I & II Kings, p. 506; R. L. Cohn, “Form and Perspective in 2 Kings V,” VT 33 (1983), pp. 171-184 (on pp. 176-177); Zakovitch, Every High Official, pp. 52-53. 117 That this is what Naaman expected Elisha to do is noted by Gunkel, Geschichten von Elisa, p.37; Cogan-Tadmor, II Kings, p. 67; Moore, God Saves, p. 75 n. 5. On the exorcist’s direct involvement in healing the sick, see F. Smyth-Florentin, “Histoire de la Guérison et de la Conversion de Naaman (II Rois 5, 1-19),” Foi et Vie 69(3) (1970), pp. 29-41. 118 See: J. Heller, “Drei Wundertaten Elisas,” Communio Viatorum 2 (1959), pp. 113 114

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Naaman to the recognition that “there is no God in the whole world except in Israel!” (v. 15).119 Elisha’s adamant refusal to accept Naaman’s generous gifts is fully compatible with his intention to minimize his role in the miracle and to present himself as no more than an emissary of the Lord, who derives his power from his Master.120 Various scholars have noted that, alongside the intention of lionizing Elisha and entrenching his status as the emissary of the Lord, our story seeks to exalt the Lord.121 To this we can add that the hero, Elisha, is described as sharing this latter intention. Elisha’s attempt to minimize his role in the miracle and to highlight the Lord’s power casts him in a positive light and, paradoxically, makes him seem even greater, as is frequently the case in saints’ legends.122

83-85 (p. 84); Zakovitch, Every High Official, p. 57. 119 Cf. S. Bakon, “Elisha the Prophet,” JBQ 29 (2001), pp. 242-248 (on pp. 246247). 120 Cf. T. E. Fretheim, Deuteronomic History (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983), p. 154. 121 See, for example, S. H. Blank, Understanding the Prophets (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1969), p. 18; Fretheim, Deuteronomic History, p. 151. 122 See, for example, the talmudic story of Hanan “the hidden”: “When the world was in need of rain the Rabbis would send to him school children and they would take hold of the hem of his garment and say to him, ‘Father, Father, give us rain.’ Thereupon he would plead with the Holy One, Blessed be He, [thus], ‘Master of the Universe, do it for the sake of these who are unable to distinguish between the Father who gives rain and the father who does not’ ” (B. Ta’anit 23b). For saints’ legends from more recent times, consider the tale about Rabbi Israel Abuhatseira (known as the “Baba Sali”). To the father of a girl who recovered from a mysterious and protracted ailment after the rabbi gave her his blessing and set the father a test of faith, he said: “It is not by my merit … but by the merit of Him who heals by grace” (Baba Sali—Our Holy Rabbi: The Holiness, Torah Learning, Precepts, and Miracles of our Holy Rabbi … R. Israel Abuhatseira (ed. E. Alfasi and H. Z. Be’eri [Jerusalem, 1983/4], p. 132 [in Hebrew]). Another story in that volume (pp. 134136) tells of a man who was about to have his leg amputated because of a blood clot. After making a pilgrimage to the rabbi’s house and receiving the holy man’s blessing, he felt a sudden improvement in his leg. To his emotional thanks, the rabbi replied, “Don’t thank me. Instead, say, ‘blessed be He who publicly sanctifies His name.’ ” Indeed, in R. Issachar Meir’s preface to the book, he praises the Baba Sali that “if his blessing was answered and a person was saved, he did not attribute it to his own merit” (ibid., p. 32).

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2.4 “ALL THE GREAT THINGS THAT ELISHA HAS DONE” (2 KGS 8:1-6) The Indictment Hobbs argues that this brief story takes Elisha down a peg, as it were, because it was his advice that the woman leave her home and country that caused her to be dispossessed. What is more, she complains to the king, not to the prophet, and it is the king, not the prophet, who solves her problem.123 Roncace develops this argument further. He finds literary links between 2 Kgs 4:8-37 and 8:1-6, which, he says, make the criticism more pointed. The Shunammite matron provided Elisha with food (4:8); he warns her of an impending famine (8:1). She provided him with a place to sleep in her home (4:9-11); he instructs her to “arise and depart” (8:1). She told him that “I live among my own people” (4:13), meaning among her kin, who provide her with security and status; he enjoins her to leave her people and land (8:1), and it is precisely this counsel that caused her problems. Roncace sees this advice as a continuation of Elisha’s tendency to ignore what the woman says: just as he ignored her reservations about his promise of a son, he also ignores her statement that she dwells among her people and tells her to abandon them, even though they are the source of her strength.124 According to Roncace, Elisha’s absence from the scene in which the Shunammite appeals to the king is ironic, since he had once offered to speak to the king for her (4:13).125 Instead, she finds Gehazi talking to the king about Elisha. Roncace sees irony in the fact that ultimately the Shunammite must plead her own case with the king.126 The son with whom Elisha blessed her proves to be of no help, for he is unable to solve her problem.127 Roncace adds that nothing in the story indicates that the king returns her property to her by virtue of the miracle Elisha had worked for her in the past.128 Comparing 2 Kgs 8:1-6 with Elijah’s proclamation of famine (1 Kgs 17:1), Roncace finds another negative evaluation of Elisha. Whereas Elijah

Hobbs, 2 Kings, pp. 97-98. Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” p. 120. 125 Ibid., p. 122. 126 Ibid., pp. 123-124. 127 Ibid., pp. 122-123. 128 Ibid., pp. 124-125. 123 124

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has good reason to proclaim a famine—as punishment for Baal worship— the famine announced by Elisha is unmotivated.129

The Rebuttal First of all, it is important to emphasize that the famine of which Elisha warns the woman is not presented as his own initiative, but as the Lord’s: “for the Lord has decreed a famine upon the land” (2 Kgs 8:1). Elisha merely has prophetic foreknowledge of the famine and its duration, which he exploits to help his benefactress once again. There are no grounds for the notion that Elisha proclaims a famine in contraposition to the food she provided him. He is not the cause of the famine, but only attempts to minimize the harm it will cause her. The assertion that the story is critical of Elisha, because his advice is initially to the woman’s detriment, ignores the fact that the damage is temporary. What counts is that ultimately the woman reaps a great reward for heeding the prophet.130 Elisha’s absence from the scene in which the Shunammite appeals to the king is to be explained, I believe, by the fact that it takes place after Elisha’s death.131 This explains why the woman appeals to the king and not to the prophet, in whose power she had total faith. Similarly, the king’s eagerness to hear stories about Elisha (v. 4) makes more sense if we assume that the man of God has already passed away. Elisha is not an active player in the scene, but his presence is unmistakable. The king is eager to hear about Elisha’s miracles and Gehazi is happy to comply with his request. And then, with miraculous timing, just when Gehazi is telling the king about the revival of the Shunammite’s son, the woman herself appears on the scene to petition the king for the return of her house and field. Gehazi, strongly moved by this miraculous coincidence, emotionally informs the king that “this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha revived” (v. 5). The king, who is certainly moved no less than Gehazi by this conjunction and the living evidence of the miracles—here are the Shunammite and her son who was revived standing before him—exploits the unlooked-for opportunity to hear from the beneficiary of the miracle, Ibid., p. 121. See above § 2.2. 131 See Gressmann, Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung, p. 295; Gunkel, Geschichten von Elisa, p. 29; Gray, I & II Kings, p. 525; M. Rehm, Das zweite Buch der Könige (Würzburg: Echter, 1982), pp. 27, 82; Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 26, 32-33. 129 130

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from her own perspective and in her own words, about what Elisha had done for her. Hence the Shunammite’s son also has a role to play in the story, since he is living proof of the miracle that the king cannot hear enough of. I have no doubt that the special favor the king extends to the woman, returning to her what is not hers by law—all the produce of her field since she had left the country—is a direct consequence of the strong impression made on him by the combination of Gehazi’s story about the miracle, the incredible coincidence that the woman and her son appear precisely then, and the narration by the woman herself, who corroborates Gehazi’s account.132 His generous decision is a gesture to Elisha, whom he admired so strongly. Hence it is wrong to argue that Elisha is not helping the Shunammite woman now. The story shows that even in his absence (and, as I read it, after his death) he continues to perform miracles.133

2.5 THE RESURRECTION OF THE MAN WHO TOUCHES ELISHA’S BONES (2 KGS 13:20-21) The Indictment Surprisingly, Zakovitch explains the short legend that concludes the Elisha cycle as a humorous barb at Elisha.134 He begins his article “Elisha Died” with a number of “heretical thoughts,” as he calls them, about the fundamental assumptions of the theory of biblical storytelling: “From time to time we should examine the axiom that each and every story in the Bible was written with petrifying seriousness, with no smile and no winks. 132 Contrary to the argument by Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” pp. 124-125. 133 Contrary to Roncace’s contention (ibid., p. 125), that Elisha’s powers are effective only when he is present. In fact, the idea that the prophet continues to work miracles even after his death is embodied by the last two stories in the cycle. The three victories over Aram that Elisha, on his deathbed, promises Joash, almost certainly took place after his death (2 Kgs 13:14-19). This is certainly the case with the resurrection of the man who came into contact with the prophet’s bones (vv. 20-21). 134 Y. Zakovitch, “ ‘Elisha died … he came to life and stood up’ (2 Kings 13:2021): A Very Short Story in Exegetical Circles,” in “Sha’arei Talmon”: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon (ed. M. Fishbane and E. Tov; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), pp. 53*-62* (Hebrew section). Kissling, too (Reliable Characters, p. 198), briefly observes that one cannot rule out the possibility that the story is meant to be humorous.

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Another question we must ask ourselves again is whether the biblical narrator is really always seeking unlimited authority, whether he expects us, his readers, to display blind faith in his every word?”135 He supports these “heretical thoughts” with a number of arguments about the narrative of the dead man who is restored to life when his corpse comes into contact with Elisha’s bones: 1. The story says nothing about the national mourning that followed Elisha’s death or about his funeral. In fact, his burial place is not even specified. This leaves the impression that the prophet’s death did not produce any serious manifestations of grief. 2. The narrator never says that the anonymous man who is tossed in the grave was in fact dead. Perhaps he was still alive and it was a case of premature and mistaken burial. This possibility gives the story a humorous aspect. 3. It is possible that the subject of the verbs “he came to life and stood up” (2 Kgs 13:21) is Elisha, and not the anonymous man. In other words, it was Elisha who came back to life after coming into contact with the other corpse! 4. Even if we accept the simpler reading that it was the anonymous man who was restored to life by contact with Elisha’s bones, there is still a humorous vein if we picture him standing up in the grave into which he was thrown, perplexed and alone, with no idea of what has happened to him. The miracle seems to be just an accident. No one requested it and no one will give thanks for it—an unnecessary miracle by all accounts. 5. Elisha’s status is diminished by the fact that he can help others, but could not save himself and come back to life. 6. There are no witnesses to this miracle. Only the narrator attests to it, by virtue of the authority he arrogates to himself, and he makes no attempt to corroborate its truth. In practice, the narrator leaves readers to decide whether or not to believe him. All of this weakens the credibility of the story for readers. Zakovitch explains that the satire targets the traditions that attach holiness to a prophet’s tomb and recount miracles that take place there. He 135

Zakovitch, “Elisha died,” p. 53.

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says that the story aims to provoke skepticism about such traditions and even to deride them and to keep people from coming to pray at Elisha’s tomb.136

The Rebuttal Zakovitch’s reading of the story, whose genre is unmistakably the saints’ legend, is an extreme example of the common trend of recent scholarship to make the Elisha stories critical of him. In my opinion, however, his interpretation fails to undermine the basic premises of biblical storytelling—the fundamental seriousness of the story and the reliability of the biblical narrator—because these assumptions are sound and essential for understanding religious and ideological literature, and also because, even if we set aside the cultural and social context of the story, the reading is simply not persuasive. Although it is difficult to separate my two arguments, I will first attempt to deal with the proposed reading of the story and only then briefly consider the nature of biblical narrative and the implications of Zakovitch’s thesis for our understanding of biblical literature. There is no doubt that the elliptical nature of biblical storytelling creates many lacunae that make the stories harder to understand. Sometimes these gaps are permanent and cannot be filled in; but sometimes they are temporary and readers can fill them in after engaging in difficult but fascinating labor. Our very short story presents no such challenge, however. The gaps that Zakovitch finds in it are artificial and belong to the category of those that readers fill in automatically, without even being aware of them. The reasonable reader has no doubt that if we are reading about the burial of an unnamed person, he is in fact dead. Nor would one ever imagine that the subject of the verbs “came to life” and “stood up” might be anyone other than the anonymous man. Zakovitch’s proposal that Elisha is the subject is unreasonable, with regard to both plot and theme. Would anyone expect contact with the corpse of some unnamed person to bring the holy man back to life? Grammatically, too, this reading is far-fetched. Verse 21b begins “[when] the man came in contact with Elisha’s bones”— where the subject is clearly “the man” and Elisha’s bones the direct object. How can one maintain that in v. 21bβ the direct object becomes the subject, in the absence of some real difficulty that would force us to do so? 136

Ibid., p. 62.

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As for the claim that the narrator’s failure to describe the circumstances of Elisha’s death and burial suggest that the people did not mourn his passing, the answer is that a brief legend like this focuses exclusively on the miracle. One must not expect to find details outside its constricted narrative horizon—the immediate time and place of the miraculous resurrection. What is more, the story is part of a larger unit; its basic assumptions derive from the fact that it is a part of a whole—the Elisha cycle. Readers come to this brief legend equipped with everything they know about the prophet from the other stories in the cycle. These include the decisive proof of his standing with the king of Israel, as recounted in the preceding short episode (13:14-19). There can be no doubt that the assumption underlying our story is that Elisha’s death was a grievous blow for the king, which was alleviated, to some small extent, by the recognition that even after his death the man of God could perform miracles. The narrator is silent about the subsequent adventures of the living dead after his miraculous resurrection because he has absolutely no interest in his fate. The man’s sole narrative function is to serve as the object of a miracle that provides final evidence of the holiness and greatness of the deceased prophet. As Lasine maintains with regard to other stories of revival and resurrection, both in the Old Testament (1 Kgs 17:17-24, the revival of the son of the widow of Zarephath by Elijah; 2 Kgs 4:18-37, the revival of the Shunammite’s son by Elisha) and in the New Testament (Luke 7:11-16, the resurrection of the widow’s son by Jesus), none of them evinces any interest in the experiences of the beneficiary of the miracle.137 It should be obvious that Elisha cannot bring himself back to life, since no one can live forever; but contact with holy bones can bring someone else back to life. The meaning of the story, as Rofé notes, is that the unique energy latent in the holy man is not consumed by his death.138 This idea that sacred relics can work miracles is common in medieval Christian saints’ legends139 as well as in Jewish saints’ legends.140 Hence it is hard to 137 S. Lasine, “Matters of Life and Death: The Story of Elijah and the Widow’s Son in Comparative Perspective,” Biblical Interpretation 12 (2004), pp. 117-144 (p. 120). 138 Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, pp. 22-23. 139 See A. Jolles, Einfache Formen (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), pp. 32-33. For Jolles, “relics” include an item that belonged to a saint (a garment or cross) but also the saints’ tomb. See also Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, p. 23, on sacred relics in medieval Christianity. On the powers ascribed to the corpses of saints in Christianity and Islam, see Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom, pp. 251-252.

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understand how anyone could detect in the miraculous resurrection worked by Elisha’s bones mockery of a prophet because he helps others but cannot help himself.141 As for the assertion that the miracle worked by Elisha’s bones is not necessary, the answer is that it is not necessary in and of itself, but only as evidence of Elisha’s greatness. Something similar is told of the Moroccan Jewish saint Mulay Ighi (whom some traditions identify with Rabbi David Alshqar): lambs and a goat slaughtered at his tomb came back to life and began prancing about. The informant, who claimed to be an eyewitness of this miracle, which affected animals he had slaughtered himself as well as those slaughtered by others, concluded: “This is a sign that the holy man is alive and present and reveals his merits.”142 The miracle is needed only to demonstrate the departed Saints’ holiness and power. What is more, Zakovitch’s attempt to undermine the basic assumptions of the theory of biblical storytelling ignores the fact that biblical storytelling, which presents religious and ideological narratives, cannot allow itself to mislead readers, tease them, or hint that they should not relate seriously to the information and messages it conveys.143 Unlike modern stories, in which a reliable narrator is only one option among many, the religious and ideological stories in the Bible make no sense unless we take it as a literary convention that the narrator is utterly and completely reliable. Were the biblical narrator winking at his readers and urging them to doubt his words, as Zakovitch would have it, the Bible’s authority to teach its audience On hasidic rebbes who performed miracles by means of hairs of the Baal Shem Tov, see Yisrael Yaakov (Klapholtz), The Complete Tales of the Baal Shem Tov, part 1 ([Tel Aviv: Pe’er Hasefer], 1968/9), pp. 243-244 (in Hebrew). See also the index in Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration, s.vv. “incubatio,” “sleeping at the shrine,” “relics of the saint”; as well as Genuz, “The Belongings of Tsaddikim.” For examples of hasidic tales of miracles that took place at the tombs of rebbes, see G. Nigal, Hasidic Stories (2nd edition; Jerusalem: Institute for the Study of Hasidic Literature, 2001/2), p. 159 (in Hebrew). He mentions, inter alia, the story of the resurrection of the great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, after his granddaughter, the boy’s mother, placed the corpse on her grandfather’s grave. 141 Zakovitch, “ ‘Elisha died,” p. 57. 142 I. Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), p. 447 (in Hebrew). This passage is not included in the abridged English edition. 143 On the religious and ideological nature of biblical narrative, see M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 37. This definition has implication for the narrator’s reliability (in the literary, not the historical, sense) and the mode of narration. 140

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religious truths to be steadfastly maintained and proper conduct to be followed, both in the relations among human beings and in those between human beings and God, would be severely impacted. Precisely because scriptural stories belong to the genre of religious and ideological texts they cannot employ the narrative technique, familiar to us from modern literature, of making both narrator and reader the butts of the hidden author’s irony. As Sternberg asserts, even if the whole truth is hidden in biblical narrative, the truth is nevertheless explicit.144 Readers may, it is true, miss some of a biblical text’s intentions; nevertheless, even in a passive reading they will not seriously err with regard to its meaning. The use of this narrative technique, which Sternberg refers to as “foolproof composition,” guarantees that readers will understand the main messages of the story.145

2.6 THE ENTIRE CYCLE The Indictment In contrast to the scholars already mentioned, who find criticism of Elisha in one or another of the stories about him, Kissling and Bergen believe that the entire cycle takes a critical attitude toward the prophet.146 There is nothing really surprising about this, because if we take all the stories already mentioned, which different scholars have asserted evince disapproval of Elisha, the overall impression must be that the entire cycle is a harsh indictment of him. Because many of the arguments advanced by Kissling and Bergen overlap those already presented and have already been rebutted, here I will review their arguments only in outline. For Kissling, Elisha is not a reliable character. Although he is certainly a master miracle-worker, even greater than Elijah, he sometimes employs his abilities in ways that are far from admirable.147 The contrast that Elisha is responsible for the death of children (2 Kgs 2:23-25) whereas Elijah is responsible for the death of soldiers (2 Kings 1) demonstrates Elisha’s moral inferiority to Elijah.148 Not only is Elisha’s credibility lessened by the fact that he instructs Hazael to lie to his master (2 Kgs 8:10); it is morally Ibid., pp. 49-52. Ibid., pp. 50, 230. 146 Kissling, Reliable Characters, pp. 149-199; Bergen, Elisha and the End of Prophetism. 147 Kissling, Reliable Characters, pp. 162, 172-173, 190-191, 194-195, 198-199. 148 Ibid., pp. 167, 195. 144 145

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reprehensible that he plants the idea of assassinating his master in Hazael’s mind, even if he does not do so directly.149 Bergen, too, proposes a subversive reading of the Elisha cycle that uncovers criticism of the prophet, although he does not reject the option of reading the stories as intended to exalt him and emphasizes that this is a choice between different strategies of reading.150 In addition, Bergen believes that the criticism he extracts from the Elisha cycle is not directed exclusively at Elisha, but also at the institution of prophecy as a whole. The stories seek to demonstrate the limits of prophecy and its ultimate lack of hope.151 Like Kissling, Bergen cites the amorality of the Elisha stories and notes that the prophet’s activities are not guided by ethical constraints.152 He also observes that despite the expectation that Elisha would be a firm opponent of the wicked king, his relations with the monarch are described as good or at least as ambivalent.153 But the crux of his criticism of Elisha is different. He emphasizes the fact that Elisha is a prophet with no mission and no message.154 He works miracles that are unrequested or pointless.155 The voice of the Lord is never heard in the Elisha stories and in practice the deity plays almost no role in them.156 Where we might expect to read the fulfillment formula “according to the word of YHWH,” we find instead “according to the word of Elisha” (2 Kgs 2:22; 6:18)157—as if Elisha has usurped God’s role.158 According to Bergen, readers must feel uncomfortable by this depiction of Elisha as supplanting the deity.159

The Rebuttal I have no doubt that Bergen feels uncomfortable when he reads the Elisha stories, which blur the boundaries between God and the man of God; apparently other readers react in a similar fashion. Nevertheless I cannot agree that the stories are meant to provoke such discomfort and to Ibid., pp. 167-170. Bergen, Elisha and the End of Prophetism, p. 46. 151 Ibid., pp. 11, 42. 152 Ibid., pp. 13, 14. 153 Ibid., p. 45. 154 Ibid., pp. 14, 176. 155 Ibid., pp. 13, 104, 177. 156 Ibid., pp. 44, 97, 103, 175. 157 Ibid., pp. 44, 67. 158 Ibid., pp. 101, 107, et passim. 159 Ibid., pp. 67, 107, 178. 149 150

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encourage criticism of the man of God. In fact, the unique lineaments of Elisha and the Elisha stories enumerated by Bergen are hallmarks of saints’ legends. It is true that Elisha has no message and no mission in the normal sense, but he is depicted as wielding supernatural powers that are consonant with the epithet applied to him—“a holy man of God” (2 Kgs 4:9). This also explains the absence, emphasized by both Kissling and Bergen, of a moral dimension in many of the stories. As for Kissling’s complaint that Elisha instructs Hazael to lie to his king (2 Kgs 8:10), remember that God himself told Moses to mislead Pharaoh (Exod 3:18) and told Samuel to deceive Saul (1 Sam 16:2). There are other cases in the Bible where prophets practice deception. There can be no doubt that the Bible recognizes that there are circumstances in which prevarication is essential and not to be condemned.160 I do believe, though, that whenever the Lord or one of His prophets is involved in such misrepresentations, as in 2 Kgs 8:10, the technique employed is one of ambivalence or half-truths, with a deliberate omission of details, so that even if the intention is to mislead, formally speaking there is no fabrication.161

3. THE ELISHA CYCLE AS PROPHETIC HAGIOGRAPHY MEANT TO EXALT THE PROPHET I believe there are solid grounds for assigning the Elisha stories to the genre of the saints’ legend: 1. Elisha is referred to as “a holy man of God” by the Shunammite matron (2 Kgs 4:9). The Bible frequently employs the adjective “holy” as an epithet of God,162 but it is also applied to the people of Israel,163 to priests,164 to Nazirites,165 and to angels.166 Its only occurrence with reference to a specific individual, outside the context of the priest’s ritual function, is in the case of Elisha. 160 See Y. Shemesh, “Lies by Prophets and Other Lies in the Hebrew Bible,” JANES 29 (2002), pp. 81-95. 161 Ibid., pp. 91-92. For an analysis that is similar in spirit though different in detail, see J. Grossman, “The Use of Ambiguity in Biblical Narratives of Misleading and Deceit,” Tarbiz 73 (2003-2004), pp. 483-515 (on pp. 490-493) (in Hebrew). 162 1 Sam 2:2; 6:20; Isa 6:3; Ezek 39:7; Ps 22:4; et passim. 163 Exod 19:6; Deut 7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:19; et passim. 164 Lev 21:6-8; Num 16:5, 7; et passim. 165 Num 6:5, 8. 166 Job 5:1; Dan 8:13.

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2. All of the Elisha stories, except for the narrative of his entering Elijah’s service (1 Kgs 19:19-21), describe his supernatural powers, manifested in various realms and diverse forms (miracles of healing and resurrection, a miraculous birth, clairvoyance, and so on). Most of his miracles benefit those who are close to him or appeal to him for assistance, as is common in Saints’ legends.167 Other miracles severely punish those who infringe the dignity of the holy man of God; this theme, too, is frequent in Saints’ legends.168 3. The Lord is not prominently involved in the Elisha stories, as opposed to His presence in the stories of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and Elijah. In none of them does the Lord address Elisha or send him on a mission. Elisha effects miracles on his own initiative, without a divine order to do so. This is why, even though he is a prophet, he is described not as a prophetic emissary but as a holy man of God endowed with supernatural powers. 4. Those around him almost always treat Elisha with exaggerated respect and deference, manifested also in the way in which they address him when they request his assistance. As a respectful form of address169 they call Elisha “my Lord”170 and portray themselves as his servants.171 Even the king of Israel calls Elisha “my father” (2 Kgs 6:21; 13:14). Similarly Hazael, sent by the king of Aram to inquire of Elisha, begins with the formulaic “Your son Ben-hadad” (2 Kgs 8:9). It is precisely the reverent attitude that the beneficiaries of his miracles display toward Elisha that makes them worthy of these wonders, just as their scorn and mockery renders those who offend his dignity deserving of their punishment. See Bar-Itzhak, “The ‘Saints’ Legend’ as a Genre,” p. 311. See above § 2.1 169 On respectful speech see G. Brinn, “Respectful Forms of Speech and Address in Biblical Language,” Molad n.s. 6 (1975), pp. 506-514 (in Hebrew). 170 2 Kgs 2:19; 4:28; 6:5, 15; 8:12. 171 Naaman styles himself “your servant” no fewer than five times in his interchange with Elisha after he is healed (2 Kgs 5:15-18). Another prominent Aramean, Hazael, also refers to himself in this way (8:13). One of the “sons of the prophets” applies this term to all of them when he entreats Elisha to accompany them (6:3). So too, the widow of one of the “sons of the prophets” refers to her late husband as Elisha’s servant and to herself as his maidservant (4:1-2). 167 168

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5. One of the most impressive manifestations of this veneration of Elisha is the request by the king of Israel to hear “all the great things that Elisha has done”(2 Kgs 8:4). This fascinating evidence of a willingness and desire to recount and hear the prophet’s wonders perfectly matches the common phenomenon, known to us from outside the Bible and flourishing down to our own day, of stories of the wonders worked by saints, whether during their lives or posthumously. 6. Note that this is the only place in biblical literature where we encounter the transmission of traditions that deal with a person rather than with the Lord and that elsewhere in the Bible gedolot ‘great things’ always refers to divine deeds or miracles.172 The fact that this noun is employed for wonders worked by a human being only in 2 Kgs 8:4, with regard to Elisha, is evidence of the tendency to minimize the distance between Elisha the man of God and his God.173 7. The last story in the Elisha cycle, which tells of the resurrection of a corpse that comes into contact with Elisha’s bones (2 Kgs 13:20-21), serves as a fitting final chord to the praises of Elisha and as additional evidence that Elisha is a holy man of God. In conclusion, the Elisha cycle constitutes the earliest example in the literature of Israel of the genre of the saints’ legend. These tales, long and short, express the worshipful attitude and the intensity of the religious experience that people felt in the presence of the embodiment of holiness in the Lord’s emissary, the holy man of God, Elisha. As for the question of how these stories found their way into the canon, the answer is that despite their unusual nature in the Bible they do not transcend the bounds of monotheistic belief.174 The fundamental axiom This was noted by R. Kasher, “The Theological Conception of the Miracle in the Bible,” Ph.D. dissertation, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 1981, p. 65 (in Hebrew); Zakovitch, The Concept of the Miracle, p. 12. See also Deut 10:21; Ps 71:19; 106:21; Job 5:9; 9:10; 37:5. There are two exceptions to this general rule: Jeremiah’s question of Baruch son of Neriah, “do you seek ‫“( גְ ד ֹלוֹת‬great things”) for yourself?” (Jer 45:5); and the self-assessment by the psalmist, “I do not occupy myself with things too great (‫ )גְ ד ֹלוֹת‬and too marvelous for me” (Ps 131:1). 173 Kasher, “The Theological Conception of the Miracle,” p. 65. 174 According to Uffenheimer (Early Prophecy in Israel, pp. 469, 475), the veneration of Elisha pushed the authors of the stories about him “to the very limits of the monotheistic faith.” Even if this statement is understandable, the stories do 172

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of the saints’ legend is that their holiness derives from the saints’ proximity to God.175 The holy man’s powers are a direct consequence of this intimacy. For this reason, the figure of Elisha the wonder-worker, the holy man of God, made it possible for the compilers of the Bible to show that the Lord’s providence, power, and mercies accompanied Israel throughout its history, even if they assumed different forms in different periods. I believe that there is both internal and external corroboration for this. Within the biblical text, I am thinking of its manifestation in the stories about Elisha, in Naaman’s realization that the powers of the man of God are proof of the power and exclusive divinity of his God (2 Kgs 5:15). Externally, the same idea is found in post-biblical saints’ legends. The New Testament reports how the people reacted when Jesus healed the paralyzed man of his own accord, with no express authorization to do so by God: “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt 9:8). The same idea is found in much later Jewish hagiography of the eighteenth century. In his approbation to the Praises of the Besht, a work that recounts the wonders worked by R. Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, R. Moses b. Israel (the rabbi of Kopys, in Belorussia, where the first edition of the book was published in 1815) declares that he found it to be “something exceedingly necessary, so that people may know and understand that the Lord has not abandoned us, but that in each and every generation He has provided us with faithful shepherds.”176

not really exceed the bounds of monotheism. 175 Bar-Itzhak, “The ‘Saints’ Legend’ as a Genre,” p. 93. 176 Shivhei ha-Besht, p. 31.I would like to thank Beit Shalom of Japan for its generous support, which made this research possible.

THE DOINGS OF THE WICKED IN QOHELET 8:10 ARON PINKER [email protected]

INTRODUCTION The interpretative efforts on Qoh 8:10, since antiquity to this time, have been aptly summarized by Crenshaw in his statement: “Interpretations of this verse have one thing in common: tentativeness.”1 Whitley considered this verse “obscure and uncertain.”2 With a deep sense of humility Longman says, “This verse vies for the most difficult in the book, and thus I begin its exposition by admitting that certainty eludes every honest interpreter, even though the problems are often hidden behind smooth English translations.”3 The verse is an obvious instance of a case in which every word of the sentence is well defined but the sentence does not make sense. Thus Gordis concludes that “the first part of the verse is manifestly not in order.”4 The verse reads, ‫וּמ ְמּקוֹם ָקדוֹשׁ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ וְ יִ ְשׁ ַתּ ְכּחוּ ָב ִעיר ֲא ֶשׁר‬ ִ ‫יתי ְר ָשׁ ִעים ְק ֻב ִרים וָ ָבאוּ‬ ִ ‫וּב ֵכן ָר ִא‬ ְ ‫ן־עשׂוּ גַּ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬ ָ ‫ֵכּ‬ Clearly, Qohelet saw something, which led him to the observation that what he saw was also ‫הבל‬. What did Qohelet see? A burial of wicked Crenshaw, J. L. Ecclesiastes, A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster Press (1987) 154. 2 Whitley, C. F. Qoheleth. BZAW 148. Berlin: DeGruyter (1979) 74. 3 Longman, T. The Book of Ecclesiastes. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1998) 218. 4 Gordis, R. Qoheleth, The Man and his world, a study of Ecclesiastes. New York: Schocken Books (1968) 294. 1

141

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

persons, as the Septuagint suggests; wicked person already buried, as the Targum, Peshitta, and Vulgate suggest; the wicked approaching and coming, as Driver understood; or, neither of these?5 Were some illicit activities conducted in the holy sites? Does the entire verse refer to the wicked, or only the first part? What are the wicked doing in Qoh 8:10? Or, should we rather ask what is done to the wicked in Qoh 8:10? Logic guides Longman to the observation that “It is clear that the verse does speak of the wicked and of the holy place, and since it concludes with the ‘meaningless’ formula, there must be some anomalous connection between the holy place and the wicked that contributes to Qohelet’s feeling that the wicked do not get what they deserve. This starting point, however, is at odds with the most natural reading of the verse as it stands in the MT, a reading represented by the following paraphrase (I am paraphrasing here because even this reading involves emendation, which signals to me that the verse is problematic from a textual point of view): Qohelet observes that wicked people die and their deeds are forgotten (the verb in MT is the hithpael of ‫ )שכח‬in the city in which they were active in the holy place. On a surface level this sounds as good news to the righteous: What could be better than to have the wickedness of the evil slide into oblivion? But Qohelet surprises us and concludes, ‘This too is meaningless.’” 6 The purpose of this paper is to suggest that Longman’s initial observation is not only logical but also natural. I would advance the position that at issue in Qoh 8:10 is, indeed, the fact that previously wicked “do not get what they deserve.” Our major problem is to find the proper X and Y so that the verse

Y- ְ‫ ו‬X‫ְוּב ֵכן ָר ִא ִיתי ְר ָש ִעים‬ ‫ן־עש ֹוּ גַ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬ ָ ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ ָב ִעיר ֲא ֶשר ֵכּ‬

5 Driver, G. R. “Problems and Solutions.” VT 4 (1954) 230. Driver renders, “And then I have seen wicked men, approaching and entering the holy place, walk about and boast in the city that they have done right.” This starting point, however, is at odds with the most natural reading of the verse as it stands in the MT, a reading represented by the following paraphrase (I am paraphrasing here because even this reading involves emendation, which signals to me that the verse is Crenshaw, J. L. Ecclesiastes, 154). 6 Longman, 218.

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would make sense, assuming that it deals with wicked people who have repented and act as pious do. In this article I suggest that the Urtext was ‫וּמקוֺם ָקדוֺש יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬ ְ ‫יתי ְר ָש ִעים ְק ָב ִרים וְ אוֺב‬ ִ ‫וּב ֵכן ָר ִא‬ ְ ‫ן־עש ֹוּ גַ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬ ָ ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ ָב ִעיר ֲא ֶשר ֵכּ‬ “and also I saw wicked frequenting graves, and necromancer, and place of a holy. And they were forgotten in the cityin which they did so (correctly?). This too is absurd.” This Urtext, only slightly different than the MT, provides reasonable X and Y, and a profound thought. In Qohelet’s view experience shows that wicked could become pious, and consequently God’s being “slow to anger” has justification. That was apparently at odds with the normative position, which argued that this attribute of God promotes wickedness since it creates a time-disconnect between crime and its punishment.

MEANING OF THE VERSE The Septuagint has: Καὶ τότε εἷδον ἀσεβεῖς εἰς τάφους εἰσαχθέντας, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἁγίο καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν καὶ ἐπῃνέθησαν ἐν τῇ πόλει, ὅτι οὕτως ἐποίησαν καὶ γε τοῦτο ματαιότης (And then I saw the ungodly carried into the tombs, and that out of the holy place; and they departed, and were praised in the city, because they had done thus: this also is vanity).7 The Septuagint’s translation could be retranslated into a Hebrew text that reads: (‫וּמ ָמּקוֺם ָקדוֺש‬ ִ ) ‫וּמ ָקּדוֺש‬ ִ ‫מוּב ִאים‬ ָ ‫ואז ראיתי רשעים ֶק ֶבר‬ ‫ן־עש ֹוּ גַ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬ ָ ‫וְ ָה ְלכוּ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ ָב ִעיר ֲא ֶשר ֵכּ‬ This retranslation clearly demonstrates the many emendations that the Septuagint makes in the MT. Moreover, the reflexive hithpael of ‫ שבח‬cannot mean “were praised” (ἐπῃνέθησαν). According to Jewish tradition there is an obligation on the community to bury the dead before sunset even if a criminal. In addition to the reason given in Deut 21:23, this practice was also sensible in the hot climate and because Jews did not embalm the dead. Though the verse in Deut 21:23 refers to a person who was executed according to a court verdict, the burial obligation was understood as applying to any dead (Tosefta Gittin 5:5, j. Gittin 5:9, 47c). Josephus confirms Jewish adherence to this custom (Apion 7

Brenton, L. C. L. (trans.). The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson (1986) [1851] 826.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

2:211). Providing decent burial to a stranger was as giving bread to the hungry and cover to the naked (Tob 1:17–18). It seems that the Septuagint exploits a pious tradition that even a wicked person, or an alien, should be properly buried. The Talmudic statement ‫ אל תקרי וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ אלא וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬in b. Gittin 56b reflects perhaps an effort to strengthen this pious tradition. In this context, according to the Septuagint Qoh 8:10 speaks about wicked persons who have been given proper burial, including a stop at a holy place, and those who participated in the burial were congratulated in the city for what they have done. In this case it is difficult to understand why Qohelet would find this very humane and practical behavior to be ‫הבל‬. The Targum reads, ‫ובקושׁטא חמית חייביא דאיתקברו ואישׁתיצו מן עלמא מאתר קדישׁ דצדיקיא‬ ‫שׁריין תמן ואזלו לאיתוקדא בגיהנם ואיתנשׁיו מבין יתבי קרתא והי־כמא דעבדו‬ ‫יתעבד להון אוף דין הבלו‬ (And truly, I saw the wicked buried, and blotted out of the world and from a holy place where the righteous dwell, they went to be burned in Gehenna and were forgotten by the inhabitants of the city. And as they had done so was done to them. Also this is ‫)הבל‬, states the standard doctrine.8 It sees the verse expressing what one would normally wish to happen, a tit-for-tat punishment, a complete eradication. Thus, we would have expected such happening to be applauded, not denigrated as ‫הבל‬. The Peshitta literally follows the MT, reproducing all the problems that are inherent in the MT. Its transliteration in Hebrew letters renders: ‫והידין חזית רשיעא דקברירין ואתין ומן אתרא דקדושא אזלו ותטעוי‬ ‫במדינתא‬ ‫דהכנא עבדו הידין‬ (And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where they had done such evil things).9 The Vulgate renders vidi impios sepultos qui etiam cum adviverent in loco sancto erant et laudabantur in civitate quasi iustorum operum sed et hoc vanitas est (I saw the wicked buried: who also when they were yet living were in the holy place, and were praised in the city as men of just works: 8 Knobel, P. S. Targum of Qohelet. Aramaic Bible 13. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press (1991) 42. 9 Lamsa, G. M. (trans.) Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text. New York: Harper Row (1968) [1933] 691.

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but this also is vanity [Douay-Rheims]). The disparity between the Vulgate10 and MT can be seen if we retranslate it into Hebrew: ‫קברים אשר בחייהם היו במקום קדוש‬ ֻ ‫ראיתי רשעים‬ ‫וישתבחו בעיר ככן עשו גם זה הבל‬ Serrano rightly noted that the Vulgate “like most modern interpreters, succeeds in presenting and understandable reading, but only at the expense of the original.” 11 While Qoh 8:10 is linked in the Talmud (b. Gittin 56b) with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, Rashi (1040–1105) takes this verse as referring to the Babylonians who destroyed the First Temple, to better fit the biblical period. He says, “and then (‫ )ובכן‬in this prophecy I saw the wicked buried (who were deserving to be Second Temple by the Romans, Rashi (1040–1105) takes this verse as referring to the Babylonians who destroyed the First Temple, to better fit the biblical period. He says, “and then (‫ )ובכן‬in this prophecy I saw the wicked buried (who were deserving to be interred in the ground because they were despised by other nations, as it is said about them “this nation was not” [Isa 23:13]),12 and they ruled in God’s house, which is a holy place (‫)מקום קדוש‬, and when they went from there to their land they boasted in their city that they did so and so in the house of God. And the rabbis homiletically read ‫וישתבחו‬ instead of ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬. And regarding the forgetting, the Aggadah says that ultimately their name would be forgotten from the city in which they did so, as it is said “I will gather all the nations to the valley of Jehoshphat” (Joel 4:2). Where they besmirched before him, they will also be punished. And so he says “God is in the city their image he will shame” (Ps 73:20). This too is one of the ‫ הבלים‬presented to the world that God does not immediately punish the wicked and people figure that there is no judgment and judge.” 10 The Nova Vulgata has Et ita vidi impios sepultos, discedentes de loco sancto; in oblivionem cadere in civitate, quod ita egerunt: sed et hoc vanitas est. 11 Serrano, J. J. “I saw the Wicked Buried (Eccl. 8,10).” CBQ 16 (1954) 168. 12 In Midrash Tanhuma (on Yitro) it is asked: ‫וכי יש קבורים באים ומהלכים‬. R. Simon suggests there to understand the verse as if it read ‫כקבורים‬, i.e., the wicked are alive, but are as good as dead. Rashi seems to have adopted this position saying ‫ שהיו נבזים‬,‫שהיו ראוים להטמן בעפר‬.

146

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

This explanation, trying to adopt various Midrashic sources, is more a homily than a straight forward text-based interpretation, or typical Rashipeshat. The historical context is unlikely; Qohelet is not assumed to be prophetic; and Rashi cannot have it both ways with regard to ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬. Sforno (1470–1550) says that the verse talks about Sennacherib and Titus, which would also make Qohelet into a prophet. Ibn Ezra (1089–c.1164) links Qoh 8:10 with the preceding verse. He says, “As I applied myself, I saw that wicked people who ruled others and caused them evil died without pain, and were buried in their grave as in ‫( אין חרצובות למותם‬Ps 73:4). Then they came to this world back, (in the sense) that their children will replace them and thus their memory will ֺ ‫וּמ ְמּ‬ ִ is that the holy ones who die continue. The meaning of ‫קום ָקדוֺש יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬ without children would be forgotten in the city that they were in and practiced truth (‫)כן‬, as in ‫( כן דוברות צלפחד בנות‬Num 27:7). Wonder how the memory of a righteous has been erased and forgotten, as well as all the good that he has done, yet this wicked died in peace and left children in his place? This too is ‫הבל‬.” Ibn Ezra’s contrivance of children for the wicked and childlessness for the righteous speaks volumes for the difficulties he must have faced with this verse. His unrealistic solution is no less problematic than the original text. Rashbam (c.1085–1174), follows his grandfather Rashi in understanding ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬as deserving to be dead and buried. He links this verse with several verses in the preceding chapter and what follows. Among the things that Qohelet did in 7:23 and 7:25, “delving in wisdom issues I [Qohelet] saw in the world wicked who deserve death and burial, coming and going from holy places and ruins where they committed many bad deeds.”13 Rashbam understood Qohelet as expecting the wicked to be quickly punished things. But ultimately their name and memory were forgotten in the city in which so was done. This, as the other things, is ‫הבל‬, since they were not quickly punished for their evil by God because their crimes were committed in holy places, and being disappointed that this is not the case. However, Qohelet’s resentment that the wicked are forgotten seems strange. Among the modern commentators, Hertzberg renders Qoh 8:10 thus: “Further, I saw sinners coming near and entering, while they (the righteous) must leave the holy place and be forgotten in the city where they 13

Japhet, S. and Salters, R. B. The Commentary of R. Samuel Ben Meir (Rashbam) on Qohelet. Jerusalem: Magnes Press (1985) 107–108.

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ָ ‫ ְק ֵר ִבים‬instead of ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים וָ ָבאוּ‬, which acted properly.”14 He reads ‫וּב ִאים‬ requires two metatheses, assuming a ‫י‬/‫ ו‬confusion in two cases, attachment of a ‫ מ‬to the preceding word, and several revocalizations. Already Gordis commented that Hertzberg’s reading: (1) Has no warrant in the MT; (2) Is not supported by any of the Versions; (3) Gives a highly awkward word order; and, (4) Has no clear sense.15 I might add that “coming near” would be superfluous if the wicked eventually “enter.” Gordis prefers to follow the Septuagint, translating “I have seen wrong-doers being carried with pomp to their graves, and, as men return from the sacred ground, the evil-doers are praised in the city where they ָ ‫יתי ְר ָש ִעים ֶק ֶבר‬ ִ ‫ ָר ִא‬, had acted thus. Indeed, this is vanity!”16 He reads ‫מוּב ִאים‬ and ‫ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬instead of ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬. This is based on dropping one ‫י‬, the attachment of a ‫ מ‬to the following word, the assumption of a ‫י‬/‫ ו‬confusion in one case, one metathesis, the attachment of a ‫ מ‬to the preceding word, the assumption of ‫ב‬/‫ כ‬confusion in one case, and several revocalizations. Moreover, Gordis adds much extraneous material to make the verse intelligible. There is nothing in the verse to justify use of “being carried,” “pomp,” “men return.” Finally, Gordis’ reliance on the Septuagint is somewhat shaky, since the Septuagint itself is not clear in this case. Gordis is, perhaps, assuming that “evil-doers are praised,” because of the custom not to speak evil of the dead, since it was believed that their spirits have great influence in the world of the living. Moreover, the cemetery, in which dead bodies are interned, cannot be “sacred ground,” since it is ritually unclean. Jastrow is sensitive to this problem. He has: “And so [among other things] I have seen wicked men buried, and [people] coming back from the sanctified ground, and going about singing their praises in the very city they acted thus-surely this is vanity.”17 However, “sanctified ground” would require ‫ מקום מקודש‬in the 14

Hertzberg, H. W. Der Prediger (Qohelet) übersetzt und erklärt von H. W. Hertzberg. Leipzig: Deichert (1932) 167. He renders “Und weiterhin sah ich, Frevler [sich nahen] und [eingehen]; doch von heiliger Stätte müssen weichen und vergessen warden in der Stadt, die ds recht taten—auch das ist eitel.” 15 Gordis, 295–296. 16 Gordis, 184. Barton (Barton, G. A. Ecclesiastes. ICC. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark (1908) 155), Kroeber (Kroeber, R. Der Prediger. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag (1963) 100), and Strobel (Strobel, A. Das Buch Prediger (Qohelet). Dusseldorf: Patmos-Verlag (1967) 131) considered the Septuagint version as being indispensable for the understanding of this verse. 17 Jastrow, M. A Gentle Cynic, Being a Translation of the Book of Qoheleth,

148

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

ִ if we assume that a ‫ מ‬dropped text, which is obtainable from ‫וּמ ְמּקוֺם ָקדוֺש‬ out by haplography, and a metathesis in ‫קדוש‬. Furthermore, “coming back” for ‫ באים‬is unattested. Adding these emendations, to those that were made by Gordis, amounts to a major reconstruction of the verse. Zimmermann makes it explicit that the ‫ מקום קדוש‬was not a cemetery, but rather the place from which the funeral procession started. He renders: ָ ‫) ֶק ֶבר‬, and “And so too I have seen scoundrels brought to burial (‫מוּב ִאים‬ they were given honor, and people made a procession from a holy place, and then they were eulogized (‫ )וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬in the city how rightfully they acted! This is revolting.”18 It seems though that in Zimmermann’s interpretation the order of event is reversed.19 Moreover, ‫ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬cannot mean “and then they were eulogized” since the hithpael usually indicates a reflexive or reciprocal action, nor is there anything in the biblical text that could correspond to “and they were given honor.” Some commentators combined elements of the preceding interpretations in various ways. For instance Serrano renders “And then I saw the wicked approach, they entered and went out of the holy place, and they were praised in the city because they acted thus. Indeed this is vanity.”20 Crenshaw translates: “Then I saw the wicked, approaching and ָ ) the holy place, walk about and boast (‫ )וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬in the entering (‫וּב ִאים ְק ֵר ִבים‬ city that they had done right. This is also absurd.”21 Longman adopts from the Septuagint only ‫ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬and mainly adheres to the MT. He reads: “Thus, I observed the wicked buried and departed. They used to go out of the holy place, and they were praised in a city where they acted in such a way. This too is meaningless.” He explains that “the wicked may indeed die, but even then they are buried and praised in the city where they did their evil deeds and religious posturing. It is the fact that the wicked continue to Commonly Known as Ecclesiastes, Stripped of Later Additions, also its Origin, Growth, and Interpretation. Philadelphia: Lippincott (1919) 228–229. 18 Zimmermann, F. The Inner World of Qohelet. New York: KTAV (1973) 172. 19 Usually the dead is cleaned and prepared for burial, then brought to the synagogue, where he is eulogized (b. Megillah 28b, b. Rosh ha-Shanah 25a, b. Mo’ed Katan 21b). The procession starts at the synagogue and ends at the cemetery where the dead is buried. While Qoheleth might have seen such a funeral, this practice was not yet established in the time of the second Temple. Qohelet alludes in 12:5 to professional mourners (‫ )הַסּוֹפְדִ ים‬who eulogized the dead in the marketplace. 20 Serrano, 170. 21 Crenshaw, 153.

ARON PINKER

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receive the praise owed to the righteous that frustrates Qohelet and leads him to utter his conclusion that ‘this is meaningless.’”22 Obviously, dead people need to be buried. This would not surprise Qohelet. Nor would he have been shocked by the wicked going to the holy place. What we are baffled by is their receiving praise altogether. This would have been illogical to Qohelet as it is to us. Thus, the verse cannot say “the wicked continue to receive the praise owed to the righteous.” The JPS (and NJPS) rearranges the verse and attaches ‫ גַ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬to the beginning of the next verse. Retranslated into Hebrew, Qoh 8:10 would then read ‫ובכן ראיתי רשעים ממקום קדוש יהלכו וקבר מובאים‬ ‫ואשר כן עשו ישתכחו בעיר‬ i.e., “And then I saw scoundrels coming from the Holy Site and being brought to burial, while such as had acted righteously were forgotten in the city.”23 Fox explains in his commentary to the JPS translation, “While scoundrels receive elegant obsequies, the bodies of the righteous— presumably the righteous poor, who must rely on public beneficence for proper burial—lie unattended.” This depiction is unlikely in light of traditional Jewish customs with respect to the dead, the concept of ‫מת מצוה‬ and the institution of ‫( חברא קדישא‬burial society), which probably drew on ancient customs.24 Whybray is right in noting that “there is no suggestion in the text that that these funerals of the wicked were in anyway extraordinary.”25

Longman, 216, 219. Fox, M. V. The JPS Bible Commentary, Ecclesiastes ‫קהלת‬. Philadelphia: JPS (2004) 58. Cf. also Fox, M. V. Qohelet and His Contradictions. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press (1989) 250– 251. Seow (Seow, C. L. Ecclesiastes. AB 18c. New York: Doubleday (1997) 276) adopts Fox’s interpretation. 24 Respect for the dead motivates prompt burial of the dead. The Talmud notes that one of the ten edicts of Joshua was to bury any corpse found (b. Babba Kama 81a). This obligation is even incumbent on a High Priest who otherwise could not come in contact with the dead (j. Nazir 7:1). Though burying the dead is an obligation of the heirs, it is the community that is ultimately responsible for the burial. Consequently, in the time of the Talmud the institution of the ‫חברא קדישא‬ was established (b. Moed Katan 27b). 25 Whybray, R. N. Ecclesiastes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1989) 135. 22 23

150

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

It seems as though the commentaries (and translations) of Qoh 8:10 can be divided into two major groups according to the treatment of the word ‫יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬. One group consists of those who retain the MT (e.g., Hertzberg, Ginsburg,26 Delitsch,27 Murphy,28 KJV, NKJV, NASB, ASV, ָ ‫ֵכּ‬ Young, Darby, Webster, HNV, MLB, NJPS), and usually understand ‫ן־עש ֹוּ‬ as “acted justly” and referring to the righteous. The other group (e.g., McNeile,29 Burkitt,30 Barton, Driver, Gordis, Jastrow, Zimmermann, Crenshaw, Longman, NIV, NRSV, ESV, RSV, NEB, JB) adopts the approach of the Septuagint (also found in Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and the Vulgate), which emends ‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬to ‫יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬. Each group has to make a number of additional emendations to obtain a sensible text.

ANALYSIS OF THE VERSE Almost each word in Qoh 8:10 has been subject to some emendation and it contains rare words or forms of words. In the following I will discuss each word in the verse. ‫וּב ֵכן‬ ְ : The word ‫וּב ֵכן‬ ְ is composed of the conjunction ‫ו‬, the preposition ‫ב‬, and the particle ‫כן‬. Waltke and O’Connor cite this word as an example of a “complex preposition that functions as an adverbial.”31 The particle occurs only here, in Est 4:16, and Sir 13:7, but is common in Aramaic.32 No ְ . The Septuagint has “and two of the Versions agree on the meaning of ‫וּב ֵכן‬ then” (Καὶ τότε), Targum ”and truly” (‫)ובקושטא‬, Peshitta “and so” (‫)והידין‬, and, it is omitted by the Vulgate. Already Ibn Janaħ (c.990–c.1050) 26

Ginsburg, C. D. Song of Songs and Coheleth (ed. Orlinsky, H. M.). New York: KTAV (1970) [1861] 398–399. 27 Delitzsch, F. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (trans. Easton, M. G.). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans (1975) [1872] 346. 28 Murphy, R. E. Ecclesiastes. WBC. Dallas: Word (1992) 79–80. 29 McNeile, A. H. An Introduction to Ecclesiastes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1904) 77, 106. 30 Burkitt, F. C. “Is Ecclesiastes a Translation?” JTS 23 (1921–1922) 26. 31 Waltke, B. K. and O’Connor, M. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns (1990) 221. 32 Gesenius, W., Kautzsch, E. (ed.), Cowley, A. E. (trans.) (GKC). Gesenius’ Hebrew grammar. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover (2006) §119.ii, 384; Brown, F., Driver, S. R. and Briggs, C. A. (BDB). Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Peabody: Hendrickson (2001) 486. S.v. ‫ כֵּן‬3.b.

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discussed ‫וּב ֵכן‬ ְ and considered for it the meanings ‫ואז‬, “and then,” and ‫כן‬ ‫ואחר‬, “and afterwards,” eventually settling on ‫וכן‬, “and so.”33 Rashi’s and ְ has no support in the Hebrew Bible. It Ibn Ezra’s taking ‫וּב ֵכן = ואז‬ ְ in Est 4:16, though here apparently relies on the Targum (‫ )ובתר כן‬for ‫וּב ֵכן‬ ְ “and in that.” the Targum has ‫“ ובקושטא‬and truly.” Rashbam: ‫וּב ֵכן = ובכך‬ ְ a variety of meanings. For Modern scholarship assigned to ‫וּב ֵכן‬ instance, we find: “Further” (Hertzberg), “and then” (Crenshaw, Fox), “and so” (Jastrow), “thus” (Longman), “And so too” (Zimmermann), “indeed” (Zer-Kavod), and Gordis omits it. This is also the case with the Standard English translation, which use the meanings: “And so” (KJV, Webster), “Then” (NKJV, ESV, RSV), “Then too” (NIV), “So then” (NASB), “So” (ASV, HNV), “And so” (Young), “And” (Darby), “Not only that” (NEB), “and then” (JB), etc. Zer-Kavod felt that here and in Est 4:16 the particle opens the statement with emphasis, and consequently it is equivalent to ‫אכן‬, or ‫אמנם‬. However, in Sir 13:7 it is not at the beginning of the verse. It seems to me ְ .34 that “and also” would well serve in each of the three occurrences of ‫וּב ֵכן‬ This implies that Qoh 8:10 was linked to the text that preceded it. ‫יתי ְר ָש ִעים‬ ִ ‫ ָר ִא‬: The verb ‫ראה‬, in its various meanings, plays a significant role in the book of Qohelet. It is used 47 times in the book, and 18 times in the first person singular of the perfect tense (‫)ראיתי‬. Loader considered the ‫ ראיתי‬sentences, as well as those sentences introduced by ‫ידע‬, and a few other verbs, as belonging to a basic literary form (or Gattung), which he called “observation.” “The observation is marked by a first person singular style,” and it consists in a “report of what has been seen in life.”35 It seems that Loader’s definition fully applies to Qoh 8:10 and depicts here an actual observation.

33

Bacher, W. (ed.) The book of Hebrew roots, by Abu’al-Walîd Marwân ibn Janâh, called Rabbî Jônâh. Edited with an appendix, containing extracts from other Hebrew-Arabic dictionaries [by] Adolf Neubauer. Amsterdam: Philo Press (1968) 223. 34 Zer-Kavod, M. ‫קהלת‬. In ‫חמש מגילות‬. Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook (1973) 50. 35 Loader, J. A. Polar Structures in the Book of Qohelet. BZAW 152. Berlin: DeGruyter (1979) 25.

152

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬: The word is the qal passive participle masculine plural of ‫קבר‬, “to bury.” MT reading is attested by the Targum (‫)דאתקברו‬, Peshitta (‫)דקבירין‬, and Vulgate (sepultos), while the Septuagint has the noun “grave” (τάφους), and so do the Syro-Hexaplar and Coptic Versions. Both MT and Septuagint share the consonantal text ‫ קברים‬though they vocalize it differently. ‫( אל תיקרי קבורים אלא קבוצים‬b. Gittin 56b) is, however, a homiletic reading. The versions seem to favor the MT reading, and so do most of the Standard English translations (KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, MLB, NASB, NIV, NJPS, NLT, ESV, ASV, Young, Darby, Webster, HNV, JB, etc.). The Midrash suggested understanding ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬as ‫כקבורים‬, which would make their moving possible. Rashbam probably echoes this Midrash by saying: “Wicked, while still alive are called “buried,” because they deserve death, as in Ez 21:30.”36 Ibn Ezra mentions, but rejects the borrowed sense ‫קבורים = שמורים‬, which probably derives from the story in b. Gittin 56. A number of commentators (Burkitt, Driver, Galling) have opted for ‫( ְק ֵר ִבים‬Qal active participle masculine plural of ‫קרב‬, “to near, to approach”) instead of ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬, a term that is often used in reference to a person approaching the Lord at the tabernacle or temple. This emendation can be justified as a case of metathesis, but not by the similarity between ‫ ר‬and ‫ ב‬in the paleoscript, as Serrano does, since it would date the book much earlier than generally accepted. The reading ‫ ְק ֵר ִבים‬was adopted by some Standard ָ ‫ ְק ֵר ִבים‬, which English translations (NEB, NAB). However, the phrase ‫וּב ִאים‬ is usually used for translation and interpretation, is not attested in the Hebrew Bible, which has only ‫( ֵק ְרבוּ ָלבוֹא‬Ezek 36:8), ‫( ִה ְק ִריב ָלבוֹא‬Gen 12:11), ‫( וְ ָקרוֹב ָלבוֹא‬Isa 13:22, cf. Jer 48:16), and ‫( ָק ְרבוּ וַ יֶּ ֱא ָתיוּן‬Isa 41:5). TurSinai suggested the clever emendation ‫“ ִבּ ָיק ָרם יָ בֹאוּ‬with their honor would come” for the expression ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים וָ ָבאוּ‬.37 Yet, this would leave the destination unidentified. ‫וָ ָבאוּ‬: MT is attested by the Targum, Peshitta, and Aquila. The ָ , which can be understood as formed by Septuagint apparently reads ‫מוּב ִאים‬ attaching to ‫ ובאו‬the ‫ מ‬that was lost by haplography because of the ‫ מ‬in ‫קברים‬, and the ‫ מ‬of ‫וממקום‬.38 36

Japhet and Salters, 170. Tur-Sinai, N. H. ‫הלשון והספר‬. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik (1959) 148. 38 Seow, Ecclesiastes, 284. Seow suggests that the Urtext was ‫ קבר מובאים‬Æ 37

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The verb ‫ באו‬has been considered problematic in this verse. The verb ‫ בוא‬usually means “to go to, to enter, to arrive,” not “to depart,” which would be proper for those who have been buried. This has found its expression in the Midrashic question ‫וכי יש רשעים קבורים באים ומהלכים‬ (Midrash Tanhuma on Yitro). Already Ibn Ezra rejected attempts to translate ‫ וָ ָבאוּ‬as “disappeared, left” (cf. Targum’s ‫ואשתציאו‬, and see also Darby’s “and going away”) as in ‫ובא השמש‬. Some connect ‫ וָ ָבאוּ‬with ‫יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬, translating “coming and going” (Rashbam), or “they do as they wish.” These attempts were also rejected by Ibn Ezra. Still, a number of Standard English translations link ‫ וָ ָבאוּ‬with ‫( יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬KJV, NKJV, NIV, ESV, NASB, RSV, Webster). This linkage, however, creates redundancy, since ‫ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬includes already the act of coming ֶ ‫א־כ ְמ ַה ֵלְּך ֵר‬ ִ ‫וּב‬ ָ ). Zimmermann considers ‫ וָ ָבאוּ‬another (Prov 6:11, ‫אשָׁך‬ example of confusion in translating from the original Aramaic. He assume that original was itta‘alu (‫ )יתעלו‬or perhaps ’i‘allelu (‫)איעללו‬. The translator erroneously thought the word being the Ittaph‘al of the root ‘al, “they came.” He should have taken it as the Ithpa‘al of ‘aly, be glorified, exalted.”39 Krüger renders ‫“ וָ ָבאוּ‬and went in to rest.”40 This interpretation has no support nor makes any sense. ‫וּמ ְמּקוֹם ָקדוֹשׁ‬ ִ : MT is attested by the Targum (‫)מאתר קדיש‬, Peshitta (‫)ומן אתרא דקדושא‬, and Vulgate (in loco sancto). It is possible that ‫מקום קדוש‬ is a euphemism for ‫מקום טמא‬, the cemetery, which being the place where dead are interred is considered as defiling (Feigin). Cf. Deut 22:9. The form ‫ ִמ ְמּקוֹם‬occurs in the late 2 Chr 6:21, and ‫ ִמ ָמּקוֹם‬in the late Est 4:14. Rossi manuscript 413 reads ‫ ִמ ָמּקוֺם‬, perhaps following the reading in Esther. The construct ‫ ְמקוֹם ַהקּ ֶֹדשׁ‬occurs in Lev 10:17, 14:13, Ps 24:13, and Ezra 9:8. Lev 10:13-17 shows that ‫ ְמקוֹם ַהקּ ֶֹדשׁ‬is synonymous with ‫( ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬cf. vv. 13, and 17), another priestly designation, which occurs in Exod 29:31, Lev 6:9, 19, 20, 7:6, 10:13, 16:24, 24:9, and Ez 42:13. The construct “‫ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬X‫” ִמ‬

‫( קברם מובאים‬dittography) Æ ‫( קברים מובאים‬incorrect interpretation) Æ ‫מובאים‬ ‫( ְק ֻב ִרים‬incorrectly vocalized). This scheme does not provide a rationale for the incorrect vocalization. 39 Zimmerman, 154. 40 Krüger, T. Qoheleth (trans. Dean Jr. O. C.). Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2004) 158.

154

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

ִ never occurs in the Hebrew Bible. Whitely’s translation of ‫וּמ ְמּקוֹם ָקדוֹשׁ‬ “without (‫ )מן‬decent burial” has no support in the Hebrew Bible.41 Various referents have been assumed for ‫ ְמקוֹם ָקדוֹשׁ‬. Most commentators usually choose one of the following: a cemetery,42 the Temple (or the synagogue),43 or Jerusalem.44 Ibn Ezra, however, maintains ִ is the that ‫ ָקדוֺש‬refers to a person, “And the meaning of ‫וּמ ְמּקוֹם ָקדוֹשׁ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬ holy ones who die without children.” I have already observed that the cemetery, being ritually unclean, would not qualify as a ‫ ְמקוֹם ָקדוֹשׁ‬. Several decades ago, Reines suggested that ‫ָמקוֹם‬ ‫ ָקד ֹשׁ‬is “the grave.”45 Thus, ‫ ובאים מקום קׇדוֹשׁ‬is “and come to rest in the grave” (cf. Isa 57:2, Gen 15:15). However, this meaning for the expression ‫ ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬is not attested in the Biblical or Post Biblical literature. Seow notes that it is unlikely that ‫ ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬refers to the Temple, since one would expect then ‫המקום הקדוש‬.46 The biblical references to ‫ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬ “probably designate[s] the religious purpose of a general area rather than a specific place.”47 It is also doubtful that ‫ ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬refers to a structure that served as a synagogue. Such structures did not exist prior to the Maccabeean struggle in the Land of Israel.48 Sukenik notes, “whereas there is archaeological evidence of the existence of synagogues in Egypt as early as the third century B.C., and in Greece as early as the second century B.C., the date of the oldest synagogue found in Palestine is not earlier than the

Whitley, 76. Jastrow, 229; Gordis, 295; and so Ewald, Zöckler, Volz, Humbert, etc. 43 Lauha, A. Qohelet. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag (1978) 155. Lauha says, “Die heilige Stätte (‫ )מקום קדוש‬war für Israeliten der Erscheinungsort Jahwes, d.h. in der klassischen und nachklassischen Zeit der Tempel (Lev 6,9.19; 14,13; Jos 5,15; Hab 2,20; Jon 2,5.8; Ps 24,3).” A similar view held Rashi; Barton, 153; Fox, 58; Whybray, 135; Crenshaw, 154; Zimmermann, 172; Ogden, G. Qoheleth. Sheffield: JSOT Press (1987) 135; NEB, etc. 44 Eaton, M. A. Ecclesiastes. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity (1983) 122. 45 Reines, C. W. “Qohelet viii 10.” JJS 5 (1954) 86. 46 Seow, Ecclesiastes, 285. 47 Wright, D. P. The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature. SBLDS 101. Atlanta: Scholars (1987) 232-235. 48 Oesterly, W. O. E. The Jews and Judaism During the Greek Period. The Background of Christianity. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press (1970) 213. 41 42

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first century A.D.”49 No one considered the possibility that ‫ ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬could mean “the resting place of a holy man” or “the residence of a holy man.” ‫יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬: This is the piel imperfect 3rd person plural of ‫הלך‬, “to go, come, walk” (Hab 3:11, Ps 81:14, 115:7). The more poetic form ‫ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּן‬occurs only in the Psalms (89:16,104:10, 26). The Septuagint seems to have read ‫וְ ָה ְלכוּ‬ (ἐπορεύθησαν) and so did the Peshitta (‫)אזלו‬, Aquila, and Symachus. However, nowhere else is the piel used for the qal. The Targum’s ‫תמן שרין‬ and Vulgate’s errant reflect the sense of “they walked around” for ‫יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬. The reading ‫ וְ ָה ְלכוּ‬can be found explicitly or implicitly in many translations or interpretations (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, KJV, NKJV, Darby, Webster, HNV, NEB, JB). However, the sense “return, coming back” (Jastrow, Gordis) is unwarranted. Whitley’s emendation of ‫ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬to ‫יַ ֲהֹלכו‬ attempts to align the stem of this word with the qal of ‫ הלך‬in the other cases where Qohelet uses this root to denote “departure” from the world (3:20, 6:4, 9:10, 12:5).50 However, nowhere in the Hebrew Bible does mean ‫“ יַ ֲהֹלכו‬depart life,” nor is the verb used in this sense in the book of Qohelet. The best translation for ‫ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬is probably “they go, they walk about, they frequent” (Rashbam, Hertzberg, Fox, Crenshaw, Zer-Kavod, Longman, NLT, ESV, NASB, RSV, NIV, ASV, Young, NJPS). ‫יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬: The MT ‫“ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬they were forgotten” is the hithpael imperfect person masculine plural from ‫שכח‬, “to forget.” This grammatical form of ‫ שכח‬is a hapax legomenon.51 Rendsburg considers ‫ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬to be a Northern Hebrew usage of Hitpa‘el with passive sense, as in Aramaic (two different T-stem formations) and MH (in the nitpa‘al form).52 In Driver opinion the MT, which has ‫יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬, is the consequence of confusion regarding the referents of the two parts of the verse. Assuming that the first part deals with the wicked and the second part with the ָ ‫ ֲא ֶשׁר ֵכּ‬was taken to mean “they that have done right” and righteous, ‫ן־עשׂוּ‬ 3rd

49 Sukenik, E. L. Ancient synagogues in Palestine and Greece. London: Oxford University Press (1934) 1. 50 Whitley, 76. 51 See HALOT, 1490, s.v. I ‫ שׁכח‬and BDB, 1013. 52 Rendsburg, G.A. “Comprehensive Guide to Israelian Hebrew: Grammar and Lexicon.” Orient 38 (2003) 18.

156

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

the subject of the two preceding verbs. This error led to the change of the original ‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬into ‫יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬.53 The reading ‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬is supported by four ancient versions Septuagint (ἐπῃνέθησαν), Syr-Hexaplar, Aquila and Theodotion (ἐκαυχήσαντο), Symmachus (ἐπαινούμενοι), Vulgate (laudabantur) and many Hebrew manuscripts. Only the Targum has ‫“ איתנשין‬they were forgotten.”54 The root ‫ שבח‬occurs altogether 11 times in the HB, mostly in the Psalms. The hithpael of ‫ שבח‬can be found only in the formulaic ‫( ְל ִה ְשׁ ַתּ ֵבּ ַח ִבּ ְת ִה ָלּ ֶתָך‬Ps 106:47, 1Chr 16:35).55 It is unlikely that the original reading of ‫ וישׁתבחו‬was confused for ‫ וישׁתכחו‬because the root ‫ שבח‬is much rarer than the common root ‫שכח‬. Qohelet uses ‫ שבח‬is twice and ‫ שכח‬three times. Taking ‫ וישׁתבחו‬in a passive sense, rather than the natural reflexive sense, has no support. The Ketib-Qere system attests to numerous cases of ‫כ‬/‫ ב‬confusion in the Hebrew Bible. Certainly, in the square script such confusion would seem possible. Consequently, the ‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬/‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬confusion cannot be ruled out. The logic of this reasoning is, however, weakened by the possibility that the Septuagint, and some other versions, tapped into an available homiletic saying that was created for a different purpose (b. Gittin 56b), rather than presented the meaning per se. Moreover, the reading ‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬is not compelling. Standard English translations are divided regarding the reading ‫יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬. Several follow the MT and translate “they were forgotten” (KJV, NKJV, Young, Darby, Webster, ASV, NASB, MLB, NJPS, HNV), and almost an equal number have the alternate reading “they were praised, or “they boasted” (NLT, NEB, ESV, RSV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, JB). Similarly modern scholarship has for ‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬/‫ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬that they “are forgotten” (Hertzberg, Zer-Kavod, Reines); “are neglected” (Fox); “are praised” (Jastrow, Gordis, Longman); “boast” (Driver, Crenshaw); “were eulogized” (Zimmermann), etc. ‫ ָב ִעיר‬: The term ‫ ִעיר‬, “city, town,” occurs also in Qoh 7:19, 9:14, 15, and 10:15. Barton felt that the collocation of ‫ ָמקוֹם ָקד ֹשׁ‬and ‫“ ִעיר‬makes it clear”

53

Driver, 230. One manuscript of the Targum has ‫“ אתנשיאו‬they were lifted up.” 55 See HALOT, 1387, s.v. I ‫ שׁבח‬and BDB, 986. 54

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157

that Jerusalem, where Qohelet lived (5:1), is referred to.56 Qohelet’s use of ‫ ָב ִעיר‬is intended to strengthen his thesis by the multiplicity of people in a city or town. ‫ן־עשׂוּ‬ ָ ‫ ֲא ֶשׁר ֵכּ‬: The particle ‫ ֵכּן‬has been variously interpreted. The Septuagint translates ‫“ ֵכּן‬thus” (οὕτως), Targum has “and so” (‫)והיכמא‬, Peshitta has “such” (‫)הכנא‬, and Vulgate has “just” (iustorum). Symmachus ָ ‫“ ֲא ֶשׁר ֵכּ‬the righteous” (ώς δίχαια πρᾶξαντες). renders ‫ן־עשׂוּ‬ The two basic meanings for ‫ ֵכּן‬, the neutral “so” and the positive “true” found in the Versions, occur with minor nuances in all the interpretations of Qoh 8:10.57 For instance, Rashi and Rashbam have “so,” but Ibn Ezra has “truth,” as ‫( ֵכּן ְבּנוֹת ְצ ָל ְפ ָחד דּ ְֹבר ֹת‬Num 27:7). Similarly, ‫ ֵכּן‬was rendered “justly” (Delitzsch, Ginsburg, Murphy, Seow), “properly” (Hertzberg), “right” (Crenshaw, Krüger), “rightfully” (Zimmermann), “righteously” (NJPS), “thus” (Jastrow, Barton, Gordis, Zer-Kavod), “such” (Longman), etc. Gordis observes, “While this interpretation [‫“ = ֵכּן‬justly”] is ָ ‫ ֵכּ‬is not theoretically possible, the contrast between ‫ ְר ָש ִעים‬and ‫ן־עש ֹוּ‬ sufficiently strong to sustain it, and Koheleth never uses ‫ ֵכּן‬in this sense of “justly.” For this contrast, ‫ צדיק‬is the usual term (cf. 3:17, 7:20, 9:2).” 58 Ibn Ezra’s reliance on Num 27:7 appears somewhat biased. He should have more properly used Num 36:10 (‫) ֵכּן ָעשׂוּ ְבּנוֹת ְצ ָל ְפ ָחד‬, which is closer to the text that we have and where ‫ כן‬means “they did (precisely) so.”59 The ‫ כן‬emphasizes the exactitude of execution. Indeed, a survey of the cases having the form “‫ כן‬+ some form of the verb ‫ ”עשׂה‬reveals that in all these cases ‫ כן‬means “they did (precisely) so.” This survey also points to the source of the Targum’s expansion ‫וחיכמא דעבדו אתעביד להון‬. The principle 56

Barton, 64. Hertzberg, 170. Hertzberg considers the meaning “so” for ‫ כן‬as “sehr künstlich und wenig sinnvoll.” 58 Gordis, 296. 59 Gen 6:22, 18:5, 34:7, Exod 7:6, 12:28, 50, 22:29, 23:11, 26:4, 17, 36:11, 22, 29, 39:32, 42, 43, 40:16, Lev 24:19, 4:20, 16:16, Num 1:54, 5:4, 6:21, 8:4, 20, 22, 9:5, 14, 15:14, 17:26, 32:21, 36:10, Deut 3:21, 7:19, 20:15, 22:3, Jos 10:1, 37, 11:15, 14:5, Jud 11:10, 14:10, 15:11, 1 Sam 1:7, 8:8, 2Sam 9:11, 12:31, 1 Kgs 2:38, 6:33, 7:18, 11:8, 2 Kgs 16:11, 7:9, Jer 28:6, 42:5, 48:30, Ezek 45:20, 12;11, Prov 24;29, Neh 5:12, 1 Chr 20:3. This list illustrates the rarity of the form “‫ כן‬+ some form of the verb ‫”עשׂה‬ outside the Pentateuch and the historical books. The high frequency in Exodus stems from exactitude required in the construction of the sanctuary. 57

158

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

of ‫ מידה כנגד מידה‬is expressed in the HB by ‫( ַכּ ֲא ֶשׁר ָע ָשׂה ֵכּן יֵ ָע ֶשׂה לּוֹ‬Lev 24:19, Jud 15:11, Prov 24:29, cf. Jud 15:10, Jer 50:15, 29), which the Targumist skillfully exploited. Why did Qohelet use ‫ ֵכּן‬rather than ‫זֶ ה‬, which occurs many times in the ָ ֶ‫ ז‬being confused with the book?60 Perhaps, he did not want the ‫ זֶ ה‬of ‫ה־עש ֹוּ‬ ‫ זֶ ה‬of ‫גַ ם־זֶ ה‬. It is also possible that ‫ ֵכּן‬provided a clever ‘double entendre,’ it conveys both “so” and “correctly.” Since no specific acts of the wicked are referred to in the verse, according to available interpretations and ָ ‫ ֵכּ‬by “they did so” introduces considerable translations, translating ‫ן־עש ֹוּ‬ vagueness. ‫גַ ם־זֶ ה‬: The emphatic ‫גַ ם־זֶ ה‬, ”this too,” occurs 14 times in Qohelet (1:17, 2:15, 19, 21, 23, 26, 4:4, 8, 16, 5:9, 6:9, 7:6, 8:10, 14) and variants of it can be found in 2:1, 14, 15, 24; 5:15; 7:18 and 9:13. It is worth noting that the only other place in the Hebrew Bible where the emphatic ‫ גַּ ם־זֶ ה‬occurs is 2Sam 18:26, though ‫( גם־את־זה‬Gen 29:33, 44:29), ‫( כי־גם־זה‬Gen 35:17), and ‫( גם־בזה‬ISam 16:8, and 9) occur. ְ implies that Qoh 8:10 was We have seen that the presence of ‫וּב ֵכן‬ linked to the text that preceded it. The term ‫ גַּ ם־זֶ ה‬also suggests an addition to a previous set that has been, apparently, identified by being ‫ ֶה ֶבל‬. However, the closest ‫ – ֶה ֶבל‬statement preceding 8:10 is 7:6. Thus, either some material has been excised or rearranged by an editor. The existence of an editor, or “pious commentator,” was already suggested by Jastrow.61 ָ ‫ ֶא‬in Qoh 8:9. The other possibility is that the ‫ זֶ ה‬in ‫ גַּ ם־זֶ ה‬links to ‫ת־כּל־זֶ ה‬ Thus, among the various things that he considered, and that were described in the verses preceding 8:9, Qohelet now turns to despotism, and the subject matter of our verse. Obviously, attaching ‫ ֶה ֶבל גַּ ם־זֶ ה‬to the following verse, as the JPS does, resolves the difficulty. Yet, ‫ גַּ ם־זֶ ה‬never occurs at the beginning of a verse in the Hebrew Bible.

60

Jastrow, 71-76. Jastrow speaks of additions to the Urtext, which were intended to “tone down” some of Qohelet’s contentions. The ‫ זה גם‬in Qoh 8:10 might be indication that some material was deleted. 61 Qohelet uses ‫ כן‬only 6 times (3:19, 5:1, 7:6, 8:10 (2t), 11), two of which are in our verse, and 38 ‫ זֶ ה‬times (1:10, 17, 2:2, 3, 10, 15, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 3:19 (2t), 4:8, 16, 5:9, 6:2, 5 (2t), 9, 7:6, 10, 14 (2t), 18 (2t), 27, 29, 8:9, 10, 14, 9:1 (2t), 3, 11:6 (2t), 12:13).

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‫ ֶה ֶבל‬: This is the main term for the characterization, or judgment, of the various issues and cases discussed in the book of Qohelet. It means “vapor, breath,” something of no consequence, perhaps similar to the current “hot air.”62 Its notion of transience has been figuratively expressed by terms such as, “fleeting,” “temporary,” “insubstantial,” “utterly fruitless,” “incongruous,” “ephemeral,” “enigmatic,” and “absurd.” Miller renders ‫“ הבל‬vapor,” and shows that it has three distinct metaphorical nuances: insubstantiality, transience, and foulness.63 Farmer notes the virtual equality of ‫ הבל‬and ‫ רוח‬in Qoh 1:14, 2:11, 17, 26, 4:4, 16, and 6:9.64 This suggests to her that the material referent (vapor, or breath) should be contemplated for ‫ הבל‬in each case, to appreciate the metaphorical nature of the term. In Qohelet’s view human existence abounds in paradoxes; everything in it is of no consequence, as “thin air,” or emptiness. Thus the term is used frequently in the book, exactly 37 times, equal to the numerical value (Gematria) of ‫הבל‬.

SOLUTION The first difficulty in Qoh 8:10 is the impression that Qohelet is surprised by the fact of the wicked being buried. Zer-Kavod tried to justify this surprise, explaining that Qohelet saw “wicked buried [in the tomb that they prepared for themselves, and were not thrown out of it as befits them].”65 Except of the logical contradiction of this statement, it cannot be true in light of the ancient Jewish tradition to bury every dead before sunset. 62

Fox, M. “The Meaning of Hebel for Qohelet.” JBL 105 (1986) 409-427; Ogden, G. S. “The Meaning of the Term Hebel.” In Reflecting with Solomon: Selected Studies on the Book of Ecclesiastes (ed. Zuck, R. B.). Grand Rapids: Baker (1994) 227231; Seow, C. L. “Beyond Mortal Grasp: the Usage of hebel in Ecclesiastes.” AusBR 48 (2000) 1-2; Anderson, W. “The Semantic Implications of ‫ הבל‬and ‫ רוח רעות‬in the Hebrew Bible and for Qoheleth.” JNSL 25 (1999) 59-73; Miller, D. B. “Qohelet’s Symbolic Use of ‫הבל‬.” JBL 117 (1998) 437-454; Seybold, K. “‫הבל‬.” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), III (eds. Botterweck, G. J. and Ringgren, H.). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1978) 313-320. 63 Miller, D. B. Symbol and Rhetoric in Ecclesiastes: The Place of Hebel in Qohelet’s Work. Academia Biblica 2. Atlanta, GA, and Leiden: SBL and E. J. Brill (2002) 154. 64 Farmer, K. A. Who Knows What is Good? A Commentary on the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. ITC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1991) 143-146. 65 Zer-Kavod, 50.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

The Hebrew Bible mentions some unusual cases where the bones of the dead were thrown out of the grave. For instance, Josiah’s reform included the extraordinary actions of defiling the shrines to various idols with human bones taken out of their graves on the king’s orders (2 Kgs 23:14, 16, 18). Jeremiah prophecy makes the unusual point that “At that time—declares the Lord—the bones of the king of Judah, of its officers, of the priests, of the prophets, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be taken out of their graves and exposed to the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven which they loved and served and followed, to which they turned and bowed down. They shall not be gathered for reburial; they shall become dung upon the face of earth” (Jer 8:1–2). Those were, however, highly demonstrative acts intended to make an indelible impression on the populace; hardly befitting regular scoundrels. Severe curses deterred people from tempering with the graves. The buried wicked per se could not have been the subject of Qohelet’s contemplation or observation. The second difficulty is the verb ‫וָ ָבאוּ‬. We have seen in the ANALYSIS section how exegetes unsuccessfully struggled with this word. The verb seems redundant in the presence of ‫יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬, and creates confusion in the flow of events. Simple metathesis yields ‫ואוב‬, “and necromancer,” from ‫ובאו‬, implying that the “wicked” visited the necromancer.66 Necromancy was widely practiced among the ancient people, particularly in Egypt. The Hebrew Bible certainly forbids several times the engaging in necromancy (Lev 19:31, 20:6, 27, Deut 18:10–11), but the practice apparently persisted. This can be deduced from the references to it, and actions taken against it. For instance, Isaiah says, “Now, should people say to you, ‘Inquire of the ghosts and familiar spirits for chirp and moan; for a people may inquire of its divine beings—of the dead on behalf of the living—for instruction and message,’ surely, for one who speaks thus there shall be no dawn” (Isa 8:19–20, cf. 9:3). We are told that the sins of king Manasseh included the following: “He consigned his son to the fire; he practiced soothsaying and divination, and consulted ghosts and familiar spirits” (2 Kgs 21:6, cf. 2 Chr 33:6). It is notable that the first king of Israel Saul (1 Sam 28) and the reformist Josiah (2 Kgs 23:24) tried to eradicate necromancy. Saul’s actions clearly demonstrate that it was easier to eradicate the necromancers from the land than the need for necromancy from the heart. The Bible refers to necromancy by the general term ‫דורש אל המתים‬, and ‫אוב וידעוני‬. The etymology and exact connotation of these words is, however, not clear (cf. TDOT I, 131–134). 66

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The Talmud also attests to the wide and open practice of necromancy, though there were some who expressed dissatisfaction (b. Berachot 59a), and the veracity of the spirits was not doubted (b. Shabbath 152b). We read of a pious man who was rewarded for eavesdropping on the prophecies of the dead (b. Berachot 18b). An Amora who inquired of a necromancer and the prediction indeed occurred (b. Berachot 59a). The scholar Banaah was well versed in necromancy (b. Babba Batra 58a). R. Akiva use necromancy to proof that the River Sambation stopped flowing on the Sabbath (Genesis Rabba 11:6). In b. Gittin 56b, we are told that the ghosts of Titus, Ballam, and Jesus are called upon to provide advice for Onqelos, the nephew of Titus, whether he should embrace Judaism. Ben Sira says: “Samuel prophesied after his death, and showed the king his end, and lift up his voice from the earth in prophecy” (46:20). The causal references to necromancy (Deut 26:14, 1 Sam 28, cf. 1 Chr 10:13), its wide use by pious persons in the time of the Talmud, and Josephus’ positive attitude toward the woman of En-dor (Ant. 6:14:4), all indicate that while necromancy was censured by the Torah, it was in practice tolerated, and probably considered by the common folks an act of piety.67 There was apparently a related practice of ‫דורש אל המתים‬, which involved fasting and sleeping in cemeteries to find communion with the dead (cf. b. Sanhedrin 65b, b. Haggigah 3b). If ‫ ואוב‬Æ ‫ וָ ָבאוּ‬and ‫ ְק ָב ִרים‬Æ ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬as the Septuagint reads, then it ִ ‫דוש‬ makes sense to understand ‫וּמ ְמּקוֺם‬ ֺ ‫ ָק‬as alluding to something of a funerary nature. I suggest that here ‫ ָקד ֺוש ָמקוֺם‬is the burial place of a holy man (Ezek 39:11), though it could also be the residence of a holy man. The concept of a person who was a ‫ ָקדוֺש‬in the sense of being distinguished by his piety and spiritual closeness to God is attested in the Bible. Such person was Elisha (2 Kgs 4:9), or those who fear God (Ps 34:10), and perhaps the holy mentioned in Isa 4:3, Hos 1:12, Zec 14:5, Job 5:1, Prov 9:10, and 30:3. The tradition of the saintly or holy man and his power found expression in later times in such statements as “said the Holy One, Blessed be He, ‘I rule over man, but who rules over me? The Saint, for when I issue a decree, he sets it aside’” (b. Moed Katan 16b). The Mishnah in b. Sanhedrin 65a has: ‫בעל אוב זה פיתום המדבר משחיו וידעוני זה המדבר בפיו הרי אלו בסקילה והנשאל בהם‬ ‫באזהרה‬ The difference in punishment is notable. Use of a necromancer warranted only a warning, perhaps because the custom was quite accepted. 67

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

It stands to reason that these holy men were visited, consulted, and venerated during their life (Gen 25:22, 2 Kgs 4:23) and after their death, in particular in a society that believed that the dead continued to affect life on earth.68 The Psalmist confession, “as to the holy and mighty ones that are in the land (grave?), those who espouse another, may have many sorrows! I will have no part in their bloody libations; their name will not pass my lips” (Ps 16:3-4), speaks volumes of the veneration of the holy men after their death.69 It is probably not far fetched to assume that the place of Moses’ burial was concealed (Deut 34:6) to avoid such veneration. If this understanding is correct, then Qohelet observes the wicked engaged in acts of piety focused on the dead. They visit the graves, go to necromancers, and frequent the graves of holy men (or visit living holy men). While the Hebrew Bible rejects all customs related to the worship of the dead, it is notable that feeding the dead was apparently practiced in the time of the Second Temple and was considered an act of piety at least among some of the “God fearers.” We find in Tobit 4:17 “Pour out your bread on the burial of the just, but give nothing to the wicked.” Similarly Ben Sira bears witness to this custom, though he opposes it. We read in Ecclesiasticus 30:18 “Delicacies poured upon a mouth shut up are as messes of meat set upon a grave” (cf. the Hebrew version in Sir 30:21). The causal description of a dead man’s revival upon touching Elisha’s bones (2 Kgs 13:21) would be inconceivable if some holiness and magic is not believed to have been retained by the dead. Taken together with the belief in the existence of Sheol and existence in Sheol, causal references to necromancy (Deut 26:14, 1 Sam 28), Job’s ruminations about hiding in and emerging from Sheol,70 and archeological evidence,71 one gets a strong 68

R. Yehoshua, upon receiving a satisfying rationale according to the teachings of the Shamai Academy, for a judicial question that bothered him, went to the graves of Beth Shamai in an act of appreciation (b. Hagigah 22b). R. Mani threw himself prostrate over his father’s grave in prayer for rain (b. Taanit 23b). 69 Qohelet makes it clear in 9:6 that the dead cannot benefit from what goes on earth. This view, however, does not undermine the possibility that the dead could affect what happens on earth. 70 Althann, R. “Job and the idea of the beatific afterlife.” OTE 4,3 (1991) 322. Althann believes that looking forward to a beatific afterlife is suggested in Job 19:25-27. The metaphor of the mythical phoenix in Job 29:18 indicates to him that “Job expects a life after death. The point of the comparison in colon 1 is precisely that death is not the end. Just as the destruction of the mythical bird’s nest is the source of new life, of a new phoenix, so Job’s death would be the gateway to a new

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feeling about the existence of popular beliefs regarding some post-mortem existence, which were not sanctioned but also not actively combated.72 Bickerman says, “Although the conventional view was that the spirit returns to God who gave it (Tob 3:6, Koh 12:7), the Jews continued to cling to the primeval belief in the continuous existence of the departed in their graves as long as their bones remained there. The tomb was man’s eternal home, as Kohelet (12:5) said. Offerings of food, generally bread and wine, were commonly brought to the grave in ancient Israel, the Lawgiver having forbidden only the offering of consecrated food to the dead (Deut 26:14).”73 The pious were apparently engaged in these activities of serving, reaching out to the dead and getting guidance from them. Qohelet saw the wicked doing the same things as the pious. Perhaps the wicked were repenting? As far as I could ascertain not a single commentator considered the possibility that Qohelet refers to a case of genuine repentance, though it has been suggested that the wicked frequent the holy place for “show” and deception. Yet, assuming that Qohelet saw the wicked repent makes sense, and it provides a context for a natural explanation of the verse. The event, from a theological standpoint, should have been prima facie evidence that God’s attribute of “slow to anger” is justified. It should have been preserved as an example of an actual case in which “slow to anger” was operative in a familiar and verifiable setting. To Qohelet surprise, in the city where the repentance occurred and was observed it was also completely forgotten. This was truly absurd. life for him.” 71 Friedman, R. E. and Dolansky, S. “Death and Afterlife: The Biblical Silence.” In Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part 4 (eds. Avery-Peck, A. J. and Neusner, J.). Leiden: Brill (2000) 36-37. The authors say, “We know that there was belief in an afterlife in Israel. The combination of archeological records and the references that we do have in the text leave little room for doubt.” They note the funerary archeological findings in Megiddo, Gezer, Tel Abu Hawam, Beth Shemesh, Sahab (TransJordan), and Dothan. 72 Brichto, H. C. “Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex.” HUCA 44 (1973) 29. For instance, with respect to Deut 26:14 Brichto notes “not only does this verse attest to the practice, as late as the time of Deuteronomy, of offerings made to the dead; it attests that normative biblical religion accorded them the sanction of toleration.” 73 Bickerman, E. J. The Jews in the Greek Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1988) 272.

164

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES In my view the Urtext was as follows, ‫וּמקוֺם ָקדוֺש יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬ ְ ‫יתי ְר ָש ִעים ְק ָב ִרים וְ אוֺב‬ ִ ‫וּב ֵכן ָר ִא‬ ְ ‫ן־עש ֹוּ גַ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬ ָ ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ ָב ִעיר ֲא ֶשר ֵכּ‬

“and also I saw wicked frequenting graves, and necromancer, and place of a holy. And they were forgotten in the city in which they did so (correctly?). This too is absurd.” The verse can be paraphrased: “And I observed persons, who were considered wicked, frequenting cemeteries, necromancers, and the places of holy men. Yet they were not noted in the place where they did so. This too is absurd.” The suggested Urtext is only slightly different than the MT and does not require the emendation of ‫ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬to ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְבּחוּ‬. The specific changes are: (1) ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬has been revocalized as ‫; ְק ָב ִרים‬ (2) ‫ וָ ָבאוּ‬has been reordered and revocalized as ‫ ;וְ אוֺב‬and, ִ the ‫ ִמ‬was dropped. (3) in ‫וּמ ְמּקוֺם‬ As we have seen in the ANALYSIS section, most of the scholarship on Qoh 8:10 rejects the MT reading ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬. The words ‫ ְק ֻב ִרים‬and ‫ ְק ָב ִרים‬differ in a single vowel. Metathesis occurs frequently in the Hebrew Bible, as attested by the Ketib-Qere system.74 While metatheses involving two transpositions are less frequent than single transpositions, they are also attested in the Ketib-Qere system. It is certainly possible to justify the extra ‫ מ‬as an error of dittography.75 Thus, it would be relatively easy to understand how the MT could have arisen by a scribe making simple errors in transcription. I think, however, that the changes that have been made were intentional, and the justification for them was that they could have been scribal error. The construct X + (Y‫ )ו‬+ (Z‫ )ו‬occurs several times in

74 Tur-Sinai, 106-149. Most of the metathesis cases in the Ketib-Qere system involve only one transposition (ab Æ ba). There are, however, cases of more than one transposition: 2 Sam 14:30 ‫( והוצתיה‬K) but ‫( והציתוה‬Q); Isa 10:10 ‫( ולשימו‬K) but ‫( ;ולשומי‬Q); Neh 12:14 ‫( למלוכי‬K) ‫( למליכו‬Q); Exod 40:3 ‫ הפרכת‬but in other places ‫ ;הכפרת‬Gen 23:5 ‫ הביא‬but ‫ אביהו‬in the Septuagint; Jud 21:17 ‫ ירשת‬but ‫תשיר‬ ‫ = תשאר‬in the Septuagint; 1 Sam 13:20 ‫ מחרשתו‬but ‫ חרמשו‬in the Septuagint, etc. 75 The Ketib-Qere system attests to the following cases of a missing or extra :‫מ‬ 2 Sam 22:16 ‫( ויהמם‬K) but ‫( ויהם‬Q); 2 Kgs 12:12 ‫( הפקדים‬K) but ‫( המפקדים‬Q); 2 Kgs 17:16 ‫( שנים‬K) but ‫( שני‬Q); 2 Kgs 17:24 ‫( וספרוים‬K) but ‫( וספרוים‬Q); Ezek 44:23 ‫( לשפט‬K) but ‫( למשפט‬Q).

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Qohelet (2:7, 8, 12, 21, etc.). The suggested reading also eliminates the need to use the piel ‫ יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬for the qal ‫ ָה ְלכוּ‬. I have already mentioned that Jastrow detected in many instances in Qohelet the hand of a pious commentator. In particular, he ascribes the verses that follow Qoh 8:10 (v. 11-13) to this commentator. Jastrow says, “At this point, our pious commentator enters upon an elaborate argument (verses 11-13) somewhat in the style of Job’s friends to prove that the wicked are punished, even though the punishment be delayed. ‘Because the sentence for an evil deed is not promptly carried out, therefore the inclination of man is to do evil [cf. Gen 8:21]. But although a sinner does a great deal of evil and is accorded a respite, yet I know that good fortune will attend those who fear God [comment or variant: Those who fear His presence] and that it shall not be well for the wicked, and that he will not lengthen out his days as a shadow [?], because he does not fear the presence of God.’” 76 The cause for this outburst by the pious commentator can be found within the framework of the Urtext that I have suggested. It stands to reason that the pious commentator did not like in the Urtext before him two things: (1) consideration of necromancy as an act of piety; and, (2) the view that “slow to anger” has justification in the potential for repentance. He took care of the first problem by changing ‫ ואוב‬into ‫ובאו‬, and adding a ‫ מ‬to ‫ומקום‬, all changes that can be justified by being simple scribal errors. This completely obliterated Qohelet’s original thought. But that was not enough. It was necessary not only to eliminate Qohelet’s original thought, but to replace it with the normative thinking. That is why verses 11-13 were inserted.

CONCLUSION I suggest that at some time prior to the formation of the Septuagint, a pious scribe considered the Urtext reading, ‫וּמקוֺם ָקדוֺש יְ ַה ֵלּכוּ‬ ְ ‫יתי ְר ָש ִעים ְק ָב ִרים וְ אוֺב‬ ִ ‫וּב ֵכן ָר ִא‬ ְ ‫ן־עש ֹוּ גַ ם־זֶ ה ָה ֶבל‬ ָ ‫וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ ָב ִעיר ֲא ֶשר ֵכּ‬ as offensive, because it condoned necromancy and presented it as a mark of piety. Moreover, Qohelet’s view that wicked could become pious, and consequently God’s being “slow to anger” has justification, was at odds 76

Jastrow, 229.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

with the normative position, which argued that this attribute of God promotes wickedness since it creates a time-disconnect between the crime and its punishment. This pious scribe masterfully changed the Urtext within the constraints of acceptable human error, obtaining a text that suggested the burial of the wicked. Apparently the sages of that time (or later) felt that the custom of giving burial to anyone needs strengthening and came up with the homiletic ‫( אל תיקרי וישתכחו אלא וישתבחו‬b. Gittin 56b). The Septuagint reflects this traditional view. Yet, ‫ אל תיקרי וישתכחו אלא וישתבחו‬in fact only strengthens the reading of ‫ וְ יִ ְש ַתּ ְכּחוּ‬in the MT. Yet, when we return to the suggested Urtext, we are in the presence of a deep thinker and keen observer, as Qohelet was. His theodicy, based on actual observation, dared to go against the accepted norms. God’s attribute of “slow to anger” has justification in real life, wickedness is not pathological. Why then are cases of wicked turning into pious men so quickly forgotten? And, that even in the place where they have occurred? The pious commentator provides the answer. These cases were forgotten because they clashed with the convenient normative theology. This is in Qohelet view an absurdity, because wicked turning into pious men should have been considered as instances that strengthen the theological foundations.

BEYOND PURITY AND DANGER: MARY DOUGLAS AND THE HEBREW BIBLE RONALD HENDEL UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY AND

SAUL M. OLYAN BROWN UNIVERSITY The brilliant anthropologist Mary Douglas (1921-2007) has left an enduring mark on biblical scholarship. Although she had no formal training as a biblical scholar and knew only a little Biblical Hebrew, her forays into the Hebrew Bible were path breaking. She began her biblical adventures in 1966 with “The Abominations of Leviticus,”1 which remains her bestknown and most frequently anthologized essay. In it she recast the study of biblical ritual into a new key – focusing on the anomalies (“dirt is matter out of place”) that illuminate the conceptual categories at the heart of ancient Israel’s religious and cosmological vision. In a subsequent study, “Deciphering a Meal,”2 she related these conceptual categories to the structure and boundaries of Israel’s social order, in line with the anthropological imperative to investigate the correlations between social institutions and religious practices. She returned to the Hebrew Bible in her later years with a complex biblical trilogy, In the Wilderness (1993), Leviticus as Literature (1999), and

Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 41–57. 2 Mary Douglas, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), 249–75. 1

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Jacob’s Tears (2004).3 In these books she engaged in a sustained reading of the literary structures of the biblical books of Numbers and Leviticus. Most important, she brought to bear her mature theory of cultural analysis (first conceived in Natural Symbols, 1970),4 in which she worked out a correlation between types of societies (and institutions) and the types of religious and cosmological systems that these social structures support. For example, the contrasting cosmologies and ritual systems of P versus D can be explained in relation to the differing social institutions and commitments of the two sources. P’s social world and cosmology are hierarchical, and P’s discourse is correspondingly terse and analogically ordered. D’s social world is more individualist, and D’s cosmology is correspondingly focused on individual responsibility and interior dispositions. D’s discourse is more rhetorical, based on exhortation rather than densely nested system.5 Although the study of biblical ritual has been profoundly affected by Douglas’s work (see, e.g., the many references to Douglas in Jacob Milgrom’s magisterial Leviticus commentary in the Anchor Bible series), her legacy is still under construction. The current collection of essays illustrates this situation, as five scholars of biblical ritual refine, critique, and extend her theories in new directions. This is a generation of scholars for whom Purity and Danger has always been a classic – a source of inspiration (and occasional irritation) and a necessary point of departure for the scholarly study of biblical ritual. The five articles that follow in the journal engage Douglas’s studies of the Hebrew Bible from a variety of perspectives and on a variety of topics. Each contributor provides theoretical elaboration and critique of Douglas’s ideas. Several essays expand upon Douglas’s efforts to uncover the larger native structures of meaning underlying ritual or textual details and patterns, concluding that Douglas’s insights are applicable to data that Mary Douglas, In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993); idem, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); idem, Jacob’s Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 4 Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (2nd ed.; New York: Random House, 1973). 5 The implications of Douglas’s cultural theory for the relationship between D and P had already been outlined by Ernest Nicholson, “Deuteronomy’s Vision of Israel,” Storia e tradizioni di Israele: Scritti in onore di J. Alberto Soggin, ed. D. Garrone and F. Israel (Brescia: Paideia, 1991), 191–203. 3

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SAUL M. OLYAN

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she did not consider herself. Some of the papers focus on Douglas’s early work; others on her later ideas. Several of the authors specifically address Douglas’s influence on their own work. Hendel’s essay places Douglas in the larger intellectual contexts of modernism in general and anthropological modernism in particular. In contrast to its evolutionary-oriented predecessors, anthropological modernism “turned away from great meta-narratives of cultural ascent and turned to micro-narratives of everyday events and cultural habits, yet always with an eye to reveal[ing] the fundamental and the universal in human culture.” Understanding Douglas as an heir of Radcliffe Brown, Malinowski, and Durkheim, Hendel shows how Douglas explores seemingly arbitrary ritual details such as the avoidance of pork with the goal of uncovering the larger, implicit native structures of meaning that constitute society, its elites, and its practices. For Douglas, the individual details reveal the larger reality. Marx elaborates upon Douglas’s argument in her most recent work that Leviticus as a literary work reproduces sacred geography in its structure. He applies this tack to two sacrificial laws in Leviticus 19 that have been interpreted as anomalous and intrusive in their literary context, concluding that “just as the structure of the tabernacle illuminates the structure of Leviticus, these two laws serve also to illuminate the following nonsacrificial laws,” revealing the principles that govern ritual and ethical relationships. Olyan’s focus is an assessment of what he calls Douglas’s holiness/wholeness paradigm. Introduced in the essay “The Abominations of Leviticus,” physical wholeness exemplifies holiness according to Douglas’s paradigm. Olyan begins by outlining several examples of the paradigm’s fruitful elaboration, and goes on to assess its strengths and weaknesses. Though the paradigm has been and continues to be influential and productive of insight, Olyan suggests that it has the potential to account for more phenomena if wholeness, rather than holiness, were to become its focus, given the demonstrated relationship of beauty to wholeness apart from considerations of holiness. Schmitt, who begins by acknowledging his intellectual debt to Douglas, provides a critique of Douglas’s construction of magic in her later works, which he finds less insightful than the views she expressed in earlier works such as Purity and Danger. Rejecting distinctions such as that between miracle and magic, Schmitt argues that biblical magic, in its various manifestations,

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

is treated in diverse ways by the text, and not in a single, negative way as Douglas claimed in her late works. Against Douglas, Schmitt finds that magic is not in itself incompatible with monotheism. Wright’s essay argues that Douglas’s method of ritual analysis demonstrated in “Deciphering a Meal”—that the particular detail is illuminated by its larger context—has great potential for insight through extension into new areas beyond culinary custom. It “even gets to the heart of the definition of what ritual is” according to Wright, who compares Catherine Bell’s theory of ritualization to Douglas’s syntagmatic analysis, and also considers whether such analysis can help us to understand ritual infelicity in contexts such as feasts and sacrifices with greater insight. Like Marx’s and Olyan’s contributions, Wright demonstrates how Douglas’s theorizing can be fruitfully elaborated and extended to materials she did not consider. The essays in this collection were originally presented at a special session of the International SBL meeting in Vienna in July 2007. Mary Douglas was eagerly looking forward to this session, where she was to be the respondent. Sadly, her plan was interrupted due to ill-health and mortality. She wrote in an e-mail in early May, “It breaks my heart that I cannot come to this lovely programme you have organized for me in Vienna. I am only just back from University College Hospital, and I cannot expect to be well enough to travel by July.” The following day she was knighted as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace. She passed away a week later, on May 16, 2007, at the age of 86. These essays are dedicated to her memory.

MARY DOUGLAS AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL MODERNISM RONALD HENDEL UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY INTRODUCTION Mary Douglas was one of the most brilliant and wide-ranging scholars of the last half-century, a period during which her subject—cultural anthropology—became an essential intellectual field. Among the many scholarly disciplines that she participated in and influenced, she had a longstanding engagement with scholarship of the Hebrew Bible. Although she was keenly aware of her lack of linguistic skills in her biblical work, her anthropological intelligence enabled her do path-breaking work in the study of biblical ritual, religion, and society. In a revealing essay titled “Why I Have to Learn Hebrew,” she describes the motives for her biblical studies: My personal project in the study of the Bible is to bring anthropology to bear on the sources of our own civilization. This is in itself enough of an explanation for having to learn Hebrew. But there is more. In preEnlightenment Europe, other religions were condemned as false, even as evil; the Enlightenment changed the condemnation to irrational superstition. Neither stance was conducive to understanding. The practice of anthropology has been to provide a critical, humane, and sensitive interpretation of other religions.1

As she observes, the anthropological study of biblical religion involves a twofold strategy. First, we must approach biblical religion in the same way 1 M. Douglas, “Why I Have to Learn Hebrew: The Doctrine of Sanctification,” The Comity and Grace of Method: Essays in Honor of Edmund F. Perry, eds. T. Ryba, G. D. Bond, and H. Tull (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2004), 151.

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that anthropologists approach “other religions,” which is to say as an informed participant-observer. This stance involves a balance between critical distance and cultural empathy. A second step—really a corollary of the first—is to critique our own Western preconceptions about religion, in order to transcend the reductive dichotomies of revealed versus false religion or reason versus superstition. Ironically, in order to achieve “a critical, humane, and sensitive interpretation” of biblical religion, we must step aside from the biblical evaluation of “other religions,” and approach biblical religion as itself an “exotic” religion, a world that is both familiar and new. In many respects this anthropological approach is a refinement of the critical method in biblical studies developed by Spinoza, Herder, and others, which yielded what Jonathan Sheehan calls “the cultural Bible.”2 In Spinoza’s terms, this method addresses the Bible’s meanings within its own semantic and cultural horizons, and prescinds from theological judgments of truth and falsity.3 In Herder’s terms, it approaches biblical culture by means of participatory empathy (Einfühlung), bracketing our own cultural predispositions to the extent possible, and respecting the authenticity of its native structures of meaning.4 In other words, Mary Douglas’s anthropology does not present a wholly new method, but is a sophisticated and reflective development of the same critical method from which modern biblical studies arose. It is not surprising, therefore, that pioneers such as Herder and Robertson Smith were important figures in both biblical studies and cultural anthropology. Mary Douglas is a successor to these scholars, who brought to biblical studies an anthropological vision. In the following I will try to sketch the type of anthropological vision that she brought to bear, its intellectual backdrop, and a perspicuous example of her work on the Bible.

2 J. Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 219–21. 3 B. Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, ed. J. Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 [Latin original, 1670]), ch. 7 (“On the Interpretation of Scripture”). 4 See I. Berlin, “Herder and the Enlightenment,” in idem, The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), 359– 435, esp. 403–12.

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ANTHROPOLOGICAL MODERNISM In Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography, Richard Fardon describes Douglas’s oeuvre as “a classic expression of British anthropological modernism.”5 Anthropological modernism is shorthand for the dominant movement in British anthropology from roughly the 1920’s to the 1980’s. This movement was founded by Bronislaw Malinowski, professor at the London School of Economics, who championed the value of intensive fieldwork and “participant-observation,” and by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, professor at Oxford, who melded Émile Durkheim’s theoretical sociology into a working model of “functionalism,” which focused on how social phenomena and practices mesh to create a coherent social system. As Adam Kuper describes this confluence of strategies and ideas: Malinowski brought a new realism to social anthropology, with his lively awareness of the flesh-and-blood interests behind custom, and his radically new mode of observation. Radcliffe-Brown introduced the intellectual discipline of French sociology, and constructed a more rigorous battery of concepts to order the ethnographic materials.6

An important strand of anthropological modernism is the turning away from evolutionary theories of human culture, which had, in good Victorian fashion, produced triumphal narratives of human ascent from primitive superstition to modern Western science. There are many reasons for the turn away from evolutionary theory, not least the devastations of World War I, which battered common faith in cultural evolution and progress. Modernism in general is characterized by a turn away from naive evolutionism and toward a cross-cultural examination of the human condition. Part of the stimulus was the dissemination of the art and literature of non-Western cultures—consider Picasso’s fascination with the abstractions of ancient and tribal art, or Eliot’s and Pound’s interest in Asian literature—which raised awareness of the complexity of other cultures. Anthropological modernism shares its intellectual horizons with other modernisms. The distinctive features of literary modernism are brilliantly

5

260.

R. Fardon, Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1999),

A. Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (2nd ed.; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 36. 6

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described by Erich Auerbach in his classic study, Mimesis.7 He observes a shift from the narration of great events and heroic protagonists to a focus on mundane, everyday events, which in their minute details are revelatory of universal human conditions. This shift in emphasis expresses something that we might call a transfer of confidence: the great exterior turning points and blows of fate are granted less importance; they are credited with less power of yielding decisive information concerning the subject; on the other hand there is confidence that in any random fragment plucked from the course of a life at any time the totality of its fate is contained and can be portrayed. There is greater confidence in syntheses gained through full exploitation of an everyday occurrence than in a chronologically well-ordered total treatment which accompanies the subject from beginning to end, attempts not to omit anything externally important, and emphasizes the great turning points of destiny.8

In other words, a large-scale and chronologically ordered realism gives way to a fragmented and subjective modernism, a messy and quizzical version of realism, which focuses on everyday events and details, and ordinary, unheroic protagonists. This is also the move of anthropological modernism, which turned away from great meta-narratives of cultural ascent and turned to micro-narratives of everyday events and cultural habits, yet always with an eye to reveal the fundamental and the universal in human culture. Auerbach further unpacks the implications of the modernist engagement with everyday events and their link with the universal, commenting on a mundane yet revelatory moment in Virginia Wolff’s To the Lighthouse: [W]hat happens in that moment [while Mrs. Ramsey is measuring a stocking] ... concerns in a very personal way the individuals who live in it, but it also (and for that very reason) concerns the elementary things which men in general have in common. It is precisely the random moment which is comparatively independent of the controversial and unstable orders over which men fight and despair; it passes unaffected 7 E. Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 525–53 (ch. 20, “The Brown Stocking”). 8 Auerbach, Mimesis, 547–48.

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by them, as daily life. The more it is exploited, the more the elementary things which our lives have in common come to light.9

This search for the universal in the particular—in the mundane and everyday events that are largely unaffected by the vicissitudes of public politics and controversy—lies at the heart of anthropological modernism as well as literary. For Virginia Wolff, the scene of a woman measuring a stocking can be revelatory. For Mary Douglas, a joke or a meal can be a revelatory event or, in her friend Victor Turner’s words, a social drama, in which “the elementary things which our lives have in common come to light.” According to this modernist insight, the deep forms of human life and culture—whether of a particular culture or culture in general—are best pursued by teasing out the implications and connections of everyday, particular events, rather than the more famous unique events of political or public life. From this modernist insight, the historian Fernand Braudel developed his research program which emphasized the relatively unchanging habits and conditions of the longue durée, rather than restricting one’s focus to the unique events of l’histoire événementielle (“event-history”). The habits of everyday human practices are the preferred scope of modernist inquiry, for they open the path to understanding the complex relationship between the universal and the particular. This is the nexus that enables us to relate in “a critical, humane, and sensitive” way (in Mary Douglas’s words) with other peoples and cultures, and with our own cultural and religious past. The philosophical imperative to “know thyself” now involves knowledge of everyday habits and mundane practices, both in exotic cultures and our own. As Auerbach observes, in modernism this cross-cultural impulse results in a cultural universalism in which “there are no longer even exotic peoples,”10 since the others—seen in their particularity, not in abstract caricature—are now recognizably like us.

DOUGLAS AND DURKHEIM As mentioned above, anthropological modernism took a good deal of its intellectual capital from the pioneering work of Émile Durkheim. Durkheim, the scion of an eminent lineage of French rabbis, became a

9

Auerbach, Mimesis, 552. Auerbach, Mimesis, 552.

10

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secular rationalist and a founder of modern sociology.11 Although Durkheim’s writings maintain a wavering commitment to evolutionary theories of culture, many of the strategies and insights of anthropological modernism are represented, at least germinally, in his work, such as the view of society as a functional system and, perhaps most importantly, the embeddedness of cognitive and moral categories in social life. (I would note that much of what we call postmodernism also derives from aspects of Durkheim’s work, particularly his emphasis on the social construction of— and constraints upon—our systems of knowledge.12) Mary Douglas describes Durkheim as one of the great modern discoverers of “the secret places of the mind.”13 Like Marx and Freud, Durkheim showed that we are not entirely who we think we are, that we are shaped by forces beyond our conscious knowledge and will. This is a type of modernist insight, revealing a reality shaped by non-rational and unconscious forces, and uncovering a dimension of our selves and motives that is hidden from ordinary awareness. Douglas avers, however, that Durkheim flinched from pursuing the implications of his discovery of the social embeddedness of cognitive and moral categories. He held that primitive tribal cultures, united by “mechanical solidarity” (i.e., characterized by small size and nested social segments) are deeply shaped by social forces, which yield a shared collective consciousness and conscience. In contrast, modern Western cultures, united by a looser and more differentiated “organic solidarity” (i.e., characterized by a division of labor and greater population) are relatively immune to such forces, enabling the flourishing of individual thought. (Durkheim brilliantly argued that the modern concept of the individual is a distinctive outcome of organic solidarity.)14 As such, he exempted our culture from the implications of his analysis of simpler “primitive” cultures. Douglas compares the impact of Durkheim’s truncated theory with the impact of the other theorists: Marx and Freud were not sanguine when they unveiled the secret places See S. Lukes, Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work (London: Penguin, 1973). See K. E. Fields, “Introduction,” in É. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Fields (New York: Free Press, 1995 [French original, 1912]), xxiii. 13 See n. 14. 14 É. Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, trans. W. D. Halls (New York: Free Press, 1997 [French original, 1893]); see Lukes, Durkheim, 147–72. 11 12

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of the mind. Marx, when he showed ideology for a flimsy justification of control, shook the great chancelleries. The scene of anguished hate and fear which Freud exposed to view was just as alarming at a more intimate level. The first looked to a long-span historical determination of political forms and the second to a short-span determination of the emotions in family life. Between these two, another intermediate span is necessary that Durkheim’s insights were ready to supply: the social determination of culture. It should have become the central critical task of philosophy in this century to integrate these three basic approaches.15

But since Durkheim exempted modern Western culture from the social entanglements of thought and practice that he found in primitive cultures, he authorized cultural anthropology to focus on “exotic” and “primitive” non-Western societies, and not to turn the anthropological gaze upon ourselves. Mary Douglas, more than any other modern anthropologist, explicitly revoked Durkheim’s exemption for modern Western societies from anthropological study. She argued that our thoughts, habits, and categories are also entangled in our social environments, in ways of which we are largely unaware. Douglas described this dimension of culture in various ways—as “implicit knowledge,” “cultural bias,” or “thought-styles”—and regarded it as the task of anthropological investigation to show how modern lives are shot through with practices, commitments, and habits of thought that are shaped by our social environments. In other words, our “forms of social life” and our “forms of moral judgment” are deeply interrelated, each supporting and ratifying the other, without our conscious awareness that this is so. This is the implication of Durkheim’s great discovery, which Mary Douglas has developed in various areas—in economics, risk theory, and even biblical studies. In so doing, she took on the delicate task of critiquing one’s own cultural bias, the social environment of one’s own commitments. This is a high-wire act, which requires empathy and critical distance regarding one’s own social engagements and cognitive situation. But this is a modernist dilemma that no one can escape, even—or especially—the postmodernists among us, who embrace the cultural politics of all knowledge. We are each implicated in our own inquiries—for example, in M. Douglas, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), xx. 15

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the study of the Bible, which is our own heritage. This is a Janus-faced inquiry, for as we study particular cultures, we are simultaneously confronting the social forces that shape our own thought, thereby entering a labyrinthine and mirrored inquiry. The results—as Durkheim and Douglas would agree—will always be provisional, but it is an inquiry well worth the risk. Although Douglas consistently viewed her work as a development of Durkheim’s sociological project, in one important respect she diverged from his basic understanding of the social embeddedness of religious thought. Durkheim, as a good rationalist, viewed religion as a surplus or supplement added to the real world, originating as a projection of social needs and goods. He writes: [U]pon the real world where profane life is lived, [man] superimposes another that, in a sense, exists only in his thought, but one to which he ascribes a higher kind of dignity than he ascribes to the real world of profane life. In two respects, then, this other world is an ideal one.16

The sacred is an ideal world in the sense of its moral perfection and in its ultimate fictiveness. Religion, therefore, is a cognitive and performative supplement to the real world, even as it performs decisive functions in this world. In contrast, Mary Douglas, as a practicing Catholic, viewed the sacred as a supplement to the profane world that is found as well as made. It is part and parcel of the real world, yet—and this is the key point—what is found is always conditioned by one’s implicit knowledge and cultural bias. The sacred, like other aspects of reality, is perceived through the medium of human consciousness and the social forms that condition our consciousness. The difference between Durkheim, a secular Jew, and Douglas, a practicing Catholic, has to do with the etiology of religion, and implicates their own social environments. But irrespective of the origin of religion—which modernism tends to eschew as the province of outdated evolutionary theories or as sheer speculation—there is continuity of anthropological method and of the central insight of the social entanglement of our thoughts and habits.

THE ABOMINABLE PIG Let us consider the implications of anthropological modernism in Mary Douglas’s work on the Bible. In her famous study of the biblical dietary 16

Durkheim, Elementary Forms, 424.

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prohibitions (in Purity and Danger), she makes an essential modernist move in rejecting the older evolutionary model in which irrational magic (including ritual) belongs to the primitive stages of humanity, contrasted with the sacramental theology of modern Western (viz. Protestant) religion, which belongs to a more advanced stage of reason and morality. She confutes this dichotomy by showing that ritual has its reasons too, which are not at all irrational, and that modern religion too has symbolic actions; indeed “it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts.”17 Consider the pig taboo, a famous detail in the dietary laws of Leviticus 11.18 Douglas first shows how various medieval and modern interpretations of this ritual detail are spurious, because they are ad hoc and divorced from the wider realities of the cultural system. She argues that this is neither an irrational superstition (in Protestant theological terms, a “dead work”), nor a moral symbol (the pig as filthy or evil or an allegory of slothfulness), nor an instance of primitive medicine (avoidance of trichinosis).19 Rather than accepting these piecemeal explanations, she takes seriously the details and context of the ritual instruction. The text says: These you shall not eat, apart from those that chew the cud and have (cloven) hooves: .... the pig, for it has hooves which are cloven, but it does not chew the cud—it is unclean for you. (Lev 11:4,7)

These are ordinary, mundane-seeming details, but like a good modernist, Douglas traces the larger implications of the ordinary to unfold the conceptual world that it implies. She argues in good anthropological fashion that the pig taboo is part of a larger cultural system: Defilement is never an isolated event. It cannot occur except in view of a systematic ordering of ideas. Hence any piecemeal interpretation of the pollution rules of another culture is bound to fail. For the only way Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 62. 18 In the following discussion, I synthesize details of several of Douglas’s discussions. She consistently revised her own views and sometimes rejected earlier versions. My comments represent a critical appropriation of her work—and include judicious pruning of her occasional errors, on which see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 719–21. 19 It is unlikely that people in antiquity would have associated this disease with eating inadequately cooked pork; this correlation was only discovered in 1846. Moreover, as Douglas argues, this is not the reason given in Leviticus, and it fails to explain why all other non-ruminants are also prohibited. 17

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In this instance, she argues, “When something is firmly classed as anomalous the outline of the set in which it is not a member is clarified.”21 What is the set that the pig taboo and the allied taboos on camel, rock badger, and rabbit (Lev 11:4–6) clarify? The set in which they are not members is the land animals permitted for Israel’s food—animals which chew the cud and have cloven hooves (viz. cattle, sheep, goats, and the antelope family). The animals explicitly listed as excluded each have one of the two traits, but lack the other, so they mark a red line around the category of permitted cuisine. The reason the pig is singled out, along with the other three prohibited animals, is that these are borderline cases, pointing to the “cloven-hoofed, cud-chewing ungulates [which] are the model of the proper kind of food.”22 Why should these animals constitute a model of proper cuisine? Douglas observes (after Purity and Danger) that the category of land animals permitted for Israel’s food maps very closely onto the category of the land animals permitted for sacrifice to God (with the further qualification that sacrificial animals must be unblemished and domestic), setting up an analogy between God and Israel: permitted for God’s altar :: permitted for Israel’s table As Douglas notes, “a very strong analogy between table and altar stares us in the face.”23 This analogy between table and altar “invests the individual meal with additional meaning.”24 Drawing out the consequences of this analogy, Douglas finds that a number of features of the Israelite conceptual world are implicitly encoded into this food symbolism, including the following hierarchies:25 geography: holy space (altar) profane space (Israelite table) foreign space (foreign table, where all animals are permitted) Douglas, Purity and Danger, 41. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 38. 22 Douglas, Purity and Danger, 54. 23 M. Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” in idem, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), 262. 24 Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” 257. 25 Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” 263–69; see further Milgrom, Leviticus, 721– 26; D. P. Wright, “Unclean and Clean (OT),” ABD 6. 739–41. 20 21

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people: holy people (priests, who officiate at the altar) profane people (all other Israelites) foreign people (outside of system of holy/profane) cosmic domains and their denizens: land, with land animals water, with water animals sky, with sky animals In other words, the prohibition of certain animals calls into play the structure of the created cosmos (land, water, sky, see Genesis 1), the distinctions and relationship between God, Israel, and other humans, and the divisions of holy and profane persons. This latter distinction also implicitly asserts the religious authority of the priests, who—not surprisingly—are the authors of Leviticus 11 and who administer its laws and practices. Distinctions of cosmos, divinity, ethnicity, and religious authority—of knowledge and power—are articulated within this system and are ritually enacted in the daily meal. As Douglas argues, the purity rules infuse into ordinary practices a multivalent system of implicit meanings. From her study of seemingly obscure details—including the food taboos, sexual taboos, and other matters of purity and impurity—comes a richer comprehension of biblical religion and cosmology. She summarizes her analysis of this system as follows: It consists of rules of behaviour, actions and expectations which constitute society itself. The rules which generate and sustain society allow meanings to be realised which otherwise would be undefined and ungraspable.... As in any social system, these rules are specifications which draw analogies between states. The cumulative power of the analogies enable one situation to be matched to another, related by equivalence, negation, hierarchy and inclusion. We discover their interrelatedness because of the repetitive formulas on which they are constructed, the economy and internal consistency of the patterns. The purity rules of the Bible ... set up the great inclusive categories in which the whole universe is hierarchised and structured.”26

The abominable pig in Leviticus is not an irrational superstition, a prescientific prophylactic, or a moral allegory. It is an instance of human social M. Douglas, “Critique and Commentary,” in J. Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 1; Leiden: Brill, 1973), 138–39. 26

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and symbolic behavior—of participating in and constituting the meaning of the world through everyday practices. It involves both the stability of the cultural-religious system and the risk of disruption and disorder. These rules and practices, Douglas observes, “are a single system of analogies, [which] do not converge on any one point but sustain the whole moral and physical universe simultaneously in their systematic interrelatedness.”27 As Erich Auerbach would observe, this is a modernist perspective, a “synthes[i]s gained through full exploitation of an everyday occurrence,” in which individual details are revelatory of the larger reality. As Durkheim would add, it is an exemplary anthropological demonstration of how rituals embed cognitive and moral categories in social life. Through the social practice of purity laws, the real is infused with the ideal. In all of these respects, the instance of the abominable pig shows the richness and explanatory scope of Mary Douglas’s version of anthropological modernism. 28

Douglas, “Critique and Commentary,” 140. For further elaboration of the Priestly food laws in a Douglasian mode, see R. Hendel, “Table and Altar: The Anthropology of Food in the Priestly Torah,” To Break Every Yoke: Essays in Honor of Marvin L. Chaney, eds. R. B. Coote and N. K. Gottwald (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 131–48. 27 28

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SACRIFICIAL LAWS AND THE OTHER LAWS IN LEVITICUS 19 ALFRED MARX FACULTY OF PROTESTANT THEOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF STRASBOURG Not only did Mary Douglas’ writings on purity and impurity spark a new interest in the study of Leviticus which had been neglected for a long time,1 she also contributed directly to this study by insisting, first, on the fact that Leviticus is not just part of the P document, but, whatever its connections with other P material in the Pentateuch might be, a book in its own right, and, secondly, on the fact that Leviticus is not simply an aggregate of different redactional layers but a literary work composed with great care.2 These insights, revolutionary as they were at that time, are now commonly accepted. However, exegetes of Leviticus have not really taken the full measure of another aspect of her approach: the conviction that there is no clear-cut distinction between sacral geography, ritual, and literature. She thus sees the structure of Leviticus as reflecting the threefold division of the tabernacle, the narratives of chapters 8–10 and 24 corresponding to the screens that separate respectively the Holy from the Holy of Holies and the Outer court from the Holy.3 Similarly, in the case of a communion sacrifice, the disposition of the various parts of the sacrificed animal on the altar is thought to reproduce the three zones of Mount Sinai and the three parts of Purity and Danger (London: Routledge and Kegan; 1967). Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: University Press; 1999). On Leviticus as a book, see Rolf Rendtorff, “Is it Possible to Read Leviticus as a Separate Book?,” in Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas (John F.A. Sawyer, ed., Sheffield: Academic Press; 1996, JSOTS 227), 22–35. 3 Leviticus as Literature, 195–251. 1 2

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the tabernacle.4 Mary Douglas thus associates elements which at first sight might seem totally unrelated. The present paper wants to elaborate on that other aspect of her study of Leviticus in attempting to explain the surprising presence of two sacrificial laws in Leviticus 19, a chapter which otherwise is mainly concerned with altogether other issues. This is, of course, not the only instance in which sacrifice is referred to outside Leviticus 1–7; almost every chapter of Leviticus 1–16 mentions sacrifice. In Leviticus 17–27, however, these mentions are less frequent, especially as regards the regulations relating to special kinds of sacrifice. In fact, the only other case where we can find such specific regulation is the case of the tôdāh legislation in Lev 22:29–30. The presence of sacrificial laws in these chapters has generally been explained as an intrusion by a later redactor, if it has not been ignored altogether. Still, as Jacob Milgrom rightly observes, the question remains why these laws have been interpolated at that very place and not in chapters 1–7, where we would have expected them.5 It is generally agreed upon that Leviticus 19 occupies a key position in Leviticus. Indeed it is distinctly set apart. As Mary Douglas pointed out, it is central to the ring composition of Leviticus.6 Clearly, its authors wanted to emphasize the importance of this chapter—which has sometimes been labelled as catechism7—by placing it between, on the one hand, chapters 18 and 20, which are addressed to the “sons of Israel,” and, on the other, chapters 17 and 21–22, which addressed to “Aaron and his sons” in particular. Leviticus 19 is thus situated at the very centre of a concentric structure. This chapter is also set apart by the fact that its addressees are not, as previously, the “sons of Israel” but the “whole congregation of the sons of Israel,” which, it should be pointed out, is the only case in Leviticus where the congregation of Israel is specifically addressed. Moreover, the Leviticus as Literature, 66–86. Leviticus 17–22 (New York: Doubleday; 2000, AB 3A), 1615. 6 Mary Douglas, “The Forbidden Animals in Leviticus,” JSOT 59 (1993), 3–23 (see 10–11). See also Leviticus as Literature, 239. The central place of that chapter is also demonstrated by the observation made by Luciani that ch. 19 is with ch. 25– 26, the only section of Leviticus that contains allusion to nearly all the other parts of the book, see Didier Luciani, Sainteté et pardon (Leuven: Peeters; 2005, BEThL 185), 268. Interestingly, this observation coincides with the observation made by Mary Douglas that ch. 26 matches ch. 19 (Douglas, “Forbidden…,” 10). 7 See especially Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Das dritte Buch Mose: Leviticus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; 1993, ATD 6), 238–242. 4 5

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addressees are urged to “be holy as I am holy.” This expression, which, as is well-known, gave its name to the “Holiness code” (chapters 17–26) and occurs frequently in Leviticus 17–22 (Lev 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:6), is used here for the first time.8 Another observation further reveals the very special position ascribed to Leviticus 19 by its authors. They seem to have been especially eager to write this chapter so as to make it look like the Decalogue.9 First, employing a device widely used to correlate distant texts, they inserted frame text taken from the first part of the Decalogue in order to connect Leviticus 19 to Exodus 20. Specifically, this is done by inversing the sequence of the Decalogue: placed at the end of Leviticus 19, v. 36b reproduces, with only slight modifications, the introduction to the Decalogue in Exod 20:2. Although, Lev 19:3–4a begins the chapter by referring to the first three commandments in Exod 20:2–12. These commandments are given in reverse order, beginning with the commandment on the honour (here: the fear) due to parents (the mother mentioned here first), followed by the commandment about the Sabbath, and culminating with the commandment which forbids the worship of idols and the making of molten gods.10 Secondly, the authors subdivide Leviticus 19 into two “tables” by inserting at the beginning of v. 19 an abridged form of the concluding exhortation found in 19:37, which itself echoes the admonishment of Lev 18:30 to keep the statutes of Yhwh. Finally, they divide these two “tables” into a series of paragraphs, each concluded either by the formula “I am Yhwh your God” (vv. 2, 3, 4, 10 and 25, 31, 34, 36bα) or by its shorter form “I am Yhwh” (vv. 12, 14, 16, 18 and 28, 30, 32, 37). These paragraphs, however, are not given equal treatment. A closer look reveals that although most of them comprise only one to five verses, two exceed that number, vv. 5–10 and vv. The only other occurrences are Lev 11:44, 45 and Num 15:40. Thus John E. Hartley, Leviticus (Dallas: Word Books; 1992, WBC 4) considers Leviticus 19 to be “an exposition of the Decalogue” (311) and Jacob Milgrom, “The Changing Concept of Holiness in the Pentateuchal Codes with Emphasis on Leviticus 19” in Reading Leviticus…, 65–75 speaks of “a new ‘Decalogue’” (73–74). This should not be confused with older attempts to reconstruct within Leviticus 19 one or two Decalogues. See for instance Sigmund Mowinckel, “Zur Geschichte der Dekaloge,” ZAW 55 (1937), 218–235 (see 222–227); Julian Morgenstern, “The Decalogue of the Holiness Code,” HUCA 26 (1955), 1–27; Elias Auerbach, “Das Zehngebot—Allgemeine Gesetzes-Form in der Bibel,” VT 16 (1966), 254–276 (see 266–268). 10 See also Milgrom, Leviticus, 1600–1602. 8 9

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19–25, and thus stand out. These two paragraphs, which are both concluded by the longer formula “I am Yhwh your God,” are placed at the beginning of the two tables as if to introduce the other commandments. They are further set apart by the fact that the regulations they contain are the only ones in Leviticus 19 that are put in the casuistic form: “If you (vv. 5, 9, 23)/ if a man…(v. 20).” Significantly, it is in these very paragraphs that we find, among other regulations, the laws on sacrifice. If we leave aside the frame verses (vv. 2–4 and 36b-37) and the two longer paragraphs, we notice that the other regulations fall neatly into ten paragraphs, corresponding to the ten commandments, four in the first “table,” six, in the second: respectively vv. 11–12, 13–14, 15–16, 17–18 and vv. 26–28, 29–30, 31, 32, 33–34, 35–36bα. Leviticus 19 is thus clearly intended to appear as an extension of the Decalogue, expanding on its three first commandments. All these observations point to a very sophisticated composition.11 The For other descriptions of Leviticus 19, see Jonathan Magonet, “The Structure and Meaning of Leviticus 19,” HAR 7 (1983) 151–167; Didier Luciani, “« Soyez saints, car je suis saint ». Un commentaire de Lévitique 19,” NRTh 114 (1992), 212– 236; Eckart Otto, “Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26 in der Pentateuchredaktion,” in Altes Testament—Forschung und Wirkung: Festschrift für Henning Graf Reventlow (Peter Mommer, Winfried Thiel, eds., Frankfurt a.M.: P. Lang, 1994), 65–80 (see 68–73); Andreas Ruwe, “Heiligkeitsgesetz” und “Priesterschrift” : literaturgeschichtliche und rechtssystematische Untersuchungen zu Leviticus 17,1 – 26,2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; 1999, FAT 26), 187–220. According to Luciani, Leviticus 19 is framed by vv. 1–2a and v. 37 and divided into three parts, vv. 3–18, 19–22, 23–36, the first and the third dealing with relationship to God (vv. 3–4 and vv. 30–31), to goods (vv. 5–12 and vv. 23–29), and to fellows (vv. 13–18 and vv. 32–36). This structure is mainly based on the observation of parallels in vocabulary, syntax and theme. E. Otto, on the other hand, considers Leviticus 19 to be a diptycon, divided into two parts by v. 19aα and framed by vv. 1–2 and vv. 36b-37, both parts of the diptycon being introduced by normative commandments, vv. 3–4 and v. 19aβb, followed, first, by casuistic laws, vv. 5–10 and vv. 20–25, and, second, by a series of prohibitive laws, vv. 11–18 and 26–36a. He calls attention to the fact that vv. 13–14 and vv. 32–33, on the one hand, and vv. 15–18 and vv. 34–36a on the other correspond to each other in reverse order. As for Ruwe, he begins with the observation that Leviticus 19 is punctuated with short exhortations: vv. 2, 19aα (to which he adds the central prohibition of mixes (v. 19aβb), and vv. 36b-37. Verses 3–4 introduce the first diptycon, and vv. 33–36 conclude the second. Each part begins with casuistic laws (vv. 5–10 and vv. 20–25) followed by apodictic laws (vv. 11–18 and vv. 26–32). Common to all these proposals is that they subdivide one (so Otto and Ruwe) or both (Luciani) of the two longer units which introduce both tables, and that they do not take into account the distinct role of the 11

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particularities of the sacrificial laws and the fact that their presence has the effect of adding new laws to the neat Decalogue-like series seem at first sight to confirm the opinion of those who attribute them to later redactors. But the question raised by Milgrom still remains: why have they been inserted at that very place or, to be more precise, why have they been inserted with such care at the beginning of each “table” so as to introduce the two sets of laws of the extended Decalogue? An answer to that question may, incidentally, help us uncover the logic behind the ordering of the various rules.12 The first sacrificial law, vv. 5–8, concerns the zebah šelāmîm, the communion offering. It lays down the time for the eating of the portions of meat allotted to the offerer and his guests. On pain of banishment, these portions must be eaten within two days and the remainder must be burnt. Strangely, this regulation is not a new one: it had already been stated in Lev 7:16–18, 20, in a section on the zebah šelāmîm (Lev 7:11–34), in connection with the neder, the votive offering, and the nedābāh, the freewill offering, whence it seems to have been taken over in an abridged form.13 In this passage, it follows the regulations on the tôdāh (Lev 7:12– 15) which, by the way, have an equivalent in Lev 22:29–30. The only innovation in Lev 19:5–8 as compared to Leviticus 7 is the reason why the trespasser has to be banished, absent in Lev 7:20: “he has profaned, hillel, the holy of Yhwh, qodeš yhwh.” The verb hillel is a distinctive characteristic of Leviticus 17–22, where it appears no less than sixteen times.14 The second regulation, Lev 19:20–22, is about the reparation references to the Decalogue as a frame to Leviticus 19. 12 J. R. Porter, Leviticus (Cambridge: University Press, 1976), 152 cautiously notes: “there is no clear or logical order in the way the commands are set out—or none, at least, that we can discover—but the compiler simply strings together loosely what was available to him.” According to Klaus Grünwaldt, Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26: Ursprüngliche Gestalt, Tradition und Theologie (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1999; BZAW 271), 259, this absence of logic is intentional and aims at expressing the wide variety of life forms (see already A. Noordtzij, Leviticus, Grand Rapids; 1982, 189). 13 Whereas Lev 19:5–8 seems irrelevant to its context, Lev 7:11–34 is part of a larger section on sacrifice, Leviticus 1–7. The probability is thus that Lev 19:5–8 has been taken over from Lev 7:16–18, 20, and not the other way around. The two pericopes are connected intentionally by quoting in inverse order the two sentences “it will not be accepted,” “it has become defiled” (Lev 7:18//19:7). 14 In Leviticus, only Lev 18:21; 19:12, 29; 20:3; 21:6, 9, 12, 15, 23; 22:2, 9, 32

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offering, ’āšām. Unlike the regulations about the zebah šelāmîm, this sacrificial law is dealt with here for the first time. It pertains to the case of sexual intercourse with a betrothed slave-girl.15 Contrary to the common case of adultery (Deut 22:22–27), it states that the offender is not to be sentenced to death. However, in order to obtain forgiveness, he must bring a ram as a reparation offering to Yhwh. This special clause is explicitly motivated by arguing that the girl has not been ransomed nor has she been set free. Still, all these sacrificial regulations seem totally irrelevant to the other laws of Leviticus 19. More specifically, one may ask why the regulations of Leviticus 7:16–18, 20 had been taken over and inserted at the beginning of the first “table.” In addition, the two sacrificial regulations raise several other questions: why do the authors of Leviticus 19, or the supposed redactors, examine these two kinds of sacrifice, and only these? Why do they insist on these regulations in particular? Is it not curious that the regulation on the zebah šelāmîm concerns a matter of a ritual, whereas the one on the ’āšām pertains to a special case? An answer to these questions might bring us closer to a solution to the problem of their presence in Leviticus 19. Mentioning the zebah šelāmîm and the ’āšām together is, indeed, rather surprising: not only are these two kinds of sacrifice never associated elsewhere, they are, in addition, far from being the most important sacrifices, in any case far less important than the whole-offering, ‘olāh, the cereal offering, minhāh, and the so-called purification offering, hattā’t. Moreover, in a discourse addressed to the congregation of the sons of Israel, one would expect the mention of the ‘olāh and the hattā’t, as these two kinds of sacrifices, unlike the zebah šelāmîm and the ’āšām, belong to the regular sacrificial cult and are offered on behalf of the sons of Israel on every new moon and every day of each festival as well as on yôm hakkippûrîm, the Day of atonement, and also in order to atone for sins committed inadvertently by the congregation.16 In addition, the ’āšām is never offered on behalf of a group, but solely for individual transgressions. and, with as its object qodeš yhwh, Lev 19:8; 22:15. See also niphal Lev 21:4, 9. 15 On that case, see Jacob Milgrom, “The Betrothed Slave-girl, Lev 19 20–22,” ZAW 89 (1977), 43–50; Baruch J. Schwartz, “A Literary Study of the Slave-girl Pericope—Leviticus 19:20–22,” in Studies in Bible (Sara Japhet, ed., Jerusalem: Magnes Press; 1986, SH 31), 241–255. 16 The only case where a zebah šelāmîm is regularly offered is the Feast of Weeks, Lev 23:19–20.

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What then do these two kinds of sacrifice have in common in order that they be associated here? It is also surprising to find repeated here, out of ritual context, the very rule which governs the consumption of sacrificial meat. Sequential to the prohibition of idols in v. 4, a general rule forbidding sacrificing to the idols would have seemed more appropriate. All the more so as such a prohibition figures explicitly in the Decalogue (Ex 20:5; see also Lev 26:1 and cf. Lev 17:5, 7). The case considered in relation to the reparation offering is no less astonishing. The natural place of that regulation would have been somewhere in Leviticus 5, where the various circumstances requiring the offering of an ’āšām—trespass against Yhwh’s property or against the property of a fellow Israelite—are listed (Lev 5:14– 26). This case would fit there very well, since the slave-girl is considered to be the property of her fiancé. Also, the circumstances mentioned in Leviticus 5 are the only ones in which, as here, the required animal for the ’āšām is a ram. But the main question remains: why is Leviticus 19 specifically concerned with abuse toward a betrothed slave-girl? In the general context of Leviticus 19, this case seems altogether out of place. One would rather expect a reference to the ritual prescribed for the reinstatement of a healed “leper” (Lev 14:2–32) who, because of his “leprosy,” had been banned from the camp (Lev 13:45–46; Num 5:2). Surely such a case would be of greater concern to the congregation than a raped slave-girl. If we do not want to appeal to such convenient explanations as the alleged primitive mentality, whose logic supposedly differs from our own one, we must endeavour to explain why the authors of Leviticus 19 proceeded the way they did. A first clue might be found in the very nature of the two types of sacrifice. Although they serve different functions, both the communion offering and the reparation offering share the fact that, unlike the wholeoffering and the hattā’t which involve only Yhwh and the offerer, they both include the fellow Israelite. In the case of the communion offering, the meat of the animal is, for its most part, shared between the offerer and his guests (the breast and the right leg are reserved for the priests). As to the reparation offering, it is required, among other transgressions, in the case of trespassing on someone else’s property (Lev 5:20–26). The first offering is meant to promote a positive relationship through communion; the second describes prohibited relationships. The emphasis put on relationship with the fellow Israelite might explain the fact that, in the case of the

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communion offering, the regulation concerns matters of ritual, whereas the reparation offering deals with individual transgressions requiring a sacrifice. Thus, it seems very likely that the mention of these particular sacrifices springs from the fact that they both concern relations with fellow Israelites. An examination of the other rules assembled in the same paragraph might enable us to move a step further. The first table (Lev 19:5–10) begins with the regulation on the communion offering.17 Subsequent rules deal with harvesting and gathering (vv. 9–10). These rules command not to reap the whole field or the whole vineyard, but to leave part of it for the poor and the immigrant (see also Deut 24:19–22). Interestingly, cultic and social regulations are associated in this way in the same paragraph. The connection of these two kinds of regulations could simply be the result of a mere association of ideas on the theme of the remainder: in the case of the zebah šelāmîm the meat which remained after God had received his share, in the other, what is left at the end of the harvest.18 In fact, we find the same kind of association in Leviticus 23 where, after having referred to the offering of the zebah šelāmîm (vv. 19–20) the text produces the same regulation (v. 22) with only slight variations.19 Nevertheless, in that instance, the statement perfectly suits the context, coming, as it does, in relation to the Feast of Weeks at the end of the grain harvest. This, however, is not the case in Leviticus 19. We should thus consider the possibility that the authors mentioned this last rule in order to express in another way an idea already contained in the regulations on sacrifice or, better still that these two series of rules are set in a dialectical relationship. Indeed, common to both the regulation on the communion offering and the rules about harvest is the idea of restraint or limits on conduct: the offerer and his guests must eat the meat of the sacrificed animal within two days; the landowner must give up part of his harvest. Placed in connection with the regulation on sacrifice, this last rule suggests, first, that the relationship is one between people of high and low 17 Calum M. Carmichael, “Laws of Leviticus 19,” HTR 87 (1994), 239–256 relates most of the laws of Lev 19:3–18 to various episodes of the Joseph story, since he considers that the narratives are the source of the laws. 18 According to Milgrom, Leviticus, 1623–1624, vv. 9–10, through their association of both religious and ethical duties, constitute a bridge between vv. 5–8 and vv. 11–18. 19 The omission of the reference to the vineyard results from the fact that in Leviticus 23 this regulation is related to the Feast of Weeks.

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social status, and, secondly, that the offerer has a special obligation to share the meat with the needy. Conversely, the first regulation suggests that the part remaining for the needy is in some way holy, as is the meat of the communion offering (v. 8). The first table thus begins with a paragraph that places limits placed on high status individuals for benefit of those of lower social standing. If we look at the various commandments that complete the first table, we notice that most of them could be subsumed under the heading “restraint imposed on the stronger man in his dealings with his weaker fellow Israelite.” This restraint is generally expressed in the form of a prohibition. Reproducing the list of trespasses in Lev 5:21–22, the first set of prohibitions (vv. 11–12) sets the limits of proper conduct regarding the property of the fellow Israelite. The second set (vv. 13–14) imposes restraint in dealing with day labours—they shall not be exploited nor shall their wage be robbed of or held back—(v. 13) and with handicapped persons (v. 14). The third defines justice (vv. 15–16). It insists on the need for a just judgment, including the necessity to refrain from slander (and probably corruption) in order not to influence the judgment (v. 15–16aα). It also limits the nature of the sentence which the plaintiff may ask for, thus excluding capital punishment (v. 16aβ). The last set of commandments deals with sentiments (vv. 17–18). It exhorts the addressee to refrain from hatred, vengeance, and grudgery and culminates in the well-known requirement “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” (v. 18aβ). Interestingly this is the only case in vv. 11–19 where no limits are placed on the response of the addressee to the commandment. As is the case of the regulation on the communion offering, the regulation about the reparation offering is associated, in the same paragraph, with other, non-sacrificial, rules which function here as a frame.20 The first example is to be found in v. 19aβb. This equivalent of Deut 22:9–11 forbids various types of mixes: the pairing of different kinds of cattle, the mixing of different kinds of seed, the wearing of a garment woven with different kinds of textile.21 It not only serves as an introduction According to Otto, Das Heiligkeitsgesetz, the association of these various regulations is due to their common reference to Deuteronomy 22 (see pp. 69–70). 21 As is the case with vv. 3–18, Carmichael links this law to narratives from Genesis, see Calum M. Carmichael, “Forbidden Mixtures,” VT 32 (1982), 394–415; “Forbidden mixtures in Deuteronomy xxii 9–11 and Leviticus xix 19,” VT 45 (1995), 433–448. He insists that it need not to be read literally, but that it teaches through its reference to the story of Joseph “that involvement in foreign ways can 20

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to the second table but also connects it thematically to chapters 18 and 20, which forbid intercourse between various categories of living beings, between certain human beings, and between humans and animals.22 Coming after the regulation about the reparation offering, the second rule, vv. 23– 25, is related thematically to vv. 9–10, which conclude the first paragraph of the first table. It belongs to a general category of rules introduced by the formula “when you enter the land…” (Lev 14:33–53; 23:9–22; 25:1–22; Num 15:1–16). It stipulates that the fruit must be left on the tree for the first three years, offered to God in the next year, and only eaten during the fifth year after planting. During the first three years, the fruit is said to be uncircumcised.23 The various regulations of that paragraph are thus mainly related to each other through the idea of sexuality, as demonstrated by their vocabulary: they speak about breeding, mixing, sleeping with a slave-girl, circumcision (which is, as is well-known, related to sexuality). Common to them is the demand that these various kinds of relationships be prohibited. Prohibition, which is only implied in the sacrificial regulation, is clearly expressed both in the first and the last rule which frame the sacrificial regulation. Although other interpretations remain possible, the desire to insist on the prohibition may be the reason why vv. 23–25 have been inserted here. Verse 19aβb seems to have the additional function of extending the prohibition of sexual intercourse with a betrothed slave-girl to other relationships; whereas the special function of the sacrificial regulation may be to insist upon the authors’ special interest in relationship with other living beings.

compromise his [=Israels] cultural and ethnic identity” (p. 448; see also p. 438). It is not clear to me why some laws should be taken figuratively and others literally. See also C. Houtman, “Another look at forbidden mixtures,” VT 34 (1984), 226–228; Jacob Milgrom, “Law and narrative and the exegesis of Leviticus xix 19,” VT 46 (1996), 544–548; Jan A. Wagenaar, “You shall not Sow Two Kinds of Seed in Your Field. Leviticus 19,19 and the Formation of the Holiness Code,” ZABR 7 (2001), 318–331. 22 See Wagenaar, “You shall not…,” 327–330. 23 On the relationship between this rule and the preceding one, see Calum Carmichael, “A Strange Sequence of Rules: Leviticus 19.20–26,” in Reading Leviticus, 182–205, and discussion, 206–213. In line with his previous interpretation (see note 17), Carmichael explains the arrangement of these rules by their common link to the story of Joseph and the related story of Abimelech.

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The function of the first paragraph of the second table thus seems to insist on prohibited relations with various beings.24 This very idea can serve as a heading for the first three sets of commandments in the second table. The first set (vv. 26–28) prohibits all kinds of divination implicating the dead (see also Deut 18:10) as well as all contact with the dead through funerary rites (see also Lev 21:5), whose various forms are listed.25 The second set (vv. 29–30) prohibits the prostituting of Israelite women, underlined by the fact that it is associated with the law on the respect of the Sabbaths and the sanctuary (same regulation in Lev 26:2). The third set (v. 31) forbids all relations with the world of spirits through divination (see also Lev 20:6 and Deut 18:11). As in the first table, the second ends with positive commandments designed to promote community: in this particular case, respect of the elderly (vv. 32) and the love of the immigrants, whom shall be loved as oneself (vv. 33–34). The incongruous last set of regulations on weights and measures (vv. 35–36a; see also Deut 25:13–16) is probably due to the eagerness of the authors of Leviticus 19 to correlate the end of the first table and the end of the second. In both cases, the last two sets of regulations are introduced by a commandment on handicaps: one on the deaf and the blind (v. 14), the other on the elderly (v. 32). Both commandments are reinforced by the order to fear God, weyāre’tā 24 According to Magonet, “Structure…,” 164–165, vv. 19a-29 are thematically linked by the question of the relationship to possessions: animals, crops, clothing, slaves, land, body, and offspring. 25 So also Ruwe, Heiligkeitsgesetz, 212–214. Concerning the expression “to eat on the blood “(v. 26a), see also 1 Sam 14:33 and Ezek 33:25, where the eating on the blood is mentioned in conjunction to idolatry and murder. 1 Sam 14:32 gives an indication to the nature of that rite: the blood of the animal is allowed to pour on the ground, probably so as to be offered to the dead. See J.M. Grintz, “Do not Eat on the Blood,” ASTI 8 (1970/71), 78–105. See also Hartley, Leviticus, 319–320; Milgrom, Leviticus, 1685–1686. There is thus no necessity to correct the text. On v. 27 as a funerary rite, see also Saul M. Olyan, “The Biblical Prohibition of the Mourning Rites of Shaving and Laceration: Several Proposals,” in A Wise and Discerning Mind: Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long (S.M. Olyan, Robert C. Culley, eds., Providence: Providence Brown Judaic Studies; 2000, BJS 325), 181–189 ; Mathy Cohen, “La critique biblique tributaire à son insu de la tradition rabbinique,” ZAW 116 (2004), 82–98 (see pp. 92–96). On the ancestor cult, see especially Josef Tropper, Nekromantie. Totenbefragung im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament (Kevelaer, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Vlg.; 1989, AOAT 223), 253–259; Mary Douglas, Jacob’s Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation (Oxford: University Press; 2004), 176– 195.

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me’elohêkā. The next regulations are given in inverted sequence.26 The one about justice in court, at the beginning of the two last sets of laws in the first table (v. 15), is related to the law about justice in trade at the end of the second table (vv. 35–36a), both laws being introduced by the formula lo’ ta‘aśû ‘āwel bammišpat. Conversely, the commandment to love the neighbour as oneself, we’āhabtā…kāmôkā, at the very end of the first table (v. 18) corresponds to the commandment to love the immigrant as oneself, we’āhabtā…kāmôkā, at the beginning of the fifth set of regulations (vv. 33–34). The use of the same formulas in each set underlines the close correlation between the two tables. By proceeding in this way, the authors emphasize three values in particular: kindness to handicapped and elderly, justice in court and trade, and love for all countrymen, be they Israelites or immigrants. This tentative explanation leaves, of course, many questions open. Nevertheless, should it be considered valid, the following conclusions may be drawn. First, the authors of Leviticus 19 promote an ethic founded on two main principles: in the sphere of social interactions, a principle that places limits on all Israelites in their dealings with their fellow countrymen in order that they might refrain from taking advantage of a dominate position; and, regarding relations in the religious sphere, a principle of prohibition that forbids all contact with spiritual beings other than God. This implies, and this is our second conclusion, that, in the opinion of our authors, sacrificial worship and social ethics are not unrelated areas, but are governed by identical principles that express common values. In this, they are fully faithful to the message of the prophets.27 Lastly, sacrificial worship, whatever its specific function, also has a pedagogic function, teaching principles that affect both the religious and the profane behaviour of the Israelites. These principles, which find their pre-eminent expression in sacrificial worship, vitalize social life as a whole. Another conclusion which could be drawn would be a warning to exegetes not to be overly eager to explain all thematic changes as See also Hartley, Leviticus, 308–309. See also Jacob Milgrom, “The Changing Concept of Holiness in the Pentateuchal Codes with Emphasis on Leviticus 19” in Reading Leviticus, 65–75 (see especially 72–74). The author relates these commandments to Isaiah and insists that all commandments enumerated in Leviticus 19 fall under the rubric of holiness (68) and thus prescribe the means by which holiness can be achieved. 26 27

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indications of the existence of additional redactional levels. This draws attention to the limits of redactional criticism. Mary Douglas’ analogical reasoning, which connects sacral architecture and sacral geography with literature and ritual, can thus be extended to other realities. What we have tried to demonstrate, is that the two sacrificial laws in Leviticus 19 are not merely mentioned for their own sake. But, just as the structure of the tabernacle illuminates the structure of Leviticus, these two laws serve also to illuminate the following non-sacrificial laws, and help to find out the logic underlying their ordering.28

28

I would like to thank Jason Dean for reviewing my English text.

MARY DOUGLAS’S HOLINESS/WHOLENESS PARADIGM: ITS POTENTIAL FOR INSIGHT AND ITS LIMITATIONS SAUL M. OLYAN BROWN UNIVERSITY In her influential essay “The Abominations of Leviticus,” published in 1966 in the volume Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas introduced what I have chosen to call the holiness/wholeness paradigm, in which she links the idea of holiness directly with physical wholeness or completeness.1 Though criticized in its details, the paradigm has been profitably elaborated and modified by biblical scholars, and core aspects of it remain influential.2 It is 1 “The Abominations of Leviticus,” in Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966; London: Ark, 1984), 41–57. Though Douglas focuses mostly on physical forms of wholeness, she also includes non-somatic examples in her discussion. On these, see further n. 26. 2 For two important examples of the influence of core aspects of the paradigm, see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 721: “To be sure, her definition of the term ‘Holy as wholeness and completeness’. . .is justified. . .”; G. J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 23-25, 169: “In our Introduction [ ] it was suggested that the notion underlying holiness and cleanness was wholeness and normality.” See also P. J. Budd, “Holiness and cult,” in R. E. Clements, ed., The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 286-90 for synopsis and analysis of reactions to Douglas’s ideas about wholeness and holiness, mainly in relation to the dietary laws. Especially notable in this regard is M. P. Carroll’s critique and reapplication using Levi-Strauss’s Nature/Culture binary (“One More Time: Leviticus Revisited,” Archives européennes de sociologie 99 [1978]: 339-46). See also E. Leach, “Anthropological Approaches to the study of the Bible during the twentieth century,” in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth, ed. E. Leach and D. A. Aycock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 20–21, and J. Duhaime, “Lois alimentaires et pureté corporelle dans le Lévitique.

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my purpose in this paper to explore the paradigm’s potential for insight as well as its limitations, and to suggest some ways in which it might be reconfigured in order to explain better the biblical data concerning physical wholeness. In her exploration of the concept of holiness in “The Abominations of Leviticus,” Douglas noted the biblical emphasis on wholeness and completeness, and linked these directly to the holy. For Douglas, “holiness is exemplified by completeness”; in fact, “the idea of holiness was given an external, physical expression in the wholeness of the body seen as a perfect container.” “To be holy is,” for Douglas, “to be whole.”3 In a later essay, “Deciphering a Meal,” Douglas reiterates this association of holiness with wholeness in a slightly different way: “The sanctity of cognitive boundaries is made known by valuing the integrity of the physical forms.”4 In both “The Abominations of Leviticus” and “Deciphering a Meal,” Douglas understands wholeness as an articulation of holiness: it is an “external, physical expression” of it; it exemplifies it; it makes it known. In short, wholeness is understood as a communicator of holiness. In her more recent work Leviticus as Literature, Douglas reiterates the core ideas of the paradigm: “Only the perfect body is fit to be consecrated, no animal with a blemish may be sacrificed, no priest with a blemished body shall approach the altar….”5 Certainly there is more than a little evidence to support a linkage between the holy and the whole in the biblical text. Nearly all sacrificial animals presented before Yhwh had to be “without (physical) ‘defect’” (kolmûm lō’ yihyeh-bô) or “whole” (tāmîm) according to Lev 22:17–24.6 That most if not all of these sacrifices were sanctified is suggested by a variety of data, including the common label “holy things” or “holy foods” (qodāšîm) used of offerings reserved for the priests and, in some cases, their dependents, and by characterizations such as “the holy foods which the children of Israel have sanctified to Yhwh” (Lev 22:3). Other texts suggest L’approche de Mary Douglas et sa reception par Jacob Milgrom,” Religiologiques 17 (1998): 19-35. On the dietary laws and the holiness/wholeness paradigm, see my discussion ahead, and in n. 15. 3 “Abominations,” 51–52, 53, 54. 4 “Deciphering a Meal,” Daedalus 101 (1972):61–81; 76-77 for the quotation. Here, she emphasizes the value placed on wholeness. 5 Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 46. 6 I shall discuss the few exceptions ahead.

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that offerings not formally classed as qodāšîm were also sanctified. Lev 19:8 (H) states clearly that the well being offering (šĕlāmîm) is holy, and Lev 7:19–21 (P), which restricts the eating of the meat of the well being offering only to clean persons, and threatens those who would violate this restriction with termination of lineage (kārēt), suggests as much.7 The link between holiness and wholeness is also evident in Deut 15:19–23, which commands the sanctification of first-born male sacrificial animals to Yhwh. The exceptions to the rule of sanctification are those male cattle, sheep and goats with a “defect” (mûm). According to this text, such animals are not to be brought to the sanctuary and sacrificed; instead, they are to be treated as non-sacrificial game animals are treated, eaten in settlements by the unclean and clean alike after their blood is removed. The fact that persons who are unclean may eat sacrificial animals with “defects” indicates clearly that they are not understood to be holy, for that which is holy must be guarded from pollution, and the text permits unclean persons to eat defective animals. Thus, according to Deut 15:19–23, first-born male sacrificial animals with a “defect” remain unsanctified because they are not whole. Holiness and somatic wholeness are also related in Lev 21:17–23, which requires priests who offer sacrifices to Yhwh and priests of the high priestly line who approach the curtain of the holy of holies to be “defect”-free (=whole): “But to the curtain he shall not come, nor shall he approach the altar, for he has a “defect” (mûm); he shall not profane (wĕlō’ yĕhallēl) my sanctuaries, for I, Yhwh, sanctify them” (v. 23). That priests are holy according to Leviticus 21 is indicated in v. 7 (“For holy is he [the priest] to his god”) and in v. 8 (“You shall treat him as sacred, for the food of your god he brings near. . .”). As has been pointed out, Douglas, who also spoke of sacrificial animals and priests in her treatments, was not correct to claim that all sacrificial animals, all priests and all worshipers had to be physically whole, without “defect,” to gain access to the sanctuary.8 Lev 22:23 allows the sacrifice of 7 To Lev 7:19-21 one might compare Lev 22:3 (H), which uses very similar wording to speak of the punishment of those priests who have contact with a holy food while unclean. If the well being offering’s meat were not sanctified according to P, there would be no need to regulate the purity status of those who have contact with it (cf. Deut 15:22). 8 E.g., “Abominations,” 51: “Much of Leviticus is taken up with stating the physical perfection that is required of things presented in the temple and of persons approaching it.” For a detailed critique of Douglas on this matter, see, e.g., Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 720–21. Milgrom’s “reception” of Douglas is discussed at

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animals with two specific “defects” (probably limbs of uneven length) as free-will offerings;9 Lev 21:22 permits priests with “defects” to remain in the temple and eat holy and most holy foods;10 Deut 23:2 likely forbids men with genital damage from entering the temple, and 2 Sam 5:8b may bear witness to a proscription of worshipers with “defects,” but no text clearly bans all blemished worshipers, and—interestingly—no text in the P/H tradition even hints at any prohibition of worshipers with “defects.”11 Douglas was also incorrect to suggest—at least as I read her—that sacrifices, priests, worshipers and soldiers are all constructed as holy by biblical sources.12 Certainly priests are hallowed, as are most if not all sacrifices, but according to P, the possession of sanctity distinguishes priests from all other Israelites, including worshipers and soldiers (e.g., Exod 29:33; Num 16:1–17:5).13 Finally, Douglas tends to blur the biblical distinction between a lack of somatic wholeness (i.e., having a “defect” [mûm]), and impurity. This is clear in her classification of the “leper” and the parturient, both polluters, with persons and sacrificial animals that have “defects” (mûmîm). Though the “leper” and parturient are unclean, their pollution does not render them “defective” (=not whole), and therefore, they ought not to have been included in Douglas’s discussion. The same is true of length by Duhaime, “Lois alimentaires.” 9 On the specific “defects” in question (śārûa‘, qālût), see the discussion of Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1878. H, the group responsible for Lev 22:23, appears to rank freewill offerings lower than vows and, by implication, thanksgiving offerings, given that animals with these “defects” are only acceptable as freewill offerings. Compare P, which apparently ranks the thanksgiving offering above the vow and the freewill offering (Lev 7:15-16). Milgrom’s critique of Douglas misses the fact that Lev 22:23 allows this exception regarding defective sacrificial animals: “The altar. . .is served only by whole (unblemished) animals and priests. . .” (Leviticus 1–16, 721). 10 This point is also noted by Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 721. For the holy and most holy foods, offerings reserved for the priests and their dependents, see, besides Lev 21:22, Lev 22:2–7, 10–13 and Num 18:8-19. 11 On Deut 23:2 and its probable reference to entering the sanctuary, and on the adage of 2 Sam 5:8b, see my discussion in Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 107-111. 12 See, e.g., “Abominations,” 51, regarding soldiers: “The army could not win without the blessing and to keep the blessing in the camp they had to be specially holy.” The notion that worshipers are holy is implicit in Douglas’s treatment. 13 On Num 16:1–17:5 as a P text, see Olyan, Rites and Rank, 136 n. 63. On H’s view of the sanctity of Israel (contrast P), see Olyan, ibid., 121–22.

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persons with bodily discharges and priests polluted by corpse contact, both mentioned by Douglas among those who are not whole.14 One might add that unclean animals also have nothing necessarily to do with that which is defective, and clean animals are holy only when designated for sacrifice, if then.15 Even given these weaknesses in Douglas’s formulation, the link she established between holiness and physical wholeness is nonetheless evidenced, though not to the degree and with the consistency that she claimed. The holiness/wholeness paradigm has been elaborated in recent years by a number of biblical scholars in ways that suggest its continued utility. I shall speak of three specific examples of its elaboration, in order of their appearance in the scholarly literature.16 In a 1996 article published in ZAW, I argued that Douglas’s holiness/wholeness paradigm is evidenced in biblical materials even more extensively than she had suggested.17 My focus was the stones of the altar in Exod 20:25 and Deut 27:5–6, as well as the stones of the temple in 1 Kgs 6:7. Exod 20:25 forbids an altar made of ashlar (cut stone), warning that working altar stones with a tool profanes them: “If you wield your tool upon it, you profane it (wattĕhalĕlehā).”18 This statement indicates that according to Exod 20:25, altar stones, like most sacrifices and like priests, are sanctified. If this were not the case, the stones would not be subject to profanation. (Profanation transforms that which is holy into that which is common.) Deut 27:5–6, elaborating Exod 20:25, also forbids the use of a tool (explicitly iron) on the stones; it refers to the uncut stones from which the altar is to be built as “whole stones” (’ăbānîm šĕlēmôt). Thus, the unworked “whole stones” of Deut 27:6 “Abominations,” 51. As is well known, Douglas analyzes the biblical dietary laws in the context of her development of the holiness/wholeness paradigm (“Abominations,” 54-57). It is noteworthy that this particular aspect of her treatment has elicited such a spirited and often positive response from biblical scholars, given its problematic relationship to biblical discourses on wholeness and holiness. 16 Other examples of elaboration or modification could be discussed. See, e.g., the papers of P. Budd and M. P. Carroll cited in n. 2. I chose the three examples I discuss because they illustrate well a number of the ways in which Douglas’s paradigm might be supported through elaboration. My critique of her formulation follows. 17 “Why an Altar of Unfinished Stones? Some Thoughts on Ex 20,25 and Dtn 27,5-6,” ZAW 108 (1996):161–71. 18 Here I translate hereb as “tool” rather than sword, given the context. 14 15

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parallel the uncut holy stones of Exod 20:25. This suggests a connection between the wholeness of the uncut altar stones and their holiness, which is lost according to Exod 20:25 if they are worked with a tool. If I am correct about this connection, then we can compare Deut 15:21. Just as male firstborn sacrificial animals with a “defect” are not sanctified according to Deut 15:21, so altar stones that lose their wholeness lose their holiness. In both instances, that which is whole is understood to be holy, and that which lacks wholeness is treated as common. According to 1 Kgs 6:7, the temple, like the altar of Deut 27:6, was to be constructed from “whole stone” (’eben šĕlēmâ). The verse alludes directly to Deut 27:5–6 by mentioning “whole stone” and noting the absence of iron tools when the temple was built. Yet 1 Kgs 6:7 concerns the building of the temple, not the erection of the altar. It apparently applies the altar law to the construction of the temple, thereby elaborating it. Is the whole stone used to erect the temple holy? Though not stated explicitly, the whole stone may well be assumed to be sanctified by the text, given that the altar stones in the same D tradition appear to be (Deut 27:5–6, elaborating Exod 20:25), and given that other, non-D texts (e.g., P) understand the various implements of the sanctuary complex to be holy (e.g., Exod 30:22–29). A second, recent elaboration of the holiness/wholeness paradigm is Jacob Milgrom’s notion of “blemished time,” introduced in his analysis of the festivals of Leviticus 23.19 Building explicitly upon my treatment of the altar stones, and implicitly on Douglas’s original articulation of the holiness/wholeness paradigm, Milgrom argues for an analogy between sacred items and sacred time: “Just as the altar must be whole, so must sacred time. As human activity with stone desecrates the altar, so does human activity in time: work. Both space and time in their holy dimension must remain in their natural state; they may not be blemished or desecrated by human labor. To be sure, blemished time is an abstraction. It is not visible, as are blemished space and the changed appearance of a blemished priest, sacrificial animal, or altar…”20 Milgrom understands the Sabbath (hallowed time) as metaphorically whole and subject to “blemish” and desecration via human labor just as holy items such as altar stones are subject to a loss of wholeness and sacredness through being worked with a tool. 19 20

Leviticus 23-27 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1978-9. Ibid.

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Susan Niditch’s use of the paradigm to illuminate the proscription of priestly hair cutting and high priestly hair manipulation of any sort in mourning contexts is a third, and very recent, example of elaboration.21 Why must priests eschew shaving rites and high priests the manipulation of intact hair after the death of a close relative? The answer given by the text, as Niditch points out, is priestly holiness.22 Citing Douglas’s point that holiness is related to somatic wholeness, Niditch argues that “the priest needs to maintain bodily boundaries demarcated by intact hair and body.” Thus, she elaborates upon Douglas’s paradigm, arguing that holiness requires wholeness of hair as well as that of body. (Douglas had mentioned the bodies of priests in relation to “defects” [mûmîm], but had said nothing about hair manipulation.) Niditch further develops her elaboration of the holiness/wholeness paradigm in her discussion of restrictions on the high priest. “The high priest is even more holy than the priest, and thus his relation to death and to the manipulation of hair in connection with death is even more circumscribed.” For the high priest, even disheveled hair “interrupt[s] his wholeness and holy status.”23 Whether or not one finds Niditch’s explanation of proscriptions on priestly and high priestly hair manipulation, Milgrom’s notion of “blemished time,” or my treatment of the stones of the altar and temple convincing, they illustrate well the impact of Douglas’s thinking on biblical scholarship as well as the potential utility of Douglas’s holiness/wholeness paradigm for explaining phenomena of the cult. What of the paradigm’s limitations? Douglas argued that wholeness expresses holiness in a physical way, that the valuing of integrity communicates sanctity, that “holiness is exemplified by completeness.” If I understand Douglas correctly, wholeness acquires its significance through its relationship to holiness, as an expression or embodiment of it. Thus, for Douglas, the privileging of wholeness is the result of its relationship to holiness. This view of wholeness strikes me as overly limited in scope, for integrity of form can be shown to be prioritized in the world of the biblical text apart from considerations of holiness. In short, wholeness is desirable “My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 106-107. The prohibitions in question are to be found in Lev 21:5 and 10. 22 Niditch cites Lev 21:6 on the priest’s sanctification (ibid., 106); she could also have cited 21:15 on that of the high priest. 23 Ibid., 107. 21

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even in cases where holiness is not at issue. A prime example of this is the relationship between wholeness and beauty in a number of biblical texts. In each of the following examples, male or female beauty is discussed in a context completely removed from considerations of holiness. According to 2 Sam 14:25, Absalom’s beauty could not be matched in all Israel. He is described as “a handsome man” (’îš yāpeh) and the text goes on to state that “from the bottom of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no ‘defect’ (mûm) in him.” Thus, for the author of this text, Absalom’s wholeness, indicated by his complete lack of physical “defects,” is emblematic of his beauty. The same notion that wholeness is emblematic of beauty is to be found in the Song of Songs. In 4:7, the male lover describes the appearance of his beloved: “You are completely beautiful, my companion,” // “There is no ‘defect’ (mûm) in you.” In 6:9, the female lover, praised as singular, is described as “my perfect one,” tammātî, an adjective treated as a substantive which is derived from the same root (tmm) as tāmîm/tĕmîmâ, “whole,” the antithesis of defective; it is likely a reference to the female lover’s physical appearance.24 Finally, Dan 1:4, listing the attributes of the Judean youths to be recruited to Nebuchadnezzar’s court, includes both beauty of appearance (tôbê mar’eh) and a lack of “defects” (’ên bāhem kol-mūm). In all of these examples, wholeness is closely associated with beauty; in several, it is not only characteristic of the beautiful, it is emblematic of it. Douglas’s claim that “holiness is exemplified by completeness” could also be made about beauty as it is presented in texts such as 2 Sam 14:25 and Song 4:7. That which is whole is not necessarily understood to be beautiful or holy, but wholeness is not infrequently emblematic of both holiness and beauty.25 Given that the holiness/wholeness paradigm as formulated by Douglas does not account for the prioritization of wholeness apart from considerations of holiness, I propose to reformulate it with the focus shifted from holiness to wholeness: Physical wholeness may exemplify beauty or holiness.26 With Song 5:2 also has tammātî used in reference to the female lover. There are countless examples of whole persons, animals or things that are neither holy nor beautiful according to our texts. 26 There are other examples of the valuing of wholeness and completeness apart from considerations of holiness, but these tend to be non-somatic (e.g., Gen 6:9; 17:1, which use tāmîm in a behavioral sense: “innocent,” “having integrity”). Douglas included non-physical examples of wholeness in her original formulation (e.g., “rectitude and straight dealing”), though she associated them incorrectly with 24 25

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this change of focus, the paradigm does a better job explaining the evidence of the text. Douglas’s correct observation that wholeness exemplifies, expresses, makes known is preserved; her overly narrow notion of what wholeness communicates is jettisoned. The exceptions not accounted for by Douglas’s holiness/wholeness paradigm also suggest its limitations as an explanatory tool. As mentioned, the paradigm does not explain exceptional holy persons and animals that are not whole. Though a priest with a “defect” (mûm) may not approach the altar, and a potential high priest with a “defect” may not approach the curtain of the holy of holies, according to Lev 21:22, priests with “defects” retain access to the sanctuary and to holy items such as the holy and most holy foods: “The food of his god, from the most holy foods and from the holy foods, he may eat.” There is no hint in this text that the priest with a “defect” loses his sanctity, or loses access to all things holy. Quite the opposite. Likewise, according to Lev 22:23, sacrificial animals with certain, specific “defects” (likely limbs of uneven length) may be sacrificed to Yhwh as freewill offerings.27 Though some biblical texts that I have discussed suggest that a loss of wholeness results in a loss of holiness (e.g., Exod 20:25; Deut 27:5–6; Deut 15:21), or in loss of access to some holy space or holy items (Lev 21:23), this is not the case in every instance. How then are these exceptions to be explained? Though the priest with a “defect” does not lose his sanctification or his access to holy foods according to H, he does lose his access to the primary priestly activity: offering sacrifice. And though Lev 22:23 permits the offering of sacrificial animals with two particular “defects” as freewill offerings, it does not allow such animals to be presented to fulfill vows (or, by implication, as thanksgiving offerings). In other words, defective priests cannot perform central, elite rites, nor can defective sacrificial animals be presented as higher-ranked offerings holiness, which she tended to distribute too liberally (“Abominations,” 52–53). Are there examples of wholeness exemplifying both beauty and holiness at the same time? Though no explicit examples of this exist to my knowledge, it may be implied by the evident association of defective, first-born sacrificial animals with both nonsanctification and ugliness in Deut 15:19-23. It is clear that according to this text, the whole, first-born sacrificial animal is to be sanctified; what remains unclear is whether it is also considered beautiful. 27 That these are sanctified is likely given the witness of Lev 19:8 (H), which treats the well being offering as holy and subject to profanation, and the witness of Lev 22:21 (H), which classifies the free will offering as a type of well being offering (as does P: Lev 7:11–21).

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according to Leviticus 21 and 22 (H). Though tolerated, these exceptional cases nonetheless point to the inferiority of that which is defective and the desirability of that which is whole. The exceptions, whatever their motivation, reiterate the ideal of wholeness as an attribute of the holy, but the fact that there are exceptions suggests that Douglas’s absolute claims (e.g., “To be holy is to be whole”) limit her paradigm’s utility as an explanatory tool. It is also important to point out that Douglas’s paradigm may be better supported by some biblical sources than by others, as the exceptions I have noted are both present only in H texts. When we look at D and the Book of the Covenant, no exceptions challenge the requirement of wholeness for holiness (Exod 20:25; Deut 27:5–6; 15:21). Though Douglas did not distinguish between biblical sources, it is important that we do so if we are to evaluate the utility of her paradigm with any insight.

THE PROBLEM OF MAGIC AND MONOTHEISM IN THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS RÜDIGER SCHMITT MÜNSTER UNIVERSITY 1. INTRODUCTION I have not known Dame Mary Douglas personally, but I have read and used her works on many occasions, both in the classroom and in my own studies—always with great benefits. Her views about the functions of witchcraft accusations1 were especially inspiring for me during the work on my book on magic in the Old Testament.2 In my contribution to this set of essays, I want to discuss some of the theses about magic and monotheism from her books In the Wilderness, Leviticus as Literature, and Jacob’s Tears, especially the basic assumption that magic and divination were outlawed in the priestly conception of the reformed religion of Israel.3 Many more questions that derive from her basic assumptions could be discussed here, but I try to focus on the topic of magic.4 1 M. Douglas, “Thirty Years after Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic.” M. Douglas (ed.), Witchcraft Confessions & Accusations (London et al.: Tavistock, 1970), XIIIXXXVIII 2 R. Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament (AOAT 313, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2004). 3 In the Wilderness. The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (JSOTS 158, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 29–34; Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 4–5; Jacob’s Tears. The Priestly Work of Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 176–195. 4 The works of Mary Douglas, especially her contributions to the interpretation of the biblical books of Numeri and Leviticus have stimulated already a vivid discourse involving herself and several biblical scholars. The discussion is reflected J.F.A. Sawyer, Reading Leviticus: A conversation with Mary Douglas (JSOT 227; Sheffield:

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The present article is divided in three main parts: In the first part I will deal briefly with the scholarly perception of magic in the Old Testament and how the views of Mary Douglas concerning magic fit into the general tendencies of the scholarly perception of magic. In the second part I will present my view of how priestly and deuteronomistic literatures deal with the complex of magic, divination and communication with the dead. Some concluding remarks on tradition and innovation in post-exilic Yahwistic religion will form the third and last part of the essay

2. THE PROBLEM OF MAGIC IN OLD TESTAMENT SCHOLARSHIP Most Old Testament Scholars - still to this very day - share the opinion that magic in the Old Testament is something that the biblical writers reject. Jacob Milgrom states: The basic premises of pagan religion are (1) that its deities are themselves dependent on and influenced by a metadivine realm, (2) that this realm spawns a multitude of malevolent and benevolent entities, and (3) that if humans can tap into this realm they can acquire the magical power to coerce the gods to do their will … The Priestly theology negates these premises. It posits the existence of one supreme God who contends neither with a higher realm nor with competing peers.5

Old Testament scholarship has not denied that the Old Testament contains elements which can be defined as magic, but these are considered either survivals of Canaanite religion or as late—mostly Assyrian or Babylonian—intrusions into the formerly pure religion of ancient Israel.6 The underlying concepts of magic are more or less based on concepts of religion and magic from the late 19th century, represented by Edward Burnett Tylor, James George Frazer, Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss and many others from this most fertile period of research. The evolutionist conceptions of the Victorian Era saw a Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) and also Vol. 18 of the Journal of Ritual Studies (2004) has been dedicated for the discussion about her interpretations, with contributions both from biblical scholars (among them Lester Grabbe) and anthropologists and – of course – Mary Douglas answers on various points of critique. 5 J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3/1; New York et al.: Doubleday, 1991), 42–43. 6 For discussion of the relevant positions see Schmitt, Magie, 1–66.

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clear path of human progress from savagery, through barbarism to civilisation (in the words of Lewis Henry Morgan)7 and magic, of course, belongs to the first and the most primitive form of human religion, which is characterized by beliefs in the hidden powers of nature or spirits, which primitive humankind tries to use or abuse for its own benefits. In the view of most exegetes and scholars of religious studies, monotheistic religion rejects the mechanistic magic in favour of conceptions of the absolute dependence of human beings on to the one and only God, who cannot be manipulated by magic manipulations. For instance, Gerhard von Rad’s conception of the Yahwistic religion is simply incompatible with magic.8 Furthermore, religion was defined as a collective phenomenon, in which rituals and prayers serve the wealth of the collective, while magic is thought to be an individual practice for the benefit of the individual. In the words of Émile Durkheim: “A magician has clients, but not a church.”9 As a result, he OT as a document of monotheistic religion was read as opposing any form of magical thought and practise. Magical practices in the OT, e.g. in the priestly literature and in the Elijah-Elisha-stories, were classified as survivals from the Canaanite tradition. The last decade saw–following recent developments in cultural anthropology—a slow and slight change in the approach to magic in OT Studies as well as in ancient Near Eastern studies and Egyptology; a change towards a perception of magic and divination as an integral part of religion.10 However, the perception of magic in the tradition of the animistic/ dynamistic paradigm still persists among scholars, as the article about magic in the OT in the recently finished Encyclopaedia of Religion Past and Present shows.11 Mary Douglas’s position concerning magic in the priestly writings in her last book seems to be quite close to Milgrom’s. She writes:

7 L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society: Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilisation (New York: Holt & Co., 1877). 8 G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (4th ed.; München: Kaiser) 1957, vol. I, 47–48. 9 E. Durkheim, Die elementaren Formen des religiösen Lebens (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), 72. 10 See Schmitt, Magie, 29–42. 11 Cf. J. Joosten, “Magie III: Biblisch 1. Altes Testament,” Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th ed.). 667–668.

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This position fits into the perception of magic, divination and other forms of communication with the dead in mainstream Old Testament scholarship. Remarkably, this is exactly the way of arguing that Douglas criticized so much in her earlier writings, in particular in Purity and Danger.14 The position taken up by Douglas in her late books is problematic in many ways. In particular there is no wholesale condemnation of magic in the Old Testament and the treatment of magic, necromancy and other forms of ritual actions involving the dead in the OT is much more diverse. In particular, we have to distinguish between the religious phenomena of ritual magic, necromancy and care for the dead which have quite different socio-religious functions and belong to different strata of religion that may or may not have been touched by the post-exilic reformation of the cult. Another problem is the alleged body-temple equivalent, which is based on Milgrom’s theory of the “priestly picture of Dorian Gray.”15 This problem however, deserves a separate treatment.

2. MAGIC, NECROMANCY AND CARE FOR THE DEAD 2.1 MAGIC The book of Leviticus itself does not deal with magic explicitly, except for Lev 19:26, which belongs to the later H source, which reworks and often radicalizes priestly regulations. The condemnation of magic in other priestly Douglas, Jacob’s Tears, 194. Douglas, Jacobs’s Tears, 193. 14 See M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 25–27. 15 See the studies collected in J. Milgrom, Studies in Cultic Theology and Terminology (SJLA 36, Leiden: Brill 1983). 12 13

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and exilic/early postexilic writings is—of course—not as clear as scholarship in the last century thought it was. The prohibition of magic in passages like Exod 22:17: mĕkaššēpāh lō tĕhayyeh—“You shall not suffer a sorceress to live” and Lev 19:26b, 31 (“You shall not practice magic (nhš) or perform ‘nn-oracles. Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am YHWH your God”—cf. Deut 18:10) does not mean magic—in the sense of ritual performance—in general: kāšap and its synonyms (šōhar; lāhaš; nāhaš; hōber hāber/heber; etc.) similarly like akkadian kašāpu or sahiru, basically means black magic performed by illegitimate ritual specialists and prophets. Besides this meaning kāšap can be applied in a derogate sense to persons like the—in the view of the deuteronomists—evil queen mother Jezebel in 2 Kgs 9:22, or in the prophetic literature as a negative attribute of any kind of foreign religion in a more general sense. The term kāšap and its synonyms were never applied to persons considered legitimate prophets of YHWH and are reserved for abominable practices. But what constitutes the difference between kāšap and legitimate practises? A closer look at the polemics against witchcraft shows that also the magic of the illegitimate prophets is also not thought to be a manipulation of hidden powers or spirits. It appears that these practises are in fact—like in Ezek 13:18–21—magic in the name of YHWH: 17. And you, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people, who prophesy out of their heart and prophesy against them. 18. And say: Thus speaks [the lord] YHWH: Woe to the women who are tying knots on all wrists, and make veils for the heads of persons of every height, to hunt down human lives. Will you hunt down lives among my people, and maintain your own lives? 19. You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, for putting to death persons who should not die and keeping alive persons who should not live, by your lies to my people, who listen to lies. 20. Therefore: Thus says [the lord] YHWH: I am against your knots with which you hunt down lives like birds and I will tear them from your arms, and let the lives go free, that you captured like birds.

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Obviously the “daughters of Israel”—freelance women healers and ritual specialists—have misused the name of YHWH by performing black magic through tying knots and other manipulations. The profanation of the name of YHWH (in verse 19) indicates that these magic deeds were performed in the name of YHWH to mobilize him against a ritual enemy with the goal of killing him or doing him serious harm.16 Likewise the polemics against ritual magic in the book of covenant (Exod 22:17), in Deut 18:9–22 and in Ezek 13:17–21 concern black magic and do not deal with, and therefore cannot be construed as opposing legitimate forms of ritual acts performed by legitimate ritual specialists or prophets. Concerning prophetic healing and other rituals, Mary Douglas makes a distinction between miracles and magic (“When the Lord allows Elijah or Moses to perform miracles the miracles are not magic. In the Bible, magic is the secret lore of magicians, essentially working through spells and ritual formulae performed upon images”17). I feel that this distinction is artificial and not appropriate to ancient Near Eastern religions. An unbiased look at symbolic and therapeutic acts of legitimate prophets shows that their ritual behaviour is magic in its essence, but not considered kāšap. This can be illustrated with some examples: Prophetic therapies, like those performed by Elijah, Elisha and Isaiah in the books of Kings operate with symbolic acts accompanied by invocations of YHWH, like in 2 Kgs 4:18–37. The ritual action performed by Elisha consists of two single acts: First in verse 33 the prayer to YHWH, and second the anticipating act. Similar performances are known from neo-Assyrian exorcistic rituals performed by the ašipu, the professional, authorized exorcist. Therapeutic rituals of the man of god show that therapeutic magic operates with prayer accompanied by a symbolic act which anticipates the expected divine intervention. Most of the prophetic performances include a prayer to YHWH, but also in those cases that do not mention a prayer, like 2 Kgs 4:38–41 and 6:1–7, it is quite evident, that the man of god—as the term ´îš hā´ĕlōhîm ‘man of god’ indicates—has a close relation to YHWH and that YHWH has committed himself to the man of god ensuring the efficacy of his ritual actions. The 16 17

See Schmitt, Magie, 283–287, 360–362. Douglas, In the Wilderness, 33.

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type of charismatic magician (´îš hā´ĕlōhîm) represented by Elijah and Elisha is functionally the equivalent to the Mesopotamian (noncharismatic—but scholarly trained) ašipu. The difference between the religious phenotypes ´îš hā´ĕlōhîm and ašipu lies in their dissimilar sources of legitimacy: The ´îš hā´ĕlōhîm got his legitimacy through his special mangod relationship while the ašipu from his year-long specialist education standing in a tradition centuries-old. What they are actually doing—praying, performing ritual acts, and the like—is basically the same: They anticipate a divine intervention. Neither the Israelite nor the Mesopotamian “magician” can do anything out of his own power, or the power of spells nor can he even try to control a god. In the end the efficacy of ritual depends on god or the gods with no difference in mono-and polytheistic symbol-systems. Nevertheless the term “magic”—as it has been defined by late 19th and early 20th Century scholarship—has become problematic and prejudicial; there is at present no consensus about an adequate term to replace it. Therefore, I decided to continue to use the term “magic” for performative symbolic ritual acts, which are performed to achieve a certain result by divine intervention. Note that the definition given here is not meant to be a universal definition of magic. Derived from the evidence of ancient Israel and its ancient Near Eastern environment this attempt to give a definition of magic may only work for this cultural realm, while other cultural contexts (for instance late antique magical literature, and, of course, modern esoteric and neo-pagan “magic”)18 may require a different one. This however, is also one of the main problems with Douglas’ approach in her late work, as she is on the one hand applying an universal definition of magic following in the footsteps of Tylor and Frazer (or their reception in biblical studies), rather than arguing with more recent and more open definitions of “magic” like Tambiah’s,19 which have already been used successfully by biblical scholars.20 On the other hand Douglas takes the verdicts against “magic” in 18 It seems quite obvious that (post-) modern esoteric and neo-pagan magic practices quite fit well the definitions of Tylor and Frazer, as the protagonists of neo-paganism and “satanism,” like Aleister Crowley, have read their “Golden Bough” well. 19 S. J. Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationlity (The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures 1984, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), 288. Remarkably, in her essay on witchcraft from 1970 (Thirty Years, in particular XXXV-XXXVI) she is well aware of the problems and avoids any kind of universal definition of magic in favour for a context-oriented approach. 20 See F.H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and its Near Eastern Environment,

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the deuteronomic/ deuteronomistic and priestly literature (Deut 18:9–22; Exod 22:17; Lev 19:26b, 31) for granted, without recognizing their ideological character. Also in post-biblical Jewish literature and rabbinic writings magic—in the above defined meaning—is a regular practice of religion: In Jubilees 10:10 the art of magical therapy is taught to Noah by the angels, and Josephus (Ant. VIII 45) reports that YHWH himself taught Solomon exorcism and therapeutic magic. Rabbinic magic can refer to the healings of Elijah and Elisha and is therefore magia licita. Talmud Yerushalmi includes a clear statement that everything that leads to the healing of a person is not considered to be among “the ways of the Amorites” (y. Shab 6, 9).21 The same perception of magic is found in the early Christian writings, were the apostles performing magia licita, while the magic of Barjesus/Elymas and the sons of Skeuas is rendered magia illicita (cf. Acts 13:4ff; 19:11ff.). Magic was accepted practice and an integral part of also late Antique Judaism and Christianity, as shown by the great number of magical texts—both practical and theoretical—from the Cairo Geniza and similar Christian magical texts from Egypt.22 Like Douglas in her consideration of miracle deeds, most scholars have argued that the priestly rituals of atonement in the book of Leviticus cannot be classified as magic, because ultimately it is the Lord YHWH effecting the atonement.23 Of course, it is true that the atonement is made effective by God. But if we take a look at rituals of atonement and ritual cleansing in Israel’s Near Eastern environment, the logic of effecting something by rituals acts is the same: In Mesopotamia rituals do not operate ex opere operato or by manipulating gods or minor spiritual beings, but the addressed god or the gods effect the result the ritual anticipates. Like in Israel, the ritual itself, or the ritual material, is granted by the god(s). The godly gift is in ancient Near Eastern rituals mostly described in mythological passages of (JSOTS 142, Sheffield: Sheffield University Press 1994); A. Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (SHCANE VIII, Leiden et. al.: Brill , 1996). 21 ‫ר' שמואל ר' אבהו בשם ר"י כל שהוא מרפא אין בו משום דרכי האמורי‬ 22 See J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls (Jerusalem/Leiden: Magness: 1985); ibid., Magic Spells and Formulae (Jerusalem: Magness, 1993); L.H. Schiffman and M.D. Swartz, Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1992); M. Meyer, Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 23 For discussion see Schmitt, Magie, 305ff.

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the ritual text. The mythological passages tie the actual ritual to the gods. So the ritual re-enacts deeds of the gods in mythical times. In a comparable way the rituals of the second temple are bound back in a mytho-historical past, when YHWH spoke to Moses and Aaron, the latter being the role model for the priest acting in the ritual. This is especially the case in the priestly account on the “battle of magicians” in Exod 7:8–13, were Aaron transforms a stick into a Tannin-monster, a magical act revealed by YHWH in Exod 4:1–6. Both the ancient Near Eastern and the priestly rituals are theistic, or in the words of the Egyptologist Jan Assmann cosmo-theistic.24 The effectiveness of a kippēr-ritual depends on the conviction that the ritual itself was granted by YHWH for atonement. The role of the priest both for diagnosis and therapy is of central importance in the priestly rituals of elimination. The priest alone proclaims the separation and re-integration of the ritual client and he alone is allowed to perform the rites. In all single steps of the ritual he is the one and only performer, while the ritual client is completely passive and has to obey the orders of the priest. Also in matters of grammar, the priest is always the subject of kpr: “Then the priest shall make atonement ...” (Lev 4:20). Focusing all ritual actions on the priest, the priestly ritual literature grants the priest a monopoly on the diagnostics and the ritual therapies. As the priest is the only legitimate performer of the ritual, all non-institutional or free-lance ritual specialists as well as family patriarchs or the elders of a community are denied legitimacy to perform such rituals.25 Thus, not magic per se is forbidden, but only magic done by people without legitimacy.

2.2 ANCESTOR CULTS, NECROMANCY AND OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEAD Concerning the different forms of communication with the dead we have to make a distinction between necromancy, ancestor cult and other forms of communication with the dead, especially mortuary and mourning rites, which are different phenomena with a different Sitz im Leben. First, some remarks on the ancestor-cult: Mary Douglas has argued that the strict monotheism promoted by the priestly writers abolished ancestor cults, because they were not compatible with the new paradigm, which

24 Cf. J. Assmann, Ägypten. Eine Sinngeschichte, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996), 232–242. 25 See Schmitt, Magie, 320–321.

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excludes the intercession of spiritual powers other than YHWH.26 This concept seems to me problematic, as there is no strong evidence that an ancestor cult in the sense of veneration of the ancestors as divine or quasidivine beings (as Douglas perceives them) ever played a role in Israelite religion or existed at all. However, Rachel’s tĕrāpîm, identified with an’êlōhîm (Gen 31:30 and 32) and the interrogation of Samuel’s ghost also addressed as ’êlōhîm in 1 Samuel 28, provide at least some evidence for belief in the existence of spirits of the dead and their special dignity—but not for a cult of the deceased ancestors. Moreover, for the exilic editors of the patriarchal stories and the deuteronomistic history work those practices may have been accounts of (fictional) practices of old and not of actual practices and beliefs. The accounts on special ritual actions for the deceased kings by lightening fires in 2 Chr 16:14; 21:19 and Jer 34:5 do not speak about offerings for the king; they are a special form of honouring the king and may have had an apotropaic function like similar rites in Mesopotamia.27 Also in Israel’s contemporary ancient Near Eastern environment (Phoenicia, Syria and Mesopotamia) there is no evidence for an ancestor cult, not even for the deceased kings, like in 2nd millenium Ugarit.28 Moreover, if there had been ancestor worship in ancient Israel we should expect verdicts and prohibitions in the biblical texts, especially the law codes, against ancestor worship. But no biblical text explicitly deals negatively with the worship or veneration of ancestors. Thus, I share the opinion of B.B. Schmidt, who states: “…the worship or veneration of the ancestors typically envisioned as underlying the mortuary rituals of Ancient Israel comprises a cherished relic of nineteenth century anthropology.”29 It is true that in Lev 19:27–28 (Holiness-Source) and Deut 14:1 some forms of mourning are prohibited. But the biblical prescription only addresses rites of self-mutilation. These rites suggest identification with the dead and threaten to profane YHWH’s holiness.30 Other mourning and mortuary rites are not the concern of the Holiness Code and are not Douglas, Jacob’s Tears, 174ff. See W. Zwickel, “Über das angebliche Verbrennen von Räucherwerk bei der Bestattung des Königs,” ZAW 101 (1989), 266–277. 28 See R. Schmitt, Art. Herrscherkult, Wissenschaftliches Bibel-Lexikon (http://www.WiBiLex.de). 29 See B.B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead. Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (FAT 11, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1994), 292. 30 See S. Olyan, Biblical Mourning. Ritual and Social Dimensions. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 122–123. 26 27

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forbidden. Moreover, I am not convinced that the status of the dead in post exilic times changed in a way that “[t]he dead can do nothing for the living, nor can the living to the dead.”31 There is some evidence even from sources of the Hellenistic time that the tie between the living and the dead was not cut off: In Sirach 7:33 giving food supplies (but not offerings) to the dead is a holy duty: “Give graciously to the living and do not withhold kindness from the dead.” In Tobit 4:17 a gift of bread on the tomb of the righteous, is mentioned as a duty of the living for the dead. Thus, in the realm of family religion care for the dead is an orthodox practice in the true sense of the word. The most striking example of care for the dead is found in 2 Macc 12:39–45: After the battle against Gorgias, Judas orders the performance of atonement rituals (v 43) for the fallen Jews who had carried amulets of foreign gods with them, to ensure that they may rise again from death in the time of resurrection. The possibility of a post mortem atonement ritual shows clearly that in 2 Maccabees—which is not suspected of promoting heterodox views—solidarity does not end with the death and that there was no dissociation of the living and the dead in post-exilic times. Archaeologically, supplies for the dead like lamps, cosmetic containers, cooking pots, bowls and jugs with food provisions in graves are well attested till the late second temple period.32 Second, I would strongly agree with Mary Douglas that necromantic practices—which were, according to 1 Samuel 28; Deut 18:9–22 and Lev 19:26b the subject of different ritual specialists—were ruled out because interrogating the dead was a threat to strict monotheism, since YHWH is the only source of oracles and revelations.33 However, one should not put too much weight on the problem of necromancy: The biblical accounts of necromancers outside the priestly and deuteronomistic law codes, especially in the deuteronomistic and chronistic history writings (1 Samuel 28; 2 Kgs 21:5; 23:24; 2 Chr 16:12), give the strong impression that necromancy played a certain role at the court, but not more. Like many verdicts in the priestly and deuteronomistic regulations and even more in the later Douglas, Jacob’s Tears, 177. A similar position is – among others – taken up by H. Niehr (“The Changed Status of the Dead in Yehud,” R. Albertz and B. Becking (eds.), Yahwism after the Exile. Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the Persian Era (STAR 5, Assen: Van Gorcum, 2003), 136–155. 32 H.-P. Kuhnen, “Palästina in hellenistischer Zeit,” HdA II/2 (München: C. H. Beck 1990), 77. 33 Cf. Douglas, Jacob’s Tears, 183. 31

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prophetic writings the condemnation of necromancy is just a stereotype for non-Yahwistic practices in general.34 The only account which could point to necromancy as a wide-spread form of divination is Isa 8:19, but this text is late or a later addition and is dependant on the deuteronomistic polemics. Thus, we have no textual data that necromancy was ever an integral part of family religion in pre or post-exilic times and therefore a widespread phenomenon.35

3. POST-EXILIC YAHWISM—AN OLD RELIGION RENEWED? The basic thesis of Mary Douglas’ books on the priestly writings is that these texts promote a renewed religion more abstract, more orderly, and more fully theorized than the religions in the Israelite ancient Near Eastern environment. In the new tabernacle-focussed symbol system with its one and only god, there is no more space for demons, ancestors or magic. The vehicle for the promotion of the new symbol system is in particular the book of Leviticus, which in itself has to be viewed as a projection of the desert tabernacle. 36 I would strongly agree that the final composition of the book of Leviticus gave birth to a text which is not a ritual handbook but something that we may call an “intellectual ritual”37 promoting ideas and teachings about clean and unclean and the ordering of the world around the tabernacle. However, I would disagree that the book of Leviticus is creating something radically new and promotes a new symbol system or cosmology that is free from magic and communication with the dead, unlike all the other religions in Israel’s ancient Near Eastern environment.38 The changes 34 For the stereotyped use of witchcraft and necromancy accusations see Schmitt, Magie, 335–381. 35 K. van der Toorn therefore concludes: “The occurrence of necromancy in early Israel does not imply that the consultation of the dead was an essential part of Israelite Family Religion. (…) there is no unambiguous evidence for necromancy by lay people. The documented cases always involved one or more specialists.” See K. van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel. Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (SHCANE VII, Leiden et. al.: Brill, 1996), 233 36 Cf. Douglas, Leviticus, 230; Jacob’s Tears, 8–9. 37 Cf. B. Lang, “Das tanzende Wort. Intellektuelle Rituale im Frühjudentum, im Christentum und in östlichen Religionen,” B. Lang (ed.), Das tanzende Wort. Intellektuelle Rituale im Kulturvergleich (München: Kaiser, 1984), 15–48. 38 See R. Schmitt, “Die nachexilische Religion Israels: Bekenntnisreligion oder kosmotheistische Religion?,” A Wagner (ed.), Primäre und sekundäre Religion als

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that took place from the late monarchic period to the period of the second temple were a mere evolutionary process. On the one hand, they integrated structures and beliefs of the pre-exilic official religion, family religion and the pre-exilic and exilic reform movements and sorted out certain beliefs and practices on the other.39 The care for the dead as a central part of family religion was addressed in the margins. In particular certain mourning customs like self laceration and other expressive body-rites (e.g. Lev 19:28; Deut 14:1; Jer 16:6; 41,5) were forbidden. Necromancy, which never had a strong affiliation with family religion and has nothing to do with the care for the dead, was forbidden because it challenged the concept of prophecy with YHWH as the one and only source of divination as outlined in Deut 18:9–22. Magic, as ritual practice, was restricted to certain authorized (priestly and prophetic) functionaries, but not ruled out. Thus, the concept of monotheism has no effect on ritual ‘magic’ practices, because their concept was in essence theistic. Though the late works of Mary Douglas sometimes provide illuminating insights, it has already been noticed by other scholars that the relation between her literary and sociological analysis is sometimes uneasy.40 In particular in “Leviticus as Literature” she presents a highly speculative literary hypothesis and simply equates the theology promoted in the texts with socio-religious reality. Douglas’s claim that Israel’s symbol system was fundamentally different from those of its ancient Near Eastern environment seems to be apologetic. This may or may not be owing to her Roman Catholic background or not. Nevertheless, it is a step back beyond the much more differentiated and appropriate notion of “magic” in the Old

Kategorie der Religionsgeschichte des Alten Testaments (BZAW 364, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2006), 147–157 and M. Nissinen, “Elemente sekundärer Religionserfahrung im nachexilischen Juda?. Erwiderung auf R. Schmitt” op. cit., 159–167. 39 Cf. R. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), vol. 2; K. van der Toorn, Family Religion, 373–379. 40 L. Grabbe (in his review article on Mary Douglas’ Leviticus as Literature, in Journal of Ritual Studies 18 [2004], 157–161) therefore states (ibid. 159): “They seem to me mixed up in a way that is methodologically unacceptable at times. By no means do I propose that the sociological analysis (…) should be omitted but rather that it should follow what must be a literary analysis first carried out independently of historical and sociological considerations.”

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Testament presented in Purity and Danger, which is still a helpful resource for the understanding of the priestly symbol system.

DECIPHERING A DEFINITION: THE SYNTAGMATIC STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF RITUAL IN THE HEBREW BIBLE DAVID P. WRIGHT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY The work by Mary Douglas that has been the most influential in my own study of biblical ritual is not her book Purity and Danger and associated essays, as one might imagine given my long interest in biblical purity laws, but rather her little essay “Deciphering a Meal,” published first in Daedalus in 1972 and reprinted in her collection Implicit Meanings in 1975.1 This is not to gainsay the importance of her most famous work for stimulating modern conceptual anthropological analysis of the seemingly irrational requirements of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. But that detailed contribution, while it has implications for the study of broader notions of social and priestly class and sacred space and time, is limited to a rather specific problem. Her essay on meals, in contrast, even though the last half the essay comes back to address some criticisms of her analysis of the biblical dietary laws, sets out a method of ritual analysis that has application far beyond the study of culinary custom and even gets to the heart of the definition of what ritual is.2 1 Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” Daedalus (Winter 1972), 61–81; it appears as chapter 16 in her Implicit Meanings (London: Routledge, 1975), 249–275. Her essay will be cited from Implicit Meanings below. This influenced my article “Spectrum of Priestly Impurity,” Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan (eds.) Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel (JSOTS 125; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991,) 150–181 and influenced the approach to ritual in my book Ritual in Narrative: The Dynamics of Feasting, Mourning, and Retaliation Rites in the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2001). 2 Douglas, Implicit Meanings, 249–261.

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While I call her study an example of ritual analysis, Douglas does not actually portray it as such. It is a method for examining the entire range of related activities within a specific cultural context or society, including activities that are not what we would call ritual. Indeed, in her focus on the phenomenon of meals, the majority of cases that she considers are in fact not ritual according to common definitions. And the features of meals that she uses for her analysis are not inherently indicative of ritual. It is no wonder then that, while she does refer to meals that are ritual events, she uses the term “ritual” only in a passing fashion.3 But it precisely this broad scope that makes her method ultimately pertinent to ritual analysis. It allows one to understand a given performance or custom which may be considered a case of ritual in the broad context of social practice and to identify more clearly the strategies used that constitute a ritual performance. The approach examines the context of all related action to elucidate any particular performance within a set of phenomenologically related activities. Douglas specifically conducts a syntagmatic analysis of meals of her London middle class background. She thus acts as both ethnographer and native informant. Her study has two aspects. The first, more rigorous and complex but less suitable for presentation in a brief essay, is the creation of a framework of analytic categories. She breaks down each event that involves ingestion into its basic elements so that it can be compared with other such events. She classifies meal units from largest to smallest (daily menu, meal, course, helping, mouthful) and identifies the specific food types that make up a meal (antipasti, meat dishes, grilled fish, melon, pudding, and so forth). This detailed classification allows her to identify patterns in the grouping of meal and food elements throughout the system. One pattern, which becomes important for her general analysis, is the presence of one main and two subordinate food items. In more elaborate meals, this pattern appears multifold, whereas a basic meal may consist of one instance of the pattern. She only samples the detailed classification of meals, recognizing that, though her analysis “advances considerably the analysis of our family eating patterns,” it also “shows how long and tedious the exhaustive analysis would be, even to read. It would be more taxing to observe and record.”4 3 4

See, for example, ibid., 254. Ibid., 253–254.

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To avoid ennui, she moves to a more general mode of analysis, and this is where her approach becomes particularly helpful for scholars of biblical ritual, especially since the Bible provides hardly enough evidence with which to ply her more exhaustive approach. We have the data that the biblical writers have chosen to record. Making sense of this often requires the nudge of creative insight. Among her chief general observations is that to understand any particular instance of a meal, one must understand the entire scope of related phenomena. She couches this observation in a criticism of the structural approach of Levi-Strauss. She says that by focusing merely on binary pairs, Strauss “affords no technique for assessing the relative value of the binary pairs that emerge in a local set of expressions.”5 She goes on to say: For analyzing the food categories used in a particular family the analysis must start with why those particular categories and not others are employed. We will discover the social boundaries which the food meanings encode by an approach which values the binary pairs according to their position in a series. Between breakfast and the last nightcap, the food of the day comes in an ordered pattern. Between Monday and Sunday, the food of the week is patterned again. Then there is the sequence of holidays, birthdays, and weddings.6

From this she observes: In other words, the binary or other contrasts must be seen in their syntagmatic relations. The chain which links them together gives each element some of its meaning.7

The key element for me here is not so much what she says about structural or sociological analysis, but that the analysis of a particular performance must occur in connection with the full array of similar phenomena. As she goes on to examine meals themselves, she notes that patterns in simple meals, a breakfast for example, may be replicated and multiplied in more complex meals, such as a Sunday afternoon or holiday meal. This is the pattern that I mentioned earlier, the presence of one primary and two subsidiary food items. Of the repeated patterns, she says: Ibid., 250 (my italics). Ibid., 250–251 7 Ibid., 251. 5 6

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES The smallest, meanest meal metonymically8 figures the structure of the grandest, and each unit of the grand meal figures again the whole meal—or the meanest meal. The perspective created by these repetitive analogies invests the individual meal with additional meaning.9

Part of her concern here is the phenomenology of meals, to explain why some things that purport to be meals are not in fact meals. She gives the example of soup and pudding together. One might fill up on these items— i.e., obtain some practical nutritional benefit—but it is not a “meal” by social definition or expectation or by the patterning exposed by syntagmatic analysis. This observation actually relates to another question in ritual analysis, that of infelicitous ritual, as explored by Ronald Grimes, and which I will discuss later on. Douglas’s syntagmatic analysis, which looks for patterns of structural repetition, may help clarify why some ritual acts do not work well. What Douglas says about repeated structure may be construed in a more general sense, as a need to search for intercontextual meaning between the grandest and meanest examples of phenomena of a particular type in whatever way the evidence allows or in connection with whatever specific methodology an analyst may use. When viewed broadly in this way, Douglas’s method of analysis ties into the definition of and approach to ritual proposed by Catherine Bell. For this recent theorist, there is no hard and fast demarcation between ritual and non-ritual. Rather, ritual acts are related to their non-ritual congeners and feature strategies that mark them as ritual. Because of this relationship between ritual and non-ritual acts, Bell prefers to speak of ritualization rather than ritual. She defines this as: a way of acting that is designed and orchestrated to distinguish and privilege what is being done in comparison to other, usually more quotidian, activities. As such, ritualization is a matter of various culturally specific strategies for setting some activities off from others, for creating and privileging a qualitative distinction between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane,’ and for ascribing such distinctions to realities thought to transcend the powers of human actors.10 Or synecdochically. Douglas, Implicit Meanings, 257. 10 Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 74. For continued discussion, see Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York: Oxford, 1997). 8 9

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This definition, like Douglas’s syntagmatic approach, places side-byside performances belonging to the same general phenomenology (e.g., meals) and implies that to understand the one it is necessary to understand the other and even a range of similar activities in a specific cultural context or society studied. Bell herself refers to meals to exemplify her definition of ritualization. She apparently is not thinking of Douglas’s essay, to tell from the lack of reference to it in her notes. But she nonetheless like Douglas places ritual and non-ritual versions of the same phenomenon in dialogue with each other: ...distinctions between eating a regular meal and participating in the Christian eucharistic meal are redundantly drawn in every aspect of the ritualized meal, from the type of larger family gathering around the table to the distinctive periodicity of the meal and the insufficiency of the food for physical nourishment. It is important to note that the features of formality, fixity, and repetition are not intrinsic to this ritualization or to ritual in general. Theoretically, ritualization of the meal could employ a different set of strategies to differentiate it from conventional eating, such as holding the meal only once in a person’s lifetime or with too much food for normal nourishment. The choice of strategies would depend in part on which ones could most effectively render the meal symbolically dominant to its conventional counterparts. The choice would also depend on the particular ‘work’ the ritualized acts aimed to accomplish in a situation. Given this analysis, ritualization could involve the exact repetition of a centuries-old tradition or deliberately radical innovation and improvisation, as in certain forms of liturgical experimentation or performance art.11

Though they have different theoretical motivations and have different analytic purposes, Bell’s and Douglas’s approaches thus go hand in hand in pointing to the necessity of viewing ritual as part of a larger context of similar practice including non-ritual practice. The new definition of ritualization as found in Bell’s work expands what might be included under the umbrella of ritual, since there are various strategies of ritualization and different degrees to which these are manifested. In terms of meals in the context of the Bible, when we look for ritual meals, we not only have to Ibid., 90–91. Bell does not cite Douglas’s essay at this point in her study (see pp. 151–152). 11

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look at sacrifice, where portions burned on the altar are Yahweh’s food and where priests and lay offerers eat portions of the sacrifice.12 We must look at other and, yes, secular meals for features of ritualization. Let us examine one such meal scene in biblical narrative that one may not think to consider when examining biblical sacrifice: the feast that Joseph holds with his brothers upon their second return to Egypt, when they bring their brother Benjamin, described in Genesis 43. When the brothers arrive and Joseph sees Benjamin, he immediately plans a feast and orders his steward to bring the men into the house and slaughter an animal (v. 16). This command may be seen as the initial ritualized feature of the feast. It is a performative speech act that marks the inauguration of the proceedings.13 It is further definable as ritual action in its connection with the whole of the feast that follows and in setting out the how the brothers are to first relate to the context of the feast. Following Joseph’s command, the steward takes the brothers to Joseph’s house (vv. 17, 24), and Simeon, who stayed as surety in Egypt, is brought to join them (v. 23). This, too, is a ritualized act since it puts the brothers in the physical space where the feast will take place.14 It is comparable to inviting guests through the front door into one’s home for a dinner party. Bell’s analysis helps us understand how this operates as ritual. For her, ritual does not simply symbolize or reflect social relationships, but is a means of creating them. In fact, she resists the dichotomy that an analysis of ritual as symbol creates. A dualism where meaning exists separately from the performance is theoretically problematic. For her, therefore, ritual’s meaning lies primarily in what it does, i.e., establishing power relationships between participants. In Joseph’s feast, the introduction of the brothers into the house is the beginning of formulating a new relationship with them. 12 For a recent basic theoretical consideration of sacrifice, see D. P. Wright, “The Study of Ritual in the Hebrew Bible,” Frederick E. Greenpahn (ed.) The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship (Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century; New York: New York University Press, 2008), 120–138. 13 See J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words (2d ed.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975[1st ed. 1962]); John R. Searle, “What Is A Speech Act?,” Max Black (ed.) Philosophy in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965), 221– 239. 14 For space in ritual, see, for example, Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Pres, 1987).

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Preparations continue with the hospitality custom of allowing the invited guests to wash their feet (cf. 18:1–15; 19:1–14; 24:31–54). Though this has a practical purpose and is not religious in nature, it is still a ritualized act in that it is a benefit bestowed by a host on his guests and constructs a relationship between the parties. It is the context of deployed relationships that helps define this as ritual, as opposed, for example, to a non-ritual case of cleaning like the everyday brushing of one’s teeth. Brushing the teeth would be a ritualized act if a host were to provide a dinner-party guest with a toothbrush to be used in connection with the event. After the brothers wash, and Joseph arrives, they present to him the gifts that they brought and they prostrate themselves (v. 26). Not only does obeisance ritualize the gift giving, gift giving itself is a ritualized act. What they expect to get from Joseph is hardly equivalent to the gift, which is described as “some balm and some honey, gum, ladanum, pistachio nuts, and almonds” (v. 11; NJPS). The gift is a sign of the brothers’ submission to Joseph. It conveys something about their intent in this negotiation. It is the thought that counts here. The feast overall entails ritual infelicity. This is where something in the performance is not quite right or proceeds amiss.15 In the case before us, one element of infelicity is the cloud of deceit under which Joseph operates. The brothers do not know with whom they are dealing. Of course, from Joseph’s point of view, things do proceed according to plan. Another type of infelicity occurs in the gift-giving scene. One expects Joseph to acknowledge receipt of the gift. But he pays no attention to his brothers’ gifts, instead questioning them about to family issues. He first asks after his father. The brothers say that he is fine and bow again. It is as if they are waiting for him to recognize the gift and have to make the gesture of presentation a second time. Convention dictates a certain development in the interaction between the two parties, but Joseph goes off script. It is not that ritual cannot deviate from cultural norm or prescription. To view ritual as rigid and necessarily unchanging is to disregard the fact that ritual does change and evolve. It is precisely in designed or ad hoc variations that ritual is able to chart personal relationships ways different from what currently 15 See Ronald Grimes, “Infelicitous Performances and Ritual Criticism,” in his book Ritual Criticism: Case Studies in Its Practice, Essays on Its Theory (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990), 191–209. See Wright, Ritual in Narrative, 108–118 and passim.

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exist. In our story, Joseph can be viewed as deviating from custom in order to achieve his particular social goal. Next Joseph recognizes Benjamin (43:27–28) and cites a short blessing over him: “May God show you favor, my son” (‫ ;אלהים יחנך בני‬43:29b)— again a ritualized act. It may be that the lack of acknowledging the gifts is the fault of Joseph’s emotions rather than a strategy to play with his brothers, because Joseph is immediately overcome and runs out of the room. In terms of literary technique, the story uses ritual infelicity to create a climax in the story. But the feast eventually continues. Joseph returns when he is composed and declares: “Set out the meal!” (‫ ;שימו לחם‬43:31). This command complements the initial declaration that begins the larger feast performance (in v. 16) and signals a new stage in the feast. The seating of the feast reflects national and familial relationships. “Egyptian” Joseph must sit separate from the Hebrews, since mixing is an abomination (‫ ;כי תועבה הוא למצרים‬v. 32). As for the brothers, Joseph arranges them in their birth order (v. 33).16 This is a surprise to the brothers—how could the Egyptian official know this detail about their family? Ritual here is used to create mystery and fear. As a final mapping of relationships, he gives Benjamin a greater portion of food. This brother is the youngest, and his place at the table reflects this, but he is honored with the greatest portion.17 The feast ends well, as indicated by the statement “and they (the brothers) drank and got drunk with him” (‫ ;וישתו וישכרו עמו‬v. 34). Drinking to excess is the type of behavior that marks a ritual event as opposed to eating for the sake of nourishment. The ritual succeeded overall in doing socially what it intended, at least for Joseph the host and for the narrator. The relationship of the brothers to him was defined and in particular the relationship of Benjamin to Joseph and the rest of his brothers. If we had time and space, we could study the whole range of feast passages in the Hebrew Bible and engage in a comparative and syntagmatic analysis, as Douglas does. We could use this analysis to throw light on form On the importance of seating arrangements in ritual, see Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford, 1989), 75–84, 131–141. 17 On how portions (amount or quality) are indicative of social rank, see Lincoln, Discourse, 81–84. Note also the passages on priestly prebends and divine portions (e.g., Leviticus 1–7) and in Elkanah’s and Hannah’s sacrifice (1 Sam 1:5). See also Nancy Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992), 7. 16

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and meaning of the meal system in biblical Israel generally. We could also use this approach to elucidate particular instances of feasting anywhere in the continuum of examples. As noted earlier, this type of analysis would be helpful for the study of sacrifice, one category of biblical feasting. Certain common phenomenological features are visible between Joseph’s feast and sacrifice. These include ablutions preparatory for feasting; a specified space for feasting, in particular the house of the overlord; giving a gift to the overlord; a blessing from the overlord (through intermediaries); space assignments for eating within the larger ritual space or house, including where the deity, priests, and lay people are; portions served or due certain people; and enjoying oneself even to satiety. A study of secular feasts in connection with sacrifice also shows up ritual motifs that are not immediately apparent in biblical sacrifice, at least in Pentateuchal prescriptions, and points to things we might expect to find in sacrifice. In the Joseph story, for example, the brothers engage in obeisance. We could examine other texts, such as the Psalms, for evidence of this act in connection with sacrifice. Moreover, the actual feasting by humans in Pentateuchal prescriptions is almost an incidental feature of sacrifice. But Joseph’s feast makes us think that this is much more important than the prescriptions of Leviticus, for example, indicate. It makes the prescriptions in Leviticus look more like instructions in a cookbook for food preparation of the meal on Thanksgiving. They tell us how to prepare the turkey and other items and perhaps even how to present them on the plate and table, but they say little about how the occasion is celebrated by participants and how the different participants interact, specifically what we would like to know about if we are interested in true sociological analysis. Other feasts in the Bible may open the door to intuiting the human dynamics of sacrifice. Douglas’s approach can be applied to ritual phenomena distinct from meals. These include things like gift-giving, bargaining, beseeching, assembly, protest, naming and designation, cursing and blessing, promises and oaths, birth, coming of age, marriage, funeral and mourning activities, healing, memorial making, courting, and love-making, to sample a wide range of phenomena. In each case, all related activities—ritualized and nonritualized, religious and secular—must be studied together to elucidate the counterparts in the spectrum and to generate analytic questions.

IMAGINING EZEKIEL SILVIO SERGIO SCATOLINI APÓSTOLO LEUVEN, BELGIUM For recent studies, “genres constitute a form of communication, a system of shared meanings between author and reader.”1 Meanings can be shared if and when there are channels and codes that make such a sharing possible. Without a channel and a code bridging the gap between the sender and the receiver, there can be no communication. Literary genres belong to the encoded information that a text offers to its readers to facilitate their reading. This explains the importance attributed to the study of literary genres in the field of biblical exegesis. The aim of this contribution is to highlight some of the clues encoded in the biblical book of Ezekiel and aimed at guiding its audience to produce warranted readings. The following propositions encapsulate the four specific indicators to which I shall turn my attention. 1) Ezekiel constitutes a written compilation or collection of prophetic visionary experiences and oracles strung together within an autobiographical framework. 2) The visionary elements in Ezek 1:1–3:14, 3:23–24, 8:1–11:25, 37:1– 14 and 40:1–48:35 (and some of the sign acts, e.g. Ezek 4:4–14) highlight the fantastic dimension of the book. 3) Ezekiel is a work of religious literature constituting an example of Hebrew biblical as well as of biblical Hebrew literature.2 Margaret S. Odell, “Genre and Persona in Ezekiel 24:15–24,” in Margaret S. Odell & John T. Strong (eds), The Book of Ezekiel. Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2000) 196. 2 Whenever we speak of Hebrew biblical we refer to the Hebrew canon of the Jewish Scriptures. Whenever we speak of biblical Hebrew we refer to the language as opposed, for instance, to Rabbinic Hebrew. 1

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES 4) All in all, the determining criterion for reading Ezekiel is that it belongs primarily to the order of the fictional (symbolical, metaphorical), prophetic use of language rather than the historical.

The narration is told not in order to convey the literal rendition of things that happened, as they happened, but in order to tell, persuade, convince, teach, challenge and, last but not least, rebut opinions, create meaning and convey an all-round religious message. Ezekiel is more of an imaginative rendition and re-creation of reality in terms of a religious (say, ideological) worldview than a literary photograph of the events mentioned during the narration. The “I-You” style of the book makes Ezekiel involve its readers in an active way. The readers cannot avoid being dragged into the ideological discussion being staged inside/by the book. It is to this autobiographical dynamic that I shall now direct my attention.

1.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DIMENSION

The first clue that the book gives us is contained in its introductory verses and sustained throughout. The continual “I-You” communication between God and the prophet, as well as between the prophet and his audience, gives the book a clear autobiographical character (which, nonetheless—as we shall see later— does not make it into an autobiography).3 Zimmerli did not fail to note that in its overall formation the book distinguishes itself from other prophetic books in that “it is throughout composed in the I-style. (…) This stylizing (…) gives to the book of Ezekiel the character of a continuum first person account,” cf. Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1. A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 24. Block speaks of an “autobiographical perspective,” cf. Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel. Chapters 1–24 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997) 27. Blenkinsopp describes it as “basically an autobiographical narrative,” cf. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1988) 6. Lust has recently also drawn attention to the autobiographical character of Ezekiel, cf. Johan Lust, “‘Ik, Tiberius Claudius’ en ‘Ik, Ezechiël’,” in Schrift 201 (June 2002) 87–89. The book of Ezekiel begins in a clearly autobiographical mode (cf. Ezek 1:1, reinforced later by 8:1, 9:8 and 12:11) and continues that way up to the end. Only in Ezek 1:3 does the autobiographical perspective become biographical when the text switches from the first person singular to the third singular (betraying redactional work). All in all, the language of the book is deeply autobiographical since it presents the readers with a narration that is told from the point of view of the narrator-actant and describes the prophet’s inner world and actions as well as the occasional reactions of his audience. 3

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The inaugural verses of Ezekiel identify the (imaginary) author, the narrator, and the protagonist. This strategy is usually referred to as pacte autobiographique since it indicates that the book is a piece of autobiographical writing.4 One could thus compare the data regarding Ezekiel to what is said about Jeremiah5 and conclude that Ezekiel constitutes a prophetic autobiography. I prefer, however, to say that it is written in an autobiographical mode or within an autobiographical framework because Ezekiel is not exactly the same as modern autobiographies, which might lead to misconceptions and unwarranted expectations. The autobiographical mode of the book crystallises in the passage in which the prophet is told to eat the scroll (cf. Ezek 3:1)6 and its inner rationale is revealed in Ezek 24:24 (“Ezekiel shall be a sign to you; you shall do just as he has done.”).7 A first reading indicates that eating the message signifies its incarnation in the persona of the prophet. A deeper reading reveals that what actually takes place is an entextualization thereof: the divine message, the (imaginary) author, the narrator and the protagonist are all equally semiotic realities. They all exist in the symbolic realm of the text being activated by its audience. This is why Ezekiel is autobiographical, but not an autobiography. “Autobiography as such,” suggests Odell, “did not exist in the ancient world.”8 That is why “the term ‘autobiography’ is inadequate as a genre description not only for Ezekiel, but also for other contemporary first person accounts.”9 Ezekiel functions communicatively by using autobiographical strategies without being an autobiography. In a way, it is an example of biblical pseudepigrapha (in the sense given to this term by Davies10), rather than of hagiography. The character is an excuse: although he apparently occupies centre stage, it is God’s Message that matters. 4 Cf. Ulla Musarra-Schroeder, “Vormen van ‘autobiografisch schrijven’,” in Els Jongeneel (ed.), Over de autobiografie (Utrecht: HES, 1989) 42. 5 Cf. Alexander Rofé, The Prophetical Stories. The Narratives about the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Their Literary Types and History (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1988) 122. 6 Intertextually read, this passage (“it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness,” Ezek 3:3) would also indicate that Ezekiel’s experience of the message and mission bestowed on him is somehow “sweeter” than Jeremiah’s. 7 Cf. Margaret S. Odell, “Genre and Persona,” 206–207. 8 Idem, 207. 9 Idem, 208. 10 Philip R. Davies (ed.), First Person. Essays in Biblical Autobiography (London, UK – New York, NY: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 11–14.

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However, given that God is not telling the story in person, it is the book— or, better still, the narration—that really matters. The canonisation of the book as Holy Writ further emphasises and consecrates this dynamic by stamping on it the seal of “God’s Word.” In fact, even God is a character within the space of the book. For it is not God whose voice the readers hear, but the book’s “God” (God according to Ezekiel). Because of all these reasons, it is important that we take stock of some of the issues and questions pertaining to autobiographical writings.

1.1.

TYPES OF BIOGRAPHICAL LITERATURE

Autobiographical strategies are among the different resources used in the literature that contains biographical details or components, the best-known ones being: biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, confessions and diaries. They all have in common a biographical mode, that is, each of them describes somebody’s life, be it partially or in its entirety, from a particular perspective and according to recognisable patterns.11 Yet the difference between memoirs, biographies and autobiographies is not irrelevant, since it sends a message to the readers as to how they must decode the information provided by the work. Biographies (sensu stricto) are writings about a period or the whole of somebody’s life written from the point of view of somebody else. Even in those cases in which this “somebody else” is the same person about whom the book is written, the language of a biography (i.e. third person) makes it clear to the readers that the author has opted to dissociate the functions of author, and of narrator-protagonist or internal focaliser (in Dutch, “interne focalisator”)12, rather than to cast the narration in an I-object form (author = narrator = protagonist).13 A biography can be the result of a scientific historiographic study and/or a literary genre. When one refers to a piece of writing whose formal object is the reflection of somebody’s life in a factual way, then one speaks 11 One must visualize here the distinction between the biographical writing mode and biographies as such. 12 Cf. Irene De Jong, Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1987) 41ff.; Dimitri Vanlessen, Een narratologische analyse van Kipphardts März [thesis] (Leuven: K.U.Leuven, 2004) e.g. 87. 13 This would result in a text that is explicitly a biography; while it implicitly is an autobiography. Cf. Sandro Briosi, “Over het literaire karakter van de autobiografie,” in Els Jongeneel (ed.), Over de autobiografie, 60.

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of scientific biography (“de wetenschappelijke biografie”). “A biography is a narrative account of the stages of a person’s life, an account which aspires to authenticity and historical accuracy. It records the actions of a particular individual and his experiences in his struggle to achieve his goals and pursue his principles.”14 This is a narration of the res gestae.15 There are other cases, however, in which a biographical narration is offered not to present mere history to its readers but rather a story (in the usual sense of the word, i.e. not as in opposition to subject); one speaks then of romanticised biography (“geromantiseerde biografie”).16 Whenever a biography is written in the “I”-form, one speaks of autobiography. It is the most explicit historical-literary way whereby the author can come to explicit self-knowledge by means of narration.17 The personal dimension (the “I”-perspective) of the narration is central to autobiographies: the factual is subsumed within the meaningful. Meaning rather than the naked facts is what is important.18 Even the historical side of autobiographies must surrender to the rhythm of storytelling. For history can be told only by means of stories.19 Facts are of themselves mute and must therefore be given a voice. Events must be strung together in causal relationships, which is an ideological narrative enterprise of the imagination. The readers of autobiographical writings must thus struggle against the temptation to identify in a factual way the author whose name is on the cover or the title or the opening verse with the narrator (as though: literary A = historical A). “De gelijkschakeling van auteur en verteller betreft dus alleen hun namen. Het is een illusie die ontstaan is uit een ‘autobiografische overeenkomst’ die niet kan bestaan zonder tegelijkertijd 14 Alexander Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, 109. See also B. Croce, Teoria e storia della storiografia (Bari: Laterza e Figli, 1948). 15 Cf. Karl Weintraub, “Autobiografie en fictie. De ontwikkeling van de autobiografie als vorm van zelfbewustwording,” in Els Jongeneel (ed.), Over de autobiografie, 11. 16 Cf. Hendrik Van Gorp et al., “Biografie,” Lexicon van literaire termen (Deurne: Wolters Plantyn, 71998) 57–58. 17 Cf. Karl Weintraub, “Autobiografie en fictie,” 9–26. 18 Cf. Bernd Neumann, “De autobiografie als literair genre,” in Els Jongeneel (ed.), Over de autobiografie, 34; see also Sandro Briosi, “Over het literaire karakter van de autobiografie,” 57–61. 19 Cf. Maarten van Buuren, “De biografie als literair genre,” in Johan Anthierens et al., Aspecten van de literaire biografie (Kampen: Kok Agora, 1990) 51, 54 and 59.

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een ‘denkbeeldige overeenkomst’ te worden (Lejeune). Rouseau zei dat de biograaf ‘zich toont zoals hij gezien wil worden.’”20 Another element of autobiographies (and also of biographical writings at large) is their retrospective character,21 which determines that construction according to literary convention and themes be the criterion, rather than the re-construction of historical facts in their chronological sequence.22 This makes the distinction between historically accurate autobiographies and pseudo-autobiographies rather difficult to determine. Such difficulty can be overcome by speaking of autobiographical writing rather than of autobiography23 in the sense of some sort of historiography of the self. Retrospection implies that whatever is enunciated about the past is said from the vantage point of the present—which is every now and then explicitly confessed by the text; for instance, in Ezekiel’s remark “to this very day” (Ezek 2:3) and the involvement of the prophet’s audience (e.g. Ezek 8:1; 20:1)—and with a view to the future.

My own translation: “The equation of actor and narrator concerns only their names. This is an illusion that originates from an ‘autobiographical pact’ which cannot exist without simultaneously becoming an ‘imaginary pact’ (Lejeune). Rouseau said that the biographer ‘shows himself as he wishes to be seen’.” Sandro Briosi, “Over het literaire karakter van de autobiografie,” 59. A good example of autobiographical “deception” would be the poetic book called Martín Fierro, which is written completely in the “I”-form from beginning to end and is a truthful account of the life of Martín Fierro as though he had written it—when in fact the whole tale has been an invention of Hernández. We can see this “deception” at its best in the second strophe: “Pido a los santos del cielo | que ayuden mi pensamiento | les pido que en este momento | que voy a cantar mi historia | me refresquen la memoria | y aclaren mi entendimiento,” [Our own translation: “I ask the heavenly Saints | that they help my thoughts | I ask them that at this moment | in which I am about to sing my story | they refresh my memory | and clarify my understanding”] José Hernández, Martín Fierro (Buenos Aires: Kapelusz, 1965) 5. 21 Cf. Ulla Musarra-Schroeder, “Vormen van ‘autobiografisch schrijven’,” 46ff. See also Robert Elbaz, The Changing Nature of the Self. A Critical Study of the Autobiographic Discourse (London – Sydney: Croom Helm, 1988) 2–3. 22 Cf. Bernd Neumann, “De autobiografie als literair genre,” in Els Jongeneel (ed.), Over de autobiografie, 38; see also Ulla Musarra-Schroeder, “Vormen van ‘autobiografisch schrijven’,” 42. 23 Cf. Ulla Musarra-Schroeder, “Vormen van ‘autobiografisch schrijven’,” 42–43. 20

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Whenever biographical writings stress the inner side or psychological development of the protagonist, they are called confessions, e.g. Saint Augustine’s Confessions.24 Memoirs concern mostly a period in someone’s life and his or her relationships with important personalities, the stress being on the interpersonal and social, rather than on the development of the personality of the protagonist.25 Some think they come close to the res gestae of classical literature.26 Diaries provide the readers with a more or less day-to-day description of events told from the point of view of the protagonist, where narrator and main character converge on the self-same literary persona. The day is the basic biographical moment, and each day has its own content and finality.27 No final evaluation of the global meaning of the whole is given beyond the boundaries of a day. In this sense, diaries give the readers a sense of quasisimultaneousness.28 The types of literature mentioned above (namely biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and diaries) pose the question whether they must be grouped under the umbrella of either history/historiography or literature.

1.2

BIOGRAPHICAL LITERATURE AND HISTORY

Are Saint Augustine’s Confessions, for instance, a piece of history-writing or an autobiographical literary composition? Or, do the autobiographical elements present in Ezekiel determine it as some sort of prophetic historywriting or an autobiographical literary work? According to Wellek and Warren, the difference between pure historiography and literature lies in the fact that a “character in a novel [and other literary works] differs from a historical figure or a figure in real life. He is made only of the sentences describing him or put into his mouth by the author. He has no past, no future, and sometimes no continuity of life.”29 This is so because time and space in literary works are not those of 24 Cf. Hendrik Van Gorp et al., “Bekentenisliteratuur,” Lexicon van literaire termen (Leuven: Wolters, 61991) 41. 25 Cf. Karl Weintraub, “Autobiografie en fictie,” 11; see also Bernd Neumann, “De autobiografie als literair genre,” in Els Jongeneel (ed.), Over de autobiografie, 30ff. 26 Cf. Bernd Neumann, “De autobiografie als literair genre,” 28. 27 Cf. Karl Weintraub, “Autobiografie en fictie,” 13. 28 Cf. Ulla Musarra-Schroeder, “Vormen van ‘autobiografisch schrijven’,” 46. 29 R. Wellek & A. Warren, R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature. A seminal

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real life. Time, for instance, does not follow the laws of succession, but those of convention.30 The nature, form and style of an autobiographical writing will determine towards which side it leans most, whether it is a clear collection of documentation on facts or a personal recollection in which the narration does not primarily pretend to offer the facts and nothing but the facts, but a story about some facts. In this sense, Ezekiel can be said to be a literary work that contains some historical elements (e.g. dates are enunciated) rather than a piece of pure historiography.31 The use of historical elements in (auto)biographical literature raises questions about the accuracy of the story being told. These questions can at times be quite embarrassing for believers who are then faced not only with historical riddles, but also theological ones. Before they know it, reading an innocent piece of writing can turn into a theodicy crusade aimed at saving God’s face.

1.3 NORMATIVE CRITERION IN BIOGRAPHICAL LITERATURE Dealing with the relationship between literature, biography and history, Wellek and Warren made a very relevant remark in regard to the question about the literary and historical value of autobiographies. They point out that “the whole view that art is self-expression pure and simple, the transcript of personal feelings and experiences, is demonstrably false. Even when there is a close relationship between the work of art and the life of an author, this must never be construed as meaning that the work of art is a mere copy of life.”32 Literary tradition and convention frame the work of the writer in such a way that literature cannot be equated with a mere description of the naked facts, not even a perfect representation of the feelings of the author. Thus, St Augustine’s Confessions are first and foremost study of the nature and function of literature in all its contexts (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 121985) 25. 30 Cf. ibidem. 31 Even in this respect we must bear in mind that history-writing and historiography are also forms of storytelling. “History is our way of giving what we are and what we believe in the present a significance that will endure into the future, by relating it to what has happened in the past. Or, to be a bit more precise: to write history is to write about events in relation to their own past, in order to provide those events with significance that makes them worthy of being remembered in the future:” Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins. The beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, 1998) 114. 32 R. Wellek & A. Warren, R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature, 78.

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a literary work and only secondarily a historical document. Yet, even in this case, the perspective from which the work is approached will determine whether it is used as literature, i.e. for its literary value, or as a historical document. Looked at from the angle of its readership, the Confessions can be both a literary work and a historical document, depending on the intention and reading perspective of its readers. The normative backdrop of literature is not the order of nature, but the order of imagination. Nature provides literature with certain pointers (e.g. life spans from birth through growth to death); imagination does the rest.33 And imagination belongs within the realm of the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious, of dreams and desires, vision and determination, both at the individual and the collective levels (e.g. the world of the language within which it originates and unfolds itself, and of collective archetypes). That is one more reason why a literary work escapes the boundaries of the intention of the author. Even if Ezekiel were indeed Ezekiel’s own autobiography (which must first be proven), the final composition has a far broader scope than the initial intention of the prophet. This has to do with what Gibson calls the principle of excess, whereby it is meant that “expressions contain more than their immediate employment in the narrative advertises.”34 Indeed, “a literary work of art is not a simple object but rather a highly complex organization of a stratified character with multiple meanings and relationships.”35 For a literary work “consists in a complex verbal system, in a system of structures on different planes, related among themselves. It is a system of significant forms.”36 This is so because, as Gibson pointed out, “narratives are theoretically pluralist. That is to say, the substructures of a large range of ancient Near East texts contiguous to and polemically intertextually subsumed in the Old Testament manifest in their semantics no single logical grammar, nor presuppose a common thematic mentality with respect to their underlying evidence of psycholinguistic phenomena. Although this may be thought to be a fairly obvious point, stated like this, the way the opinion is expressed is Cf. Brian Fay, “Do We Live Stories or Just Tell Them?,” Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996) 188. 34 A. Gibson, Text and Tablet: Near Eastern Archaeology, the Old Testament and New Possibilities (Aldershot – Burlington USA – Singapore – Sydney: Ashgate, 2000) 70. 35 R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature, 27. 36 Luis Alonso Schökel, A Manual of Hermeneutics [The Biblical Seminar, 54] (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998) 125. 33

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calculated to defend the notion that compositional activity has plural causal relations to author and written narrative, not merely to a reader’s indeterministic projection on to a text.”37 As readers, we must accept that the text—in this case, Ezekiel—is, as already said, a microcosm of its own, with its own relationships and rules, as well as its own pockets of unpredictability, singularity and chaos. Yet, it does not only have an inner texture that makes it into a microcosm, it also has a contextual texture.38 Ezekiel is, as any other text, both innovative and “traditioned.” Its originality is built on what came before.

1.4

BOTH INNOVATIVE AND “TRADITIONED”

Ezekiel exists within a macrocosm of which it unconsciously is, or consciously aspires to be, a reflection or a critique. The written words that make up the text are not self-centred; they do not point to themselves. The physical boundaries of the text and its meaning blocks are not prison bars but the doors and windows to a larger world of meaning and communication within which the text orbits in relationship to other meaning-producing and meaning-bearing entities. This is the symbolic dimension of literary texts, Ezekiel included. Literary works are pointers to something other and larger than themselves, to an intertextual ongoing communication; so as is each and every part of any whole. The fact that a literary work represents a new creation of the imagination, and that it comes into being within the intertextual matrix of a particular language embodying deeply human and universal sentiments and desires, has important repercussions for the study of literature. It shows the insufficiency of the exclusively historical approach to literary works, whereby literary works are seen almost as foregone conclusions of historical conditionings or as mere re-workings of preceding sources from which some of their parts would allegedly have stemmed. The whole of the text is innovative since it brings each and all of the parts into relationships that they did not know before the composition of the new text.39 It would, however, A. Gibson, Text and Tablet, 73. Cf. Dennis A. Foster, Confession and Complicity in Narrative (Cambridge London – New York – Rochelle – Melbourne – Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 1–2. 39 This means that this newness in redactional compositions must be attributed to the redactors. In this sense, if it was shown that Ezekiel has been the result of a multiple compositional process, we would have to acknowledge that the book’s 37 38

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be equally unrealistic and inadequate to approach literary works as though each one of them was a creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), simply because they are not. Imagination is always-already conditioned, if not completely, at least in part.40 Wellek and Warren have therefore advocated for an approach to literary works that does justice to both their traditional and creative dimensions. They characterised this working method as perspectivism, which “means that we recognize that there is one poetry, one literature, comparable in all ages, developing, changing, full of possibilities. Literature is neither a series of unique works with nothing in common nor a series of works enclosed in time-cycles of Romanticism or Classicism, the age of Pope and the age of Wordsworth.”41 There is innovation within tradition. Ezekiel could be described as being a prophetical book because people already knew prophetic literature. Seen from this angle, it rested and still rests on particular social evidences. At the same time, Ezekiel’s autobiographical style distinguished it from some prophetic books and made it resemble others, especially Jeremiah. This combination of the prophetic and autobiographical styles is not an idle addendum and therefore deserves a closer look.

1.5

PROPHETIC AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

Ezekiel is not only a piece of writing or a book in general; it is an instance of a prophetic writing or book. “A ‘prophetic book’ is a book that claims an association with the figure of a prophet of the past (...[in this case, Ezekiel]), and that is presented to its readership as YHWH’s word. As such the book claims to communicate legitimate and authoritative knowledge about YHWH.”42 Ezekiel—the actant, not the book—is clearly referred to as ‫נביא‬ (“prophet,” cf. Ezek 2:5, 33:33) and verbs from the root ‫“( נבא‬to innovative meaning potentials would not go back to some “historical Ezekiel” but to the redactor(s). We would thus read the redactor’s (or redactors’) Ezekiel, not Ezekiel’s Ezekiel, which is not an idle distinction for the exegesis of the book rather than its parts. 40 Cf. Floyd Merrell, Unthinking thinking: Jorge Luis Borges, mathematics, and the new physics (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1991) 182–197. 41 R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature, 43. 42 Cf. Ehud Ben Zvi, Micah [FOTL, XXIB] (Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2000) 4.

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prophesy”) occur 31 times throughout the book.43 The fact that most of the book is made up of visionary experiences and oracles about YHWH suggests to the readers that the mechanisms inherent to biblical prophecy must be taken into account as inscribed signposts along the readinginterpretative itinerary. The book is meant to be read and reread.44 Books that are meant to be read and reread will comprise different levels of meaning; they will tend to be polysemic and harbour many an instance of ambivalence and ambiguity. They will equally presuppose that its rereaders will be able to journey through the narration making multidirectional and cross-linked associations.45 These above elements—biblical and prophetic—root Ezekiel within a particular historical compositional tradition of thought that conditioned the birth of the book and that was in turn enriched by its particular contribution.46 In this sense, Ezekiel represents a particular culture: it is at once a cultural product and a producer of culture. The prophetic character of the book and its composition within the biblical tradition marks the whole of its narration. Even though the book presents itself as Ezekiel’s personal version of events, the main actant is YHWH.47 This is a typical factor in biblical prophetic literature and cannot be overlooked, especially not in the case of autobiographical writings that are decentred since the centre stage is occupied by YHWH and not by the actant whose autobiography the book is deemed to be (cf. Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah etc.). It has thus recently been remarked that “das Ich des Propheten neben das göttliche Ich im Spruchgut tritt, in dem die Person des übermittelnden Propheten faktisch nicht vorkommt.”48 43 Cf. Ezek 4:7, 6:2, 11:4, 12:27, 13:2.16.17, 21:2.7.14.19.33, 25:2, 28:21, 29:2, 30:2, 34:2, 35:2, 36:1.3.6, 37:4.7.9.10.12, 38:2.14.17, and 39:1. 44 We adapt here what Ben Zvi said about Micah: “As a written text, the book of Micah is aimed primarily at those competent to read it (...). Moreover, the book of Micah was not produced to be read once and then put aside, but rather to be read and reread and meditated upon (...),” Ehud Ben Zvi, Micah, 5. 45 Cf. idem, 6–7. 46 Cf. idem, 5. 47 This has been noted by Zimmerli, who states that “after the first appearance of an autobiographical structure to the whole book of Ezekiel, we must go on to mention a second, opposite feature. It is striking how, throughout the entire book of Ezekiel, the activity is set almost exclusively in the words and actions of Yahweh,” Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 24. 48 Karin Schöpflin, Theologie als Biographie, 5 (said in this case esp. referring to

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Ezekiel is autobiographical insofar as it is the compilation of the divine revelations that befell Ezekiel the prophet, but not in the sense that it is the description of Ezekiel’s own self-unfolding.49 The fact that Ezekiel’s prophetic experiences and revelations are framed within temporal categories determined by dates makes the book resemble a prophet’s diary or memoirs.50 Some may object to calling the book “Ezekiel’s diary” on the grounds that the material that follows each date is too extensive to be exactly what we nowadays call “diary” since it can hardly be understood as the description of a day’s events. If it was to be seen as a diary, one would have to take the narrative wayyiqtols in the message-reception formula as one’s point of departure for establishing a day. Others may object to its being called “Ezekiel’s memoirs” since it does not throw much light upon anybody’s life—not even the prophet’s own life. The fact that the book resembles more a series of long divine monologues than a narration on Ezekiel’s life would make it somewhat more difficult to view the book as being Ezekiel’s “memoirs” in the present-day sense of the word, even though not wholly impossible. It could be argued that this is a case of prophetic memoirs constrained exclusively to the prophetic dimension of Ezekiel’s life.51 The oracular sections could also be understood as an explanation ad extra of the inner significance of Ezekiel’s personal prophetic and visionary experiences, the object of which is not how he experiences it but what is revealed to him by YHWH. The fact, however, that old literary forms such as confessio laudis, de vita, epistola, evangelion or hagiographia etc. cannot be equalled to the Jeremiah). 49 So as it is spoken of by Weintraub in the last words of his article, cf. Karl Weintraub, “Autobiografie en fictie,” 26. 50 In fact Block writes: “Since virtually all of Ezekiel’s oracles are cast in the first person, readers are left with the impression that they have gained access to the private memoirs of a holy man, a prophet of Israel (...). Ironically, although the oracles are presented in autobiographical narrative style, occasions where the prophet actually admits the reader into his mind are rare”. Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 27. 51 Clements has spoken of “the Isaiah Memoir” as being embedded in the text of Isaiah 6–8; cf. Ronald E. Clements, “The Prophet as an Author: The Case of the Isaiah Memoir,” in Ehud Ben Zvi & Michael H. Floyd (eds), Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy [SBL Symposium Series 10] (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2000) 89; whole contribution, 89–101.

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“autobiographies” that originated in the 18th century C.E. 52 and are commonplace nowadays should warn us against any fixed imposition of modern categories on ancient writings without further considerations. It should also warn us against taking generic descriptions in too limited and limiting a way.53 In view of the composite nature of biblical books (indicated in the case of Ezekiel by its visionary and prophetic components and by its double introduction in first and third person singular, cf. Ez 1:1 and 1:3)54 and of the fact that the actual narration of the prophet’s life is suddenly truncated, whereby the person of Ezekiel just disappears from the narrative scene, I prefer to speak of the book not as a diary or the memoirs of the prophet, and not even as his autobiography, but as an autobiographical collection or compilation.55 I acknowledge that the autobiographical framework of the book is certainly not a superfluous addendum; on the contrary, it calls upon the readers to view all the different readings (i.e. the various parts of the compilation) not as independent units, but as constituents of one narration, or one book. Indeed, it contextualises them56 despite the fact that it has not been rounded off as an accomplished, worked-out personal account. Even after taking this autobiographical framework seriously, there still remains a feeling that although it could have become a diary, memoirs or autobiography, it did not quite go past being an autobiographical collection or compilation.57 Oracular and visionary passages were compiled and combined into one narration presented along autobiographical lines. Cf. Karl Weintraub, “Autobiografie en fictie,” 17. Cf. Roy F. Melugin, “Recent Form Criticism Revisited in an Age of Reader Response,” in Marvin A. Sweeney & Ehud Ben Zvi (eds), The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2003) 46–64, esp. 47. See also Margaret S. Odell, “Ezekiel Saw What He Said He Saw: Genres, Forms, and the Vision of Ezekiel 1,” in idem, 162–176. 54 The book of Jeremiah also has a similar double introduction. 55 Some speak of autobiographical report, e.g. Allen, Ezechiel 1–19, xxv; this echoes Zimmerli’s comment that Ezekiel constitutes “a first person account,” Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 24. Compare with what Rofé says about Jeremiah, cf. Alexander Rofé, The Prophetical Stories, 110–111. 56 Cf. Ehud Ben Zvi, Micah, 7. 57 We could say that Ezekiel is a biblical, prophetic diary or memoirs and that the characteristics noted above are typical of such sub-genre, but in order to speak of a sub-genre we would have to look at the whole range of prophetic material in the Hebrew Scriptures and that would be too big a detour from the intended course of my research. 52 53

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However, this is not just “any old autobiography;” it contains “mindblowing” material which has given rise to all sorts of interpretations. There is a notably fantastic ring to Ezekiel, on which I shall now briefly elaborate.

2.

EZEKIEL’S FANTASTIC DIMENSION

Ezekiel starts and ends with visionary glimpses of fantastic things (cf. Ezek 1:1–3:15, 3:23, 8–11 and Ezek 37:1–14, 40–48). Ezek 1:1–3:15 presents the two main actants: the manifestation of YHWH’s glory58 and of Ezekiel’s role in the book (cf. Ezek 1–3). Ezekiel 8–11 reveals the iniquity of Jerusalem and its Temple (cf. Ezek 8–11), the pride and joy of Judah, which will lead to its collapse. Ezek 37:1–14 depicts the victory of YHWH’s power over the pitiful, state of present “Israel.” Ezekiel 40–48 depicts a future of wonderful proportions: the idyllic future where YHWH, the land, the city, the Temple, the people and the leadership will be transfigured, thus undoing the iniquity and destruction of the past. This imagery is usually described as having “apocalyptic” virtuality. Apocalyptic literature produces “an implicit critique of the status quo” because it offers “another view of how life could be.”59 Ezekiel does this confronting its readers with material that has clear fantastic dimensions (e.g. the visions). “In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know, a world without devils, sylphides, or vampires, there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world. The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions: either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination— and laws of the world then remain what they are; or else the event has indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality—but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us. Either the devil is an illusion, an imaginary being; or else he really exists, precisely as other living beings— with this reservation, that we encounter him infrequently. The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty. Once we choose one answer or the other, we leave the fantastic for a neighboring genre, the uncanny or the marvellous.”60 Now, while the uncanny is the inexplicable based on the Cf. Margaret S. Odell, “Ezekiel Saw What He Said He Saw,” 162–176. Jon L. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow. A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis, MI: Fortress, 1995) 177. 60 Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975) 25. 58 59

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current state of knowledge, the marvellous is what has never been seen (at least, not in the present light). The person who must opt how to interpret what appears fantastic is not really the prophet, but the reader. The vision is not really for Ezekiel (the actant), it is for the book’s readers. In this sense, some could argue that prophetic books in their totality have fantastic dimensions, not just in some parts. To acknowledge Ezekiel’s fantastic virtuality implies that the readers must hold their breath and judgement. They are expected to listen, or— better still—picture in their minds what the narration is telling them. The text narrates something which sounds fantastic (e.g. the visionary units), the interpretation of which will depend on the reader’s definition of reality and imaginary. Some will interpret the prophet’s visions as normal phenomena (as events that have regularly occurred in human history and are therefore “real”), some will understand them as an inventive literary strategy (nothing more and nothing less than a figure of speech), while others will discard it as propaganda or nonsense, or both. Fantastic accounts can be seen as strange or wonderful. The fact that the idea of having visions of YHWH may appear strange to present-day readers does not mean that the visions must have seemed equally odd to Ezekiel’s first audience. The visions must have responded to the revelatory canons of the time and must have had a place within the reader’s worldview. “Miracles and some monsters may have been thought to exist by their original audience and even their author, but were often acknowledged to be real only in a special fashion: they only enter the lives of the spiritually or heroically elect; they are miracula or things to be marvelled at, precisely because they are not everyday occurrences and cannot be controlled by just anybody who has a mind to try. We know we are dealing with a form of fantasy if the rhetoric of the text places the dragon fight somewhere else or once upon a time. Such distance and time markers commonly denote an awareness of fantasy.”61 There are certain phrases that constitute such markers within Ezekiel, for instance:

Kathryn Hume, Fantasy and Mimesis. Responses to Reality in Western Literature (New York – London: Methuen, 1984) 21. 61

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1:1 the heavens were opened, and then I saw mighty appearances

[divine sights] (…) 8:1 And it happened in the sixth year, in the sixth [month], in the fifth [day] of the month while I was sitting in my house, and while the elders of Judah were sitting in front of me there fell upon me right there the hand of the Lord YHWH 8:2 and I saw and behold! A likeness as the appearance of fire (…) As the readers opt for seeing the fantastic as a medium for the wonderful (and not just the strange), they take an important step: they accept the book’s invitation to deconstruct “reality.” When the prophetic eye sees what the average eye does not see, the everyday is questioned. If and when the readers accept what sounds fantastic as being a divinely orchestrated wonder, they are precisely where the book wants to have them. They are assenting to the idea that the secret of the “really real” can only be unlocked by the message mediated by the book that they are reading. Fantastic fiction can thus function as an eye-opener. This is why the narration cannot but present itself as a glimpse of an alternative world—if one is to believe the book—the real world. “For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it. (...) If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frogkings would not have arisen.”62 While the initial visions encapsulate the “Israel-that-was,” Ezekiel 40– 48 projects the vision of the “Israel-to-come.” Ezekiel’s visionary episodes could be described as “copias temporales y mortales de un arquetipo inconcebible”63 or as “a literature of desire, which seeks that which is experienced as absence and loss (...) The fantastic traces the unsaid and the unseen of culture: that which has been silenced, made invisible, covered over and made ‘absent.’”64 It could be said with Borges: “La filosofía y la J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” in The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine, 1966) 54–55. 63 My own translation: “time-bound and mortal copies of an inconceivable archetype.” Jorge Luis Borges, La cifra (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 81992) 19. 64 Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (London: Methuen, 1981) 3–4. 62

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teología son, lo sospecho, dos especies de literatura fantástica. Dos especies espléndidas.”65 Consequently, the statement that Ezekiel has fantastic dimensions is not intended to brand its material as untrue; it only means that the book presents the readers with a reality that is real in another way than the ordinary is real. This is so, among other things, because it represents an instance of religious literature. Ezekiel’s claims are religious and may therefore not be scrutinized as if they were statements made by a physicist or a sociologist. The religious and literary nature of the book must never be lost sight of; that is why I shall now briefly deal with some of its aspects. 3. AN EXAMPLE OF RELIGIOUS LITERATURE Whatever one may say about Ezekiel, one thing is undeniable: Ezekiel is a piece of writing, a work of religious literature. Ezekiel, just like all other religious texts, is a language production,66 furthermore, a literary work. It is not easy, however, to define what literature actually means. If we take as our point of departure Wittgenstein‘s principle that the meaning of words is the meaning that is given to them in their use, then we can say with Gaus that “what literature is depends on those who occupy themselves with it, and depends on the reasons why they occupy themselves with it.”67 Be it lyric, epic or drama, the literary use of language differentiates itself from scientific and everyday usage.68 Literary language, unlike scientific language, is more connotative than denotative. It is also essentially artistic and it “imposes some kind of framework which takes the statement of the work out of the world of reality.”69 While univocity is essential to scientific 65 My own translation: “Philosophy and theology are, I suspect, two species of fantastic literature. Two splendid species.” Jorge Luis Borges, La cifra, 105. 66 This is not limited to the Hebrew Bible, but applies also to other Holy Books. Cpr. with the discourse on Islamic revelation theology, Nasr Hamid Aboe Zaid, Vernieuwing in het islamitisch denken (Amsterdam: Bulaaq, 22002) 108. 67 H. Gaus, The Function of Fiction. The function of written fiction in the social process (Gent – Leuven – Antwerpen – Brussel: E. Story-Scientia p.v.b.a, 1979) 46. 68 Cf. R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature, 25. 69 R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature, 25. The difference that exists between Ezekiel and this present study is in fact itself an example of the difference between literature and literary study. “The two are different activities: one is creative, an art; the other, if not precisely a science, is a species of knowledge or of learning,” idem, 15.

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works (A must always and everywhere mean A), polysemy70 (A can mean A1, A2, A3 etc.) is at the heart of literary creativity. The difference between literature and everyday language is more difficult to establish theoretically, even though it is relatively easy to distinguish between texts that are considered to be literary creations and those that are not. One may say, however, that the line between a literary work, on the one hand, and a shopping list, a letter from a son to his mother, or a newspaper article reporting a crime, on the other, is that between art and practical life. Two criteria would seem to play a part in differentiating between the artistic and the everyday: the purpose for which it was created and the perspective from which it is used. Purpose is the first characteristic making it clear what function a text was destined to fulfil, and how the text profiles itself even now. Use determines the being of a written piece insofar as what a piece of writing is often depends on how it is approached. A letter between two people in love could be considered to be a piece of everyday language, of literature and/or of historical documentation for the reconstruction of the mood of a period. In the same way as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” so too is a piece of writing also art, namely literature, because its readers behold it as such. These two aspects are, in principle, aspects of the productive process: what the work has been conceived for (its purpose) and how it has been received (the perspective of its users). Ezekiel can thus be said to be a literary work insofar as it was conceived as part and parcel of a religious literary tradition and insofar as it has been received as such, since its readers have given precedence to its religious-literary content over all of its other components. Furthermore, at its most basic level literature has to do with the imaginative use of language. Imagination and literature exist only in concrete examples of imaginary thinking and of literary compositions. Ezekiel constitutes, therefore, not only an instance of literature but also of Hebrew biblical literature. This entails firstly that Ezekiel was written within the biblical tradition (which shaped its imagination by suggesting traditional archetypes71), within a religious community for which Ezekiel is a sacred text. Secondly, its composition happened within the branch of this tradition

70 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor. Multi-disciplinary studies of the creation of meaning in language (London: Routledge, 31994) 113ff. 71 The biblical tradition roots Ezekiel in what we now call the Jewish tradition, and not in the Buddhist or Hindu tradition.

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that cast its thoughts in Hebrew, as opposed to the other branch that formulated its ideas in Greek and gave rise to the LXX apocryphal writings. The fact that Ezekiel is a written literary text, as it has been indicated above, means that it has been encoded in a particular language, namely biblical Hebrew insofar as this is different from Rabbinic Hebrew or present-day ‘Ivrît.’ The book produces and communicates meaning in the manner that is proper to biblical Hebrew. Hebrew biblical literary works have known a process of compositional growth within a religious tradition. The literary works present now in the Hebrew canon (as reflected by the BHS) and the Greek canon (as witnessed by the LXX) have been the result of more than one agency, including oral and written stages, both converging and diverging.72 Hebrew biblical writings often represent the sometimes disconcerting concerted effort of a tradition rather than of an individual, where the appellative author of the text is shared by writer, editor(s), redactor(s) and copyist(s). One could speak thus, in a certain sense, of shared authorship since the initial writer and the preceding and ensuing tradition (oral tradition as well as redactors etc.) have co-operated in the making of the book, which they nonetheless saw as being one book and not wholly unrelated fragments or even books. This explains why Hebrew biblical literary works lack at times the unity of a modern piece of writing that has stemmed from one hand. This further complicates any question regarding the author’s intention (who is the author? and who can judge that?). It also makes it clear that biblical books enjoy a certain degree of openness to re-interpretation that relativises any dogmatism and one-sidedness, be it religious or literary, regarding their use and the boundaries of their meaning.73 The meaning of biblical literature cannot therefore be reduced to the intention of its author(s) or intentio auctoris/auctorum.74 This is particularly relevant for most Hebrew biblical books, in which the process of composition was not determined—not even stopped—by the intention of the initial “author.” As indicated above, the textual boundaries of the initial Lust gives some good examples of the issue of the “canon(s),” including material concerning Ezekiel, cf. Johan Lust, “Septuagint and Canon,” in J.-M. Auwers & H. J. de Jonge (eds), The Biblical Canons [BETL, 163] (Leuven: University press / Peeters, 2003) 39–55; see also the whole volume. 73 Reinterpretations are found even within biblical texts, cf. Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). 74 Cf. R. Wellek & A. Warren, Theory of Literature, 42. 72

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composition were not seen as the absolute limits of creative imagination. In many cases, the Hebrew biblical text remained open until it was canonised. The results from scribal activity (e.g. mistakes, corrections, glosses) both before and after canonization75 as well as from the masoretic (interpretative) punctuation of the proto-masoretic text76 have become so engrained within the text that they have become part and parcel of that very text, thus changing its original configuration. Indeed, all those engaged in the arrangement and delimitation of a Hebrew biblical text know that, at least insofar as they have to make textual-critical decisions, the physical contours of the text continue to be somewhat open, even today.77 In the case of Hebrew biblical literature, critics have to work with books that in theory are holy (and therefore wholly untouchable) but in reality are fluid, somewhat unfinished and often ambivalent. What we have in front of our eyes now is neither the word-for-word transcription of prophetic delivery (which now would be impossible to determine on textcritical grounds) nor the first draft of the book of Ezekiel; yet it is this book and none other that is called Ezekiel. It is this book that one is asked to read, enter into dialogue with, and try to understand. It is in light of this that I prefer to concentrate on the intention of the text (intentio operis), rather than on the intention of the biblical author(s) (intentio auctoris) or the intention of the reader(s) (intentio lectoris).78 Cf. Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press / Assen-Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1992) 232–286. 76 Cf. Ernst Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament. An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica (London: SCM Press, 1980) 12–41; see also Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 21–79; and Page H. Kelley, Daniel S. Mynatt & Timothy G. Crawford, The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Introduction and Annotated Glossary (Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1998) 13–45. 77 Cf. Johan Lust, “The Use of Textual Witnesses for the Establishment of the Text. The Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel. An Example: Ez 7,” in Johan Lust (ed.), EHB, 7–20, esp.16–17; see also P.-M. Bogaert, “Les deux redactions conservées (LXX et TM) d’Ézéchiel 7,” idem, 21–47; Johan Lust, “The Final Text and Textual Criticism: Ez 39,28,” idem, 48–54; M. Dijkstra, “The Glosses in Ezekiel Reconsidered,” idem, 55–77. 78 Such methodological step has been suggested by Umberto Eco. Cf. Stefan Collini (ed.), Over Interpretatie. Umberto Eco in debat met Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose (Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992) 34. See also Cf. Walter Vogels, Interpreting Scripture in the Third Millennium. Author – Reader – Text (Ottawa, Ontario: Novalis, 1993) 73–101. 75

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As a matter of fact, the intention of the text, in a sense, includes both the intention of the author (present in the encoded clues that he or she has left throughout the text to guide the reading)79 and that of the readers (allowed for by the [relative] open-endedness of the work).80 The interpretative re-constructive task of the imagination, whereby the meaning of the whole text and of its parts within the whole is sought after, must be led by the criteria of narrative coherence (e.g. as suggested by isotopy and by the “fibula-subject” or “story-plot” relationship).81 On top of this, encyclopaedic competence is also a sine qua non requisite for the readers to arrive at an authorized or warranted reading-interpretation of a literary work. Competent readers will understand that Ezekiel, as religious literature, must be approached in accordance with its own laws. As prophecy, it does not so much attempt to analyse and reproduce reality, but to critique it and to proclaim alternatives. It exists within the fictional order of what could/might be if certain variables are in place. Given that my use of the term fictional may scandalise some and dismay others, I will now further explain what is meant by it.

4.

BELONGING TO THE ORDER OF THE FICTIONAL

By saying that Ezekiel belongs to the order of the fictional, I mean that its content, strategies and structure82 are determined by the fictional writing mode rather than the factual (e.g. that of scientific historical biographies). I suggest, therefore, that this order be seen as the ultimate criterion

Cf. idem, 13–42. Cf. idem, 43–71. 81 These terms will be explained in some detail at a later stage. 82 This has clearly been highlighted by Schöpflin: “Daβ diese Aussage theologischer Natur ist, liegt in dieser alttestamentlichen Schrift nur allzu deutlicht auf der Hand. (...) So geht es dem Ezechielbuch nicht um Autobiographie [i.e. scientific (auto)biography], sondern um Theologie; in der autobiographischen Stilisierung—vielleicht auch Fiktion—spiegelt sich ein Theologischer Gedanke (…).” My translation: “That this statement is of a theological nature is only all too obvious in the case of this Old Testament writing (…) Thus, the book of Ezekiel is not about an autobiography, but about theology. Its autobiographical—perhaps also fictional—style [self-profiling] reflects a theological thought (…).” Karin Schöpflin, Theologie als Biographie, 18. 79 80

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determining all of the aspects encompassed by the artistic production of the work and the meaning of its truth.83 The word fiction comes from the Latin fingere, which means “to form, to pattern (after a model)” as well as “to feign.”84 The etymology of the word suggests already some of the dimensions of fiction: the relationship between the real and the fictional, the nature of fiction as thought pattern, and so forth. The sense that I attribute to fiction in the statement “Ezekiel is a fictional literary work” takes fictional in its more restricted meaning (i.e. as a writing mode) rather than in its “expanded” epistemological meaning (i.e. as a characteristic of language and of thought as such).

4.1

EXPANDED FICTION AND THE FICTIONAL LITERARY MODE

“Expanded fiction” refers to the hermeneutic conviction that renders hermeneutics into some sort of ontology since, in this sense, fiction has come to be considered no longer “como discurso dominante, sino (...) [que se] ha convertido en condición de cualquier discurso e incluso, al eludirse la distinción entre imitado e imitante, en condición, y desestabilización, del proceso de verdad.”85 The fictional would thus dissolve within the general attributive character of human knowledge at large, which is seen as knowledge without any absolutely necessary referent.86 Or, in other words, 83 Schöpflin has already drawn attention to this fact: “Es ist also auch in alttestamentlichem Schrifttum mit autobiographischen Fiktionen zu rechnen. Man wird im Falle des Ezechielbuches deshalb zunächst von dem Anspruch Abstand zu nehmen haben, den Verfasser mit dem Ich des Selbstberichtes gleichzusetzen und ihn folglich mit Ezechiel zu identifizieren. (…)” My translation: “One must therefore reckon with autobiographical fiction in the Old Testament, too. In the case of Ezekiel, one will first of all have to take distance from the [text’s] claim [or demand] to equate the author with the ‘ego’ of the ‘I’-reports and to therefore identify him with Ezekiel.” Karin Schöpflin, Theologie als Biographie, 6–7. 84 Cf. F. Cabo Aseguinolaza, “Sobre la pragmática de la teoría de la ficción literaria,” in Darío Villanueva (ed.), Avances en Teoría de la Literatura (Estética de la Recepción, Pragmática, Teoría Empírica y Teoría de los Polisistemas). Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 189. 85 My translation: “as dominant discourse, but (...) it has become a condition that affects any discourse whatsoever and that even, when one eludes the distinction between that which is imitated and that which imitates, in condition for and destabilization of the process of the truth.” F. Cabo Aseguinolaza, “Sobre la pragmática,” 203. 86 There is a dimension of fictionality inherent to all human knowledge. One

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“se trata del énfasis en la determinación metafórica o retórica del lenguaje y la negación consiguiente de la posibilidad de su lenguaje exterior que pueda regir el discurso tropológico. Y por tanto de la de un deslinde estricto entre filosofía y literatura.”87 When fiction is extended to such all-encompassing proportions one can truly ask with Merrel, “Can we indeed be ‘outside’ the text, any and all texts, in order to formulate some ‘real’ or imaginary ‘proxy function’. Can we make a determinate referential statement about any text, any world, the universe?”88 Answering the question whether or not the fictional has a point of reference in the extra-textual world is not only of interest for epistemology but also for exegesis. The answer given to this question will determine what literary criticism, in general, and exegesis, in particular, actually mean. Should there be no relationship between fiction and the extra-textual world, there would be then no room left for literary or historical criticism either. How could exegetes ever arrive at the other side of a text, at its referent, if there were no epistemological and hermeneutic bridges to cross the immense mental lacuna separating the mind, the written words, and their cultural milieu? Such a literary agnosticism fails to see that fictional writing alwaysalready makes reference to the extra-textual, historical world of the language in which it was cast: to its vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and associations. Beyond the general arbitrariness that most or all words entail (onomatopoeic lexemes at least sound somewhat like the realities they convey), the meanings of words as well as their syntactical and semantic usage are socio-geographically conditioned. The meanings of words can grow, develop and eventually change. If one is really to understand what a word means, then its cultural (or socio-geographical and historical) referent could say with Brian Fay that “The stories agents tell themselves about themselves are not mere appendages imposed on activity after the fact. Activity is itself already narratively structured, such that stories are integral to the performance of every act. Acts are therefore enactments of some narrative”. Cf. Brian Fay, Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science, 192. 87 My translation: “It is the emphasis on the metaphorical or rhetorical determination of language and the ensuing negation of the possibility of an external language which might rule the topological discourse, and, therefore, also of a strict delimitation between philosophy and literature.” F. Cabo Aseguinolaza, “Sobre la pragmática,” 203. 88 F. Merrel, “Fiction, Fact, Phalanx,” in Diacritics 19/1 (1989) 13 [whole art. 2– 16].

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must somehow be taken into consideration. This holds true even in the case of simple things such as bread—for what the word “bread” refers to can change in shape, appearance, taste, and social connotations from place to place and at different times. Understanding what it means, even at its most basic level, entails in most cases (if not always) a certain degree of analogy and socio-geographical conventionality. This is the radically sociogeographical, and thus historical, predicament of human life and of all of its productions and manifestations, literature included. I cannot fail to agree with Warning’s remark that fictional writings are linked to a framework “which in the final analysis is dominated by a specific historical sociocultural situation, for which and within which fiction is fiction.”89 If indeed there were no relationship between the extra-textual world and fictional writings, how could one then even distinguish between fiction and history? The relationship between the fictional and reality is not an unimportant point. Fictional writings interact with reality in a different way than nonfictional literature does. The difference between the two lies in the fact that, while the question “Did it really happen?” is irrelevant in the case of the fictional, it is at the core of non-fictional writing, such as history writing.90 In Van Luxenburg’s words: “Omdat een fictionele tekst niet de werkelijkheid beschrijft, maar wel allerlei relaties en samenhangen laat zien die herkenbaar zijn op grond van de ervaring van de werkelijkheid, lijkt de fictionele tekst bij uitstek geschikt om typische aspecten van de werkelijkheid te illustreren. De fictionele tekst kan via de beschrijving van een uniek geval algemene psychologische problemen laten zien, of een algemeen aspect van het menselijk leven naar boven halen. We zijn hier weer dicht bij Aristoteles die (...) de waarde van de literatuur zag in haar vermogen het typische te tonen in het individuele, met als resultaat verdieping van het inzicht in de werkelijkheid. Fictionaliteit en mimesis, begrippen die elkaar schijnbaar tegenspreken, komen hier op een interessante manier samen.”91 R. Warning, “Staged Discourse: Remarks on the Pragmatics of Fiction,” in Dispositio 5 (1980) 43, whole article 35–54. 90 Cf. Hendrik Van Gorp, Algemene literatuurwetenschappen (Leuven: Acco, 2000) 71. 91 My translation: “The fictional text seems to be very apt to illustrate typical aspects of reality since it does not describe reality, but shows all kinds of relations and constellations that are recognizable on the basis of one’s experience of reality. 89

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THE FICTIONAL AND MIMESIS

The notion of the fictional is often understood in close relationship to mimesis or imitation, which can in turn be conceived of in at least three different, yet not exclusive, ways. The more classical school takes its cue from Gadamer’s notion of anamnesis92 and looks upon mimesis as a mental metaphor (“una metáfora mental”),93 a way of making present the form of things. Mimesis would thus be a manner of re-presentation. Mimesis has also been seen as an active mechanism whereby “L’imitation ou la représentation est une activité mimétique en tant qu’elle produit quelque chose, à savoir précisément l’agencement de faits par la mise en intrigue.”94 This approach is the one spearheaded by Ricoeur. What fiction actually does is to open the way for mimesis (understood as a meaning-producing mechanism) to expand itself by means of narrativity. The narrative functions in literature as the instrument whereby the metaphorical dimension of the whole of language95 creates new meaning. A third group sees mimesis as a pre-rational mechanism, prior to Plato’s mimetic taboo96 and Aristotle’s rationality. In this last sense, mimesis is comparable to dance and play insofar as it is a means whereby the By means of the description of a unique case, the fictional text can show general psychological problems or bring to the fore a general aspect of human life. We come then close to Aristotle, who saw the value of literature in its capability to show the typical in the individual, which results in a deepening of one’s insight into reality. Fictionality and mimesis, concepts that apparently contradict each other, come thus together in an interesting way.” J. Van Luxenburg, Inleiding in de literatuurwetenschap (Muidenberg: Coutinho, 31983) 38. 92 Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1965). 93 Cf. A. Reyes, Obras Completas, XV (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1963) 197 [a re-print of: El deslinde. Prolegómenos a la teoría literaria (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1944)]. 94 My translation: “Imitation or representation is a mimetic activity insofar as it produces something, namely the very ordering of facts by fitting them into a plot.” P. Ricoeur, Temps et récits (Paris: Seuil, 1983) 60. 95 Since there is no one-to-one correlation between word and what is out there, one can say that language as such is somewhat metaphorical or figurative since it says and does not say, is and is not, just like metaphors are judgements of being and not-being. There is no absolute, ontological, “literal” correlation between words and things. 96 This refers to the metaphysical opposition between the ontological data regarding the “real” and the “representation.”

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difference between object and subject becomes blurred, even surmounted. In a way, it is no longer anamnesis of a priori forms, but forgetfulness or oblivion of them and of all distinction. Or, as Adorno puts it, it is a divergence that cannot be trivialized.97 It is no longer about presence but about absence, or better still, about ecstasy and a new unity that goes beyond any a priori heteronomy.98 I could thus say that Ezekiel first re-presents reality; it evokes it and places it before the readers’ eyes: this is the situation. Then, it sets in movement meaning-creating mechanisms that help readers to transcend the fixity of reality (its so-called literal sense) so that they may embrace it in a new way: they must see what it is (metaphor) in what it is not (fiction). When the fixity of everyday knowledge is de-centred by the metaphorical processes of fictionality, the readers will tap into a new dimension of reality, one that defies the conventionality of heteronomy: the liberating promise of what could be. In fact, it is these two aspects, the fictional (including fantasy) and mimesis, which make Ezekiel into a literary work rather than a mere historiographical word-for-word rendition of some prophet’s utterances.99

4.3

THE FICTIONAL AS WINDOW ONTO OTHER WORLDS

Ezekiel qua fictional narrative offers the readers a virtual world within which they can place themselves—a hologram within which the facts of life (actual, plausible or possible) are re-interpreted so that they can be seen as bearers of meaning (or even anti-meaning). Here lies the metaphorical dimension of fictional writings: each word that the readers read is like a stroke of a literary brush that paints before them another plausible or possible world. One could say, using a metaphor dear to Borges,100 that the 97 Cf. Theodor W. Adorno, Teoría estética (Madrid: Taurus, 1980) 160 [transl. of Gretel Adorno & Rolf Tiedemann (eds), Ästhetische Theorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970,)]. 98 For a treatment of these three understandings of mimesis, cf. F. Cabo Aseguinolaza, “Sobre la pragmática,” 191–193. 99 Kathryn Hume argues that it is precisely fantasy and mimesis that are characteristic of literature, cf. Kathryn Hume, Fantasy and Mimesis. Responses to Reality in Western Literature (New York – London: Methuen, 1984) 21. 100 “El mundo, según Mallarmé, existe para un libro; según Bloy, somos versículos o palabras o letras de un mundo mágico, y ese libro incesante es la única cosa que hay en el mundo: es, mejor dicho, el mundo.” Quoted by María Adela Renard, “Estudio preliminar” in Jorge Luis Borges, Poesías (Buenos Aires: Kapelusz, 1993) 28.

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world is presented to the readers in the form of a book101 within which they are invited to take their place and by which they could be instructed if they surrender to the book’s dynamics. This view is present also in Ezekiel: 2:9 Then I saw: and behold, there a hand set out to me, and behold, in it was the roll of a book. 10 He then spread it out before me, and it was written upon in front and on the back and there were written on it dirges, and moaning and wailing. 3:1 And He said to me then: “Human! What you find, eat! Eat this roll, and go, speak to the house of Israel!” 2 Then I opened my mouth, and He made me eat this roll. 3 Then He said to me: “Human! Cause your belly to eat and cause your intestines to be filled with this roll, which I am giving you.” Then I ate it and it became in my mouth like honey for sweetness. “Ezekiel’s eating of the scrolls of the Torah indicates his becoming Scripture. Every cell of his body, every act as well as every thought, will henceforth breathe Scripture and thus form the hermeneutical framework out of which the priest understands his world.”102 The written word of Ezekiel re-presents or unfolds the world in which it lives (fictionalised history conceived of, and from the viewpoint of YHWH) as charged with meaning. For human consciousness, facts are not mere facts, they are carriers of meaning. In prophetic books it is YHWH that reveals the ultimate meaning and consequences of human actions: the realest reality is declared by YHWH, it is ‫“( נאם אדני יהוה‬declaration of YHWH”). This interpretation-revelation of the world is possible because we do not live in some sort of nameless space, but in our named world. Not only does language speak (as an intransitive event), it also speaks its speakers and it speaks the world they live in (as a transitive conception).103 For even the Cf. Johan Lust, “Een visioen voor volwassenen met voorbehoud (Ezechiël 1–3),” in Collationes 22 (1976) 445; whole article: 433–448. 102 Martin C. Srajek, “Constitution and Agency in Light of Some Passages from Ezekiel 1–4,” in Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Gary A. Phillips & David Jobling (eds), Levinas and Biblical Studies (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2003) 130. 103 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 63; see also Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Neske, 1971) 19; Martin Buber, I and 101

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conceived and pre-conceived concept of nature presupposes that the horizon whereon human existence takes place has logical laws, i.e., that it can be re-presented by means of logos. This capability of the text for creating and re-creating the world in terms of logos (meaning both verbum and ratio) entails that the universe’s mute facts can be structured and re-structured in several plausible ways around different centres and on the basis of different hermeneutical keys.104 This, too, constitutes the metaphorical, symbolical dimension of the whole of Ezekiel. Both the text and the world are therefore somewhat open; moreover, they can be opened up or unfolded in different ways. This is the precondition for “revelation” to take place, that meaning can be created and recreated. Neither the world nor the text are fixed once and forever. Any dogmatism regarding reading goes counter to the very dynamics of mediated revelation. “The openness of the text makes possible a relationship with God as interpretation while, at the same time, making space for the emergence of revelation. In other words, the existence of the text itself is not only dependent on being revealed by God, but it is also dependent on being interpreted by humanity. (...) Reading and revelation bring both God and humans infinitely close to this oneness [between them]; however, neither side will reach it fully. This perpetuates the process of interpretation and revelation ad infinitum.”105 It is at the metaphorical and symbolic level of the text that realism and creativity, the description of facts and the vision of another plausible order of things, historiography, and fictional writing touch upon each other without confusion. “For history-writing is not a record of fact—of what ‘really happened’—but a discourse that claims to be a record of fact or to unravel the inner rationale of those facts. Nor is fiction-writing a tissue of free invention but a discourse that claims freedom of invention. The antithesis lies not in the presence or absence of truth value but of the commitment to truth value.”106 It is important to stress at this point that, while reading, readers enter into a special relationship with the narration and the actants, approaching Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958) 4; Luois-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1995) 84f. 104 Cf. Brian Fay, Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science, 178–198. 105 Martin C. Srajek, “Constitution and Agency,” 131 106 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1985) 25.

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them in ways that are not wholly different from the ways that they look at people in the “real” or “extra-literary” world; “the clues that we take in and use to construct an image of a person are virtually identical in literature and in life.”107 In a similar way, as they must decipher the mystery of their “real” interlocutors, so too must they draw up a profile of the actants in a literary work. This dimension of reading-interpreting cannot therefore be absent from any reading of biblical texts. As the readers attempt to set the narrative scene in motion by means of their imagination, the fictional may spin off truths which can refashion the working understanding of reality with which the readers read the extra-literary reality. The fictional has its own truth deserving of proper recognition.

4.4

THE TRUTH OF THE FICTIONAL

Ezekiel uses elements taken from history (e.g. dates and names) and fictionalizes them. “The ‘act of fictionalizing’ embeds ‘reality’ with the triad of ‘the real’—‘the fictional’—the imaginary’ (Das Reale—das Fiktive—das Imaginäre).”108 Reality is used within the context of an account where the rules of the narration come before any strict truth principle in terms of historical correspondence between facts and words. The fictional in a literary piece of writing—even in a work with autobiographical features (and maybe an autobiographic claim)—consists in the so-called facts that are accompanied by (interpreted) connotative statements whereby meaning is attributed to them.109 Things are and events happen. They become meaningful when they are filled with meaning, i.e., when the mind reads meaning into them. Then, it strings them up together into semantic games that make judgements possible. Baruch Hochman, Character in Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985) 36. See also Howard Mancing, “Against Dualisms: A Response to Henry Sullivan,” in Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 19/1 (1999) 158–176. 108 Hanna Liss, “The Imaginary Sanctuary: The Priestly Code as an Example of Fictional Literature in the Hebrew Bible,” in Oded Lipschits & Manfred Oeming (eds), Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006) 669. Here, the author is following: W. Iser, Fingieren als anthropologische Dimension der Literatur (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 1990). 109 This is so because, so as Fay explains: “Countless facts, themselves the result of interpretations, can be arranged in any number of different ways to form a coherent configuration which makes a life intelligible. (…) That is, biography involves the creative imagination of the biographer as well as the intentions of the biographer.” Cf. Brian Fay, Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science, 188. 107

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The fictional nature of the narration does not mean that what is said is not true, but rather that what the book actually does is construct or imagine a new given. The reality of the book exists in the book. Literature exists in the realm of meaning. Literature exists in the real world because it exists in the mind and the mind is real. Furthermore, untrue statements may not be historically true, but they are still real. If they exist as thoughts, then they are real. Meaning takes place or is constructed at the level of consciousness. The mind interweaves a number of events and evaluates them in light of a continuum. This action of interweaving events or of breaking the flow of events into units that are assigned meaning is the fictional dimension of knowledge itself, present even in historiography. What happens is that writers can choose to emphasise either pole of the equation: the givenness of the event within the historical continuum or the meaning attributed to it within the narrative continuum. All writing that implies the existence of meaning does so in the light of a larger framework which in the end can neither be proven nor rebutted. In itself, if a text follows its own logic, it is true to itself. In comparison to other texts (including historiographical texts), a text’s description of extra-textual realities may then be considered to be untrue. Nonetheless, to say that meaning-oriented writings have a fictional dimension and that they ultimately rest on a symbolic framework is one and the same thing. In fact, “what makes fictional and breaks historical writing is not the presence of invented material—inevitable in both—but the privilege and at will the flaunting of free invention.”110 The comparison between what archaeology reveals about those self-same historical events and what Ezekiel tells the readers or makes them believe will offer clues about Ezekiel’s as well as the archaeologists’ own view of things. Even though Ezekiel does indeed contain elements from history, the final criteria according to which it was composed and must now be read and reread is rhetorical and ideological111 rather than historical or historiographical.112 Indeed, “the reality represented in the fictional text is Cf. Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 29. Cf. Jesús G. Maestro, “Reviews (of: Jean Canavaggio, Cervantes, entre vida y creación” (Alcalá de Henares: Centro de Estudios Cervantinos, 2000), in Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 22/1 (2002) 158–165, esp. 162. 112 To say that Ezekiel is composed according to the criteria of fictionality that rule autobiographical and ideological narration is taken by many as a denial of any 110 111

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not represented for its own sake. Rather, it functions as a reference or means to something that does not exist, but will be made imaginable. By means of fictionalizing, the author presents the world in the modus of ‘As if’ (Als-Ob), striving for the ‘irrealization of the real.’”113 As hinted above, the truthfulness of the book must not be equalled with its adequacy to render fixed facts. Truth is a logical and rational reality and thus mental, ideational and propositional114—which means that it is relative to the system within which it is expressed.115 Ezekiel has a message to convey, a tale to tell. Facts, on the contrary, are mute data calling for interpretation. In this sense, even historiography is based (in part) on fiction or creative imagination, on the skilful art of weaving a story around archaeological objects and past events, and on the re-construction and actualization of what is no longer at hand. Truth must therefore neither be equalled to happening nor opposed to imagination, for there are different kinds of truths. There are factual truths (“this is a chair”) and there are existential truths (“all humans are born equal”), and both types are relative to the ideational system that contextualises them within core of truthfulness. Zimmerli expresses such unease when he writes that “for all this, it is still not said that in Ezekiel’s visions and symbolic acts are have to do with a pure literary fiction. This interpretation, which was much favored in the precritical phase of Ezekiel study—and beyond it—is out of place. Everything which recent study of the prophets has brought to light of the true experiential background of prophecy renders it inappropriate to deny to Ezekiel, the younger contemporary of Jeremiah in whom the submission to the divine power is certainly not to be overlooked, a genuine experience underlying his prophetic teaching,” Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 18. 113 Hanna Liss, “The Imaginary Sanctuary,” 672. 114 The relativity or relational nature of truth is implied by basic principles of (Western) rationality, namely the principles of identity (A=A), of non-contradiction (A=A and A=non-A cannot be true at the same time and looked at from the same perspective), and of excluded middle or tertium non datur (either A=A or A=non-A, there is no third possibility). The same can be said of the old logical axiom that truth and error exist only in the proposition (i.e. the sentence, A=B), which must be either true or false, i.e. the (semantic) principle of bivalance. The proposition’s truth or falsehood depends on and can be verified only in relation to an extra-propositional context that helps establish the value of A and of B and the perspective from which A and B are viewed. 115 For an interesting example of this, cf. Umberto Eco, “On Truth. A Fiction,” in Umberto Eco, Marco Santambrogio & Patrizia Violi (eds), Meaning and Mental Representations (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988) 41–59.

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which there must be nouns such as “chair,” “humans,” adjectives such as “equal,” and so forth. Things can therefore be completely true despite the fact that they may never actually have taken place or that they are wholly fictitious and imagined (for example, YHWH uniting the dispersed into one “Israel,” Ezek 34:12–16; 37:21–22). Truth and truths can thus also lie in the imagined future as a promise, i.e., as that which can be, in which case fiction would then be a more adequate way of attaining to truth than historiography. Ezekiel’s view is true, therefore, not because it is historical, but because from the perspective of the book, it will appear (i.e., reading can mediate revelation) that it makes sense. It may not be factual, but it is still true, if only one looks at it from the book’s own standpoint—the same can be said about the archaeologist’s truth. This is the truth of the metaphor, the truth of the literary work.116 The geniality not just of Ezekiel, but of the whole Hebrew Scriptures, lies in its ideology and “in the world view projected, together with the rhetoric devised to bring it home.”117

5.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this contribution, I have sought to highlight some of the dimensions of the biblical book called Ezekiel. I accept that biblical books are “books” in a special way, not only because they are approached as somehow being God’s speech, but also because the very compositional history of most of them deconstructs our usual notions of book, author and writer. If, as Jews and Christians believe, this book can indeed mediate God’s Revelation to the faithful (as it has done for so many throughout the centuries), then it can do this only by being a text. Therefore, theological exegesis cannot but entail the conscious and systematic effort to let Ezekiel be a biblical book and to speak to us as a book. We must consequently (re)discover and acknowledge its literary character. The first rule for reading understandingly is that readers should have enough encyclopaedic competence to commune with the text in its own terms, without “raping” it. Thus, the first skill we ought to acquire is respect towards the text. Whenever we disregard the literary nature of Holy Texts, say, under the pretence of saving their revelatory status, we will ultimately fail to appreciate the very dynamics of “entextualised” Revelation. 116 117

Cf. Luis Alonso Schökel, A Manual of Hermeneutics, 131. Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 37.

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The autobiographical, fantastic, and fictional dimensions of Ezekiel do not undermine its divine message; they actually bridge it over to the readers. Ezekiel’s message cannot be respectfully understood unless we recognise and interact with its autobiographical, fantastic, and fictional strategies. Acknowledging Ezekiel’s literary nature will not be a detriment to its message. On the contrary, it will keep us, the readers, from divinising anybody’s understanding of the text. The text is the meeting place where God and the readers can communicate, not God.118 When the doors of its encoded traces are opened by the inquisitive mind of the readers, meaning takes place and the conversation between God and the readers starts. Then, the Word of God happens. Consequently, it is no longer an extra-literary person who functions as prophet: the real prophet is the book. The stage where this revelatory meeting between God and the readers through the text occurs is our imagination, which explains the title of this contribution: “Imagining Ezekiel.” From a historical viewpoint, the literary character of Ezekiel suggests a close connection between the book and the literati (scribes and middle sectors of society). Its apocalyptic message further confirms this since as “a genre, apocalyptic could have flourished only within circles of sufficient education and erudition to produce this kind of literature.”119 This is an invitation for us the readers to read not only what is on the lines but also what is between the lines.

118 119

Cf. Hanna Liss, “The Imaginary Sanctuary,” 689. Jon L. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow, 185.

DID RASHI NOTICE A JANUS PARALLELISM IN EZEK 20:37? HERB BASSER QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY, CANADA Ezekiel 20:1-37a speaks of how God chose Israel for himself, brought them out from Egypt where they polluted themselves with idols and God was angry with them and would have destroyed them. Yet, he gave them laws and festivals which they rebelled against and so he, in time, scattered them amongst the nations. Now he will bring them out, ruling over them with fury (20:33), from the lands of their captivity as he had before into a desertlike state. And he will (20:37) bring them once more under his rod and to his covenant, purifying them (20:38ff) of the rebels amongst them that they may thrive and return to their land. Ezek 20:37 is the transition point that moves the narrative from Israel’s past failure and accompanying punishments into a vision of a restored covenant. God will thus repair the breaches that had occurred from the Exodus until the Exile. I wonder if Rashi’s comments on Ezek 20:37 disclose an intuitive grasp of “Janus parallelism.” This term describes a feature in Scriptures that allows reading verses both in parallel and as progressions. It depends upon the author placing an ambiguous word-form with dual etymologies into the biblical passage. C. H. Gordon coined the term “Janus parallelism” to describe a literary phenomenon “that hinges on the use of a single word with two entirely different meanings: one meaning paralleling what precedes, and the other meaning what follows.”1 The argument that Rashi noted a Janus parallelism runs as follows. See C. H. Gordon, “New Directions,” Bulletin of the American Association of Papyrologists 15 (1978), pp. 59–66 (59–60), available online at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/basp/browse.html. For a discussion on this device 1

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Ezek 20:37: ‫אתי ֶא ְת ֶ ֖כם ְבּ ָמ ֥סֹ ֶרת ַה ְבּ ִ ֽרית‬ ֥ ִ ‫וְ ַה ֲע ַב ְר ִ ֥תּי ֶא ְת ֶ ֖כם ַ ֣תּ ַחת ַה ָ ֑שּׁ ֶבט וְ ֵה ֵב‬ Rashi: ‫ שתהיו כפופים לי ולמוסרי‬- ‫תחת השבט‬ ‫ בברית שמסרתי לכם‬- ‫במסורת הברית‬ Rashi’s understanding: I [have you pass] beneath the scepter [and I 2 [I will bring you]: that you become subject to (a) me and to (b) my band(s) [‫”;]מוֹס ַרי‬ ְ will bring you] by the masoret of the Covenant [commandments]: By the covenant [commandments] that I handed to you [but you ignored]. The scepter is the symbol of the king’s authority and his laws—so Rashi reads (comment on 37a) as if 37a and 37b are parallel—by making you kneel beneath the scepter you are now my subject and bound by my laws. So Rashi’s first comment reads ‫ ָמס ֶֹרת‬as obligation (the extended meaning of fetter).3 Greenberg got this translation exactly right although he need not have justified it by seeing ‫ ָמס ֶֹרת‬as ‫ ַמ ֲאסֺ ֶרת‬when ‫( מוֹ ֵסר‬fetter, band) works more elegantly, with no need for hypothesizing a dropped ‫א‬.4

on Job and numerous other texts see Scott B. Noegel, Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job (JSOTS, 223; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). 2 It is possible that Rashi’s ‫ מוסרי‬stands for ‫מוּס ִרי‬ ָ “my instruction,” but such a reading of Rashi would change very little in terms of my argument about the presence of a Janus parallelism. 3 Ancient sources note two senses here: 1. “Shut up” (δεσμοῖς)—Aquila (like “in an iron collar,” διὰ κλοιοῦ in Symmachus) While Yehuda ibn Hayyuj proposes this meaning on the basis of an hypothetical reconstruction of a missing ‫ א‬in ‫ס ֶרת‬ ֺ ‫ ַמ ֲא‬, most likely these versions ‫ר‬ ‫ס‬ ֵ ‫וֹ‬ ‫מ‬ took it from (band, fetter). On ibn Hayyuj’s proposal see David Kimhi’s ‫“ ספר השרשים‬Book of Roots,” under the heading of ‫ אסר‬and M. Greenberg, “MSRT HBRYT, ‘The obligation of the covenant,’ in Ezekiel 20:37,” in Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor, eds., The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (Winona Lake, 1983), pp. 37–46 (39) and bibliography cited there. 2. Another meaning found in an ancient OG version is “handed-down tradition” (παραδόσει)—Theodotion. Rashi incorporates these two meanings in his comments and find both senses embedded in the verse. 4 See M. Greenberg, “MSRT HBRYT, ‘The obligation of the covenant,’ in Ezekiel 20:37.”

HERB BASSER

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For all intents and purposes, they mean the same thing.5 For Rashi the entire verse describes a kind of knighting ceremony where the subject kneels beneath the ruler’s scepter—a ceremony of loyalty to God and his obligations. Rashi’s wording suggests he sees the preposition ‫ ְבּ‬prefixed to ‫ ָמס ֶֹרת‬as carrying a meaning often associated with the preposition ‫( ְל‬i.e., ‫מוֹס ֵרי‬ ְ ‫) ְל‬, namely identifying obligations as the object of one’s loyalty. In his comments to 37a Rashi paraphrases the entire verse. But then Rashi reads the verse anew: 37b does not mirror back 37a but moves the action ahead: I will bring you [to full redemption] by means of the covenant that I have already delivered to you. Here ‫ ְבּ‬signifies agency, “by the covenant.” The inheritance of the laws or of the covenant of land (I’m not sure which he has in mind) are not the just for the purpose of my choosing you to be my people but act also as the instrument by which I lead you forward. And you already have it—I gave it to you long ago. What makes this reading fortuitous is that it could serve as a subtle polemic to undermine any notion that Ezekiel refers to a radically new covenant, as Christians may see it. Rather, he speaks of a renewed covenant, one which was given once and for all time at the occasion of the Exodus. For Rashi, ‫ ָמס ֶֹרת‬looks backward in the verse to the “scepter of authority” (‫ ) ֶשׁ ֶבט‬and forward to the eternal “covenant” (‫ ְבּ ִרית‬the next word after ‫ ) ָמס ֶֹרת‬already in hand.

See BDB 64a–b; under main heading ‫אסר‬, subheading ‫ ָמס ֶֹרת‬which notes this usage of “moser” ‫ מוֹ ֵסר‬in Ezek 20:37. 5

MOSES OUTSIDE THE TORAH AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DIASPORA IDENTITY THOMAS RÖMER COLLÈGE DE FRANCE - UNIVERSITY OF LAUSANNE

1.

THE SHARED FIGURE OF MOSES AND THE PENTAEUCH

In his seminal essay “The ‘Conquest of Canaan’ in the Book of Joshua and in History,” Nadav Na’aman has reminded us that the “written transcription of presumed oral tales may be more informative in regard to the period in which these tales were transcribed than to the time in which they were presumed to have been composed.”1 In this paper, I will apply this methodological reflection to some stories about Moses inside and outside the Torah, in order to show that these stories do not help us in reconstructing the ‘historical Moses’ but in understanding the diversity of nascent Judaism in the Persian period. The present debate about the composition of the Torah is at times confusing.2 Since the majority of scholars abandoned the traditional documentary hypothesis, no new consensus about the formation of the Bible’s first five books has emerged. This said, there is a widespread

1 This essay has been recently republished. See N. Na’aman, Ancient Israel’s History and Historiography. Volume Two: Canaan in the Second Millennium B.C.E. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 317–92; citation from p. 326. 2 For an overview see T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL SymS, 34; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006); G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson (eds.), The Pentateuch as Torah. New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007).

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

agreement that the first publication of the Pentateuch—or of a ProtoPentateuch—took place in the middle of the Persian period.3 There is also a considerable degree of agreement on an understanding of the Torah as a ‘compromise document,’ in which different narratives and legal collections were gathered together in an attempt to accommodate the different ideological points of view of the Priestly school on one hand and a lay group, which one may call the Deuteronomists, on the other hand. In this regard it is interesting that, in Ezra 7:11, Ezra is called ‫“( ַהכּ ֵֹהן ַהסּ ֵֹפר‬the ֱ ‫ָכּ ֲהנָ א ָס ַפר ָדּ ָתא ִ ֽדּ‬ priest-scribe”), and in Aramaic (Ezra 7:12) ‫י־א ָלהּ ְשׁ ַמיָּ א‬ (“the priest, scribe of the law of the God of the Heavens”). In these texts, Ezra clearly appears as a priestly and literate figure that symbolizes and embodies the alliance between the Priests and the Deuteronomists. Within the Pentateuch, Moses plays the same role. He is definitely the central figure of the Torah, which according to Knierim,4 can be read as a Mosaic biography. After the prologue in the book of Genesis, Exodus opens with Moses’ birth and the last chapter of the Pentateuch relates his death. Moses is the mediator of both the Priestly and the Deuteronomic law. In the priestly texts, Moses is also described as the brother of Aaron, the founder of the priestly dynasty and the prime contractor for the mobile sanctuary built according to the divinely transmitted model. For the Deuteronomists, Moses is above all lawgiver, teacher and interpreter of the Law.5 Both Priests and Deuteronomists agree on the idea that Moses is the founder of the sanctuary, the cult and the Law, which are the institutions at the centre of rising Judaism in the provinces of Yehud and Samaria. Moses was not only the figure of identification for the two major ideological and economical groups inside the Land, but also for Diaspora Judaism. Some texts and hints reveal the importance of Moses for this Judaism outside the Land. They refer to Moses in order to legitimate This agreement echoes a traditional Jewish view, which makes Ezra the author or the editor of the Torah. 3

4 R. P. Knierim, “The Composition of the Pentateuch” in K. H. Richards (ed.) Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 24 (SBLSP, 24; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985) 393–415. 5 J.-P. Sonnet, The Book Within the Book. Writing in Deuteronomy (BIS, 14; Leiden/ New York/Köln: Brill, 1997); E. Otto, “The Pentateuch in Synchronical and Diachronical Perspectives: Protorabbinical Scribal Erudition Mediating Between Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code” in E. Otto and R. Achenbach (eds.) Das Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und Deuteronomistischem Geschichtswerk (FRLANT, 206; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004) 14–35.

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theological options different than those that were about to become standard in Jerusalem. Some of these attempts were finally integrated into the Torah and some were not. The ‘non orthodox’ traditions about Moses can nevertheless be detected through some allusions in the Biblical text and through traditions about Moses that can be found in the work of Jewish and Greek authors of the Hellenistic period. I would like to briefly present the most interesting of these traditions. Before doing so, it is important to draw attention to the end of the Torah, which tries to present Moses as a possible model for Diaspora Judaism.

2.

THE DEATH OF MOSES OUTSIDE THE LAND

The last chapter of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy 34, highlights Moses’ incomparable status. Although Moses has to die at the age of 120 years,6 when he passes away he is healthy and full of vigour (the statement in 34:6 corrects 31:2). His death at the top of a mountain (cf. also Aaron’s death in Numbers 20) and his burial by Yhwh himself underline Moses’ exceptional and heroic character. The remark in verse 5, stating that nobody knows his burial place to this day, can be understood as a polemical statement against the veneration of Moses’ grave. But one should also consider, following a suggestion of Loewenstamm, that the biblical account presents a “cautious rejection of a myth predicating Moses’ assumption.”7 Such a tradition was perhaps already in existence when the last redactors of the Torah revised the account of Moses’ death. In fact, the almost divine status of Moses appears in the last verses of Deuteronomy 34 (vv 10–12), in which Moses is clearly distinguished from all other prophets and in which he becomes the author of the “signs and wonders” that in the Torah are exclusively accomplished by Yhwh himself. This epitaph also reflects a struggle between the advocates of a Hexateuch and those of a Pentateuch.8 In opposition to those who wanted to add the book of Joshua to the nascent Torah, the concluding verses of Deuteronomy 34 were added by the advocates of a Pentateuch. These The limitation refers to the beginning of the Torah (Gen 6:3) which narrates how God limits the age of the human beings to 120 years. 7 S. Loewenstamm, “The Death of Moses,” in G. W. E. Nickelsburg (ed.) Studies on the Testament of Abraham (SBLSCS, 6; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976) 185–211. 8 For more details cf. T. C. Römer and M. Z. Brettler, “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch,” JBL (2000) 401–419. 6

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

verses clearly communicate that the conquest of the land in Joshua does not belong to the Torah. The conclusion of the Torah with a narrative about Moses’ death outside the land opens the possibility for the Jews of the Diaspora to identify with Moses. One of their major fears was to be buried in a foreign land.9 During the Second Temple period, many ossuaries in and around Jerusalem contained the mortal remains of wealthy Jews from the Diaspora.10 Deuteronomy 34 may also be understood as a discrete critique of this practice: the most important thing is not to be buried in the land, but to observe the Torah transmitted by Moses.

MOSES, THE MAGICIAN 3. In the non-priestly call story of Moses in Exodus 3–4, late redactors inserted a long discussion between Moses and Yhwh that focuses on the people’s lack of belief.11 In response to Moses’ objections, Yhwh provides him with magic power. His rod becomes a serpent (4:1–5). This episode, as has often been observed, foreshadows the so-called plague narrative, in which Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh’s magicians. But within the Priestly account of these confrontations, the term ‘plague stories’ is misleading. The accounts incorporated in the Priestly document are about Demonstrationswunder, that is miracles that seek to demonstrate Yhwh’s power. The Priestly version of the miracles in Egypt has five episodes. The first of them is in 7:1–13, which is often understood as a prologue to the series from a synchronic perspective.12 Moses and Aaron compete with the 9 To be buried in a foreign land was considered a curse. See Isa 22:15–18; Amos 7:1–7; Jer 20.6. 10 H. Lichtenberger, “«Im Lande Israel zu wohnen wiegt alle Gebote der Tora auf.» Die Heiligkeit des Landes und die Heiligung des Lebens” in R. Feldmeier and U. Heckel (eds.), Die Heiden. Juden, Christen und das Problem des Fremden (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1994) 92–107. 11 Cf. J. C. Gertz, Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung. Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch (FRLANT, 186; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999) ; T. C. Römer, “Exodus 3–4 und die aktuelle Pentateuchdiskussion” in R. Roukema (ed.), The Interpretation of Exodus. Studies in Honour of Cornelis Houtman (CBET, 44; Leuven/Paris/Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2006) 65–79. 12 Belonging to P then, grosso modo, 7:19–22*; 8:1–3,11*; 8:12–15; 9:8–12. There is an astonishing unanimity on this matter among exegetes.

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273

magicians of Egypt in each of these five episodes.13 For instance, after Aaron’s staff is transformed into a “dragon” (interestingly P uses the term ‫ ַתּנִּ ין‬in 7:9–10, 12, which is also found in Gen 1:21), Pharaoh sends for wise men (‫ ) ֲח ָכ ִמים‬and sorcerers (‫ ְמ ַכ ְשּׁ ִפים‬, cf. Deut 18:10). These two categories of specialists are also called ‫( ַח ְר ֻט ִמּם‬often translated as “magicians”) in Exod 7:11. This term occurs in the five episodes (see 7:22; 8:3, 14–15; 9:11) and is probably a word borrowed from Egyptian, designating a priest of high rank, in charge of reading ritual instructions (Redford: “chief lector priest”).14 Aaron and the ‫ ַח ְר ֻט ִמּם‬have thus a double identity: Both are priests and “magicians.” The difference between the two lies in the origin of their knowledge. Egyptian magicians base their performance on occult sciences (cf. 7:11, 22; 8:3, 1415), whereas Aaron goes by Yhwh’s word as transmitted by Moses (7:9, 15; 8:1, 12). But just like Moses and Aaron, the magicians succeed in transforming water into blood (7:22) and are able to summon the frogs (8:2). This indicates that the author takes the magical abilities of the Egyptians seriously and that for him, magic as such is not a problem.16 Rather, he wants to prove that Yhwh’s words of magic are more efficient than the Egyptians’ magic. Thus, in the fourth plague, Egyptian magicians are unable to imitate Aaron’s magical gesture, namely the transformation of dust into mosquitoes (Exod 8:13–14). They acknowledge Moses’ and Aaron’s (and their God’s) superiority, when declaring to ִ ‫( ”) ֱא‬8:15). This expression, which Pharaoh: “this is the finger of God (‫ֹלהים‬ is attested in Egyptian magical formulas, probably refers to Aaron’s staff,17 13 J. Van Seters, “A Contest of Magicians? The Plague Stories in P” in D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman and A. Hurvitz (eds.) Pomegranates and Golden Bells. Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995) 569–580; T. Römer, “Competing Magicians in Exodus 7–9: Interpreting Magic in Priestly Theology” in T. Klutz (ed.) Magic in the Biblical World. From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon (JSNTS, 245; London/New York: T & T Clark International - Continuum, 2003) 12–22. 14 Donald B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50) (SVT, 20; Leiden: Brill, 1970) 203. 15 These are the only Biblical plural occurrences of the word. 16 Cf. Werner H. Schmidt, “Magie und Gotteswort. Einsichten und Ausdrucksweisen des Deuteronomiums in der Priesterschrift” in I. Kottsieper et al. (eds.) «Wer ist wie du, HERR, unter den Göttern?»: Studien zur Theologie und Religionsgeschichte Israels; für Otto Kaiser zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994) 169–179 (178). 17 B. Couroyer, “Le «doigt de Dieu» (Exode, VIII, 15),” RB 63 (1956) 481–495.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

whose superiority they acknowledge. The Egyptian magicians do not use ִ ‫) ֱא‬, the Tetragrammaton, but rather the more universal term “God” (‫ֹלהים‬ which is consistently used by P for narratives set in pre-Mosaic times, and ִ ‫ ֱא‬is a concept that for the deities of peoples other than Israel. For P, ‫ֹלהים‬ can be shared by Hebrews and Egyptians. Contrary to Pharaoh (whose heart Yhwh has hardened), the magicians begin to understand their adversaries’ superiority. The Egyptian magicians’ defeat is finally confirmed in the fifth episode, in which they themselves are affected by the ashes of the furnace that Moses and Aaron transform into skin disease carrier (9:10– 11). In this episode, one may observe an interesting shift. In contrast to the four previous episodes, the narrative does not open with “Yhwh told Moses: tell Aaron...” (cf. 7:8, 19; 8:1, 12), but with “Yhwh told Moses and Aaron” (9:8). Notice that Moses does not transmit the divine order to his brother so he may execute it later, but rather the two play a direct role in the magical operation. Moses even plays the most important part. It is as if the author wanted to show that it is through the direct involvement of Moses that the Egyptian magicians are finally defeated. Moses, who was more or less kept in the background of the first four episodes, is eventually characterised as the one who brings an end to Egyptian magic. According to Reindl, P likely took up a narrative that originated in the Egyptian Diaspora.18 This is an attractive idea. It is certainly not pure coincidence that all the other occurrences of the term ‫ ַח ְר ֻט ִמּם‬are all in the story of Joseph (Gen 41:8, 24) and in the narrative part of Daniel (Dan. 1:20; 2:2), that is to say in two Diaspora’s novels. Be that as it may, Exodus 7–9 may be understood as a dialogue with Egyptian culture. P accepts and maybe admires the magic knowledge of the Egyptian priests, but it wants to convince his readers that belief in Yhwh, the only God, may integrate and exceed such knowledge in might. F. Graf reminds us that traditions about Moses as a magician existed in Jewish circles located in Alexandria and in Syro-Palestine, as well as in the Graeco-Roman world. Exodus 7–9 may also reflect these traditions.19 The latter cannot but be grounded on a positive evaluation of the magical powers of God’s messengers. It is worth 18J.

Reindl, “Der Finger Gottes und die Macht der Götter. Ein Problem des ägyptischen Diasporajudentums und sein literarischer Niederschlag” in W. Ernst, K. Feiereis, F. Hoffmann (eds.) Dienst der Vermittlung. Festschrift Priesterseminar Erfurt (ETS, 37; Leipzig: St. Benno Verlag, 1977) 49–60. 19 F. Graf, La magie dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine (Pluriel 8822; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994) 14–16.

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noting that the Talmud takes this fact into account when it declares that magical practices, when performed for the benefit of teaching are not included among the prohibitions (b. Sanh. 68a).20

4.

MOSES, THE LEPROUS

We can briefly turn back to the account of Exodus 4. A second sign— which is quite obscure—follows the transformation of Moses’ staff into a serpent (4:6-7). God asks Moses to put his hand into his bosom, the hand then becomes “leprous like snow” and is in turn restored. These two verses interrupt the link that exists between the first sign (Moses’ staff becomes a serpent) and the third sign (God’s announcement that the water of the Nile will become blood), both of which foreshadow the first two miracles of the plague narrative. The ‘sign’ of Moses’ leprous hand has no satisfactory explanation in the context of the biblical traditions about Moses. To understand these verses we need to turn to another Moses tradition, which is not attested in the Pentateuch but in the anti-Jewish treatises about the Jews. The work of the Egyptian priest Manetho—who wrote a History of Egypt at the end of the fourth century B.C.E., or beginning of the third— is of special interest here. Josephus quotes some fragments of it in his Contra Apionem. According to Josephus, Manetho knew a story of an Egyptian king Amenophis who wanted to purify Egypt from all lepers and sick people. He put them to work in stone-quarries, east of the Nile. He later transferred them to the city of Avaris, the former capital of the Hyksos (“the Shepherds”). A leprous Priest named Osarsephos/ Osarsiph/ Osarseph headed the colony there. Osarsephos gave them new laws21 (Ag. Ap. 1.239: “they should not worship the gods or show reverence for any of the animals regarded as sacred by the Egyptians … They should sacrifice and use all of them, and they should have nothing to do with any person except those who shared the oath”). Osarsephos allied himself with the 20 On attitudes about magical practices, cf. R. Schmitt, “The Problem of Magic and Monotheism in the Book of Leviticus,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8/11 (2008), available at http://www.jhsonline.org. 21 Translation according to Verbrugghe and Wickersham. See G. P. Verbrugge and J. M. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho Introduced and Translated. Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000). Cf. J. M. G. Barclay, Against Apion. Translation and Commentary (S. Mason, ed., Flavius Josephus Translation and Commentary, vol. 10; Leiden/Boston: E. J. Brill, 2007) 135-41.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Shepherds from Jerusalem and together they fought against the Egyptian king who had to flee to Ethiopia where he stayed for thirteen years. Meanwhile, the lepers and the Shepherds burned cities and sanctuaries and destroyed statues of the gods. Finally, they were defeated by Amenophis and his army, who “killed many and pursued the rest as far as the borders of Syria.” At the end of the story, we are told: “It is said that the man who gave them their constitution and laws was a priest of the people of Heliopolis, named Osarseph22 from Osiris the god of Heliopolis. When he changed his allegiance, he changed his name and was called Moses” (Ag. Ap. 1.250). There is some debate whether Manetho reports this identification, or whether it was added later.23 The identification of Osarsephos and Moses is however supported by the biblical account in Exod 4:6–7. The biblical text could be understood as a “counter history” that reacts against an apparently important tradition describing Moses as a man affected with leprosy.24 To this tradition, the biblical text opposes the affirmation that Moses’ leprosy was only momentary; it happened in the context of a transfer of divine powers to him.

MOSES AND THE FOREIGN WOMEN

5.

The question of intermarriage presents a major issue for nascent Judaism. The Deuteronomists and the authors of Ezra-Nehemiah are fighting such marriages, as can be seen in texts like Deuteronomy 7 or 9, Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 10. Nevertheless, the Moses story reports that Moses had two According to Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton: University Press, 1992), 415–6, Osarseph is a polemical name for Akhenaton; others think of a combination of Joseph and Osiris, or Osiris and Sepa (Barclay, Against Apion, 137 n. 832). 23 See John G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism (SBLMS, 16; Nashville/New York: Abingdon Press, 1972) 113–118; Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 58–62; J. M. G. Barclay, Against Apion, 140-41, n. 871. 24 Apparently Hecataeus—who is often considered to be one of Manetho’s sources—knows a similar tradition, since he relates that a disease struck Egypt and that the Egyptians decided to expel the foreigners living in the country and among whom was Moses. Hecataeus does not mention explicitly Moses’ leprosy, but he combines the theme of the expulsion of Moses and his followers and the theme of disease. A text such as Deut 7:15: “all the dread diseases from Egypt that you experienced he (Yhwh) will not inflict on you” (see also Deut 28:60) might reflect such a tradition. 22

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foreign wives: Zipporah, the Midianite (Exodus 2) and a Cushite woman mentioned in Num 12:1. The tradition about a relation between Moses and the Midianites is probably quite old.25 When the Pentateuch was edited, a redactor tried to make this tradition compatible with the Priestly view of the connubium by adding a genealogy (Gen 25: 1–4) stemming from the union between Abraham and a third wife, Keturah, according to which Midian is a descendant of Abraham.26 The case of Num 12:1 is substantially different: Miriam and Aaron criticize Moses because of his marriage with a Cushite woman. Some commentators have tried to identify this woman as Zipporah, on the grounds that the tents of Cushan are mentioned in parallel with the land of Midian in Hab 3:7.27 But Num 12:1 suggests a new marriage and the mention of a Cushite/Ethiopian woman makes perfect sense in a Diaspora context.28 Josephus relates the story of a marriage between Moses and an Ethiopian princess. It is difficult to assume that Josephus would have invented the whole story in order to explain Num 12:1. The opposite is more plausible. Num 12:1 likely reflects a tradition about an Ethiopian wife of Moses that the last redactors of the Torah could not ignore completely. (Artapanus, like Josephus, reports that Moses led an Ethiopian campaign, but he does not mention Moses’ marriage. Some scholars think that Artapanus omitted this tradition, because he did not like it.29 But this position is not very convincing given Artapanus’ liberal attitude, which is reminiscent of some of the Biblical Diaspora novellas.30 It is more plausible to imagine that Alexander Polyhistor, who apparently shortened the Artapanus’ narrative when he transmitted it, censored this theme.31) 25 E. A. Knauf, Midian. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Palästinas und Nordarabiens am Ende des 2. Jahrtausends v.Chr. (ADPV; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988). 26 This post-priestly (see Knauf, op. cit., 168) constructed genealogy integrates the population of the incense road into Abraham’s descendants (qeturah means “incense”). 27 See for instance J. de Vaulx, Les Nombres (Sources Bibliques; Paris: Gabalda, 1972)159, who refers to traditional and critical commentators. 28 A. Shinan, “Moses and the Ethiopian Woman. Sources of a Story in The Chronicles of Moses,” ScrHier (1978) 66–78 (71–72). 29 M. Braun, History and Romance in Graeco-Oriental Literature (1938) (reprint; New York/London: Garland, 1987) 99–102. 30 J. J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem. Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. Second edition (The Biblical Resource Series; Livonia: Dove Booksellers, 2000) 45. 31 E. Koskenniemi, “Greek, Egyptians and Jews in the Fragments of

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The tradition about Moses’ Ethiopian wife probably originated in a Diaspora context. Its aim was to legitimate intermarriages against the Jerusalemite orthodoxy. Within this context, one may mention, for instance, the situation in the Jewish colony in Elephantine, as already suggested by Diebner.32 In fact, this colony, which faced the land of Cush and which comprised many mercenaries, offers a fitting background to explain the origin of the tradition of Moses’ Ethiopian wife.33 Num 12:1 is therefore not the starting point of this tradition, but a discrete reflection.34 The redactor who incorporated this tradition in the book of Numbers tried to legitimate such marriages inside the Torah, as can be seen in the sanction against Miriam who criticized Moses. The popularity of this tradition in later Jewish legends35 confirms that it provided a path for identification within Diaspora Judaism.

6.

MOSES, THE WARRIOR

In the HB Moses is more or less demilitarized. He does not lead the people into the land and the military conquest is the work of Joshua, who is clearly depicted in the Hexateuch (in Exodus 17 and in the book of Joshua) as a warlord. This narrative structure shows that the redactors of the Torah were not interested in claiming political autonomy through military traditions. Nevertheless, there are some military traditions about Moses at the end of the book of Numbers and in the first chapters of Deuteronomy. He conquers the Transjordan territory and Num 20:14 even mentions a “book of the wars of Yhwh”36 which would have contained Moses’ military exploits. In these cases, Moses acts like Joshua in the conquest of Canaan. One may ask whether these stories at the end of Numbers reflect a tradition of Moses as a conqueror, which may be found in a fragment from Hecateus Artapanus,” JSP (2002) 17–31, 29. 32 B. J. Diebner, “»...for he had married a Cushite woman« (Num 12,1),” Nubica I/II (1990) 499–504. 33 This tradition incorporated possibly the fact that several Pharaohs took Ethiopian wives in order to symbolize their domination over the land of Cush, see D. Runnalls, “Moses’ Ethiopian Campaign,” JSJ (1993) 135–156 (150). 34 Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explicitly mentions a queen of Ethiopia. 35 Shinan, op. cit., 72–77; see also S. Brock, “Some Syriac Legends Concerning Moses,” JJS (1982) 237–254. 36 There is however a text-critical problem since the LXX reads “the war of Yhwh” not as the title of the book but as a “quotation” from it.

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and more extensively in the work of Artapanus in which Moses is characterized as an excellent commander leading an Ethiopian campaign. It is highly unlikely that Artapanus invented this tradition, since Josephus (Ant. 2.238–256) offers a similar account. Given that there is no direct literary dependency between the relevant works, one has to conclude that both authors took over an oral tradition from the Jewish Diaspora.37 Can we retrace the formation of this tradition? The Egyptian Jews certainly knew about the antagonism between Egypt and Cush. Wars between Egypt and Cush were common since the second millennium B.C.E. and, in fact, around 728 B.C.E. the Cushite king Piankhy invaded Egypt. He conquered Memphis and Heliopolis and was proclaimed king over Egypt. This Ethiopian occupation of Egypt, which only came to an end around 672 B.C.E with the installation of Neco I after the Assyrian invasion,38 offers a fitting background to Artapanus’ account (Praep. IX, 27, 3). The topic of Ethiopian campaigns led by Egyptian or other kings (Semiramis, Cambyses) became a literary motif during the Persian era.39 Egyptian Jews were likely aware of this motif. The legend that shows the largest number of parallels with the tradition reflected in Artapanus and Josephus is the story of Sesostris (Sesoosis).40 The legendary figure of Sesostris apparently combines recollections about Sesostris III—who defeated the Ethiopians—and Ramses II and was popular during the Persian period.41 Herodotus (II, 102–110), Diodorus Siculus (I, LIII– LVIII), Hecateus and Strabo all told of Sesostris’ achievements.

37 See for more details and the following T. Römer, “Les guerres de Moïse.” in La construction de la figure de Moïse - The Construction of the Figure of Moses (ed.T. Römer; Transeuphratène Suppl. 13; Paris: Gabalda, 2007) 169–193. 38 Cf. D. B. Redford, From Slave to Pharaoh. The Black Experience of Ancient Egypt (Baltimore - London: John Hopkins University Press, 2004). 39 J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora. From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE – 117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 129 and n. 9; Shinan, op. cit., 68; Collins, op. cit., 41. 40 D. L. Tiede, The Charismatic Figure as Miracle Worker (SBLDS, 1; Missoula: Society of Biblical Literature, 1972), 153–67; T. Rajak, “Moses in Ethiopia: Legend and Literature,” JJS (1978) 111–122, 115. 41 C. Obsomer, Les campagnes de Sésostris dans Hérodote : essai d’interprétation du texte grec à la lumière des réalités égyptiennes (Connaissance de l’Egypte ancienne, 1; Bruxelles: Connaissance de l’Egypte ancienne, 1989).

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According to this legend,42 Sesostris is both a brilliant legislator and an excellent head of state who organizes the land of Egypt in different departments (Herodotus II, 109; Diodorus I, LIV, 3). Artapanus tells the same thing about Moses (Praep. IX, 27, 3).43 He also claims that Moses introduced circumcision in Ethiopia, whereas Herodotus (II, 104) and Diodorus (I, LV, 5) mention circumcision in relation with Sesostris. But Sesostris is above all a fine strategist and wages war against Ethiopia (Strabo XVI, 4.4.). Moses is described in the same manner in the accounts of Artapanus and Josephus, and also goes to war against Ethiopia.44 Both authors also report that Moses has to face the hostility of the Egyptian court (Praep. IX, 27, 11–18; Ant. II, 254–256); the same holds true for Sesostris when, accompanied by his wife, he returns from his campaign (Herodotus II, 107; Diodorus I, LVII, 7–8).45 It is therefore a plausible assumption that the tradition used by Artapanus and Josephus was inspired by this legend.46 If this is the case then, within this tradition, Moses was constructed as a kind of Jewish Sesostris.47 One may speculate that this development of the image of Moses might have taken place among Jewish mercenaries, in Elephantine or elsewhere. These mercenaries were likely eager to refer to Moses as the inventor of military art and excellence.48 In any event, this story was excluded for obvious reasons from the official ‘biography’ of Moses in the Torah, even if some aspects of a military Moses were taken over into the book of Numbers.

42 For a summary of this legend cf. Braun, History and Romance, 13–18, who situates its origin in the Egyptian resistance against the Persian invaders. 43 Both authors mention 36 nomes. 44 Tiede, op. cit., 161. 45 According Herodutus and Diodorus, his brother wants to kill him through fire. Diodorus reports that the Gods decided to save him. Herodotus tells a cruel plan of his wife: Sesostris’ two sons perish in the fire, since Sesostris uses them as a bridge to cross the fire 46 See also Tiede op. cit., 16. He is, however, convinced that it was Artapanus who invented the Mosaic version of this legend: “it appears likely that Artapanus had adapted a version of this legend and applied it to Moses.” 47 Cf. Exodus 2 in which attributes of Sargon are associated with the figure of Moses. Cf. H. Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses the Persian? Exodus 2, the ‘other’ and biblical ‘mnemohistory’,” ZAW 116 (2004) 189–205. 48 D. Runnalls, “Moses’ Ethiopian Campaign,” JSJ (1993) 135–156 (147, 150).

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SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS

Besides the image of the “official” Moses (prophet, mediator and legislator), other traditions existed during the Persian and Hellenistic era. Some of these traditions were integrated into the Torah while others can be detected only with difficulties. In fact, some allusions in the Pentateuch, like those in Exod 4:6–7 or Num 12:1, remain obscure unless the extra biblical traditions about Moses from the Second Temple period are consulted to shed new light on them. Another example of how extra-biblical texts from the late Persian or Early Hellenistic period were alluded to in the Torah may be found in the Enochic writings,49 and in particular in the Watchers Story. The closest contact between the two texts is to be found in Gen 6:1–4 and the beginning of the Watchers Story in Enoch 6:1–2 and 7:1–2. Traditionally it has been argued that that the Watchers Story is a rewriting of the account in Genesis, but it seems more plausible to consider Gen 6:1–4 as a ‘quotation’ from the Enoch story.50 If we accept this view, it means that we should question the often accepted assumption that all the traditions about Moses (or Enoch) found in the work of Jewish and Greek authors of that period are midrashic developments of the biblical text. We have to rethink the formation of the biblical account of Moses in the light of the stories transmitted by Hecateus, Manetho, Artapanus, Josephus and others. It appears then that the Moses stories in the Torah represent a selection of the stories that circulated at the time, either in Yehud, Samaria or in the Jewish Diaspora.

I thank Professor Ehud Ben Zvi for that suggestion. See on this P. Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic and Its History (JSPS, 20; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990) 82–83; P. R. Davies, “And Enoch Was not, for Genesis Took him,” in C. Hempel and J. M. Lieu (eds.), Biblical Traditions in Transmission. Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (JSJS, 111; Leiden/New York/ Köln: Brill, 2006), 97–107. 49 50

CHARACTERIZING ESTHER FROM THE OUTSET: THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE STORY IN ESTHER 2:1–20 JONATHAN JACOBS DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE, BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY, ISRAEL

1.

INTRODUCTION

The main plot of Esther begins in Chapter 3, with the description of Haman’s decree and the developments that follow. The first two chapters serve as extended expositions, introducing the main characters of the story. Chapter 1 introduces King Ahasuerus while Chapter 2 introduces Mordecai and Esther.1 Scholars have written extensively on the character of Esther, her development over the course of the story, and the changes that she undergoes. However, their focus has been concentrated mainly on the transformation that takes place in chapters 4–7.2 Less attention has been For a discussion of the first two chapters as an exposition of the rest of the narrative, see, e.g., C. V. Dorothy, The Books of Esther, Structure, Genre and Textual Integrity (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Pr., 1997) 231. 2 See, e.g., B. W. Jones, “Two Misconceptions About the Book of Esther”, CBQ 39 (1977) 172–177; M. V. Fox, Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Pr., 1991) 196–211; K. M. Craig, Reading Esther, A Case for the Literary Carnivalesque (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Pr., 1995) 94–99; J. A. Berman, “Hadassah bat Abihail: The Evolution from Object to Subject in the Character of Esther”, JBL 120 (2001) 647–669. For a comprehensive review of the various scholarly positions concerning the character of Esther, see L. Day, Three Faces of a Queen, Characterization in the Books of Esther (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Pr., 1995) 11–15. 1

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paid to her character as described in the first part of the book. This article focuses on Esther’s character as portrayed in 2:1–20.3 Chapter 2 records the suggestion of the king’s advisors, the many young women who gather in Shushan (Susa), the treatment that they are given, and the selection of Esther as queen at Ahasuerus’s side. The purpose of this article is to address four important interpretative issues concerning this chapter: 1. Who is the main character in the chapter: Ahasuerus, Mordecai, or Esther? 2. How does the author shape Esther’s character in the chapter? 3. What is the general theme of the chapter and its purpose, within the overall framework of the aims of the book? 4. In what way do the lengthy descriptions of the maidens gathering at the palace of King Ahasuerus contribute to the general message of the chapter? The present discussion will include an analysis of the boundaries of the chapter, its structure, analogies, key words, and other literary devices.

2.

ESTHER 2: STRUCTURE

Chapter 2 contains a literary unit marked off from the preceding and the following units within the book by the fixed opening formula (“after these things”) in 2:1 and 3:1.4 This unit contains two narratives: (a) the primary This article addresses only MT Esther. For a comparison between the MT of chapter 2 and the Greek translations, see e.g. K. De Troyer, “An Oriental Beauty Parlour: An Analysis of Esther 2.8–18 in the Hebrew, the Septuagint and the Second Greek Text”, A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna (ed. A. Brener) (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Pr., 1995) 47–70; H. Kahana, Esther, Juxtaposition of the Septuagint Translation with the Hebrew Text (Dudley, MA : Peeters, 2005) 65–125. 4 A similar demarcation of the story is presented by Fox, Character, 26; Dorothy, Esther, 235; and A. Berlin, Esther (The JPS Bible Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001) 21. However, this view is not universally accepted. L. B. Paton, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Esther (ICC 22; Edinburgh: Clark, 1908) 186, was one of the first to regard vv. 19– 23 as an independent unit. Similarly, R. Gordis, “Studies in the Esther Narrative,” JBL 95 (1976) 47–48 elaborates on the connection between vv. 19–20 and v. 21 onwards. Many other scholars have demarcated the stories as follows: first story – vv. 1–18; second story – vv. 19–23. See C. A. Moore, Esther, Introduction, Translation and Notes (AB, 21; New York: Doubleday, 1971) 15, 29; D. J. A. Clines, Ezra, 3

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story in vv 1–20, which deals with the coronation of Esther, and (b) the brief story of the treason committed by Bigtan and Teresh in vv. 21–23.5 As per its title, this article deals with the coronation story only. In many cases the structure of a narrative helps to define the main character and the central idea of the chapter.6 Chapter 2 of Esther is a good example, because the structure of the chapter is of great assistance in clarifying some of the questions posed at the outset. The structure follows an a–b–c––a’–b’–c’ pattern.7 a

1–4

b

8–9

Advice of the attendants to bring maidens for the king “and let their ointments be given them” Esther in the custody of Hegay “[Esther] was brought to the king’s house… and the girl obtained favor in his sight”

Nehemiah, Esther (NCBC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984) 284, 291. F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC, 9; Dallas: Word Books, 1996) 360, 371; Bush (359–360) divides the unit comprising vv. 1–18 into three parts: 1–4, 5–11, 12–18, and lists the many stylistic links between them. I believe that the direct parallel structure proposed below, according to which vv. 19–20 parallel vv. 10–11, helps to connect vv. 19–20 with vv. 1–18. To my view the link that the above commentators propose, between vv. 19–20 and vv. 21–23, should also be rejected; see note 5 (below) for the considerations for regarding vv. 21–23 as an independent story. A different approach is adopted by L. M. Day, Esther (AOTC; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005) 43. To her view, the story of Vashti’s refusal ends at 2,4, and the story of Esther’s coronation begins at 2:5. In an earlier study (see Day, Faces, 30), Day proposes that the story includes only vv. 7–20. J. D. Levenson, Esther, A Commentary (OTL 21; London: SCM, 1997) unites the first two chapters of the Book under a single heading: “A New Queen Is Chosen”. 5 The secondary story is an independent narrative with a new introduction: “In those days”; it features new characters – Bigtan and Teresh, and it contains an independent plot. This is a preliminary story necessary for the plot that will develop later on, in Chapter 6. See, for example, T. S. Laniak, Shame and Honor in the Book of Esther (Atlanta: Scholars Pr., 1998) 61. 6 Concerning the importance of the structure of a biblical narrative, see e.g. F. Polak, Biblical Narrative - Aspects of Art and Design (Heb.; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1994) 214–227. 7 For a discussion of direct parallel in a biblical narrative, see e.g. Polak, Narrative, 221–227; S. Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989) 103–109. Mention should also be made of Moore, who argues that this chapter is built on a chiastic parallel. However, he includes only vv. 10–20, while ignoring the first part of the chapter. See Moore, Esther, 22.

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c

10–11

a’

12–14

b’ 16–18 c’

19–20

Esther and Mordecai “Esther had not made known her people or her descent… Mordecai went about…” Esther and the other maidens—implementation of the suggestion Esther before Ahasuerus “And Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus… and she obtained grace and favor in his sight” Esther and Mordecai “Mordecai was sitting… Esther did not make known her descent or her people

Lines a–a’ present the advice of the king’s attendants and servants that maidens be brought before the king so that he can choose a new queen, (and the implementation of this suggestion). The stylistic element that serves to connect these two lines is the description of the ointments.8 Lines b–b’ present Esther as being taken, at the first stage to the women’s house and then in a second stage to the king’s house. In both units Esther is placed opposite Hegay, and at both stages she finds favor in the eyes of her beholders: first Hegay, the keeper of the women, and then the king himself. Lines c–c’ concern Mordecai’s instruction to Esther not to reveal her people or her descent. Here, too, there is a strong stylistic connection between the two lines. The stylistic parallels between the structural lines show that the chapter is carefully shaped. I believe that the chosen structure is also designed to demonstrate the centrality of Esther in Chapter 2. Esther is onstage throughout the chapter,9 while all the other characters surrounding her— Verses 5–7 are a later exposition, presenting the new characters—Mordecai and Esther—as a “flashback”; for this reason they are not included in the structure of the chapter. See Moore, Esther, 19; Clines, Esther, 284; Fox, Character, 28; Bush, Esther, 359–360. Concerning the later exposition in a biblical narrative, see, e.g., Bar-efrat, Narrative, 117–120; R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981) 80–81; Polak, Narrative, 116. 9 Except for limb a, which precedes her appearance. Clearly, lines b, c, b’, c’ focus on a description of Esther. Below we shall demonstrate that limb a’ (11–15) also centers on her, with the description in these verses of the maidens who come to the king being secondary to the description of Esther. 8

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including Mordecai and Ahasuerus—are secondary figures that appear only for the purposes of illuminating her character.10 This chapter serves to present Esther to the readers. But how is she characterized? The existing research offers a range of different approaches to understanding Esther’s character. Jones asserts that in this chapter, Esther “appears stupid… either dumb or at least helpless”11. Day argues that Esther is a sophisticated, scheming character who pulls the right strings to achieve the royal status that she seeks.12 Fox adopts an approach somewhere in between these extremes, viewing Esther as a passive character who is subservient to Mordecai.13 The view position advanced here does not match any of these readings of the character of Esther. This view is based on an analysis of her character from three different perspectives: (a) her status prior to her meeting with the king; (b) her status following her meeting with the king; and (c) a literary comparison between her and Ahasuerus.

3. ESTHER PRIOR TO THE MEETING WITH THE KING Some initial details concerning the “girl” are provided by the last part of the background (vv. 5–7).14 The first two verses of the background concern Mordecai.15 The third verse addresses Esther, and follows a chiastic structure:16 a. He brought up Hadassa b. for she had no father or mother c. and the girl was fair and beautiful b. and since her father and mother had died a. Mordecai took her as his own daughter

Concerning the role of secondary characters in the biblical narrative, see e.g. Polak, Narrative, 255–262; Bar Efrat, Narrative, 86–88; U. Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives (Bloomington: Indiana University Pr., 1997) 263–269. 11 See Jones, “Misconceptions”, 175–176. 12 See Day, Esther, 48–49. 13 See Fox, Character, 197–199. See also Berman, “Evolution”, 649. 14 Concerning the later background, see above, n. 8. 15 Day, Esther, 44, argues that although Mordecai is presented before Esther, Esther is the main character of the chapter. For the opposite view, maintaining that it is Mordecai who is at the center of the story, see Fox, Character, 30. 16 See Day, Esther, 47. 10

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The first and final lines of this section tell the reader that Esther is an orphaned girl, and that she is Mordecai’s cousin. Mordecai has adopted this orphan17 with a view to raising her up and educating her.18 At the centre of this chiastic structure, there is a bodily description of Esther. She is fair and beautiful (7). Here it should be noted that Vashti, too, is described as “beautiful” (1:11), and therefore the king’s attendants propose to bring “beautiful virgin maidens” before the king (2). The presentation of Esther as “fair” (‫ )יפת תאר‬as well as “beautiful” (‫ )טובת מראה‬anticipates the future selection of Esther as queen in place of Vashti,19 because of the fates of other biblical characters who are described in similar terms. Rachel, “fair and of fair appearance” (Gen 29:17), is selected by Jacob. Joseph, who is similarly “fair and of fair appearance” (Gen 39:6), is desired by Potiphar’s wife. Abigail, who is “fair” (1 Sam 25:3) 17 This is the only place in the Bible where we find a description of the adoption of a girl. The Talmudic sages (Meg 13a) teach that Mordecai took Esther as a wife, and the verse is interpreted in this way in the Septuagint (LXX) too. Concerning the Midrash and the Septuagint, see M. Zipor, “When Midrash met Septuagint: the Case of Esther 2, 7”, ZAW 118 (2006) 89–92. Support may be found for the view that Esther was Mordecai’s wife from the language of v. 7 – “Mordecai took her as his own…”. Many times in the Bible, “taking” is done for the purposes of marriage. See, for example, Gen 24:44; Deut 25:7. On the other hand, this is difficult to accept in view of the fact that the king is looking for “virgin maidens” (2). Likewise, the text states explicitly that she was taken as a “daughter”. Later on, too (v. 20), the text compares Esther’s new situation with her previous one, using a formulation that is more appropriate to adoption: “as when she was in his custody”. See Moore, Esther, 21. Clines, Esther, 287, and Bush, Esther, 364, also maintain that Esther was adopted as a daughter. It may be possible to combine these two views: the verb “l–k–h”, mentioned above as support for the view of the Talmudic sages, is a key word that appears four times in our chapter. Twice it refers to Mordecai taking (vv. 7, 15), and twice it is Ahasuerus who takes (vv. 8, 16) – and in his case Esther is certainly taken as a wife. Perhaps the analogy between Mordecai taking and Esther being taken hints that Mordecai did indeed adopt the girl, but with a view to marrying her in the future, as practiced in ancient Persia; see Bush, Esther, 364. See also Ibn-Ezra on v. 7. Day, Esther, 53, uses the key word “l– k–h” as the basis for deducing Esther’s passivity. 18 “He brought up (‫ )אומן את‬Hadassa” (7); cf. Moses’ relationship with Israel: “as a nursemaid (omen) carries the infant” (Num 11:12), and Naomi’s relationship with Ruth’s son: “And she became his nursemaid (omenet)” (Ruth 4:16). 19 Jones, “Misconceptions”, 173–174 points to the word tov (good) as a key word in the first chapters of Esther. See also Bush, Esther, 367; Laniak, Shame, 62– 63.

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is chosen by David. Esther is characterized in a way reminiscent of these personages, and such a characterization hints already at Esther’s selection by Ahasuerus. Aside from her family situation and outer appearance, the text provides no other explicit details about Esther. Her inner characterization must be sought within the body of the narrative. As it will be shown, the text construes Esther as not only being physically beautiful, but also as possessing a pleasant nature and qualities that impress all those who encounter her. The text conveys this message through the use of the unique expression, “she obtained grace and favour.”20 To illustrate, in v 9 it reads “The girl pleased him and she obtained his favour; “ in v 15, “And Esther obtained grace in the eyes of all who beheld her;” and in v 17, “And she obtained grace and favor from him, more than all the other maidens.” Esther’s character is revealed to the readers through the eyes of the literary personages surrounding her.21 Everyone who comes into contact with her is charmed—starting with Hegay, the keeper of the women, who handles thousands of young maidens yet pays extra attention to this special girl (v 9). Whoever sees Esther is impressed by her special character (v 15). Finally, the king himself—who spends every night with a different girl – finds that his attention is drawn only to her (v 17). It should be noted that, according to the original plan, “the girl who pleases the king shall reign in place of Vashti” (v 4). However, as the text describes the implementation of the plan, it notes that “the king loved Esther more than all the women… and he made her queen in place of Vashti” (v 17). In other words, the king favours Esther not only because of her external beauty, but because she captures his heart completely. What is the secret of Esther’s magic? In what way is she different from all of the other maidens, and worthy of being selected by Ahasuerus? 20 The expression “obtain favor” occurs only in Esther (2:15, 17; 5:2). The more common expression used in the Bible is “find favor” (some forty appearances), and in every instance the reference is to inner refinement rather than outer beauty. For example, “Noah found favor in the eyes of God” (Gen 6:8); “And now, if then I have found favor in Your eyes, I pray You – make Your ways known to me, that I may know You, in order that I may find favor in Your eyes” (Exod 3:13), and many others. The combination “to grant favor” (six times in the Bible) likewise refers to inner refinement rather than outer beauty. 21 Cf. U. Simon, “Minor Characters in Biblical Narrative;” JSOT 15 (1990) 11– 19.

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The narrator shapes Esther’s character through contrast to all of the other maidens by means of two secondary descriptive sentences that precede the description of Esther herself. Every maiden who is brought to Shushan undergoes a two-stage preparation. The first stage is described in vv. 8–9, and involves being accepted into the “house of the women” by Hegay, the keeper of the women. The second stage, described in vv. 12–15, concerns the encounter with the king.22 The text describes in both instances the procedure followed by the other girls before turning to Esther. The first stage is reported in an unusual way. The verse opens with a lengthy secondary clause – “And it was, when the king’s command and his decree were heard, and when many maidens were gathered to Shushan, the capital” (v 8). This clause serves as an introduction to the main clause, namely “that Esther was taken to the king’s house…”. This structure, with the secondary clause preceding the primary one, encourages the reader to compare them. Esther is not “gathered”, together with all the other women; rather, she is “taken”.23 Is this not perhaps an allusion to a strong inner character, inner grace that equals her outer beauty? All the maidens in the kingdom are surely standing in line, hoping for the chance to be chosen as Ahasuerus’s queen. Only Esther is “taken” against her will, to the women’s house. It would seem that her modesty and inner charm are what drew the special attention of Hegay (“[a]nd the girl pleased him and she obtained favor from him, and he speedily provided her ointments and her appointed 22 Attention should also be paid to a third stage. Following this first, single encounter with the king, the girl returns – not to the patronage of Hegay, in the women’s house, but “to another women’s house, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s chamberlain, keeper of the concubines” (14). In other words, after this single encounter she is demoted from the status of “woman” to the status of “concubine”. It is reasonable to assume that, following her sexual encounter with the king, a woman would never go back to her home; rather, she would remain as a concubine to the king until her death. See Ibn-Ezra on v. 14; Day, Esther, 50–51; Berlin, Esther, 28. For other suggestions for understanding the word “sheni” (“another women’s house”), see Moore, Esther, 23–24; Gordis, “Studies”, 53–54. 23 “‘And Esther was taken’—against her will, and contrary to her benefit, as it is written concerning our matriarch Sarah (Gen 12:15), And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house – against her will and contrary to her benefit” (Aggadath Esther, par. 2, 8). See also Tg. Esth I: ‫ ואידברת אסתר באונסא‬and Bush, Esther, 367–368. It should be noted that many scholars maintain that Esther went willingly to the palace. See: Paton, Esther, 173; Moore, Esther, 21; Clines, Esther, 288; Fox, Character, 33–34; Levenson, Esther, 60.

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rations… and he advanced her and her maids to the best place in the women’s house.”) The comparison between Esther and the other women is even more prominent in the second stage of the description, where they visit the king’s house. Verses 12–14 describe at length the preparations undertaken by each maiden in anticipation of her encounter with the king. Scholars have advanced various explanations of the reasons for which the narrator provided such detail.24 My proposal is that that these verses represent— incidentally, once again, a long secondary clause that precedes the main clause – Esther’s own preparations for her encounter with the king. The two descriptions are introduced in the identical manner: Verse 12 reads, “And when the turn of each girl came to come to King Ahasuerus.” Verse 15 reads, “And when the turn of Esther… came to come to the king.” However, from this point onwards the description of the other girls is altogether different from the description of Esther. The text elaborates at great length in the description of the intensive preparations undertaken by each maiden in preparation for her meeting with the king: After she spent twelve months under the regulations for the women – for thus were spent the days of their anointing: six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with perfumes and with other ointments of the women (12).

Likewise, the text notes that on the big day—the day of the visit to the king—each girl is entitled request whatever she wishes: This is how the girl would come to the king: whatever she specified would be given to her, to take with her from the women’s house to the house of the king (13). To Clines’ view (Clines, Esther, 284), the purpose of these verses is to show the level of luxury and extravagance that characterize the palace, following on from the description in chapter 1, 6–8. Jones, “Misconceptions”, maintains that the text is poking fun at the empty vanity of the gentiles. Bush, Esther, 368, too, asserts that the aim is a satirical parody of Ahasuerus’s kingdom. Berlin, Esther, 27, suggests that the point in listing all of these preparations is to emphasize Esther’s natural beauty, requiring none of this excessive pampering. Fox, Character, 35 and Craig, Reading, 93–94 understand these verses as being meant to convey the absolute commitment to satisfying the king. Day, Esther, 59 maintains that the intention here is to paint a picture of a society that places its emphasis on outer beauty. See also De Troyer, “Oriental”, 54–55, who concludes from this description that the chapter was written from a male perspective. 24

292

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

The preparations for each girl’s fateful meeting with the king appear in a subordinate clause that precedes and highlights, through contrast, the description of Esther’s preparations: And when the turn of Esther… came, she asked for nothing but what Hegay, the king’s chamberlain, specified (15).

Esther’s behaviour is sharply contrasted with that of the other women who visit the king. Unlike the other girls, the modest and gracious Esther refrains from exploiting the unlimited options open to her by virtue of her status as a candidate for royalty. She remains modest and humble. As a result: Esther obtained favor in the eyes of all who beheld her (15). And the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, and he placed the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti (17).25

In summary, the comparison between Esther and the other women serves to illuminate Esther in a strongly approving light. Her positive personality finds expression both in the fact that she is taken against her will to the women’s house, and in the fact that she remains modest,

Many different explanations have been offered for Esther’s behaviour in general and her refusal to request anything. For instance, Paton rejects the possibility that the text is commenting on Esther’s modesty, insisting that it was wise of Esther to rely on Hegay’s suggestions, as an expert on the king’s taste in women, rather than on her personal preferences (Paton, Esther, 182). This view is supported by Moore, Esther, 24, 27; De Troyer, “Oriental”, 54; and Levinson, Esther, 62. To Berlin’s view (Berlin, Esther, 28), the contrast between the other maidens and Esther is meant to emphasize the natural beauty of the latter, as opposed to the artificial façade of the former. Day, Esther, 54 accepts both explanations and offers a third: lack of imagination. Esther simply has no idea as to what aids she could use. Fox, Character, 37, likewise perceives Esther’s behaviour as arising from her passive personality. Obviously, these views are the opposite of the approach set forth above, since they assume that Esther is trying her wily best to find favour in the king’s eyes. According to Clines, Esther, 290, Esther requests nothing because of her pride as a Jewess and her unwillingness to allow gentiles to help her. 25

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293

rejecting the opportunity—seized by the other candidates—of taking advantage of her status.26

ESTHER’S CHARACTER FOLLOWING THE MEETING WITH THE KING

Will Esther retain her inner beauty, or gradually lose it to the blandishments of power? After all, there are certainly many precedents for such moral deterioration. Another look at the structure of the chapter, as set out above, serves to answer this question. The direct parallel structure creates a connection between three pairs of lines. The first two reflect development and dynamism in the plot: Lines a–a’ describe the advice of the king’s attendants to bring maidens to the king, and the implementation of this suggestion, with the gathering of the girls to the capital. Lines b–b’ depict two stages that Esther undergoes: first the arrival at the women’s house and then the arrival at the king’s house. The third pair, c–c’ differs from the other two: instead of development, the same identical fact is re-stated. Esther had not made known her people or her descent, for Mordecai has commanded her not to make it known (10) Esther did not make known her descent or her people, as Mordecai has commanded her” (20)27 Paton, Esther, 182, notes that the purpose of tracing Esther’s family, in v. 15 – “Esther, daughter of Abihail, uncle of Mordecai” – is to underline the distinction between the nameless women described in the previous verses, and Esther. 27 The text does not elaborate as to why Mordecai told Esther not to disclose her national and ethnic identity, and many different opinions have been offered in response to this question. Some scholars maintain that Mordecai was concerned about anti-semitic sentiment in the royal palace; see Clines, Esther, 288; Fox, Character, 32; Bush, Esther, 368. To Day’s view (Day, Esther, 58) what worried Mordecai was a lack of knowledge as to how to behave in the royal palace. To address the question adequately, we must add a further question: how is it that Mordecai did not hesitate to reveal his own origins: “For he had told them that he was a Jew” (4:4)? I propose here a brief outline of a possible answer which, I believe, has not been considered to date. It is possible that Mordecai learned a lesson from the events of Chapter 1, in which the text describes how, for the sins of a single woman (Vashti), all the women of the kingdom are made to suffer (1:20–22). According to this principle, Mordecai is concerned that if Esther’s origins become public knowledge, and then at some stage she happens to incur the 26

294

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

What purpose does this repetition serve? By comparing the innocent girl who enters the king’s palace with the woman who has already been chosen as queen and now occupies the royal throne, the text communicates that that Esther does not change. The great honour that she commands as queen, alongside Ahasuerus, in no way changes her character. She remains loyal and obedient just as she had been while under the direct guardianship of Mordecai. The text emphasizes this especially at the end of v. 20: “And Esther performed Mordecai’s bidding as she had done while in his care”. From the point of view of Esther’s inner character, nothing at all has changed.28 It should be noted that the word “bidding”(‫ )מאמר‬appears only three times in the entire Bible, all of them in the Book of Esther: concerning Vashti we read, “for not performing the bidding of King Ahasuerus” (1:15). Esther, as noted above, “performed the bidding of Mordecai” (20).29 This inverse analogy shows another aspect of Esther’s loyalty and of her stable character. king’s wrath, it is possible that all the Jews will be punished together with her – just as all the women suffered the effects of Vashti falling foul of the king. Therefore, Mordecai instructs Esther not to reveal her Jewish identity. When it comes to himself, on the other hand, Mordecai has no such concerns, since he does not occupy a central, influential position, and a slip on his part will not have an adverse effect on his entire nation. At this point the theme of “it was turned around”, which is interwoven throughout the story, becomes manifest: it is reasonable to assume that had Esther revealed her Jewish identity at the outset, Haman would never have dared to propose his decree against her people. On the other hand, had Mordecai not been openly identified as a Jew, Haman would not have sought revenge against the entire Jewish nation, but rather only against Mordecai personally. 28 Above, I emphasized the fact that this message arises from the general structure of the chapter, creating a clear parallel between Esther prior to the coronation and Esther after the coronation. In this sense Esther is similar to Mordecai, who, following the great honor that he receives from Haman, returns to his regular place at the king’s gate: “And Mordecai sat at the king’s gate” (6:12). It should be pointed out that further on in the story, in Chapter 4, a more mature Esther is faced with an entirely different sort of challenge: her dilemma is whether to remain modest and passive and abandon her nation to the hands of their adversaries, or to act positively and decisively to save her nation. For a discussion of the development of her character, see above, n. 2. Levinson, Esther, 61, regards the purpose of the repetition in vv. 10–11 as indicating Esther’s staunch loyalty to her uncle Mordecai. 29 The third appearance is at the end of the narrative: “And Esther’s bidding confirmed these days of Purim” (9:32).

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ESTHER IN THE PRESENCE OF AHASUERUS The opening chapters of the Book of Esther introduce the reader to the key characters in the story. Given that literary personages are often characterized also, even if indirectly, by comparing them or their behaviour to other characters in the story, a comparative exploration of the characterization of King Ahasuerus and Esther is in order.30 Ahasuerus, as presented at the beginning of Chapter 1, is a great and powerful ruler. As the chapter continues, however, it becomes apparent that his power is nothing more than an outward façade. At the first hint of crisis, he turns out to be helpless, and is drawn after and in fact controlled by his servants and underlings.31 Esther, in contrast, is presented at the start as someone who appears to be obedient and controlled by others. However, her obedience flows from her loyalty and respect for the person who is responsible for her welfare, rather than from weakness or helplessness. To the contrary, an analysis of the chapter shows that Esther is inwardly strong and steadfast. Thus, this aspect of the contrast between Ahasuerus and Esther contributes towards an amplification of her positive character. Does chapter two make a difference in the characterization of Ahasuerus advanced in chapter one? In Esther 2, he continues to adopt the advice of those who are subservient to him. More importantly, Ahasuerus is presented here as being led by his eyes and taking an interest only in external appearances: Let them gather every virgin maiden of beautiful appearance (3) The maiden who will be pleasing in the eyes of the king will rule in place of Vashti (4)

The new queen is going to be chosen on the basis of her external appearance alone. It is for this reason that the text describes in detail the long months during which the external beauty of each girl is painstakingly nurtured, with the help of ointments and perfumes (12–14).

30 It should be noted that the presentation of a king vis-à-vis a contrasting character (in our case, a young girl) is a common technique in the Bible; see, for example, Qoh 9:14–15. 31 Obviously, a separate discussion would be required for a full analysis of Ahasuerus’s character in Chapter 1.

296

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Esther is described as being of “fine form and of beautiful appearance”. Yet, she is chosen, as noted, not by virtue of her external appearance, but rather because of her inner character that captures the hearts of all who encounter her. By constructing this contrast between these two characters, the author of Esther hints, already at the very outset, that the covert battle for control, to be waged between King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther will ultimately be decided in Esther’s favour.

SUMMARY The story of the coronation of Esther (2:1–20) introduces the reader to an exemplary character worthy of emulation. Esther is a young, orphaned girl who is taken against her will from her home and forced to integrate into a foreign, alien world. She stands the test honourably, maintaining her dignity and her modesty at every stage preceding her selection as queen. More importantly, even after she is chosen, her character remains unchanged and she remains faithful to her values and her way. By virtue of the fact that Esther “asked for nothing” (15) at the outset, she receives the right to ask many things from Ahasuerus later on.32 The description of Esther in Chapter 2 is an appropriate introduction for the character that will ultimately, through her wisdom, come to save her people.

Verbal forms from the root ‫ בקש‬serve as key words in the rest of the narrative: “What is your request (‫ ?)בקשתך‬Up to half of the kingdom…” (5:3.6; 7:2), “What I ask and request (5:7) ”(‫“ ;)ובקשתי‬to perform my request (5:8) (‫)בקשתי‬ ; “My life at my asking and my people at my request” (5:3) (‫“ ;)בבקשתי‬What else is your request (‫)בקשתך‬, that it may be done?” (9:12). It is interesting to note that the text ironically states that “Haman stood up to plead (request) ‫ לבקש‬to Queen Esther for his life” (7:7). 32

“THE EDITOR WAS NODDING” A READING OF LEVITICUS 19 IN MEMORY OF MARY DOUGLAS MOSHE KLINE CHAVER.COM

…critics will not be convinced unless the alleged parallelism is supported by verbal evidence, such as marking the structural units by the exact repetitions which had led earlier students to suppose the editor was nodding.1

INTRODUCTION PREVIOUS READINGS In a recent book, Christophe Nihan has succinctly summarized research on Leviticus 19: The apparent heterogeneity of the various prescriptions and prohibitions grouped in Leviticus 19, as well as the absence of a clear framework, have traditionally led commentators to dispute the chapter’s literary coherence. In general, they assumed instead that this text was an assortment of laws from various origins. Alternatively, because of the manifest similarity of some laws with the Decalogue, form critics surmised that Leviticus 19 originated in a series of “decalogues” or even “dodecalogues”, the identification of which, however, was always disputed. Recent research on Leviticus 19 has tended to reject these two approaches as methodologically unsupported and has resumed instead 1

Mary Douglas, In The Wilderness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p.

xxiii

297

298

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES the search for a comprehensive structure in this chapter, even though no consensus has been reached so far on this point either.2

Nihan conveniently divides the approaches to Leviticus 19 into three general groups: 1) those who consider it formless, 2) those who consider it based on a decalogue structure, 3) those who still seek a comprehensive structure. Noth could be considered a spokesperson for the first group. He considers the chapter “a codex of regulations mostly concerned with daily life and its different circumstances and activities. In its transmitted form, this codex is indeed remarkably diverse and disordered.”3 Gorman seems to echo Noth: “Leviticus 19 consists of a series of miscellaneous instructions.”4 We will deal extensively with Decalogue and decalogue issues in the fourth section of this paper.5 For now, we can note that Schwartz has adequately countered the various D/decalogue arguments.6 As for the third group, to which this study belongs, the linchpin for identifying the structure of Leviticus 19 in recent studies is the formulaic usage of the divine first-person revelation. Wenham appears to be the first to identify the formula as a key for defining the structure of the chapter. In 1979 he wrote: This chapter covers such a variety of topics that the modern reader finds difficulty in seeing any rhyme or reason in its organization. But once it is recognized that ‘I am the Lord (your God)’ marks the end of a paragraph, its structure becomes much clearer. The chapter falls into sixteen paragraphs, arranged in three sections (4, 4, 8)… The first section (vv. 2b–10) consists of four paragraphs, each concluding with the motive clause ‘I am the Lord your God.’ The second section (vv. 11–18), also of four paragraphs each concluding with ‘I am the lord,’ is more tightly structured and builds up to a climax in ‘Love your neighbor Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: a study in the composition of the book of Leviticus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), p. 460 3 Martin Noth, Leviticus, (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. 138 4 Frank H. Gorman Jr., Divine Presence and Community, (Grand Rapids, Mich. Eerdmans, 1997), p. 111 5 For references to previous studies of the Decalogue and Leviticus 19 see Alfred Marx, “The relationship Between the Sacrificial Laws and the other Laws in Leviticus 19” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008), article 9, n. 9 available at http://www.jhsonline.org 6 Baruch J. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), pp. 372–374 2

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as yourself’ (v. 18). The third section is longer and uses both ‘I am the Lord’ and ‘I am the Lord your God’ as a refrain.7

Wenham divides the chapter into sixteen units, according to the closing formula, which fall into three blocks: religious duties, 1–4; ethical duties, 5– 8; miscellaneous duties, 9–16. He further notes that units 1–4 end with “I am the Lord,” while 5–8 end with the longer form “I am the Lord your God.” In other words, the units containing religious duties have a different closing formula than the units containing ethical duties. The miscellaneous units have a mixture of the two endings. The fact that the first eight units display a correlation between content and closing formula suggests that the pattern may be significant in the structure of the chapter. Magonet also uses the formula to divide the text into components, but comes up with a different, and less satisfying, arrangement.8 Both Schwartz and Milgrom agree that Wenham’s second group is an organic section, but they dismiss his overall plan because in their view the formula does not mark the ends of all the units in Leviticus 19.9 Milgrom concludes: "Thus the units in this chapter are to be decided strictly by their content."10 In this article, I will explore the alternative that Milgrom and Schwartz rejected, that Wenham was right and that the ending formula does in fact determine the units of the chapter. I will present an integrated reading of the whole of Leviticus 19 based on the formula divisions. As Douglas pointed out, division by literary device is a priori preferable to division by fiat: "Everything depends on how clearly the units of structure are identified."11 One must make every attempt to understand the author’s devices before denying their significance. (I will demonstrate in the course of this paper that the literary complexity of the text indicates that we should consider it authored rather than edited or redacted.) Regarding content divisions, we might add from Douglas: "Semantic structures give a great deal of scope for arbitrary and subjective patternings… critics will not be convinced unless the alleged parallelism is 7 Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 263–264 8 Jonathan Magonet, “The Structure and Meaning of Leviticus 19”, HAR 7 (1983), pp. 151–167 9 Schwartz, p. 269 and 365 fn. 3; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22 (AB; New York. NY: Doubleday, 2000), pp. 1597–8 10 Milgrom, ibid. 11 see n.1

300

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

supported by verbal evidence, such as marking the structural units by the exact repetitions which had led earlier students to suppose the editor was nodding."12 Chapter 19 is replete with such repetitions, for example “keep my Sabbaths” in vv. 3 and 30; “fear your God” vv. 14 and 32; “You shall not do injustice in judgment” vv. 15 and 35. The solution that I will present accounts for these repetitions, and others, as part of the plan of the chapter.

THE PLAN I have divided the analysis into five sections. In the first section, I will demonstrate that the first eight units consist of two blocks of four units each, as indicated by Wenham. I will add to his reading that the two blocks form inverted parallels. Each of the blocks contains a progression of ideas from unit to unit. In one block, the progression is from good to bad, while the progression in the other block is the opposite, from bad to good. In the second section, I will analyze the last seven units according to Wenham’s division, which are six units according to my reading. I have combined his unit 15, (v. 36) and 16 (v.37) because v. 36 lacks the closing formula, which appears at the end of v. 37. I will demonstrate that the six units divide into two parallel blocks of three units each. Each block of three is closely connected to one of the blocks of four units by a set of linguistic hooks. When each of the three-unit blocks is appended to its similar four-unit block, it continues the progression identified in the first section. I will conclude that the underlying structure of the chapter consists of two parallel seven-unit blocks that create inverse conceptual progressions. Block L Organized from Good to Bad 1 2 3 4 10 11 12

12

Ibid.

Block R Organized from Bad to Good 5 6 7 8 13 14 15

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The third section is devoted to a close reading of the two seven-unit blocks. This reading reveals an additional level of organization within the chapter, a level that cannot be seen until the two seven unit blocks are examined in parallel. I will show that the two parallel blocks are composed of five consecutive textual pairs. Pair A B C D E

1 2 3 4 10 11 12

5 6 7 8 13 14 15

Each of the five pairs exhibits both a structural parallel and a content parallel. The two parallels reinforce each other and create similar progressions from pair to pair. The structural parallels create a process of separation from pair to pair by progressing in stages from inseparable internal elements in pair A, to fully articulated and separated internal elements in pair E. The parallel conceptual progression flows from an inseparable link with God in pair A to a total separation from God in pair E. As can be seen in the above table, there are two different types of pericopes in the five-pair structure. Units 1–8 appear in pairs A–D as originally identified by Wenham; each original unit is a structural unit. However, in pair E each structural unit is composed of three original units. For the sake of clarity, I will hereafter use the term “unit” to refer to one of the ten parts of the five-pair structure. I will reserve the term “pericope” for the three subdivisions of each unit in pair E and will use the following marking scheme throughout:

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Pair A B C D E

L AL (1) BL (2) CL (3) DL (4) EL ELa (10) ELb (11) ELc (12)

R AR (5) BR (6) CR (7) DR (8) ER ERa (13) ERb (14) ERc (15)

The pairs are marked A–E and the columns are marked L(eft) and R(ight). The pericopes of unit E are marked a–c. No reading of chapter 19 is complete without considering the significance of elements of the Decalogue that appear in this chapter. In section four, I will explain the relationship between the pieces of the “shattered tablets” found in this chapter and the ten-part structure consisting of five pairs, which appear to be carved in stone. The explanation is based on a new arrangement of the ten parts of the Exodus 20 Decalogue utilizing the MT division. I will show that the Decalogue was read by the author of Leviticus 19 as a document consisting of five consecutive pairs according to the MT division, and that Leviticus 19 is based on this arrangement. A unique unit consisting of verses 19b–26, unit [9], separates the two large divisions of the chapter, the first eight units and the last two. I will treat this unit separately in section five.

1. THE STRUCTURE OF THE FIRST EIGHT UNITS Table 1 The First Eight Units L AL ‫א וידבר יהוה אל משה לאמר‬ ‫ב דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת‬ ‫אלהם‬ ‫קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם‬

R AR ‫יא לא תגנבו ולא תכחשו ולא תשקרו‬ ‫איש בעמיתו‬ ‫יב ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר וחללת את‬ ‫שם אלהיך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬

‫‪303‬‬

‫‪MOSHE KLINE‬‬

‫‪BR‬‬ ‫יג לא תעשק את רעך ולא תגזל‬ ‫לא תלין פעלת שכיר אתך עד בקר‬ ‫יד לא תקלל חרש ולפני עור לא תתן‬ ‫מכשל‬ ‫ויראת מאלהיך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫‪CR‬‬ ‫טו לא תעשו עול במשפט‬ ‫לא תשא פני דל ולא תהדר פני גדול‬ ‫בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬ ‫טז לא תלך רכיל בעמיך‬ ‫לא תעמד על דם רעך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫‪DR‬‬ ‫)‪ (a‬יז לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך‬ ‫הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו‬ ‫חטא‬ ‫יח לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך‬ ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫)‪ (b‬יט את חקתי תשמרו‬

‫‪AR‬‬ ‫‪shall not steal; you shall not‬‬ ‫‪deal deceitfully or falsely with one‬‬ ‫‪another. 12You shall not swear‬‬ ‫‪falsely by My name, profaning the‬‬ ‫‪name of your God: I am the Lord.‬‬ ‫‪11You‬‬

‫‪BL‬‬ ‫ג איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬ ‫ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם‬

‫‪CL‬‬ ‫ד אל תפנו אל האלילים‬ ‫ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו לכם‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם‬

‫‪DL‬‬ ‫)‪ (a‬ה וכי תזבחו זבח שלמים ליהוה‬ ‫לרצנכם תזבחהו‬ ‫ו ביום זבחכם יאכל וממחרת‬ ‫והנותר עד יום השלישי באש ישרף‬ ‫ז ואם האכל יאכל ביום השלישי פגול‬ ‫הוא לא ירצה‬ ‫ח ואכליו עונו ישא כי את קדש יהוה‬ ‫חלל‬ ‫ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מעמיה‬ ‫)‪ (b‬ט ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם‬ ‫לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצר ולקט קצירך‬ ‫לא תלקט‬ ‫י וכרמך לא תעולל ופרט כרמך לא‬ ‫תלקט‬ ‫לעני ולגר תעזב אתם‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם‬ ‫‪AL‬‬ ‫‪1The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:‬‬ ‫‪2Speak to the whole Israelite‬‬ ‫‪community and say to them: You‬‬ ‫‪shall be holy, for I, the Lord your‬‬ ‫‪God, am holy.‬‬

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PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

BL shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My sabbaths: I the Lord am your God.

BR shall not defraud your neighbor. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. 14You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

CL not turn to idols or make molten gods for yourselves: I the Lord am your God.

CR shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your neighbor fairly. 16Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow: I am the Lord.

DL (a) you sacrifice an offering of well-being to the Lord, sacrifice it so that it may be accepted on your behalf. 6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the day following; but what is left by the third day must be consumed in fire. 7If it should be eaten on the third day, it is an offensive thing, it will not be acceptable. 8And he who eats of it shall bear his guilt, for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off from his kin. (b) 9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of

DR (a) shall not hate your brother in your heart. Reprove your fellow but incur no guilt because of him. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (b) 19You shall observe My laws.

3You

4Do

5When

13You

15You

17You

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305

your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God. I have arranged the first eight units in two columns. The translation is the NJPSV, with a few changes that will be noted. The first four units, AL–DL, appear in the left, L, column and the next four, AR–DR, in the right column, R. The four units on the left close with the formula ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫“( אלהיכם‬I the Lord am your God”), and the four on the right close ‫אני‬ ‫“( יהוה‬I am the Lord”). There is another formal element, not reported by Wenham, which appears in the columns, in addition to the ending formulae. Allbee notes that all of the units in column R begin with ‫לא‬ (“You shall not”).13 None of the units in column L begins with this word. Therefore, the units are locked into the columns both by their openings and by their closings. I have made only one change to Wenham’s divisions. I have placed v.19a, ‫“( חקתי תשמרו את‬You shall observe My laws”), at the end of unit DR rather than at the beginning of unit [9]. This placement makes unit DR the structural parallel of unit DL. Both of these units now have two apparently independent elements, a and b. In both cases the second element appears to be out of place, since the content of each “b” element seems more appropriate to the opposite column. I will deal with this point at greater length later. In the following discussion as well as in other sections of this analysis, the closing formula is not considered part of the unit proper, with the exception of unit AL. Therefore, we can say, for example, that God does not appear in units CL and CR. I have given the columns the headings “usually suggested” according to Milgrom, “religious duties” on the left and “ethical duties” on the right.14 Even a cursory examination can reveal one of the reasons why Milgrom ultimately rejected these categories. The left column contains ‫“( איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬You shall each revere his mother and his father”), and ‫“( לעני ולגר תעזב אתם‬you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger”). Both of these are more “ethical” than “religious”. In the right column, we find ‫“( וחללת את שם אלהיך‬profaning the name of your 13 Richard A. Allbee, “Asymmetrical Continuity of Love and law between the Old and New Testaments: Explicating the Implicit Side of a Hermeneutic Bridge”, JSOT 31 (2006), p. 149 14 Milgrom, p. 1596

306

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

God”) and ‫“( ויראת מאלהיך‬You shall fear your God”). What makes these “ethical” rather than “religious”? Is there, then, any justification for classifying the two groups of four units by these, or any other, categories? The author has used obvious and redundant rhetorical devices, the opening and closing formulae, in order to divide the first eight units into two groups of four, so we should make an effort to determine whether the distinction is meaningful. There is clearly a difference between the contents of the groups, even if not exactly according to the proposed dyad. Matters of ritual appear only in the left-hand column. Antisocial behaviors appear only in the right-hand column. Therefore, we can see that there is an apparent content distinction, parallel to the rhetorical distinctions, and that it does have some connection to the dyad “religious” and “ethical”. By looking more closely at the exceptions to these two classes of “duties”, we will be able to describe the distinction between the groups more clearly. The two significant exceptions to the rule of “religious” in L are leaving the gleanings for the poor and reverence of parents. Both of these are limited private acts. Concerning the gleanings, the text says, ‫לעני ולגר תעזב‬ ‫“( אתם‬you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger”). They are not given to the poor; they must be left for the poor to pick for themselves. The owner of the field is required to leave something in the field when he/she harvests. Therefore, there is no direct contact with an “other” besides parents in column L. This observation sharpens the distinction between the columns. After taking into account the apparent exceptions, we can modify the subject of column L to “private acts” as opposed to the civil concerns of R. This is reinforced by the exceptions in R. There are references to God in three of the units of column R: AR, ‫ולא‬ ‫“( תשבעו בשמי לשקר וחללת את שם אלהיך‬You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God”); BR, ‫“( ויראת מאלהיך‬You shall fear your God”); DR, ‫“( את חקתי תשמרו‬You shall observe My laws”) None of these mentions rituals or worship. They all relate to God as the ultimate guarantor of social order. So, despite the apparent exceptions, we can say that the columns do indeed differ from each other in content and demonstrate two opposite fields of experience, private and public. We will soon see that there are even more satisfying relationships to be found between the columns than just a simple classification of the laws contained in them.

MOSHE KLINE

307

THE RIGHT COLUMN: FORMAL PROGRESSION Wenham has noted that there is a progression built into the units of the right-hand column.15 He bases the progression on the use of relational terms such as; ‫עמיתו‬, ‫ רעך‬and ‫אחיך‬. Each unit in column R contains such expressions.

Table 2. Relational Terms in Column R Unit

AR BR CR DR

Number of relational terms in unit

1 2 3 4

Relational Terms in Order of Appearance

‫אחיך‬

‫עמית‬

‫עמיך‬

‫רעך‬

‫שכיר‬

brother

fellow

Countrymen

neighbor

laborer

‫רעך‬ ‫רעך‬ ‫רעך‬

‫שכיר‬

‫עמיך‬ ‫בני עמיך‬

‫בעמיתו‬

‫אחיך‬

‫עמיתך‬ ‫עמיתך‬

The relational terms, as identified by Wenham, appear in the above table, with one addition. I have added ‫“( שכיר‬laborer” hired hand) from BR because it too is a relational term. As a result, we can see that there is indeed a progression from AR to DR. Each successive unit adds a term and the order of the terms is maintained throughout the four units. In effect, the units of this block are numbered by the relational terms: the first, AR, has one; the second, BR, has two, etc.

CONCEPTUAL PROGRESSION Schwartz and Milgrom, who have noted this progression, have not been able to explain it as a significant element in the plan of Leviticus 19. We will see that the “missing link” is found when we observe a similar phenomenon in the first block of four units, L. Both blocks contain a progression from unit to unit. The importance of the progression of relational terms in R is that it provides a formal verification of the conceptual flow from AR to DR.

15

Wenham, p. 267

308

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES Unit AR BR CR DR

Content ‫לא תגנבו…ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר וחללת את שם אלהיך‬ You shall not steal... You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God ‫ולפני עור לא תתן מכשל‬ You shall not …place a stumbling block before the blind ‫בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬ Judge your neighbor fairly ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ Love your neighbor as yourself

The first unit, AR, warns against criminal behaviors ‫“( לא תגנבו‬You shall not steal”), and concludes with the desecration of God’s name. The fourth unit, DR, contains proactive relationships with another, reaching a peak with‫“( ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬Love your neighbor as yourself”). There is a transition from avoiding criminal antisocial behavior, to having positive relationships with others. The two intermediate units, BR and CR, contain transitional stages. Unit BR is similar to AR in that it proscribes actions that can damage another. However, there is no explicit warning that these actions can lead to the desecration of God’s name, as in AR. Unit CR is the first in this column to require a positive act: ‫“( בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬judge your neighbor fairly”). Nonetheless, this act is limited to a judge. Only unit DR contains a positive act demanded of every individual ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). There is a continuous gradient from the negative to the positive: AR: avoid criminal behavior that can lead to desecrating God’s name BR: avoid causing damage to others CR: judge fairly DR: be proactive: reprove, love We can summarize this initial investigation of units AR–DR as follows: Each has the same opening term and closing formula. They are numbered from one to four by an internal literary device: relational terms. The content is graded from antisocial acts to positive acts.

MOSHE KLINE

309

THE LEFT COLUMN Let us look now at column L. Once we have noticed that there is a progression within column R, we are led to investigate whether there exists a similar phenomenon in column L. Unit AL begins with God’s desire for people to identify with Him and share His quality of holiness: ‫קדשים תהיו‬ ‫“( כי קדוש אני‬You shall be holy, for I am holy”) This relationship is very similar to identifying with the “other” in DR, ‫“( ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬Love your neighbor as yourself”). In AL the individual is commanded to be like another, God. In DR he is told to consider that another is like him. While the perspective changes, the relationship, being like another, is consistent. The similarity is reinforced by a structural similarity between AL and DR. Both AL and DR differ from the other units structurally. In AL, the closing formula, ‫“( אני יהוה אלהיכם‬I the Lord am your God”), is a necessary part of the content of the unit, ‫כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם‬, (“for I, the Lord your God, am holy”). This is the reason to be holy. The words of the closing formula are part of the content of the unit. This is not true in any of the other units. In all of them, the closing formula is an appendix. This makes the first unit unique. Unit DR is also unique. If the closing formula is an appendix, unit DR has a “super appendix”, an addition after an addition, ‫“( את חקתי תשמרו‬You shall observe My laws”). Properly speaking, unit AL has no appendix, since the closing phrase is part of its content, while DR has two appendices. In this way, the two units complement each other structurally in a manner similar to the complimentary relationships between people and God in AL, and between people and their fellows in DR. In the course of this investigation, we will see that the intense use of formal structure to complement conceptual relationships is the hallmark of Leviticus 19. The structural link and content similarity between AL and DR indicate that we could be looking at half of a chiasm between the two columns. This is verified in DL, ‫“( כי את קדש יהוה חלל‬for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord”), which parallels AR ‫“( וחללת את שם אלהיך‬profaning the name of your God”). The chiasm created by the first and last units in each column may indicate that opposite processes take place in the two columns. We have characterized the process in column R as graded from negative to positive. If the process in L is the opposite, it would be graded from positive to negative. This is verified by examining the contents of AL–DL.

310 Unit AL

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES Content ‫דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני‬

Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. BL

‫איש אמו ואביו תיראו ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬

You shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My Sabbaths CL

‫אל תפנו אל האלילים ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו לכם‬

Do not turn to idols or make molten gods for yourselves DL

‫כי את קדש יהוה חלל ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מעמיה‬

for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off from his kin Unit AL begins with the entire community uniting through divine holiness. An isolated individual who is cut off for having desecrated the holy appears in the last unit, DL, ‫ מעמיה‬...‫“( ונכרתה‬cut off from his kin”). In the middle are two stages of separation from AL ‫“( כל עדת בני ישראל‬the whole Israelite community”): BL ‫“( איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬You shall each revere his mother and his father”), and CL ‫“( ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו לכם‬Do not make molten gods for yourselves”). The first level of division, into families, is positive. The second level, creating private gods, is negative. This creates a gradient from positive/group to negative/individual, in a manner similar but opposite to the gradient that we noted in column R. Thus the chiasm between columns L and R is reflected in opposite processes that take place in the columns; in L there is a negative process of separation or individualization and in R a positive process of drawing closer to humanity, socialization of the individual. We can now begin to appreciate the literary skill of the author. While Schwartz had noted that column R contained a progression in the number of relational terms, he had no explanation for why this progression existed. We can now see how this progression is consistent with other observations we have made, especially the chiastic relationship with column L, which contains a process of separation or individualization. We noted that the contents of units AR–DR indicated a positive process of drawing closer to others, socialization. These units, AR–DR, demonstrate the same process by increasing the number of relational terms from unit to unit. They become more “sociable”! If the correlation between the flow of content from unit to unit and the parallel increase in relational terms is intentional,

MOSHE KLINE

311

we are looking at an extraordinarily sophisticated composition, a work of great artfulness and beauty. The author has used literary devices, the closing formula reinforced by the openings, to differentiate between two equal blocks of text, each containing four units. By separating the blocks according to the formula and comparing them, the reader discovers that the two blocks are apparently inverted parallels. Therefore, any exegesis of Leviticus 19 as a literary document should explore these eight units as a highly contrived and well-integrated structure.

SUMMARY OF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST EIGHT UNITS: Formal Units AL–DL end with ‫אני יהוה‬, (“I am the Lord”), while AR–DR end with the longer form, ‫ אני יהוה אלהיכם‬, (“I the Lord am your God”). Units AR–DR all begin with ‫לא‬, (“(You shall) not”). None of units AL–DL begins with this term.

Content The content of units AL–DL is generally characterized as “religious duties” and AR–DR as “ethical duties”. Closer inspection has indicated that “private duties” and “social duties” may be more appropriate.

Developmental There is a progression from unit AR to DR based on the number of relational terms that appear in each unit, from one in AR to four in DR. The formal progression of relational terms is mirrored in the contents of AR–DR, a progression from anti-social acts that can lead to defiling God’s name in AR to ‫“( ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬Love your neighbor as yourself”), DR. Units AL–DL are linked to AR–DR by a chiasm. The contents of units AL–DL create a progression that is the inverse of the flow from AR–DR. The processes can be characterized as “individualization” in L and “socialization” in R.

‫‪PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES‬‬

‫‪312‬‬

‫‪Combined content and developmental‬‬ ‫‪The column characterized as “private duties” contains a process of‬‬ ‫‪“individualization.” The column characterized as “social duties” contains a‬‬ ‫”‪process of “socialization.‬‬

‫‪2. ANALYSIS OF THE LAST SIX PERICOPES, PAIR E‬‬ ‫‪Era‬‬ ‫לב מפני שיבה תקום והדרת פני זקן‬ ‫ויראת מאלהיך‬ ‫אני יהוה פ‬

‫‪ELa‬‬ ‫כו לא תאכלו על הדם לא תנחשו ולא‬ ‫תעוננו‬ ‫כז לא תקפו פאת ראשכם ולא תשחית‬ ‫את פאת זקנך‬ ‫כח ושרט לנפש לא תתנו בבשרכם‬ ‫וכתבת קעקע לא תתנו בכם‬ ‫אני יהוה‬

‫‪Erb‬‬ ‫לג וכי יגור אתך גר בארצכם לא תונו‬ ‫אתו‬ ‫לד כאזרח מכם יהיה לכם הגר הגר‬ ‫אתכם‬ ‫ואהבת לו כמוך‬ ‫כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם‬

‫‪ELb‬‬ ‫כט אל תחלל את בתך להזנותה‬ ‫ולא תזנה הארץ ומלאה הארץ זמה‬ ‫ל את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו‬ ‫אני יהוה‬

‫‪Erc‬‬ ‫לה לא תעשו עול במשפט במדה במשקל‬ ‫ובמשורה‬ ‫לו מאזני צדק אבני צדק איפת צדק והין‬ ‫צדק יהיה לכם‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם אשר הוצאתי אתכם‬ ‫מארץ מצרים‬ ‫לז ושמרתם את כל חקתי ואת כל‬ ‫משפטי ועשיתם אתם‬ ‫אני יהוה פ‬

‫‪ELc‬‬ ‫לא אל תפנו אל האבת ואל הידענים‬ ‫אל תבקשו לטמאה בהם‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם‬

MOSHE KLINE

313

ELa shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. 27You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the sidegrowth of your beard. 28You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.

Era shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

ELb not degrade your daughter and make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with depravity. 30You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary: I am the Lord.

Erb a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. 34The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God.

ELc not turn to ghosts and do not inquire of familiar spirits, to be defiled by them: I the Lord am your God.

Erc shall not falsify measures of length, weight, or capacity. 36You shall have an honest balance, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. 37You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules: I am the Lord.

26You

29Do

31Do

32You

33When

35You

Unit [9], vv. 19b–25, is a free-standing unit which divides the rest of the chapter into two blocks, units AL–DR, and ELa–ERc. I will refer to these two blocks as I and II. For the moment, we can consider the function of [9] as a form of punctuation. We will examine the content of unit [9] in section five. Blocks I and II have similar closings: in DR ‫“( את חקתי תשמרו‬You shall observe My laws”), in ERc ‫“( ושמרתם את כל חקתי‬You shall faithfully observe all My laws”). This may be the author’s way of hinting at the

314

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

detailed parallelism which exists between the blocks. I will begin the presentation by noting that the last six pericopes of the chapter, ELa–ERc, divide into two sets of three pericopes each and that they complete the two columns we identified in the previous section. After that I will detail the parallels between the blocks. I will show that each pericope in II is closely tied to a unit in its own column of block I.

CONTINUING THE COLUMNS As opposed to the first eight units, which are distinguished by categories of “duties”, Wenham states that the remainder of the chapter contains “miscellaneous” laws. This description is inaccurate. The reason why others have reached the mistaken conclusion that there is no formal order in the remainder of the chapter is that it differs significantly from the first eight units. By means of the closing-formula and opening word devices, the author made it relatively simple to see the division by “duties” in block I. The one-to-one correlation between content and opening/closing formulae does not hold in the remainder of the chapter. However, the clear identification of the first eight units as inverse parallels will enable us to sort out the organizing principles of the remaining “miscellaneous” pericopes. The last six pericopes, vv. 26–37, divide into two sets of three pericopes each, according to the same content distinction observed between the two blocks of four, “religious/private” and “ethical/social”. They also follow the same order. The first three, ELa–ELc, contain "religious" duties, while the next three, ERa–ERc, are "ethical." At first glance, the two closing formulae do not follow any rule in this section. However, the "duties" categories make it possible to see how the last pericopes continue the columns established in section one:

Table 3 Block II Continues the Columns of Block I “Duties” L R Religious/Private Ethical/Social Block I AL AR BL BR CL CR DL DR

MOSHE KLINE

315

Block II ELa ELb ELc

Era ERb ERc

LINGUISTIC PARALLELS BETWEEN THE BLOCKS Once the last six pericopes have been added to our original columns, the connections become all the more visible. Every one of the six pericopes in block II has a strong linguistic link to a unit in its own column in block I, as indicted in the following table. Block II I

Columns Left ELa ELb DL BL

ELc CL

ERa BR

Right ERb DR

ERc CR

Linguistic Parallels in Column L Units ELa and DL ELa ‫כו לא תאכלו על הדם לא תנחשו ולא‬ ‫תעוננו‬ ‫כז לא תקפו פאת ראשכם ולא תשחית‬ ‫את פאת זקנך‬ ‫כח ושרט ל נפש לא תתנו בבשרכם‬ ‫וכתבת קעקע לא תתנו בכם‬

DL ‫ה וכי תזבחו זבח שלמים ליהוה לרצנכם‬ ‫תזבחהו‬ ‫ו ביום זבחכם יאכל וממחרת‬ ‫והנותר עד יום השלישי באש ישרף‬ ‫ז ואם האכל יאכל ביום השלישי פגול‬ ‫הוא לא ירצה‬ ‫ח ואכליו עונו ישא כי את קדש יהוה‬ ‫חלל‬ ‫ונכרתה ה נפש ההוא מעמיה‬ ‫ט ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם‬ ‫לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצר ולקט קצירך‬ ‫לא תלקט‬ ‫י וכרמך לא תעולל ופרט כרמך לא‬ ‫תלקט‬ ‫לעני ולגר תעזב אתם‬

316

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

26You

shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. 27You shall not round off the side-growth (edges) on your head, or destroy the side-growth (edges) of your beard. 28You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead (soul), or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.

(a) 5When you sacrifice an offering of well-being to the Lord, sacrifice it so that it may be accepted on your behalf. 6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the day following; but what is left by the third day must be consumed in fire. 7If it should be eaten on the third day, it is an offensive thing, it will not be acceptable. 8And he who eats of it shall bear his guilt, for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person (soul) shall be cut off from his kin. (b) 9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God.

Unit DL presents a special difficulty because it combines two totally unrelated laws, tithes and the two-day limit for consuming the well-being offering. The linguistic links between DL and ELa provide verification that the two parts of DL should indeed be viewed as a single unit. There are three linguistic links between them that do not appear anywhere else in the chapter. Both units refer to eating meat. ‫“( פאה‬edges”) appears in both, referring to edges of the field in DL and edges of the face in ELa. ‫נפש‬ (“soul”) appears only in these two units in Leviticus 19. Units ELb and BL ELb ‫כט אל תחלל את בתך להזנותה‬ ‫ולא תזנה הארץ ומלאה הארץ זמה‬ ‫ל את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו‬

BL ‫ג איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬ ‫ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬

MOSHE KLINE 29Do

not degrade your daughter and make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with depravity. 30You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate (revere) My sanctuary

317

3You

shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My Sabbaths

Units BL and ELb present one of the clearest examples of what Douglas has termed “exact repetitions which had led earlier students to suppose the editor was nodding”. Both include ‫“( את שבתתי תשמרו‬keep my sabbaths”). Both also contain ‫“( תיראו‬revere”), as well as a reference to parents and children. Units ELc and CL ELc CL ‫לא אל תפנו אל האבת ואל הידענים‬ ‫ד אל תפנו אל האלילים‬ ‫אל תבקשו לטמאה בהם‬ ‫ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו לכם‬ 31Do not turn to ghosts and do not 4Do not turn to idols or make inquire of familiar spirits, to be molten gods for yourselves defiled by them Both CL and ELc begin ‫“( אל תפנו אל‬do not turn to”), and refer to turning to supernatural entities.

LINGUISTIC PARALLELS IN COLUMN R Units ERa and BR ERa ‫והדרת פני זקן לב מפני שיבה תקום‬ ‫ויראת מאלהיך‬ 32You

shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old; you shall fear your God

BR ‫יג לא תעשק את רעך ולא תגזל‬ ‫לא תלין פעלת שכיר אתך עד בקר‬ ‫ולפני עור לא תתן יד לא תקלל חרש‬ ‫מכשל ויראת מאלהיך‬ 13You shall not defraud your neighbor. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. 14You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God

318

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

‫“( ויראת מאלהיך‬you shall fear your God”) closes both ERa and BR. Both also refer to the proper treatment of others according to physical characteristics, including an interesting parallel between ‫מפני שיבה תקום‬ (“you shall rise before the aged”) and ‫“( ולפני עור לא תתן מכשל‬you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind”). Units ERb and DR ERb ‫לג וכי יגור אתך גר בארצכם לא תונו‬ ‫אתו‬ ‫לד כאזרח מכם יהיה לכם הגר הגר‬ ‫אתכם‬ ‫ואהבת לו כמוך‬ ‫כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים‬ 33When

a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. 34The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt

DR ‫( יז לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך‬a) ‫הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו‬ ‫חטא‬ ‫יח לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך‬ ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ (a) 17You shall not hate your brother in your heart. Reprove your fellow but incur no guilt because of him. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself

Here is a very striking near repetition, ‫ כמוך‬...‫“( ואהבת ל‬love him as yourself”). Unit ERb appears to be the logical completion of DR. Units ERc and CR ERc CR ‫לה לא תעשו עול במשפט במדה במשקל‬ ‫טו לא תעשו עול במשפט‬ ‫ובמשורה‬ ‫לא תשא פני דל ולא תהדר פני גדול‬ ‫לו מאזני צדק אבני צדק איפת צדק והין‬ ‫בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬ ‫צדק יהיה לכם‬ ‫טז לא תלך רכיל בעמיך לא תעמד על‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם אשר הוצאתי אתכם‬ ‫דם רעך‬ ‫מארץ מצרים לז ושמרתם את כל חקתי‬ ‫ואת כל משפטי ועשיתם אתם‬ 35You shall not falsify measures of 15You shall not (falsify) render an length, weight, or capacity. 36You shall unfair decision: do not favor the have an honest balance, honest poor or show deference to the rich; weights, an honest ephah, and an judge your neighbor fairly

MOSHE KLINE honest hin. I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. 37You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules

319

(honestly). 16Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow

Units ERc and CR have the same openings, ‫“( לא תעשו עול במשפט‬You shall not falsify”), and include ‫צדק‬, (“honest, fair”).

COHERENT COLUMNS We had no problem demonstrating that the columns were coherent in block I because of the common openings and closings of the units within the column. However, when we added block II to the columns we could no longer depend on the evidence of the openings and closings since the formulae do not seem to continue in block II. Therefore, we had to resort to content similarities, the “duties”, even though this is a weaker form of evidence. However, once we considered the content similarities, and placed the units of block II in the columns defined by block I, we were rewarded with strong linguistic verification that the columns are indeed coherent. Every single pericope in block II is firmly linked to a unit within its own column in block I, by a linguistic hook. Now that we have established that there are two coherent columns, we can examine the evidence that that the two columns are meant to be seen as structurally identical.

IDENTICAL COLUMNS The most obvious indication that the columns are structurally identical is that they both contain seven elements. (I am using the term “elements” to include both “units” and “pericopes.”) While this fact in itself is sufficient to define the columns as structurally identical, the author has reinforced it by marking the first and last element of each column as structurally parallel. Both of these parallels become apparent only after the text is arranged in the columns. The structural similarity of the first element of each column is a function of the linguistic parallels between bocks I and II. We have noted that each pericope of block II is closely linked to a unit in its column. Since there are three pericopes per column in block II and four units per column in block I, one unit in each column of block I lacks a linguistic link to a pericope in its column of block II. In both column L and column R the “unlinked” unit is the first in the column, AL and AR.

320

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Table 4. Formal Parallels Between the Columns L

R

First Units in Columns Not connected to Block II

1

5

Connected to Block II by linguistic parallels within the columns

2 3 4

6 7 8

10 11

13 14

12

15

Block I

Block II Last Pericopes in Columns Formulae match block I

Just as the first unit of each column is set-off by a rhetorical device, the lack of a linguistic link to block II, so too is the last pericope of each column set-off. The device that is used to set-off pericopes ELc and ERc is similar to the device that sets-off AL and AR. It too bridges blocks I and II. In fact, it can be seen as the inverse of the device used in AL and AR. Unlike other pericopes in II, both ELc and ERc follow the rule of the opening term as well as the rule of the closing formulae of block I. All units in column R of block I begin with “‫”לא‬, “(You shall) not”, and end with “ ‫אני‬ ‫”יהוה‬, “I am the Lord”, and so does unit ERc. No unit in column L of block I begin with “‫”לא‬, “(You shall) not”, and all end with “ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫”אלהיכם‬, “I the Lord am your God”, as does unit ELc. Therefore, both ELc and ERc follow the rules of their columns as established in block I. These are the only pericopes in block II that match the in-column opening and closing formulae of block I. Lest there be any possibility that we miss the fact that pericopes ELc and ERc are structurally parallel, there is yet another strong parallel between these pericopes. The third units in Block I

CL ‫אל תפנו אל האלילים‬ Do not turn to idols

CR ‫לא תעשו עול במשפט‬ ‫בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬... You shall not render an unfair (false) decision …judge your neighbor fairly(honestly)

MOSHE KLINE The third pericopes in Block II

321

ELc Erc ‫אל תפנו אל האבת ואל‬ ‫לא תעשו עול במשפט‬ ‫הידענים‬ ‫והין צדק יהיה לכם‬... Do not turn to ghosts You shall not falsify measures …You shall have an honest hin

The third pericopes in both columns of block II, ELc and ERc, begin with exactly the same words as the parallel third units of block I and contain an additional parallel as well. In both CL and ELc, the objects of ‫אל תפנו אל‬ (“do not turn to”), are supernatural entities, thus strengthening the parallel. Both CR and ERc, begin ‫“( לא תעשו עול במשפט‬You shall not falsify…”), and also contain ‫“( צדק‬honest, fair”). None of the other parallels between the blocks includes the first words of units. It would seem that the author has placed a special emphasis on the last pericope in each column of block II, ELc and ERc, by way of a seemingly redundant parallel between them.

THE INVERTED PARALLELS CONTINUE We have now collected ample evidence that Leviticus 19 contains two parallel strands, which are structurally equivalent, and that pericopes ELa– ERc are firmly connected to our original columns. We must still determine whether the progressions we observed within the columns continue with the additions from block II. We noted earlier that the “ethical duties”, R, reached a peak in block I with ‫“( ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬Love your neighbor as yourself”). The identification with the “other” expands in ERb to include the ‫“( גר‬stranger”), who is also to be loved ‫“( כמוך‬as yourself”). This could indicate that the process in column R does continue into block II. In column L we saw a process of distancing from the holy. Pericopes ELa– ELc all include expressions of degenerate pagan practices. Therefore, the process of column L also seems to continue in block II. More specifically, we noted in DL that anyone who eats a well-being offering on the third day is to be cut off from his people. Corruption is a matter concerning individuals in that unit. However, in the continuation of L, in ELb, we find ‫“( ולא תזנה הארץ ומלאה הארץ זמה‬lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with depravity”). Corruption has become a national concern. So the degenerative processes of column L as well as the positive process of R continue with the addition of block II to the columns. We have seen evidence that the two extended columns of seven elements are:

322

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

internally coherent, according to the “duties” structurally identical conceptually ordered, indicating processes inversely parallel In the next section, we will begin to see why the two columns have been constructed so carefully.

3. THE PAIRS FIVE PAIRS Perhaps the most interesting characteristic that we have noted in the columns is that they can be read as inversely parallel progressions, from good to bad in L, and bad to good in R. The next phenomenon that we will examine combines the two oppositely sensed columns to create a single unified composition. This new entity consists of a set of five pairs composed of parallel sections of the columns. The flow from pair to pair creates a third process, one that is independent of the two processes in the separate columns. In order to facilitate the discussion of the pairs, I will label them from A to E as follows:

A B C D E

L AL BL CL DL EL a–c

R AR BR CR DR ER a–c

NEW UNITS, NEW STRUCTURE We are about to see a transformation of the text as we decipher its structure. What began as fourteen elements that formed two seven-element inversely parallel structures, is about to morph into a ten-part structure consisting of five pairs. According to my reading, each set of three pericopes in the fifth pair creates one true unit. We have seen that amongst the last six of our original units, only the last one in each column, ELc and ERc, follows the rules of the first four units of its column for the opening word and closing formula. I have interpreted this fact to mean that the last three elements in each column, ELa–c and Era–c, are to be taken together as the structural equivalent of one single complex unit. I will clarify the

MOSHE KLINE

323

reasons for this interpretation as well as its ramifications through the analysis of the overall structure of the five resultant pairs.

PAIR E: THREE INDEPENDENT SEGMENTS The two units that compose each of the five pairs are structurally identical and no two pairs have the same structure. This point is clearest in the last two pairs. Both pairs E and D contain multiple parts. Each member of pair E contains three fully articulated parts. The divisions within these members are marked by what we might call “pseudo-units”, the first two parts of each unit, ELa and ELb in EL, ERa and ERb in ER. We have seen that these false units do not follow the rules of their columns. They apparently have two structural functions. First, they guarantee that the parallel segments of the columns which we have marked EL and ER will be seen as structurally identical. Second, they create complex units, which clearly subdivide into three large components. This subdivision becomes significant as we observe the structures of the other pairs.

PAIR D: TWO INDEPENDENT SEGMENTS Pair D

DL ‫( ה וכי תזבחו זבח שלמים ליהוה‬a) ‫לרצנכם תזבחהו‬ ‫ו ביום זבחכם יאכל וממחרת‬ ‫והנותר עד יום השלישי באש ישרף‬ ‫ז ואם האכל יאכל ביום השלישי פגול‬ ‫הוא לא ירצה‬ ‫ח ואכליו עונו ישא כי את קדש יהוה‬ ‫חלל‬ ‫ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מעמיה‬ ‫( ט ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם‬b) ‫לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצר ולקט קצירך‬ ‫לא תלקט‬ ‫י וכרמך לא תעולל ופרט כרמך לא‬ ‫תלקט‬ ‫לעני ולגר תעזב אתם‬ ‫אני יהוה אלהיכם‬

DR ‫( יז לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך‬a) ‫הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו‬ ‫חטא‬ ‫יח לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך‬ ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫( יט את חקתי תשמרו‬b)

324

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

(a) 5When you sacrifice an offering of well-being to the Lord, sacrifice it so that it may be accepted on your behalf. 6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the day following; but what is left by the third day must be consumed in fire. 7If it should be eaten on the third day, it is an offensive thing, it will not be acceptable. 8And he who eats of it shall bear his guilt, for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off from his kin. (b) 9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God

(a) 17You shall not hate your brother in your heart. Reprove your fellow but incur no guilt because of him. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (b) 19You shall observe My laws.

The units of pair D each contain two well-defined parts, (a) and (b). They differ in the manner in which these parts are defined. DL contains two independent subjects, the well-being offering and gleanings. The components of DR are separated by the closing formula. Therefore, both DL and DR have two distinct components. I would like to limit the discussion at this point to purely formal matters. However, I can see that the argument for pair D needs some reinforcement and that it will force me to transcend the limits I have set. The problem is in the part of DR that comes after the closing formula, ‫“( את חקתי תשמרו‬You shall observe My laws”). I gave some reasons earlier why this segment of verse 19 should be placed at the end of unit DR rather than in the beginning of [9], vis-à-vis the chiasm within block I. I will add a reason now that stems from the comparison with DR. The specific problem of the second component of DR is that it comes after the closing formula. We have no other example of such an addition in

MOSHE KLINE

325

the first eight units. I believe that it is meant to be a textual representation of the common thread of DL. While I have stated that the well-being offering and the gleanings are very different themes, closer inspection reveals a certain similarity. Both speak of leftovers. The leftover meat is forbidden. Some grain, on the other hand, must be leftover, not harvested. One is forbidden and one is required, but they are both leftovers. So is the second component of DR; it comes after the closing. The content of DL speaks of leftovers while the structure of DR creates a leftover! We will return to this point after looking at pair C.

PAIR C: TWO CONTENT RELATED SEGMENTS Pair C

CL ‫( ד אל תפנו אל האלילים‬a) ‫( ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו‬b) ‫לכם‬ (a) 4Do not turn to idols (b) or make molten gods for yourselves: I the Lord am your God.

CR ‫( טו לא תעשו עול במשפט לא תשא פני דל ולא‬a) ‫תהדר פני גדול‬ ‫בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬ ‫( טז לא תלך רכיל בעמיך לא תעמד על דם רעך‬b) (a) 15You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your neighbor fairly. (b) 16Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow: I am the Lord.

Unlike E and D, the common structure in pair C is not obvious. It requires a close reading. Both units have a single broad subject, forbidden worship in CL and social justice in CR, but it is possible to see that both units divide in two. I have marked the components as (a) and (b). The distinction in CL is between worshiping commonly accepted gods (a) and creating your own images (b). In CR the distinction is between judges (a) and private individuals (b). In both CL and CR element (a) contains a public aspect of the subject, while element (b) contains a private aspect.

THE STRUCTURAL ORDER OF PAIRS C, D AND E We can now understand yet another reason for the unusual construction of pair D. Pairs C and E are each constructed according to different principles. Pair D, which is located between them, incorporates aspects of both adjacent pairs. The units of E are structurally equivalent because they are similarly divided into three separate parts by the pseudo-endings. The units

326

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

of C are subdivided by parallel content divisions. Pair D is divided by a content division in DL and by a false ending in DR. Therefore, D is a structural middle between C and E. Pair B: Fear as an Ambivalent Connection Pair B BL BR ‫(ג איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬a) ‫(יג לא תעשק את רעך ולא תגזל‬a) ‫( ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬b) ‫לא תלין פעלת שכיר אתך עד בקר‬ ‫יד לא תקלל חרש ולפני עור לא תתן‬ ‫מכשל‬ ‫( ויראת מאלהיך‬b) (a) 3You shall each revere his (a) 13You shall not defraud your mother and his father, neighbor. You shall not commit (b) and keep My sabbaths robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. 14You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. (b)You shall fear your God Pairs A and B are similar. The identification of both pairs depends on linguistic and syntactical parallels. The key element in B is the parallel use of the verb ‫ירא‬. Both units contain two elements, marked (a) and (b), one of which contains ‫ירא‬, “fear, revere.” In both units, the reader must make a jump in order to connect the two elements. The only connection supplied by the author is the ubiquitous “‫”ו‬, a conjunction that requires over four pages of definitions in the BDB Lexicon.16 It is commonly understood that the fear of God in BR is given as a reason not to take advantage of others. The text itself is more equivocal. It does not spell out the connection between fear of God and the actions prohibited in element (a). It is left to the reader to deduce the connection from the syntax. The same problem exists concerning the connection in BL between fear/awe of parents and observing God’s Sabbath. The text can be interpreted, in parallel to BL, as implying that reverence for (Sabbath-observing) parents, leads to observing the Sabbath. Thus, the units are a pair based on an ambivalent connection between ‫ירא‬, fear or reverence, and the other element of the unit. 16

BDB, pp. 251–255

MOSHE KLINE

327

PAIR A: HOLY REASONS Pair A

AL

‫( קדשים תהיו‬a) ‫( כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם‬b) (a) You shall be holy, (b) for I, the Lord your God, am holy.

AR ‫(יא לא תגנבו ולא תכחשו ולא תשקרו‬a) ‫איש בעמיתו‬ ‫(יב ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר וחללת‬b) ‫את שם אלהיך‬ 11 (a) You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another. (b) 12You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God

The units of A consist of two inseparable segments. A key term links the segments within each unit. AL contains ‫“( קדש‬holy”) in segments (a) and (b) while AR repeats ‫“( שקר‬falsely”). Both units also link their two segments through reasons dependent on God: ‫“( כי קדוש אני‬for I, the Lord your God, am holy”) and ‫“( וחללת את שם אלהיך‬profaning the name of your God”). The divine reasons make the links between the segments unequivocal, as opposed to the ambivalent causal link we found in the units of B.

THE STRUCTURAL ORDER OF PAIRS A, B AND C We can now understand the arrangement of the first three pairs. Pair B plays a role that is similar to the role played by D in the arrangement we saw of C–E. Pair A is based on a causal relationship between two inseparable elements. Pair C, on the other hand, has no such relationship between its elements. Although the elements within the units of C do share a common subject, they are structurally independent. The units of B fall between the dependency of A and the independence of C. The ambivalence built into the units of B is evidently a necessary element in the organization of the pairs. It provides a step between A and C. The “ambivalence factor” in B also indicates that the demands of the non-linear reading may take precedence over the clarity of the linear reading. When reading the text linearly, the connection between respect for parents and observance of the Sabbath is obscured. It is purely a matter for speculation. The clarity of the linear

328

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

reading suffers. Only when we read BL in parallel with BR, in a non-linear reading, can we see that the ambiguity is part of the plan.

THE PROGRESSION OF THE FIVE PAIRS Let us examine now the order of the five pairs according to their structures. We have noted that there is a similarity between A and B based on the interconnection of the elements of each pair. Likewise, pairs D and E are similar, including well-articulated independent subunits. Pair C forms a bridge between the first two and last two pairs. If we characterize the first two pairs as having syntactical links within their units and the last two as having independent elements, then C can be seen as a medium between them. C is like A and B in that the elements of each unit in C are linked to each other by their content. C is like D and E insofar as the separate elements within the units are formally unlinked. We have now noted that pairs B, C and D have all been constructed in such a manner that they can be seen as structural middles: B between A and C; D between C and E; and C between A–B and D–E. This exposes the literary technique employed to create a sense of progression or process in the text. We can see the implied process in the following table.

Table 5. A Process of Separation Pair Common Structure in Each Unit of Pair A Two causally related clauses with linguistic links between them B Two segments linked by implied causal relationship With linguistic link between units C Two segments linked by similar content but without linguistic links One subject D Two fully articulated unlinked elements Two Subjects E Three fully articulated elements separated by pseudo-closings Three Subjects

Connection/ Process of Separation Inseparable Equivocally Inseparable Linked-Separable Partially Separated Fully Separated

MOSHE KLINE

329

We can see in the above table that the pairs are ordered according to the complexity of their common structures. The units of pair A cannot be sub-divided, while the units of E contain three formally separated elements. Pairs B–D are three intermediate stages between the inseparable elements of A, and the fully separated elements of E. The process, which appears across the five pairs, can be described as “separation”. Pairs C–E display a formal order based on the number of separate subjects in each unit of the pairs. The units of pair C each have two separate elements, but in both cases the elements form a single subject. In D, the two elements of each unit are separate subjects. In E, each unit contains three independent elements. So units C–E are ordered by the number of subjects in each unit, from one to three. This is similar to the internal numbering that we found in the first four units of column R. It also supports our decision to read each of the units of E as a single tri-part unit rather than as three separate units.

FROM STRUCTURE TO MEANING We have now identified one of the literary devices that have been employed in the construction of the pairs, and its concomitant process. We have seen that each pair has its own internal structure. Taken together, the five structures create a process of “separation” as we progress from pair to pair. The separation that we have observed is purely structural; it is not connected to any specific content. Yet, it is unmistakably one of the more inclusive features of the text. The next literary device we will examine becomes apparent only after the discovery of the pairs. It verifies the importance of the pairs in defining the structure, as well as demonstrating the link between structure and meaning. The second literary device is based on references to God within the units. Each pair combines these references with other material in a distinctive way. This phenomenon is systematic and embedded in the five-pair configuration. Just as each pair has its own unique structure, it also has its own unique set of references to God. In other words, God plays a different role in each pair. Again, we will see a process of separation appear from pair to pair as God’s role becomes less and less significant for the meaning of the pair. An understanding of the process described by God’s changing role will lead us to an understanding of the meaning of Leviticus 19 as a literary construct, as opposed to an agglomeration of laws.

330

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

REFERENCES TO GOD Near the beginning of this paper we noted that the author has used God’s appearances in the form ‫“( אני יהוה‬I am the Lord”), as a literary device to mark the ends of units, and as we have seen, pseudo-units. We will now examine a further systematic use of references to God. God is referred to within the units both directly, e.g. “you shall fear your God”, and indirectly, e.g. “You shall heed my statutes”. In the following discussion, I will include all of these references to God, both direct and indirect, within the general category of “God-oriented” material. Elements of text that do not refer to God will be termed “not God-oriented”. In the following table of the pairs, I have emphasized all of the God-oriented material. For the sake of clarity, I have removed the closing formulae.

Table 6. God Oriented and not God Oriented Material in the Pairs AL ‫( א וידבר יהוה אל משה לאמר‬a) ‫ב דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת‬ ‫אלהם‬ ‫קדשים תהיו‬ ‫( כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם‬b) BL ‫(ג איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬a) ‫( ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬b)

CL ‫(ד אל תפנו אל האלילים‬a) ‫( ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו לכם‬b)

AR ‫(יא לא תגנבו ולא תכחשו ולא תשקרו‬a) ‫איש בעמיתו‬ ‫( יב ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר וחללת‬b) ‫את שם אלהיך‬ BR ‫(יג לא תעשק את רעך ולא תגזל‬a) ‫לא תלין פעלת שכיר אתך עד בקר‬ ‫יד לא תקלל חרש ולפני עור לא תתן‬ ‫מכשל‬ ‫( ויראת מאלהיך‬b) CR ‫( טו לא תעשו עול במשפט‬a) ‫לא תשא פני דל ולא תהדר פני גדול‬ ‫בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬ ‫טז לא תלך רכיל בעמיך‬ ‫(לא תעמד על דם רעך‬b)

‫‪331‬‬

‫‪MOSHE KLINE‬‬

‫‪DR‬‬ ‫)‪ (a‬יז לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך‬ ‫הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו‬ ‫חטא‬ ‫יח לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך‬ ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫)‪ (b‬יט את חקתי תשמרו‬

‫‪Era‬‬ ‫)‪ (a‬לב מפני שיבה תקום והדרת פני זקן‬ ‫)‪ (b‬ויראת מאלהיך‬

‫‪Erb‬‬ ‫לג וכי יגור אתך גר בארצכם לא תונו‬ ‫אתו‬ ‫לד כאזרח מכם יהיה לכם הגר הגר‬ ‫אתכם‬ ‫ואהבת לו כמוך‬ ‫כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים‬ ‫‪Erc‬‬ ‫)‪ (a‬לה לא תעשו עול במשפט במדה‬ ‫במשקל ובמשורה‬ ‫לו מאזני צדק אבני צדק איפת צדק והין‬ ‫צדק יהיה לכם‬ ‫)‪ (b‬אני יהוה אלהיכם אשר הוצאתי‬ ‫אתכם מארץ מצרים‬ ‫לז ושמרתם את כל חקתי ואת כל‬ ‫משפטי ועשיתם אתם‬

‫‪DL‬‬ ‫)‪(a‬ה וכי תזבחו זבח שלמים ליהוה‬ ‫לרצנכם תזבחהו‬ ‫ו ביום זבחכם יאכל וממחרת‬ ‫והנותר עד יום השלישי באש ישרף‬ ‫ז ואם האכל יאכל ביום השלישי פגול‬ ‫הוא לא ירצה‬ ‫ח ואכליו עונו ישא כי את קדש יהוה‬ ‫חלל‬ ‫ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מעמיה‬ ‫)‪(b‬ט ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם‬ ‫לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצר ולקט קצירך‬ ‫לא תלקט‬ ‫י וכרמך לא תעולל ופרט כרמך לא‬ ‫תלקט‬ ‫לעני ולגר תעזב אתם‬ ‫‪ELa‬‬ ‫כו לא תאכלו על הדם לא תנחשו ולא‬ ‫תעוננו‬ ‫כז לא תקפו פאת ראשכם ולא תשחית‬ ‫את פאת זקנך‬ ‫כח ושרט לנפש לא תתנו בבשרכם‬ ‫וכתבת קעקע לא תתנו בכם‬ ‫‪ELb‬‬ ‫)‪ (a‬כט אל תחלל את בתך להזנותה‬ ‫ולא תזנה הארץ ומלאה הארץ זמה‬ ‫)‪(b‬ל את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו‬

‫‪ELc‬‬ ‫לא אל תפנו אל האבת ואל הידענים‬ ‫אל תבקשו לטמאה בהם‬

332

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

AL (a) You shall be holy, (b) for I, the Lord your God, am holy.

BL (a) 3You shall each revere his mother and his father, (b) and keep My sabbaths

CL (a) 4Do not turn to idols (b) or make molten gods for yourselves

AR (a) 11You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another. (b) 12You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God BR (a) 13You shall not defraud your neighbor. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. 14You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. (b) You shall fear your God CR (a) 15You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your neighbor fairly. (b)16Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow

MOSHE KLINE DL (a) 5When you sacrifice an offering of well-being to the Lord, sacrifice it so that it may be accepted on your behalf. 6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the day following; but what is left by the third day must be consumed in fire. 7If it should be eaten on the third day, it is an offensive thing, it will not be acceptable. 8And he who eats of it shall bear his guilt, for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off from his kin. (b) 9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger

333

DR (a) 17You shall not hate your brother in your heart. Reprove your fellow but incur no guilt because of him. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (b) 19You shall observe My laws.

334

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Ela shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. 27You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the sidegrowth of your beard. 28You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord. Elb (a) 29Do not degrade your daughter and make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with depravity. (b) 30You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary 26You

Elc not turn to ghosts and do not inquire of familiar spirits, to be defiled by them 31Do

Era (a) 32You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old; (b) you shall fear your God

Erb a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. 34The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt Erc (a) 35You shall not falsify measures of length, weight, or capacity. 36You shall have an honest balance, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. (b) I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. 37You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules 33When

THE PATTERN OF REFERENCES TO GOD Taken together, the references to God create a pattern that indicates that they have been carefully arranged. The eight units that contain God-oriented material are arranged symmetrically around two units that do not contain references to God. This symmetry is created by the absence of references to God in the central pair, C. Both units in each of the other four pairs do contain references to God. The fact that the only units lacking references to God are the two in C may indicate that the symmetrical arrangement around pair C is not arbitrary.

MOSHE KLINE

335

Another unifying characteristic of the references to God is the location of each reference within the individual unit. All of the God-oriented material is found within units that also contain not-God-oriented material. Moreover, except in DL(a), the God-oriented material always follows a section that is not God-oriented. This is indicated in the table above by the division into segments (a) and (b). Except for DL, the God-oriented always appears in segment (b). This arrangement could lead us to see the two types of material as unequal; one is primary and the other is secondary. The not God-oriented appears in all ten units and appears first in seven of the eight mixed units, so it would seem to be the primary stratum. The God-oriented, not appearing in all the units, and appearing second in seven of eight where it does appear, would seem to be a secondary stratum. These observations, taken together, are prima-facie evidence that the references to God play a part in the overall plan according to which Leviticus 19 was constructed. We will verify this hypothesis by examining the God-oriented material within each pair. We will see that there is a progression from pair to pair based on the nature of the connection between the God-oriented and not God-oriented material. From pair to pair, the connection between the two types of material becomes weaker and weaker, indicating a process of separation. I will refer to this process as the “divine process” in order to distinguish it from the “structural process”, which we have seen across the structures of the pairs. For the sake of this analysis, I have created the dyad “God-oriented”, “not God-oriented”. It should not be confused with the “religious” and “ethical” duties, which characterized the columns. We have already seen that there are references to God in “ethical” units such as “you shall fear your God” in BR. There is also a “religious” unit, CL, which does not mention God at all. Therefore, in my analysis I can say that CL is not “God-oriented”, although it falls in the “religious duties” column.

Pair A: God and Meaning are Inseparable AL ‫(א וידבר יהוה אל משה לאמר‬a) ‫ב דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת‬ ‫אלהם‬ ‫קדשים תהיו‬ ‫( כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם‬b)

AR ‫(יא לא תגנבו ולא תכחשו ולא‬a) ‫תשקרו איש בעמיתו‬ ‫( יב ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר‬b) ‫וחללת את שם אלהיך‬

336

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

AL (a) You shall be holy, (b) for I, the Lord your God, am holy.

AR (a) 11You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another. (b) 12You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God

The units of pair A consist of an opening clause that does not mention God, (a), and a closing clause, (b), that does. In our earlier analysis of pair A, we found that the two clauses in each unit are inseparable, since they are parts of a single idea. God is an essential part of each unit; removing Him would significantly change the meaning of what remains. God is the source of holiness in AL; dishonesty is to be avoided in AR because it can lead to the desecration of God’s name. Therefore, the segment in which God appears, (b) in each unit, is inseparable from the segment in which He does not appear, and God Himself is inseparable from the meaning of the pair. Now we will look at pair E, in which God’s appearances have so little to do with the surrounding text, that they seem virtually gratuitous.

Pair E: References to God are not Necessary ELa ‫כו לא תאכלו על הדם לא תנחשו ולא‬ ‫תעוננו‬ ‫כז לא תקפו פאת ראשכם ולא תשחית‬ ‫את פאת זקנך‬ ‫כח ושרט לנפש לא תתנו בבשרכם‬ ‫וכתבת קעקע לא תתנו בכם‬ ELb ‫(כט אל תחלל את בתך להזנותה‬a) ‫ולא תזנה הארץ ומלאה הארץ זמה‬ ‫(ל את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו‬b)

ELc ‫לא אל תפנו אל האבת ואל הידענים‬ ‫אל תבקשו לטמאה בהם‬

Era ‫( והדרת פני זקן לב מפני שיבה תקום‬a) ‫( ויראת מאלהיך‬b)

Erb ‫לג וכי יגור אתך גר בארצכם לא תונו‬ ‫אתו‬ ‫לד כאזרח מכם יהיה לכם הגר הגר‬ ‫אתכם‬ ‫ואהבת לו כמוך‬ ‫כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים‬ Erc ‫(לה לא תעשו עול במשפט במדה‬a) ‫במשקל ובמשורה‬ ‫לו מאזני צדק אבני צדק איפת צדק והין‬

MOSHE KLINE

337

‫צדק יהיה לכם‬ ‫( אני יהוה אלהיכם אשר הוצאתי‬b) ‫אתכם מארץ מצרים‬ ‫לז ושמרתם את כל חקתי ואת כל‬ ‫משפטי ועשיתם אתם‬ ELa shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice divination or soothsaying. 27You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the sidegrowth of your beard. 28You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves Elb (a) 29Do not degrade your daughter and make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with depravity. (b) 30You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary 26You

Elc not turn to ghosts and do not inquire of familiar spirits, to be defiled by them 31Do

Era (a) 32You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old; (b) you shall fear your God

Erb a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. 34The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt Erc (a) 35You shall not falsify measures of length, weight, or capacity. 36You shall have an honest balance, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. (b) I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. 37 You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules 33When

There are three references to God in pair E, in ELb, ERa and ERc. The symmetrical distribution of these three subunits creates a mirror image of the pericopes that do not mention God, ELa, ELc and ERb. This symmetrical distribution is reinforced by the repetition of the verbs

338

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

associated with God-oriented commands in ELb: ‫“( שמר‬keep, observe”), appears in ERc and ELb; ‫“( ירא‬fear, venerate”), appears in ERa and ELb. Only these two verbs have the divinity or His “possessions” as their objects in all of E. There are other common strands running through the three subunits in which God is mentioned. All three God-related subunits have two distinct parts, marked (a) and (b). In all three, the first part, (a), contains no mention of God; only the second part, (b), does, as in the units of A. Unlike pair A, in these three subunits there are no semantic links between the parts that refer to God and the parts that do not. Given that the parts referring to God are all at the ends of the units, they have the appearance of accretions to the text. However, since we have already seen signs that references to God are part of a larger plan, we should ask ourselves why they have been arranged in E to give an impression that they are either an afterthought or superfluous. The answer to our question can be found by positing that the author wishes us to see God as, in some way, unnecessary, or disconnected. The fact that the God-related material in pair E is unrelated to the not God-related material is consistent with our reading of the structure of the pairs. In our analysis of the common structures of the pairs, we characterized pair E as having fully separated structural elements. Similarly, it contains independent semantic elements: the God-related and the not God-related elements. This stands in opposition to the place of God-related material in the units of pair A, in which, as we saw, the God-related is inseparable from the not God-related. Just as the structures of the pairs indicated a process of separation, so too does the arrangement of God-related material.

TWO STRATA We earlier considered the possibility that the distribution of God-oriented material throughout the five pairs might indicate a stratification in which the “not God-oriented” is the primary stratum and the God-oriented is the secondary stratum. What we have seen in pair E would seem to verify this notion. Only half of the six pericopes of E contain God-oriented material. All of the three pericopes which contain God-oriented material begin with the not God-oriented. Most significantly, there is no apparent connection between the two types of material. So it would seem that we are justified in seeing the “not God” as the primary stratum. This distinction is important for understanding the function of the God-related material and the process it creates. If the primary stratum is “not God”, then the secondary “God”

MOSHE KLINE

339

stratum has been superimposed upon the “not God” in order to create a compound image. This textual overlay makes it possible to distinguish the changing role of the “God related” against the constant background of the “not God”. We will return to this discussion after examining God’s appearances in B and D.

PAIR D: REFERENCES TO GOD ARE PARTIALLY SUPERFLUOUS Pair D

DL ‫(ה וכי תזבחו זבח שלמים ליהוה‬a) ‫לרצנכם תזבחהו‬ ‫ו ביום זבחכם יאכל וממחרת‬ ‫והנותר עד יום השלישי באש ישרף‬ ‫ז ואם האכל יאכל ביום השלישי פגול‬ ‫הוא לא ירצה‬ ‫ח ואכליו עונו ישא כי את קדש יהוה‬ ‫חלל ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מעמיה‬ ‫(ט ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם‬b) ‫לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצר ולקט קצירך‬ ‫לא תלקט‬ ‫י וכרמך לא תעולל ופרט כרמך לא‬ ‫תלקט‬ ‫לעני ולגר תעזב אתם‬ (a) 5When you sacrifice an offering of well-being to the Lord, sacrifice it so that it may be accepted on your behalf. 6It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the day following; but what is left by the third day must be consumed in fire. 7If it should be eaten on the third day, it is an offensive thing, it will not be acceptable. 8And he who eats of it shall bear his guilt, for he has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off from his kin. (b) 9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or

DR ‫( יז לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך‬a) ‫הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו‬ ‫חטא‬ ‫יח לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך‬ ‫ואהבת לרעך כמוך‬ ‫אני יהוה‬ ‫(יט את חקתי תשמרו‬b)

(a) 17You shall not hate your brother in your heart. Reprove your fellow but incur no guilt because of him. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (b) 19You shall observe My laws.

340

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

gather the gleanings of your harvest. shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger 10You

DL(a) and DR(b) refer to God. DR(b), ‫“( את חקתי תשמרו‬You shall observe My laws”), is apparently superfluous, because it comes after the closing formula, ‫“( אני יהוה‬I am the Lord”). Therefore, half the references to God in pair D are effectively gratuitous, justifying its place between C and E.

PAIR B: THE CONNECTION WITH GOD IS NECESSARY BY IMPLICATION Pair B

BL ‫( ג איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬a) ‫(ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬b)

(a) 3You shall each revere his mother and his father, (b) and keep My sabbaths

BR ‫(יג לא תעשק את רעך ולא תגזל‬a) ‫לא תלין פעלת שכיר אתך עד בקר‬ ‫יד לא תקלל חרש ולפני עור לא תתן‬ ‫מכשל‬ ‫(ויראת מאלהיך‬b) (a) 13You shall not defraud your neighbor. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. 14You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. (b) You shall fear your God

In contrast with pair A, Pair B does not contain directly stated divine reasons. However, the juxtaposition of the God-oriented and not God-oriented may imply a causal connection. ‫“( ויראת מאלהיך‬You shall fear your God”), in BR(b) is generally understood as the reason to obey the previous laws, although there is no linguistic connection to BR(a) that demands this understanding. Similarly, the fear/reverence of parents in BL may lead to Sabbath observance. However it is also possible to read, ‫איש‬ ‫“( אמו ואביו תיראו‬You shall each revere his mother and his father”), and ‫ואת‬ ‫“( שבתתי תשמרו‬and keep My Sabbaths”), as two independent clauses. We

MOSHE KLINE

341

can conclude that the God-oriented material in pair A is more closely connected to the not God-oriented in A than the God-oriented in B is to the not God in B. Therefore, pair B does belong between A and C. In the following table, I have added a new column summarizing the relevance of references to God in the pairs to the columns summarizing the structure of the pairs.

Table 7. The Divine Process Pair

Common Structure in Each Unit of Pair

A

Two causally related clauses with linguistic links between them Two segments linked by implied causal relationship; linguistic link between unitsyerah Two segments linked by similar content but without linguistic links One subject Two fully articulated unlinked elements Two Subjects Three fully articulated elements separated by pseudo-closings Three Subjects

B

C

D E

ConnectionProcess of Separation Inseparable

Relevance of References to God Definitely necessary

Possibly inseparable

Possibly necessary

Linked-separable

None (neither necessary nor unnecessary)

Partially separated

Partially unnecessary

Fully separated

Unnecessary

THE CONCEPTUAL PROCESS We can now conclude that the structural process of separation that appears in the pairs has a semantic correlative associated with God. Just as the order of the five pairs indicates a progression from inseparable subunits to fully separated subunits, the references to God in the units lead to a parallel progression. From pair to pair God is less and less connected to the “not God”, until pair E, in which He is completely disconnected from the underlying not God-oriented text.

342

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

In addition to identifying the rule for references to God in the units of Leviticus 19, we have also identified the underlying mechanism by means of which the author has implemented the rule. The mechanism is based on the stratification into a primary “not-God” stratum and a secondary “God” stratum. The primary “not God” stratum is the equivalent of a fixed point against which the motion of the secondary “God” stratum can be measured. The “not God” has been organized in a manner that makes God’s changing roles visible.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PAIRS We have now completed the demonstration that Leviticus 19 contains five structural pairs. In order to grasp the full significance of what we have found, let us review the earlier steps of our analysis. The discovery of the pairs was predicated upon the previous discovery of the parallel columns. We found that the two columns are structurally identical and that each column has an independent theme, similar to Milgrom’s “duties”. The contents of each column are ordered; column L is ordered from good to bad and column R from bad to good. Taken together, the columns create an inverted parallel. These characteristics of the columns demonstrated that Leviticus 19 is a complex literary creation and not simply a collection of laws. Having determined that these two columns were parts of a literary composition, we faced the challenge of learning how to read that composition. The fact that the columns were structural parallels led us to examine them in parallel. We have seen that reading the columns in parallel leads to a redefining of the underlying structure. Now we can say that the structure consists of five well-ordered pairs. Our situation has become a bit similar to that of the physicists examining the nature of light who must admit that it is apparently both a particle and wave energy. While this is intuitively impossible, it is the only way to explain the appearances. Our structure can be described both as two columns, which are inverted parallels, and as five hierarchically ordered pairs. The “intuitively impossible”, or at least “unlikely”, element in our description is that the columns and pairs seem to reflect two independent principles of organization. It is as if the columns were organized as inverted parallels according to principles of good and evil and the “duties” by one hand, while the pairs were organized as direct parallels by rules of complexity and “God - not God”, by another hand. The problem is that both the

MOSHE KLINE

343

two-column description and the five-pair description contain exactly the same elements of text. The challenge of reading the composition has grown exponentially with the discovery of the pairs.

THE SOLUTION The solution to our “particle/wave” conundrum is that the document containing the columns and pairs was planned as a true table. Each of the ten units represents the intersection of two lines of thought, the vertical and the horizontal. In order to understand this concept, we must make a small change in nomenclature. We will rename the pairs “rows”. We are looking at a literary table consisting of two columns and five rows.

A B C D E

L AL BL CL DL EL

R AR BR CR DR ER

Each unit is a compound consisting of two components, which are represented by the two letters defining the unit. For example, unit AL contains the “A-ness” of row (pair) A, i.e. “inseparable” and the “L-ness” of column L, i.e. “private”. Row A has a certain character or rule, and so does column L. Unit AL represents the intersection of these two lines of thought. This view implies that the author began with the framework defined by the concepts that give definition to the columns, L and R, and the rows, A–E. Each unit was then constructed in such a manner as to reflect the two planning lines that intersect in it. The resultant composition can be described as “tabular” or “woven.” The discovery of a table within Leviticus 19 may raise more questions than it answers. While we can now point to the plan that required the combination of diverse laws in the chapter, we must begin to deal with the meaning of the resultant composition. How are we to read a tabular composition? How does it compare with a linear text? Why did the author choose this format? Are there similar compositions within the Torah? If so, how widespread is the phenomenon? In a previous article, I have demonstrated that the book of Leviticus consists of twenty-two literary

344

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

tables, which integrate into two large “tables of tables.”17 In the next section we will investigate the connection between Leviticus 19 and what may be the source of the literary tables, the Exodus 20 Decalogue.

4. THE DECALOGUE AND LEVITICUS 19 The Ten Commandments are probably the most famous bit of legislation in the world. Modern scholars are not sure, however, where exactly the Ten Commandments are, nor what they really mean.18 …if chap. 19 had the Decalogue in mind, why was it exemplified with such rare, ambiguous cases? Would anyone who heard or read this chapter have thought of these allusions without looking for them in advance?19

INTRODUCTION In this section, I will demonstrate that Leviticus 19 was modeled after the Exodus 20 Decalogue. The reason that others have explored the relationship between the Decalogue and Leviticus 19 is that Leviticus 19 contains word for word fragments of some components of the Decalogue, as well as some less literal allusions. Milgrom lists no less than six different “attempts to find the Decalogue in this chapter…both ancient and modern”.20 While the number of near repetitions has caused Schwartz to pose at least a common source, there is still no satisfying explanation for the parallels.21 My approach to this issue differs from the approach of my predecessors. I will demonstrate a connection between the structure of Leviticus 19 and that of the Decalogue. The five-pair tabular structure that we have described in the first three sections of this investigation is itself a decalogue composed of two five-part tablets (columns). I will examine the 17 Moshe Kline, “The Literary Structure of Leviticus”, The Biblical Historian, Journal of the Biblical Colloquium West, vol.2, number1 (2005), pp. 12–29; http://chaver.com/Torah-New/English/Articles/The Literary Structure of Leviticus (TBH).pdf 18 James L. Kugel, How To read The Bible (New York, NY: Free Press, 2007), p. 250. 19 Milgrom, p. 1600. 20 Ibid. 21 Schwartz, pp. 372–377.

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345

similarities between this decalogue and the Decalogue in Exodus 20 and conclude that a five-pair arrangement of this Decalogue served both as a structural model and a conceptual plan for Leviticus 19. After I demonstrate the formal relationship between the two ten-part structures, I will offer a hypothetical, literary, explanation for the similarity between them.

WHICH DIVISION INTO TEN The Torah says that the Decalogue contains ten Words (‫ )דברים‬but does not indicate how to divide the text into ten components. Different traditions have developed regarding this division. None of them base themselves on persuasive literary evidence. I will show that the division in the Masoretic Text (MT), which appears in the Torah scrolls read in synagogues, should be preferred because it leads to a reading that integrates all ten Words in a coherent document. The document itself consists of five consecutive pairs of Words organized hierarchically, from the first pair, which focuses on God, to the last pair, which is limited to subjective human experience, coveting. Once this internal structure is recognized, it leads to seeing a new arrangement of the Words as they might have been arranged on the two stone tablets. They should be seen as written in pairs across the two tablets, the first Word on one and the second Word on the other, the third on the first, etc. Thus one tablet contains the “odd” Words and the other the “evens.” This arrangement may be the literal meaning of the otherwise difficult verse in Exod 32:15, ‫ מזה ומזה‬,‫לחת כתבים משני עבריהם‬ ‫הם כתבים‬, (“(the writing was) written across both tablets; (alternately,) on one and (then) the other, were they written”).

The Sinaitic Decalogue According to Exod 32:15 AL ‫באנכי יהוה אלהיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים‬I ‫מבית עבדים‬ ‫ לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על פני‬II ‫ גלא תעשה לך פסל וכל תמונה‬III ‫אשר בשמים ממעל‬ ‫ואשר בארץ מתחת‬ ‫ואשר במים מתחת לארץ‬ ‫דלא תשתחוה להם ולא תעבדם‬IV ‫כי אנכי יהוה אלהיך אל קנא פקד עון אבת על‬V

AR ‫ולא תשא את שם יהוה‬ ‫אלהיך לשוא כי לא ינקה‬ ‫יהוה את אשר ישא את שמו‬ ‫לשוא‬

346

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES ‫בנים על שלשים ועל רבעים לשנאי הועשה חסד‬ ‫לאלפים לאהבי ולשמרי מצותי‬ BL ‫זזכור את יום השבת לקדשו‬I ‫ חששת ימים תעבד ועשית כל מלאכתך טויום‬II ‫השביעי שבת ליהוה אלהיך‬

‫ לא תעשה כל מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך עבדך‬III ‫ואמתך ובהמתך וגרך אשר בשעריך‬ ‫ יכי ששת ימים עשה יהוה את השמים ואת‬IV ‫הארץ את הים ואת כל אשר בם וינח ביום השביעי‬ ‫ על כן ברך יהוה את יום השבת ויקדשהו‬V CL ‫יבלא תרצח‬ DL ‫לא תגנב‬ AL I. 2I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: II. 3You shall have no other gods besides Me. III. 4You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. IV. 5You shall not bow down to them or serve them. V. For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, 6but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

BR ‫יאכבד את אביך ואת אמך‬ ‫למען יארכון ימיך על‬ ‫האדמה אשר יהוה אלהיך‬ ‫נתן לך‬

CR

‫לא תנאף‬ DR ‫לא תענה ברעך עד שקר‬ AR shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God; for the Lord will not clear one who swears falsely by His name.

7You

MOSHE KLINE BL I. 8Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.

347

BR your father and your mother, that you may lengthen your days on the 9 II. Six days you shall labor and do all land that the Lord your your work, 10but the seventh day is a God is assigning to you. sabbath of the Lord your God: III. you shall not do any work you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. IV. 11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; V. therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. CR CL 13You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. DL DR You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ER EL 14You shall not covet your neighbors house You shall not covet your neighbors wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbors. 12Honor

FIVE PAIRS OF WORDS The above arrangement may explain why two Words begin “You shall not covet”. The apparent redundancy hints to the reader to investigate the other Words as pairs. While no other pair contains as obvious a link as EL and ER, two pairs, A and B, do contain linguistic and formal links while two others, C and D, contain content links. AL and AR contain acts that affect “the Lord your God”. BL and BR, the only two positive commandments, contain reasons that relate to God, as well as common references to the

348

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

parent/child relationship and time. CL and CR together encompass the lifecycle, from propagation to death. They forbid acts that begin and end human life. That leaves DL and DR. Both of them speak of dishonesty. Additional evidence of the validity of the MT division appears in Words AL and BL. AL has a highly symmetrical five-part structure, marked I–V. The envelope of the structure is defined by the inclusio of ‫אנכי יהוה‬ ‫“( אלהיך‬I the lord your God”), at the beginnings of elements I and V. The symmetry is based on three concentrically ordered triads. The first is chronologically ordered: I, past; II–IV, present; V, future. The second triad spans II–IV and is based on the grammatical persons which are the indirect object: II, first; III, second; IV, third. The third triad is found within III and is spatial: heaven above, earth, water under the earth. Only the MT division maintains the brilliant symmetry of this Word and its inclusio. Word BL, which also contains a five-part symmetric structure, can be seen as further evidence to the fact that AL is an authored unit. Taken together, the content pairs and the internal structure of AL are sufficient evidence to justify the interpretation of Ex.32:15: the pairs were written across the two tablets, alternately, on one and then the other.

THE DECALOGUE PAIRS IN LEVITICUS 19 Leviticus 19 contains literal fragments of the Decalogue as well as less clear references to it, as indicated in the various attempts to identify the Decalogue within Leviticus 19. However, the confused order of these fragments, combined with the veiled character of the references, has prevented critics from agreeing as to the nature of the connection between the two texts. The evidence vis-à-vis the common structure of the two texts makes it possible to view the connection from a new perspective. This is a significant advance, because we are no longer limited to comparing individual laws in Leviticus 19 with their parallels in the Decalogue. We can also compare structural elements. We will see now that the author of Leviticus 19 read the Decalogue according to our five-pair arrangement and incorporated its first four pairs into Leviticus 19.

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Pairs A AL ‫אוידבר יהוה אל משה לאמר בדבר‬ Leviticus ‫אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת‬ 19 ‫אלהם קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני‬ ‫יהוה אלהיכם‬ AL ‫ כי אנכי‬... ‫באנכי יהוה אלהיך‬ ‫יהוה אלהיך אל קנא פקד עון‬ Exodus ‫אבת על בנים על שלשים ועל‬ 20 ‫רבעים לשנאי הועשה חסד‬ ‫לאלפים לאהבי ולשמרי מצותי‬ AL 1The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2Speak to the whole Leviticus Israelite community and say to 19 them: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. AL the Lord am your God …For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God

2I

Exodus 20

AR ‫יאלא תגנבו ולא תכחשו ולא‬ ‫תשקרו איש בעמיתו‬ ‫יב ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר‬ ‫וחללת את שם אלהיך‬ AR ‫ולא תשא את שם יהוה אלהיך‬ ‫לשוא כי לא ינקה יהוה את אשר‬ ‫ישא את שמו לשוא‬ AR shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another. 12You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God AR 7You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God; for the Lord will not clear one who swears falsely by His name. 11You

Pair A in the Lev structure precisely corresponds to pair A in the Decalogue. In the first element, L, God speaks about Himself, while the second, R, speaks of His name. The common subject of both pairs is God, His substance (L) and His name (R). Pair A in Lev also contains clear references to pair D in the Dec, stealing and lying testimony. ‫לא תגנבו ולא‬ ‫“( תכחשו ולא תשקרו איש בעמיתו‬You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another”) is virtually identical to ‫ לא‬,‫לא תגנוב‬ ‫“( תענה ברעך עד שקר‬You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”). So we have references to two Decalogue pairs in the first Leviticus 19 pair, one in place, parallel to the first Decalogue pair, and one out of place, parallel to the fourth Decalogue pair. The parallel with the Decalogue pair A is especially impressive because it contains a one-

350

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

to-one correspondence between both AL and AR. The parallel between Lev pair A and Decalogue pair D is more distant because both DL and DR of the Decalogue appear in AR of Lev. We will see that even this out-of-place parallel is part of a systematic plan.

Pairs B Leviticus 19:3, 13 Decalogus

Leviticus 19:3, 13

Decalogue

BL ‫ג איש אמו ואביו תיראו ואת‬ ‫שבתתי תשמרו‬ BL ...‫זזכור את יום השבת לקדשו‬ BL shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My Sabbaths BL 8Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy… 3You

BR ...‫יג לא תעשק את רעך ולא תגזל‬ BR ‫יאכבד את אביך ואת אמך למען‬ ‫יארכון ימיך על האדמה אשר‬ ‫יהוה אלהיך נתן לך‬ BR 13You shall not defraud your neighbor…. BR your father and your mother, that you may lengthen your days on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you. 12Honor

Leviticus 19 pair B, like Lev pair A, contains obvious literal references to the parallel Decalogue pair. ‫“( איש אמו ואביו תיראו‬You shall each revere his mother and his father (Lev–BL) reflects ‫“( כבד את אביך ואת אמך‬Honor your father and your mother”) (Dec–BR), and ‫“( ואת שבתתי תשמרו‬keep My Sabbaths”) (Lev–BL) reflects ‫“( זכור את יום השבת‬Remember the Sabbath day”)(Dec–BL). However, in this case there is not a one-to-one correspondence because both Decalogue Words appear in Lev–BL, much as we saw both Decalogue D Words in Lev AR. We have now identified three of the Decalogue pairs in Leviticus 19, so there can be no doubt that the author of Leviticus 19 was working with the five-pair arrangement of the Decalogue according to the MT division.

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351

Pairs C Leviticus 19 Decalogue

Leviticus 19:4, 15-16

Decalogue

CR CL ‫דאל תפנו אל‬ ‫טולא תעשו עול במשפט לא תשא פני דל‬ ‫ולא תהדר פני גדול בצדק תשפט עמיתך‬ ‫האלילים ואלהי‬ ‫מסכה לא תעשו‬ ‫טזלא תלך רכיל בעמיך לא תעמד על דם‬ ‫לכם‬ ‫רעך‬ CR CL ‫לא תנאף‬ ‫יבלא תרצח‬ CL CR 4Do not turn to 15You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or idols or make molten gods for show deference to the rich; judge your yourselves neighbor fairly. 16Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow CR CL 13You shall not You shall not commit adultery. murder.

All six of the “ancient and modern” attempts to find the Decalogue in Leviticus 19 quoted by Milgrom connect ‫“( לא תעמד על דם רעך‬Do not profit by the blood of your fellow”) with ‫“( לא תרצח‬You shall not murder”). The prophet Ezekiel is almost certainly referring to Lev 19:16 ‫לא‬ ‫ תלך רכיל בעמיך לא תעמד על דם רעך‬in Ezek 22:9 ‫אנשי רכיל היו בך למען‬ ‫“( שפך דם‬In thee have been talebearers to shed blood”) (Old JPS), equating murder with “talebearing” (“dealing basely” in NJPS). However, regardless of the precise meaning of the obscure phrase ‫ תעמד על דם‬and its connection with talebearing, it can only refer to a figurative murder. Our comparative reading of the two structures makes it possible to demonstrate that the author of Leviticus 19 created the “figurative” murder in order to match a figurative adultery. The Decalogue’s ‫“( לא תנאף‬You shall not commit adultery”), is matched in Leviticus 19 CL by ‫אל תפנו אל האלילים ואלהי מסכה לא תעשו‬ ‫“( לכם‬Do not turn to idols or make molten gods for yourselves”). While the figurative usage of ‫( זנות‬prostitution) meaning “idolatry” is widespread, ‫נאוף‬, adultery, with this meaning appears together with the figurative use of “prostitution” in Jer 3:9. ‫והיה מקל זנותה ותחנף את הארץ ותנאף את האבן‬ ‫“( ואת העץ‬and it came to pass through the lightness of her harlotry, that the

352

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks”). It is clear now that the author of Leviticus 19 has created figurative parallels to both Words of pair C. The figuration of the parallel Decalogue Words is accompanied by a reversal of their placement. Lev CL links to Decalogue CR and Lev CR links to Decalogue CL. We have now seen that each of the first four Decalogue pairs has a parallel in Leviticus 19. Decalogue pair E has no parallel in Leviticus 19. The following table summarizes what we have learned about the links between the Decalogue pairs and Leviticus 19.

THE LINKS CREATE A FIVE-STEP PROCESS Table 8. The Arrangement of Decalogue Pair References in Lev 19 1 Dec. pair

3 Lev L contains

4 Lev R contains

A

2 Appears in Lev pair A

L

R

B

B

L+R

C

C

R

D

A

E

-

-

5 Type of link to Lev Literal

Literal L

Figurative

R+L

Literal

-

None

6 Summary of Decalogue pair links in Leviticus 19 Complete one-to-one in row correspondence, literal link In-row literal link, one Word in wrong column In-row figurative link, both Words in wrong columns Literal link in wrong row, one Word in wrong column No link

The above table summarizes the references to each Decalogue pair in Leviticus 19. Column 1 lists the Decalogue pairs and column 2 indicates in which Lev pair the Decalogue pair appears. Columns 3 and 4 indicate which Word of the Decalogue pair appears in which column of Leviticus 19. Column 5 describes what type of link exists between the pairs. Column 6 summarizes the characteristics of each link.

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353

Each Decalogue pair has been linked to Leviticus 19 in a unique way. The extremes are the most obvious. Decalogue pair A has a one-to-one literal link with Leviticus 19 pair A, while Decalogue pair E has no link whatsoever with Leviticus 19. The three intermediate Decalogue pairs are each linked to Leviticus 19 to a different degree. Decalogue pair B is almost like A in that it appears with literal references to it in the parallel Lev pair, but one of its elements, R, is in the wrong column. Decalogue pair C is less closely connected to its parallel pair in Leviticus 19 than B because both of its elements are in the wrong columns. In addition, the references to it in Leviticus 19 are not literal, but figurative. Finally, Decalogue pair D is totally out of place, appearing in Lev pair A. We can see from the table that the author of Leviticus 19 has manipulated the arrangement of the Decalogue pairs in order to create a sequence that is similar to the process of separation we identified in section three as “the progression of the pairs.” The following table will clarify this point.

Table 9. The Progression of Lev 19 Pairs and Decalogue Pairs From: The Progression of the Pairs From: The Arrangement in Section Three of Decalogue Pair References in Leviticus 19 Pair Common Structure Connection/ Summary of appearance in Each Unit of Process of of Decalogue pair in Pair Separation Leviticus 19 A Two causally Inseparable Complete one-to-one in related clauses with row correspondence, linguistic links literal link between them B Two segments Equivocally In-row literal link, one linked by implied Inseparable Word in wrong column causal relationship, with linguistic link between units C Two segments Linked-Separable In-row figurative link, linked by similar both Words in wrong content but without column linguistic links D Two fully Partially Literal link in wrong

354

E

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES articulated unlinked elements Three fully articulated elements separated by pseudo-closings

separated Fully separated

row, one Word in wrong column No link

The above table is composed of sections of two previous tables, “the progression of the pairs” from section three of this paper and the arrangement of the Decalogue pair references in this section. The comparison demonstrates that the two progressions are identical because the central column, which was originally created to describe the process of separation in the pairs of Leviticus 19, also precisely describes the procession of the links to the Decalogue. The comparison also justifies our decision to see a non-literal link between the C pairs, because the common structure of pair C in Leviticus 19, as noted above, lacks the linguistic links that are found in pairs A and B. This point emphasizes just how much attention the author gave to engineering the parallels with the Decalogue. The result is the extraordinarily ordered set of links that demonstrates the same organizing principle as the pairs of Leviticus 19. We have now seen three applications of a single five-step process: 1) the formal structure of the pairs in Leviticus 19; 2) references to God within these pairs; 3) references to the pairs of Words in the Decalogue. A close reading of the Decalogue, as arranged above, will reveal the same progression from pair to pair, as well as the same definitions for its columns, as we suggested for the columns of Leviticus 19. While this is not the place for a close reading of the Decalogue, nevertheless, we cannot avoid speculating why the author of Leviticus 19 was so intent on connecting it with the Decalogue.

HYPOTHETICAL EXPLANATION We will now consider a hypothesis that explains why Leviticus 19 contains the formal structures we have found in it and the links to the Decalogue. The hypothesis is based on an analogical reading of Leviticus, which can be seen as a development of the approach pioneered by Mary Douglas. I have proposed elsewhere that Leviticus can be read as containing three

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concentric rings of material.22 Each ring emulates an aspect of the Tabernacle; the outer ring the courtyard, the middle ring the Holy Place and the inner ring the Holy of Holies. According to this reading, Leviticus 19 is at the focus of the three rings. We can interpret its position within the ring of the Holy of Holies to imply that it represents the Ark of the Covenant. This would explain in part the appearance of Decalogue elements within the chapter, as well as the sixteen first-person divine speeches. The Ark of the Covenant served as the receptacle for the stone tablets as well as the source of divine communication between the cherubs. The solution that I propose is consistent with the view mentioned in the Talmud that the Ark contained the fragments of the first set of tablets as well as the intact second set.23 The hypothesis I propose is that the fragmented parallels to the Decalogue in Leviticus 19 are to be seen as the fragments of the first tablets, while the five-pair structure embedded in the chapter should be seen as parallel to the second tablets. Part of the function of the embedded structure might be to offer an exegesis of the Decalogue. The theory I propose has the added advantage of explaining what seems to be a great oversight in rabbinic exegesis of the Decalogue. Rabbinic commentaries, and earlier Philo, divide the Decalogue into ten parts differently than the MT. This is striking because the Decalogue is divided according to the MT in every Torah scroll in every synagogue. In other words, the rabbinic exegetical tradition is in conflict with the received text of the Torah. According to the theory I will present, it is quite possible that the rabbis suppressed the MT reading, and consequently, the five-pair reading of Leviticus 19. If so, their reason could be based on the reported difference between the two different sets of stone tablets. Moses reportedly brought down the first set of tablets in his hands. Had he entered the camp with them, instead of shattering them, everyone would have been able to see the writing on them. The second tablets were different, as described in Deut 10:1–5. ‫אבעת ההוא אמר יהוה אלי פסל לך שני לוחת אבנים כראשנים ועלה‬ ‫ בואכתב על הלחת את הדברים אשר היו‬:‫אלי ההרה ועשית לך ארון עץ‬ ‫ גואעש ארון עצי שטים‬:‫על הלחת הראשנים אשר שברת ושמתם בארון‬ ‫ דויכתב‬:‫ואפסל שני לחת אבנים כראשנים ואעל ההרה ושני הלחת בידי‬ ‫על הלחת כמכתב הראשון את עשרת הדברים אשר דבר יהוה אליכם‬ 22 23

See note 17 TB, BB, 14b

356

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES ‫ הואפן וארד מן ההר ואשם‬:‫בהר מתוך האש ביום הקהל ויתנם יהוה אלי‬ :‫את הלחת בארון אשר עשיתי ויהיו שם כאשר צוני יהוה‬ 1Thereupon

the Lord said to me, "Carve out two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make an ark of wood. 2I will inscribe on the tablets the commandments that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark. 3I made an ark of acacia wood and carved out two tablets of stone like the first; I took the two tablets with me and went up the mountain. 4The Lord inscribed on the tablets the same text as on the first, the Ten Commandments that He addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. 5Then I left and went down from the mountain, and I deposited the tablets in the ark that I had made, where they still are, as the Lord had commanded me.

The second tablets were to be placed in the box as soon as Moses descended from Mt. Sinai. No one was to see the writing on the tablets other than Moses. We can then say that the first tablets were exoteric, available to all, while the second tablets were esoteric, available only to Moses. We can learn from this that one set of tablets was exoteric and shattered, and the other was esoteric and whole. We have found a truly esoteric five-paired text in Leviticus 19 as well as fragments of the Decalogue according to the MT divisions. The MT provides a five-paired reading that replicates the five-step process we uncovered in Leviticus 19. I suspect that the process itself is in some way connected with the esoteric knowledge hidden in the Ark and suppressed by following generations. The Mishnah hints that the five-pair MT arrangement was considered esoteric. The first chapter of Mesechet Avot traces the esoteric (oral) tradition from Moses to the fathers of the reputed author of the Mishnah, R’ Yehudah Hanasi. This chapter contains a five-pair structure, which has all the signs of an esoteric text. A close reading of this structure reveals that it was composed as a parallel to the five-pair MT-divided Decalogue and contains multiple linguistic and conceptual links to it. This document can be read as R’ Yehudah Hanasi’s commentary on the esoteric Decalogue. When read together with the five-pair structure of Leviticus 19, it opens a new door to exegesis. Deo volente, I will present this material in the not too distant future.

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5. ANALYSIS AND EXEGESIS OF LEVITICUS 19:19B–25, WENHAM’S UNIT [9] INTRODUCTION At this point, we are in a position similar to the mechanic who has rebuilt a motor only to find that there are a handful of parts left over. To continue this metaphor, our motor is up and running, showing no need whatsoever for the remaining pieces, verses 19b–25, unit [9]. With the engine purring so beautifully, there is an enormous temptation to chuck the left over nuts and bolts with a response like “the editor was nodding.” Unfortunately, all the evidence we have gathered demonstrates that the editor was not nodding. In fact, there is no reason to posit the existence of an editor or redactor at all. The alignment of all the fine details of the five-pair, two-column structure indicates that we are reading an authored composition. No committee or series of editors could have constructed this chapter. It is just too coherent, given all its complexity. Therefore, unless we can prove otherwise, we will have to deal with unit [9] as part of the planned document. Close examination will have to show us what to do with the remaining nuts and bolts.

Table 10.The Three-Part Structure of Unit [9] La ‫בהמתך לא תרביע כלאים‬

Ma ‫כ ואיש כי ישכב את אשה‬ ‫והוא שפחה שכבת זרע‬ ‫והפדה לא נחרפת לאיש‬ ‫נפדתה או חפשה לא נתן‬ ‫בקרת תהיה לא יומתו לה‬ ‫כי לא חפשה‬ Lb Mb ‫שדך לא תזרע כלאים‬ ‫כא והביא את אשמו‬ ‫ליהוה אל פתח אהל‬ ‫כב וכפר מועד איל אשם‬ ‫עליו הכהן באיל האשם‬ ‫על חטאתו לפני יהוה‬ ‫אשר חטא‬

Ra ‫כג וכי תבאו אל הארץ‬ ‫ונטעתם כל עץ מאכל‬ ‫וערלתם ערלתו את פריו‬ ‫שלש שנים יהיה לכם‬ ‫ערלים לא יאכל‬ Rb ‫כד ובשנה הרביעת יהיה‬ ‫הלולים ליהוה כל פריו‬ ‫קדש‬

358

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

Lc ‫ובגד כלאים שעטנז לא‬ ‫יעלה עליך‬

La You shall not let your cattle mate with a different kind;

Lb you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed;

Lc you shall not put on cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material.

Mc ‫ונסלח לו מחטאתו אשר‬ ‫חטא‬

Ma If a man has carnal relations with a woman who is a slave and has been designated for another man, but has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there shall be an indemnity (inquestMilgrom); they shall not, however, be put to death, since she has not been freed. Mb 21 But he must bring to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, as his guilt offering to the Lord, a ram of guilt offering. 22 With the ram of guilt offering the priest shall make expiation for him before the Lord for the sin that he committed; Mc and the sin that he committed will be forgiven him. 20

Rc ‫כה ובשנה החמישת‬ ‫תאכלו את פריו להוסיף‬ ‫לכם תבואתו אני יהוה‬ ‫אלהיכם‬ Ra When you enter the land and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden for you, not to be eaten. 23

Rb In the fourth year all its fruit shall be set aside for jubilation before the Lord; 24

Rc and only in the fifth year may you use its fruit that its yield to you may be increased: I the Lord am your God. 25

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FRACTAL TRIADS Unit [9] is composed of three seemingly unrelated subjects: v. 19b, mixing types, vv. 20–22, intercourse with a promised slave woman, and vv. 23–25, first fruits. I have placed the three subject elements in three columns, Left, Middle, and Right in the above table. Each column is itself divided into three parts, a, b, and c. The division within column M needs some clarification. My division of M is based on three discernable stages: a) a man sins by having sexual intercourse with a betrothed slave woman; b) he repents by means of a ram offering; c) he is forgiven. The unit is thus composed of triads of two different orders, the whole three-part unit and the three, three-part columns. This makes it a fractal, a text in which the parts have the same structure as the whole. Besides the single closing formula, this tight structure is the first indication that the unit must be dealt with as a whole, rather than as an assortment of laws. We will now see that a single theme integrates the diverse parts.

REPRODUCTION Each of the three columns begins with a similar act: L, “mate”; M, “has carnal relations”; R, “plant”. Although these three actions are different, they share a kernel of similarity, much as the three elements of column L. The more closely we observe the details of the columns, the clearer the picture that appears. In La, no actual engendering takes place; it is forbidden. The next column begins with an act of intercourse, Ma. In the third column, planting is just a preliminary; the main subject is the fruit. The three columns form an ordered set. At first, in L, we are presented with potential breeding and sowing of seeds. However, since the mixtures are forbidden, they exist only as potential, seeds. This is followed by actual sowing, intercourse, in M, and finally, harvesting the first fruits of planting in R. The order is “realization” or increase, L, seeds; M, sowing; R, harvesting. This theme is emphasized in the last words before the closing formula, ‫להוסיף‬ ‫“( לכם תבואתו‬that its yield to you may be increased”).

A MIXED METAPHOR It appears that [9] is conceptually unified by means of a single metaphor, reproduction, even though it combines animals, people and plants to create the total image. The author has integrated diverse laws into a single theme, one that is inaccessible without an understanding of the structure. While we have considered, primarily, matters of formal structure in the previous

360

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

sections, we have also gathered evidence that an understanding of the structure has the potential to deepen our understanding of meanings inherent in the text. Perhaps the clearest example of the interplay between structure and meaning that we have encountered so far was the analysis of the references to God vis à vis the pairs. We found a clear structural rule behind the distribution of these references. Nevertheless, it is impossible to relegate references to God within the units to a purely technical function in the arrangement of the chapter, as opposed to the closing formula, which marks off the units. The references to God are inseparable from the meaning. The case of [9] is even more dramatic. Identifying the structure has led us to see that the text demands to be read metaphorically. It may be, that the author has inserted this apparently out-of-place unit in an otherwise magnificently coherent chapter in order to indicate that the formal structure must lead to a metaphorical interpretation of the entire chapter. In any case, we will take the opportunity regarding [9] to explore the way structural analysis can lead to metaphorical exegesis. But before we take the leap, let us be completely certain that unit [9] is a coherent element in the overall plan of Leviticus 19.

DOES [9] FIT IN? Since we have seen that the other ten units can be viewed as a table consisting of five rows and two columns, we should try to determine whether [9] fits into this tabular structure. There are arguments both pro and con. The fact that it is not a member of a pair would seem to preclude the possibility of integrating it into the tabular structure. However, there are other indications that the structure of [9] creates a good fit where it appears, between pairs D and E. Like the units of E, it contains three well defined parts. Unlike E, there is no formal division between the parts of [9]. So [9] can be seen as a stage before the fully articulated triads of E. In fact, structurally, [9] is a perfect fit between the dyads of D and the fully articulated triads of E. We can deduce from this bit of analysis that [9], as we find it, containing three separate subjects, is a coherent element of the overall plan of Leviticus 19.

UNIT [9] AND THE COLUMNS Now that we have determined that [9] belongs where it is, we have to ask ourselves how it relates to the two-column, five-row structure of the remaining units of the chapter. Could it be the exception “that comes to

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teach about the rule”? If so, which rule? I want to suggest that we view it figuratively as a clasp that holds the two columns together. In this view, columns L and R of unit [9] link into columns L and R of the larger structure while 9M bridges the columns.

Table 11 L AL BL CL DL 9L EL

9M

R AR BR CR DR 9R ER

Unit [9] can be read as the key to the chapter in much the same way that a map has a key to its symbols. The two extreme elements of [9], 9L and 9R, characterize the columns, while M indicates how to integrate them. In order to see the relationship between columns L and R in the larger structure of the chapter and 9L and 9R, we need to do two things. First, we must clarify some of the characteristics of 9L and 9R. Then we will review what we learned about the columns.

LEGAL ORDER As soon as we see that the three columns of [9] form an ordered triad according to the theme of reproduction, it becomes apparent that it contains other themes that can also be read as ordered triads. One of these is found by considering the legal format of each of the columns. All the mixtures of the first section, 9L, are strictly forbidden. On the other hand, planting fruit trees, column R, is a positive commandment, and the fruit of the fifth year is the source of the blessing of plenty. In the center, between the negative of L and the positive of 9R, falls the shadow, the gray area. Intercourse with the promised slave is neither condoned nor fully punishable. The middle column is a conceptual middle. It includes the sense of “forbidden” in its first element, 9Ma, like all of column 9L; and like column 9R it contains a positive element, the assurance of forgiveness in 9Mc.

362

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

ONE AND MANY All the verbs in 9L are in the singular while all those in 9R are in the plural. The prohibitions of 9L are addressed to an individual while the obligations of 9R are addressed to a collective. This distinction between an individual and society as a whole clarifies the introduction to Ra: “When you come into the land.” It indicates an historical perspective applicable to the group rather than an individual. Considering that 9M concerns a couple, we can see that the three elements are ordered: L) one; M) two; R) many. We should note that that the subjects of the three elements of [9] have been chosen to emphasize the numeric relationship indicated by the verb forms. The subject of 9L is separation or uniqueness, 9R stresses increase, and 9M concerns a couple.24 The emphasis on these numeric considerations will play a significant role in the exegesis of the unit. We have now seen that the three segments of [9] display three principles of organization: 1) the theme of reproduction; 2) legal order; 3) numerical order. The last two principles will help us connect [9] with the columns of the larger structure.

REVIEWING THE COLUMNS Regarding the columns, we began with Wenham’s distinction between religious duties in L and ethical duties in R. We have continued using this dyad as a matter of convenience although we have already noted that there may be a more basic dyad underlying the distinction between the columns. We considered the possibility that column L could be read as “private” duties as opposed to the “public” duties of R. This distinction is consistent with the fact that there are no interactions with people outside of the family in L, while R is based entirely on such interactions. The dyad “private-public” fits the numeric characteristic of [9]. 9L uses the singular and its content deals with individualization; 9R uses the plural and is concerned with “increase.” Other characteristics of the columns of the table are also similar to the columns of [9]. We noted that both of our original columns have “direction”, indicated by an inner process. Column L is directed toward the negative and R toward the positive. These tendencies are consistent with what we found in [9]; 9L is negative and 9R is positive. There is another 24 The significance of the distinction between “one” and “many” cannot be overestimated. It is built into the biblical metaphysic by means of the creation narrative, distinguishing between the first three days and the next three.

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correlation between [9] and a characteristic of the larger structure, which we have not yet touched on. Each “unmixable” element of 9L points to a class of objects. 9R on the other hand is concerned with a process that is not only agricultural, but is also historical, “When you enter the land.” This historical process is picked up in ERb, “you were aliens in the land of Egypt”, and in ERc “who freed you from the land of Egypt.” EL has no such references. Like 9L it is concerned with objects rather than process. It is quite clear now that unit [9] is not only a coherent part of Leviticus 19, but also provides verification for two of our conclusions concerning the structure of the chapter. First, because it fits structurally between the pairs of D and the articulated triads of E, it verifies our identification of the triads in E as planning elements. Second, because the poles of [9] fit the pattern of the columns of the larger structure, we have verification that the author saw a distinction between the columns that could be defined in terms of individual (L) and community (R).

A READING OF [9] Reading the poles of 9L and 9R as “individual and community” provides an excellent framework for understanding 9M while creating the metaphorical exegesis we mentioned earlier. The narrative of column 9M depicts the tension between the desires of an individual and the accepted social norms. The protagonist has a one-night fling with a promised slave. He cannot have serious intentions. She is both a slave and promised to another man, if she is released. The language of the text emphasizes that this is a one-off event. The word that we have been translating “betrothed”, ‫נחרפת‬, appears nowhere else in the Torah. In addition, ‫בקרת‬, (“an inquiry”) also has no parallel in the Torah. This unique event is described in unique language. There is no crime of adultery since a slave cannot actually be engaged. Still, a public hearing is held in order to make known society’s disapproval. Even though this brief affair is not a crime or a sin, properly speaking, it is also not socially acceptable. This is indicated by the parallel use of ‫ חטא‬here and in DR, ‫הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך ולא תשא עליו חטא‬, (“Reprove your fellow but incur no guilt because of him”) to point to a social rather than religious offense. If the offending individual cannot achieve retribution for his offense to society through punishment, what channels are left open to him? He must turn from his private passions, to a renewed identification with social norms. He demonstrates his identification with the common weal by presenting himself at the central social institution, the Tabernacle, with his

364

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

guilt offering in hand. A public official, the priest, accepts the offering and effects his atonement before God. After he has participated in the ritual of atonement, he is forgiven and returns to the fold. The individual of 9L and the group of 9R have made peace through the conceptual middle, 9M, and by means of this exegesis, we have bound together columns L and R. I offer the above reading of unit [9] in full knowledge that it is highly speculative. Nevertheless, I consider it to be important as an example of the goal of the type of close reading I have presented in this article. I have attempted to integrate in it the characteristics of the text revealed by our analysis. I consider this integration to be the goal of close reading.

THE PLACE OF CHAPTER 19 IN THE PLAN OF LEVITICUS Towards the end of the previous section, we considered an analogical reading of Leviticus according to which Leviticus 19 represents the Ark of the Covenant.25 Our analysis of [9] enables us to clarify this analogy. It is based on a reading that sees Leviticus arranged with three concentric rings of material around Leviticus 19. Each ring is a literary parallel to one of the three parts of the Tabernacle: the innermost, closest to Leviticus 19, the Holy of Holies; the middle ring, the Holy Place; the outer ring the courtyard. This configuration is not actually similar to the Tabernacle because it was not arranged in rings. The analogy does not fit. It order to see Leviticus as the Tabernacle, we have to consider the experience of the reader. Moreover, the reader must be viewed as analogous to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. The experience of reading Leviticus according to its (non-linear) literary structure has two components. The first traces the path of the High Priest inwards and the second covers the same path but facing outwards. This explains the ring format. In order to understand the differences between otherwise parallel material, such as Leviticus 18 and 20, it is only necessary to consider the two different perspectives of the High Priest. The first half of his “trip” is a turning inwards to face God one-to-one. For the second half, he must do an about face and turn outwards to the waiting community. Each stage thus has an inward facing and an outward facing phase. To clarify this point let us consider chapters 18 and 20, which seem to contain unnecessary duplications of sexual prohibitions. The difference between them is that chapter 18, containing only the prohibitions, is 25

See note 17

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365

addressed to individuals who might be tempted to engage in the prohibited acts. Chapter 20, on the other hand, containing punishments, is addressed to the community, which must carry out the punishments. This distinction characterizes the two perspectives of the inward and outward paths. Chapter 19 is the turning point and contains within it one column, L, addressed to the individual facing inwards, and one, R, addressed to the outward facing individual. Unit [9], and especially 9M, would then reflect the actual turning point. It would indeed seem that the “editor” was not nodding.

SAUL AS A JUST JUDGE IN JOSEPHUS’ ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS MICHAEL AVIOZ BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY 1.

INTRODUCTION

The king was regarded as “the supreme legal authority, arbiter of justice, and appellate court” in Ancient Israel, as well as in Mesopotamia.1 He also had military duties and often went to war himself.2 When we examine the nature of these roles with reference to Saul in the book of Samuel, we find that he is depicted as a military leader only, i.e., not as a judge.3 This is contrasted with the figure of David, about whom the book of Samuel explicitly states that “David administered justice and equity (‫)משפט וצדקה‬ to all his people” (2 Sam 8:15; cf. 1 Sam 30:25).4 B. M. Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History’s Transformation of Torah,” VT 51 (2001) 511-534 (518). See also M. Weinfeld, “Judge and Officer in Ancient Israel,” IOS 7 (1977) 65–88; idem, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); K.W. Whitelam, The Just King: Monarchical Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1979). 2 T. Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970) 143-47; R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. J. McHugh; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961) 122; Whitelam, The Just King, 17-37, 194; Gina Hens-Piazza, Of Methods, Monarchs, and Meanings: A Socio-Rhetorical Approach to Exegesis (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996) 39; P. J. King and L. E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press, 2001) 241; A. K. Thomason, Luxury and Legitimation: Royal Collecting in Ancient Mesopotamia (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2005) 63. 3 S. Abramsky, Kingdom of Saul and Kingdom of David (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Shikmona, 1977) 112; Hens-Piazza, Of Methods, 61, 76. 4 Some scholars deduced historical conclusions from the differences between 1

367

368

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

This article will explore the portrayal of Saul as a judge in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews. It is true that some scholars have previously analyzed Josephus’ rewriting of the Saul narratives in the Book of Samuel (Ant. 6.45378).5 However, the particular issue of justice with reference to Saul has been discussed either very briefly or altogether ignored.6 Did Josephus adopt the critical view of Saul found in the Book of Samuel, or did he moderate this view?7

2.

LOUIS FELDMAN ON THE VIRTUE OF JUSTICE IN JOSEPHUS’ REWRITING OF THE SAUL NARRATIVES

Louis Feldman adopted a scheme in analyzing biblical characters in Josephus’s rewriting.8 He tried to show that Josephus emphasizes the cardinal virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, piety) in his retelling Saul and David regarding their judicial system. See, e.g., Wilson: “[T]he reign of David also marked the appearance in Israel of the traditional ancient Near Eastern doctrine that the king is directly responsible for maintaining justice in the land and assuring all citizens equal access to the courts.” See R. R. Wilson, “Israel’s Judicial System in the Pre-Exilic Period,” JQR 74 (1983) 242. However, my analysis will concentrate on the literary aspects of the narratives. 5 Citations from Josephus are taken from C. T. Begg, Flavius Josephus – Translation and Commentary, Vol. 4: Judean Antiquities Books 5-7 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005). I wish to thank the Ihel fund for its support in preparing this research. 6 P. Spilsbury, The Image of the Jew in Flavius Josephus’ Paraphrase of the Bible (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 170-75; L. H. Feldman, “Josephus’ View of Saul,” C. S. Ehrlich (ed.) Saul in Story and Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006) 21444; D. Dormeyer, “The Hellenistic Biographical History of King Saul: Josephus, A.J. 6.45-378 and 1 Samuel 9:1-31:13,” J. Sievers and G. Lembi (eds) Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, (JSJSup 104; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005) 147-57. See also C. T. Begg, “King Saul’s First Sin According to Josephus,” Antonianum 74 (1999) 685-96; idem, “The Anointing of Saul According to Josephus,” BBR 16 (2006) 1-24; idem, “The First Encounter Between Saul and David According to Josephus,” AUSS 44 (2006) 3-11. Even in his essay on Josephus’ rewriting of 1 Sam. 21-22, Feldman does not deal with the issue of justice with regard to Saul. See L. H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Version of the Extermination of the Priests of Nob (1 Sam. 21, 1-11; 22, 9-23),” M. Mor et al. (eds) For Uriel: Studies in the History of Israel in Antiquity Presented to Professor Uriel Rappaport, (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 2005) 9*-21*. 7 L. H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Version of the Extermination of the Priests of Nob.” 8 L. H. Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998).

MICHAEL AVIOZ

369

of the biblical characters. When rewriting the law of the king (Deut 17), Josephus writes that the king must “always have a concern for justice (δικαιοσύνης)” (Ant. 4.223). Many Greco-Roman thinkers also regarded justice as the most important function of the king.9 Since “justice” has a broad range of connotations, let us first try to define this term according to Josephus. Justice apparently meant “a detailed knowledge of the ancient laws and traditions.”10 In the rewriting of Jehoshaphat’s narrative, Josephus writes that Jehoshaphat ordered the local judges to “render equitable decisions for all, recognizing that God sees all that is done, even in secret” (Ant. 9.3). Feldman writes about Saul: “Not only does Josephus emphasize Saul’s qualities of wisdom, courage, and temperance; he also cites his sense of justice.”11 He alludes to several paragraphs in Josephus to show that Josephus considered King Saul as pursuing justice: • According to Josephus, Saul first goes to look for his father’s asses in “the territory of his father’s tribe, and only later passes over to that of other tribes (Ant. 6.46).”12 • The giving of a gift (‫ )תשורה‬to a prophet (1 Sam 9:7) might have been viewed as bribery. Josephus therefore emphasizes that Saul and his servant sought to give the present to the prophet unwittingly, being unfamiliar with the local custom (Ant. 6.48). It is debatable whether these examples present Saul as just.13 However, even if these examples are accepted as representing justice, there remain two On justice in the works of Josephus, see L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Ewing, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). In this monograph, Feldman also cites sources from the Greco-Roman world. See also F.W. Walbank, ‘Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas’, CAH VII.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University; 2nd ed. 1984) 62–100. 10 S. Mason, Life of Josephus, Flavius Josephus – Translation and Commentary, Vol. 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 12, n. 48. On the connection between law and justice, see Ant. 7.374, 7.384. 11 Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible, 525-26. 12 Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible, 526. 13 Spilsbury, The Image of the Jew, 170, n. 75. Regarding Saul’s search for the asses, Spilsbury claims that Feldman “overstates his case.” Moreover, Josephus’s addition that “they were in error, due to their ignorance that the prophet did not take recompense” can be viewed as elevating the status of Samuel, and not of that of Saul. See Begg, Commentary, 109, n. 175. Begg’s interpretation might be supported by the fact the Josephus omits the giving of “ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey” to the prophet in 1 Kgs 14:3 (Ant. 8.266–67). The two other cases wherein 9

370

PERSPECTIVES ON HEBREW SCRIPTURES

narratives in the book of Samuel that show the contrary. Before we discuss Josephus’ rewriting of these narratives, let us focus on the biblical narratives themselves.

3

1 SAMUEL 14 AND 1 SAMUEL 22: SAUL AS A NON-JUDGE

3.1 SAUL’S VOW AND JONATHAN’S TRIAL IN 1 SAMUEL 14 First Samuel 14 is part of the description of the war between Saul and the Philistines. During the course of the war, Saul curses anyone who will eat until evening, when triumph over the Philistines is achieved (v. 24). However, Jonathan did not hear of this vow, and ate honey (vv. 25-30). When Saul finds out that his son violated his vow, he sentences him to death, but the people save him (vv. 43-45). The Septuagint to verse 24 reflects a denunciation of Saul’s vow: “And Saul was ignorant with great ignorance in that day and he laid an oath on the people.”14 Indeed, this vow caused trouble and can be compared to Jephthah’s vow in Judg 11:30-31. This story, where Saul functions as a judge, can hardly be considered a case of royal justice. On the contrary, by using narrative analogies the narrator tries to condemn Saul for both the vow and the near execution of Jonathan. An impression that Saul “was rash and presumptuous in his relationship to Yahweh, and that he tried to manipulate the Divine will through ritual formality” may be gained.15 When people bring gifts to a prophet are more complicated in Josephus’ rewriting. The Na’aman story (2 Kgs 5) is omitted completely, and therefore we cannot know how Josephus explained it. The other case is in 2 Kgs 8:8. Here Josephus writes: “Azael, joined up with Elissai, along with forty camels, which were bearing the best and most costly gifts from what was in Damascus and the palace” (Ant. 9.89). The giving of “the best and most costly gifts” (δῶρα) to a prophet is left unexplained. 14 καί Σαουλ ἠγνόησεν ἂγνοιαν μεγάλην ἐν τῇ ἡμὲρᾳ ἐκείνῃ καὶ ἀρᾶται τῷ λαῷ λπέγων Ἑπικατάρατος ὁ ἄνθρωπος. Translation is according to B. A. Taylor (trans.), New English Translation of the Septuagint: 1 Reigns (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007) 258. McCarter sees this plus as original and even preferred over the MT. See P. K. McCarter, 1 Samuel (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1980) 245. He claims that the Hebrew text should be read as follows:. ‫ושאול שגה שגגה גדולה‬ ‫ביום ההוא‬ 15 McCarter, 1 Samuel, 251. There are analogies between Saul and Jonathan as well as between Saul and Jephthah and Gideon. These analogies strengthen the negative evaluation of Saul in 1 Samuel 14. D. Jobling, “Saul’s Fall and Jonathan’s Rise: Tradition and Redaction in 1 Sam 14:1-46,” JBL 95 (1976) 367-76; U. Simon,

MICHAEL AVIOZ

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considering this story as one of the “judicial narratives”16, the reader here sees Saul as a non-judge.

3.2 THE MASSACRE OF THE PRIESTS OF NOB IN 1 SAMUEL 22 During David’s flight from Saul, he reached Nob, city of priests. He asks Ahimelech to give him food, and is given bread and the sword of Goliath (1 Sam 21:2-10). Doeg, the Edomite, tells Saul of the secret meeting between David and Ahimelech. Saul summons Ahimelech for a trial in which he blames him for insurgency against the king. Ahimelech tries to explain, but Saul quickly declares that Ahimelech and his family will be executed. None of the king’s servants dare kill the priests of Nob. Therefore Saul sends Doeg, who kills 85 people.17 This narrative contains several condemnations of Saul for his behavior:18 • There is an analogy between Saul the way Saul treated Amalek and the massacre at Nob (1 Sam 15:3//22:19).19 Seek Peace and Pursue It: Topical Issues in the Light of the Bible; The Bible in the Light of Topical Issues (Hebrew; Tel Aviv: Yedioth Aharonot, 2002) 114-76; R. H. O’Connell, The Rhetoric of the Book of Judges (VTSup 63; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 288-89. 16 C. R. Mabee, “The Problem of Setting in Hebrew Royal Judicial Narratives” (Ph.D. diss.; Claremont Graduate School, 1977). 17 I do not intend to deal thoroughly with the many difficulties appearing in 1 Sam 21-22. See Pamela T. Reis, “Collusion at Nob: A New Reading of 1 Samuel 21-22,” JSOT 61 (1994) 59-73 with earlier literature. 18 According to Regev, Saul “is nowhere condemned for this act in the Bible.” See E. Regev, “The Two Sins of Nob: Biblical Interpretation, an Anti-Priestly Polemic, and a Geographical Error in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,” JSP 12 (2001) 93. Cf. C. T. Begg, “The Massacre of the Priests of Nob in Josephus and Pseudo-Philo,” Estudios Bíblicos 55 (1997) 171-98. However, this assertion does not correspond with the features of Biblical narratives. “Like a stage play, the OT narratives do more showing than telling. The reader is seldom explicitly told by the narrator how this or that character or this or that action, is to be evaluated.” See I. Provan, V. P. Long, and T. Longman III, Biblical History of Israel (Westminster / John Knox, 2003) 91. Cf. M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985) 103, 122. That means that in evaluating his characters, the narrator may use indirect means such as analogies. 19 M. Garsiel, The First Book of Samuel. A Literary Study of Comparative Structures, Analogies, and Parallels (Hebrew; Ramat Gan: Revivim, 1983) 133. See also the commentaries of Brueggemann and Miscall: “It is ironic and telling that Saul refused to execute such massive destruction against the Amalekites (15:9), but now in his deterioration, he will act destructively against his own people.” W.

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The legal procedure in which Ahimelech and the other priests are put to death is irregular: Saul is basing his decision solely on Doeg’s testimony, and does not give Ahimelech a real chance to explain himself. 20 In this story Saul functions as both a prosecutor and a judge. 21

4.

JOSEPHUS’ REWRITING OF 1 SAMUEL 14 AND 1 SAMUEL 22

After dealing with the biblical narratives themselves, we are now in a position to decide whether Josephus followed the negative evaluation of Saul as judge, or adopted a more sympathetic view. It is clear that when comparing Josephus to the MT with reference to Saul’s vow and Jonathan’s trial (Ant. 6.116-28), Josephus departs from the MT in some details.22 However, concerning the motif of a just king, there is no indication that Saul was considered as such by Josephus. Josephus’ rewriting praises Jonathan for being brave and the people for their great efforts to save Jonathan. Josephus expands on Ahimelech’s defense regarding the massacre at Nob. Following Ahimelech’s speech, Josephus adds an evaluation of Saul’s decision to put Ahimelech and the priests of Nob to death, while ignoring Ahimelech’s truthful explanation: “for fear is so terrible that it does not believe even a truthful self-defense” (6.259). But Josephus’ most significant addition to the MT appears in paragraphs 262-67: This gives everyone [the opportunity] of learning about and discerning the ways of humans: As long as they are private, humble citizens, Bruegemann, First and Second Samuel (Interpretation; Westminster/John Knox, 1990) 160. “Through the hand of a foreigner, Saul perpetrates upon Israelites, priests of the Lord, what he himself did not perpetrate upon foreigners, the Amalekites.” P. D. Miscall, 1 Samuel: A Literary Reading (Indiana University Press, 1986) 136. 20 C. Mabee, “Judicial Instrumentality in the Ahimelech Story,” C. A. Evans and W. F. Stinespring (eds.) Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 17-32. 21 Weisman, People and King, 39, n. 10 refers here to Livius: “et nunc quereretur eundem accusatorem capitis sui ac iudicem esse” (Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita 8.32.9). Translation: “[Fabius found it far from easy to reply to each question in detail], and protested against the same man being both accuser and judge in a matter of life and death.” [Livius, The History of Rome, trans. Rev. C. Roberts (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1905)]. 22 See Feldman, “Josephus’ Version of the Extermination of the Priests of Nob,” and Begg, “The Massacre of the Priests of Nob.”

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incapable of exercising their [true] nature or daring to do as they wish, such persons are gentle and moderate; pursuing only what is just, they devote all their loyalty and solicitude to this. As for the Deity, they are convinced that He is present to everything that happens in life, and not only sees the deeds that are done, but already knows the thoughts themselves from which those deeds will [flow]. When, however, they attain to authority and dynastic power, they set all these things aside. Taking off, like masks on a stage, these habits and manners, they put on audacity, insanity, contempt of things human and Divine. And now, when piety and justice are especially needed by them who are most exposed to envy with their thoughts and actions manifest to all, then it is that they––as though God no longer saw them or as if He were anxious before their authority––that act without restraint. What they hear, they fear; or they either willingly hate or cherish irrationally. To them these things seem certain and confirmed, and likewise true and pleasing to both humans and to God, while to the future they give no thought. [Initially], they honor those who have put themselves out in many ways for them, but having honored them, they then envy them. Having incited them to [gain] renown, they deprive those who had attained it, not only of this, but even, because of it, of life itself, doing so for vile reasons that are unbelievable in their exaggerations. They do not punish deeds worthy of judgment, but rather on the basis of slanders and unexamined accusations. They kill, not those who ought to suffer thus, but whomever they can.

According to the Josephus, the ideal judge is one who seriously investigates the witnesses, and demands strong evidence, especially when human life is involved. This is definitely not the case with King Saul, who commands the killing of the entire city of Nob, basing his decision on “slanders and unexamined accusations.” As we saw above, this is precisely how some modern scholars evaluated Saul in this narrative. Josephus uses themes and idioms similar to those he used in his retelling of Saul’s war with Amalek in 1 Samuel 15 in order to emphasize Saul’s sin in 1 Samuel 22. The differences between the narratives are even more telling: While in

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the war with Amalek, God ordered Saul so exterminate women and infants (6.136), whereas in the Nob narrative, Saul acted as if God did not see him (6.265).23 This comparison helps Josephus emphasize the gravity of Saul’s bloodshed, i.e., he treated Nob as if they were enemies while sparing the life of Agag,24 when he was ordered not to do so. The city of Nob did not deserve the rightful fate of Amalek’s cities.

5.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

My inquiry has shown that when analyzing Josephus’ rewriting of the Bible, it is suggested that scholars first try to fully understand the biblical account in and of itself, appreciate the difficulties found therein, and evaluate the interpretive options. This process can be aided by the use of modern commentaries and studies on the relevant biblical book. Only then can we return to Josephus and analyze his retelling. This method can prevent unsolicited arguments regarding Josephus’ retelling of the Bible. Scholars who analyze Josephus must be acquainted with the literary and hermeneutical analysis of biblical narratives.25 Although we have demonstrated this principle in a particular case, we think that it can be demonstrated in other cases as well. Returning to the title of this essay, Josephus does not praise Saul for being a just king. It is David who is praised by Josephus for administering justice (Ant. 6.153; 6.160; 160; 6.290; 7.110; 7.269; 7.391). The only exception is the encomium on Saul, where Josephus writes: “He therefore seems to me a uniquely just (δίκαιος), courageous, and prudent man” (6.346). However, this general statement cannot be supported from Josephus’ retelling of the Saul narratives. This may be explained if we assume that Josephus entered the motif of justice into Saul’s encomium only as a mere literary motif and not as part of his overall understanding of Saul’s character. The encomium “is the most common form in antiquity for praising a person according to fixed, regular categories Contrast with Jehoshaphat’s orders to the local judges: “They were to render equitable decisions for all, recognizing that God sees all that is done, even in secret” (Ant. 9.3). 24 This was pointed out also by the rabbis (b. Yoma 22b). 25 Roncace also mentioned this problem in Feldman’s studies, albeit from another angle. See M. Roncace, “Another Portrait of Josephus’ Portrait of Samson,” JSJ 35 (2004) 185-207. 23

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(origins, parents, nurture, virtues, and death).”26 Josephus fits “into the international atmosphere of the Roman Empire, where it was common for historians and rhetoricians to describe, compare, contrast, praise, slander, and apologize for various cities and peoples.”27 If that is the case, then the motif of justice is not the main issue in Saul’s encomium, but rather his courage, “knowing his predicted doom, unflinchingly goes out to battle to meet it.”28 Alternatively, it is possible that Josephus tried to soften the negative depiction of Saul in the Biblical version. After all, Saul is the first king of Israel. In order to achieve this end, he added “a lavish encomium.”29 In the end of my discussion, I will briefly deal with the question of text that Josephus used in the retelling of the Saul narratives. Different viewpoints exist among Josephus’ researchers as to the Vorlage that Josephus used when rewriting the Bible. This issue is controversial among scholars and the last word on this subject has not yet been said.30 Ulrich and others claim that Josephus used the LXX as a basis for rewriting the Book of Samuel.31 I basically accept the view of Feldman and others32 that, as far 26 Jerome H. Neyrey, “Encomium versus Vituperation: Contrasting Portraits of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 127 (2007) 529-52 (529). 27 David L. Balch, “Two Apologetic Encomia: Dionysius on Rome and Josephus on the Jews,” ]SJ 13 (1982) 102-22 (122). 28 H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus, the Man and the Historian (New York: Jewish Institute of Religion Press, 1929) 60. 29 H.W. Atttidge, The Interpretation of Biblical History in the Antiquitates Judaicae of Flavius Josephus (HDR, 7; Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1976) 114. It seems that Dormeyer (“The Hellenistic Biographical History of King Saul”) overstates when he sees Saul as representing the Hasomonean dynasty as well as Josephus’ considering himself a legitimate heir to it. Had this been the case, Josephus should have stressed King Saul’s virtue of justice or even omit the problematic descriptions of him. 30 See C. T. Begg, Josephus’ Account of the Early Divided Monarchy (AJ 8, 212-420): Rewriting the Bible (BETL, 108; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993) 271–76; Idem, Josephus’ Story of the Later Monarchy (AJ 9, 1-10, 185) (BETL. 145; Leuven: Leuven University Press & Peeters, 2000) 625–26; Feldman, Josephus’ Interpretation of the Bible, 23–36. 31 E. C. Ulrich, The Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus (HSM 19; Missoula, Mont.:. Scholars Press, 1978); idem, L.H. Feldman and G. Hata (eds.) “Josephus’ Biblical Text for the Books of Samuel,” Josephus, the Bible and History (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989) 81–96. 32 Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible, 36; Begg, Josephus’ Story of the Later Monarchy, 105, 125, 164–65, 185, 223, 270, 294, 312, 532, 596, 619, 625. In his

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as the Book of Samuel is concerned, Josephus shows clear signs of knowledge of both a Hebrew and Greek versions.33

articles on Josephus, Begg does not present conclusive conclusions on the question of Josephus’ Biblical text, and he admits that it is hard to know what text Josephus used in the particular narratives. And indeed, as G. Sterling has noted, it is “impossible to make a firm case for a specific textual tradition.” See G. E. Sterling, “The Invisible Presence: Josephus’s Retelling of Ruth,” S. Mason (ed.) Understanding Josephus: Seven Perspectives (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998) 109. Étienne Nodet has proposed an interesting suggestion. In his opinion, Josephus is the first translator of the historical books of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Therefore, one cannot speak of the influence of the Septuagint on Josephus. Josephus’ Hebrew text was an authorized copy of the Jerusalem archives. See Étienne Nodet, “Josephus and the Books of Samuel,” S. J. D. Cohen and J. J. Schwartz (eds), Studies in Josephus and the Varieties of Ancient Judaism; Louis H. Feldman Jubilee Volume (Leiden: Brill, 2007) 141-67. 33 I would like to thank the Ihel and Beit Shalom Funds for supporting the research that led to this article.

THE TEMPLE IN THE BOOK OF HAGGAI ELIE ASSIS BAR ILAN-UNIVERSITY The purpose of this article is to discuss the Temple ideology that characterizes the book of Haggai. Although Haggai does not directly elaborate on the theological importance of the Temple, nevertheless, we may draw some conclusions about the particular Temple theology advanced in the book in general and the prescribed role of the Temple in the life of Israel. Clearly the Temple occupies a central position in the book of Haggai. In fact, most of the book deals with Temple matters. Three out of the four prophetic speeches in the book deal, in one way or another with the Temple, and the fourth is not unrelated to it either. In his first prophecy, Haggai calls upon the nation to build the Temple (chapter 1). In the second, he urges them on when they slacken, after the construction work is already underway (2:1–9). The subject matter of the third prophecy is debated. The prevailing view is that this pericope is to be understood literally, that is, as dealing with matters of ritual purity in the Temple.1 Another position is that the prophecy expresses opposition to any intermingling with those from the northern region, later identified as Samarians (2:10–19).2 If this is the case, 1 See for instance, C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (AB, 25B; New York: Doubleday, 1987) 55–67; P. A. Verhoef, The Books of Haggai and Malachi (NICOT; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987) 114–138; J. Kessler, The Book of Haggai: Prophecy and Society in Early Persian Yehud (VTSup, 91; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 203–206. 2 J. W. Rothstein, Juden und Samaritaner: Die grundlegende Scheidung von Judentum und Heidentum. Eine kritische Studie zum Buche Haggai und zur jüdische Geschichte im ersten nachexilischen Jahrhundert (BWANT, 3; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908) 5–41; H. W. Wolff, Haggai (BKAT; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1986) 71–73. Many disagree with Rothstein’s hypothesis. See, for instance, K. Koch, “Haggai unreines

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the prophecy would also be related to the building of the Temple, since, within this understanding, it would addresses the desire on the part of the Samarians to participate in the building of the Temple in Jerusalem (cf. the account in Ezra 4:1–5, which likewise reflects opposition to their inclusion in the project). According to this approach, Haggai maintains that the project will be successful and lead to immediate economic abundance (2:15–19) if the people in Judah remain separate from the Samarians will. Hence these scholars have inferred from the text that one of the considerations in favor of cooperation with the Samarians was the assistance that they provided for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem.3 Haggai’s, fourth and final prophecy (2:20–23) addresses the future status of Zerubbabel, a scion of the house of David. At least formally, it is not directly related to the subject of the Temple, although it is likely that Zerubbabel’s status would be influenced by the future status of the Temple.4 In any event, this prophecy is extremely brief, covering only three verses out of the total of 38 verses that comprise the book of Haggai. What kind of Temple ideology was Haggai promoting? To begin with, according to Haggai, it was intolerable that Israel lived in the land without a Temple. Although an altar had been constructed in Jerusalem (Ezra 3:1–6) at the beginning of the Second Temple Period, and some temporary structure likely existed for the performance of its rituals,5 this was clearly insufficient for Haggai: He demanded that the Temple be rebuilt Volk,” ZAW 79 (1967) 52–66 and H. G. May, “‘This People’ and ‘This Nation’ in Haggai,” VT 18 (1968) 190–197. 3 See W. Rudolph, Haggai—Sacharja 1–8—Sacharja 9–14—Maleachi (KAT; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1976) 48–50. 4 On the importance of the Davidic descendent in the restoration of the Temple in Haggai, see A. Laato, Josiah and David Redivivus: The Historical Josiah and the Messianic Expectations of Exilic and Postexilic Times (ConB Old Testament Series, 33; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1992) 226–229. See also A Laato, “Zachariah 4, 6b – 10a and the Akkadian Royal Building Inscriptions,” ZAW 106 (1994) 53–69. 5 It is clearly evident from Jer 41:5 that after the Temple’s destruction, offerings were still brought to the site, and pilgrims continued to visit there. See, among others, S. Japhet, “The Temple of the Restoration Period: Realty and Ideology,” S. Ahituv and A. Mazar (eds), The History of Jerusalem: The Biblical Period, (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi Press, 2000) 345–382 (369–372) (Hebrew). But see O. Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005)112-118.

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immediately (1:7; 2:4). The rebuilding of the Temple was the crux of Cyrus’s declaration (as formulated in Ezra 1:2–5) that facilitated the return of the exiles. Indeed, the people had intended to build the Temple immediately upon their return to Judah (Ezra 3:8–13). But according to Haggai the people, who are suffering economic hardship, decided to establish themselves economically before directing their efforts to rebuilding the Temple (Hag 1:5–6, 9–11).6 The prophet, however, maintained that, notwithstanding the sacrifice involved, the building of the Temple must take precedence over the accumulation of personal wealth. Seemingly, due to Haggai’s insistence that the Temple be built immediately, despite the difficult economic situation, the edifice was unimpressive, and clearly a far cry from the splendor of Solomon’s Temple (2:3). To be sure, Haggai believed and prophesized that the Temple should eventually be magnificent (2:6–9). In the meantime, however, a modest building devoid of splendor was preferable to a situation in which there is no Temple at all.7 To what extent should the perception of the Temple in Haggai be regarded as an innovation? The Pentateuch contains no explicit command to build a/the Temple, but the portable Sanctuary fulfilled its role in the wilderness. The prophets of the monarchic period lived at a time in which there was the majestic Temple in Jerusalem, which played a central role in the theology, politics, and economy of Judah. These prophets would often castigate Judah and its leaders for their wrongdoings—including an improper attitude towards the Temple itself. But one cannot compare the proclamations of these prophets with those of Haggai, since they lived in and dealt with drastically different circumstances. At least from the perspective of the action that they encourage and the ideological grounds on which its necessity is communicated, it seems interesting – and perhaps more pertinent – to compare the attitude reflected H. W. Wolff, Haggai, A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988) 41; J. Kessler, Haggai, 126. 7 Some scholars maintain that the initiative to rebuild the Temple dates back to the Persian king Darius I, and that Haggai and Zachariah embraced this Persian initiative. See C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8, xxxvii-xliv; J. Weinberg, The Citizen-Temple Community (JSOTSup, 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) 131-132. Others believe that the idea was raised by the Judeans, and received the support of the Persian rulers (cf. the book of Ezra). See P.R. Bedford, Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah (JSJsup, 65; Leiden: Brill, 2001, 230-299). This article does not deal with these matters directly; instead, its aim is to clarify Haggai’s Temple ideology. 6

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in Haggai’s urging to build the Temple with the presentation of David’s original initiative to build the Temple, in 2 Samuel 7. The latter presents the need for a Temple as a human need, as David’s initiative. David regarded the Sanctuary as a dwelling that was unbefitting God’s glory, in view of the king’s own majestic palace (2 Sam 7:2). The initial reaction of Nathan, the prophet, is one of support: “Do whatever is in your heart, for God is with you” (2 Sam 7:3), but there is no indication in his words that God demands the building of the Temple. According to Nathan, God will accede to David’s request because He supports him and his actions. This suggests that God has no need for a Temple. To build it is only a privilege granted to the king, and ultimately it is postponed from David’s time until the reign of the son who will succeed him.8 It follows then that according to the perspective of this text (a) it could have been possible for Israel to continue for a long time without a Temple; and (b) the building of the Temple was considered a human initiative, for the sake of humans and for the sake of the king, with God only allowing for its construction, subject to certain conditions. This position stands in contrast to the one advanced by the tabernacle tradition, in which the deity is the initiator (e.g. Exod 26:1– 7). It is also very different from Haggai’s Temple ideology. Haggai insisted that the Temple should be built without delay. Moreover, the clear impression arising from his words is that Temple building is God’s wish. Haggai’s position stands, in turn, in sharp contrast with the one advocated in Isaiah 66, which suggests that God has no need for humans to build Him a Temple.9 8 There is no need here to digress into the question of why David himself could not build the Temple. On this matter see M. Avioz, Nathan’s Oracle (2 Samuel 7) and Its Interpreters (Bible in History; Bern: Peter Lang, 2005) 13–23. 9 On opposition to the building of the Temple in Isa 66:1–2, and the stand against Haggai and Zechariah, see J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962) 407. See also J. D. Smart, History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40–66 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965) 281–287. S. Japhet, “The Temple in the Restoration Period: Reality and Ideology,” idem, From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Restoration Period (Winona Lake, In.: Eisenbrauns, 2006) 223–226. However, others believe that the intention of the prophecy is not to condemn the rebuilding of the Temple but rather to protest against a mistaken attitude towards the Temple. See G. A. Smith, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 2 (The Expositor’s Bible; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910) 460. According to Westermann, the verses represent neither a polemic against the Temple nor a spiritual approach to counter a formal perception

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Given the emphasis on the new Temple in Ezekiel, one might have wondered whether Haggai’s intention was to implement the plan set forth in detail in Ezekiel 40–47. However, if Haggai had regarded himself as the executor of Ezekiel’s plan, one could reasonably expect to find points of contact between the two books. But they share no clear linguistic links. Moreover, Ezekiel makes no mention anywhere of any obligation to build the Temple. There is no actual instruction to build it in Ezekiel, nor a sense that the matter is urgent, as it is in Haggai, which is unique in this regard.10 A second innovative aspect of Haggai’s prophecy is the assertion that the existence of the Temple assures economic wealth. This point is reiterated several times in the book. In his first prophecy, Haggai attributes the two central economic problems— the drought (1:10–11) and the failing of it. Nevertheless, he does agree that the prophet opposes Haggai’s view that salvation depends of the completion of the rebuilding of the Temple. See C. Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, 1969) 412–413. Haran is of the opinion that Isaiah’s prophecy is meant for the time prior to the rebuilding of the Temple. Its purpose is to comfort the people for their failed efforts to build it. See M. Haran, Between ‘Rishonot’ (Former Prophecies) and ‘Ḫadashot’ (New Prophecies): A Literary Historical study in the Group of Prophecies Isaiah XL–XLVIII, (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1963) 94–96 (in Hebrew). Of course, the text in Isa 66:1-2 raises the issue of whether God dwells or can even dwell in the Temple. The perception that the deity dwelled in the temple is reflected in several texts (e.g., Exod 15:17; 2 Sam 7:2; Ezek 43:7). Several other texts indicate that God was not understood as dwelling (only) in the Temple. While the expression “House of God” does indicate that the house belongs to Him, it does not necessarily mean that He is inside it. In fact, in several places it is emphasized that God does not dwell inside the House, but rather that the House is built “for His Name” or in His honor (e.g., 1 Kgs 3:2; 5:17, 19; 8:17, 20). In the prayer that Solomon offers upon completing the construction of the Temple (1 Kings 8), he openly acknowledges the naiveté inherent in the very concept of the “House of God” and explicitly denies its literal intent: “For will God indeed dwell upon the earth? Behold, the heavens and the heaven’s heavens cannot contain You; how much less this House which I have built” (1 Kgs 8:26). Elsewhere in this prayer he emphasizes that God resides in the heavens (vv 39, 43), and answers to the payers of the worshippers in the Temple from heaven (vv 30, 34, 35, 39, 43). Isa 66:1–2 similarly presents the heavens, rather than the Temple, as the locus of God’s Throne. 10 For contrasts between the visions of Zachariah and Ezekiel regarding the restoration of the Jerusalem and the Temple, see D. L. Petersen, Haggai and Zachariah 1–8, A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984) 116– 119.

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agriculture and economy (1:6)—to the nation’s failure to build the Temple. This would seem to suggest that the building of the Temple would solve these two problems. Until now the people have postponed the building out of a need to achieve first economic stability. Haggai takes the opposite view: the harsh economic conditions are the result of the absence of a Temple and, therefore the economic situation cannot be improved without building the Temple. In his third prophecy, Haggai goes so far as to assert that the connection between Temple and economy is direct and immediate: There will be a dramatic improvement from the very day of the laying of the foundations (2:15, 18). This idea is Haggai’s innovation, though a similar idea is found in Zech 1:16–17; 8:9–13. The only other text that shares a similar view is Ps 132:15, which has a similar historical setting.11 No other previous biblical source maintains that the existence (or building) of the Temple results material abundance.12 In contrast, the usual motif is that the observance of God’s 11 See e.g. H. Kruse, “Psalm CXXXII and the Royal Zion Festival,” VT 3 (1983) 279–297. 12 However this concept is well attested in ancient Near Eastern literature, see Gudea Cyl A cols. XI, 1–XII 1–2:

(1-6) When you, O true shepherd Gudea, will effectively start (to build) my House for me, the foremost house of all lands, the right arm of Lagaš, the Thunderbird roaring over the whole sky, my kingly Eninnu, (7-9) then I will call up to heaven for a humid wind so that surely abundance will come to you from above and the land will immediately (or: under your reign) gain in abundance. (10–11) When the foundations of my House will be laid, abundance will surely come at the same time: the great fields will "raise their hands" to you, dykes and canals will "raise their neck" to you, water will? for your profit? (even) rise to "hills" where it never reaches (in other years). (16–17) Under your rule more fat (than ever) will be poured, more wool (than ever) will be weighed in Sumer. (18–23) When you will have driven in my foundation pegs and will have effectively started (to build) my House for me, then I will direct my foot to the mountain where the north wind dwells, and the man of the enormous wings, the north wind, will blow favourably in your direction from the mountain, the pure place. (24–25) It will give life to the Land, so that a single person will be able to work as much as two. (26–27) At night moonlight and at noon the sun will send plentiful light for you, (xii 1–2) so that the day will build (the House), the night will make it grow for you. (D. O. Edzard, Gudea and his Dynasty (RIME; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) 75–76; cf. R. E. Averbeck’s translation in COS, III, 423-24; for an electronic version of an English translation of this text see also http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr217.htm

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commandments brings prosperity, while their violation, scarcity (e.g., Lev 26:35; Deut 7:12-16; 11:13-21). Admittedly, Ezekiel 47:12 indicates a link of some kind between the Temple and the fertility of the land. However, Ezekiel’s description is devoid of any concrete, tangible connection between the building of the Temple and the divine promise of material prosperity in all its forms.13 In sum, there is much innovation in Haggai’s Temple ideology. He advanced a new view of the Temple, the innovative obligation to rebuild it, and the original—within the biblical corpus—ideological position that posits a direct dependence between the national economy and the building of the Temple. The prophets who preceded Haggai proclaimed a different Temple ideology. Jeremiah, for instance, sought to uproot the idea that the Temple itself could protect the nation, regardless of their actions. The people, in Jeremiah’s time, clung to the belief that the Temple would prevent any cataclysmic defeat at the hand of their enemies, even if they did not behave in accordance with God’s will. Jeremiah sought to dispel this illusion, even going so far as to refer to the Temple as a “den of robbers” (Jer 7:11). It is difficult to imagine that Haggai adopted the position of the people whom Jeremiah had so strongly condemned and assumed that the very existence of the Temple will protect Israel/Yehud.14 On these matters, see also G. A. Anderson, Sacrifices and Offerings in Ancient Israel: Studies in their Social and Political Importance (HSM, 41; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 102–104; V. A. Hurowitz, I have Built You An Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings (JSOTS, 115: Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) 322–323. See also M. J. Boda, “From Dystopia to Myopia: Utopian (Re)Visions in Haggai and Zachariah 1–8,” in E. Ben Zvi (ed.) Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature (PFES, 92; Helsinki/Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006) 210–248. 13 Hanson refers to Ezek 34:26–29 to demonstrate the prophet’s view of the blessing in the era of restoration, in relation to Haggai’s view of material abundance. See P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 174–175. However, this source does not link economic well-being with the rebuilding of the Temple as Haggai does. 14 Based on accounts of temple reconstructions from the ancient Near East, Boda argues that the ideology of the Temple construction in Haggai should be understood as the removal of the present curse and the promise of the future blessing. Although this conception is clearly evident in Haggai, as Boda demonstrates, this paper seeks to explain why Haggai adopted an approach so

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One might argue that Haggai’s message was focused on the importance of ritual in general, and the offering of sacrifices in particular and hence its heavy emphasis on the Temple.15 However, this hypothesis fails to explain the special status of the Temple in Haggai. Moreover, the book makes no mention of sacrifices at all.16 Schmidt and Verhoef believe that Haggai sought to avoid a situation in which the people might adopt a transcendental theological approach according to which they can practice their religion without a Temple. To their view, Haggai’s aim was to emphasize the importance of the institutional cult in combination with spiritual beliefs.17 However, the text makes only minor reference to the Temple cult (2:14). Had the offering of sacrifices and the Temple service been Haggai’s main concern, they would have been given a far more prominent and explicit expression in the text. A crucial text for understanding Haggai is 1:8. It reports the following divine speech: “Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the House, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord.” Some aspects of this text will be discussed below. For the present purposes, the focus is on the use of the expression “I will take pleasure in it” (‫ )וְ ֶא ְר ֶצה־בּוֹ‬in the context of the building of the Temple is particularly significant. Verbal forms of the root ‫( רצה‬to want, favour) often appear in the context of God’s acceptance (or lack of acceptance) of sacrifices (e.g., Lev 1:4; 7:18; 22:23, 25, 27; 2 Sam 24:23; Ezek 20:49; Hos 8:13; Amos 5:22; Mic 6:7; Mal 1:8, 10, 13).18 Although Haggai used language that brought to mind associations with the sacrificial service in the Temple, what he was in fact talking about was not sacrifices at all, but rather the Temple itself. He evidently opposed the conception of the pre-exilic prophets. See Boda, “From Dystopia to Myopia,” 210–248. 15 For variations of this approach see, for instance: R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper, 1941) 603. 16 See also D. J. A. Clines, “Haggai’s Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed,” D. J. A. Clines Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; Gender, Culture, Theory, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 46–75 (53); originally published in SJOT 7 (1993) 19–30. 17 See M. Schmidt, Prophet und Temple: Eine Studie zum Problem der Gottesnähe im Alten Testament (Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1948) 192–197; Verhoef, Haggai and Malachi, 36. 18 H. M. Barstad, “‫רצה‬,” TDOT, vol. 13 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 618– 630 (623–624).

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asserts that God will take pleasure in, or favour, the Temple that the people build. The prophet employs the terminology of God’s acceptance of the ritual service in order to express the importance of building the Temple. This clearly supports the contention that the focus of the prophet’s urging to build the Temple is the Temple itself. Of course, none of this necessarily indicates a fundamentally different view of the Temple’s function during the Second Temple period. The issue, however, remains the same: Haggai asserted that material prosperity is dependent not on the offering of sacrifices, but rather on the laying of the foundations of the Temple—even before any sacrifices can be brought there, that is “from the day that the foundation of God’s Temple was laid” (2:18)? Hence, economic abundance is dependent on the Temple itself, not on any ritual service that is performed in it. In other words, from the perspective of Haggai, there must be something essentially vital about the Temple itself. This vital, fundamental feature of the Temple must make its construction an immediate and urgent obligation for the people. Although Haggai does not state explicitly the fundamental attribute that makes building the Temple so important, an important hint appears in the already mentioned text in 1:8. The result of the building will be that “I will be glorified” (‫)וְ ֶא ָכּ ְב ָדה‬.19 This expression calls to mind the use of ‫ ָכּבוֹד‬in association with the Sanctuary/Temple (e.g., Exod 16:10; 24:16; 40:34–35; Num 14:10, 21). In every one of these instances, ‫ ָכּבוֹד‬, a nominal form, points at the Divine Presence.20 But in Haggai 1:8, there is a verbal (not nominal) form from the root ‫ כבד‬and God uses it in reference to His glory, in the sense of giving glory to God and making His Name renown among humankind—Israelites and gentiles alike. Similar instances of verbal forms of ‫ כבד‬occur in Exod 14:4; 17:18; Lev 10:3. The relevant expressions carry comparable meanings.21 In sum, according to Haggai, the purpose of building the Temple is to give glory to God and to make His Name great. Such a position can easily lead to the belief that it is necessary to build the Temple to give glory to God.22 19 20

(27).

‫ וְ ֶא ָכּ ְב ָדה‬represents the Qere; the Ketib is ‫ואכבד‬. M. Weinfeld, “‫כבוד‬,” TDOT, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 22–38

In 1 Sam 2:30 a similar expression (‫ ) ֲא ַכ ֵבּד‬appears, but here it refers to the status and renown of a mortal king, David. 22 This position is somewhat comparable to David’s original motivation for building the First Temple. David had sought to build a Temple because, having 21

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Still, the question remains: Why the urgency to build the Temple? Why so much was dependent upon laying the foundations for the Temple, according to Haggai? The answer to these questions is to be found in the particular situation of this period, its geo-political circumstances and their theological ramifications. The return to Zion had not proceeded in accordance with the people’s expectations.23 For instance, the economic hardship, the lack of political independence, the shrunken boundaries of the Judean state, and the inferior status of Zerubbabel—the Davide—caused disappointment. The people were inclined to believe that their situation was not part of any Divine plan and that God was not in their midst.24 It was this perception that Haggai adamantly opposed. His insistence on building the Temple was an essential part of his message. It was aimed at convincing the people that despite their circumstances, God was with them. The building of the Temple would strengthen their sense of God’s presence, and would glorify God’s Name – which had not become manifest in its full splendor in the physical reality, as the nation had expected it to.25 Hence, there was a need to build the Temple. The necessity of giving honor to God by building the Temple arose out of a human need to strengthen the people’s faith in God.26 Many of the prophets of the monarchic period had castigated the people for their attitude towards the Temple while it existed (see, for example, Isa 1:10–17; Jer 7:3–15; Hos 6:6; Amos 5:21–27; Mic 6:6–8). The attitude reflected in Haggai is altogether different. However, the contrast between them is not the result of differences of approach among the prophets, but rather a reflection of the different circumstances within which built his own palace, he felt that it was not proper for the king’s house to be more impressive and majestic than the House of God (2 Sam 7:2). 23 On the rebuilding of the Temple as a counter-solution to the unrealized expectations of the people regarding their restoration in the post-exilic time, see Japhet, “Temple in the Restoration Period,” 218–223. 24 See also E. Assis, “Haggai: Structure and Meaning,” Bib 87 (2006) 531–541; E. Assis, “To Build or Not to Build: A Dispute between Haggai and His People (Hag 1),” ZAW 119 (2007) 514–527. 25 On the Temple as a sign of God’s presence in the post-exilic period, see P. R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century BC, (London: SCM, 1968) 248–249. 26 For this reason Haggai repeatedly emphasizes the Divine source of his words, see M. J. Boda, “Haggai: Master Rhetorician,” TyB 51 (2000) 295–304 esp. 298– 299.

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the prophets were active. The prophets of the monarchic period (and especially after the 8th century B.C.E) sought to condemn the popular perception of the unconditionally guaranteed eternity of God’s Temple (for this belief see Isaiah 29; Jeremiah 7; Psalms 46; 48; 71). The prophets had to speak out against this extreme view of the Temple and its rituals. Therefore, these prophets chose to emphasize mainly moral, social messages. They insisted that Temple ritual and moral corruption were mutually incompatible. They declared that the Temple could be destroyed, if the nation failed to conduct itself properly. Haggai was faced with the opposite situation. In his time, the people were mired in despair, feeling that God was not in their midst, and that there was therefore no point in building the Temple. Corresponding to the reversal of the nation’s attitude towards the Temple in the wake of the Destruction, Haggai adopts the opposite approach to that of the prophets of previous times: he emphasizes the importance of the Temple and asserts that God is indeed in their midst. To sum, the major problem that Haggai had to contend with was not the moral path of the people—as was the case of the monarchic period prophets, but rather their sense of despair and of loss of national religious identity. Thus he focused mainly on God’s Presence in their midst, by emphasizing the importance of the Temple in terms of bringing glory to His Presence, in and of itself, rather than indirectly through the ritual service performed in it. Here one is to find the source and core component of Haggai’s innovative Temple ideology.

PSALM 133: A (CLOSE) READING F. W. DOBBS-ALLSOPP PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 1. INTRODUCTION The art of reading remains the paradigmatic practice of literary criticism, even (and perhaps especially) on this, the thither side of theory. The principal thrust, for example, of T. Eagleton’s recent poetry primer is to call students of literature back to the practices and habits of close reading.1 In Biblical Studies, too, there have been kindred voices raised urging scholars and students of biblical poetry to move from a preoccupation with matters of underlying structure and prosody (never irrelevant issues) to a pursuit of “the poetry per se,” a pursuit, that is, of reading.2 Readings (always in the How to Read a Poem (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 1. E. L. Greenstein, “Aspects of Biblical Poetry,” Jewish Book Annual 44 (1986– 87), 42. The 1980s in particular witnessed a great amount of interest in scrutinizing key formal features (e.g., parallelism, meter, line structure) characteristic of biblical Hebrew verse, e.g., L. Alonso Schökel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics (SubBib 11; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1988); R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985); A. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1985); A. Cooper, “Biblical Poetics: A Linguistic Approach” (unpubl. diss., Yale University, 1976); S. Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry (HSM, 20; Missoula: Scholars, 1979); E. Greenstein, “How Does Parallelism Mean?” in A Sense of the Text (JQRSup; 1982), 40-71; D. Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical Poetry (SBLMS, 39: Atlanta: Scholars, 1989); J. Kugel, Idea of Biblical Poetry (New have: Yale University, 1981); M. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980); D. Pardee, Ugaritic and Hebrew Parallelism (VTSup 39; Leiden: Brill, 1988); W. G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques (JSOTSup, 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1984). So the desire for more attention to be paid to the biblical poems themselves 1 2

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plural) are the stuff out of which all construals of prosody and poetics are necessarily made and at the same time are what complete said construals. They are the ultimate justification of poetry, the gift of poetry. Readings of biblical poems, and especially close, deep, lusciously savored, highly imaginative readings, are still too few in the field. Such a reading of Psalm 133 is what I aim to put on offer in the body of the essay that follows. There is no one right way of reading, no tidy, pre-set template or calculus guaranteed to generate meaningful construals, sure and compelling readings. Reading is not an un-messy affair, not risk free. It is a practice, with many modes and an inestimable number of different and competing aims and outcomes. Proficiency (however measured) comes, much as it does in many other endeavors, through iteration and habituation, as does the peculiar and pleasurable satisfactions that it brings. My reading of the short Psalm 133 is here presented as but one example of what is possible, what is imaginable, what is readable. The reading itself is enacted in four main sections that fall out (mostly) according to the contours of the poem’s structure as I understand it. Along the way I press two considerations more closely, both of which I believe have significance beyond a reading of Psalm 133. Neither, however, is very radical or new. The first is that poetry, at bottom, is a way of words; it is, as has often been said, a making out of words—poesy (cf. maʿăśay, Ps 45:2). And therefore any sort of maximally empathetic reading of a biblical poem—here a psalm—will include a close attending to the words that enact that poem, words that are themselves the very means of getting from a poem’s beginning to its end—words as bearers of meaning (as they always are), rooted in a specific history and culture, and that have about them a certain “thingness,” a sound and shape, a physicality that can be repeated, played with, intensified, fractured. The main path (of reading) that I chart (and follow) through this particular piece of poetic discourse (especially in sections two, three, and five) finds its bearings literally word by word. And yet if poems are all about words, they are often also more than the sum of their words, and this is the second (larger) consideration to be pressed (especially in the short section four). In the end, though a poem is a making of and through words, what is ultimately made—the poem—does not lie in the words alone but emerges, as well, because of them and in between them, literally, in the case of our ancient psalm, in the spaces of and to the reading of these poems is understandable.

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uninscribed text that isolate and surround its words. Here, then, I also want to claim some significance for poetry’s sometimes distinctive (though not necessarily unparalleled) way of embodying knowledge. The final upshot of how Psalm 133, for example, engages, interrupts, breaks into the world is something more than a mathematical summing of its component words. This accounts, I believe, for a good part of this psalm’s appeal and satisfaction.3

2. AN OPENING EXULTATION The only claim made in the short Psalm 133 comes in the opening couplet (bicolon)4 where the beauty of brothers dwelling together is extolled. What is most striking about this claim is its unmistakable hyperbole and its thoroughgoing aesthetic character. As J. Culler observes, lyric discourse generally exhibits a strong attraction to extravagance, exaggeration, sublimity: “the tiger is not just orange but ‘burning’” and “the wind is the very ‘breath of Autumn’s being.’”5 In the first line of our poem the hyperbolic register is signaled by the twofold use of the exclamatory mah6

3 The essay has benefited from the insight and input of many, for which I am most grateful. Faculty and student colleagues at Princeton Theological Seminary have patiently and generously engaged it on more than one occasion. I presented versions of the essay on a number of occasions, including at the Lenox House Colloquium and as the 2008 presidential address at the MARSBL. Special thanks to Simi Chavel, Elaine James, Tod Linafelt, Leong Seow, and Ray van Leeuwen. All of these have made this a much more compelling piece. 4 Lineation of biblical Hebrew poems always requires specification. Which is to say that it is not a given. Two important sources of evidence for line structure in the Psalms come in the accents and page layout preserved in the various Masoretic manuscripts. In both Aleppo and B 19 A, normally each columnar line contains two poetic lines (or parts thereof) separated by a varying span of uninscribed text (space permitting). This ideal, of course, is not always ideally realized. The blank space between the two lines of the first couplet is minimal (but noticeable) in both Aleppo and B 19 A as the scribes endeavor to get the complete couplet on one columnar line. Spacing between poetic lines is not typically shown in 11QPsa—it is written chiefly in a prose format. However, there is a significant amount of uninscribed space separating the first two poetic lines of this psalm—a significant juncture, too, in my reading of the poem. 5 Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University. 1997), 72. 6 Transliteration after the example of mah-šĕmô in SBL Handbook (§5.1.1.4(5)).

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(“How!”), headed by the presentative hinnê (“Wow!”).7 If the semantics of such an additive strategy appears “strangely redundant,”8 a more satisfying sum is achieved when the arithmetic is factored in terms of rhetorical force. One plus one plus one, in this (new) poetic math, yields a threefold underscoring of the attraction of brothers dwelling together. Indeed, this piling up of exclamatory particles coupled with the withholding of the object of admiration means that the resulting surfeit of exultation seems to explode from the line as auditors move onto the second line in search of the unnamed topic so extravagantly hymned. Perhaps the closest parallel to the line comes in Song 7:7 (cf. 4:10), mah-yāpît mah-nāʿ̄ amtā “How beautiful are you, how pleasant...!” The phrasing itself nicely throws into relief the added rhetorical force of hinnê in Ps 133:1,9 but it is the obviousness of this line’s aesthetic interest that proves so crucial for our appreciation of Psalm 133 more generally. As the line in the Song is said of the Shulammite, we easily acquiesce to its defining aesthetic bent—after all she is repeatedly admired and found beautiful by her lover throughout the Song (e.g., 1:15; 4:1–7; 7:2). It is the aesthetic appeal of the less tangible “brothers dwelling together” that is front and center in the psalm. This is plainly indicated by the only two content words in the line, tôb and nāʿ̄ îm, both of which have pronounced aesthetic valences. The root nʿm in Biblical Hebrew (BH) chiefly signifies high aesthetic value, as well evidenced by Song 7:7 (cf. Gen 49:15; 2 Sam 1:26; Ps 16:6, 11; 135:3; 147:1; Job 36:11; Prov 9:17; 24:4; Song 1:16). By contrast, the semantic range of tôb is considerably broader. The term often conveys a positive ethical evaluation (e.g., Gen 2:17; 3:5, 22; 1 Kgs 8:36; Isa 7:15)— and indeed it is hard not to hear at least the faintest echo of Micah’s more obviously ethically oriented mah-tôb (6:8). But tôb, of course, implicates high aesthetic esteem as well (e.g., Gen 1:4; 2:9; 31:24; 2 Sam 19:28; Song 1:2; Qoh 11:7) and this is the range of meaning on which nāʿîm (see esp.

For a good orientation to the force and syntax of both exclamatory māh/mâ and presentative hinnê in Biblical Hebrew, see IBHS §§18.3f, 40.2.1a–c. 8 E. S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations (FOTL 15; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 371. 9 Several of the versions are telling on this count as well. G underscores the hyperbole even further with its rendering of hinnê as idou dē—a double addition of sorts (i.e., compared to the Song passage). And the lack of an equivalent of hinnê in S points up the hyperbole of MT of Psalm 133 from a different angle. 7

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Gen 49:15; Ps 135:3) and the similes in 133:2–3 so clearly focus our readerly attention.10 The second line of the couplet, šebet ʾahîm gam-yāhad, provides the subject of this opening exultation, enacting the first instance of the poem’s defining rhythm of enjambment.11 The words nāʿîm and ʾahîm rhyme,12 the patterned cadences of their half-line phrasing (ûmah-nāʿîm/šebet ʾahîm) enhancing this sonic effect.13 Even the additive particle gam is figured to good effect: the note of emphasis that gam contributes (frequently when “giving an exaggerated, aggravated or extreme case”14) both heightens still further the couplet’s already highly exclamatory rhetoric and focuses the accent most particularly on the “unity, togetherness” of the brothers’

Akkadian damqu (lit. “to be good”) is used similarly to indicate high aesthetic esteem (see I. Winters, “Aesthetics in Ancient Mesopotamian Art” in CANE IV, esp. 2573). 11 All of the couplets in the poem, as well as the closing triplet, are enjambed— that is, the syntax of the individual line continues on across line boundaries. For more details on enjambment in Hebrew poetry, see F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, “The Enjambing Line in Lamentations: A Taxonomy (Part I),” ZAW 113/2 (2001), 219–39; “The Effects of Enjambment in Lamentations (Part 2),” ZAW 113/5 (2001), 370–85. For other examples in which an infinitive construct heads a phrase that functions as a subject, especially in verbless clauses, see IBHS §36.2.1b. 12 Rhyme is here understood phenomenologically and in its broadest sense as “any one of several kinds of sound echo in verse” (T. V. F. Brogan, “Rhyme” in NPEPP, 1053). English speakers will be most familiar with rhyme at line-end in metrical verse where it is commonly used to mark the end of a line and to (help) structure stanzas and even whole poems. But this is only one variety of rhyme (end rhyme), however prominent in some kinds of verse. Many others exist. In biblical Hebrew verse rhyme is never systematic and not often used structurally, but it does occur (and not uncommonly). Here rhyme’s prototypical shape of echoing syllables with the same medial vowels and final consonants is in evidence. This kind of irregular, internal rhyming (“Rhyme,” 1057; Brogan, “Internal Rhyme” in NPEPP, 613–14) is quite common in nonmetrical (free!) verse. 13 Line internal troping of this kind is perhaps most recognizable in biblical verse in terms of parallelism (i.e., “half-line parallelism,” see W. G. E. Watson, Traditional Techniques in Classical Hebrew Verse [JSOTSup, 170; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994], esp. 144–62). The poet of Psalm 133 seems especially fond of partial-line phrasing that echos across lines, e.g., hinnê mah-tôb//kaššemen hattôb (with word repetition), zĕqan-ʾahărōn//kĕtal-hermôn (with rhyme). 14 T. Muraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (Jerusalem/Leiden: Brill, 1985), 143. 10

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dwelling (cf. Deut 25:5; Gen 13:6; 36:7),15 while its climatic position16 at line-end pleasantly balances the opening hinnê. The line itself is especially close to a clause in Deut 25:5, kî-yēšĕbû ʾahîm yahdāw “when brothers dwell together...,” which provides the phrase šebet ʾahîm ... yāhad with its most concrete sense, that of the patrimonial house—in BH, the bêt ʾāb. In ancient Israel and Judah, as throughout the ancient Near East, the patrimonial house was society’s chief socioeconomic unit. Ideally, it spanned three generations, consisting of a senior conjugal couple with their unmarried children, together with their married sons and the latter’s wives and children, as well as other dependents (e.g., paternal kinsfolk, servants). Such a family would have lived in a large, single, multi-roomed house or in a compound of smaller houses built closely together with shared courtyards, external walls, etc.17 It is just such a joint family that is assumed in Deut 25:5. That passage is concerned specifically with the practice of Levirate marriage and the division of family property after the death of the paterfamilias. The phrase kî-yēšĕbû ʾahîm yahdāw itself refers to the period of time after the father’s death but before the division of property when the brothers would have continued to live together on the undivided family estate.18 It is precisely the ideal of the multi-generation, joint family that most commentators privilege in their reading of the phrase as it appears in Psalm 133.19 And yet in the absence of the delimiting issue of Levirate marriage, which is nowhere in view in Psalm 133, and in awareness of the tendency for kinship language in Israel and Judah to get extended into other Cf. M. Dahood, Psalms III (AB 17A; Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), 251. Cf. Muraoka, Emphatic Words, 143. 17 For details, see L. E. Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985), 1–35; J. S. Holladay, “House, Israelite” in ABD 3, 308– 18; “House: Syro-Palestinian Houses” in OEANE 3, 94–114; C. Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel” in Families in Ancient Israel (eds. L. Perdue et al.; Louisville: WJK, 1997); D. Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2001); P. King and L. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (London/Louisville: WJK, 2001), esp. 36–40. 18 R. Westbrook, “The Law of Biblical Levirate” in Property and the Family in Biblical Law (JSOTSup, 113; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 78; cf. D. Daub, “Consortium in Roman and Hebrew Law,” The Juridical Review 62 (1950), 71–91; Schloen, House of the Father, 149. 19 E.g., A. Weiser, The Psalms (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 783; H.-J. Kraus, Psalmen 60–150 (BK 15/2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 1068. 15 16

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spheres (e.g., politics, cf. Amos 1:9) and used figuratively in various ways (e.g., Song 4:10), the phrasing in Ps 133:1 is considerably more capacious than normally thought. It may focus on the prototypical joint family, but it can as easily take into its purview other patterns of co-residence (e.g., whole villages, neighborhoods in walled towns),20 larger (potentially non-kinshipbased) political alliances, and the like.21 In the end, much will depend on the specific context in which the poem is heard.22 In sum, the opening couplet exclaims the aesthetic appeal of brothers (literal and metaphorical) dwelling spatially together. The initial point to be made here is that by itself the statement is rather abstract and provides no real warrant for our assent, aside from the inherent attraction of the proposition itself and the aesthetic appeal of the couplet having been so obviously and pleasingly figured. 20 For the prevalence of these other kinds of co-residence patterns in ancient Israel and Judah, see Meyers, “Family in Ancient Israel,” 11–13; Schloen, House of the Father, 15–65. 21 Interestingly, Tg. construes the phrase most specifically as referring to two brothers dwelling together (Zion and Jerusalem!), which surely would have been the more common reality in antiquity (esp. Schloen, House of the Father, 150, n. 24). Of course, Aaron’s mention a bit later in the poem makes one think of two other brothers, Moses and Aaron. And A. Berlin suggests that the image is to be understood as a call for the reunification of north and south (“On the Interpretation of Psalm 133” in E. Follis [ed.], Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry [Sheffield: JSOT, 1987], 142). The politics of the poem may also fall out more allusively, more tropologically, as šebet ʾahîm plays on *šēbet ʾahîm (cf. šēbet ʾābîkā, Num 18:2; mattê ʾābîhā, Num 36:8) and the image (šebet/*šēbet ʾahîm) tumbles down the surface of the poem along with the yōrēding oil and dew, until it reaches Zion, Judah’s political capital, and “pools” there in Yahweh’s “blessing” (bĕrākâ̂ “blessing” playing on bĕrēkâ “pool”; the puns were pointed out to me by R. van Lleuwyn and the political implications of the imagery by C. L. Seow). 22 The language of the psalm as transmitted in MT is late (A. Hurvitz, The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study of Post-Exilic Hebrew and its Implications for the Dating of Psalms [in Hebrew][Jerusalem: Bialik, 1972], esp. 156–60), suggesting a post-exilic date. To what ideological end the poem’s valuation of family (in whatever manifestation) would have been put in this period is hard to determine without detailed socio-cultural information—it may well be, as Weiser contends (Psalms, 783), that the poem was intended to bolster the ancient family norm at a time of its decline—though here, too, Berlin’s reunification interpretation could make sense. Further, the language of this psalm (and of the psalms more generally) is open, and thus easily adaptable to the ever changing contexts of its auditors (see P. D. Miller, Interpreting the Psalms [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 50–51).

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3. A BODY OF SIMILES The body of the poem comes in vv. 2–3 with its dominating images of flowing oil and dew. This section is comprised of three couplets,23 and enjambment pervades the whole. In each couplet, the participle yōrēd stands on either side of a line juncture, effectively escorting auditors via its projection of the pure durative force of descending through the juncture. The participle’s nonfinite framing of bare action answers to the related focus of the infinitive construct in the opening couplet (šebet). And both contrast with the single finite verb, siwwâ, that comes in the poem’s concluding lines. Beyond accentuating and reinforcing the effect of enjambment, the threefold repetition of yōrēd eases the transition from the image of fine oil to that of dew, as the one liquid melds into the other, and further gives the little poem its basic trajectory: moving most emphatically from the opening exclamation (down) through (and via) the overflowing oil and dew and spilling (as it were) onto Yahweh’s blessing at the end of v. 3. In addition to this patterned play of line type, cohesion is built into this section of the poem through word (kĕ-, yōrēd, zāqān) and phrase (ʿal + prepositional object) repetition.24 At the heart of this poem—and ultimately one of the chief ways that it means—are two similes, one picturing “the finest oil” and the other, “dew.” The initial image of oil cascading viscously but bountifully over head and beard (ultimately spilling, we are led to imagine, down onto the unnamed figure’s clothes) continues the hyperbolic accent struck in the poem’s opening couplet. It does so in two principal ways. First, by designating the oil—which in the ancient Levant meant olive oil25—as the finest and most 23 The line structure represented here is basically that implied by the layout of B 19 A. The only difference is that in B 19 A there is no obvious extra space separating the fourth and fifth lines. But there is clearly a span of uninscribed text after mdwtyw in Aleppo, which otherwise is not as consistent in its use of space in this psalm (the first several lines in this block of material in particular is run together). 24 Berlin, “Psalm 133,” 141, 145; cf. O. Keel, “Kultische Brüderlichkeit—Ps 133,” FZPT 23 (1976), 69. 25 The olive tree (Olea Europeae) is hardy and long-lived (capable of growing to an age of one thousand years or more). It thrives in the highlands and hill country of the Levant with its rocky and shallow soil (cf. Deut 32:13) and where there is just enough chill during the rainy season to cause the fruit to mature. See King and Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, 95; M. Zohary, Plants in the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1982), 56–57; I. and W. Jacob, “Flora,” ABD 2, 807–8.

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expensive variety of olive oil (virgin oil), here šemen tôb (esp. 2 Kgs 20:13=Isa 39:2; cf. Song 1:3; 4:10; Qoh 7:1), but also called rēʾšît šĕmānîm (Amos 6:6) and šemen kātît lit. “crushed oil” (Exod 27:20; 29:40; Lev 24:2; Num 28:5; 1 Kgs 5:25) in the Bible and šmn rhs lit. “washed oil” in the Samaria Ostraca (16a.3; 16b.3; 17a.2; 18.2; 21.2; etc.). And thus the very designation of the olive oil cues the poem’s auditors that the high arc of the rhetoric continues. Indeed, the connection with the opening couplet is not left to chance, but is made plain to see and to hear through the verbatim repetition of the word tôb “good”—the first of Berlin’s “word chains” that help formally bind this poem together.26 The “good” (tôb) of the extended family is literally—at the surface of the poem—of “like the good oil” (kaššemen hattôb) that is poured over the head;27 the two tôbs materially, physically linking the two sentiments, underscoring their shared fineness. Olive oil ultimately becomes a source of economic prosperity in the region of Syria-Palestine.28 Since the climate in other parts of the Mediterranean world (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia) was not suitable for growing olives (too consistently warm), olives and olive oil were among the Levant’s chief luxury items coveted by the social and political elites and thus exported, either for profit or trade, or through gift exchange (Hos 12:2; Ezek 27:12; cf. EA 161.56; TAD B3.8.20), and commonly counted among other valuables (gold, silver, and the like, see 2 Kgs 20:13; cf. CTU 4.438.4; EA 1.70; TAD B3.8.20). Thus, it is not surprising that olive oil carries mostly positive symbolic associations in the Hebrew Bible, signifying prosperity (Ezek 16: 13, 20; Prov 21:17; ), high value and plenty (Deut 32:13; 33:24; 1 Kgs 17:12, 14, 16; 2 Kgs 2:4, 6, 7; Job 29:6), joy and wellbeing (Isa 61:3; Ps 92:11; 104:15). The gesture of anointing the head with oil (sacral and non-sacral alike), the image of which is specifically evoked in our verse, is a case in point. It is a high sign of richness, sufficiency, superabundance, and, above all, enjoyable pleasure (Ps 23:5; Qoh 9:8; cf. Ps 26 “Psalm 133,” 141; cf. Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures, 28—the device is prominent in many of the Songs of Ascents. 27 The way that tôb plays across the surface of MT is spot-lighted when comparing the translations of G (kalon/myron; cf. V) and S (tb/mšhʾ), which forego any attempt to offer a literal rendering (for different reasons) the “good oil” that might resonate with poem’s opening exclamation of “goodness”— contemporary English translations (e.g., NRSV, NJV) also obscure this play (but see R. Alter, The Book of Psalms [New York: W. W. Norton, 2007], 463: “how good .../ Like goodly oil....”). 28 King and Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, 96.

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141:5). The latter quality is especially to the fore in the banqueting scenes in Psalm 23 and in Qoheleth’s carpe deim speech in chapter 9, and even is echoed impressively in a description of Esarhaddon’s banquet celebrating the dedication of a new palace: “I drenched their heads with finest oil and perfumes” (Ì.SAG igulâ muḫḫašunu ušašqi, Borger Esarh. 63 vi 53, as cited in CAD R, 431b). Here in Psalm 133:2, then, not only does the oil’s specific designation as the finest (šemen tôb) match and thus redouble the preceding couplet’s rhetoric of extravagance, but so does the gesture of drenching the head with a superfluity of this fine oil, a literal image of over-the-topness, superabundance. The image of oil running down over the head and onto the beard foregrounds movement, energy—especially given the threefold repetition of yōrēd in the poem and the eventual melding with another liquid figure, that of a plentiful, abounding dewfall, the combination of which Z. Zevit vividly—and apropos of the poem’s deployment of these images— describes as chasing “a chain of similes into a verbal whirlpool.”29 This is not so very far from the hyperbole of Job’s “streams of oil” (palgê šāmen, Job 29:6) or Ezekiel’s likening of rivers to flowing oil (wĕnahărôtām kaššemen ʾôlîk lit. “like oil I cause their rivers to flow,” Ezek 32:14).30 Energy and force—the raw stuff of movement—are at the heart of “life” (hayyîm), which is the ultimate blessing of the poem (v. 3) and, interestingly, a figure of choice in the Hebrew Bible for rendering “running, fresh water,” i.e., “living water” (mayim hayyîm, e.g., Gen 26:19; Lev 14:5; Jer 2:13). Poetic imagery is not monolithic. If the oil’s treacly movement is figuratively and literally critical to how this poem gets from beginning to end (as it literally yōrēds from line to line), other sensorial dimensions of the image are important to the poem as well and also would likely have been elicited in the minds of ancient auditors. Two stand out. Touch is one of the actual consequences of oil poured on the head. The experiencer feels the oil as it comes in contact with the hair follicles and oozes down over ears, forehead, and face (or as here, over the beard). Oil has a palpable tactility about it. Though it is vain to try to contain oil in the human hand (Prov 27:16), it is soft and soothing to the hand’s touch (Isa 1:6; Ps 55:22; Prov 5:3), a well-known healer’s balm (Isa 1:6; cf. Ezek 16:8);31 it moistens “Psalms at the Poetic Precipice,” HAR 10 (1986), 356. Oil is even used as an extravagant figure for rain (CTU 1.6.III.6–7; cf. Gen 27:28; 1 Kgs 17:14). 31 See A. Ohry and A. Levy, “Anointing with Oil—An Hygenic Procedure in 29 30

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and soaks (bwʾ) into the body (Ps 104:15). Oil can be collected in jars (nbl šmn, throughout the Samaria Oastaca) and then handled and handed over (Arad 17.rev.1–2). And not only is there feel but there is smell, too. The finest oils are fine in part because of their sweet fragrance (Song 1:3; 4:10; cf. Qoh 10:1; cf. G’s myron). The highly figured representation of the male lover’s beard in Song 5:13 precisely accents the beard’s pleasing erotic scent—presumably reflecting the fact that the beard would have been routinely oiled as with other parts of the body. These tactile and olfactory dimensions of the image flood in mostly through cognitive associations, the poem’s auditors calling to mind (or projecting from) their own practical experiences with olive oil as the latter is evoked in the words of the poem.32 And thus, the image of cascading oil not only lends an energetic substantiality to the psalm (however viscous), but it also sensualizes the poem’s meaning, literally making it sensible, available to and through the senses—here to and through touch and smell as conjured in human mental activity. The addition of a second couplet in v. 2 forms what may be described as a kind of run-on simile, a simile, that is, in which the original meaning or imagery is expanded in some way, or even moves off in an entirely new direction. In either case, the expansion takes its cue from some aspect or element of the simile proper.33 In this instance the tag element is the term zāqān “beard,” which takes on a specific identity, as belonging to Aaron. The major interpretive issue raised in the secondary literature concerns the nature of this new, run-on part of the image. Does the image of overflowing oil continue, the oil now running down Aaron’s beard (as the dew in v. 3 will flow from Hermon to Zion)?34 Or, is an overflowing, and thus full, beard now in view, with the beard itself running down over Aaron’s robes?35 That is, is the antecedent of šeyyōrēd the phrase šemen the Bible and in the Talmud” Koroth 9 (1985), 174. 32 For a recent and provocative theoretical accounting of poetry’s nonreferential ways of meaning, see M. K. Blasing, Lyric Poetry: The Pain and the Pleasure of Words (Princeton: Princeton University, 2007), esp. 3, 6–8, 10–13. 33 Such similes are especially prominent in Classical Arabic poetry, see M. Sells, “Guises of the Ghūl: Dissembling Simile and Semantic Overflow in Classical Arabic Nasīb” in Reorientations/ Arabic and Persian Poetry (ed. S. Steikevych; Bloomington: Indiana University, 1994), 130–64. 34 E.g., Dahood, Psalms III, 252; D. T. Tsumura, “Sorites in Psalm 133:2–3a,” Bib 61 (1980), 416–17. 35 E.g. H. Gunkel, Die Psalmen (5th ed; Göttingen: Vändenhoeck & Ruprecht,

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hattôb, or is it zĕqan-ʾahărōn? Linguistically, both are possible. The latter is more proximate, and it is often the case that dependent relative clauses follow closely on their antecedents in BH. On this reading a full beard that runs down over the collar is imagined. It was customary for mature Israelite and Judahite males, as elsewhere in the Levant and Mesopotamia, to wear a beard. Indeed, as J. Milgrom reminds us, in some ancient societies, including Israel and Judah, “the beard was the prized symbol of manhood.”36 And not surprisingly, then, elite males, and especially royal males, are commonly depicted in the iconography of the ancient Near East with full beards.37 Even in Egypt, where it was more customary to shave, the pharaohs are frequently depicted with fake, ceremonial beards.38 And thus, as O. Keel contends,39 there may well be an intentional evocation of a long, flowing beard here. That is, the evocation of Aaron in particular is meant to summon the (ideal) image of a hoary old Israelite cultural icon, with the beard itself symbolizing vigor and vitality, just as with the flowing oil earlier. Note to this end that the appositional structure (i.e., “...beard,/ beard of....”; especially as accented in MT)40 extends by a whole again the physical length of the beard’s linguistic representation in the poem. That is, the length of the beard is effectively mimed in its very linguistic representation, as the Hebrew word for beard, zāqān, is repeated. Still, as Berlin observes with regard to the phrase kaššemen hattôb, “it is, of course, not necessary or even desirable to limit the sense of a poetic image.”41 Multivalence, after all, is one hallmark of the poetic the world 1968), 569; R. Kittel, Die Psalmen (Leipzig, 1922), 406; A. Weiser, The Psalms (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 783; W. G. E. Watson, “The Hidden Simile in Psalm 133,” Bib 60 (1969), 108–9; Keel, “Ps 133,” e