The City in the Hebrew Bible: Critical, Literary and Exegetical Approaches 9780567678904, 9780567678928, 9780567678911

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Abbreviations
Section A: Setting the Scene
Introduction: A City Perspective
Reflections on the Meaning((s) of ???? in the Hebrew Bible
The Biblical Metropolis
Section B: Perspectives from Cultural Geography and Spatial Theory
Mapping Narrative Complexity: Textual Geography, Literary Studies and the City in the Hebrew Bible
‘A Land with Fine Large Cities’: Mapping the Landscapes of Deuteronomy
City as Labyrinth: The Song of Songs and the Urban Uncanny
Wasteland and Pastoral Idyll as Images of the Biblical City
Urban Planning According to Ezekiel : The Shape of the Restored Jerusalem
Section C: Literary and Exegetical Perspectives
City Parody as a Literary Trope in Biblical Texts
Contested Eponymy: Cain, Enoch, and the Cities of Genesis 1–11
‘Therefore We Will Not Fear’? The Psalms of Zion in Psychological Perspective
Among the Ruins of a Walled City: Reflections on War and Peace in Ecclesiastes 12:1–7
Index of References
Index of Authors

Citation preview

LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

672 Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Founding Editors David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn

Editorial Board Alan Cooper, Susan Gillingham, John Goldingay, Norman K. Gottwald, James E. Harding, John Jarick, Carol Meyers, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, James W. Watts

THE CITY IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

Critical, Literary and Exegetical Approaches

Edited by James K. Aitken and Hilary F. Marlow

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA

BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain 2018 Copyright © James K. Aitken and Hilary F. Marlow, 2018 James K. Aitken, Hilary F. Marlow and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors and authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN:

HB: ePDF:

978-0-5676-7890-4 978-0-5676-7891-1

Series: Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, ISSN 2513-8758, volume 672 Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com) Printed and bound in Great Britain To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

C on t en t s

Notes on Contributors vii Preface ix Abbreviations xi Section A Setting the Scene Introduction: A City Perspective James K. Aitken 3 Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible Alison R. Gray 17 The Biblical Metropolis Hugh S. Pyper 35 Section B Perspectives from Cultural Geography and Spatial Theory Mapping Narrative Complexity: Textual Geography, Literary Studies and the City in the Hebrew Bible Bradford A. Anderson 55 ‘A Land with Fine Large Cities’: Mapping the Landscapes of Deuteronomy Hilary F. Marlow 73 City as Labyrinth: The Song of Songs and the Urban Uncanny Christopher Meredith 89 Wasteland and Pastoral Idyll as Images of the Biblical City Mary Mills 105

vi Contents

Urban Planning According to Ezekiel: The Shape of the Restored Jerusalem Deborah W. Rooke 123 Section C Literary and Exegetical Perspectives City Parody as a Literary Trope in Biblical Texts Carla Sulzbach 147 Contested Eponymy: Cain, Enoch, and the Cities of Genesis 1–11 R. P. Gordon 164 ‘Therefore We Will Not Fear’? The Psalms of Zion in Psychological Perspective Rebecca S. Watson 182 Among the Ruins of a Walled City: Reflections on War and Peace in Ecclesiastes 12:1–7 Stephen J. Bennett 217 Index of References Index of Authors

235 244

C on t ri b u tor s

Dr James Aitken, University of Cambridge Dr Bradford A. Anderson, Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin City University Dr Stephen J. Bennett, Nyack College, USA Professor Robert Gordon, University of Cambridge Dr Alison Gray, Westminster College, Cambridge Dr Hilary F. Marlow, University of Cambridge Dr Christopher Meredith, St Mary’s University, Twickenham Professor Mary Mills, Liverpool Hope University Professor Hugh S. Pyper, University of Sheffield Dr Deborah Rooke, University of Oxford Dr Carla Sulzbach, McGill University Dr Rebecca Watson, University of Cambridge

P refa ce

This volume of essays arises from a conference on the theme of ‘The City in the Hebrew Bible’ at the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge. A selection of the papers from that conference have been chosen that cohered around the theme of the representation of the city in the Hebrew Bible, and especially those using new critical methods. Some additional contributions by scholars who were not at the conference were commissioned and have been included. The support of the Faculty and staff at the Faculty of Divinity, and the use of the facilities in the building, were greatly appreciated. Our particular thanks go to the editors of the LHBOTS series, Andrew Mein and Claudia Camp, for accepting this volume into the series, and to Dominic Mattos and all at Bloomsbury T&T Clark for their assistance.

A b b rev i at i ons

AB ABD

Anchor Bible David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (6 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1992) AJBA Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology ANET James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) AR Archiv für Religionswissenschaft ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch AV Authorized Version BAR Biblical Archaeology Review BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research BDB F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907) Bib Biblica BibInt Biblical Interpretation BibOr Biblica et orientalia BKAT Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament BN Biblische Notizen BT The Bible Translator BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft CCSL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum DCH D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (9 vols.; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 1993–2014) DDD Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd edn; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999) ESV English Standard Version FAT Forschungen zum Alten testament FOTL Forms of the Old Testament Literature FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments GKC Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch, revised and trans. A. E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910) HAR Hebrew Annual Review HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual

xii Abbreviations ICC JAAR JANES JBL JCS JPS JSOT JSOTSup JSS KAI LHBOTS LIWC NCB NICOT NIDOTTE NIV NRSV OBO OTL PEQ PL SAOC SBL SBLDS SBLSCS SBTS SHCANE SNTSMS SSN TDOT

ThWAT TynBul TZ VT VTSup WBC WMANT ZAW ZDPV

International Critical Commentary Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Cuneiform Studies Jewish Publication Society Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften (3 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1962–64) Library of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count New Century Bible New International Commentary on the Old Testament Willem A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997) New International Bible New Revised Standard Version Orbis biblicus et orientalis Old Testament Library Palestine Exploration Quarterly Patrologia latina [= Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina] (ed. J.-P. Migne; 217 vols.; Paris, 1844–64) Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Sources for Biblical and Theological Study Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studia Semitica Neerlandica G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, eds, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (trans. John T. Willis et al.; 8 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2006) G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, eds, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1970–) Tyndale Bulletin Theologische Zeitschrift Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins

Section A

S et t i n g t h e S c e ne

I n t rod uct i on : A C i t y P er s p ect i ve

James K. Aitken

The modern city can cast an unwelcome shadow over our reading of ancient sources. To our minds, the city is encapsulated in an image of a major conurbation, engulfing in many cases a population of millions. Associated with it are the social and infrastructural problems that large numbers bring. So extreme can these problems be that the possibility of the death of a city has even been entertained.1 Overpopulation and the influx of workers for high-tech firms are changing irrevocably the landscape of the city. Thankfully reports of its—in this case San Francisco’s—‘demise have been greatly exaggerated’. For, the city offers opportunity and employment as much as obstacles and dangers. Although on a scale different from the modern city, the city in antiquity also offers challenges to its inhabitants. The Bible conveys these contrasting experiences of city life, but all the more invites us as readers to take note of the city’s role in the construction of biblical imagery. We read the Bible with our modern conceptions of city life and are placed in dialogue with our predecessors in how we envisage ancient urban life. Despite confidence in the success of the city, contemporary urban living has stigmatized the city as a place of poverty, congestion, negative industrialization and pollution. The consequent yearning for the rural idyll as an escape from the city has played a prominent part in literature from the earliest times, expressed for example in Juvenal’s third Satire (and the model for Samuel Johnson’s ‘London’), one of the first summations of the city as a place of corruption, poverty, violence, insufficient

1.  Rachel Brahinsky, ‘The Death of the City?’ Boom: A Journal of California 4, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 43–54.

4

City in the Hebrew Bible

housing and traffic congestion. This is not the experience only of a postindustrialized society. The prophet Amos already drew our attention to the contrast between city and pastoral in his protest, taken up in Isaiah and Micah, on behalf of poor and oppressed who were struggling to survive—while there may not have been a sharp contrast between city and country in antiquity, the effects of changes in the state system seemed to have been felt. The city exemplifies the dismantling of justice and social structures. The negativity in both the ancient and the modern mind towards the city is perhaps misplaced. Indeed, in the Triumph of the City, the economist Edward Glaeser underlines the major contributions that cities make to civilization.2 Cities do not breed poverty, poor housing or social conflicts, he argues. Rather it is because of the success of the city that people wish to come there, that the poor or immigrant arrives with expectation, and as a result the poor are comparatively better off than their counterparts in the countryside. He recognizes how and why cities differ from each other, and the dynamics behind their functioning and purpose. No two cities should be considered the same, although the imagery associated with any city is often similar. It is how this conception of reality is expressed in the literature of the biblical text that is explored in this volume. While the modern city might be considered a quite different species from its ancient counterpart, the essays in this volume suggest the divide is not as we might expect. The modern and ancient city are closer than some would allow, and just as we read the biblical city from our modern cities, so we read the biblical city in the light of our modern cities. The City in Ancient Israel The importance that can be attributed to the city is not lost on the biblical writers. The introduction of the city is recognized in the biblical text itself, with of course the mention of the first city named Enoch (Gen. 4.17: ‘and he [Cain] built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch’). This passage is ably discussed by Gordon in this volume. The conceptual role of the city has a long history in academic study, from the socio-political function that can traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and developed through Hobbes, Mill and Engels to the anthropological, recognized early on in the nineteenth century among anthropologists. 2.  Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier (London: Macmillan, 2011).



Aitken Introduction

5

But even so in Israel there were few real urban sites. The two main areas of urban populations were probably Samaria and Jerusalem, with other places only supporting small habitations. Many models have been applied in modern scholarship to examine the city through history, one in particular characterizing four types, each assigned to a particular period of history:3 the unit of town and country, the ruralization of the city, antagonism between town and country (the medieval feudal system) and urbanization of the country (capitalist mode). This particular model, though Marxist in structure, has been highlighted by Grabbe in his wide-ranging discussion of interpretations of the ancient city.4 The four stages can be said to correspond more or less to cities respectively in the ancient Near East, the classical world (Greece and Rome), the medieval and the modern periods. How far Israel fits into this pattern is open to debate, but the unity of town and country would in many ways correspond to what we can derive from archaeological and written (biblical) sources. Perhaps there are features of all four types of city experience in the Bible. Certainly any opposition expressed in the Bible against cities is not against the city per se, but against particular cities in political circumstances.5 There does not appear to be the feudal mode, of antagonism between town and country. However, even there we might have the exception of Amos, although whether it is really town and country or people versus cult is an issue.6 Other prophets such as Hosea do not present the city as a problem, but rather the proper functioning of the cult. As Mills explores in her essay in this volume, the pastoral idyll in the Hebrew Bible is not truly representative of a break between town and countryside, but is used as a contrast to the political upheavals in the city. An important facet of the city in ancient Israel is scribalism, revealed in the concerns of recent scholarship, even if the city context is not always made explicit. The increase in writing in the eighth century (as evidenced by inscriptions) has been attributed to the need for greater 3.  Aidan Southall, The City in Time and Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 4.  L. L. Grabbe, ‘Sup-urbs or Only Hyp-urbs?’, in Every City Shall be Forsaken: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 95–123 (106–7). 5.  Cf. Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak, eds, ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). 6.  See Grabbe, ‘Sup-urbs or Only Hyp-urbs?’, 102–4.

6

City in the Hebrew Bible

administration within the monarchic system.7 This would put the cause of writing, and the likely formation of the earliest biblical writings, very much in the city itself. Implicit in the current interest in scribalism is the role of the city as a formative place for schools and the need for a literate bureaucracy.8 As such our biblical texts come about not only in the city but thanks to the city. The Ancient and Biblical City It is possible to distinguish the pre-industrial city from the modern, and Grabbe has drawn attention to the dangers of applying contemporary social scientific studies of cities, built upon the modern experience, to antiquity. His own introduction to urbanism does nonetheless consider some sociological theories, although theories can become dates so quickly.9 Some modern approaches emphasize a theological significance to the city and therefore might be harnessed for biblical studies. Fustel de Coulanges’s La cité antique, for example, emphasized the social ties binding people together: worship of ancestors, the rise of laws and a shared religion.10 His work betrays a strongly evolutionary model, and he places too much weight on cities being founded as part of a religious act. All cities develop foundation stories and religion plays an important part in any ancient city, but it cannot be said to be defining of the city. Jacques Ellul’s The Meaning of the City argued for a theological transformation of the city, tracing the biblical portrayal of the city from a symbol of human pride to the ultimate hope for God.11 More recently the ancient city, especially as 7.  William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); cf. Christopher A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 8.  David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). 9.  Grabbe, ‘Introduction and Overview’, in Grabbe and Haak, eds, ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’, 15–34. 10.  Numa D. Fustel de Coulanges, La cité antique, 7th edn (1864; Paris: Durand, 1878), trans. The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome, with a New Foreword by A. Momigliano and S. C. Humphreys (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). 11.  Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City, Introduction by John Wilkinson, trans. Dennis Pardee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970).



Aitken Introduction

7

manifest in the archaeological record, has been a topic of discussion for both the ancient Near East12 and the Graeco-Roman world.13 The role of the city remains a relatively neglected topic in biblical studies, despite some important recent publications. Benjamin’s Deuteronomy and City Life14 is a detailed form-critical approach, focussing on word occurrences and therefore does not expand further. Popular books that cover large ground include Rogerson and Vincent, The City in Biblical Perspective15 and Gordon, Holy Land, Holy City.16 Frick’s The City in Ancient Israel17 is dated in its approach and focusses most on the biblical narrative than either exploring the historical context of the city or how the imagery is developed within the narrative. Fritz’s The City in Ancient Israel18 provides a very brief overview of the development of urbanization from its origins and the archaeological evidence of city planning. The symbolic importance of the one city Jerusalem has been explored in a number of studies. Notable is this regard is Ollenburger’s Zion, the City of the Great King and the feminine personification in Maier’s Daughter Zion.19 These two volumes diverge in a number of respects, 12.  Marc Van de Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Joyce Marcus and Jeremy A. Sabloff, eds, The Ancient City: New Perspectives on Urbanism in the Old and New World: Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences, School for Advanced Research Resident Scholar Series (Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008). 13.  M. Hammond, The City in the Ancient World, Harvard Studies in Urban History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); Peter Connolly and Hazel Dodge, The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens & Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); John Rich and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, eds, City and Country in the Ancient World, Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 2 (London: Routledge, 1991). 14.  Don C. Benjamin, Deuteronomy and City Life: A Form Criticism of Texts with the Word City (‘îr) in Deuteronomy 4:41–26:19 (Lanham, PA: University Press of America, 1983). 15. J. W. Rogerson and John Vincent, The City in Biblical Perspective (London: Equinox, 2009). 16.  Robert P. Gordon, Holy Land, Holy City: Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible, Didsbury Lectures 2001 (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004). 17.  Frank S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel, SBLDS 36 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). 18.  Volkmar Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel, The Biblical Seminar 29 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). 19.  Ben C. Ollenburger, Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987); Christl M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008).

8

City in the Hebrew Bible

but most notably the attention given to theories of space in Maier’s work reflects current developments in the field and is central to this volume. Contemporary theories have also been applied to the imagining of the city, both in the Constructions of Space volumes edited by Berquist and Camp20 and in Mills’s Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy.21 It is from these works that many of the essays in this volume draw. Much attention to the theme of the city can be found in the volume edited by Grabbe and Haak, ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’. Studies of specific topics are included and Grabbe as an editor even draws attention to the shortcomings in the book. These include the sparse attention afforded to Zion as a symbol, although it has been covered elsewhere (such as by Ollenburger; and recently by Maier), little clarity on the relationship between the city and countryside and little attention to the definition of a city. In the current volume too Zion could be said to be a minor topic, but this can be seen as indicating a significant feature of the city in the Hebrew Bible. Only Watson in her discussion of the Psalms focusses on Zion, and while Rooke does discuss the renewed city, it is in the broader context of city planning. Rather, Zion is an abstract ideal rarely portrayed as a city in terms of streets, people and life experiences. These only come to the fore in the context of loss and destruction in the prophets and Lamentations, where we are transported to the devastation and suffering in the streets of the city (Lam. 1.20, ‘In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death’). Otherwise, the cities that are portrayed in the Bible for the purpose of expressing urban experiences are envisaged as nameless and timeless. In the Song of Songs, discussed by Meredith in this volume, the violence of the city is imagined, and it is a real city with houses, doors, windows, and streets in which may lurk dangers. It is not explicitly Zion or even Jerusalem, since it is the reality of the urban lifestyle that is being painted. The same can be said for the role of the city in Ecclesiastes, discussed by Bennett, and the trope of city parody, discussed by Sulzbach. In similar fashion the space depicted in Deuteronomy, as discussed by Marlow, is not specified and open to interpretation. The absence of Zion is therefore not an omission, but a highlighting of the importance of the urban experience as lived rather than idealized.

20.  Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, eds, Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative, LHBOTS 481 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). 21.  Mary Mills, Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy, LHBOTS 560 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012).



Aitken Introduction

9

The definition of the city is explored first in this volume by Gray, who takes a semantic approach to the Hebrew word conventionally translated ‘city’, ‫עיר‬, ִ along with related words. Other essays define the city by their very analysis, drawing from the text the features that manifest themselves as the city. If it might seem that the ancient and the modern are conflated this is because we read the ancient through the modern. This is brought out strongly by Pyper and Meredith, who emphasize our presence in the modern city, and is underlined by Rooke, who compares an ancient and a modern town plan. The City in the Hebrew Bible The essays, then, in this volume seek to bring the theoretical and the contemporary perspectives to the portrayal of the city in the Hebrew Bible. They trace how the lived experience of city life has left its mark on the literature. The scene is set by tackling one of the problems already mentioned, namely defining the city. Alison Gray explores the many and varied occurrences of the word ‘city’ in Hebrew. Where people live, whether in a city, town, village, pasture-land or the desert, inevitably forms an intrinsic part of one’s worldview and self-identity. A settlement is a space created and built and lived in, and therefore also an experienced space. The ‘meanings’ of ‫ ִעיר‬are therefore manifold. In terms of understanding what the word ‫( ִעיר‬and related lexemes) meant in ancient Israel, biblical scholars are in the unusually fortunate position of being almost overwhelmed by the range of information available. We have not only linguistic data from the Hebrew Bible itself, but also a weighty (and ever increasing) number of studies in archaeology, iconography, social anthropology, and, more recently, urban geography. The study of ‫ִעיר‬ therefore lends itself to the kind of ‘integrated approach’ advocated by Ellen van Wolde, ‘in which one can examine the dynamic interactions of conceptual, textual, linguistic, material, and historical complexes’. Whilst a comprehensive survey of the meaning and usage of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible is beyond the scope of a short article, the essay looks at the biblical descriptions of ‫ ִעיר‬from a different angle, namely from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. Hugh Pyper also presents a different angle on the city, providing a second scene in which to locate the city, emphasizing how the rhythm of the city is to be found throughout the biblical text. In recent discussions of the biblical city, the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre have been much in evidence, seen through the lens of the writings of Soja. In Pyper’s essay, the affinities between Lefebvre’s later work on ‘rhythmanalysis’

10

City in the Hebrew Bible

and Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope are developed in order to suggest how the city as a particular rhythm underlies some of the generic peculiarities of biblical texts. In particular, on the back of a bad interlinguistic pun, the concept of the metropolis as the ‘city that sets the rhythm’ is suggested as a way of exploring how the Bible upholds the claim that its reading community, in whatever city it finds itself, is the true metropolis. Brad Anderson explores the city in the Hebrew Bible by reflecting on the fields of textual geography and literary studies. Specifically, this study asks how these fields might contribute to an understanding of place in the canonical biblical text, given the expansive nature of the canon and the fact that particular places can be found across the disparate texts and traditions of this collection. Bethel is used as a test case for these reflections, and is a helpful example as it occurs at various points throughout the canon. Indeed, next to Jerusalem, Bethel is mentioned more than any other place name in the Hebrew Bible, occurring in texts ranging from the ancestors, to the judges, to the early monarchical period, and even briefly emerging in the post-exilic period. With this in mind, the discussion proceeds along three lines. First, several ways are highlighted in which interpreters have tried to make sense of the biblical portrayal of Bethel. Second, the essay explore how geographers interested in textual geography as well as contemporary literary critics have read space and place in literature, particularly the city throughout modern fiction. Finally, we return to Bethel and tease out ways in which the findings from textual geography and literary studies might add another dimension to our understanding of Bethel and the broader notion of the city in the Hebrew Bible. It is suggested that these fields can broaden the discussion of the biblical city by reminding us of the narrative complexity that is inherent in the depiction of place within the biblical text itself, as well as the complexity of lived experience that such places represent. Hilary Marlow examines the concept of space in the book of Deuteronomy, focusing especially on the narrative frameworks that surround the legal material of chs. 12–26. Many biblical texts, particularly narrative ones, pay great attention to geography and the book of Deuteronomy is no exception. The location of the story and the space that its characters inhabit are regarded as an integral part of the plot and provide an important frame of reference through which to read the text. The essay explores the ‘landscape’ or ‘view from somewhere’ presented by the book of Deuteronomy, a book that from its outset is concerned as much with geography as with history and society. But it is by no means certain where that ‘somewhere’ is, nor is it immediately obvious to whom the landscape belongs. Should we read it through the eyes of Moses on the far bank of



Aitken Introduction

11

the Jordan or of the exiles in Babylon? Does Deuteronomy offer an idealized vision of what might yet be, or is it merely making sense of what has been lost—a story that has gone badly wrong? And does the book speak with one voice, depicting a single landscape, or does it offer a number of viewpoints? As we shall see, a detailed examination of the geographical horizons of Deuteronomy draws attention to a number of different and competing landscapes, both in terms of the book’s structure and formation as a text, and in the variety of viewpoints represented within it. Using the work of urban theorists (Steve Pile, James Donald, Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau), Christopher Meredith’s essay examines the urban ideologies at work in the Song of Songs. Though conjured from only a few lines of amorous discourse, the city in the Song is a more complex textual operator than has previously been recognized. The Song’s city is a place of surveillance, frustration and violence, inscribed as a series of tensions between the opaque and the transparent. The essay asks how these complex tensions inform the way we understand city-ness in the biblical text. The Song’s metropolis is a site of the ‘urban uncanny’, where the familiar is recycled as the monstrous. As such, the textual city both supports and haunts the idealized transparency of the romantic relationship. The essay goes on to suggest that this reading of the biblical metropolis might itself be methodologically instructive. Given the disconcerting similarities between the Song’s urban imagination and the hallmarks of the modernist city—as detailed, for example, in James Donald’s seminal work on the subject—does the Song raise questions concerning urban theory’s ongoing reliance on categorical divisions between the ‘ancient’ city and the ‘modern’ one? Foregrounding the hybridity of the biblical city on the one hand, and discussing the nature of urban theory on the other, the essay demonstrates the ways in which reading the Song’s city offers important insights into the biblical texts and their production, and points us toward closer ‘readings’ of the non-biblical cities in which these texts have taken root. The study of imagery is continued by Mary Mills, whose essay explores the imagery of prophetic landscapes under two headings: that of wasteland and that of a pastoral idyll. The theme of wasteland is coterminous with city as site of death and destruction, while that of pastoral utopia offers a profile for urban restoration. The cultural context of prophetic texts is one of political upheaval; they bear the marks of literature which seeks to reconcile bitter experiences with hope for continuity of local culture. Images connected with nature serve to embed the reality of loss and grief as well as to provide a possible frame for social renewal. When Isaiah and Jeremiah deal with landscape iconography relating to the collapse and

12

City in the Hebrew Bible

renewal of Jerusalem they engage with a material reality in which cultivation and civilization go hand in hand. In their symbolic world wasteland and idyll are used as modes of making value judgements on political groups and their shifting profiles in small indigenous kingdoms. The texts use agricultural metaphor as a means of conveying political messages and this allows the reader to explore them via a geographical perspective. A key aspect here is the concept of symbolic landscape, as profiled by Denis Cosgrove. The specific nature of prophetic landscapes is their role as ‘places of memory’ which enable socio-religious traditions to remain alive in community identity. The body of the essay examines text as site of memory, using the work of Karen Till, among others, as dialogue partner. The essay suggests that the function of site-based prophetic concepts which appraise past and renewed political regimes is to use physical and symbolic means to realize relations of power and control over their social context on behalf of a governing urban elite. Modern and ancient imagination of the city are brought together by Deborah Rooke. The city of Jerusalem is a significant element in the book of Ezekiel, so it is no surprise to see it being included in the vision of restoration (Ezekiel 40–48). What perhaps is surprising, however, is how little is said about the city in these chapters: a mere 16 verses out of the 260 that constitute the vision actually refer to the city. Nevertheless, when these verses are read in the light of some more modern ideas about town planning, there are some interesting and illuminating correspondences. The ideas in question are the plans of the Victorian pioneer Ebenezer (later Sir Ebenezer) Howard (1850–1928). Howard was the originator of the ‘Garden City’ concept, which changed the face of twentiethcentury town planning, and there are five aspects of his ideas that can be compared with the renewed Jerusalem in Ezekiel: location (a new city on a green-field site that is owned by its occupiers, and is therefore free from the vested interests and power-plays of an established location); shape (a geometric shape—circle or square—expressing principles of fairness and equality and locating everyone within equal distance of necessary facilities); access (gates and access points all around the perimeter, again facilitating access and commerce for all); territories (regulating the relationship between the city and its agricultural hinterland so that the land can provide food for the city’s inhabitants, and so that the city does not spread excessively); and purpose (providing an urban centre of social and commercial intercourse that exists in a sustainable relationship with the rural surroundings on which it depends, and therefore combines the benefits of both urban and rural life). Both plans are utopian, but each is designed to challenge ingrained privilege and inequity in its own situation.



Aitken Introduction

13

The literary function of the city is brought out by a number of essays. Carla Sulzbach addresses the frequent juxtaposing of the cities of Jerusalem and Babylon in the Hebrew Bible, especially in light of the increasing cosmicization and personification of the former. A clarification is sought by placing this notion within a new context, namely that of biblical idol parodies, thus creating a sub-genre of ‘city parody’. Idol parodies, in their lampooning of the cult of the great nations to the east, show a remarkable knowledge of the procedures of idol manufacturing. Needless to say, these caricatures are for consumption by Israelite audiences only. The function of these parodies was not just polemical in the sense of degrading the cult of the Other, but as has recently been suggested, the idol parody also has a political function and should be understood in connection with the common ancient Near Eastern practice of abduction and mutilation of cult statues of rival deities by warring societies. Not likely ever to be in a situation to overthrow the Babylonian religious system, the Israelite writers were content with a literary substitute of denigrating the Other. A similar pattern—so far not sufficiently recognized to my knowledge—can be seen in the way the city is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical city par excellence is, of course, Jerusalem, while the proverbial ‘anticity’ is Babylon, the urban Other. Since the notions of cult, cult image, temple and city are closely intertwined in ancient Near Eastern culture and the Israelite writers were well aware of Babylon’s lofty mythological status, the workings of the idol parody can be brought to bear on the manner these two cities are described. Robert Gordon examines the attribution of city-building to Cain in Gen. 4.17, deciding in favour of Cain rather than the widely touted view that it is Enoch his son who builds. The essay proceeds to assess whether this reference to city-building presents Cain as a founding father, or simply as a man taking prudential steps to avoid the judgment of nomady (or similar) under which he has come. The connection between this city-building and the section on Cain’s descendants and their contributions to civilization is reviewed, as also the section on the building of Babel in Gen. 11.1–9 and the claim that this is a story about early human achievement rather than about human hubris and its punishment. Gordon favours the latter (traditional) reading of the Babel narrative and seeks to assess Cain and his city partly in the light of this. Rebecca Watson focuses on the three Zion Psalms that express confidence in the inviolability of Zion, namely Psalms 46, 48 and 76. This study seeks to obtain a nuanced understanding of their mood, timbre, genre and hence also (by implication) their possible setting. A particular aim is to address the nature of the inviolability motif: is it a joyfully

14

City in the Hebrew Bible

embraced article of faith expressed in praise of God and his city, or does it reflect a need, in a situation of threat, to affirm faith against contrary evidence in order to generate trust in God, where such confidence is lacking? Is it employed in a situation of warfare, or more characteristically in response to an occasion of deliverance where circumstances invited the celebration of a reaffirmed faith, or simply as a routine hymnic motif? Some light may be shed on these questions by the application of the psycho-linguistic method of linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC) pioneered by James W. Pennebaker and others. Undergirding this method of enquiry is the insight that the use of function words or a preference for positive or negative language may reflect the psychological or social circumstances of the speaker/writer, and that such language patterns may be calculated quite mechanically by the use of a computer program devised for the purpose (LIWC). After briefly addressing questions of method, the essay examines each of the psalms in turn in order to offer a fresh perspective both on these compositions and on this most important aspect of Zion ideology. Finally, Stephen Bennett reconsiders the imagery in Eccl. 12.1–7, which has been almost universally interpreted as referring to old age. Elements of the passage are usually allegorized to maintain this interpretation. Instead of allegorizing, the imagery can be taken literally as referring to a city under siege or deserted because of war. The trembling keepers of the house are not tired old legs, but city guards who are afraid of an attacking army (Eccl. 12.3). The grinders who cease are not teeth, but workers who have ceased the daily grinding of grain because of the pressures of war (12.3, see Jer. 25.10). The closed doors (‫ )דלתים‬to the street/market (‫)שוק‬ are not the mouths or ears of the elderly, but the double hung gates of the city, closed for the siege (12.4, see Neh. 13.19). The other imagery of the passage can also be interpreted as a city under siege or desolation, or threatened by war. This interpretation is consistent with the theme of uncertainty in Ecclesiastes. The future is uncertain largely because of the threat of war. In the immediate context, a disaster (‫ )רעה‬may come upon the land (11.2), and days of trouble (‫ )רעה‬may come (12.1). This literal interpretation also has the advantage of simplicity over the usual metaphorical or allegorical interpretations of old age. Also, old age is not usually viewed negatively in the Old Testament. The imagery of Eccl. 12.1–7 instead seems to apply to the possibility of a national disaster, such as war. It thus demonstrates nicely how focussing on the theme of the city can illuminate the interpretation of a biblical book.



Aitken Introduction

15

Bibliography Benjamin, Don C. Deuteronomy and City Life: A Form Criticism of Texts with the Word City (‘îr) in Deuteronomy 4:41–26:19 (Lanham, PA: University Press of America, 1983). Berquist, J. L., and C. Camp, eds. Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative, LHBOTS 481 (London: T&T Clark International, 2008). Buccellati, Giorgio. Cities and Nations of Ancient Syria: An Essay on Political Institutions with Special Reference to the Israelite Kingdoms, Studie Semitici 26 (Rome: Istituto di Studi Del Vicino Oriente, 1967). Connolly, Peter, and Hazel Dodge. The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens & Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Ellul, Jacques. The Meaning of the City, intro. John Wilkinson, trans. Dennis Pardee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970). Frick, Frank S. The City in Ancient Israel, SBLDS 36 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). Fritz, Volkmar. The City in Ancient Israel, The Biblical Seminar 29 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis. La cité antique, 7th edn (1864; Paris: Durand, 1878), trans. The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome, with a New Foreword by A. Momigliano and S. C. Humphreys (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). Glaeser, Edward. Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier (London: Macmillan, 2011). Gordon, Robert P. Holy Land, Holy City: Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible, Didsbury Lectures 2001 (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004). Grabbe, Lester L. ‘Introduction and Overview’. In Every City shall be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, 15–34, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Grabbe, Lester L. ‘Sup-urbs or Only Hyp-urbs?’ In Every City Shall be Forsaken: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, 95–123, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Grabbe, Lester L., and Robert D. Haak, eds. ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Hammond, M. The City in the Ancient World, Harvard Studies in Urban History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972). Maier, Christl M. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008). Marcus, Joyce, and Jeremy A. Sabloff, eds. The Ancient City: New Perspectives on Urbanism in the Old and New World: Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences, School for Advanced Research Resident Scholar Series (Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008). Ollenburger, Ben C. Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987). Rich, John, and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, eds. City and Country in the Ancient World, Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 2 (London: Routledge, 1991). Rogerson, J. W., and John Vincent. The City in Biblical Perspective (London: Equinox, 2009).

16

City in the Hebrew Bible

Rollston, Christopher A. Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Schniedewind, William M. How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Southall, Aidan. The City in Time and Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Van de Mieroop, Marc. The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). van der Toorn, Karel. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007)

R e fl e c t i on s on t h e M ea ni ng ( s ) of ‫ִע יר‬ i n t h e H eb r ew B i ble

Alison R. Gray

Where people live, whether in a city, town, village, pasture-land or the desert, inevitably forms an intrinsic part of one’s worldview and selfidentity. A settlement is a space created and built and lived in, and therefore also an experienced space.1 The ‘meanings’ of ‫ ִעיר‬are therefore manifold. In terms of understanding what the word ‫( ִעיר‬and related lexemes) meant in ancient Israel, biblical scholars are in the unusually fortunate position of being almost overwhelmed by the range of information available.2 We have not only linguistic data from the Hebrew Bible itself, but also a weighty (and ever increasing) number of studies in archaeology, iconography, social anthropology and, more recently, urban geography.3 The study of ‫ ִעיר‬therefore lends itself to the kind of ‘integrated approach’ 1.  Cf. Mark S. Smith, ‘The Concept of the “City” (“Town”) in Ugarit’, in Die Stadt im Zwölfprophetenbuch, ed. A. Schart and J. Krispenz, BZAW 428 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 109. There has been a wave of interest in conceptions of space over the past decade in biblical studies, drawing on the work of sociologist Henri Lefebvre (The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith [Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996]) and geographer Edward Soja (Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places [Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996]). See, e.g., J. L. Berquist and C. Camp, eds, Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, LHBOTS 490 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008); C. M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008); M. Mills, Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy, LHBOTS 560 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012). 2.  The diversity of approaches to the subject in the recent volume of essays on the ‘city’ bears witness to this; see A. Schart and J. Kripenz, eds, Die Stadt im Zwölfprophetenbuch, BZAW 428 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012). 3.  E.g., Mills, Urban Imagination.

18

City in the Hebrew Bible

advocated by Ellen van Wolde, ‘in which one can examine the dynamic interactions of conceptual, textual, linguistic, material, and historical complexes’.4 Whilst a comprehensive survey of the meaning and usage of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible is beyond the scope of a short article, the intention of this essay is to look at the biblical descriptions of ‫ ִעיר‬from a different angle, from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The aim of the present study is four-fold: i. to identify the conceptual model ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a container’ that underlies some figurative and non-figurative descriptions of ‫;עיר‬ ִ ii. to explore aspects of the model ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a person’ which are often overlooked; iii. to suggest that ‫ ִעיר‬is frequently used as a super-ordinate (or ‘umbrella’ term) to describe a number of different settlements, as well as having a narrower sense of a large town or city, or of a structure within a city; iv. to highlight the conceptual significance of large, fortified settlements for the biblical writers. As our physical and cultural experience shapes how we conceptualize or structure metaphorical concepts,5 it will be particularly instructive to look at how ‫ ִעיר‬is used in figurative language. Although the feminine personification of Israelite settlements, particularly of Jerusalem, has been the subject of numerous studies over a long period,6 other underlying conceptual models, including other aspects of personification, have been 4.  E. van Wolde, Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 2. Van Wolde’s recent study of ‫‘ ַׁש ַער‬city-gate’, for example, brings together archaeological studies and linguistic analysis to confirm her hypothesis that shifting conceptualizations of city gate, due to changes in its structure and function over time, would be reflected in linguistic data (Reframing, 72–103). 5.  Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1980), 14. 6.  E.g., John J. Schmitt, ‘The Gender of Ancient Israel’, JSOT 26 (1983): 115–25; Mark E. Biddle, ‘The Figure of Lady Jerusalem: Identification, Deification and Personification of Cities in the Ancient Near East’, in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective, ed. K. L. Younger Jr (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1991), 173–94; Knut M. Heim, ‘The Personification of Jerusalem and the Drama of her Bereavement in Lamentations’, in Zion, City of our God, ed. Richard S. Hess and Gordon J. Wenham (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 129–69; Charles W. Miller, ‘Reading Voices: Personification, Dialogism, and the Reader of Lamentations



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

19

overlooked. Drawing these out will shed light on other aspects of ‫ ִעיר‬that were significant to the biblical writers. Taking a cognitive linguistic perspective involves rejecting the conventional dichotomy between lexical and encyclopaedic meaning, and includes syntax as an integral part of semantics.7 There will therefore be an ongoing dialogue throughout this essay between the lexical semantic aspects of ‫ ִעיר‬and its related terms, and the cognitive significance that is attached to descriptions of ‫ ִעיר‬by the biblical writers. It must be acknowledged that the range of cities and towns that are discussed in any detail in the Hebrew Bible is limited, with the number of references to Jerusalem far exceeding that of other settlements. In some cases inferences can be made from descriptions of Jerusalem about the cognitive significance of towns/cities in general, but a number of observations about the conceptual associations of Jerusalem will be unique to that city. With regard to the English translation of ‫ ִעיר‬as ‘city’, rejected by several scholars in favour of ‘town’,8 there are a number of interrelated issues. On one hand there is the question of what criteria one sets for the qualification of an ancient Near Eastern settlement as ‘city’, which is still widely debated.9 On the other hand there is the question of what ‘city’ signifies in English, since one of the objections to this translation of ‫ִעיר‬ is that no settlement in ancient Israel would have corresponded to our understanding of ‘city’ today.10 For the sake of simplicity I have opted for the more general term ‘settlement’ or ‘town/city’, unless it is a reference to a large and fortified ‘city’ (e.g., Nineveh) or to Jerusalem, which, in my opinion, warrants the conventional translation ‘city’, by virtue of its conceptual significance, if not by its actual population size. 1’, Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 9, no. 4 (2001): 393–408; C. M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008). 7.  Van Wolde, Reframing, 8. 8.  E.g., C. H. J. De Geus, Towns in Ancient Israel and in the Southern Levant, Palaestina Antiqua 10 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 1, 161, 170; Smith, ‘Concept’, 109. 9.  E.g., see L. L. Grabbe’s discussion (‘Sup-urbs or Only Hyp-urbs?’, in Every City Shall Be Forsaken: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, JSOTSup 330 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001], 95–123) of the ongoing use of V. G. Childe’s criteria for ‘city’ in the ancient Near East (from ‘The Urban Revolution’, Town Planning Review 21 [1950]: 3–17) that is still cited today (e.g., in C. Gates, Ancient Cities. The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome [Abingdon: Routledge, 2011], 3). 10.  E.g., E. Fry, ‘Cities, Towns and Villages in the Old Testament’, BT 30 (1979): 434–38.

20

City in the Hebrew Bible

‫ ִעיר‬as a ‘Container’ Lakoff and Johnson observe that since humans are physical beings, with skin to define a sense of the limits of our bodies, we have a tendency to impose boundaries onto other objects, to impose an ‘in-out’ orientation, ‘marking off territory so that it has a bounding surface’.11 In the case of settlements, this conceptualization merges with reality, as territory is often marked by some kind of border. This ‘bounded-ness’ has two main cognitive correlates: protection and contents. The noun’s gender is interesting in the first regard: names of countries and towns, as well as nouns denoting a ‘circumscribed space’ (including ‫ ֶא ֶרץ‬and ‫)עיר‬ ִ are usually regarded as feminine in Biblical Hebrew perhaps by virtue of their perceived maternal role by analogy to the ‘enclosure’ of a womb.12 Although there is no known verbal root of the noun ‫עיר‬, ִ 13 the nominal form is attested in other Semitic languages (Phoenician, Ugaritic, Sabean, etc.).14 It is often assumed that the ‘core meaning’, and indeed function, of ‫ ִעיר‬is ‘protection’,15 certainly evident in the prophetic attacks on the people’s false trust in their own defences (e.g., Jer. 5.17; Hos. 8.14). However, as we shall see later on, only certain kinds of ‫ ִעיר‬afforded such protection, which calls into question the assumed ‘core meaning’. The sense of living in a ‘container’ is accentuated if the actual boundary of the settlement is clearly defined, whether by a stone wall or a simple wooden palisade. The activity of marking a border also facilitates quantification—how big things are or how much of something they contain. Such quantification can be seen in images of the city being ‘full’ of shouting (Isa. 22.2); violence (Ezek. 7.23); plunder (Nah. 3.1); perversity (Ezek. 9.9); the city that was once full of righteousness and justice is now full of murderers (Isa. 1.21). There is a vivid image in Ps. 55.9–10 of violence and strife within the city, and surrounding it on its walls. Ezekiel transforms the idea of the city as container into a vivid image of a cooking-pot with the slain as its ‘meat’ (ch. 11). 11.  Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors, 29. 12.  GKC §122 h-k. 13.  J. J. Stamm’s suggestion in ‘Ein ugaritisch-hebräisches Verbum und seine Ableitungen’ (TZ 35 [1979]: 5–9) of a semantic association with the verb ‫‘ עור‬protect’ is possible, although there appears to be little trace of this in its use in the Hebrew Bible; cf. Deut. 32.11; Job 8.6, etc.—although LXX Deut. 32.11 renders ‫ יָ ִעיר‬with σκεπάσαι. 14.  J. Price, ‘‫’עיר‬, ִ NIDOTTE 3:396; see F. S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel, SBLDS 36 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press), 27–30, for a more detailed discussion of its Semitic cognates. 15.  E. Otto, ‘‫’עיר‬, ִ TDOT 11:54–55, 58.



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

21

That the concept of ‫ ִעיר‬in some cases entails an association of ‘contents’ is highlighted by descriptions of particular kinds of settlement that were used specifically for storage or as safe or strategic ‘containers’ for certain people or things. These include storage-towns for royal granaries (Exod. 1.11; 1 Kgs 9.19; 2 Chr. 8.4, etc.); ‫‘ ָע ֵרי ָה ֶר ֶכב‬chariot towns’ with a strategic location (1 Kgs 9.15–19; 10.26); Levitical towns (Joshua 21; 1 Chronicles 6), which were probably used as administrative centres;16 ‫‘ ָע ִרים ְל ָמצּור‬towns for defence’ (2 Chr. 11.5) and specially designated ‫‘ ָע ֵרי ִמ ְק ָלט‬towns of refuge’ for those guilty of manslaughter (e.g., Num. 35.9–34). Excavations often reveal the purpose of a settlement; for example, the discovery of stone vats at Tell Beit Mirsim may point to its function as a centre for oil production.17 The somewhat puzzling hapax expression ‫ ִעיר ַה ָּמיִם‬in 2 Sam. 12.27 makes sense in light of the container model, perhaps referring to a reservoir of water or a ‘water fortress’ to protect a town’s/city’s water supply.18 Intriguingly, this idea of the city as a container is one that is stressed throughout Herzog’s archaeological study of urban planning in ancient Israel: The city, according to the theory accepted here, is a social entity which came into being through a constellation of circumstances under which non-urban communities were driven to establish central institutions in order to cope with dire situations. Once such organizations were formed, the elite achieved power over the common population and used the city as a power base and as a means to communicate that power. The city became a container of power.19

Essential to the containment and defence of the city or town was its gateway, a physically and conceptually significant entry-point of the settlement, controlling who came in and out (2 Kgs 9.15), associated with both justice and defence (Deut. 17.5; 22.15; Josh. 20.4; Isa. 28.6; Zech. 8.16). To possess the gate was to take control and ownership of its town or city (Gen. 24.60). The significance of the strength and protection of a settlement’s gate and bars is evident in the figurative language in Job 16.  Frick, City, 136. 17.  Z. Herzog, Archaeology of the City: Urban Planning in Ancient Israel and Its Social Implications, Tel Aviv: Nadler Institute of Archaeology Monograph 13 (Tel Aviv: University Press, 1997), 244. 18.  Cf. Gray’s suggestion ‘the water-tower’: J. Gray, I and II Kings, OTL (London: SCM Press, 1964), 223. See Herzog’s discussions of various cities’ water storage facilities: Herzog, Archaeology, 242, 246, etc. 19.  Herzog, Archaeology, 13 (my italics).

22

City in the Hebrew Bible

of God ‘containing’ and restraining the sea (38.10). The term ‫‘ ַׁש ַער‬gate’ is prominent linguistically in relation to ‫עיר‬, ִ appearing numerous times metonymically to represent the settlement itself, by synecdoche (pars pro toto): for example, Deut. 12.12, 15; 14.21, 27; Ps. 87.2 (cf. Isa. 14.31). Archaeological studies show that the ‫ ַׁש ַער‬to settlements in Cisjordan from Iron IIB were monumental architectural complexes, comprising 4–6 rooms, and inner and outer gates connected by a courtyard.20 The gateway was served by gate-keepers (2 Kgs 7.10), and accommodated a wide range of administrative and socio-legal transactions (e.g., Ruth 4.1, 11). Herzog observes that the plan of the Israelite ‫ ִעיר‬during Iron IIB was ‘a bold declaration of its role as a container of power’.21 He observes that there was little space within the city walls for housing: ‘Monumental palaces, ceremonial buildings and administrative structures occupied most of the internal space inside the cities, providing only limited space for residential quarters’.22 By the seventh century BCE, however, city-gates were much smaller, less complex structures, and ceased to function as an important place of social and judicial interactions.23 Herzog’s observations of the cities in Iron Age IIC suggest ‘stagnation and even decline’, although the state of Judah is more complex.24 He concludes his survey with a discussion of the ‘cycles’ of urbanism (defined by levels of social complexity) that emerge from the archaeological data, naming two main points: that ‘city life was not a continuous and uninterrupted experience’, and secondly that the appearance and reappearance of cities over time follow a remarkably constant pattern.25 This suggests that the conceptualization of city life would perhaps follow a similar pattern of highs and lows. Within the ‘container’ model there is also room for another ‘container’, a more specific use of ‫ ִעיר‬to denote a place within a city, perhaps the inner quarter where the citadel, royal palace and temple stood or even the citadel itself (2 Kgs 10.25).26 The central citadel in Samaria was surrounded by a 20.  Van Wolde, Reframing, 79. See also Z. Herzog, The City-Gate in Eretz-Israel and Its Neighbouring Countries (Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology, 1976). 21.  Herzog, Archaeology, 235 (my italics). Further on (259), Herzog attributes this expression ‘container of power’, used throughout his study, to A. Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984). 22.  Herzog, Archaeology, 234. 23.  Van Wolde, Reframing, 80. 24.  Herzog, Archaeology, 257. 25.  Herzog, Archaeology, 259. 26.  Frick, City, 32–35.



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

23

non-defensive wall, symbolically reinforcing the distinction between the royal ruler with his court and the rest of the population.27 The expression ‫ ִעיר ָּדוִ ד‬refers to this citadel area, the ‘stronghold of Zion’ (‫מ ֻצ ַדת ִצּיֹון‬, ְ 2 Sam. 5.7), where the kings were buried (1 Kgs 2.10, etc.). An interesting word-pair, which draws attention to the close relationship between the city and the temple within this inner space both geographically and conceptually, is ‫ ִעיר‬/ ‫ּביִת‬. ַ A house—or in this case, the temple—as another kind of container, is conceptually connected to the city. This word-pair is found several times in Solomon’s dedication speech (1 Kgs 8.16, 44, 48) and possibly also in Ps. 127.1.28 God has chosen to put his name on the ‘house’ (e.g., 1 Kgs 5.5) and the ‘city’ (‫עיר‬, ִ 1 Kgs 11.36; 14.21), and both therefore belong to him: Jerusalem is the ‘city of God’ (Pss. 46.4; 87.3). The temple can therefore function as a representation of the city, whereby what happens in and to the temple is intrinsically bound up with what happens in and to the city and its inhabitants. Thus Jeremiah’s prophecy about the destruction of the temple and city occur together: ‘then I will make this house (‫)ה ַּביִת‬ ַ like Shiloh, and I will make this city (‫)ה ִעיר‬ ָ a curse for all the nations of the earth’ (Jer. 26.6, 9, 12). Studies in cultural geography remind us to take seriously the potential for a particular place of urban activity, such as the temple, to act as a ‘repository of communal identity’ and thus to acquire deep symbolic value.29 The temple was a monumental space of cultic activity, a representation of stability and unchanging reality, understood as God’s dwelling-place on earth and thus the meeting-place par excellence for human encounters with the divine. The destruction of the temple thus provoked an existential crisis of cultural identity and symbolized YHWH’s ultimate rejection of his people: the Lord became ‘like an enemy’ and scorned his altar (Lam. 2.5–7; cf. 2 Kgs 23.27), he set his face against the city for evil, not good (Jer. 21.10). The royal palace was also part of this nexus, since the temple and palace constituted the ‘dual seat of urban government’30 (cf. Jer. 22.1, 5, and 6, where ‫ ַּביִת‬occurs with reference to the king’s palace31). Contrasting with the ‘container’ model are more mythical depictions of Jerusalem as God’s ‘holy mountain’, particularly associated with divine presence and worship (Isa. 27.13; 30.29; 56.7; 66.20; Ezek. 20.40; 27.  Frick, City, 86–87. 28.  D. E. Fleming, ‘ “House/City”: An Unrecognised Parallel Word Pair’, JBL 105 (1986): 689–93. 29.  Mills, Urban Imagination, 60 (my italics). 30.  Mills, Urban Imagination, 58. 31.  Cf. J. R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21–36: A New Translation and Commentary, AB 21B (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 124.

24

City in the Hebrew Bible

Zeph. 3.11; Pss. 48.1; 99.9). Since towns and cities were often strategically situated on a hill (e.g., 1 Kgs 16.24), there is a close relationship between ‫ ִעיר‬and ‫הר‬, ַ evident in place names such as Har-ḥeres (Judg. 1.35) and Amos’s references to the ‘mount of Samaria’ (Amos 6.1).32 When the ‘container’ of Jerusalem was physically destroyed, it seems natural that the depiction of Jerusalem as a holy mountain would have become more prominent in terms of its conceptual significance.33 ‫ ִעיר‬as a Person There is considerable conceptual overlap between the idea of ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a container’, with boundaries like human skin, and ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a person’. The personification of ‫ ִעיר‬is used in strikingly different ways in biblical texts, for example in the symbolic actions of Jeremiah (e.g., Jer. 1.19), and the kaleidoscopic imagery of the city and the woman’s body in Song of Songs.34 The town/city, by virtue of its feminine gender, lends itself to imagery which paints it as mother, wife, ex-wife, mistress, princess, adulteress and widow (Isa. 47.8–9; 50.1; 54.4; Jer. 48.18; Ezek. 16.2, 8; 23.37; Mic. 4.8). These relational images serve to illustrate, express or question God’s relationship with Israel more generally and Jerusalem in particular. Since discussions of these personifications are in abundance, I do not wish to rehearse familiar arguments, but rather to make an observation about the way in which interpretations of a city’s feminine personification are sometimes discussed. Metaphors relating to a range of different underlying models (city as wife, mother, adulteress, etc.) are often removed from their context and compared in a way that fails to do justice to the purpose of individual metaphors within a particular text. For example, it is sometimes assumed that the female personification of ‘city’ in the Hebrew Bible rests on an underlying metaphorical model of ‘city as goddess’, borrowed from a West Semitic notion of capital cities as married to their patron god.35 The 32.  Cf. Frick, City, 45–47. 33.  This deserves further exploration, particularly in light of Smith’s observations of the differences between the portrayal of Jerusalem and Ugarit, with respect to depictions of royal cities and their feminine personification (notably absent in Ugaritic texts) and how these relate to Mount Zion and Mount Sapan and their respective theophanic motifs (Smith, ‘Concept’, 133–40). 34.  See, e.g., Chris Meredith, ‘The Lattice and the Looking Glass: Gendered Space in Song of Songs 2:8–14’, JAAR 80, no. 2 (2012): 1–22. 35.  E.g., Biddle, ‘The Figure’; D. Bourguet, Des metaphors de Jérémie (Paris: Gabalda, 1987), 481–84, etc.



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

25

arguments of Fitzgerald that support such a view have been robustly challenged.36 That the Israelite personification of cities as female may have been influenced by language and ideas about ancient Near Eastern goddesses is both possible and probable, but this suggestion is only of limited value in furthering our understanding of such depictions in their specific literary contexts. Both sides of the debate would benefit from acknowledging that the language and concepts used to describe ancient Near Eastern goddesses and those used to describe cities would have been similarly shaped by the prevalent understanding of women’s roles and status within society and, in particular, by their relationships with men. Mark Smith makes an astute comment on the debate by observing that despite little significant evidence to support Fitzgerald’s position, ‘the imagery seems particularly pliable, possibly operating with multiple models and directions of conceptual influence’.37 The semantic malleability of metaphors enables different words and pictures to interact with one another throughout a particular text in such a way that they shift and elide like kaleidoscopic colours. Holding rigidly to one way of viewing an image therefore limits one’s understanding and narrows one’s interpretation of the text. It is regrettable that discussions of the many forms of female personification of ‫ ִעיר‬tend to eclipse observations of other aspects of the model ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a person’. For example, the relationship between different settlements is unpacked by the biblical writers in terms of familial conceptual models and images. Such personification of cities and towns can therefore shed light on the taxonomy of ‫ ִעיר‬and its related lexemes.38 From the description of smaller settlements as ‘daughters’ of the city 36.  E.g., L. Day, ‘The Personification of Cities as Female in the Hebrew Bible: The Thesis of Aloysius Fitzgerald, F.S.C.’, in Reading from This Place. Vol. 2, Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective, ed. F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), 283–302. 37.  Smith, ‘Concept’, 140 (my italics). 38.  It should be noted that the ancient Israelite town or city should be understood as part of an integrated city-village system, rather than regarding ‘city’ and ‘country’ as two independent systems (see H. N. Rösel, ‘Zur Bedeutung der Stadt im alttestamentlischen Israel’, BN 89 [1997]: 22–26). In Josh. 21.11–12 a distinction is made between ‫מגְ ָרׁש‬, ִ the pasture land, or open country, adjacent to the city (cf. Num. 35.5), and the broader expanse of land controlled by the city, denoted by ‫ׂש ֶדה‬. ָ Observations about cities since the industrial revolution have typically been characterized by such a rural–urban dichotomy and this has to be consciously avoided when talking about Israelite settlements and their organization (cf. Frick, City, 91; Grabbe, ‘Sup-urbs’, 101–6).

26

City in the Hebrew Bible

(Josh. 15.45; Judg. 1.27, etc.), one might think that they were regarded as ‘dependents’ of the larger ones, the ‘parent’ settlements. However, since the ‘dependence’ was in fact the other way around in terms of agricultural production, the focus of the underlying analogy is presumably one of authority and control, or ‘service’, which expresses the political and economic power relationship between them. One expression of this ‘parent–child’ model highlights the significance of the ‘daughter’ cities for the status of larger urban centres: 2 Sam. 20.19, ‫עיר וְ ֵאם ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬. ִ However, presumably this parent model could also potentially include the city’s protective function, since those living outside a walled city would seek refuge within it when under attack (e.g., Jer. 35.1–11).39 Variations on the ‘family tree’ theme include the description of Jerusalem by Ezekiel as the ‘daughter’ of an Amorite father and a Hittite mother, adopted by YHWH (Ezek. 16.3–6), and bearing his children (vv. 20–21), her ‘sisters’ being Samaria and Sodom (16.45–57).40 This model allows the prophet to condemn Jerusalem for its wickedness, associating it with other corrupt and unfaithful towns and cities. In order to portray Jerusalem’s change in fortunes in relation to other cities, the author of Lamentations describes it as a widow (Lam. 1.1). The meaning of‫ ַא ְל ָמנָ ה‬is a particular kind of widow, ‘a once married woman who has no means of financial support’,41 an image which aptly expresses Jerusalem’s position as a lowly vassal state—having once had independence she is now ‘completely dependent on another state for protection and survival’.42 A different relationship is established conceptually by the description of a city’s founder, who is called its ‘father’ (Josh. 21.11; Judg. 9.28). Its inhabitants are therefore known as the sons of the city’s father—for example, ‘the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem’ (Gen. 33.19). However, the inhabitants are also known as the sons and daughters of the city itself, suggesting that the city is their mother (e.g., Isa. 47.8–9; 54.13; 39.  For a discussion of the different models of rural development in relation to a particular settlement, see L. E. Stager, J. D. Schloen and D. M. Master, eds, Ashkelon 1: Introduction and Overview (1985–2006), HSM: Final reports of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon 1 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 23. 40.  The expressions ‫ת־ציֹון‬ ִ ‫ ַּב‬and ‫רּוש ַליִם‬ ְ ְ‫ ּבת־י‬should be regarded as appositional genitives: ‘daughter Zion’ and ‘daughter Jerusalem’ (GKC §391–92, 416; see W. Stinespring, ‘No Daughter of Zion: A Study of the Appositional Genitive in Hebrew Grammar’, Encounter 26 [1965]: 133–41). 41.  G. R. Driver and J. C. Miles, The Assyrian Laws (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), 225, cited in C. Cohen, ‘The “Widowed” City’, JANES 5 (1973): 75–81, 76 and 78. 42.  Cohen, ‘Widowed’, 78.



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

27

Ezek. 16.20; 23.4; Lam. 1.5, 16). Both sets of ‘parent’ imagery indicate the extent to which one’s ‫ ִעיר‬defined one’s sense of identity. When Absalom stands by the road leading to the city gate intercepting passers-by, he asks them which ‫ ִעיר‬they come from and they reply by saying which tribe they are from in Israel: ‫( ֵמ ַא ַחד ִׁש ְב ֵטי־יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬2 Sam. 15.2), perhaps supporting Weber’s characterization of ancient cities as organized along the lines of kinship.43 In the genealogy at the beginning of Chronicles, the kings are identified by their family and by the name of their town/city (1 Chr. 1.43, 46, 50). A sense of belonging and identity was therefore deeply embedded within one’s dwelling-place. The sense of collective identity established by those who belonged to an ‫ ִעיר‬can be seen most clearly in the frequent use of metonymy regarding a city and its inhabitants, which extends to the general personification of the city in numerous texts. One common example of metonymy is the use of ‫ ִעיר‬followed by a noun or verb with a plural suffix, as at Jonah 1.2: ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me’ (cf. Jer. 33.5). The actions ascribed to ‫ ִעיר‬often indicate that the whole population is involved, such as when ‘cities’ are described as going to another city for water: ‫וְ נָ עּו ְׁש ַּתיִם ָׁשֹלׁש‬ ‫ל־עיר ַא ַחת ִל ְׁשֹּתות ַמיִם‬ ִ ‫( ָע ִרים ֶא‬Amos 4.8). In a similar way, the city has a collective voice (1 Sam. 5.12) and is described as ‘rejoicing’ (Prov. 11.10), ‘singing’ (Zeph. 3.14) and ‘wailing’ (Isa. 14.31). The biblical writers portray the city and its people in a symbiotic relationship, such that their fates are intertwined: what the people do affects the whole city (e.g., Jer. 26.15), and what happens to the people happens to the whole city. Thus Jeremiah advises the exiles that if they seek the well-being of the city they are living in, they will find their own well-being (Jer. 29.7). The exploration of the two conceptual models, ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a container’ and ‘‫ ִעיר‬as a person’ has taken us some way towards understanding the cognitive significance of ‫ ִעיר‬to the biblical writers, but it has also begun to separate out different meanings and uses of the term in its various contexts. It can denote: a. a circumscribed space, which has associations in some contexts with protection, power, contents and social identity; b. a specific structure within a city, such as a citadel; c. a settlement which has dependent settlements.

43.  M. Weber, The City, trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth (New York: Free Press, 1958), discussed in Grabbe, ‘Sup-urbs’, 98–99.

28

City in the Hebrew Bible

It remains to look more closely at how different meanings and uses can be further distinguished. ‫‘ ִעיר‬Settlement’ as a Superordinate Noun The biblical writers clearly distinguish between different kinds of ‫עיר‬: ִ those that are walled and those that are not. For example, the spies are sent to Canaan to find out whether or not the people are strong, whether the land is good or bad and whether their settlements are ‫‘ ַה ְּב ַמ ֲחנִ ים‬encampments’ (i.e. un-walled) or ‫‘ ְב ִמ ְב ָצ ִרים‬with fortifications’ (Num. 13.19). Similarly, in Deut. 3.4–5, there is a description of the settlements that were taken in the defeat of Og: ‎‫א־ל ַק ְחנּו ֵ ֽמ ִא ָּתם ִׁש ִּׁשים ִעיר‬ ָ ֹ ‫יְתה ִק ְריָ ה ֲא ֶׁשר ל‬ ָ ‫ל־ע ָריו ָּב ֵעת ַה ִהוא לֹא ָ ֽה‬ ָ ‫ת־ּכ‬ ָ ‫וַ ּנִ ְלּכֹד ֶא‬ ‫יח‬ ַ ‫ּוב ִר‬ ְ ‫ֹחומה גְ ב ָֹהה ְּד ָל ַתיִם‬ ָ ‫ל־א ֶּלה ָע ִרים ְּב ֻצֹרות‬ ֵ ‫ל־ח ֶבל ַא ְרּגֹב ַמ ְמ ֶל ֶכת ֹעוג ַּב ָּב ָ ֽׁשן׃ ָּכ‬ ֶ ‫ָּכ‬ ‫אד׃‬ ֹ ֽ ‫ְל ַבד ֵמ ָע ֵרי ַה ְּפ ָרזִ י ַה ְר ֵּבה ְמ‬ At that time we captured all his towns; there was no citadel that we did not take from them—sixty towns, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5 All these were fortress towns with high walls, double gates, and bars, besides a great many villages. (NRSV)

Although the heavily fortified ‫ ָע ִרים‬are no doubt the greater cause for boasting, those that are un-walled are nevertheless called by the same name. The term ‫ה ְּפ ָרזִ י‬, ַ used to define the latter kind of ‫ע ִרים‬, ָ refers to those who live in ‫ה ְּפ ָרזֹות‬, ַ which seem to denote open settlements without walls or gates (cf. Ezek. 38.11; Esth. 9.19). A further example of this use of ‫ ִעיר‬as a broad term encompassing a variety of different settlements is found in 1 Sam. 6.18, which describes the gold mice that were offered on behalf of all the Philistine settlements, from the largest to the smallest: ‫‘ ֵמ ִעיר ִמ ְב ָצר וְ ַעד ּכ ֶֹפר ַה ְּפ ָרזִ י‬from fortified cities to open settlements’ (cf. NRSV ‘un-walled villages’). Contra Otto and Fry, fortification is therefore not ‘semantically proper’ to ‫ ִעיר‬in all its uses,44 and the association of ‘protection’ is a pertinent feature of some, but not all, occurrences of the noun. Rather, ‫ ִעיר‬can be used to describe a range of settlements, including towns and villages of all sizes,45 much to the disappointment of Hiram, king of Tyre, who says to King Solomon, ‫ָמה ֶה ָע ִרים ָה ֵא ֶּלה ֲא ֶׁשר־נָ ַת ָּתה ִּלי‬ ‫( ָא ִחי‬1 Kgs 9.13)! 44.  Otto, ‘‫’עיר‬, ִ 55; E. Fry, ‘Cities, Towns and Villages in the Old Testament’, BT 30 (1979): 434–38. 45.  Cf. De Geus, Towns, 170.



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

29

Another illustration of this super-ordinate use of ‫ ִעיר‬to denote settlements from the smallest to the largest is found in 2 Kgs 17.9, where the Israelites are described as building high places in every available location: ‫ד־עיר ִמ ְב ָצר‬ ִ ‫ֹנוצ ִרים ַע‬ ְ ‫יהם ִמ ִּמגְ ַּדל‬ ֶ ‫ל־ע ֵר‬ ָ ‫( ְּב ָכ‬cf. 2 Kgs 18.8). Incidentally, the expression ‫נֹוצ ִרים‬ ְ ‫ ִמגְ ַּדל‬is frequently rendered ‘watchtower’, which makes no sense in this context.46 It is likely that the term refers by metonymy to a military settlement, characterized by its watchtower, which had a strategic defensive position.47 The description in 2 Kings also points towards an understanding of settlements as defining features of the landscape. Regardless of size, all kinds of settlements functioned as territorial markers and geographical measures of distance (e.g., Gen. 10.19; 13.3, 12; Deut. 2.36; 2 Kgs 14.25; Isa. 15.4), akin to the reference to mountains for the same purpose (e.g., Deut. 4.48; Josh. 11.17). Several other lexemes related to ‫ ִעיר‬refer more specifically to smaller settlements, including ‫ח ֵצר‬, ָ ‫ ִט ָירה‬and ‫כ ָפר‬. ָ Although ‫ ָח ֵצר‬often refers to a court or courtyard (e.g., Neh. 8.16), it also denotes a settlement, such as in 1 Chr. 4.32–33, where it is treated as a kind of ‫עיר‬. ִ Another smaller dwelling-place is described by ‫ט ָירה‬, ִ which is associated with tents and seems to denote an encampment (Gen. 25.16; Num. 24.5; 31.10; ַ the more specifically military Ezek. 25.4).48 This is distinct from ‫מ ֲחנֶ ה‬, encampment (e.g., Num. 2.3, 10, 18, 25; Josh. 8.13; 1 Sam. 17.20). The defining semantic characteristic of ‫ ִעיר‬in a general sense, then, is that it is a circumscribed space where there is a fixed settlement. Although the idea of ‘container’ may be intuitively projected onto a particular territory, by virtue of the conceptual correspondence between a human body and a ‘body’ of land, ‫ ִעיר‬does not have to mean a walled settlement. The Akkadian term ālum, whose defining characteristic is ‘a cluster of permanent buildings’, rather than walls or fortifications, provides an interesting parallel.49 This is further supported by the parallel use of ‫ָמקֹום‬ with ‫( ִעיר‬e.g., Gen. 18.24, 26; Deut. 21.19) and by its antithetical use with

46.  Cf. NRSV; BDB, 153–54; D. Kellermann, ‘‫’מ ָגּדל‬, ִ TDOT 8:69–73. 47.  Cf. the migdāl toponyms in the following texts: Gen. 35.21; Exod. 14.2; Num. 33.7; Josh. 15.37; 19.38; Judg. 9.46–49; Jer. 44.1; 46.14; Ezek. 29.10; 30.6; Mic. 4.8. See A. A. Burke, ‘Magdalūma, Migdālîm, Magdoloi, and Majādīl : The Historical Geography and Archaeology of the Magdalu (Migdāl)’, BASOR 346 (2007): 29–57. 48.  Westermann, Genesis 12–36, Biblisches Kommentar Altes Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), 488. 49.  D. E. Fleming, Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors: Mari and the Early Collective Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 116, cited in Smith, ‘Concept’, 111 n. 20.

30

City in the Hebrew Bible

‫‘ ָׂש ֶדה‬field’, e.g., ‫ּוברּוְך ַא ָּתה ַּב ָּׂש ֶדה‬ ָ ‫( ָּברּוְך ַא ָּתה ָּב ִעיר‬Deut. 28.3). It appears to be synonymous with ‫( ִק ְריָ ה‬Deut. 3.4; Ps. 48.2[3]), which is often part of a town/city name (e.g., Josh. 14.15; 15.15) and with ‫ק ֶרת‬,ֶ found only in poetic literature (e.g., Job 29.7; Prov. 8.3). The sense of ‫ ִעיר‬as a defined area is borne out by its close association with ‫‘ ֶא ֶרץ‬land’, which occasionally describes the ‘space’ within—or belonging to—a particular settlement, or is used in place of ‫( ִעיר‬e.g., Gen. 11.28; 34.2; 1 Kgs 8.37; 32.36; Jer. 8.16; 15.7; 51.4; Ezek. 22.30; Nah. 3.13).50 This semantic overlap between ‘settlement’ and ‘land’ is also seen in descriptions of the realm of the dead, defined by its (city-) gates: ‘I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever’ (Jonah 2.6; cf. Isa. 38.10; Job 38.17; Pss. 9.14–15; 107.18). This is another kind of land, a kind of city, which imprisons its inhabitants. ‫ ִעיר‬as a ‘Large, Fortified Settlement’ Confirming the thesis that the ‘core’ meaning of ‫ ִעיר‬is ‘settlement’ is the specific expression ‫הֹומה‬ ָ ‫‘ ִעיר‬walled city’ (e.g., Lev. 25.29), along with the explanation of ‘royal cities’ as particularly large (Josh. 10.2), and texts which describe particular settlements as ‫ּובצּורֹות ּגְ דֹולֹות‬ ְ ‘large and fortified’ (e.g., Deut. 1.28; 9.1; Num. 13.28). These large settlements are occasionally set in contrast to ‫ח ֵצ ִרים‬, ַ for example in Neh. 11.25–30, which names the surrounding settlements of Jerusalem alongside their ‫יה‬ ָ ‫ְּבנ ֶֹת‬ ‘dependents’ (cf. also Josh. 13.28). The identifying characteristics of the larger settlements seem to be primarily their size, their fortifications and the height of their walls, ‘a testimony to the importance and strength of the city’ (e.g., Deut. 3.5; Josh. 14.12; 1 Kgs 4.13; Jonah 3.3).51 The conceptual significance of walls has three main components: safety/protection (Psalm 122), pride and strength (Isa. 26.1).52 To build a city wall was to build strength, power and protection for the city and its inhabitants (e.g., Deut. 1.28; Mic. 7.11). A city with walls was regarded as a safe place, an integrated unit, and the more fortifications it had, the stronger the sense of its impregnability (e.g., Ezek. 21.25).53 50.  This connection can also be seen in the Amarna letters and in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the expression ‘land of Jerusalem’ (cf. Smith, ‘Concept’, 131). 51.  Frick, City, 82–83. 52.  Cf. De Geus, Towns, 9. 53.  Jerusalem is referred to as ‫צּורה‬ ָ ‫‘ ְּב‬inaccessible’, ‘closed’; cf. Mills, Urban Imagination, 39–40.



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

31

The abuse of power and disparity of wealth between the ruling urban elite and the rural poor (and/or the cyclical nature of urbanism mentioned earlier) may account for the intriguing duality in the conceptualization of the strong, walled city, evident in both extremely positive and extremely negative evaluations of its fortifications. The Psalmists often present Jerusalem as an ideal city, divinely elected as the dwelling-place of God’s presence, made secure and strong by God’s own protection (Pss. 46.6[5]; 48.3–4[2–3]; 122.1–5). The fortifications thus stand as a symbol of the city’s divine protection and derive their strength from the privileged status that Jerusalem enjoys as God’s chosen city (Pss. 48.9[8]; 87.1–3; cf. Isa. 26.1). Elsewhere, however, cities are condemned for their fortifications and high walls, which function as symbols of pride and self-assurance that are opposed to trusting in YHWH (Isa. 26.5; Amos 6.8). It is no accident that Babylon’s judgement ‘reached up to the skies’ (Jer. 51.9)—just like its walls and fortifications (51.53). It is striking that the first ‫ ִעיר‬we meet in the Bible is the result of Cain’s attempt to provide his own security, ‘away from the presence of Yahweh’.54 The walled town/city thus constitutes a negative image of self-reliance, which appears in figurative language about strength, wealth, power and self-protection in Wisdom literature: The name of YHWH is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe; the wealth of the rich is their strong city; in their imagination it is like a high wall. (Prov. 18.10–11)55

The prophetic condemnation of Jerusalem plays on the association of city with protection through a terrible inversion of the image, presenting the city as a place of death: those who remain in it will die and those who leave will live (Jer. 38.2). The antithesis of ‘city’, then, is a dry and desert wasteland, uninhabitable for humans but full instead of wild and desert animals (e.g., Isa. 13.19–22; 34.11–13; Jer. 50.39; Zeph. 2.13–14, etc.). The desert as a symbol of divine anger, judgement and abandonment can be seen in ancient Near Eastern treaty curses about the destruction of the city (Sefire I A. 32–34 in KAI §22; Deut. 29.20–22).56 The ultimate judgement on a city is for it to be destroyed, and rendered an empty container, ‘without people, without inhabitants’ (Zeph. 3.6; cf. Lam. 1.1), a woman without her children (Lam. 1.5; cf. Isa. 54.1). 54.  Frick, City, 207. 55.  Cf. also the favourable presentation of wisdom over and against a city’s rulers and its strength (Prov. 21.22; Eccl. 7.19; 9.15). 56.  Frick, City, 220–21.

32

City in the Hebrew Bible

Conclusions This brief exploration of ‫ ִעיר‬and its meanings in the Hebrew Bible has led to four main conclusions: i. The conceptual model of ‫ ִעיר‬as a container can be a helpful way of considering how a settlement was regarded in terms of its function and physicality. ii. The conceptual model of ‫ ִעיר‬as a person underlies a wide range of metaphorical models, not just feminine ones. It is important to consider the particular words and pictures used in each text to discern the purpose and conceptual significance of individual metaphors that rely on a particular type of personification, rather than collapsing the differences and focussing on a generic ‘model’ and its background. iii.  ‫ ִעיר‬is often used as a super-ordinate noun to denote a wide range of settlements, both walled and un-walled. Fortification is therefore not ‘semantically proper’ to ‫ ִעיר‬in all its uses, as is widely assumed, and the association of ‘protection’ is a pertinent feature of some, but not all, occurrences of the noun. iv. Within this category, however, and in contrast to smaller settlements, are large walled cities which are also called ‫ע ִרים‬, ָ which offer extensive fortification for protection. Such large settlements receive both positive and negative evaluations of their fortifications by the biblical writers and seem to hold powerful conceptual associations for those who live within and without their walls. Bibliography Berquist, J. L., and C. Camp, eds. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, LHBOTS 490 (London: T&T Clark International, 2008). Biddle, Mark E. ‘The Figure of Lady Jerusalem: Identification, Deification and Personifi­ cation of Cities in the Ancient Near East’. In The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective, ed. K. L. Younger Jr, 173–94 (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1991). Bourguet, D. Des metaphors de Jérémie (Paris: Gabalda, 1987). Burke, A. A. ‘Magdalūma, Migdālîm, Magdoloi, and Majādīl: The Historical Geography and Archaeology of the Magdalu (Migdāl)’. BASOR 346 (2007): 29–57. Childe, V. G. ‘The Urban Revolution’. Town Planning Review 21 (1950): 3–17. Cohen, C. ‘The “Widowed” City’. JANES 5 (1973): 75–81. Day, L. ‘The Personification of Cities as Female in the Hebrew Bible: The Thesis of Aloysius Fitzgerald, F.S.C.’. In Reading from This Place. Vol. 2, Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective, ed. F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert, 283–302 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995).



Gray Reflections on the Meaning(s) of ‫ ִעיר‬in the Hebrew Bible

33

De Geus, C. H. J. Towns in Ancient Israel and in the Southern Levant, Palaestina Antiqua 10 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003). Driver, G. R., and J. C. Miles. The Assyrian Laws (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935). Ellul, J. The Meaning of the City (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970). Fleming, D. E. ‘ “House/City”: An Unrecognised Parallel Word Pair’, JBL 105 (1986): 689–93. Fleming, D. E. Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors: Mari and the Early Collective Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Frick, F. S. The City in Ancient Israel, SBLDS 36 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). Fry, E. ‘Cities, Towns and Villages in the Old Testament’. BT 30 (1979): 434–38. Gates, C. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011). Grabbe, L. L. ‘Sup-urbs or Only Hyp-urbs?’ In Every City Shall be Forsaken: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, 95–123, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Gray, J. I and II Kings, OTL (London: SCM Press, 1964). Heim, Knut M. ‘The Personification of Jerusalem and the Drama of Her Bereavement in Lamentations’. In Zion, City of Our God, ed. Richard S. Hess and Gordon J. Wenham, 129–69 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). Herzog, Z. The City-Gate in Eretz-Israel and Its Neighbouring Countries (Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology, 1976). Herzog, Z. Archaeology of the City: Urban Planning in Ancient Israel and Its Social Implications, Tel Aviv: Nadler Institute of Archaeology Monograph 13 (Tel Aviv: University Press, 1997). Kellermann, D. ‘‫’מ ָגּדל‬. ִ TDOT 8:69–73. Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Lefebvre, H. The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996). Lundbom, J. R. Jeremiah 21–36: A New Translation and Commentary, AB 21B (New York: Doubleday, 2004). Maier, C. M. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008). Meredith, Chris. ‘The Lattice and the Looking Glass: Gendered Space in Song of Songs 2:8–14’. JAAR 80, no. 2 (2012): 1–22. Miller, Charles W. ‘Reading Voices: Personification, Dialogism, and the Reader of Lamentations 1’. Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 9 (2001): 393–408. Mills, M. Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy, LHBOTS 560 (Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012). Otto, E. ‘‫’עיר‬. ִ TDOT 11:54–55. Price, J. ‘‫’עיר‬. ִ NIDOTTE 3:396–39. Rösel, H. N. ‘Zur Bedeutung der Stadt im alttestamentlischen Israel’. BN 89 (1997): 22–26. Schart, A., and J. Kripenz, eds. Die Stadt im Zwölfprophetenbuch, BZAW 428 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012). Schmitt, J. J. ‘The Gender of Ancient Israel’. JSOT 26 (1983): 115–25.

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Smith, Mark S. ‘The Concept of the “City” (“Town”) in Ugarit’. In Die Stadt im Zwölfprophetenbuch, ed. A. Schart and J. Krispenz, 107–46, BZAW 428 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012). Soja, E. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996). Stager, L. E., J. D. Schloen and D. M. Master, eds. Ashkelon 1: Introduction and Overview (1985–2006), Harvard Semitic Museum Publications: Final Reports of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon 1 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008). Stamm J. J. ‘Ein ugaritisch-hebräisches Verbum und seine Ableitungen’. TZ 35 (1979): 5–9. Stinespring, W. ‘No Daughter of Zion: A Study of the Appositional Genitive in Hebrew Grammar’. Encounter 26 (1965): 133–41. Weber, M. The City, trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth (New York: Free Press, 1958). Westermann, C. Genesis 12–36, Biblisches Kommentar Altes Testament (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981). Wolde, E. van. Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009).

T h e B i b l i ca l M et r opoli s

Hugh S. Pyper

Let me begin with a banal observation that is, I imagine, news to no-one. There are no cities in the Hebrew Bible; there are only words about cities. Even that claim needs further nuance. The Hebrew Bible includes words which refer to various types of settlement, one of which, ‫עיר‬, is commonly translated ‘city’, but it is notoriously hard to pin down its ancient resonances and what precise kind of settlement was implied by this term in different times and places. However, as long as we are aware of the questions we are begging, the term ‘city’ can stand as a convenient and familiar label. In this essay, what I want to do is to ask: if it is words about cities that we are dealing with, how do such words work in the texts of the Hebrew Bible? In order to do this, I shall be drawing on two critics whose work, it seems to me, converges on the topic of the writing of the city, although they are seldom juxtaposed and come from very different philosophical and literary worlds. They are Henri Lefebvre and Mikhail Bakhtin.1 The insights of both have been drawn upon by biblical scholars in recent years. Lefebvre’s works are seminal for the current interest in the examination of space in biblical texts, particularly through his distinctions

1.  The juxtaposition of Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis and Bakhtin’s chronotope is not quite without precedent. They are brought together in a paper by Tobias Boes on Joyce entitled, ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the “Individuating Rhythm” of Modernity’ (English Literary History 75 [2008]: 767–85). Boes remarks that Lefebvre’s late works on rhythm ‘provide an interesting complement to Bakhtin’s narratological approach, with its altogether different intellectual foundation. Like his Russian contemporary, Lefebvre regarded time and space as inextricable from one another’ (770). This is, however, the only example of the recognition of this similarity of which I am aware.

36

City in the Hebrew Bible

between first, second and third space as systematized by Edward Soja.2 This schema underlies many if not most of the articles in John Berquist and Claudia Camp’s volume Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, for instance.3 At the same time, Bakhtin’s currency in the field has been demonstrated by the collection of essays Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, edited by Roland Boer, although he has not been invoked in the discussion of space.4 I think this is a pity. There is, I believe, a significant but not much discussed point of intersection between Lefebvre and Bakhtin that invites the thought that the link between the ‘imagined space’ of the city and ‘genre theory’ is closer than we realize. Lefebvre’s late work on what he calls ‘rhythmanalysis’,5 has, I will argue, close affinities with Bakhtin’s concept of the ‘chronotope’ which he discussed in his essay ‘Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel’, subtitled, suggestively, ‘Notes Towards a Historical Poetics’.6 Both share the fundamental insight that space and time work together to create forms of life and forms of expression. Both also are fascinated by the city as the place where, in Bakhtin’s terms, the forms of the novel can develop through the clashing and fusion of different chronotopes. Lefebvre expresses the same idea when he celebrates the city as the place where we encounter the creative possibilities of polyrhythmia, the complex overlayering of rhythms that is the pulsing life of the city. Bakhtin is more interested in the forms of texts, Lefebvre in forms of life, but in the writing of the city their interests meet. Building on this, I want to suggest that the city in the biblical texts is not to be sought simply by trying to catalogue and analyse specific allusions to cities and their description. The city, I suggest, leaves its 2.  See Edward W. Soja, Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). Soja’s work has been criticized by some for overschematiz­ing Lefebvre’s characteristically allusive and impressionistic work. He makes little use of Lefebvre’s later work, however, and the concept of ‘rhythm­ analysis’ is not one he takes up. 3.  John Berquist and Claudia Camp, eds, Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). 4.  Roland Boer, ed., Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2007). 5.  Lefebvre borrows this term from Bachelard, who in turn borrowed it from the Portuguese writer, Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos. 6.  M. M. Bakhtin, ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope of the Novel’, in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 84–258.



Pyper The Biblical Metropolis

37

traces in the rhythms of the texts and, arising from those, the peculiar and distinctive genres and fusions of genres that characterize the books of the Bible. The city is in the Bible, but the Bible is in the city, in this way of looking at things. Only a civic setting could give rise to such books. The city pervades the Bible; its texts move to an urban beat. Furthermore, this city of biblical writing is not just any city, but the metropolis. Here, I am led unbidden into that most recondite and pretentious of forms, a macaronic pun (a sure way to betray my poststructuralist leanings). The word ‘metropolis’ is derived from the Greek μήτηρ and πόλις, literally the ‘mother city’. That derivation immediately suggests interesting connotations itself. For the present discussion, however, it is irresistible to invoke the false etymology μέτρου πόλις, deriving the first element from μέτρον or ‘measurement’. The metropolis then becomes the ‘city of measurement’—or ‘of metre’. The metropolis, in this sense, is the city that others are measured by, and which, by that token, sets the metre for the rhythmic life of other cities. The peculiar texts of the Hebrew Bible allow the community that preserves them and lives by their rhythms to claim that, whatever the city in which they find themselves, the biblical city is the metropolis. All other cities, great and small, for all their attempts to impose their own rhythms on their neighbours and conquests, will find themselves marching to the rhythms of Zion. The metropolis is in the Bible and the Bible is in the metropolis. There is material here for an extended research project. All I hope to do here is to set the stage for this idea and then to look, briefly, at two key passages that bring together city and writing: the discovery of the lost book in 2 Kings 22 and the issues around Jeremiah’s scroll in Jeremiah 36. What both passages will reveal, I hope, is the nature of the chronotope or rhythm of the biblical city and its relation to writing, and how this manifests itself in two of the bible’s most distinctive genres: the prose history and the prophetic book. The City in Words If there are only words about cities in the Hebrew Bible, what sort of words do we find? There are city names aplenty but very often names are all we have. We will look in vain in the Hebrew Bible for topographical descriptions of any of these cities. Even Jerusalem is never described in terms of its cityscape.

38

City in the Hebrew Bible

This lack of description is not simply to be explained as a feature of ancient literature. Homer, for instance, and other ancient Greek writers will at least pause before a city and give some visual outline of it. In his Homer and the Sacred City, Stephen Scully cites as an example the passage when Odysseus first sees the city of Scheria: And he marveled now at the balanced ships and havens The meeting grounds of the great lords and the long ramparts Looming, coped and crowned with palisades of stakes— An amazing sight to see… (Od. 6.49–53)7

There is no such descriptive writing about any city in the Hebrew Bible. This is of a piece with its wider poetics, of course, where description is very sparingly used. In his study, however, which ranges much further than the title of his book might lead us to expect, Scully draws out what this passage from the Odyssey does share with the Hebrew Bible and indeed with a wider range of ancient writings about the city. Note how Homer concentrates above all on the ramparts and defences of the city. Drawing on comparative material from Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria and the Hittite kingdoms, as well as biblical material, Scully finds that they offer variants on a shared basic scheme for understanding the city as made up of three interacting elements, temple(s), walls and people, constituted as in some sense a polity. In Scully’s view, the fundamental element in these ancient writers’ conception of the city is the wall. The temple, in essence, is a particular set of walls within the city wall. Like all walls, city and temple walls mark separation. Like all walls, they have two sides. They keep out and keep in. Like all walls, city and temple walls embody a paradox; they can only perform their function of separation if they allow penetration and movement through windows, doors and gates, but this must be selective penetration. This leads to another characteristic of the city: the watcher or guard on the wall and the gateway. Again, the watcher is an ambivalent figure. Is he looking out or in? The same sentry who can spy the enemy approaching the city can also oversee the people within the city.

7.  S. Scully, Homer and the Sacred City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).



Pyper The Biblical Metropolis

39

Looked at in this way, the temple walls function as much to keep God in as to keep all but a selected group of people out. In the temple, people and offerings are filtered through courts of increasing holiness, to preserve God’s separateness, but equally to keep God manageable. God watches the city, but is that as protector or as policeman? As the Hebrew Bible is only too aware, God, the protector of the city, can also turn out to be its worst enemy. Furthermore, walls structure not only space but time. There is a point on a spectrum between the eternal present of God and the arrhythmia of the wilderness where the rhythms of human time can be set in motion and enacted, often marked by the opening and closing of doors and the passage of people from space to space. Morning sees the city gates open and people begin to move from the safety of their houses to the public space of business and assembly and gossip. The day can be marked by tracing the movements of people within the city. The courts of the temple also fill and empty according to daily rhythms of pilgrimage and sacrifice within a larger cycle of festivals and holy days. Date and time can be deduced from looking at where people are in the city. Moreover, walls themselves are an index of change through time. Marshall Bermann, in a fascinating essay on Jerusalem entitled ‘Falling’, makes the point simply: ‘Any city is a work of human construction and cooperation, but anything that is constructed can be destroyed, and any bunch of human beings who can work together can also turn against each other and destroy everything that they have made’.8 Time turns cities into ruins, with or without human aid, and the ruined walls stand as a memory of past building and past destruction. The ruins of the past are a sobering reminder of the impermanence of all walls. Ruins, like tombs and scars, are the physical reminders of past traumas, whether that is the sudden sacking of a city or its slow economic decline. Where people once lived and sought security, there is now only abandonment. The patient work of building is now undone. The vanity of human aspirations for security and permanence are also made plain.

8.  M. Berman, ‘Falling’, in Restless Cities, ed. M. Beaumont and G. Dart (London: Verso, 2010), 123–37, at 128. In this wide-ranging exploration of the metaphorical and literary resonances of the city, Bermann’s is the one essay that explicitly engages with the biblical Jerusalem. He points out that the anxiety of possible destruction and laments over ruined cities are at the heart of the cultural experience of the West, citing both Lamentations and Euripides’ Women of Troy to demonstrate this as a common theme in biblical and classical literature.

40

City in the Hebrew Bible

What characterizes the life of a city is insecurity, an ambivalence that can switch in a moment from hope to dread. The city’s walls are testimony to the possibility of attack and prey to the ravages, not just of human assailants, but of time. The security they promise could fail at any time and will fail at some time. Although the name is the same, the city we physically inhabit may not be the city of our imagination. In a comment on his Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino remarks on the intriguing classification he uses in that work—thin cities, cities of the eye, etc.—and confesses that beneath this is a much simpler binary scheme dependent on two poles: memory and desire. The names of cities stand proxy for memories and for desires. Just this sense of the fluidity of time and space is characteristic of the ancient city and of the texts written about it. The poetics of these texts are the poetics of suspense and of the glimpse. What is happening does not unroll before us in a panoptic view but is conveyed in broken but vivid images and through frustrating and baffling vignettes which resemble the overheard conversations or half-understood views of the cityscape. Words drift in or out of an open window; we turn a corner and stumble upon an unforeseen enemy or an unexpected friend. Rumours reach us and unexplained cries ring through the night. On the other side of any wall, anything may be happening. However the prophetic books reached their present form, this urban chronotope, I argue, is reflected in the unsettling shifts of style and theme and the pervading sense of insecurity of the books. Chronotope and Rhythmanalysis As I outlined above, it is to Bakhtin and Lefebvre that I will now turn to find an understanding of the textual consequences of this view of the city. Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope is both attractive and frustrating to investigate because Bakhtin himself leaves it very open. In his essay ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel’ he defines it as follows: ‘We will give the name chronotope (literally “time space”) to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature’. His particular engagement with the city occurs with reference to Dostoevsky. Bakhtin detects in Dostoevsky’s distinctive poetics what he calls the chronotope of the threshold, which he describes further as the ‘chronotope of crisis and break in a life’.9 He outlines the way in which 9.  Bakhtin, ‘Forms of Time’, 248.



Pyper The Biblical Metropolis

41

through this and related chronotopes—the stairway, the hall, the street and the square—the private and public are interwoven in Dostoevsky’s works, and explicitly links this back to the squares of ancient cities in Greece and Rome. In an intriguing footnote, he explains that such genealogies are not a matter of an individual author’s awareness. Instead, these chronotopes are transmitted through ‘the objective forms that culture itself assumes’, in genres of speech and language that enter and shape the literary works of the culture, bypassing any individual memory or consciousness. Lefebvre in turn draws remarkably similar conclusions in his reflec­ tions on the importance of stairs in his essay ‘Rhythmanalysis of the Mediterranean City’: A link between spaces, the stairway also ensures a link between times: between the time of architecture (the house, the enclosure) and urban time (the street, the open space, the square and the monuments). It links particular houses and dwellings back to their distribution in urban space. Now is the stairway not a localized time par excellence? Don’t the steps in Venice rhythm the walk through the city, while serving simultaneously as a transition between different rhythms?10

Such attentiveness to rhythms, patterns of repetition in time, is, Lefebvre argues, a mode of investigation of urban life that has been underestimated. Rhythm is a bridge between space and time in his thought as rhythms are instantiated in particular places, moments and events. What characterizes any complex organization, such as the body or the city, is polyrhythmy, the interaction of multiple and crossing rhythms that may, however, be distinguished by careful listening. Lefebvre contrasts the Mediterranean city with the Oceanic city of Northern Europe. The Mediterranean city, he argues, is more in tune with solar rather than lunar rhythm while the Northern cities are in tune with the tides. The sun and moon are, of course, two conflicting but inseparable sources of natural rhythm, the interaction of which means that the structure of all life on earth is polyrhythmic from the outset. From this he, rather cryptically but still intriguingly, argues to a differentiation between the Northern city as founded on contracts and charters and mutual good faith between citizens, and the Mediterranean city, which is based on tacit and explicit alliances and vendettas between families and clans.

10.  Henri Lefebvre, ‘Rhythmanalysis of Mediterranean Cities’, in Writings On Cities (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 228–40, at 237.

42

City in the Hebrew Bible

Lefebvre then goes on to emphasize the importance of ritual in imposing rhythm on the city, but also stresses the heterogeneity of the Mediterranean city, both contemporary and historical, where life is structured by negotiating between one’s own rhythms and the rhythms of the other. That may be the different rhythms of one’s neighbours who represent a multiplicity of languages and cultures, or the public rhythms imposed by the city governance, which more often than not may embody the rhythmic habits of an imperial power not native or exclusive to the city. We need only think of how, in any contemporary Eastern Mediterranean city, for instance, on a daily basis the complex polyrhythmy between international clock time, the ebb and flow of commercial traffic, the call of the muezzin and the ringing of church bells of different communities intersects with the less audible but still present rhythms of the various Jewish communities among many others and the rhythms of state-proclaimed holidays or curfews. In wider terms, civic and religious holidays and festivals of all kinds, often attached to different calendars, either solar or lunar, intersect in a predictable but bewildering way to shape the life of the city. Within the one space, the city throbs with a complex of complementary and clashing rhythms that organize but also problematize the lives of its citizens. Following this line of thought from both writers, it would be hard to find a body of writing which has more programmatically and successfully established and maintained a distinctive rhythm of life than the Hebrew Scriptures. Across the ancient world, the adherence of Jews to the Sabbath and to their cycle of festivals marked them out within the complex rhythmic interplay that made up civic life in Babylon, Alexandria or Rome, let alone Jerusalem and the cities of Israel. The spur to develop and encode such rhythms, I want to argue, is a feature of the city, and in turn the biblical texts themselves shape and are shaped by the clashes of rhythm that are characteristic of urban rather than rural life. Cities in the Bible are symptoms of the way that the city gives rise to the Bible, which in textual terms is manifested in the clash of rhythms in the structure of the texts. Within the complex polyrhythms that characterize the chronotope of the city, indeed of the metropolis, the chronotope of suspense, the Bible embodies in literary form a characteristic subset of rhythms that establish not only the distinctive chronotope and voice of the biblical community within the metropolis, but also embody in their plurality the biblical counterclaim to its own metropolitan status. Even in the case of the city of Jerusalem, however, the polyrhythm of the bible does not match the polyrhythm of any historical moment of the city. The biblical city is the metropolis; historical Jerusalem is always at



Pyper The Biblical Metropolis

43

odds with, or at least aware of, the rhythm of other cities that claim metropolitan status and which impose their own rhythms: Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes, Damascus, Rome. Texts such as Deuteronomy and Nehemiah represent the biblical version of the aspiration to what Lefebvre called ‘isorhythmy’, where the inner and outer rhythms, the public and private rhythms, individual, communal and cosmic rhythms fall into step with each other and coincide. The Jerusalem that is pined for in Jerusalem is a city of a different rhythm to the lived experience of Jerusalem and where the rhythms are set by the ritual of the one true temple. A community in exile from the city can recreate imaginatively its idealized existence in the city through its maintenance, ritually and linguistically, of the rhythms and chronotope of the city, which are the rhythms of the temple as encoded in the biblical texts.11 It would be possible to expand on such theoretical discussions well beyond the scope of this essay, so I want now to turn to the two biblical passages mentioned above, 1 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 26, to illustrate the implications of this way of reading the city in the text. I have chosen two passages where texts themselves appear within the context of the city to show how the two interact to form a particular chronotope and rhythm. Lost and Found in the Temple The first example concerns the narrative of the finding of the scroll of the law in the temple in 2 Kings 22 and 23. What we will be looking for is how time and space relate in this chapter to determine aspects of its poetics and genre as it recounts a story of the text moving in time and space through the city. We need look no further than the first verse of ch. 22 to see these processes at work. The chapter begins with a date, but it is a date related immediately to the city. The beginning and length of his rule in Jerusalem, not his birth or death, are used to locate him in time. His time is city time. Thereafter, the narrative proper begins with an instruction. The king sends Shaphan to the house of the Lord. This implies spatial separation between the King and the temple, although the king’s whereabouts are not specified. All we know is that they are separated.

11.  This point can be extended, of course, to the concern in the Talmud and rabbinic writings more generally with the details and timings of temple rituals that can no longer be performed, but which become ways of patterning a distinctive rhythm of community life for diaspora Jews.

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Once in the temple, Shaphan is to instruct Hilkiah the priest to count the money. This tells us that the temple is where the money is, not with the King, but that fact in itself carries implications of space, time and movement. The money, we learn, has been collected from those who are entering the temple. This means that movement between temple and city is the precondition of the temple’s wealth. In addition, it is the ‘keepers of the threshold’ who have collected it, almost as a price of admission. The writer of Kings is doing our job for us, demonstrating the point that the control of entrances and exits is integral to the life of the city. And what is to be done with the money? It is to be given to the craftsmen who repair the house of the Lord. Even the Lord’s house is subject to the inexorable laws of entropy and the insidious destructiveness of passing time. It too is in need of vigilance and rebuilding if it is not to fall into ruin. The movement of the people in space through this mechanism is used to hold back the effects of time on the Temple. Once Shaphan arrives, Hilkiah gives him the news of the finding of the book of the Law in the temple. In one sense, of course, especially in later understanding, a key function of the temple is to act as the depository of the law, yet the law is lost—in the temple. Is it lost because at one point it was hidden? Shaphan then takes the book from the temple to the king to read it aloud. The king then commands the leading men to enquire about the book from the Lord. This might lead us to expect that they will return to the temple but instead they go to the house of the prophetess Huldah. No specific address is given, but the point is made that they meet her where she lives, which is in the Second Quarter. This is a rare glimpse of Jerusalem beyond the temple and its administrative structure and indeed an indication of how people might find their way around. What do the readers know, or what are they expected to know, of the other three quarters? For an ancient audience, what would this address reveal about the social status and relationships of Huldah? This we cannot now know, but the book, once lost but lodged in the temple, is now travelling round the city. Once she has pronounced on the book’s authority, the king gathers ‘all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem’ (2 Kgs 23.1) and in a body they go up to the house of the Lord, with all the people following. We are to imagine the entire population of the city processing up to the temple. Once there, the king makes a covenant with the Lord. His location is given quite precisely as ‘standing by the pillar’. The consequence of this is a series of expulsions and destructions, which reveal strange things about these spaces. The priests and, interestingly enough, the same ‘keepers of the threshold’ are instructed to remove



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the vessels dedicated to Baal, Asherah and all the host of heaven which are being kept in the temple. Someone, however, presumably the keepers of the threshold, must have let these items into the temple in the first place. The filtering systems at the entrance to the temple are now having to be altered. It turns out, moreover, that the temple has contained not only vessels and images dedicated to other gods. In 23.7 we read, ‘He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where the women did weaving for Asherah’. Whatever the historical accuracy of this kind of description, the temple itself is depicted as a site of a clash of forms of life. The implication is that, under the king’s predecessors, the rhythms of the ritual life of the worshippers of Baal and Asherah were integrated into a polyrhythm in the temple itself. Now, however, they are to be suppressed in favour of the rhythm founded on this old, yet new, book of law. It is significant that the first specific command that Josiah gives to the people is in 2 Kgs 23:21, when he instructs them to keep the Passover. The narrator comments, ‘No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel’. A new rhythm is to be imposed, based not on a cycle of agricultural festivals and natural time, but on a time commemorating God’s drastic intervention and the beginning of a journey, a point of crisis in the life of the community that now lives in the city, a time rooted in memory, but one that also marks a suspended time: that night when all of Israel stayed in their houses, at Moses’ command, with blood on the lintels and doorposts, while the angel of death bestrode the cities, towns and villages of Egypt in search of firstborn sons (Exod. 12.21). Unable to cross their own thresholds, trusting that the lambs’ blood will be enough to prevent the destroyer (who is God’s servant) from entering their space, they awaited with hope and dread the coming of the next morning to see who had survived. The new rhythm of the Passover is quintessentially based on the chronotope of suspense. Josiah’s reforms are described as they spread out from the city to the surrounding towns and country, wreaking destruction on the shrines and idols and gathering the priests to the centre. An intriguing detail, however, is the mention of the ‘shrines of the gates’ under the control of Joshua, the city prefect (2 Kgs 23.8). Yet, for all this effort to re-establish the rhythm of Passover, the verdict of the Lord on the city is unchanged. Josiah is the only king who turned to the Lord with all his might, we are told (23.25), but the city is still doomed to destruction on account of Manasseh: ‘I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My

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name shall be there’ (2 Kgs 23.27). All that Josiah has done has only delayed, not prevented, the destruction of the city and the temple. God’s presence in the city, consolidated through his actions, is a guarantee not of its preservation, but of its downfall. To adopt the language of the Passover narrative, the angel of death this time cannot be prevented from entering even the temple. Space and Time in the Writing of Jeremiah The second passage I want to examine is the account of the fate of the scroll that Jeremiah dictates to Baruch in Jeremiah 36. The book of Jeremiah is not only filled with references to cities and to scenes set within the city, it is self-proclaimedly the book of a city. In 1.17, Jeremiah himself is made into a city—‘a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall’—set in opposition to the land and to Jerusalem. Jeremiah the city is fortified and thereby set up as a new focus for the attack that was directed at Jerusalem. As a result, when Jeremiah is sent in ch. 2, in his first oracle, to proclaim a message to Jerusalem addressed as a single female and as God’s bride who followed him in the wilderness, we have a case where city speaks to city. Yet at this point there is no description of the city, no engagement with its particular form and life, its rhythms or chronotope. As we read Jeremiah, what we find are brief glimpses and allusions, snatched moments of city life and isolated references to spaces and places. We first catch sight of this in 5.1: ‘Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth—so that I may pardon Jerusalem.’ For our present purposes, what this points to immediately is the city as a place of seeking and hiding, of the swift movement of the searcher in the city, looking around as he runs, glimpsing the missing person who is sought around the corners of the city, someone who may be concealed in full view, so to speak, even in the open spaces of the square, having to be sought out in the crowd. It is a rhythm and chronotope of the glance, the search, and the fleeting. The city itself is under scrutiny, however. As 5.6 puts it, ‘A leopard is watching their cities’. The city may provide refuge, but it is also the target of attack and surveillance, potentially a trap or a prison as much as a sanctuary. As a place of refuge, the people it attracts and shelters will be those who have enemies and so the city itself becomes increasingly the focus of those enemies’ attention and scorn. In ch. 7, Jeremiah is found



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at the gate of the temple, pointing out to those who pass through that this spatial transition also demands a change of life. Those who enter the temple need to acknowledge that this different space demands different conduct and a different use of time. Quite explicitly the double edge of the temple as sanctuary but also a trap is brought out in 7.9–11, where those guilty of all sorts of crime come before the Lord and proclaim ‘We are safe!’ Really? The Lord’s temple can be the Lord’s target, Jeremiah warns, recalling the fate of Shiloh to which its ruins bear witness.12 Chapter 7 also contains a rare and momentary glimpse of what seems to be the normal city life of Jerusalem’s inhabitants: ‘Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire and the women knead dough’ (7.17–18). This picture of the cooperative and productive daily routine of ordinary family life in the city is followed by the threat of its complete disruption. All this routine, it turns out, is directed to the production of cakes for the queen of heaven, betokening a rhythm of worship that jars with Yahweh’s rhythms. These motifs come together in Jer. 17.19–27 where Jeremiah is directed to stand by the People’s Gate in order to admonish the people not to carry 12.  In this connection, Jer. 8.14 could not be clearer in making the point that the city as refuge and the city as site of destruction coincide, when a collective voice asks, ‘Why do we sit still? Gather together, let us go into the fortified cities and perish there.’ The association of city, paradoxically, with movement, the impulse to gather, and the dual role of the city as both refuge and tomb are encapsulated here. The further fate of the city itself is set out in verses such as 9.11, where Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals. The walls that protect the city will fall and the jackals, as tokens of the wilderness, will enter to inhabit its desolation. In another vignette in Jer. 9.21, the mourning women recount the destruction of the city: Death has come up into our windows It has entered our palaces To cut off the children from the streets And the young men from the squares. Once again, the penetrability of walls between windows and walls of the palaces is made clear. Chapter 21 is the first reference in the book to Babylon, to the ‘other’ metropolis. Jeremiah reports the Lord as saying that those who are surrounding the city will be brought into its centre by the Lord’s power and he will personally slay its inhabitants, using a plague as a weapon and turning those who survive over to their enemies. The city is the place of danger, not of safety, and the very one who is supposed to be the protector of the city will be its destroyer. The only safety will be to flee (21.9).

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burdens in and out of the city on the Sabbath.13 Here is a prime example of the clash of rhythms. We have a glimpse of the commercial and social life of the city, dependent on a constant flow of goods and people in and out of the gate. The rhythm of daily life and of trade now comes into conflict with the rhythm of the Sabbath, which Jeremiah seeks to impose. He warns that the city’s survival depends on whether or not it successfully integrates this sabbatical rhythm into the patterns of its life.14 It is in ch. 36, however, that Jeremiah receives a word from the Lord which Baruch writes down for him. In 36.5, we hear that Jeremiah is debarred from the temple. The filter prevents the prophet from approaching God. Baruch has to go in his stead ‘on a fast day’ and read to the people and to the pilgrims from Judah. Baruch does so, and the place is specified: ‘in the house of the Lord in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the secretary, which was in the upper court, at the entry of the New Gate of the Lord’s house’. Why such a specific location, we may wonder? Micaiah, Gemeriah’s son, who has heard the reading, then goes down to the king’s house to the secretary’s chamber, where all the officials were sitting. Jehudi son of Nethaniah is then sent to fetch Baruch. The busy movement of text and words between different locations and circles of people continues. Baruch arrives with the scroll and reads it to the officials. Their instruction is ‘Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no-one know where you are’ (Jer. 36.19). The city as the place of hiding is specifically invoked. 13.  Chapter 19 sees Jeremiah making a point at the Potsherd Gate, where he publicly smashes a pot. Again this is a gate, and here the name and the event coincide. The smashing of the pot represents the destruction of the houses of the city. The same message of destruction is repeated in the temple court, prophesying a complete destruction of the city and its towns. Here, however, Jeremiah moves through the cityscape in a group, going from gate to gate and to the temple square. 14.  In Jeremiah 35 there is an odd episode where Jeremiah fetches the whole house of the Rechabites from their house to the house of the Lord. There are remarkably full and tantalizing description of the place that they meet: the chamber of the sons of Hanan, near the chamber of the officials, above the chamber of Maaseiah son of Shallum, keeper of the threshold. Jeremiah is commanded to offer the Rechabites wine and they refuse, citing the rules of their ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab. Their integrity is then held up as an example to the rest of the people. Yet there is a problem. One of the commandments they cite is that they are to dwell in tents all their days. However, here they are in Jerusalem. They explain that they had kept all the commands, but had fled into the city in fear when Nebuchadnezzar invaded. The city is refuge but also danger for these people. For all their faithfulness in refusing wine, they have breached the rule on dwelling in tents, looking for a security that their ancestor never promised them.



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The scroll is then left in the secretary’s chamber while the officials report to the king. Jehudi is dispatched to fetch the scroll, and reads it to the king. Once again, we get an unusually specific indication of both time and place: ‘Now the king was sitting in his winter apartments (it was the ninth month) and there was a fire burning in the brazier before him’ (Jer. 36.21). The conventions of biblical storytelling make it inevitable that the fire mentioned will figure in the narrative. After destroying the scroll in it, in v. 26 the king sends three men, including his own son Jerahmeel, to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch. Tellingly, the verse concludes quite simply, ‘But the Lord hid them’ (my emphasis). God acts to hide his prophet in the city, though we might ask how and why, then, Jeremiah is unable to remain hidden in other parts of the book. In contrast to the story in 2 Kings where a text is lost in the temple but then is used to restructure the rhythms of the city, here the copy of the new text is read and destroyed, but its writer is hidden, able to rewrite the text in 36.32. The text we are reading survives but is scarred by the rhythms of a city under siege, where king and officials conspire, moving between closed rooms, seeking, finding and losing texts that announce the destruction of the city that is their safety. In ch. 37, time has moved on. Zedekiah is now in power and sends messengers to Jeremiah. Verse 4 has an unusual narrative prolepsis: ‘Now Jeremiah was still going in and out among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison’. Jeremiah’s public movements are the focus. The limits of this freedom of movement appear shortly, however. Jeremiah sets out to leave the city for Benjamin, but is arrested at the Benjamin Gate by a watchman who accuses him of deserting to the Chaldeans. This is hardly surprising in the light of the oracles Jeremiah is receiving in which the Lord warns that the temporary retreat of the Chaldeans in the face of the news that the Egyptian army is on the march will not last and the Chaldeans will capture and destroy the city (Jer. 37.6–10). To the king and the other inhabitants of Jerusalem, Jeremiah is a representative of the Chaldeans within the city. Indeed, if Jeremiah is a city, to them he appears to be an avatar of Babylon representing the alien rhythms of the Chaldeans in the life of Jerusalem. The prophet is brought to the officials and imprisoned in ‘the house of the secretary Jonathan’, more specifically in the cistern house (Jer. 37.15). From there the king has him brought secretly to his own house. Even the king has to conceal things and to hide in his own city. Jeremiah pleads to be returned to the court of the guard rather than to the house of Jonathan. In ch. 38, however, a group of his enemies succeeds in having him placed in the cistern belonging to the king’s son Malchiah, which was in the court of the guard.

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Within these chapters, the city appears as a network, not of buildings, but of places of concealment, encounter and capture. We hear little about the cisterns of Jerusalem elsewhere in the Bible. They appear here in the context of hiding and of imprisonment. Jeremiah’s city is a place of secret meetings, of concealment and discovery, of human and divine barriers to movement. It is full of the anxiety and suspense of those who flock to the city for protection but doubt its ability to provide it, especially as that depends on the whether its God directs his gaze and his power outward or inward. If Jeremiah has one message, it is that the safety of the city is an illusion but that the identity of its inhabitants does not depend on either wall or temple. He is the one person, in his view, who is marching to the rhythm of the Lord but to the king and the majority of its inhabitants he represents an intrusion of the rhythm of Babylon into their metropolis. The fractured, contradictory and fragmentary nature of the book, with its rapid changes of subject and its anguished relation to a God who seems bent on the destruction of those who look to him for protection, encodes this fractured and fragmentary city which is a place of closed rooms, cellars which are prison and protection, gates which are guarded by those who cannot tell whether Jeremiah represents Jerusalem or Babylon, insider or outsider, the power of protection or the power of destruction. Yet in both cases, the text bears witness to a new rhythm, a rhythm which is presented as coinciding with the rhythm of the divine, a master rhythm which represents the ideal city as metropolis. The destruction the book foretells if that rhythm is abandoned does ensue. All that is left is the rhythm embodied in the text, which, like Jeremiah’s rewritten scroll, or the rediscovered book of Law, can become the basis for a new city built to that rhythm wherever the community may find itself. Conclusion In both Kings and Jeremiah, then, and I would submit throughout the Bible, the city embodies the chronotope of suspense, a chronotope that relies on walls, doorways, gateways, secret passages, unexpected corners, cellars and attic rooms, and unsuspected surveillance. It needs the anonymity of the crowd where hiding in full view is possible along with the ever-present possibility of recognition. It is full of hope and dread that what is hidden may be at any moment revealed. Its most characteristic sound is of running feet heard in the street; but are they the footsteps of the pursuer or of the pursued, the one who searches or the one who hides, the invading army or the alert guard? Things and people may not be what they seem. Solid walls may promise security, but they can crumble. At a



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glance, a disguise may be penetrated. Unexpected encounters around a corner or in a doorway, unexpected glimpses or words overheard through a window may bring unlooked for and immediate danger or rescue. Suspense and surprise go together. It is in the public spaces and secret crannies of the city that this rhythm of waiting and crisis occurs. No wonder then that this city manifests itself textually in the voice of the omniscient but reticent narrator of the historical books, with their interest in the complex relationship between what is hidden and what is revealed in human character and human affairs. No wonder it is interested in a hidden and revealed God who comes and goes in the narrative with unpredictable consequences. No wonder, too, that it gives rise to the peculiar genre of fractured prophetic books, where clashes and juxtapositions of genre, chronotope and rhythm enact the seeming chaos of the polyrhythmic city with its hopes and its fears, its expectation and experience of sudden disaster and equally unpredictable rescue, books full of corners and encounters, the hidden and the revealed, and the hope and dread of waiting: in short, suspense. To paraphrase Italo Calvino, ‘Suspended over the abyss, the life of [Jerusalem’s] inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long.’ No wonder, finally, that in response to this, the books attest to a peculiar rhythm of the Sabbath and the Jubilee, of festivals tied to the historical and unpredictable event rather than to the cycles of the seasons. Jerusalem as metropolis, the city that sets the rhythm, is manifest in any community that refuses the rhythm of the cities of the world to conform to the rhythm of the book, a rhythm that already knows the cost and fracturing that can come of such clashes. Expelled from the physical city of Jerusalem, the Jewish community in the diaspora maintains a distinctive rhythm of life that stands out against the rhythm of the cities of the Roman Empire and of medieval and modern Europe. Within the metropolis of this world, whether Rome, Berlin, London, New York or Beijing, the Bible constructs the metropolis. Bibliography Bakhtin, M. M. ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope of the Novel’. In The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist, 84–258 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). Basho, Matsuo. Haiku, trans. L. Stryk (London: Penguin, 1985). Berman, M. ‘Falling’. In Restless Cities, ed. M. Beaumont and G. Dart, 123–37 (London: Verso, 2010). Berquist, John, and Claudia Camp, eds. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008).

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Boer, Roland, ed. Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2007). Boes, Tobias. ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the “Individuating Rhythm” of Modernity’. English Literary History 75 (2008): 767–85. Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities, trans. W. Weaver (London: Picador, 1979). Lefebvre, Henri. ‘Rhythmanalysis of Mediterranean Cities’. In Writings On Cities, 228–40 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). Scully, S. Homer and the Sacred City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). Soja, Edward W. Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

Section B

P e r s p e c t i ves f r om C ult ur al G e ogr aphy a n d S pat i a l T he ory

M a p p i n g N a r r at i ve C omple xi ty : T e x t ua l G eog r a p h y , L i te r ary S t udi e s a nd t h e C i t y i n t h e H e br e w B i ble

Bradford A. Anderson

1. Introduction Recent years have witnessed a nascent interest in ‘place’ in the Hebrew Bible, notably in relation to the city. One can point to the flourishing of archaeology, and the quite substantial gains regarding cities that have been made in that field.1 One might also note social-scientific work that has been undertaken which has given us greater understanding on a variety of issues related to urban spaces in the ancient world.2 Or one can highlight the source- and tradition-critical studies that have led to detailed discussions of not only the composition of these texts, but also the rhetoric and ideology that lies behind the depiction of biblical cities.3 Finally, one could speak at great length about critical spatiality, an area of study that has breathed new life into traditional historical and geographical discourses and, more recently, has begun to influence biblical studies.4 1.  See, e.g., Rami Arav, ed., Cities Through the Looking Glass: Essays on the History and Archaeology of Biblical Urbanism (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008). 2.  Examples include C. H. J. de Geus, Towns in Ancient Israel and in the Southern Levant (Leuven: Peeters, 2003); V. Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). 3.  E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte, WMANT 57 (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984). 4.  Key texts include Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith from 1974 edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geography: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Theory (New York: Verso, 1989). In relation to biblical studies, see Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, eds, Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography and Narrative, LHBOTS 481 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007); Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, eds, Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces,

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Meanwhile, great gains have been made in other fields in relation to the study of urbanism, some of which have yet to penetrate biblical studies. One such example can be found in textual geography and literary studies, where the turns toward narrative and spatiality in recent decades have brought these fields into conversation with one another, leading to a fascinating cross-pollination between geography and literature. The developments in these areas of study have remained relatively unexplored in relation to the biblical city. In what follows I will suggest that the insights of textual geography and literary studies are especially promising for the study of the biblical city, offering readers a fresh way to experience the city in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in its canonical shape. So that such reflections might move beyond theory and touch on the particularity of the text, I have chosen to use Bethel as a test case, a place which is found at numerous points throughout the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, next to Jerusalem, Bethel is mentioned more than any other place name in the Hebrew Bible, occurring in texts ranging from the ancestors, to the judges, to the early monarchical period, even (re-)emerging in the post-exilic period. As such, the representation of Bethel seems to be a particularly promising entry point for reflection on this topic.5 With this in mind, the discussion will proceed along three lines. I will begin by highlighting several ways in which interpreters have tried to make sense of the biblical portrayal of Bethel. Secondly, I will explore briefly how contemporary textual geography and literary criticism have read ‘the city’ in literature, particularly throughout modern fiction. Finally, I will return to Bethel, and tease out ways in which the findings from these fields might add another dimension to our understanding of Bethel and the broader notion of the city in the Hebrew Bible. I will suggest that textual geography and literary studies can help broaden the discussion of the biblical city by reminding us of the narrative complexity that is inherent in the depiction of place within the biblical text itself, as well as the complexity of lived experience that such places represent. LHBOTS 490 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008); David M. Gunn and Paula M. McNutt, eds, ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan, JSOTSup 359 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). 5.  Recent book-length studies on Bethel include Jules Francis Gomes, The Sanctuary of Bethel and the Configuration of Israelite Identity, BZAW 368 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006); Klaus Koenen, Bethel: Kult und Theologie, OBO 192 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003); Melanie Köhlmoos, Bet-El—Erinnerungen an Eine Stadt: Perspektiven der Alttestamentlichen Bet-El-Uberlieferung, FAT 49 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).



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2. Reading Bethel Before exploring a number of ways in which Bethel has been interpreted through the years, there are several preliminary issues which need to be addressed, albeit briefly. First, there are several dimensions to the use of the term Bethel in the Hebrew Bible. One might first note that there are likely two distinct locations referred to as Bethel.6 Furthermore, there is strong evidence that Bethel was the name of a deity known extensively in the ancient Near East, and so connections between divine names and place names must be kept in mind.7 The Bethel with which we are concerned in this study is generally equated with Beitin, located some twelve miles north of Jerusalem.8 A more pressing issue for the present study is the identification of Bethel as a sacred site, shrine, or sanctuary, as well as a town or city.9 While there is some debate as to whether or not sanctuaries were located within or outside of ancient cities, there is nevertheless a strong connection between the city and sanctuary, as evidenced elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, notably in the depiction of Jerusalem. Indeed, the biblical text as we have it seems to not differentiate between the two with regard to Bethel, and thus attempts to do so now are quite difficult. Nevertheless, the majority of scholars working on Bethel understand that it was both the location of a sacred site as well as a city, in spite of the peril which using this latter term holds for contemporary scholars. My concern is less with the sacred nature of Bethel than it is with the fact that Bethel is a place of significance throughout Israel’s history. And as the term ‫ עיר‬is used at several points in 6.  General information on Bethel can be found in Harold Brodsky, ‘Bethel (Place)’, ABD 1:710–12; and John C. H. Laughlin, Fifty Major Cities of the Bible Routledge Key Guides (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), 52–54. 7.  For more on this issue, see Edward R. Dalglish, ‘Bethel (Deity)’, ABD 1:706–10. 8.  On debates concerning the location of Bethel, see Anson F. Rainey, ‘The Location of Bethel and Ai’, BAR 14, no. 5 (1988): 67–68; and David Livingston, ‘Further Considerations on the Location of Bethel at el-Bireh’, PEQ 126 (1994): 154–59. More recently, consult Anson F. Rainey, ‘Looking for Bethel: An Exercise in Historical Geography’, in Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever, ed. Seymour Gitin, J. Edward Wright and J. Dessel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 269–73; Koenen, Bethel, 2–25, 27–66. 9.  Brodsky, ‘Bethel’, 710–11; Nadav Na’aman, ‘Beth-aven, Bethel and Early Israelite Sanctuaries’, ZDPV 103 (1987): 13–21.

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connection to Bethel,10 I will follow the scholarly consensus that understands Bethel as a city, however problematic the term. The question with which I am concerned is related to how Bethel, as an important place found throughout the canon of the Hebrew Bible, is to be understood by its readers. How do interpreters make sense of the canonical portrayal of this city which, in terms of references, is second only to Jerusalem? 2.1. Bethel as Object Lesson Perhaps the most common approach to making sense of the biblical portrayal of Bethel can be seen in those readings which take the biblical text at face value; or, more precisely, those which choose highlights from Bethel’s history for didactic purposes. Such readings frequently end up juxtaposing the Pentateuchal and prophetic traditions. A good example of this can be seen in the commentaries of John Calvin. Remarking on Gen. 28.19 and Jacob’s experience at Bethel, Calvin cannot help but draw in the critique of the prophets. He writes, ‘It is to be observed, that when posterity, by a foolish emulation, worshipped God in Beth-el, seeing that it was done without a divine command, the prophets severely inveighed against that worship, calling the name of the place Bethaven, that is, the house of iniquity’.11 Calvin’s anti-Rome inclinations are on full display as he goes on to note how dangerous it is to base one’s assumptions on the traditions of the past without hearing directly from the word of God. And yet, here we also see Calvin’s canonical imagination at work, comparing Bethel in Genesis and the prophets, and noting how far the city would one day fall. The house of God will become a house of iniquity, and is to serve as a warning for the reader. Readings such as those offered by Calvin can be found elsewhere in the history of interpretation. For instance, one nineteenth-century encyclopaedia entry on Bethel comments that ‘During the time that the unlawful services there continued [during the time of Jeroboam and beyond], the old glory of Bethel was eclipsed; and instead of the house of God, which it professed to be, his true worshippers reckoned it to be

10.  Gen. 28.19; Josh. 8.12; Judg. 1.23; 2 Kgs 2.23; 23.17. Setting aside questions concerning dates of composition, it is interesting that these texts refer to Bethel (or Luz) as ‫ עיר‬in the ancestral period, the conquest, the period of the judges and in the monarchical era. 11.  John Calvin, commenting on 28.19, in Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1850), vol. 2.



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the “house of vanity”, or “house of iniquity” ’.12 Or, as one more contemporary commentator puts it, the prophet must change Bethel’s name to Beth-aven, ‘for God cannot own such a place’.13 These examples highlight the tendency to trace the story of Bethel from its high to its low, from a place of glorious divine encounter to one of vanity and iniquity. In all of these instances, Bethel functions as a sort of object lesson, a warning for those who might be similarly inclined to wander from the true faith. 2.2. Bethel as Artifact Another interpretive stream tends to view Bethel as an artifact. Here one ‘digs’ for Bethel, in a literal sense with regard to archaeology, and in a more metaphorical sense with religio-historical endeavours. The archaeological tradition concerning Bethel mirrors significant developments in the field. Early excavations led by James Kelso identified Bethel with Beitin, and seemed to unearth much that would corroborate the biblical story. These findings, however, have been questioned and criticized on a number of levels.14 Not surprisingly, the notion that one can read the biblical story of Bethel as indisputable historiography has been called into question. A similar approach can be seen in the early twentieth-century religiohistorical studies. An example comes from Otto Eissfeldt, who, concerned with how we might untangle the various religio-historical dimensions of Bethel, explored the question of whether Bethel should be understood as a place name or a divine name. He would go on to suggest that it might be best understood as a Canaanite deity later assimilated into Israelite tradition and associated with a sacred site.15

12.  George C. M. Douglas, ‘Bethel’, in Imperial Standard Bible Encyclopedia [1891], ed. Patrick Fairbairn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1957), 1:280–81. Emphasis mine. 13.  Derek Kidner, Love to the Loveless: The Message of Hosea (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 55. 14.  Original archaeological reports are found in James L. Kelso, ‘The Fourth Campaign at Bethel’, BASOR 164 (1961): 5–19; a strong reassessment has been proffered by Israel Finkelstein and Lily Singer-Avits, ‘Reevaluating Bethel’, ZDPV 125 (2009): 33–48. 15.  O. Eissfeldt, ‘Der Gott Bethel’, AR 28 (1930): 1–30; reprinted in Kleine Schriften 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1962), 206–33. For a critique of Eissfeldt’s study, as well as others from this era, see W. J. Dumbrell, ‘The Role of Bethel in the Biblical Narratives from Jacob to Jeroboam I’, AJBA 2, no. 3 (1974–1975): 65–76.

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An interesting shift has occurred here, whereby the questions raised by Calvin and others are eschewed and instead issues behind the text are given almost exclusive attention by archaeologists and commentators in an attempt to give meaning to Bethel. If Bethel is to be understood, it is by identifying its true history. 2.3. Bethel as Suppressed Voice This idea that there is something happening in Bethel’s story other than what is laid out in the biblical text continues to hold sway. More recent scholarship, however, has focused on larger tradition- and source-critical questions. Here the emphasis has shifted to Bethel’s subjugation to Jerusalem and the dynamics of the northern and southern kingdoms. The general thrust of this approach is that Bethel’s importance was subsumed by the powers- and editors-that-be in Judah, so as to give credence to Jerusalem and the southern traditions in the final canonical shape of the material. There are two central elements to this line of thought. The first is the recognition that Bethel played an important role in Jeroboam’s Israel—politically, religiously, and socially.16 And the second element is the assumption of the Jacob traditions’ provenance in the northern kingdom.17 When these two concepts are brought together, the conclusion is drawn that the biblical texts concerning Bethel, as we have them, have been incorporated into Judah’s story, and thus reshaped and retold.18 As such, while Bethel was formerly very important, it has been silenced and subjugated by the southern traditions, which wished to preserve the 16.  A. Alt, ‘Die Wahlfahrt von Sichem nach Bethel’, in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel, I (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1953), 79–89; Baruch Halpern, ‘Levitic Participation in the Reform Cult of Jeroboam I’, JBL 95 (1976): 33. 17.  See the arguments and summaries in Blum, Vätergeschichte, 180–90; and David M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 264–71. 18.  Carr, Fractures, 303–5. Implicit and explicit in many such studies is a rivalry between Jerusalem and Bethel which has shaped the way in which the Bethel traditions have been incorporated. On this, see Joseph Blenkinsopp, ‘Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschitz and Joseph Blenkinsopp (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 102–5; P. R. Davies, ‘The Trouble with Benjamin’, in Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. R. Rezetko, T. H. Lim and W. B. Aucker, VTSup 113 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 111; and Diana Edelman, ‘Did Saulide–Davidic Rivalry Resurface in the Early Persian Period?’, in The Land That I Will Show You: Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honor of J. Maxwell Miller, ed. J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 69–91.



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importance of Jerusalem. It is this suppression of Bethel that has captured the imagination of recent Bethel-related studies. A few examples are worth highlighting. In a thorough examination of Bethel in the Persian period which makes the case that Bethel continued to play a vital role in the exilic and post-exilic eras, Ernst Axel Knauf comes to the conclusion that, ‘The intensity of the anti-Bethel propaganda is most conceivable under a constellation in which the existing sanctuary at Bethel provided an obstacle to the restoration of Jerusalem’.19 How, then, do we account for the relatively positive portrayal of Bethel in Genesis? This, according to Knauf, refers to a reconciliation between Jerusalem and Bethel, after Bethel’s traditions were incorporated into the southern traditions, and Bethel was no longer a threat.20 Victor Matthews offers another take on Bethel, exploring what he calls ‘geographic reiteration’, a scribal strategy which attempts to ‘take advantage of the authority associated with sites and, in some cases, uses this to manipulate the story or the memory of events’.21 His conclusions, however, are similar: Regardless of the reality of Bethel’s history, it is clear that the Deuteronomistic scribal strategy of geographic reiteration has been applied quite effectively in the biblical narrative to redefine the story of the site. The political and priestly forces engaged in this process first created a traditional authority for the site…and then used that authority to eliminate Bethel’s significance when it became necessary or useful to do so. As a result, Bethel never again would be able to overshadow Jerusalem or any other cultic center.22

Recent monographs on Bethel, while coming from a variety of perspectives and approaches, again offer remarkably similar conclusions. Gomes, for example, notes at the end of his study that, ‘The traditions at Bethel played such a significant role in the configuration of Israelite identity that Judah sought to appropriate them and the shrine where they were housed’.23 19.  E. A. Knauf, ‘Bethel: The Israelite Impact on Judean Language and Literature’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 291–349, here at 328. 20.  Knauf, ‘Bethel’, 329. A similar reconstruction is found in the work of Philip Davies (‘The Trouble with Benjamin’, 111) as well as Nadav Na’aman (‘The Israelite-Judahite Struggle for the Patrimony of Ancient Israel’, Bib 91 [2010]: 1–23). 21.  Victor H. Matthews, ‘Back to Bethel: Geographical Reiteration in Biblical Narrative’, JBL 128 (2009): 149–65, at 150. 22.  Matthews, ‘Back to Bethel’, 165. 23.  Gomes, Sanctuary at Bethel, 223. Similar if nuanced theories are put forward by Koenen (Bethel, 195–210) and Köhlmoos (Bet-El, 304–17).

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As we can see, a multitude of contemporary readings of Bethel make the case that Bethel’s voice has been silenced and its traditions appropriated, though a few positive vestiges remain which are reminders of how significant Bethel once was. 2.4. Evaluation of Approaches Before proceeding, a few evaluative comments might be in order with regard to these approaches to reading Bethel. First, the ‘object lesson’ approach as exemplified by Calvin has much to commend itself for our present concerns, not least of which is its desire to read the Bethel texts canonically. And yet, several issues are worth noting. To begin with, rarely do these readings engage with the entire canonical picture of Bethel. Rather, they take snapshots, often of Bethel at what are deemed to be its high and low. These, then, become the measuring sticks by which Bethel is considered. Secondly, and following on from this, these interpretations can strike the reader as rather flat renderings of what is no doubt a complex subject. While these readings may be effective in their desired didactic aims, they do not do justice to the complexity of the texts in question. The strength of the ‘artifact’ and the ‘suppressed voice’ approaches is precisely this recognition that the biblical traditions are multifaceted and intricate. Indeed, the readings noted above have done much to give voice to Bethel once again. While there are various points of contention that could be raised in relation to these readings,24 one particularly troubling aspect is that they leave little room for ‘positive place relations’ between the reader and the text, to adapt a phrase from Wesley Kort.25 That is, these readings seem to assume, much like the ‘object lesson’ interpretations noted above, that Bethel’s story is a negative and tragic one. The 24.  For instance, one might note that these readings are in many ways trying to undo the ideologies of the text as we now have it, only to encounter further ideologies as they dig. Thus, while Judean editors may have appropriated and changed northern stories to suit their own, it is likely that Jeroboam’s choice of Bethel ‘was essentially a conservative and populist programme’ (Gomes, Sanctuary at Bethel, 60). Or, as Carr puts it, what we seem to have in the Bethel traditions is ‘the mixture of the ideology of divinely chosen power in the earlier, Northern Jacob-Joseph story and the ideology of dynastically legitimate power in the Southern succession narrative’ (Carr, Fractures, 304). As such, there are ideologies that go all the way down. This is not to say that such ideologies are not worth uncovering, but a reminder that all writing (and reading) is situated. 25.  Wesley A. Kort, Place and Space in Modern Fiction (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004).



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tragedy in these readings, however, is not moral and spiritual failure, but historical, textual, and ideological suppression. Thus, the questions I would like to explore in what follows are these: do readers of the Bible have options for understanding Bethel beyond those outlined above? Does one need to see Bethel as an object lesson, or inaccurate historiography, or as a marginalized voice? And does our reading of Bethel necessarily need to be negative and tragic, either in the religious or ideological sense? 3. The City: Insights from Textual Geography and Literary Studies As a way of moving this discussion forward, it may be instructive to engage the fields of textual geography and literary studies. Not surprisingly, those working at the intersection of geography and literature have asked similar questions arising out of similar concerns to those I have noted here. I begin with textual geography26 and the work of Timothy Oakes.27 Looking at the geography of modernity, Oakes comments that much contemporary geography interested in modernity is concerned with what he labels ‘place-as-site-of-resistance’ narratives; that is, there is a desire to recover how places have resisted dominant ideologies. Oakes’s concern with this trend, however, is that it has the tendency of minimizing the contradictions and ambivalences of lived experience.28 He writes: My objective…is not to deny the importance of place as a terrain of struggle and resistance. Such a claim would fly in the face of some of the best work being done in human geography today. Rather, I want to recover a less essential notion of place not necessarily allied with the geopolitics of resistance but as an unstable terrain which in fact problematizes not only hegemony and domination but resistance as well.29 26.  Helpful entry points into this arena include Sheila Hones, ‘Text As It Happens: Literary Geography’, Geography Compass 3 (2009): 1–6; Angharad Saunders, ‘Literary Geography: Reforging the Connections’, Progress in Human Geography 34 (2010): 436–52; M. Brosseau, ‘Geography’s Literature’, Progress in Human Geography 18 (1994): 333–53; and the collection of essays in Geography and Literature: A Meeting of the Disciplines, ed. E. W. Mallory and P. Simpson-Housley (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987). 27.  Timothy Oakes, ‘Place and the Paradox of Modernity’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87 (1997): 509–31. 28.  Oakes, ‘Place’, 524. 29.  Oakes, ‘Place’, 525.

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In order to flesh this out, Oakes turns to literary works of the modern period. Literature, Oakes argues, allows for a robust representation of the paradox and contradictions experienced in places and cities.30 Exploring the works of Goethe, Thomas Hardy and Raymond Williams, Oakes sheds light on the fact that, for these writers, ‘place’ functions to highlight the inherent tensions in modernity. Indeed, modernity ‘yields a dynamic tension between the exhilarating possibilities of modernization and a profound sense of loss… Place, then, can be read as a geographical expression of modernity’s paradox.’31 How does this relate to the broader issue of understanding the city with which we are here concerned? Oakes comments that: Place is indeed a terrain of struggle. But the struggles over place cannot be conceived simply in terms of resisting historical and spatial hegemonies. To regard place as an ultimate terrain of emancipatory subjectivity is to deny the inherent paradox upon which the struggle to claim ourselves as subjects (rather than objects) of history and spatiality rests in the first place.

Place, he concludes, ‘fundamentally represents a geography of modernity in all its contradictory richness’.32 Oakes, it turns out, is not alone in drawing these conclusions. Indeed, if one turns to literary studies which have investigated the role of place, particularly the city, in literature, one finds striking resonance with his claims. Diana Festa-McCormick, in her study The City As Catalyst, notes that the paradox of cities can be seen throughout modern literature, and indeed stretches back to ancient literary cities as well.33 Drawing on Balzac, Proust, Rilke and others, she notes that the city in literature is a place of hope, optimism and beauty, but also profound failure, corruption and disillusionment. She writes, ‘The same novelists who have cursed the French capital as an arena for ferocious ambitions, Balzac for instance, are also those who have felt and conveyed, in a rich palette of adjectives

30.  ‘[T]he open-ended and complex quality of literary representation allows the crisis-prone interactions between space, human agency, and abstract historical processes to come sharply into focus in a way social science is too often unable to match’ (Oakes, ‘Place’, 510). 31.  Oakes, ‘Place’, 511. 32.  Oakes, ‘Place’, 520. 33.  Diana Festa-McCormick, The City as Catalyst: A Study of Ten Novels (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1979), 9–15.



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and images, the alluring beauty of Paris’.34 She goes on to note that, from a narratological perspective, the city is more than mere background, it is a catalyst for the story itself: ‘It serves as a repository for miseries, hardships, frustrations, but also for ever-renascent hopes’.35 In the introduction to the collection of essays in the volume Writing the City, Peter Preston and Paul Simpson-Housley describe the city as a ‘vessel, filled with human experience’.36 Looking at the history of the city throughout literature, they cite the ambivalence regarding urban spaces which permeates the literary canon, and the full range of ways in which such spaces are portrayed. The essays in this volume give examples of this complexity in the forms in which Belfast, Manchester, Helsinki and Montreal are conceived in literature. The editors write, ‘Cities [are] more than their built environment, more than a set of economic or class relationships; they are also an experience to be lived, suffered, undergone’.37 The list goes on. Richard Lehan structures his entire book, The City in Literature, around the paradox and ambivalence of the literary city, exploring the works of Dickens, Stoker, Conrad, Joyce and Pynchon.38 Robert Alter’s Imagined Cities explores how nineteenth- and twentiethcentury authors portray the city, notably Flaubert, Dickens, Woolf, Joyce and Kafka, uncovering how cities evoke a multiplicity of experience, full of paradox and complexity.39 It is clear, then, that as geography has begun to pay attention to texts, and as literary studies has turned its attention to the city, and to the notion of place more generally, what these fields are discovering is a rich and varied complexity. Of course there are material realities to be uncovered, and site-of-resistance narratives to be explored. But cities remain, as Oakes points out, places of ‘contradictory richness’. To put it another way, we might say that literature reminds us that the city is the setting of lived experience in all of its complexity.

34.  McCormick, City as Catalyst, 13. 35.  McCormick, City as Catalyst, 15. 36.  Peter Preston and Paul Simpson-Housley, eds, Writing the City: Eden, Babylon, and the New Jerusalem (London: Routledge, 1994), 1. 37.  Preston and Simpson-Housley, eds, Writing the City, 2. 38.  Richard Lehan, The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), xiii–xv. 39.  Robert Alter, Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), ix–xii.

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4. Bethel as Place of Complex Lived Experience How might these insights from geography and literary studies relate to our present task? What might it look like to conceive of the diverse Bethel traditions as a story, read with an eye toward literary sensibilities? I offer here a brief attempt at such a reading.40 The story of Bethel begins quite prominently, and with much promise.41 It figures in the early travels of Abram, as he builds an altar near Bethel, and begins to stake out the land of promise (Gen. 12.8; 13.3). Perhaps the defining moment, however, comes in Genesis 28, when Jacob encounters God at the place known as Luz, and renames the site as Beth-el, the house of God. It is here that God will later tell Jacob to settle, where he will build an altar and where Jacob’s own name will be changed to Israel (Gen. 31.13; 35.1–15).42 While Bethel is absent for the rest of the Pentateuch, it shows up again in the conquest of Canaan, where it is captured by the Israelites and given to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh. 12.16; 16.1; 18.13). 40.  There is not, of course, a one-for-one correspondence when applying aspects of these fields to the present investigation of Bethel. To begin with, the modern city is quite different from the ancient one, and the issues which it embodies are necessarily distinctive. Moreover, as was noted earlier, the portrayal of Bethel in the canon is a collection from various sources, written and redacted by countless people, over a very long period of time. William Millar has helpfully framed this issue: ‘A recurring question for the biblical interpreter is what is the relationship between the narrative space created by the artist, and the social world space of that artist and ancient and modern readers of those texts?’ (William R. Millar, ‘A Bakhtinian Reading of Narrative Space and Its Relationship to Social Space’, in Berquist and Camp, eds, Constructions of Space I, 129–40, at 134). And yet, as Claudia Camp has reminded us, stories create worlds. And if a narrative is taken seriously, the world which it creates is not simply something to get behind or unmask, but is itself the site of ‘lived’ experience (Claudia V. Camp, ‘Storied Space, Or, Ben Sira “Tells” a Temple’, in Gunn and McNutt, eds, ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds, 64–80). I would suggest that the final form of the canon creates a narrative world as well, and such a world is worth exploring. There are of course a number of reasons why one might read the text of the Hebrew Bible synchronically—theological, literary and reception history interests are but a few. I will not repeat all of the arguments here, but will assume that the text can indeed be read this way if one so chooses. I will also suppose that the Hebrew Bible can be read as a story, even in non-narrative aspects. It is an understanding that diverse and disparate texts have been collected and shaped and therefore can be seen, in both intentional and unintentional ways, as part of a larger narrative. 41.  See the helpful summary of the following texts in Matthews, ‘Back to Bethel’, 157–59. 42.  Nahum M. Sarna, ‘Excursus 22: Bethel’, in Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia, PA: JPS, 1989), 398–400; Dumbrell, ‘The Role’, 65–76.



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Up until this point, then, Bethel is a prominent site, the place of important encounters in the land of promise and with the God who has called Israel’s ancestors. With Judges, however, the story becomes more complicated. To begin with, Joseph’s tribe will recapture Bethel, and so it seems the Benjaminites have lost the city (Judg. 1.22–26). And yet, it remains an important place associated with hearing from God. Deborah’s palm is located near Bethel (Judg. 4.5), and at several points in Judges 20–21 people go to Bethel to seek guidance from God or to perform religious rituals (Judg. 20.18, 26–28; 21.2). The intricate role of Bethel in the pre-monarchical period carries over into the transitional period and the early monarchy itself. In 1 Samuel, we read that Bethel is on Samuel’s judging circuit (7.16), and a few chapters later we are told that men going to God at Bethel give Saul gifts as a sign of his chosen royal status.43 During the reigns of David and Solomon, however, Bethel is not mentioned at all, surely a sign of its marginalization, both political and cultic, during the centralization of the kingdom to Jerusalem. The next mention of Bethel comes as the kingdom has divided, and Jeroboam chooses Bethel (along with Dan) as one of his royal shrines, erecting there a golden calf image and instituting cultic festivals (1 Kgs 12.29–33). This is swiftly followed by the story of the prophet from Judah who denounces the altar at Bethel, and the prediction of its future demise (1 Kings 13). Not surprisingly, from Jeroboam forward, the story of Bethel is in general negatively construed. Indeed, it is in the prophetic material of this period that we encounter perhaps the harshest sentiment towards Bethel, particularly in Hosea and Amos. Both books speak of coming punishment for Bethel (Hos. 10.5–13; Amos 3.14; 5.5–6), and both also speak about Bethel with rhetorical flourish: Amos urges the Israelites to ‘come to Bethel and transgress’ (Amos 4.4), while Hosea refers to Bethel as Beth-aven, ‘house of iniquity’ (Hos. 4.15), a stinging indictment to those known to be from the ‘house of God’.44 This is not the entire picture, 43.  It is frequently asserted that Bethel was a geographic, cultic and political centre of the land at the time of Saul. See, e.g., Matthews, ‘Back to Bethel’, 161; and Gomes, Sanctuary at Bethel, 135–36. 44.  Pfeiffer sees Hosea’s ‘original’ message as confronting the corrupt state in its totality; the specific disregard for northern themes was added later by deuteronomistic editors, an argument similar to the ‘suppressed voice of Bethel’ readings noted above. See Henrik Pfeiffer, Das Heiligtum von Bethel im Spiegel des Hoseabuches, FRLANT 183 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999). Gomes, meanwhile, sees the critique of Bethel by Amos and Hosea as essentially social and economic (Gomes, Sanctuary at Bethel, 181–82; cf. 143–58). Barstad suggests that Beth Aven in Hosea

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however; Bethel is noted as part of Elijah and Elisha’s itinerary,45 as well as being the site for a school of prophets (2 Kings 2), suggesting a unique, and at times quite positive, relationship with the prophetic traditions, even after the division of the kingdom. Bethel continues to be a place of prominence (even if construed negatively) up until the fall of the northern kingdom to Assyria (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 10.29). Even then, however, Bethel remains an interesting, if complex, place. For instance, when Samaria is resettled, the new residents are unaware of what the local deity requires, and so a priest is sent to Bethel to teach the people how to worship YHWH (2 Kgs 17.28). The narrative progresses, assuming Bethel’s reincorporation into Judah (see 2 Chr. 13.19), and we read that Josiah destroys the altar and high place of Bethel as part of his reforms (2 Kings 23). While many who comment on Bethel stop with Josiah’s reform, or with the harsh denouncements of Amos and Hosea, several postexilic texts do mention Bethel;46 Ezra and Nehemiah both refer to people from Bethel who returned from the exile (Ezra 2.28; Neh. 7.32, though they offer differing numbers), and Nehemiah (11.31) notes that descendants from Benjamin lived in Bethel amongst other places.47 Finally, Zech. 7.2 makes mention of a delegation from Bethel that comes to Jerusalem with a question concerning fasting regulations.48 And it is here, much like the Hebrew Bible’s story of Israel more generally, that Bethel’s story comes to an abrupt, yet open-ended, conclusion. In light of my previous comments on how Bethel has been interpreted, as well as the insights of literary studies on the city, let me offer two points for reflection. may not be derogatory, but in reference to the town that went by this name, though this is a minority view. Hans M. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos: Studies in the Preaching of Am 2:7b–8, 4:1–13, 5.1–27, 6:4–7, 8:14, VTSup 34 (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 50. 45.  Burnett argues that the language used here is implicitly negative. See Joel S. Burnett, ‘ “Going Down” to Bethel: Elijah and Elisha in the Theological Geography of the Deuteronomistic History’, JBL 129 (2010): 281–97. 46.  On the general importance of Bethel in the Babylonian period and beyond, see Blenkinsopp, ‘Bethel’, 93–107. 47.  On post-exilic returnees to Bethel and the problem of numbers in Ezra and Nehemiah, see Knauf, ‘Bethel’, 301–2; cf. Gomes, Sanctuary at Bethel, 192–99. 48.  There are several interpretive difficulties in this text, not least of which is the question of whether Bethel refers to a) the place sending a delegation; b) a personal name; or c) the place to which a delegation is sent. For more on this, see Knauf, ‘Bethel’, 306 n. 77; cf. J. Philip Hyatt, ‘A Neo-Babylonian Parallel to Bethel-SarEser, Zech 7 2’, JBL 56 (1937): 387–94.



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To begin with, while one could minimize its significance as simply the result of a complex literary and tradition history, there is nonetheless a certain narrative complexity to Bethel’s story in its canonical form. Contemporary scholarship is more than willing to detect multiple dimensions of complexity: layers of source and tradition development, intertextual and allusion-based complexity and untidy historiography. But something that is often neglected is the narrative complexity of the story as it has been received. It begins with the chosen ancestors and the chosen land. More than anything, Bethel is a reminder of the experience of God. Indeed, Bethel is the house of God, a place of encounter with the divine. But from these beginnings, Bethel’s story is also a reminder to Israel that their land is not their own; the references to Luz prompt reflection on the fact that Bethel has a back story, and that the land, much like Israel’s own election, is a gift not to be taken for granted. As the story progresses, we see the full range of lived experience running through Bethel’s story. Bethel is part of the conquest of the land of Canaan, but will eventually be lost, rendering it the site of continued conflict. Even its location adds complication. Since it is located at the centre of the land, it will be on the fault lines of the divided kingdom. And while at certain points it seems to be a hub of prophetic activity, it is also the recipient of stringent prophetic castigation. It is recognized as a center of cultic and religious importance, but is also chastised as a house of iniquity. It appears to be an important place in the transition from judges to the monarchy, but also factors heavily in the division of the kingdom and the establishment of rival centres of power. Later, Bethel will be purged by Josiah and seems to disappear altogether, only to resurface however humbly after the exile, searching with the rest of the people as to how to live faithfully in a new era. Taken together, the story of Bethel is a complex one that reflects a broad spectrum of lived experience. This leads to a second point for reflection, which is that reading Bethel’s story in this way reminds us that Bethel need not only be understood in a negative, tragic light. Rather, Bethel’s story in many ways mirrors the larger story of Israel. From the foundational patriarchal journeys and experiences to the conquest of the land; from the hope and promise of a developing monarchy and nation to the ensuing strife and pain; from the ecstasy of sacred religious experiences to the sting of prophetic reprimand; from the questions raised by destruction to those brought about by life in post-exilic Yehud: Bethel is the site for exactly these types of meaningful experiences, painful losses and searching questions, issues that typify the life of the people of Israel as a whole.

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5. Conclusion In conclusion, there are various ways to ‘read’ Bethel: as an object lesson for the faithful; as an artifact to be unearthed; and as a marginalized and suppressed voice to be rediscovered. Another way to understand Bethel, and the biblical city more generally, is as a place of complex lived experience in the world of the text. Spatial theory has reminded us that places are more than backgrounds, more than locations—they are complex, dynamic and relational configurations that are lived in and experienced. Reading the city in the Hebrew Bible as part of a larger story, I would suggest, allows for us to see the complexity of this ‘lived experience’ which is inherent in the biblical text. This is not to deny the marginalization of places and voices such as Bethel, but a recognition that alongside this there exists a certain narrative complexity that permeates the canon. The biblical narrative and the world which these texts create invites the reader to experience the hope and promise, the paradox and pain, that is intrinsic in the stories of cities such as Bethel. Thus, the study of the city in the Hebrew Bible has much to learn from the study of the city in textual geography and literary studies. If Joyce’s Dublin, and Proust’s Paris, and Dostoyevsky’s St. Petersburg are cities that embody the involvedness of lived experience, surely the same is worth exploring with regard to the biblical city. Together, these tools may help us more fully appreciate the ways in which cities in the Hebrew Bible, much like their modern counterparts, ‘[are] more than their built environment, more than a set of economic or class relationships; they are also an experience to be lived, suffered, undergone’.49 Bibliography Alt, A. ‘Die Wahlfahrt von Sichem nach Bethel’, in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel, I, 79–89 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1953). Alter, Robert. Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). Arav, Rami, ed. Cities Through the Looking Glass: Essays on the History and Archaeology of Biblical Urbanism (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008). Barstad, Hans M. The Religious Polemics of Amos: Studies in the Preaching of Am 2:7b–8, 4:1–13, 5:1–27, 6:4–7, 8:14, VTSup 34 (Leiden: Brill, 1984). Berquist, Jon L., and Claudia V. Camp, eds. Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography and Narrative, LHBOTS 481 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007). Berquist, Jon L., and Claudia V. Camp, eds. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, LHBOTS 490 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008).

49.  Preston and Simpson-Housley, Writing the City, 2.



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Blenkinsopp, Joseph. ‘Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period’. In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschitz and Joseph Blenkinsopp, 93–107 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003). Blum, E. Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte, WMANT 57 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984). Brodsky, Harold. ‘Bethel (Place)’. ABD 1:710–12. Brosseau, M. ‘Geography’s Literature’. Progress in Human Geography 18 (1994): 333–53. Burnett, Joel S. ‘ “Going Down” to Bethel: Elijah and Elisha in the Theological Geography of the Deuteronomistic History’. JBL 129 (2010): 281–97. Calvin, John. Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, Vol. 2, trans. John King (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1850). Camp, Claudia V. ‘Storied Space, Or, Ben Sira “Tells” a Temple’. In ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan, ed. David M. Gunn and Paula M. McNutt, 64–80, JSOTSup 359 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). Carr, David M. Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996). Dalglish, Edward R. ‘Bethel (Deity)’. ABD 1:706–10. Davies, P. R. ‘The Trouble with Benjamin’. In Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. R. Rezetko, T. H. Lim and W. B. Aucker, 93–111, VTSup 113 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). de Geus, C. H. J. Towns in Ancient Israel and in the Southern Levant (Leuven: Peeters, 2003). Douglas, George C. M. ‘Bethel’. In Imperial Standard Bible Encyclopedia [1891], ed. Patrick Fairbairn, 1:280–81 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1957). Dumbrell, W. J. ‘The Role of Bethel in the Biblical Narratives from Jacob to Jeroboam I’. AJBA 2, no. 3 (1974–1975): 65–76. Edelman, Diana. ‘Did Saulide–Davidic Rivalry Resurface in the Early Persian Period?’ In The Land That I Will Show You: Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honor of J. Maxwell Miller, ed. J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham, 69–91 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Eissfeldt, O. ‘Der Gott Bethel’. AR 28 (1930): 1–30. Festa-McCormick, Diana. The City as Catalyst: A Study of Ten Novels (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1979). Finkelstein, Israel, and Lily Singer-Avits. ‘Reevaluating Bethel’. ZDPV 125 (2009): 33–48. Fritz, V. The City in Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). Gomes, Jules F. The Sanctuary of Bethel and the Configuration of Israelite Identity, BZAW 368 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006). Gunn, David M., and Paula M. McNutt, eds. ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan, JSOTSup 359 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). Halpern, Baruch. ‘Levitic Participation in the Reform Cult of Jeroboam I’. JBL 95 (1976): 31–42. Hones, Sheila. ‘Text as It Happens: Literary Geography’. Geography Compass 3 (2009): 1–6. Hyatt, J. Philip. ‘A Neo-Babylonian Parallel to Bethel-Sar-Eser, Zech 72’. JBL 56 (1937): 387–94. Kelso, James L. ‘The Fourth Campaign at Bethel’. BASOR 164 (1961): 5–19.

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Kidner, Derek. Love to the Loveless: The Message of Hosea (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1981). Knauf, E. A. ‘Bethel: The Israelite Impact on Judean Language and Literature’. In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming, 291–49 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006). Koenen, Klaus. Bethel: Kult und Theologie, OBO 192 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003). Köhlmoos, Melanie. Bet-El—Erinnerungen an Eine Stadt: Perspektiven der Alttestament­ lichen Bet-El-Uberlieferung, FAT 49 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). Kort, Wesley A. Place and Space in Modern Fiction (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004). Laughlin, John C. H. Fifty Major Cities of the Bible, Routledge Key Guides (Oxford: Routledge, 2006). Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space [1974], trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991). Lehan, Richard. The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998). Livingston, David. ‘Further Considerations on the Location of Bethel at el-Bireh’. PEQ 126 (1994): 154–59. Mallory, E. W., and P. Simpson-Housley, eds. Geography and Literature: A Meeting of the Disciplines (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987). Matthews, Victor H. ‘Back to Bethel: Geographical Reiteration in Biblical Narrative’. JBL 128 (2009): 149–65. Millar, William R. ‘A Bakhtinian Reading of Narrative Space and Its Relationship to Social Space’. In Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, 129–40, LHBOTS 481 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007). Na’aman, Nadav. ‘Beth-aven, Bethel and Early Israelite Sanctuaries’. ZDPV 103 (1987): 13–21. Na’aman, Nadav. ‘The Israelite-Judahite Struggle for the Patrimony of Ancient Israel’. Bib 91 (2010): 1–23. Oakes, Timothy. ‘Place and the Paradox of Modernity’. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87 (1997): 509–31. Pfeiffer, Henrik. Das Heiligtum von Bethel im Spiegel des Hoseabuches, FRLANT 183 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999). Preston, Peter, and Paul Simpson-Housley, eds. Writing the City: Eden, Babylon, and the New Jerusalem (London: Routledge, 1994). Rainey, Anson F. ‘The Location of Bethel and Ai’. BAR 14, no. 5 (1988): 67–68. Rainey, Anson F. ‘Looking for Bethel: An Exercise in Historical Geography’. In Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever, ed. Seymour Gitin, J. Edward Wright and J. Dessel, 269–73 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007). Sarna, Nahum M. Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: JPS, 1989). Saunders, Angharad. ‘Literary Geography: Reforging the Connections’. Progress in Human Geography 34 (2010): 436–52. Soja, Edward W. Postmodern Geography: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Theory (New York: Verso, 1989).

‘ A L a n d wi t h F i n e L a r ge C i ti e s ’: M a p p i ng t h e L a n d s c a p es of D e ut e r onomy

Hilary F. Marlow

Introduction Many biblical texts, particularly narrative ones, pay great attention to physical locations and geographical descriptions. The setting of the story and the space that its characters inhabit are regarded as an integral part of the plot and provide an important frame of reference through which to read the text. Recent forays into critical spatiality by biblical scholars have produced a wealth of interesting and hitherto unnoticed perspectives on such spatial and geographical aspects of biblical texts. Most notable with regard to the Hebrew Bible is the work of Jon Berquist and Claudia Camp and the Constructions of Ancient Space Seminar run jointly by SBL and AAR from 2000–2005.1 Drawing heavily on the work of the spatial theorists and philosophers Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja, the Seminar has made two significant contributions to biblical studies. The first is to expose the primacy in the reading of texts that is so often given to rigidly constructed historical and social narratives, resulting in a ‘historical hermeneutic that has silenced, marginalised and excluded consideration of space’.2 Rather, as Soja himself argues, the relationship between historical, social and spatial dimensions should be regarded as

1.  Claudia V. Camp and Jon L. Berquist, eds, Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative, LHBOTS 481 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007); Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, LHBOTS 490 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). 2.  Matthew Sleeman, Geography and the Ascension Narrative in Acts, SNTSMS 146 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 23.

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complex and intertwined.3 The second is to highlight the notion of space as a socially constructed phenomenon, one that carries with it all manner of ideological and idealized expectations. This article will explore the concept of urban space in the book of Deuteronomy, focussing especially on the narrative frameworks that surround the legal material of chs. 12–26. It will examine the distinct ways in which the urban landscape is depicted in contradistinction from the rural one and explore the relationship between cities and the land. However, in the light of the fact that the work of spatial theorists has come under severe criticism from academic geographers, the essay will not primarily seek to apply the critical theories of Lefebvre or Soja to biblical texts. This is an endeavour that is not without its difficulties, as noted by Christopher Meredith,4 a fact that goes unnoticed by much of the biblical scholarship on spatiality.5 As geographer Clive Barnett observes with regard to Soja, the high level of ‘ontological’ generality with which Soja presents his theoretical vision bears no relation to the ‘rambling concreteness’ of his example cities, Amsterdam and Los Angeles, leading to conclusions that ‘verge on the banal and meaningless’.6 Soja’s style is at times pretentious and incomprehensible,7 a tendency that is replicated in some of the biblical scholarship that draws on his work.8 Moreover, the ambiguity surrounding his tripartite distinction between Firstspace, Secondspace and Thirdspace, and in particular the slipperiness of the 3.  Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-andImagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 3; see also Soja, Postmodern Geogra­ phies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: Verso, 1989). 4.  Christopher Meredith, Journeys in the Songscape: Space in the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013), 6–15. 5.  See Doreen B. Massey, Space, Place and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 212–24; Alan Latham, ‘Edward Soja’, in Key Thinkers on Space and Place, ed. Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin and Gill Valentine (London: Sage Publications, 2004), 269–74; Clive Barnett, ‘Review of Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places by Edward W. Soja’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22, no. 4 (1997): 529–30. Neither of the volumes edited by Camp and Berquist, nor Sleeman’s work on Acts, engage with these (or other) critical reviews of Soja. 6.  Barnett, Review of Soja. 7.  Massey comments on Soja’s Postmodern Geographies that ‘the taste this book left me with was one of pomposity rather than an attempt to communicate’ (Massey, Space, Place and Gender, 118). 8.  See, e.g., some of the theoretical essays in Camp and Berquist, Constructions of Space I, 1–84.



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term Thirdspace, is so great that these are conceptualized in varying ways by different biblical scholars, leading to the impression that Thirdspace can mean whatever one wants it to mean.9 A simpler and more productive approach is to use the distinction made by a number of human geographers between space and place, and especially the notion of place as the human-constructed meaning associated with specific spaces.10 For geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, whose pioneering studies on place have been influential in the development of postmodern geography, ‘[p]lace incarnates the experiences and aspirations of a people. Place is not only a fact to be explained in the broader frame of space, but it is also a reality to be clarified and understood from the perspective of the people who have given it meaning.’11 But, adds Tuan, it is a contested space, one that ‘must be reconstituted to reflect the human need for privileged location and boundaries’.12 In determining the distinction between space and place, the concept of landscape is key, suggests Edward Casey, bounded as it is by a visual and visible horizon and imbued with the panoply of sensory and atmospheric features that give it a unique intensity and power.13 Landscape is a view from somewhere; in the words of philosopher Holmes Rolston III, it is ‘local, located’.14 This means that, unlike nature, which he defines as ‘the whole

9.  For example, Maier describes Thirdspace as ‘at least ambivalent, if not multivocal’ (Christl M. Maier, ‘Daughter Zion as a Gendered Space in the Book of Isaiah’, in Camp and Berquist, eds, Constructions of Space II, 116), and Camp acknowledges difficulties in applying Soja’s trialectic to the book of Ben Sira, such that her use of the terms is at best descriptive (Claudia Camp, ‘Storied Space, or, Ben Sira “Tells” a Temple’, in ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social, and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan, ed. David Gunn and Paula M. McNutt [London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002], 69). 10.  Camp and Berquist, eds, Constructions of Space I, 5. 11.  Yi-Fu Tuan, ‘Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective’, Progress in Geography 6 (1974): 2. 12.  Man and Nature (Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers, 1971), 18; see also Kenneth R. Olwig, ‘Landscape as a Contested Topos of Place, Community, and Self’, in Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, ed. Paul C. Adams, Steven Hoelscher and Karen E. Till (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 93–117. 13.  Edward S. Casey, ‘Body, Self and Landscape: A Geophilosophical Inquiry into the Place-World’, in Adams, Hoelscher and Till, eds, Textures of Place, 417. 14.  Holmes Rolston III, ‘Does Aesthetic Appreciation of Landscapes Need to Be Science-Based?’, British Journal of Aesthetics 35, no. 4 (1995): 379.

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system of things’ that follow natural laws,15 a landscape only happens when someone locates themselves in relation to it and thus embodies ‘personal and cultural history made visible’.16 The way in which the world is perceived by an individual or community offers a perspective—a landscape—that is unique and inherently subjective. As Barbara Bender notes, landscapes are formed through the experience and engagement of specific people in a specific time and place.17 Moreover landscapes are inherently complex, multi-faceted and subject to change: The landscape is never inert, people engage with it, re-work it, appropriate and contest it. It is part of the way in which identities are created and disputed, whether as individual, group or nation-state. Operating therefore at the juncture of history and politics, social relations and cultural perceptions, landscape…[is] a concept of high tension.18

When it comes to probing the constructed space of Deuteronomy, the notion of ‘landscape’ provides an illuminating perspective through which to read the text, and it is to this that we now turn. The aim in this article is to explore the ‘view from somewhere’ presented by the book of Deuteronomy, a book that from its outset is concerned as much with geography as with history and society. But it is by no means certain where that ‘somewhere’ is, nor is it immediately obvious to whom the landscape belongs. Should we read it through the eyes of Moses on the far bank of the Jordan or of the exiles in Babylon? Does Deuteronomy offer an idealized vision of what might yet be, or is it merely making sense of what has been lost—a story that has gone badly wrong? And does the book speak with one voice, depicting a single landscape, or does it offer a number of viewpoints? As we shall see, a detailed examination of the geographical horizons of Deuteronomy draws attention to the complexities of the world it depicts (a number of different and competing landscapes), both in terms of the book’s structure and formation as a text, and in the variety of viewpoints represented within it. Not least of these is the interplay and potential tension in the text between urban and rural perspectives and whether what is celebrated is the land ‘flowing with milk and honey’ or the ‘fine large cities that you did not build’. 15.  Rolston, ‘Aesthetic Appreciation’. 16.  Rolston, ‘Aesthetic Appreciation’, 380. 17.  Barbara Bender, ed., Landscape: Politics and Perspectives (Providence, RI: Berg, 1993), 2. 18.  Bender, ed., Landscape, 3; see also F. Inglis, ‘Nation and Community: A Landscape and Its Morality’, Sociological Review 25 (1977): 489.



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Beginnings and Endings The book of Deuteronomy opens and closes with an emphasis on place that is often overlooked. In 1.1–5 Moses’ location, and by implication that of the narrator, is plotted in great detail. Twice the text notes that he is ‘beyond the Jordan’ (vv. 1, 5 ‫)בעבר הירדן‬, a reference to place that is followed in v. 1 by a list of very specific markers.19 Although the detail of journey times from Mount Horeb to Kadesh-Barnea in the aside of v. 2 adds a further interpretive complication, the provision of this information highlights the importance of location not just as a static space, but as somewhere that is reached at the conclusion of a journey. Place is somewhere that must be travelled to, as well as inhabited. Not until v. 3 does the narration move from spatial to temporal considerations: ‘in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month’. Here the timeframe is qualified by further precise details (v. 4), namely the successful completion of Moses’ campaigns against local rulers, Sihon and Og, and even these temporal markers are accompanied by references to geographical locations. These verses offer one example of many in the opening chapters of Deuteronomy in which the narrator deliberately plots the location of the action in very specific terms (see also 1.19–20; 2.8; 3.8–10, 14; 4.46–49). Rachel Havrelock notes that these lists of place names function as the literary equivalent of ancient maps such as the Babylonian Mappa Mundi, since they ‘evoke place by consecutive enumeration of limits rather than by graphic symbols’.20 Havrelock draws attention to two different sets of ‘maps’ of the land in Hebrew narrative—those that focus on the river Jordan as ‘a legal, temporal and territorial boundary’,21 and those that extend Israel’s territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the river Euphrates.22 19.  It is difficult to ascertain the precise location of the places listed in v. 1 and scholars debate whether these are different stopping points on the wilderness journeying through the Sinai Desert or locations near Mount Nebo east of the Jordan (Richard D. Nelson, Deuteronomy: A Commentary, OTL [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002], 16). The important point is that Moses is located outside the land looking in. 20.  Rachel Havrelock, River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 18. 21.  Havrelock, River Jordan, 19. This is particularly evident in the books of Numbers (Num. 34.1–2, 10–12) and Joshua (Josh. 15.5; 16.1) as well as Deuteronomy. The River Jordan also forms the eastern boundary of the land in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek. 47.18). 22.  Havrelock, River Jordan, 24–26.

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In Deuteronomy, the Jordan is the predominant boundary marker, being referred to in 26 verses, over half of which are in the first four chapters of the book. Most of these references serve either to pinpoint the whereabouts of Moses on the far side of the river23 or to anticipate the coming change of location, and thus landscape, for the Israelites as they cross the river.24 Moses’ own perspective changes in the retrospective story of chs. 2–4. He first confidently anticipates his own crossing of the Jordan (2.29), but in the face of YHWH’s anger alters this to a plea to be permitted to cross and ‘see the good land beyond the Jordan’ (3.25), which is followed by the flat refusal of YHWH to accede to his request (3.27; 4.21–22, see also 31.2). In a postscript to this, the final chapter of the book describes YHWH showing Moses a vista of the land from the far side of the river, with the reiteration of the injunction ‘you shall not cross over there’ (34.1–4). For Moses, then, what is on offer is land stretching as far as he can see—a land of promise and possession. But although the boundary of the Jordan signifies the beginning of new horizons for the Israelites, it also marks the limit of Moses’ journey and is a poignant reminder of failure. His view of the land is always an idealized one, a view from the outside looking in. Alongside setting the Jordan very firmly as a boundary marker, Deuteronomy makes brief reference to the other ‘map’ of Israel’s territory—that which extends the horizon of the promised land as far as the Euphrates (‫נהר־פרת‬, 1.7, see also 11.34). This delineation of the eastern boundary occurs at various strategic points in Genesis (Gen. 15.18), Exodus (Exod. 23.31) and the Deuteronomistic History (e.g., Josh. 1.4; 1 Kgs 5.1 [ET 4.21]), as well as in the Chronicler’s account of the extent of David’s and Solomon’s reigns (1 Chr. 5.9; 18.3). The picture is idyllic and unrealistic, offering ‘a glimpse of an unfulfilled vision of military strength and imperial importance’.25 If, as Havrelock suggests, the Euphrates map reflects the political climate during the Neo-Babylonian period, then its introduction by Deuteronomistic redactors serves to strengthen Israelite resolve and lessen fear in the face of Babylonian conquest.26 The juxtaposition of this wider perspective to the more limited landscape of vv. 1–5 constructs an alternative scenario, one that extends and idealizes the scope of the land that Israel is commanded to possess. 23.  The expression ‫בעבר הירדן‬, ‘beyond the Jordan’, occurs a further four times in the opening chapters (3.8, 20, 25; 4.46) and once in the inner frame of the book (11.30). 24.  The proper noun Jordan occurs with a verbal form of ‫עבר‬, ‘to cross’, in 2.29; 3.25, 27; 4.21, 22, 26; 9.1; 11.31; 12.10; 27.2, 4, 12; 30.18; 31.2, 13; 32.47. 25.  Havrelock, River Jordan, 25. 26.  Havrelock, River Jordan, 35.



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The focus on location in the outer narrative framework of the book is more than just background to the story. The narrator’s emphasis on Moses viewing the land from ‘beyond the Jordan’ and the detailed lists of place names (whatever their precise geographical location) suggest that landscape has a significant part to play in the story that unfolds. The fact that this view from ‘somewhere’ is clearly portrayed, both at the start of the book and its end, as a view from the outside looking in is consonant with the exilic situation in which the book most likely took written form. The different perspectives offered by the boundary markers of the rivers Jordan and Euphrates add an element of tension or, at least, ambiguity to the account, suggesting that perspectives and expectations can, and do, vary widely. In particular this tension renders opaque the territory between the Euphrates and the Jordan; in Havrelock’s words: ‘Transjordan, included in one vision of the land and excluded in another, becomes suspended in the pull of conflicting ideologies’.27 Spying out the Land A sense of ambiguity surfaces in other Deuteronomy texts that emphasize place. In the remainder of this article we will explore a number of these, particularly, in the light of the overall theme of the volume, those that involve cities. The first episode concerns the report on the sending of the spies and Israel’s rebellion against YHWH in 1.22–28. This text has strong literary links to the longer account in Numbers 13, albeit with significant differences,28 and forms part of a wider unit (Deut. 1.19–45) that narrates the story of the people setting out from Horeb (19–21), the response of, first Moses (29–33) and then YHWH (34–40), to Israel’s refusal to enter the land, and finally Israel’s defiance and subsequent defeat at the hands of the Amorites (41–45). The whole unit is given cohesion and momentum by the repetition of two Hebrew words: the noun ‫‘ דרך‬path’ or ‘way’ (vv. 19, 22, 31, 33, 40) and the verb ‫‘ עלה‬to go up’ (vv. 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 41, 42, 43).29 Whereas at the start of ch. 1 the people were stationary on the far side of the river, now the story looks back to a time when they were on the move, both in obedience to YHWH and in rebellion against him.

27.  Havrelock, River Jordan, 25. 28.  See A. Mayes, Deuteronomy, NCB (London: Oliphants, 1979), 126; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, WBC 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 144–45. 29.  Nelson, Deuteronomy, 25.

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In vv. 22–28 the interchange between the people and the spies presents a tension between competing perspectives in a series of stages. First, the people request permission to send out spies, with the express object of obtaining information about two significant matters: the best route into the land and the kind of towns they will encounter (v. 22). The longer version of the story in Num. 13.18–19 notes the more detailed instructions to the spies (given by Moses) to ascertain whether the towns are walled or unwalled, and how many people live in them—crucial factors in military planning. Next, the spies report back (v. 25), but, rather than the expected details of the land’s population or its capacity for defence, they bring a favourable account of the fertility and goodness of the land, supporting their claim with offerings of fresh produce. Finally, in vv. 27–29, the negative and fearful response of the people bears little relation to the spies’ report, but rather, in a move that presupposes knowledge of the Numbers story, focuses on the strong, tall inhabitants and large, well-defended cities of the land as a justification for holding back (cf. Num. 13.27–29). Thus the interplay between spies and people crystallizes into two different reactions to the landscape: the possibilities of its immensely fertile agricultural terrain (a rural perspective) and the threat represented by its heavily fortified centres of population (an urban perspective). The shift from optimism to despair, from agricultural bounty to military foreboding highlights the different expectations incarnated in the land. For the spies it is a good land, for the people it is a terrifying place and for the narrator it is a space of promise that Israel must ‘go up’ to possess in obedience to YHWH (1.26, see also vv. 21, 35). The tension between these perspectives (and the divergence from the account in Numbers) hints at Deuteronomy’s overall theological emphasis on the goodness of the land on the one hand and the unbelief and fear of the wilderness generation on the other (see 1.31–33). The Good Land The spies’ verdict on the land in v. 25, ‫טובה הארץ‬, ‘the land is good’, is the first of several such descriptions in Deuteronomy, suggesting at first sight an entirely positive emphasis on the benefits to be enjoyed by Israel once they successfully occupy the land. But a closer look reveals that, of the 10 verses that use the expression ‘[the] good land’, four do so in negative or ambivalent contexts, focussing on not entering or being removed from it (1.35; 4.21; 9.6; 11.17). So the goodness of the land is held up as both a promise and a threat, its fertile bounty a reward for obedience and loss of it a punishment for rebellion.



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The picture of a good land is amplified by its description on six occasions in Deuteronomy as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (‫)ארץ זבת חלב ודבׁש‬.30 The origins of this phrase and its parallels in other ancient writings are much discussed by commentators.31 Many scholars describe it rather pejoratively as ‘a stereotypical formula’ or explain it in terms of providing a contrast with the harsh conditions of nomadic desert life.32 Tigay notes that this description of the fertility of the land should not be regarded as neutral, but bears positive overtones, although he adds that it is not always to be read literally.33 Stern regards it as an important religious statement, and draws parallels with a Ugaritic text describing Baal as the provider of fat/oil and honey as well as of rain, to suggest that it may have originated from rivalry with Canaanite religions.34 If the spies’ designation of the landscape they viewed as ‘a good land’ offers an idealized picture, how much more does the small phrase ‘flowing with milk and honey’? But what exactly does it mean? Within the context of Deuteronomy, there are two instances in which a reference to the land flowing with milk and honey is given substance by the descriptions that follow, but these two examples offer contrasting visions that are in tension with one another. Like the perspectives on the land from outside its boundaries, they highlight the subjective nature of landscape, tied up as it is with personal experiences and perspectives. We shall examine each of these in turn and then consider a third description of the land that follows a similar format, but without use of the specific descriptor ‘milk and honey’

30.  6.3; 11.9; 26.9, 15; 27.3; 31.20. The same or similar expression also occurs in a further nine verses in the Pentateuch (Exod. 3.8, 17; 13.5; 33.3; Lev. 20.24; Num. 13.27; 14.8; 16.13, 14), once in Joshua (Josh. 5.6) and four times in the prophets (Jer. 11.5; 32.22; Ezek. 20.6, 15). 31.  Jeffrey Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 437–38; Mayes, Deuteronomy, 174–75. 32.  Philip D. Stern, ‘The Origin and Significance of “the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey” ’, VT 42 (1992): 554. 33.  Tigay, Deuteronomy, 438. 34.  Stern, ‘Milk and Honey’, 555–56. His thesis is supported by the fact that in Exodus all references to ‘the land of milk and honey’ are accompanied by lists of the Canaanite tribes that must be displaced. However this is not the case with the examples of the phrase elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.

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Milk and Honey In Deuteronomy 6, Moses exhorts the children of Israel to observe YHWH’s commands when they enter the land promised to their ancestors. Here is the first instance in Deuteronomy in which the land is described using the formulation ‘a land of milk and honey’ (vv. 1– 3). Just a few verses on, following the introduction of the Shema and instructions on diligently observing the commandments, the text again focuses on the theme of entry into the land (vv. 10–12). The opening formula of v. 10, ‫‘ והיה כי‬when’, both signals the introduction of a new idea and also connects to the preceding material, particularly to v. 3.35 Here the exclusive focus is on the urban landscape and Moses describes the land that YHWH has promised to give them as ‫ערים גדלת וטבת אׁשר‬ ‫[‘ לא־בנית‬a land of] fine large cities that you did not build’ (v. 10). The ensuing verses detail the unearned rewards that will be theirs: houses filled with produce, cisterns already dug, pre-established vineyards and olive groves (v. 11), all resulting in a material prosperity that was to be welcomed but that could lead the Israelites to dangerous levels of self-sufficiency (v. 12, see also 8.17).36 Here, entry into the land and displacement of its current inhabitants offers the prospect of a readymade settled urban lifestyle in contrast to the nomadic journeying of the wilderness generation.37 Although this paints an idyllic picture, there is a pragmatic strand to this description. Houses take time and material resources to build, and water cisterns, essential for capturing and storing rainwater, must be laboriously dug from solid rock. Moreover, both vines and olive trees take years after planting before they reach sufficient maturity to yield a harvest. The fact that these benefits will be gained without any exertion on the part of the Israelites is emphasized by the four-fold repetition of the negative ‘you did not’ in vv. 10–11. The attraction of this urban existence, then, is not just its settled nature, but the fact that establishing such a successful lifestyle requires little hard work. From an exilic perspective, the picture may serve as a harsh reminder of lost wealth and opportunity. Alternatively, the imagined landscape that this narrative constructs may

35.  Nelson, Deuteronomy, 92. 36.  Tigay, Deuteronomy, 80. These verses are elaborated in Neh. 9.26; see also Josh. 24.13. The Chronicler lists the achievements of King Uzziah in the same order: city buildings, cisterns and vineyards (2 Chr. 26.9–10): see Don C. Benjamin, Deuteronomy and City Life (New York: University Press of America, 1983), 97. 37.  See also 19.1.



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function as a welcome alternative to the present reality of the exiles, who have been forced to start from scratch, building and planting a new life for themselves in a foreign land. A second amplified description of the land following the expression ‘flowing with milk and honey’ is found in Deuteronomy 11. A brief comparison with Deuteronomy 6 demonstrates that there are a number of common themes. Both chapters stress the need to adhere to YHWH’s commandments (11.1, 11; 6.1–2) and both place this obedience in the context of love for YHWH (11.1, 13; 6.4–6). Obedience to the commandments is a prior requirement for the Israelites to successfully cross the river and occupy the land in both 11.8 and 6.1, and the promise of longevity is held up as a reward for obedience (11.9; 6.2). Both texts make reference to the role of children in this process—looking ahead to the future in the case of ch 6 (vv. 7–9) and backward in remembrance in ch. 11 (v. 2). Finally, the Israelites are warned against following other gods and reminded of the anger of YHWH should they choose to do so (11.16–17; 6.14–15). However, the emphasis of ch. 11 offers a radically different perspective. The principle significant variation between the two texts is in the detailed description of 11.10–12, which focuses on the land itself, rather than its cities, and portrays YHWH as a fertility god, one ‘who functions as such specifically in the topography, hydrology and climate of one special land’.38 The text draws a contrast with the land of Egypt (v. 10), both in its landscape (a flat, alluvial plain) that contrasts with the hills and valleys of the promised land (v. 11), and in the methods used to irrigate crops.39 The crux of the description comes in the following verse which describes the good land as ‫‘ ארץ אׁשר־יהוה אלהיך דרׁש‬a land that the Lord your God watches over with care’ (v. 12).40 The stress is on demonstrating on-going divine provision in the present. As Mayes puts it, ‘it is not only in history, but also in nature, that it can be seen how Israel is a chosen nation’.41

38.  Nelson, Deuteronomy, 139. 39.  It is unclear exactly what is meant by ‫‘ הׁשקית ברגלך‬you water by foot’ (v. 10), with commentators suggesting possibilities ranging from mechanical irrigation devices operated by foot to the act of carrying water on foot. See discussion in commentaries: Nelson, Deuteronomy, 139; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11, 5, 445. 40.  NRSV translates ‫ דרׁש‬here as ‘looks after’; for other uses with this sense see also Isa. 62.12; Jer. 30.17. 41.  Mayes, Deuteronomy, 214.

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Although this is presented in v. 12 as a positive contrast to the hard labour and human effort of Egypt, the view is not unequivocally rosy. For one thing, it is a more uncertain landscape than the settled account of ch. 6, where the Israelites take over already existing buildings and crops. Indeed, it could be argued that storing water for irrigation in the cisterns of ch. 6 is infinitely preferable to dependence on the constant attention (and perhaps vagaries) of YHWH. The fact that YHWH’s eyes are on the land from beginning to end of the year (v. 12) suggests that, in contrast to Canaanite myths, here is ‘no mythic cycle of divine death or absence’.42 However it is open to interpretation whether this attentiveness of the deity is to be welcomed or not, and the expression ‘the eyes of YHWH’ is used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible with both positive connotations (for example, the benevolent concern of Pss. 33.18; 34.16[15]; Jer. 24.6) and negative ones (for example, the warning of Prov. 5.21 and 15.3).43 As ch. 11 unfolds, the true implications of dependence on YHWH for water become clear in the conditional promises of vv. 14–17.44 Obedience to the commandments and faithfulness to YHWH will guarantee rainfall on the land at the correct time of year and hence successful harvests of grain, wine and oil (v. 14); failure to do so will result in YHWH withholding rain, leading to starvation and death (v. 17). The link between this conditional promise and the warning against worshipping other gods (v. 16) emphasizes the fact that it is YHWH, rather than the Canaanite deities, who is the provider of rain and fertility.45 To summarize these two contrasting pictures, the picture in ch. 6 is one of settled and stable urban life, with all that is necessary for successful farming and comfortable living already provided. Here, the ‘good land’ requires no effort and creates no excitement. It is a cityscape rather than a landscape, a safe and predictable world. The only apparent danger is that, in the midst of this agreeable lifestyle, the Israelites might forget their dependence on YHWH and neglect his commands. By contrast, Deuteronomy 11 presents a landscape that is exciting and at the same time precarious. It is a place of unfamiliar topography and uncertain limits, but also a place to be explored and one in which to flourish. Its very difference from what the Israelites experienced in Egypt makes it an appealing landscape, ‘a good land’, yet also one that will defeat them if they turn to worship other gods. 42.  Nelson, Deuteronomy, 139. 43.  Tigay, Deuteronomy, 113. 44.  The references to grain, wine and oil (v. 14) coupled with reference to the worship of other gods (v. 16) echo Hos. 2.7–11[5–9]. 45.  See Tigay, Deuteronomy, 114.



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We now turn to a third description, Deut. 8.7–16, which complements these two accounts of the good land in Deuteronomy. Although this text does not include the specific phrase ‘flowing with milk and honey’, it combines elements of the settled, urban lifestyle of ch. 6 and the frontier existence of ch. 11, yet with its own unique twist. Again, water is a significant feature of this description. The land is depicted as abundant in fresh water—with underground springs and streams welling up throughout (v. 7). In the arid conditions of the Levant, the most secure and continuous source of water is that provided by these freely flowing underground springs that bubble to the surface; second in importance are deep dug wells that tap into natural underground water reservoirs, and only last comes the use of man-made cisterns to capture rainwater. The landscape in this chapter with its apparently limitless water supplies therefore compares very favourably to the cityscape of Deuteronomy 6, which is dependent on storing water in the wet season and using it sparingly over the dry months. Moreover, it is a land of fertility and plenty, with abundant crops (v. 8) and natural resources to be harnessed (v. 9), which will ensure a life free from privation. In this respect then, it equates more easily with the vision of Deuteronomy 11, and perhaps even surpasses it, since the water source is not so directly dependent on local and seasonal rainfall patterns. It is not only a rural landscape but also an urban one (v. 12), although in contrast to ch. 6, the houses in this chapter are ones the Israelites will build for themselves, and the wealth is what they themselves will generate (v. 13).46 Moreover, the Israelites will be able to mine natural resources such as iron and copper (v. 9), and this opportunity to extract mineral riches from the earth will add a welcome diversification to their agricultural efforts, and thus the potential for greater economic stability. This picture is not one of idle self-sufficiency, but of hard work, combined with the generous provision of YHWH in a well-watered land. The temptation for the newly rich and successful generation to selfaggrandisement and forgetfulness is spelled out (v. 14) and highlighted by contrast to the privations and dangers—and miraculous provision— of the wilderness (vv. 15–16, see also vv. 3–4). As with the two other 46.  The notion of building fine houses and living in them is picked up in the so-called futility curses of the prophets, which present the reverse image: ‘You have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine’ (Amos 5.11; cf. Zeph. 1.13). See Delbert R. Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964), 28–29.

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pictures, the image is a conditional one; it is a landscape either to be inhabited and enjoyed by the Israelites, or one that will be forfeited by them. The choice is theirs. Conclusion The sections of Deuteronomy that we have explored offer multiple descriptions of the land and its cities. Viewed from the outside looking in—from beyond the Jordan—the landscape is one of both heavily fortified cities and richly fertile pastures, offering in turn threat and promise. From the exile looking back, the city is portrayed as both a place of settled easy living with the agricultural and domestic infrastructure already in place, and also a space that must be built by the Israelites’ own hands, created by the sweat of their labours, just as storage cisterns were carved out of the bare rock. The source of water—whether from underground springs, rainfall or rock-hewn cisterns—is both certain and uncertain, fixed and contingent, conditional and unconditional. Rather than a single perspective from one vantage point, these texts seem to deliberately encapsulate a variety of viewpoints that are woven together into a complex and fluid whole. The question remains as to why this multifocal approach is adopted by the narrator. Is it a result of trying to hold together conflicting perspectives and competing agendas? The ease with which the text accommodates the various perspectives and the absence of any clear redactional strands suggest that a more positive motivation is at work, namely the need to create and recreate a sense of identity for the exiles. The landscape of Deuteronomy changes according to memory and imagination—both of those who have lived in the land and those who have only heard tell of it. The memories of the land become idealized in exile and are reconceptualised in the light of personal experience. The idealized space of the land is that encapsulated in Deuteronomy 11—a place that YHWH looks after and waters; the reality of memory is the urban setting of Deuteronomy 6, where city dwelling is the norm and water must be collected and stored. Deuteronomy 8 perhaps represents an optimal scenario, one where natural provision and human endeavour meet and where the natural resources of minerals and water are harnessed to support urban development. The book in the form we now have it sets out to include all these memories and imaginations, to reflect the diverse stories of a diverse people. It is not a single ‘view from somewhere’ but a complex land- (or city-)scape with multiple possibilities.



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Bibliography Barnett, Clive. ‘Review of Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places by Edward W. Soja’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22 (1997): 529–30. Bender, Barbara, ed. Landscape: Politics and Perspectives (Providence, RI: Berg, 1993). Benjamin, Don C. Deuteronomy and City Life (New York: University Press of America, 1983). Camp, Claudia. ‘Storied Space, or, Ben Sira “Tells” a Temple’. In ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social, and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan, ed. David Gunn and Paula M. McNutt, 64–80 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). Camp, Claudia V., and Jon L. Berquist, eds. Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative, LHBOTS 481 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007). Camp, Claudia V., and Jon L. Berquist, eds. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, LHBOTS 490 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). Casey, Edward S. ‘Body, Self and Landscape: A Geophilosophical Inquiry into the Place-World’. In Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, ed. Paul C. Adams, Steven Hoelscher and Karen E. Till, 403–35 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). Havrelock, Rachel. River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Hillers, Delbert R. Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964). Inglis, F. ‘Nation and Community: A Landscape and Its Morality’, Sociological Review 25 (1977): 489–513. Latham, Alan. ‘Edward Soja’. In Key Thinkers on Space and Place, ed. Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin and Gill Valentine, 269–74 (London: Sage Publications, 2004). Maier, Christl M. ‘Daughter Zion as a Gendered Space in the Book of Isaiah’. In Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, ed. Claudia V. Camp and Jon L. Berquist, 102–18 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). Massey, Doreen B. Space, Place and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994). Mayes, A. Deuteronomy, NCBC (London: Oliphants, 1979). Meredith, Christopher. Journeys in the Songscape: Space in the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013). Nelson, Richard D. Deuteronomy: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). Olwig, Kenneth R. ‘Landscape as a Contested Topos of Place, Community, and Self’. In Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, ed. Paul C. Adams, Steven Hoelscher and Karen E. Till, 93–117 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). Rolston III, Holmes. ‘Does Aesthetic Appreciation of Landscapes Need to Be ScienceBased?’ British Journal of Aesthetics 35 (1995): 374–86. Sleeman, Matthew. Geography and the Ascension Narrative in Acts, SNTSMS 146 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Soja, Edward W. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: Verso, 1989). Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).

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Stern, Philip D. ‘The Origin and Significance of “the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey” ’. VT 42 (1992): 554–57. Tigay, Jeffrey. The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 1996). Tuan, Yi-Fu. Man and Nature (Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers, 1971). Tuan, Yi-Fu. ‘Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective’. Progress in Geography 6 (1974): 211–47. Weinfeld, Moshe. Deuteronomy 1–11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, WBC 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991).

C i t y a s L a b y r i nt h : T he S ong of S on g s a n d t h e U r ban U ncanny

Christopher Meredith

Admittedly, the Song of Songs is not the most obvious text to comb for evidence of the Bible’s urban sensitivities. But on the pages of this highly ideological, highly sexual, and infamously unstable poem, the city is one of the few developed spatial images around. The Song’s city is twice narrated; it is walled, watched and guarded; it acts as the setting for two extended narrative sequences, two of the book’s most developed in fact. It deserves some attention, then, as a city, and this essay uses contemporary critical approaches on literary cities to do just that, sketching the ideological underpinnings of ‘cityness’ in the Song. As far as I can ascertain there is no particular precedent for this in Song scholarship, which has tended to avoid reading the Song’s city with urban ideologies in mind.1 The searching and finding themes that characterize the citysections of the Song have been analysed, certainly, as has the supposed ‘dream’ language in which these sections are couched. And, indeed, the episode of violence that unfolds in the streets has been given plenty of consideration too. These issues seem not to have been considered in relation to the urban context that they create, however. I suspect this is partly because the average literary critic makes a natural beeline for the Song’s considerably more famous gardens. The Song’s readers/inhabitants (/tourists?) actually get quite a lot of city for their money, though, and it

1.  The exception is an extremely brief discussion by Rogerson and Vincent. They characterize the poetic city as a space of pure restriction: ‘The Song of Songs portrays the countryside as liberating and the city as enslaving, from the point of view of a young woman’. I am keen to attempt a more detailed, nuanced and theoretically informed reading here. See J. Rogerson and J. Vincent, The City in Biblical Perspective (London: Equinox, 2009), 27–31.

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is my contention that the atmosphere of literary disjunction that the cities come to convey in the Song may well be instructive in thinking about the ‘ancient city’ in more nuanced ways than contemporary urban theorists do. That is, ironically enough, the love poem may help the ‘ancient’ city fend off attempts to romanticize it. Ink, Mortar and Celluloid It has long been recognized that cities are not so much locations as ideological products. The City is primarily an idea, one that is always being concretized in and as place. Walter Benjamin has most famously, and most eloquently, expressed this sentiment, and in so doing inspired a great deal of writing on the subject of the urban imagination: Attempt to develop Giedon’s thesis. ‘In the nineteenth century’, he writes, ‘construction plays the role of the subconscious’. Wouldn’t it be better to say ‘the role of bodily processes’—around which ‘artistic’ architectures gather, like dreams around the framework of physiological processes?2

The City is not primarily a place, but a thought. The City is the ossification of a cultural dream, a site where people’s fluid interactions slowly harden into solid forms. The shopping mall, the cathedral and the sports stadium are kinds of callus, formed wherever bricks and mortar have been allowed to rub up against certain kinds of ideology. The physical reality of bricks and mortar, and of civic apparatus, and of the relative distance between Macy’s and the tram-station, are, in the end, extensions of this metropolitan idea. They do not constitute the city. Rather, they are the observable symptoms of it. Once the metropolis is recognized as being an ideological structure in this way, with a body emerging from its own dreams, the city’s cultural re-packaging—the city as depicted in film or in literature—becomes particularly significant. A society’s re-presentations of the urban tell us a great deal about the ideas that have been poured into the foundations of its innumerable physical constructions, and which, in time, come to be projected onto its surfaces too. It would be difficult to figure a New York that didn’t draw at all from King Kong, or from the sit-com Friends, or from the very particular definition of urban community that arises from HBO’s Sex and the City.

2.  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), K1a7.



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One particularly eminent theorist of literature and urban ideology, and one whose work I want to use in due course as both a launching pad and an intertext here, is James Donald. Donald has gone further than most in exploring the kinds of cultural interrelationships I have just been describing. In his seminal book Imagining the Modern City, for instance, Donald assesses the links between the suppressed anxieties of modernist culture and its array of fictional cities. Donald argues persuasively that whether cultural texts are staring up at us from the printed page or towering down from the silver screen, they do not simply record cities but actively constitute them all around us. Donald is interested in mapping the ways in which modernist urban narratives have ‘disseminated certain perspectives, certain ways of seeing and so certain structures of the imagination’. As he explains: Among the more familiar [urban ideological structures] are the opposition between rural utopia and urban nightmare; the Bildungsroman narrative of heroic self-creation in the great city; the Dickensian search for subterranean networks of community beneath the unreadable and irrational surface of a class-divided city; and the social complexity of the city recorded through its demotic idioms and slang by French novelists from Balzac to Zola.3

The cinematic cities Donald turns his attention to are also familiar ones. They range from the Freudian Gotham City, an ‘in-fantile’ fantasy of origins and boundaries where men don tights to fight Jokers and Penguins, to the Kantian existentialism of Blade Runner’s hodgepodge Los Angeles. In the New York of King Kong Donald sees a commoditized, fetishized primitive fighting a losing battle against the raging technology of capitalism (from the Empire State Building no less!). In Fritz Lang’s Metropolis the robot Maria ‘conflates characteristic modern anxieties about sexuality, technology and the mob’.4 These celluloid cities tell us something about the wider urban project of modernity, Donald argues. They describe the ‘conflict with the claims of authority and the bonds of community, and also of the unfixing or the uncertainty of identity’.5 They flirt on the borders between humans, technology and nature, or on those between adult and infant. Naturally, all of these urban texts do not exist in isolation of cities; they become actualized in and as them.

3.  James Donald, Imagining the Modern City (London: Athlone Press, 1999), 127. 4.  Donald, Imagining the Modern City, 89. 5.  Donald, Imagining the Modern City, 89.

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Donald’s analysis thus chimes with other discussions about the ideological givens that lie behind our constructed spaces: Steve Pile’s analysis of the aged Philadelphia in the film The Sixth Sense, for instance, or Edward Soja’s appraisal of Disneyland as a ‘scamscape’, a pseudourban configuration in which our society’s hyperbolic addiction to the fictional and make-believe has been made manifest so as to be peddled and re-peddled ad nauseam.6 Donald’s point in all this is that the tensions that underlie the fictional cities of modernity betray a basic ambiguity in the modernist psyche: our cities represent familiar spaces and foreign spaces simultaneously (Freud terms this phenomenon of experiencing the alien-and-familiar, unheimlich, or, the ‘uncanny’, and I shall devote some more attention to its explication in due course). Donald’s central argument, then, is that modern urban structures derive social power from their duality, from a persistent tension between opacity and transparency. That tension is the modern ‘urban’ structure. Donald attributes this tension to the Enlightenment’s fear of the dark and unknown (making his references to cinema-space—as a literally darkened room of potential Enlightenment—all the more poignant). For Donald, cityness, then, is a fusing of the alien and the familiar, of opacity and transparency, of the dark labyrinth and the nitid city of light. Now, while Donald’s analyses of the structure of urban ideology and praxis are specifically restricted to modernist cities, I see plenty of resonance between these ideas of Donald’s and the City that the lovers, as characters, and that we, as readers, experience in the Song of Songs. Indeed, it is my contention that the city of the Song of Songs is constituted as a kind of labyrinthine space that recalls (and, historically speaking, anticipates) the precise tensions that Donald exposes in modern conurbations. Might the Song undermine the ancient/modern division that seems to be at work in urban theory, then, and might it trouble the idea of the Enlightenment as a grounding point for these distinctions? To approach this issue properly, though, it is necessary that we first think about Donald’s example of urban-reading, which I find particularly evocative and which has obvious potential for expanding our view of the Song’s own little metropolis. If, as Donald himself says, ‘we do not just read the city, we negotiate the reality of cities by imagining “the city” ’,7 what urban realities are being invoked by the Song? What underlying 6.  Steve Pile, Real Cities: Modernity, Space and the Phantasmagorias of City Life (London: Sage, 2005), 140–43; Edward Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 274. 7.  Donald, Imagining the Modern City, 18.



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processes are thrown up by a close reading of the Song’s collection of streets and squares? And what kind of cultural ideology is it, exactly, that the canonical ink binds together on the pages of the Bible’s sexiest text? Not a nice one, I suggest. Nor a simple one. Text and the City The female narrates her experiences of city living twice in the Song of Songs, once in 3.1–5 and again in 5.2–6.1. The two accounts are similar but have some important differences. In ch. 3, the woman, in bed, bemoans the absence of her lover (v. 1). She rises and goes, literally, ‘around’ (‫)סבב‬ the city’s markets (‫ )שוקים‬and plazas (‫ )רחבות‬in search of her boyfriend.8 8.  The text itself seems to make (linguistic) connections here between the woman’s searches for her lover and the patrolling of the watchmen who come across her in the dark. In 3.2 the woman goes ‘around’ (‫ )אסובבה‬the city, while the watchmen are described using the plural participle of the same Hebrew root (‫)סבב‬, literally: ‘the guards circling the city’. The repetition of the verb raises the question of whether we are supposed to imagine the woman and the city-watch moving around in actual circles, or whether the term denotes movement ‘around’ the city in a more general sense. In fact in other biblical texts the verb ‫ סבב‬tends to denote only circularity, meaning ‘surround’, ‘turn around’, ‘circuit’, ‘encompass’ etc. (see for instance: Josh. 6.3–7; Num. 21.4; 1 Sam. 7.16; 1 Kgs 7.15; 2 Kgs 3.9; 2 Chr. 33.14; Job 40.22). The Targum of the Song directly exploits this sense of surround—in terms of the female’s action, specifically— when it turns her city-search into an allegorical picture of the nation of Israel encircling the tent of meeting. The LXX retains this sense too: it uses κυκλώσω, meaning, again, to ‘encircle’ or ‘girdle round’. And, as Pope points out, behind both the Greek and the Hebrew is the Akkadian term sãhir duri: ‘ “one who goes around the wall”, which is given in a lexical text as the equivalent of ma-sar musi, “night watchman” ’. See Marvin Pope, The Song of Songs, AB 7C (New York: Doubleday, 1977), 419. Interestingly, Robert and Tournay have the following to say of the streets and squares that the woman visits on her search: ‘les ‫ רחבות‬sont les larges espaces, les dégagements qui se trouvent principalement aux abords des portes. Ils forment contraste avec l’enchevêtrement des rues étroites’ [these are large spaces, open areas that are mainly found around doors. They form a contrast with the tangle of narrow streets]. See A. Robert and R. J. Tournay, Le cantique des cantiques: Traduction et commentaire (Paris: Arlèa, 1963), 132. Their comments indicate that a spiralling, whirling passage around the edge of the entire conurbation does indeed work as a coherent reading of the whole passage in ch. 3. Perhaps the woman’s route around the city’s ‘ring-road’ is why the keepers of the walls come across her so easily. This whole image—that of the circular movement around a circular city—works nicely with the picture of the Song’s city as painted by Jill Munro, of course: ‘a progressive narrowing of concentric circles’. Jill Munro, Spikenard and Saffron: A Study in the Poetic Language in the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 134.

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The watchmen ignore the woman’s request for information—at least, they offer her no answer at all—but she soon finds him and drags him (‫ ;אחז‬the terminology is identical to that of trapping animals from Song 2.15) home to the house of her mother (v. 4). The pair seems then to disappear inside for some privacy—even the usually privileged (voyeuristic) reader is not permitted to follow them in. In ch. 5, on the other hand, the story begins with an aborted tryst at the woman’s front door. ‘Open to me, my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect one; For my head is wet with dew, my locks with night sprinkles’. I had taken off my robe, am I to put it on again? I have washed my feet, am I to soil them? My lover thrust his hand into the hole, at which my insides thrilled.

The man beats on the door and a series of double entendres ensue, which most commentators are at pains to point out. Garrett, for instance, indicates the possibility that the man’s moist head might refer to seminal fluid on the man’s penis (and, given the reference to his ‘locks’, one would presume on his pubic hair too),9 while Pope understands the mention of feet to be generally euphemistic for the female’s genitals.10 The crucial element in any sexual reading of the passage, though, is v. 4: ‘My lover thrust his hand into the hole, at which my insides thrilled’. As Pope writes: Given the attested use of ‘hand’ as a surrogate for phallus, there can be no question that, whatever the context, the statement ‘my love thrust his “hand” into the hole’ would be suggestive of coital intromission, even without the succeeding line descriptive of the emotional reaction of the female.11

Exum interprets the ‘emotional reaction’ described so soberly here by Pope more directly: it is an orgasm.12 Come the crucial moment of the ‘opening’ in v. 6, however, the man is nowhere to be found. He has fled into the city streets, and the woman goes looking for him. 9.  Duane Garrett, The Song of Songs (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 207. 10.  Pope, The Song of Songs, 515. 11.  Pope, The Song of Songs, 519. 12.  J. Cheryl Exum, The Song of Songs (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2005), 191–92. Similarly, Illana Pardes cites the woman’s myrrh-soaked fingers



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I rose to open to my lover, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt I opened to my beloved, But my lover had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him but did not find him; I called him, but he did not answer. The watchmen found me, those who go on rounds of the city. They beat me, they bruised me, They took away my cloak those keepers of the walls. I place you under oath, daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this:

Whilst searching for him in the city streets the woman is found by the city guards and beaten (‫)נכה‬. It is not clear whether this is a single strike or a series of blows but wounding or bruising (‫ )פצע‬is the result. The watchmen—or, literally, the ‘keepers of the walls’ (v. 7)—also remove the woman’s veil (‫)רדיד‬. The exact meaning of this term is uncertain—is it a veil, a cloak or an indispensable covering?13—but, and as Exum stresses, however we render the verse the watchmen’s action constitutes as evidence that the scene is a masturbatory fantasy, or else is suggestive of some extremely heavy petting. Ilana Pardes, ‘ “I am a Wall, and My Breasts like Towers”: The Song of Songs and the Question of Canonization’, in Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 118–43 (132). Roland Boer’s pornographic reading is more direct still. Though, really, he simply gives voice to the true sexual extravagance that underlies most readings, however prudishly they have been rendered: ‘Sue’s “innards yearned for him”, his hand moving back and forth in an ecstasy reminiscent of the ultimate orgasm of childbirth. She is loose and open now, Frank’s hand stimulating her cunt; she grabs his cock and he sprays cum all over her, her hands “dripped with myrrh, [her] fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt” ’ (5.5). Roland Boer, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Bible and Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999), 69. 13.  The LXX suggests θέριστρον, a veil or summer cloak. The only other occurrence of this word in the LXX is in Isa. 3.23, when it appears as part of a list of female clothing. As Claire Fontaine has pointed out: ‘there it [‫ ]רדיד‬is distinguished from an “over-tunic” and a “cloak” in the same verse… In addition to “veil”, translators have also used the words “mantle” or “wrapper” for these Hebrew terms, suggesting an outer garment that signals the boundary between the woman inside it and the world

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a ‘contemptuous act of exposure’.14 After this portion of text the female lover goes on to describe the male to the daughters of Jerusalem and runs gaily off to his garden, where, apparently, he has been waiting for her the whole time (6.2). Even in this relatively compact survey of the material it is fairly clear that the textual city is an opaque structure, and three things mark it out as such. First, thinking in terms of basic visibility, the city is dark. Unlike the sun-scorched vineyards of Song of Songs 1, the dappled springtime panorama of ch. 2, or the incense-dusted wilderness of ch. 3, the cities of the Song never appear in daylight, which cannot help but make the City, on some level, synonymous with a sense of the shadowy and illicit. The nocturnal streets appear to be quiet, even deserted (aside from the potentially violent guards, of course), and this is part of what makes the woman’s search appear to be difficult. The city resists the woman’s desires by means of its opacity. Second, it is impossible to identify this city, which renders the streets historically and socially opaque. Though a mere lock of the female’s hair or the angle of her nose might conjure up a precise grid-reference in other parts of the Song (7.11, for example), the twice-explored city remains oddly anonymous. The city itself resists readerly decipherment, then, since we are not allowed to know which city it is. This is narratively significant because, as readers, we are put in a similar position to the wandering lover. Like the woman running through the labyrinthine streets, we are blind to any overall pattern—historically, sociologically, spatially.15 Thirdly, and most importantly, the textual city is presented as an edifice designed to hide the things within it. Indeed, I would suggest that this is the city’s primary function in the poem. The opaque city hides the male in 3.1 and 5.3, it hides the female in 5.2 and it conceals the couple outside’. C. Fontaine, ‘Watching Out for the Watchmen (Song of Songs 5.7)’, in The Meanings We Choose: Hermeneutical Ethics, Indeterminacy and the Conflict of Interpretations, ed. C. Cosgrove (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 102–21 (116). Emphasis mine. 14.  Exum, The Song of Songs, 197. 15.  For discussion on this point see Pope, The Song of Songs, 417. Pope suggests that the city is Jerusalem on the strength of the mention of the ‘women of Jerusalem’, but these women are addressed without any reference to an urban context at several points in the text (2.7; 8.4); that is, their presence does not automatically imply Jerusalem as the setting in any other part of the poem. Moreover, the Song is not reticent to use geographical references anywhere else in the Song, making the lack of an obvious name for the city all the more conspicuous.



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entirely (even from the voyeuristic reader) in 3.4.16 Moreover, the very presence of night watchmen is also suggestive of the possibilities and dangers of concealment that exist within the city; lurking is a distinctly urban practice. This city, then, is a space in which you can be close to something—your quarry, a policeman—and not necessarily know it, or, in the case of the man at the woman’s door, without necessarily being allowed access. The processes of searching and finding in the text rely on the city operating as a kind of labyrinthine space, a space that hides things but which encourages us to go looking for them. Accordingly, the city’s opacity comes to be intimately connected with the twin issues of search and surveillance: with attempts to make transparent. That is, each city-scene essentially deals with the characters’ varied attempts to unveil what the urban space has so successfully hidden. In 3.1 and 5.6 the woman searches for the man in the city’s streets and marketplaces. In 3.1 she is successful, in 5.6–7 the city gets the better of her. In 5.2 the male searches out the woman who is concealed within her house. In 3.3 and 5.7 the watchmen mark out the entire metropolis as a circle of surveillance, twice making ‘rounds’ of the city as a peripatetic reminder of the dangers of being in the city after dark. As I indicated earlier, the violence of Song of Songs 5.7 is one of the most written-about, contentious and variously translated pieces of the text.17 To my mind, though, the violence should not be separated out from the searching and finding themes that characterize the rest of the city stories. The guards’ violent act is, after all, an unveiling of the woman, an uncovering of her. The guards’ violence is, then, the very inverse of the search that precipitates the incident. The woman resists the city’s opacity by searching to make her lover visible to her, and the city in turn resists the woman’s bodily opacity, its functionaries unveiling her to make her body visible. If we assume Carole Fontaine’s suggestion as to the nature of this ‘veil’—‘an outer garment that signals the boundary between the

16.  For work on opacity as a fundamental human right, see Édouard Glissant, ‘For Opacity’, in Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture, ed. Gerardo Mosquera and Jean Fisher (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 253. 17.  For a survey of the approaches to this material, see Fiona Black, The Artifice of Love: Grotesque Bodies and the Song of Songs (London: T&T Clark International, 2009), 161. One of the most interesting readings is Virginia Burras and Stephen Moore, ‘Unsafe Sex: Feminism, Pornography and the Song of Songs’, BibInt 11 (2003): 24–52, which argues that violence is a legitimate sexual category by walking readers through the lively rigors of BDSM—violence can be a rewarding part of sex, they say, and the Song is simply begging for such an interpretation.

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woman inside it and the world outside’18—then there is a cruel irony in that the guardians of the city’s ‘walls’ (stipulated as such in 5.7) tear down the outer perimeter of the woman as a bodily subject. Like every other action in the Song’s cities, the violence is an attempt to render the opaque surfaces of the city transparent. The violence of 5.7 does not simply recall the city’s opacity and transparency in a general sense, though; it recalls a very specific action from earlier in the chapter. In short, the violence of 5.7 is an hallucination of the aborted tryst of 5.2. There, in 5.2, the physical boundary of the urban home doubles as a site of sexual arousal when the threshold of the woman’s house becomes interchangeable with the threshold of her body through the double entendre: ‘My lover thrust his hand into the hole / at which my insides thrilled’. Later, in 5.7, the ‘keepers of the walls’—the guardians of the city’s boundaries—turn the bodily boundary of the woman into a site of abuse. In the sexual encounter of 5.2–3, then, the male’s ‘hand’, the woman’s nakedness (‘I have taken off my robe’) and the domestic boundary join as part of a sexual discourse. In 5.7, by contrast, the male fist, the public boundary and a public uncovering converge as (sexual?)19 violence. The Song’s most disturbing scene is an unconscious inversion of its most suggestive one. The brutal episode transforms the familiarity of the urban dwelling, the security of the domestic threshold and the intimacy of the body into a violent public space characterized by lostness, exposure and the incursion of the male fist. Given the spatial economy of the story in ch. 5, there is something cruelly ironic, then, about the watchmen’s actions. Theirs is not simply violence but a spatial perversion of a very spatial function20—just as the uncovering of the woman is an inversion of her search for her lover. The public city and the private city collide here and the female protagonist becomes caught, semi-clad, somewhere in the middle.

18.  C. Fontaine, ‘Watching Out for the Watchmen (Song of Songs 5.7)’, 116. 19.  Is the episode a rape? Though not a violation in explicitly sexual terms, the watchmen’s actions in 5.7 are certainly a violation of all the strictures of embodiment, safety and sexual discretion as they sit within the sexual-spatial economy of the chapter. In a text where the closest we come to orgasm is a fumble at the threshold, what else do we expect a rape to look like? Can we expect the Song to spell such things out in ways that are totally uncharacteristic of the rest of the text? 20.  The indirect result of the violence is an ambivalence about the nature of the watch itself. Are the watchmen present to keep outsiders out, or insiders in? In the name of security they certainly enable repression.



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The urban spaces of the poem are, like Donald’s cities, enacted through a series of displacing operations between opacity and transparency, and it is this tension that allows for the operation of power between the characters in the text: the power of the woman, safe behind her front door, to reject the man; the power of the male to disappear and cause his beloved to fret; the power of the male guards over the dark streets; the power of the male guards to beat the woman; the power of the male guards to (apparently) get away with it. The proliferation of hidden, obscured and opaque spaces in the city gives rise to searches and attempts to uncover on the one hand, then, and, on the other, to disquieting repetitions or inversions of imagery. It seems to me, then, that the Song’s urban ideology emerges in the mixing of desire and terror. The city is dark and yet obsessed with discovery and surveillance, it is constituted from the activity of searching, and of hunting, but also of being hunted (‘I did not find, but I was found’). It would be tempting, therefore, to conclude that the city operates in the wider context of the poem as a space of emotional closure, that is, as a symbol of resistance to the unfettered rhythms of love that triumph in the other, more vernal worlds of the poem. Marcia Falk insists on exactly this when she writes that ‘of all the contexts of the Song, the city is least sympathetic to the lovers’. But to arrive at this kind of conclusion one must, like Falk, arbitrarily strip the urban house out of the wider city context.21 The themes of urban darkness and urban displacement, the sensations of disorientation and frustration that the poet achieves and the arresting power of civic violence are potent in the poem precisely because of the contrast they draw with the sexualized encounters in the mother’s chamber in ch. 3 and at the female’s doorstep in 5.2. The city is powerfully dark because it is potentially intimate. In other words, in the city transparency is not always a virtue. The city is a mingling of terror and desire, geared toward surveillance and intimate discovery. Freud and the Labyrinthine City In Donald’s discussion, the ‘labyrinth’ becomes a useful symbol for the mixture of the familiar and the disquieting, and, indeed, for the mixture of opacity and transparency on which it relies. Donald does not particularly explore the image in its own terms, but it is not difficult to see why 21.  Falk treats the urban home as an entirely different contextual category in the poem, one unashamedly geared toward passion: in the urban dwelling ‘lovemaking will be at its best’ she promises us. But she offers no clue as to why the metropolitan love-nest should be treated as any less of an urban situ. Marcia Falk, Love Lyrics from the Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1982), 90.

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the labyrinth comes to operate in his work as a symbol for emotional duality. The labyrinth appears in numerous writings—most notably those of Bachelard, Tschumi, Borges22—as an emblem of the kinds of inherent contradiction that arise from and through personal experience in a space. The labyrinth is a decidedly unsettling space, where every corner, every avenue, is new and untested and yet identical to each of the corners and avenues that have gone before it. In the labyrinth I am caught. Do I move forwards, or do I go back to remake an earlier choice? I am pressed under the cumulative weight of my own shaky decisions (Left? Right? Straight on?), trapped somewhere between the memory of an entrance and the hope of a centre. There is a certain kind of terror that can come alive only in the maze or in the walled city late at night, where one finds oneself cast adrift between the emotions attached to being lost and those of being imprisoned. The space of the labyrinth mixes desire of the prize with a fear of the puzzle, endlessly duplicating the familiar until it becomes alien, until it shocks us by means of its familiarity. The labyrinth is useful in critical discourse about space, then, because it is a spatialization of Freud’s discourse on the uncanny. Strictly speaking, Freud’s uncanny, or unheimlich (literally, and poignantly for this discussion, the un-homely), describes the emotional effect of a particular range of disquieting experiences that frighten because they involve a collision of the familiar and the alien, or else because they involve a repetition/duplication of the seemingly singular. Déjà vu is perhaps the most obvious everyday example, though other oft-quoted examples are: the idea of the doppelgänger, the doll made animate, the divided self, the denied death, the undermining of self-determination, etc.23 Poignantly, Freud relied on urban experiences to formulate his ideas about the uncanny in the first place; his 1919 essay on the subject relates an episode in which he flees an insalubrious neighbourhood of an Italian town only to find himself back where he started. Fleeing again, and again, Freud finds himself, each time, back at the same junction. ‘I was now seized’, he writes, ‘by a feeling I can only describe as uncanny’.24 For the 22.  See, for instance, Gaston Bachelard, La terre et les reveries du repos (Paris: Librairie Jose Corti, 1946), 212; Bernard Tschumi, ‘The Architectural Paradox’, Studio International, September–October 1975; revised in Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994); J. L. Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, ed. Donald Yates and James Irby (New York: New Directions, 1964). 23.  Sigmund Freud, ‘The Uncanny’, in The Uncanny, trans. Donald McLintock (London: Penguin, 2003 [1919]), 121–62. 24.  Freud, ‘Uncanny’, 144.



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disoriented Freud, the labyrinthine city becomes an arena where places of safety and places of danger slide together, giving rise to a disquieting duplication of experience and the unbidden return of what had been pushed away. It is this core idea that Donald invokes in order to explain the labyrinthine qualities of the City, tying the image of the labyrinth— characterized as an opaque site that induces search and movement, as in the Song—to the uncomfortable disjunctions of urban life. The uncanny city is thus ‘both problem and possibility’, a place where ‘threat’ and ‘home’ must necessarily coincide. Donald writes: How can such a bewildering and alien environment—the city as an unsolvable enigma—provide a home? The disquieting slippage between a place where we should feel at home and the sense that it is, at some level, definitively unhomely links Simmel to Freud, or at least to his premise that the unheimlich is rooted in the familiar, the heimlich. That suggests why it is necessary to make sense of the individual in the metropolis not only in terms of identity, community, and civic association, but also in terms of a dramaturgy of desire, fascination and terror. This uncanny city defines the architecture of our apparently most secret selves: an already social space, if often a decidedly uncivil form of association.25

This idea is crucial in Donald’s discussion, which contends that ‘the fear of darkened spaces and the opacity of the social marked Enlightenment conceptions of space’. It is therefore important, says Donald, not only to recognize that power works through surveillance (so Foucault), but also to come to understand ‘the extent to which the pairing of transparency and obscurity is essential for power to operate’. This disquieting mix constitutes the social power of the modern city, or, as Donald puts it, ‘This modern uncanny, imagined as the labyrinth, always returns to haunt the City of Light’.26 The lost woman in the Song, searching for her lover in the dark, finds herself in a decidedly labyrinthine city. Not only is her experience of the city—running through streets and squares, looping around the city in circles—reminiscent of one’s movement through a maze, this movement gives rise to precisely the same kinds of urban dynamics that Donald and Freud describe at work within ideologically ‘labyrinthine’ cities more generally; there is a coupling in the text of the will to find with the city’s ability to hide. There is threat—as the Song’s commentators have been keen to point out—in this city, but there is also a prize: the hope of finding 25.  Donald, Imagining the Modern City, 71. 26.  Donald, Imagining the Modern City, 73.

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one’s lover. There is violence in this labyrinth, certainly, but there is also profound sexual intimacy. There are brutal men, but there is a home too, even a maternal home in the midst of the dark metropolis (mother-city). Between this homely environment, where the intimate sexual scene takes place, and the city streets, where the decidedly unhomely violence unfolds, the woman’s experiences of the city also take on the aspects of the labyrinth that could be described as uncanny. The violence of the watchmen duplicates the earlier intimacy; the un-homely moment of the text is, literally, un-homely insofar as it is an uncanny inversion of the events that took place in the woman’s home. In 5.7 the pleasurable teasing of the boundaries from v. 2—at once bodily and domestic—becomes cruelly recycled as a violent episode where border-keepers lift the veil and violate the body. The dashed eroticized hopes of the home life thus resurface as an horrendous public space. In this space, the male element in the text, momentarily lost beneath the opaque surfaces of the labyrinthine city in 5.3, comes bubbling up as a violent almost-repetition of masculinity. It inevitably haunts the sanctity of the original. The home and the unhomely, the urbane and the decidedly uncivil, meet, diverge and excite one another at the street corner. The Song’s vision of cityness is able to hold the duplications and the diversions together. The reader’s experience of the textual city is not exempt from this sense of the urban uncanny. As readers of ch. 5 we too find ourselves caught between the familiar, sexual and maternal (womb-focussed) city on the one hand—that is, the city of Song of Songs 3—and the violent and threatening phallocentric metropolis on the other—the city of ch. 5. In other words, the poetic doubling of the city in the text generates a kind of uncanny experience for the reader, where a shocking, unsettling review of the urban landscape troubles our previous reading. Like the woman, readers come across violence and uncovering where we had been led to expect concealment and coitus. Is this repetition, or a re-living of experience? Time itself seems to become tangled as we read.27 The city in the Song, then, the antiquated ‘primitive’ city of the biblical text, is actually a more complex poetic operator than we often recognize. It is, like the modern city, a social space that gives rise to decidedly 27.  As Derek Hook puts it with regard to the uncanny: ‘It is not just the disjuncture of the body and soul that Freud is interested in here—that is problems of embodiment—but disjunctures of history also, anxieties of “the before” suddenly pre-empting the specific moment of the present’. Is this also what we see with regard to Donald’s sense of the Enlightenment as a temporal divide in attitudes toward the urban? Derek Hook, ‘Monumental Space and the Uncanny’, Geoforum 36 (2005): 688–704 (698, emphasis in original).



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uncivil forms of association, generating tensions between opacity and visibility, between domesticity and danger, and between the urbane and the ugly. The Song figures the city as a labyrinthine space, as a duality that both supports and haunts the idealized transparency of the romantic relationship. Of course, the Song’s city is not Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, nor is it Ridley Scott’s LA, nor, indeed, are the lovers swinging their gargantuan bodies from the rooftops of downtown New York, and, as a result, its unconscious concerns are not identical with those of Hollywood. Naturally. But the Song does create uncanny repetitions and divisions that are reminiscent of these texts, and is certainly suggestive of the same ambiguities and uncomfortable tensions that characterize Donald’s sketches of the post-Enlightenment city. So, while the Song’s urban landscapes support the premise of the uncanny labyrinthine city, they also beg certain questions of the Enlightenment-divide Donald so keenly invokes to ground it. The ancient city, in this instance at least, is a site where the familiar is recycled as the monstrous. As such the Song contaminates the assumption that the Enlightenment represents a clear temporal divide in attitudes toward cities, undermining the notion that Donald’s represents a recent and distinct mode of urban ideology. Perhaps at root the modern city is itself an unsettling duplication. Bibliography Bachelard, Gaston. La terre et les reveries du repos (Paris: Librairie Jose Corti, 1946). Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Black, Fiona. The Artifice of Love: Grotesque Bodies and the Song of Songs (London: T&T Clark International, 2009). Boer, Roland. Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Bible and Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999). Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, ed. Donald Yates and James Irby (New York: New Directions, 1964). Burras, Virginia, and Stephen Moore. ‘Unsafe Sex: Feminism, Pornography and the Song of Songs’. BibInt 11 (2003): 24–52. Donald, James. Imagining the Modern City (London: Athlone Press, 1999). Exum, J. Cheryl. The Song of Songs (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2005). Falk, Marcia. Love Lyrics from the Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1982). Fontaine, Carole. ‘Watching Out for the Watchmen (Song of Songs 5.7)’. In The Meanings We Choose: Hermeneutical Ethics, Indeterminacy and the Conflict of Interpretations, ed. C. Cosgrove, 102–21 (London: T&T Clark International, 2004). Freud, Sigmund. ‘The Uncanny’. In The Uncanny, 121–62, trans. Donald McLintock (London: Penguin, 2003 [1919]). Garrett, Duane. The Song of Songs (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004). Glissant, Édouard. ‘For Opacity’. In Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture, ed. Gerardo Mosquera and Jean Fisher, 252–57 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).

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Hook, Derek. ‘Monumental Space and the Uncanny’. Geoforum 36 (2005): 688–704. Munro, Jill. Spikenard and Saffron: A Study in the Poetic Language in the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). Pardes, Ilana. ‘ “I am a Wall, and My Breasts Like Towers”: The Song of Songs and the Question of Canonization’. In Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach, 118–43 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). Pile, Steve. Real Cities: Modernity, Space and the Phantasmagorias of City Life (London: Sage, 2005). Pope, Marvin. The Song of Songs, AB 7C (New York: Doubleday, 1977). Robert, A., and R. J. Tournay. Le cantique des cantiques: Traduction et commentaire (Paris: Arlèa, 1963). Rogerson, John, and John Vincent. The City in Biblical Perspective (London: Equinox, 2009). Soja, Edward. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).

W a s t e l an d a n d P a s tor a l I dy ll as I mage s of t h e B i b l i c a l C i t y

Mary Mills

This essay focuses on two landscape iconographies which function in connection with each other within prophetic books—that of a wasteland and that of a pastoral idyll. These images derive from consideration of land as productive or barren and provide metaphors through which wider socio-political issues can be discussed and managed. The exploration of the paired themes provides a cameo of my more extensive treatment of urban imagination in Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy and sits within that volume’s interest in psycho-geography. In this paper the emphasis is on the ways in which an imagined landscape can be used to measure urban vitality. In this context the theme of wasteland is coterminous with city as site of death and destruction, while that of pastoral utopia offers a profile for urban restoration. Images connected with nature serve to embed the reality of urban loss and grief as well as to provide a possible frame for social renewal; terms for land and earth and agricultural metaphors are used by prophetic writers to form a city landscape in which the urban community is dependent both on centralized buildings and on a supporting field system. Cities in the ancient Near East were well-established realities, as evidenced by biblical archaeology1 and endorsed by geographers such as John Short.2 But city populations cannot survive without access to agricultural produce and hence to land for cultivation. They are closely aligned 1.  Cf. Archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia, Nineveh and Nimrud, as well as basic settlements in Israel by Finkelstein: Israel Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988). 2.  John Short, Urban Theory: A Critical Assessment (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), ‘Introduction’, 10.

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with a rural hinterland of fields and gardens. Peter Ackroyd dealing with the modern city of London makes the same point in his historical biography of that site.3 Ellen Davis also notes the interconnections between land and city.4 In Chapter 9 of her book she points out that ‘the terms “city” and “field” would not have denoted…two entirely separate settings and lifestyles’ in the biblical world.5 The city and its rural hinterland would have formed a single economic site with farmers dwelling within urban defences and coming forth to cultivate the land. Davis argues that Psalm 107 provides a symbolic model of the ‘habitable city’ in which the hungry find a stable environment for food production which in turn builds up the urban population.6 In this paradigm of urban existence there is no mental gap between city and land, between cultivation and civilization. The biblical texts do not address the subject of land in a simple manner, however. In the books of prophecy the key topic is the collapse of urban communities as their site is over-run by invading armies and their state reduced to that of vassal kingdoms. The cultural context of prophetic texts is one of political upheaval; they bear the marks of literature which seeks to reconcile bitterness with hope for continuity of local culture.7 This destabilizing situation is managed in the text through deploying contrasting visions of land as both profit and loss. It can then be argued that when Isaiah and Jeremiah deal with landscape iconography relating to the collapse and renewal of Jerusalem they engage with a material reality in which cultivation and civilization go hand in hand.8 From this unity of material and symbolic site the prophets produce an urban voice which offers a commentary on historical affairs 3.  Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000), Chapter 45. 4.  Ellen Davis, Scripture, Culture and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 5.  Davis, Scripture, 158. 6.  Davis, Scripture, 159. 7.  Jeremiah and Isaiah both set out a picture of devastation for Jerusalem, while later chapters of these books move to a more hopeful stance. The theme of ‘comfort’ in Isaiah and the ‘new covenant’ in Jeremiah are examples of this. Walter Bruegge­mann, for instance, used the shift in tone to name his second commentary on prophetic texts The Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1986). 8.  That is, references to the likely collapse of the urban systems are evidenced by reference to scenes of agricultural collapse or by reference to other natural images which imply finitude and judgement.



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from a geo-political angle. The landscape provides a timeless resource for discussing social identity.9 Within this symbolic world wasteland and pastoral idyll are used as modes of making value judgements on political groups and their shifting profiles in small indigenous kingdoms, using the language of cultivation as a marker of the value of urban civilization. The unitive approach of the texts to urban space and the activity of agricultural labour turns land-based iconography into a moral tool by which urban elites can be evaluated. The Iconography of Landscape Since agricultural images have a significant part to play in prophetic urban narrative it is useful to contextualize the role of prophetic landscape in the wider geographical field of landscaping. This is not to focus on technical activity in planning and design of a material site but to examine the links between human imagination and the construction of a landscape. A key volume in this regard is the book edited by Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels on the iconography of landscape.10 The editors note the interface between picturing land in art and the historical use of land itself and suggest that the meaning of landscape is found in its links with cultural values. John Ruskin, for instance, viewed ‘landscape as a text, seeking reassurance of order in face of the apparent chaos of industrialising Britain’.11 In this context an image of the grandeur of nature provides a sense of stability and permanency. The work of Peter Fuller, in the same volume, expands this link between nature and culture to include the interdependence of ‘natural science, theology and art’. He argues that nature provides evidence for moral and spiritual values.12 This comment is useful in analysis of wasteland and idyll since these symbolic sites can be viewed as moral markers of urban activity, in which the actions of political elites are not culturally neutral but are [in]validated with regard to religious tradition.

9.  This is a concept taken from the work of Joel Bonnemaison, Culture and Space: Creating a New Cultural Geography (New York: Tauris, 2005), 2–9. Bonnemaison speaks of a timeless ‘hearth’ of founding myth. 10.  Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, eds, The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 11.  Cosgrove and Daniels, ‘Introduction’, in Cosgrove and Daniels, eds, Iconography, 5. 12.  Peter Fuller, ‘The Geography of Mother Nature’, in Cosgrove and Daniels, eds, Iconography, 21.

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Discussion of the manner in which material and artistic landscapes intersect brings us to the use of symbolism, which Douglas Davies suggests is a mode of thought which unites the viewer and the viewed.13 The image of the tree for example functions as a part of natural order while also conveying a sense of eternity, with its roots embedded in the earth and its branches reaching out into the heavens.14 But symbolic landscape imagery is not simply pleasant viewing. It has political implications since those who create landscapes convey systems of order and meaning to the viewer—and these may be opposing frames of thought. Stephen Daniels notes that rural woodland was viewed by some eighteenth-century English artists as a ‘pastoral idyll’, the pattern of an ordered, hierarchical world, whereas other sources regarded the image of well-regulated and ‘domesticated’ rural nature as a tool of oppressive social control.15 What emerges from the studies within Cosgrove and Daniels’s seminal volume is that human society and the landscape, both actual and depicted, are inextricably intertwined. Anne Whiston Spirn argues that the ‘language of landscape is a habitat of the mind’, it is ‘the house of being: we dwell within it’.16 Treatments of the spaces we inhabit show that common themes repeat across cultures: ‘the struggle for survival, the character of human society, the nature of nature’.17 Landscape images serve as a tool for the management of complex tragic topics drawn from lived experience. ‘The power of landscape literature has the potential not only to symbolise, represent or project feelings and ideas but also to be the very site where life and death take place’.18 Landscapes, whether material sites such as cemeteries, or artistic and literary creations, function as vehicles by which human beings mediate and manage social and personal identities. The prophetic depiction of urban destruction under the symbol of a withered land and city reconstruction as a form of Arcadian existence can be viewed as examples of this social mediation of meaning, which in the biblical text has to do with whether urban environments provide human beings with places of safety.

13.  Douglas Davies, ‘The Evocative Symbolism of Trees’, in Cosgrove and Daniels, eds, Iconography, 33. 14.  Davies, ‘Evocative Symbolism’, 40–14. 15.  Stephen Daniels, ‘The Political Iconography of Woodland’, in Cosgrove and Daniels, eds, Iconography, 53. 16.  Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 11. 17.  Spirn, Language, 49. 18.  Spirn, Language, 80.



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Reading Land in Jeremiah and Isaiah It is clear that within sections of Jeremiah and Isaiah which deal with absence of and rejection by the deity political events are frequently commented on by the use of nature imagery, as in the initial chapter of each book. In Jeremiah 1 the idea of prophetic vocation is constituted as a call to political activity. Verse 9 depicts the placing of divine speech in the prophetic mouth, leading in v. 10 to a description of the future prophetic work as a type of political authority in which he is put over nations and kingdoms for destruction and construction. The prophet’s role is matched against the deity’s own action in bringing the nations of the north to besiege Jerusalem (v. 15). Verse 16 implies that the function of this political invasion is to enact divine judgement on the city and it is Jeremiah’s duty to deliver a religious commentary on regional politics to the royal household. This military theme is present also in Isaiah 1, though in a more muted reference since the chapter does not include a dramatic first person account of encountering God. However, the third person reporting of divine oracles includes in v. 7 the information that strangers will come to devour the land—a passage introduced in vv. 2–4 by the theme of human rebellion against the ways of God. When it comes to aligning political affairs with landscape symbolism Jeremiah 1 refers to an almond branch as a sign for the prophet, an image which plays on the theme of judgement and shows the symbolic use of fertile nature to convey a political and cultural evaluation.19 In Isaiah 1 there is an even greater use of agricultural language to indicate the destiny of the city population. Verse 7 describes the land as desolate, burned with fire, and in v. 8 cultivation practices are drawn into this picture. The city will be left isolated like a hut in a field when the harvest is finished. The landscape depicted in the text is a mirror image of how the city will be left once foreigners have invaded the land and carries with it an understanding of the lightweight nature of the moral behaviour of the urban government. These two chapters, taken together, illustrate the style of prophetic narrative voice which regularly employs agricultural iconography as a tool for commenting on the over-arching political and military issues consequent on the destructive effects of invasion. The iconography of landscape as desolate equates with the political landscape of invasion and defeat and the hinge of the theme is that the collapse of cultivation 19.  Shoqed and shaqad. For a treatment of the use of wordplay here see Robert Carroll, Jeremiah (London: SCM Press, 1986), 102; and Ronald Clements, Jeremiah (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988), 20. Carroll also explores the wider context of the use of ‘rod’ motifs (102–4).

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and the collapse of civilization form a single reality. The land bears the consequences of the failure of a people to sustain/defend itself. But Jeremiah 1 hints, like Isaiah 1, at reversal possibilities. Although culture and land are destined for death there is a hint in Jer. 1.10 that the prophet will also oversee urban construction and renewed agriculture. Likewise, in Isa. 1.27 Zion will be redeemed. But these hopeful events will occur after the collapse of existing regimes and the images of renewal are part of the re-ordering of society under a new political government. The shift of landscape is symbolic of the authorization of that new political reality. A verbal action emerges from this approach; ‘to landscape’ is a way in which human beings seek to order and construct meaning from the experiences of socio-political events, seeking comfort from the creation of landscapes on the margins.20 Winchester et al. suggest that such liminal landscapes are ‘intimately connected to personal moments and movements of transformation’.21 It can be argued that the prophetic texts produce such marginal landscapes: in their case, textual spaces which mediate the community’s transformation from kingdom to imperial province. Agriculture as balanced between sterility and abundance is a central motif in these prophetic scenes and is indicative of the ambiguous nature of city life. City as established artefact is deconstructed via the theme of wasteland and restructured through the imagery of pastoral plenty. The literary function of such sites is to operate like pilgrimage landscapes which allow the reader to stand aside from a status quo position and to re-think the normal ordering of social power by providing a mythical, symbolic space. The one who visits the prophetic landscape encounters a place in which to re-arrange understanding concerning the reciprocal loyalty of city and local deity in the light of new political situations.22 Yi-Fu Tuan argues that mythical space is a ‘fuzzy area of defective knowledge surrounding the empirically known’23 which forms the basis for constructing an intellectual worldview within which people ‘carry on practical activities’.24 Worldview in this context is to be defined as a ‘systematic attempt to make sense of the environment’.25 I am arguing 20.  Richard Muir, Approaches to Landscape (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), 175. 21.  Hilary Winchester, Lily Kong and Kevin Dunn, eds, Landscapes: Ways of Imagining the World (Harlow, UK: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2003), 149. 22.  Winchester, Kong and Dunn, eds, Landscapes, 150. 23.  Yi-Fu Tuan, Space, Place and the Perspective of Experience (London: Edward Arnold, 1977), 86. 24.  Tuan, Space, 186. 25.  Tuan, Space, 88.



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that the use of agricultural metaphor in prophetic landscaping operates as such a mythical space in that it provides a tool for rationalizing the traumatic political experiences of Judah; the events of defeat and renewal under an imperial regime gain deeper cultural value when measured by religious tradition. Wasteland Wasteland, as a form of symbolic landscape within Isaiah and Jeremiah, deals with the negative judgement passed on a city community and enables the reader to grasp the horror of annihilation and to search for a meaning beyond the destruction caused by hostile forces. Isaiah 1, for example, explains the sadness of city decline through the metaphor of the temporary shelter in agricultural production (vv. 7–8).26 The reader is led to reflect on the coming annihilation of the city site by gazing on a familiar agricultural scene. The imagined landscape both offers the reader an experientially rooted comparative measurement and highlights the motif of desolation. In dealing with imagined landscapes Scott Howard suggests that landscape depiction makes possible a release of emotional loss while also engaging the reader with the historical past of successful agricultural and urban endeavour and this comment is of great relevance for understanding the narrative function of prophetic land-based iconography.27 The human response to loss can be defined as acts of mourning and it can be suggested that prophetic books make use of lamentation language as one way to play through the theme of city-as-wasteland. Here is it is useful to draw on the work of Katherine Hayes, who investigates the prophetic usage of symbolizing land as ‘mourning’. In this agricultural motif the earth produces its own response to adverse conditions. Passages so marked occur in Jeremiah 4, 12, 23 as well as in Isaiah 24 and 33. In these passages earth is its own agent and responds actively to the impact of negative influence on the part of human armies or of divine intervention.28 Moreover the devastation of earth, which is a general environment, is linked to the devastation of a particular cultivated land.29 26.  Brevard Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary (London: SCM Press, 2001), 18, notes the textual movement from armies to land as the focus of interest. Ronald Clements, Isaiah 1–39 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 32, defines the imagery as offering the sense of a temporary guard shelter. 27.  Tuan, Space, 47. 28.  Katherine Hayes, The Earth Mourns: Prophetic Metaphor and Oral Aesthetic (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2002), 69–73. 29.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 75.

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Although this involves human agency the devastation is described via earth’s own lamenting response to drought – an image which spills over to include other negative events such as military invasion.30 Thus Jer. 4.23–28 includes images of the mourning of earth and sky over the desolation of Israel and links battle against foreign armies with battle against the forces of chaos.31 This dramatization of suffering allows an urban population on the edge of extinction full scope for expressing fear for their future. By projecting historical collapse onto the cosmic framework within which city life exists the disaster can be explained as part of a divine intervention in urban affairs and this in turn acts as a control on the expression of pent-up distress. It allows for a direct encounter with the actuality of enemy action and all the fear so-created while conforming the battle context to divine control. In performing these two roles landscape imagery plays on the nature of warfare as a disaster which is cosmic insofar as it blots out the horizon of future urban life: both dwelling on that fact and offering an escape route from complete despair.32 The text thus deploys earth as a character in ‘her’ own right alongside the urban community with which Jeremiah ch. 1 engages. Transferring human grief to the land has a two-way effect: it heightens the sense of crisis for the inhabitants and allows the reader to stand outside particular acts of war and take a panoramic approach to human grief and loss. The imagery of earth mourning focuses on material disorder while also addressing the emotions produced by world-shattering events. Jeremiah 14.2–3 speaks of the response of the cities to the desolation of the land. Human beings are dismayed and despair. Judah mourns and cities languish. Hence there is continuity between the icon of a wasteland, of ‘being desolate’, and the state of ‘being appalled’.33 The concept of being appalled is heightened further in Jer. 23.9–10. The prophetic voice aligns itself with a drunken, unstable state since the inner man is reduced to brokenness.34 This is in response to earth parched and withered, a theme linked to darkness and the divine whirlwind, a land which is mourning.35 The external state of the land is one with the inner state of the inhabitant. 30.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 77. 31.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 85. 32.  See Carroll, Jeremiah, 169–70. Clements, Jeremiah, 40–41, reflects on the textual message of the terrifying extent of Judah’s collapse. 33.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 111. 34.  Carroll, Jeremiah, 452, discusses whether this reference might be to a specific individual. Clements, Jeremiah, 140, sees the text as referring to false cultic practices which break the covenant between earth and deity. 35.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 239–40.



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The image of wasteland gives a point of access for managing the disorder which exists or is about to engulf society.36 Cultivation and its failure are aligned with civilization and its fragmentation. These themes are repeated in Isaiah 24 which once again focuses on the earth as site of desolation and devastation. Here the emphasis is on the vegetation which droops or wilts.37 All possibility of rejoicing as part of harvesting is removed in the text so only the image of a wasted land remains.38 The themes of nature and creation are run together to stress the fundamental unity of social and natural order. Verse 1 and v. 3 repeat the image of a wasted land, bracketing v. 2 which uses the wording of ‘as with’…‘so for’ to align all inhabitants from priests and rulers to servants and those in debt to the elite rulers.39 They will all be scattered as the land is devastated. Isaiah 33.8 adds ‘emptiness’ to the image of mourning land—highways being deserted of habitation.40 Isaiah 24.7–8 provides the human response to this scenario, which is first the groan of agony and then silence as suffering replaces joy. Once again human distress is related to the psychological aspect of mourning and grieving.41 Through images drawn from nature the Isaiah passages focus on the all-encompassing scope of loss, inviting the reader into unrestrained mourning. Landscape and Social Memory In this manner the literary world depicts the co-existence of a land, a city and its people. The land ‘remembers’ its inhabitants and shares in the fate of a nation. The withered earth portrayed in Jeremiah and Isaiah roots current identity in the landscape of a fruitful land now under erasure. The textual narration of the wasteland can be said to constitute an act of memory which is in continuity, through the negation of bounty, with a stable urban past. Karen Till notes that ‘groups create “topographies” of memory to make connections between past and present seem permanent and tangible’.42 Given the serious nature of regime change involved in 36.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 243. 37.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 142. 38.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 144. 39.  Childs, Isaiah, 178, suggests this meaning implies there is no distinction between master and servant, while Clements, Isaiah, 201, prefers the concept that no-one is exempt from judgement. 40.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 165. 41.  Hayes, Earth Mourns, 166. 42.  Karen Till, ‘Places of Memory’, in A Companion to Political Geography, ed. John Agnew, Katharyne Mitchell and Gerard Toal (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 290.

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international movements of political power, as reflected in prophecy, such a comment seems to be very applicable to understanding the function of ‘withered landscapes’ within prophetic texts. The literary presentation of dysfunctional landscapes which bear the mark of agricultural failure lead the reader to reflect on the urban population which once depended on earth’s fertility; these literary sites provide a symbolic topography for continuing city-life via an act of memory in which human imagination reconstructs the sights and sounds of the once-active streets and fields. However desperate the iconography is which creates a viable link with the past it is better to form an idea that continuity is possible than to become socially rootless. In the religious traditions of Judah to lose the ancestral land threatens the loss of religious conviction since it breaks the covenant of mutual support between patron deity and society. To hold on to the belief that the deity still exists and is capable of directing regional affairs provides for the possible regaining of ancestral soil, even at the cost of viewing that land and its people as accursed. Till states that ‘places of memory punctuate and create symbolic space’ and provide contexts ‘through which notions of identity are performed and contested’.43 The iconography of wasteland acts as this type of place of memory in its depictions of land as a place emptied and cursed, fashioning out of fear and loss an imaginative tool which provides social and political continuity. The symbolic landscape which is thus created operates as a fictive site insofar as it marries the life of an actual city with the language of curse and destruction. Memory is aligned with a geographical imagination and both with the vocabulary of divine rejection. Yet this fictive city-space operates as a powerful social tool in that it enables readers to delve into their deep sense of longing for that which is no longer available.44 Despite its overt negativity the withered earth theme operates as a positive tool for mourning the ‘death’ of a kingdom since it provides a literary place of memory, a site which locates and orients the process of adapting to a new socio-political scene.45 The wasted landscape, which seems empty of life, becomes through that absence a sign of what we would usually expect in the landscape – as with the imaginative use of sound. There is an emphasis on silence in the biblical texts because there are no caravans of animals and people on the highways and the harvest is separated from human songs of relief at food. This is landscape iconography at its extreme edge, threatening the 43.  Till, ‘Places’, 297. 44.  Karen Till, The New Berlin. Memory, Politics, Place (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 14. 45.  Till, New Berlin, 18.



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concept of the essential vitality of nature and city. The disappearance of the known and perhaps taken-for-granted sounds of daily life produces a deep longing and desire for the renewal of that sustaining environment. It is through the very loss of the familiar, the death of civilization and cultivation, that we come to a full knowledge of who we are and of the social identity which energizes and roots us. The Pastoral Idyll Within the prophetic books under review this desire reaches its fulfilment in later sections of text. Thus Jer. 31.2–12 announces a new theme in which the central images are those of rebuilding and replanting.46 Verse 2 states that the wilderness will be the starting point for this renewal, with v. 4 adding a joyful rebuilding and v. 5 the planting of fruitful vineyards. Verse 12 crowns this message by describing the people themselves as like a well-watered garden and v. 14 stresses the themes of abundance and plenty.47 Jeremiah 33.10–13 also provides a picture of the reversal of disaster to joy, as it states that that which was desolate will have mirth heard again there. Verse 10 defines the key site, the place, as desolate, in that it is uninhabited. The definition functions simply to provide an access point to the reality which supersedes desolation, the act of hearing sounds of human celebration, rooted in ritual practices. Verse 12 repeats the theme of desolation changing into gladness, this time with reference to the abundant agricultural activity which will take place in the towns.48 Isaiah 41.18 makes similar moves in which the symbols of loss— mountains, valleys, wilderness—take on a positive role. This is achieved through the iconography of water, water which both really makes a difference to land and which metaphorically symbolizes life. Thus mountains have rivers, valleys have fountains, the wilderness has pools of water. Isaiah 49.9–13 considers the effect of the landscape on the human inhabitants; whereas drought is accompanied by bare earth, allowing wind and sun to bear down on those weakened by thirst and hunger, the renewal 46.  Carroll, Jeremiah, 588–90, regards this passage as introducing a new theme to the book. Clements, Jeremiah, entitles the section a ‘little book of consolation’ (184–85). 47.  Carroll, Jeremiah, notes that this passage stresses the imagery of land and fertility (594–95). 48.  See Carroll, Jeremiah, 594. The term ‘goodness’ is interpreted in the text via the topic of an abundance of agricultural products. Clements, Jeremiah, 186, refers to the moving picture of a new start to human existence.

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of land through rain brings about comfort and consolation, providing drinking water for long journeys, allowing commerce and pilgrimage to re-start (vv. 11–12).49 As heavens and earth were drawn into urban loss and lament in wasteland iconography so now they are woven into urban renewal. Verse 13 calls upon heavens and earth to provide music to celebrate the renewal of ‘civilization’—an act which is shown to be appropriate to accompany and express divine compassion in renewing Zion (cf. vv. 14–15). The contextualization of these particular chapters is in a time after invasion and defeat. Isaiah 40 has already announced the cessation of adverse military activity through the language of divine pity. Verse 40.1 calls on the prophet to pronounce the end of hard labour, divine relinquishing of punishment. In the subsequent verses the motif of physical return from wilderness to city dominates the text, ending with the image of God as agricultural leader, a shepherd-king who cherishes his subjects as if they were new-born lambs (v. 11). In Isaiah 42 this pastoral language is merged with the image of the servant, Israel, and this image is re-stated in ch. 44.50 By Isaiah 45 the servant who is to provide the people with security in which city life can be resumed is named as Cyrus, king of Persia. It becomes clear that Isaiah’s landscapes of rural energy thus implicitly provide for the political landscape of established imperial rule. The victors have been ‘inculturated’ to indigenous religious traditions, just as those traditions have been glossed to include the strangers, a task reflected in the text which shows how the deity allows good to follow their achievement of power. Thus, in Isaiah 45 the text presents Cyrus of Persia as a messianic figure, tasked with the function of renewing Jacob.51

49.  Childs, Isaiah, 386–87, states that this work of gathering in the diaspora is the task of the servant figure. Norman Whybray, Isaiah 40–66 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 141–42, suggests that a key aspect of the imagery is that of being ‘on high’, hence mirroring the symbolism of mountains in the usage of the Hebrew Bible. The way of return is thus connected implicitly with the work of a transcendent force. John McKenzie, Second Isaiah, AB 20 (New York: Doubleday, 1968), 108 argues that the prophet is less concerned with generalized social commentary than with the immediate historical scene. 50.  Whybray, Isaiah, 102–3, notes that Cyrus is the focus of chs. 44–45. McKenzie, Second Isaiah, xxxviii–lvi, offers a standard outline of the various possible interpretations of the servant figure in Isaiah. 51.  See Childs, Isaiah, 352–54, on the use of the Cyrus figure. Whybray, Isaiah, 104–5, addresses the unique form of the oracle in vv. 1–7 since it is addressed to a single named individual.



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The imagery of wasteland disappears to be replaced by that of Arcadia. In Arcadian language the city is supported by the consolation of an unchanging beneficial landscape. Scott Howard argues that this provides imagery for the third phase of the expression of grief. Lamentation comes first, then praise and finally, consolation.52 He notes that an ‘idealised rural landscape shelters and provides for the individual who is weary of conflict and corruptibility—a landscape of and for, the mind’.53 It expresses the human desire to live in a more harmonious balance with nature, but also our need to return to the landscape of the real world and engage once more with its problems.54 In these prophetic texts, armies no longer devour the land but promote its development. Social economics receive religious approval here as the land ‘knows’ a new populace imaged as a pilgrimage train in Isaiah 40, moving from diaspora to homeland. In this iconography a link is made between death and life in which land is a central repository of urban identity acting as a memorial to city life and a seedbed of new social and political development. The landscape functions as a Memorial—and the function of memorials, according to Miles Richardson, is to be places where people leave objects in the face of death.55 What these objects signify, he suggests, is a sense of presence in the face of absence, by a paradox in which absence and death merge to signify avoidance, yet when embraced provide for the possibility of presence itself.56 Hence the gift that death gives us is ‘our singularity, our irreplaceability, our unique self’.57 In Isaiah and Jeremiah the landscape provides the space where acts of grief can be deposited. Places of memory open out into the act of mourning which in turn re-vitalizes the past. The Watered Garden I have noted above that Jeremiah 31 refers to the people as a ‘wellwatered garden’ thus transferring language which provides evidence for 52.  Scott Howard, ‘Landscapes of Memorialisation’, in Studying Cultural Landscapes, ed. Iain Robertson and Penny Richards (London: Arnold, 2003), 49. 53.  Howard, ‘Landscapes’, 53. 54.  Howard, ‘Landscapes’, 54. 55.  Miles Richardson, ‘The Gift of Presence: The Act of Leaving Artefacts at Shrines, Memorials and Other Tragedies’, in Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, ed. Paul Adams, Steven Hoelscher and Karen Till (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 261. 56.  Richardson, ‘Gift’, 263. 57.  Richardson, ‘Gift’, 268.

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abundant life from nature to society. The metaphor of the garden can be viewed as a sub-set of the pastoral idyll since it provides an icon of a material site which is boundaried and under control while also enlivened by the elemental forces of nature. Wasteland could be imaged as a form of tomb for human life, by contrast. Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou point out, in their study of cemeteries, that the tomb, like a house, is often surrounded by a garden and suggest that this provides a symbolic threshold between the disappearance of the loved relative and their continued existence in a new format.58 In particular, Francis et al. note that the garden is a balancing point between human control and wild nature, a symbolism invoked by the mourners to cover over the break between life and death.59 I suggest that the same manoeuvre can be found in the shift from wasteland to watered garden in the biblical text. The grave-garden grows flowers while the land-garden grows vines, wheat and olives but in both sets of iconography the theme of cultivation achieves the transformation of death into life. The role of water is especially symbolic; watering the cemetery garden signifies life beyond death, for dry earth and its barrenness remind us only of negation.60 The same can be said of the prophetic landscapes of a watered and fertile earth, that they offer the reader hope that communities can return to full life. For the relatives of the dead person to keep the stone and garden in a good state is to ‘forestall the effects of time and deny the inevitable decomposition of body’.61 With regard to the symbolic, literary garden the role of the prophetic voice is to provide a narrative account of an ordered landscape in which there is continued fruitfulness and thus to suggest the living on of the past within the memory of the living, through pragmatic acts of cultivation. In the icon of a burial ground transformed to a garden earth moves from being a ‘bleak, cold place’62 to a ‘source of support and guidance’.63 Davis notes the link between gardens and the primal garden, arguing that use of garden iconography ‘draws the reader’s imagination back to the first garden of the Bible, imaging the healing of…ruptures in the relationship between city and countryside’.64 George McKay thinks that there are 58.  Doris Francis, Leonie Kellagher and Georgina Neophytou, The Secret Cemetery (New York: Berg, 2005), 21. 59.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 123. 60.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 128. 61.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 124. 62.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 149. 63.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 150. 64.  Davis, Scripture, Culture, Agriculture, 170.



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strong links between the theme of peace and the act of gardening. This is due to the ‘future-orientated’ nature of the gardener’s work which nurtures weak plants to ensure their later growth.65 Gardens as places of peace provide a counterfoil to sites which celebrate warfare; McKay reflects on the opposing use of the poppy as white against red to illustrate his view that gardens, with their flower contents, provide powerful symbols through which to measure the value of war and peace in human society.66 In his section on the peace garden McKay notes that advocates of these places often set out guidelines for their creation, including ‘listing structures, landscape and sculptural features and themes, varieties of tree and shrub, explaining their alternative signification in the space of peace’.67 The prophetic creation of a pastoral idyll can be interpreted as a parallel exercise, carried out in textual worlds rather than directly in the material environment. Jeremiah 31.3 speaks of the divine love for the people as a result of which they will be rebuilt (v. 4). The evidence for this is the successful planting of vineyards, in v. 5. Vineyards, as sites which have to be fenced in and nurtured, fit well with the aim of conveying soothing messages of peace as against the ravages of war. Verse 12 notes the ‘bounty’ of the deity, the giving of gifts which are the fruit of the earth—grain, wine, oil—and thus transfers to the ‘gardeners’ the image of a tended garden. The prophetic text lists the fruits of cultivation as signifiers of communal and historical urban peace while the response of the people, dance and song, indicates that peace is not an abstract idea but involves the material experience of relief at the fading away of barrenness leading to death. Reading the iconography of land in biblical prophecy as having the social function of the cemetery-garden turns the literary landscape into a tool for renewing the functionality of urban existence. The real and the imagined sites of death provide ‘symbolic capital’ and are liminal places where ‘geography and chronology are re-shaped and history is spatially set out’.68 Cosgrove and Daniels bring landscape and religion together when they states that ‘landscape is the expression of a “religion of the world” ’.69 This landscaping of material land against cosmic order engages both persons and society at large. For the subject it can offer a 65.  George McKay, Radical Gardening: Politics, Idealism and Rebellion in the Garden (London: Frances Lincoln, 2011), 70. 66.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 79–86. 67.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 91–92. 68.  Francis, Kellagher and Neophytou, Secret Cemetery, 180. 69.  Cosgrove and Daniels, eds, Iconography, 265.

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psychological answer to questions of loss while for a group it provides authority for new socio-political systems. This topic indicates that nature is sympathetic to human need, by offering psychological consolation. Land and city are thus co-dependent sites where each shares in the fate of the other. Conclusion In this essay I have argued that wasteland and pastoral idyll as symbolic images are used in the prophetic texts under consideration as part of a single ideological and religious process. They draw together in balance sorrow/loss and gain/consolation. Both imagined landscapes deal with the dependency of the human community on the capacity of the earth to act to nurture human life and thus deal ultimately with the motif of life/ death. The emphasis on soil and its productivity leads into the theme of cultivation, making the earth an actress alongside human characters in the task of producing food. Cultivation of crops is a necessary part of urban life hence civilization and nature are linked together. It is thus possible for the prophetic writer to discuss regional city-state events through the iconography of waste land and responsive land. The imaginary landscape provides cityscapes which belong within the overall function of the text which is to honour the political reality of regime change while still maintaining the stability of religious tradition within a geographical region.70 Robertson and Richards note that political landscapes are a dominant feature of the iconography of landscape. Society seeks to write landscape in its own image and uses both physical and symbolic means in order to mirror and also to realize, ‘relationships of power and control’.71 I suggest that this is the function of site-based prophetic concepts which appraise past and renewed political regimes. This is true even of rural bucolic aspirations which appear to be far from the concerns of urban political regimes. The pastoral idyll, like wasteland, is a marker of the validity of the political order.

70.  Cf. Muir, Approaches, 149. 71.  Iain Robertson and Penny Richards, ‘Introduction’, in Studying Cultural Landscapes, ed. Iain Robertson and Penny Richards (London: Arnold, 2003), 4.



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Bibliography Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000). Bonnemaison, Joel. Culture and Space: Creating a New Cultural Geography (New York: Tauris, 2005). Brueggemann, Walter. The Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1986). Carroll, Robert. Jeremiah (London: SCM Press, 1986). Childs, Brevard. Isaiah: A Commentary (London: SCM Press, 2001). Clements, Ronald. Isaiah 1–39 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980). Clements, Ronald. Jeremiah (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988). Cosgrove, Denis, and Stephen Daniels, eds. The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Daniels, Stephen. ‘The Political Iconography of Woodland’. In The Iconography of Landscape, ed. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, 43–82 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Davies, Douglas. ‘The Evocative Symbolism of Trees’. In The Iconography of Landscape, ed. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, 32–42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Davis, Ellen. Scripture, Culture and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Doris Francis, Leonie Kellagher and Georgina Neophytou. The Secret Cemetery (New York: Berg, 2005). Fuller, Peter. ‘The Geography of Mother Nature’. In The Iconography of Landscape, ed. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, 11–31 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Hayes, Kathleen. The Earth Mourns: Prophetic Metaphor and Oral Aesthetic (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2002). Howard, Scott. ‘Landscapes of Memorialisation’. In Studying Cultural Landscapes, ed. Iain Robertson and Penny Richards, 47–56 (London: Arnold, 2003). McKay, George. Radical Gardening: Politics, Idealism and Rebellion in the Garden (London: Frances Lincoln, 2011). McKenzie, John. Second Isaiah, AB 20 (New York: Doubleday, 1968). Mills, Mary. Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy (London: T&T Clark International, 2012). Muir, Richard. Approaches to Landscape (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999). Richardson, Miles. ‘The Gift of Presence: The Act of Leaving Artefacts at Shrines, Memorials and Other Tragedies’. In Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies, ed. Paul Adams, Steven Hoelscher and Karen Till, 257–72 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). Short, John. Urban Theory: A Critical Assessment (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Language of Landscape (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988). Till, Karen. ‘Places of Memory’. In A Companion to Political Geography, ed. Katharyne Mitchell Agnew and Gerard Toal, 289–301 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003). Till, Karen. The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).

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Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space, Place and the Perspective of Experience (London: Edward Arnold, 1977). Winchester, Hilary, Lily Kong and Kevin Dunn, eds. Landscapes: Ways of Imagining the World (Harlow, UK: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2003). Whybray, Norman. Isaiah 40–66 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990).

U r b a n P l a n n i n g A c cord ing to E ze ki e l: T he S h a p e of t h e R es tor e d J e r usale m

Deborah W. Rooke

The city of Jerusalem is a significant element in the book of Ezekiel. Much of the early part of the book (not least the vitriolic chs. 16 and 23) shows the city being devastated at the hand of God for its sins, and the fall of the city (33.21–22) is the turning point of the book in its present form; so it is no surprise to see the city being included in the vision of restoration in the final nine chapters. What perhaps is surprising, however, is how little is said about the city in this vision of restoration: the only verses that actually refer to the city are 45.6–7, 48.15–22 and 30–35—a mere 16 verses out of the 260 that constitute the vision.1 Nevertheless, when the little that is said about the city in these verses is read in the light of some more modern ideas about town planning, there are some interesting and illuminating correspondences. It is the aim of this essay to highlight how the ancient and modern ideas interact, and how this might enable the plans for Ezekiel’s restored city to be seen in a new light.

1.  The question of whether all the city material is original to the vision is addressed by several commentators. Generally speaking, the material in 45.1–8 relating to the central area of the land is often regarded as a secondary insertion based on 48.8–22, and the description of the city gates in 48.30–35 is regarded as a supplement. See G. A. Cooke, The Book of Ezekiel, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), 428–29, 493, 536; Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, trans. James D. Martin, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983), 467, 468, 545–46; Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, WBC 29 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990), 252, 278. However, the present discussion is based on a final-form reading of the text, for which redactional issues are of secondary importance, so they will not be discussed. Similarly, the use of the designation ‘Ezekiel’ to refer to the author of all the material should not be taken to imply anything about the identity of the person or people thus designated.

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Ezekiel and Ebenezer Howard The particular ideas that are of interest for present purposes are the plans of the Victorian pioneer Ebenezer (later Sir Ebenezer) Howard (1850–1928). Howard was of lower-middle-class origins, a London city clerk and later a parliamentary stenographer, whose chief claim to fame is as the originator of the ‘Garden City’ concept.2 Howard was concerned to address a dual problem: that of the depopulation of rural areas, and of the overcrowding and poor conditions in cities that were mushrooming because of the flow of people attracted to them by the potential for various material benefits.3 He wanted to bring town and country into a proper balance with each other, and to provide people with the social, cultural and employment opportunities offered by urban life without depriving them of the spacious and healthy natural environment of the more rural setting.4 His ‘manifesto’ for city design, describing how he planned to achieve this goal, was laid out in his book To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1898),5 reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow. Not all of the details in Howard’s scheme can be compared with those in Ezekiel’s vision, partly because there is not the same degree of detail in Ezekiel’s scheme as in Howard’s. However, there are several features of Howard’s ideas that can usefully be compared with Ezekiel’s plan for Jerusalem, and these will be considered in turn.

2.  For a brief discussion of Ebenezer Howard’s life and his development of the Garden City concept, see Stephen V. Ward, ‘Ebenezer Howard: His Life and Times’, in From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, ed. Kermit C. Parsons and David Schuyler, Center Books on Contemporary Landscape Design (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 14–37. A more detailed biography and discussion of the Garden City scheme as it came to be realized during Howard’s lifetime can be found in Robert Beevers, The Garden City Utopia: A Critical Biography of Ebenezer Howard (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988). 3.  Ebenezer Howard, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1898), 2–5. 4.  Howard, To-Morrow, 7–10, and Diagram 1, ‘The Three Magnets’ (between pp. 8 and 9). 5.  Howard’s ideas were not entirely unique but were effectively a synthesis of elements advocated by other thinkers and writers, as he frankly admitted (To-Morrow, 103), although he claimed to have been ‘far on with my project’ before he saw the others’ proposals, and interpreted the similarities between his own and the others’ ideas as ‘possibly, some additional argument for the soundness of the proposals thus combined’ (To-Morrow, 103 n. 1).



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Location Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of Howard’s proposals was that existing cities should not be reformed but that entirely new ones should be built, on new sites and to a new design.6 Howard believed that the old cities had become outdated and that in a society with a growing awareness of the need for a more humane social order they were no longer capable of providing adequately for the needs of their inhabitants; they therefore had to be replaced, and replaced with something that would ameliorate the lot of the working classes by reducing poverty and inequality.7 The redesign of cities was thus inspired by a wider social concern, and was part of a broader scheme of societal reform.8 Land needed to be obtained in order to build these new cities, and Howard’s plan was that the greenfield site for each city would be purchased and held in trust by individuals of stature until such time as the mortgages taken out to purchase the land had been paid off via ground-rent which would be required of the future town’s inhabitants. Once this had been done, the land would belong to the municipality, and the continuing ground rent that was paid would go into a fund for the benefit of the inhabitants, for pensions and municipal works.9 6.  Beevers, Garden City Utopia, 26, observes that Howard borrowed this idea from the economist Alfred Marshall, who in 1884 published an article that advocated rehousing the London poor in a colony set up on land well clear of London, and envisaged the development there of a prosperous and humane combination of urban and rural factors. Indeed, Howard quotes extensively from Marshall’s article in To-Morrow, both as a heading to his own third chapter and as part of his discussion in ch. 11. See To-Morrow, 31, 106–7. 7.  Howard, To-Morrow, 134–35; Pierre Clavel, ‘Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes: Two Approaches to City Development’, in Parsons and Schuyler, eds, From Garden City to Green City, 38–57 (41). 8.  As Beevers comments, ‘The garden city was […] a means to an end—that of abolishing slums and unemployment. But it was at the same time a demonstration in microcosm of a much higher end—nothing less than that of building a new civilisation’ (Garden City Utopia, 31). Clavel, however, comments that those with the power and money to facilitate the building of new cities fastened only on the physical components of the scheme so that the ideas behind it were lost (‘Two Approaches’, 39–40). A similar point is made by Ward, ‘Ebenezer Howard’, 32–33. 9.  Howard, To-Morrow, 12–13, 20–21, 32–33, 63–64, and Diagram 4 (between 22 and 23). This idea was inspired by the writings of the eighteenth-century radical Thomas Spence, whose own utopian scheme included communal land ownership and the deployment of excess rent revenues for the benefit of the community both in public works and in welfare support (Howard, To-Morrow, 103, 107–8; Beevers, Garden City Utopia, 21–23).

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This meant that private individuals were prevented from exploiting the working classes by buying up plots of land and charging exorbitant rents for them in the face of heavy demand for workers’ housing in the city. In addition, the new sites would facilitate the provision of a range of employment that was significantly more secure because lower rents would mean lower running costs for businesses located there; this meant that unlike those who lived and worked in the traditional cities where because of high costs businesses regularly failed and jobs tended to be largely seasonal, workers who moved to the new locations would not be living a life of perpetual insecurity despite paying a high proportion of their wages for the supposed benefit of living in a location that was close to employment.10 Starting afresh in a new location on a new basis of ownership was therefore vital to the success of Howard’s social and economic plans, because it meant that the old patterns of city life with their vested interests and radical inequities in favour of wealthy urban landowners could be broken, and something much more egalitarian put in their place.11 Ebenezer Howard’s model, whereby a new city that is in a new location and free from vested interests symbolizes and embodies a wider socioeconomic revolution, offers a perspective from which to interpret Ezekiel’s picture of the city in his vision of restoration. Indeed, when the location of the new city in Ezekiel is viewed in the light of Howard’s scheme, striking conceptual similarities emerge. Perhaps the most important similarity is that in Ezek. 48.9–22 the restoration of the city is presented in the context of a projected reallocation of the whole land of Israel to the twelve tribes. This means that, like Howard’s plans for city design, the arrangements for Ezekiel’s city are part of a renewal plan for the whole country, and given the critiques of the people, their leaders, and their cities that are voiced in the first part of the book of Ezekiel,12 the renewal plan is surely 10.  For a summary of Howard’s critique of the metropolis, in which these issues are raised, see Robert Fishman, ‘The Bounded City’, in Parsons and Schuyler, eds, From Garden City to Green City, 58–66 (59–60). 11.  Howard rather optimistically envisaged that the benefits of living and working in the new locations with their new basis of ownership would naturally bring about the depreciation of inflated city land values and the corresponding (though not excessive) increase of agricultural land values because so many workers would migrate to the new cities, and this would provide the necessary incentive for those with vested property interests to change their ways and embrace the new system (To-Morrow, 137–39). 12.  Consider, for example, the moral condemnations of people and leaders in chs. 22 and 34, and of course the scathing attacks on the city of Jerusalem in chs. 16 and 23.



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intended to facilitate a more just and righteous society. But a second important similarity that is suggested by the comparison with Howard’s model is that Ezekiel’s new city is to be given a new location.13 At the beginning of Ezekiel’s vision the Temple is shown as being located on what looks like its traditional site of Mount Zion (40.2),14 and given that in the pre-exilic order the Temple was located within the city, the natural assumption is that the description of the Temple is effectively part of the description of the new city, which would place the city in its pre-exilic location. But as the vision progresses it becomes clear that the city is to be in a different place from where it was before the Exile. The rebuilt city as envisaged in Ezekiel 45 and 48 is part of a central area in the land that is designated a terumah in Ezek. 48.20, a term that is variously translated as ‘portion’, ‘allocation’ or ‘territory’. This ‘territory’ is 25,000 cubits square,15 and is divided widthways into three rectangular portions. 13.  Commentators have remarked that the placement of the central area of land in which Temple and city are to be built reflects the historical location of Jerusalem, which is somewhat to the south of the geographical centre of the land; see, e.g., Cooke, Ezekiel, 531; Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel, trans. Coslett Quinn, OTL (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1970), 593; Moshe Greenberg, ‘The Design and Themes of Ezekiel’s Program of Restoration’, in Interpreting the Prophets, ed. James Luther Mays and Paul J. Achtemeier (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987), 215–36 (232); Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 281. In a general sense, therefore, in Ezekiel’s vision the city’s location remains the same as it was prior to the Exile. However, within that general area the location of the city is shifted from where it was prior to the Exile, so to that extent it is still appropriate to regard the city as being built in a new place. 14.  Commentators have offered various identifications for the mountain on which Ezekiel finds himself in 40.2. Older commentators tended to see it as an admittedly mythologized Mount Zion (so Cooke, Ezekiel, 429; Eichrodt, Ezekiel, 541; Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 347; Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 229), although other suggestions have also been made. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, Interpretation (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990), 200, suggests that Ezekiel finds himself on the Mount of Olives looking at Jerusalem; however, Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 25–48, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 514, sees an association with a mythical world mountain and with Sinai. Paul Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary, LHBOTS 482 (London: T&T Clark International, 2007), 222–23, claims that both Sinai and Zion are being evoked. Joyce’s view best captures the nuances of the text, on the grounds that from his mountain-top position Ezekiel will be given laws for the restored community, thereby evoking the Sinai lawgiving, but the picture of a mountain with a city-like structure on it which turns out to be a temple (cf. 40.3) can surely be none other than Zion. 15.  The description of this area of land that appears in Ezek. 45.1–6 only applies the term terumah to the priests’ and Levites’ portions, that is, to the two adjoining

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The northernmost and the centre portions are each 10,000 cubits deep from north to south, one for the priests and one for the Levites, with the sanctuary in the centre of the priests’ portion (Ezek. 45.1–5; 48.10–13). The remaining southernmost portion of the original square, 5,000 cubits deep, is for the city (45.6; 48.15a), and the city is located in the middle of it. This is a location for the city that breaks with previous practice on three fronts, the first of which is in its relationship to the tribal allocations of land. Previously, Jerusalem (for which this city is presumably a replacement) was in the territory of the tribe of Judah, but this new city is in its own territory that belongs to none of the tribes individually but to all of them together (45.6). This is achieved by making the land on which the city is built additional to the tribal allocations: there are twelve other tribal divisions, and the terumah containing the city and the sanctuary is in a thirteenth division alongside these twelve, rather than being taken out of, or belonging exclusively to, that of a single tribe.16 In this way, the same effect is achieved as is aimed at in Howard’s scheme of municipal ownership of the land on which his city would be built: Ezekiel’s city serves to validate an ethos of equality. The city is a resource for every tribe rather than being the exclusive possession of only one, and every tribe has a stake in it, as is indicated by the stipulation that members of all the tribes are entitled to work there (48.19). Not only is the city separated from all the tribes in its new location, however, it is separated from the sanctuary. As can be seen from the description given above, the city is located as part of the terumah that includes sacred areas for the priestly personnel and the sanctuary, but it is separate from those sacred areas. Its own area is not holy, but profane (though clean) (Ezek. 48.15), and it provides an environment for members of the non-priestly tribes. Indeed, depending on how the text that describes the placement of the terumah’s three elements is read, the territory of the Levites might come between that of the city and that of the

25,000 × 10,000 cubit areas that lie to the north of the 25,000 × 5,000 cubit area allocated to the city. Nonetheless, the three areas together still form a 25,000-cubit square, which implies that the city’s portion is part of the same complex as the other two portions. 16.  Greenberg suggests, however, that each tribe would have had to give up a small part of their inheritance to allow for the terumah, a term which he therefore translates ‘Contribution’ (Greenberg, ‘Design and Themes’, 232), and this is true at one level: if the land is divided into thirteen portions rather than into twelve then of course each portion will be smaller. But the way the picture is presented in Ezekiel, no tribe is shown as having to sacrifice anything for the terumah.



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sanctuary, which would locate the city at a distance of some 14,700 cubits (getting on for 4.5 miles) away from the sanctuary.17 Even if the priests’ area is next to that of the city, the distance between city boundary and sanctuary boundary would be 4,700 cubits, rather more than a mile. So there is significant distance between the new city and the sanctuary, unlike in former times when the sanctuary was located within the city. Nor does the city belong in any way to the nasi’, the prince, who is the representative of royalty in Ezekiel’s vision, and who would certainly in former times have owned and controlled a good deal of land, including that in the city. The prince is given his own allocation of land, two strips 25,000 cubits deep to either side of the special square portion in which the sanctuary and city are built (Ezek. 45.7–8; 48.21–22). His land therefore adjoins, but is quite separate from, that of the city. The comment that goes with this in 45.8 is that ‘no longer shall my princes oppress my people but they shall let the house of Israel have the land according to their tribes’. This implies that prior to the Exile the monarchy was responsible for a good deal of land-grabbing, which resulted in the common people being

17.  Commentators differ on whether to understand the text as indicating that the priests’ portion is located to the north of the Levites’ portion, or vice versa. Given that the text is moving from north to south in its description of the tribal allocations, and there is no indication of a change of direction for the description of the sacred portion, the most logical reading is that the priests’ portion, mentioned before those of the Levites and of the city, is the northernmost part of the terumah, a position espoused by Greenberg, ‘Design and Themes’, 232–33, esp. 39, and Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 732–33. Arguments that the Levites’ portion is the northernmost one, followed by the priests’ portion and then the city portion, appear to be based on the assumption that the sanctuary would naturally be in the centre of the holy portion, and as such at the very centre of the land; see, e.g., Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 534; Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 284 (both of whom argue for the Temple being in the centre of the reservation rather than in the centre of the land as a whole, Zimmerli based on ‫ ְבּתֹוְך‬in 48.8); Bruce Vawter and Leslie J. Hoppe, A New Heart: A Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel, International Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 201, 202; Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, Der Prophet Hesekiel/Ezechiel Kapitel 20–48, ATD 22/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 625, 626. This, however, is unrealistic in that the terumah is divided unequally between priests, Levites and city, so even if the priests’ portion were between that of the Levites and the city, its centre is not the geographical centre of the land. Rather, it makes just as much sense to suppose that the sanctuary is separated from the city by the Levites’ portion, given that there is such concern to keep city and sanctuary apart. In addition, the sanctuary is probably nearer the actual centre of the land if it is amidst a priestly portion that is the northernmost sector of the terumah.

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deprived of the land for the benefit of the elite.18 The new arrangement is therefore designed to prevent the recurrence of such practices. This is a very different picture from that propounded by other aspects of the biblical tradition, whereby the city, the sanctuary and the monarchy have a mutually reinforcing function: David chooses Jerusalem as his capital, and validates that choice (and his own leadership) by bringing the Ark of the Covenant into it (2 Samuel 5–6); and Solomon’s subsequent building of the Temple in Jerusalem as a permanent resting place for the Ark (1 Kings 5–8) must be seen as the definitive religious validation of the political monarchic regime. But in Ezekiel’s vision this connection is severed—a severance that is explicitly referred to in Ezek. 43.6–9—by separating Temple and city, deeming the area of land in which the city is built as ‘common’, ‘profane’ (Ezek. 45.6; 48.15), in contrast with the ‘holy’ areas in which the cultic personnel and the sanctuary are situated, and pushing the prince out of the city and sanctuary entirely onto other lands.19 Separating out the nexus of city, monarchy and Temple removes control of the city from the powerful vested interests that dominated it in the pre-exilic era, thereby facilitating and reflecting the institution of a new social order. In both Ebenezer Howard’s proposals and Ezekiel’s vision of restoration, then, the city is relocated away from all of its former sociopolitical and geographical connections, and this relocation is part of a wider scheme that is intended to facilitate socioeconomic reform across the whole community. In its very location, the city thus embodies and expresses the more equitable social order that is envisaged for the country at large. 18.  The story of Naboth in 1 Kings 21 may be an example of such practices. From a different perspective, in a discussion of settlement types in Iron-Age Israel, C. H. J. de Geus, Towns in Ancient Israel and the Southern Levant, Palaestina Antiqua 10 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), suggests that the Hebrew term migdal (‘watchtower’; cf. 2 Kgs 17.9) probably referred to a small fortified settlement or a small citadel with some houses, and surmises the existence of a large number of such settlements in remote areas where they would have established royal authority and enabled remote plots of fertile soil to be exploited; as such, they were probably operated directly for the crown, for the benefit of the monarchy (170–71). If this is correct, it gives a powerful picture of the monarchic arm spreading widely across the countryside, and Ezekiel’s picture is indeed in strong contrast to such a spreading area of influence for the royal personage. 19.  Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 284, speaks of the bonds between Temple, city and monarchy as being loosened rather than severed, given that all three elements are accommodated in adjoining areas within the central portion of the land. This may be true conceptually speaking, but in economic terms the three are severed, since each is given its own lands and thereby means of support, and this is what matters for the present argument.



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Shape A second interesting point of comparison between the two city plans is in their shape. The design of Ebenezer Howard’s ideal city was circular;20 it consisted of a central circular park area surrounded by concentric rings of ‘avenues’, and by ‘boulevards’ which ran from centre to periphery like the spokes of a wheel. Civic and cultural buildings would be in the central park area, around a five-acre garden at the very heart of the city; encircling the outer edge of Central Park there would be what Howard termed a ‘Crystal Palace’, that is, a glass-covered arcade, providing all-weather retail, recreational and exhibitional facilities. The concentric residential avenues would be broadly spaced, all the roads of the town would be lined with trees, and the dwellings built along them spacious and varied in design. Half-way between Central Park and the outer boundary road there would be a second, wide ring of parkland encircling the town, known as ‘Grand Avenue’; in this parkland would be reserved sites for public schools and for places of worship. Transport was also taken into account in Howard’s plan: there would be a circular railway round the entire town, with sidings that linked it to the main railway system. The outermost circuit of the town was designated for industrial plots fronting on to the circular railway, which would make for ease and economy in the distribution and storage of goods. Finally, around the outside of the city in the rural hinterland would be gardens, allotments and farms, from which produce could be grown for sale in the city, thereby linking the rural and urban economies. Under this arrangement, Howard claimed, no inhabitant would be more than 660 yards from the town’s encircling railway (which would carry passengers as well as freight),21 or more than 240 yards from Grand Avenue (the parkland belt midway between the centre and the periphery, containing schools and churches),22 or more than 600 yards 20.  Beevers notes that Howard originally envisaged his city in the shape of a rectangle, but as he refined his ideas ‘he changed it figuratively from a rectangle to a circle, which lent itself more readily to diagrammatic representation’ (Garden City Utopia, 44). In fact, despite the symmetry of his diagrams, Howard always stressed that an actual city would have to be adapted to the contours of the site on which it was built, although such adaptation was expected to enhance the design rather than detract from it (Garden City Utopia, 97–98, 103–4; cf. Howard, To-Morrow, 130–31). Nonetheless, for the purposes of this essay, it is the design ideal rather than the practical realization which is significant. Details of Howard’s city plan are laid out in To-Morrow, 12–18, including Diagrams 2 and 3. 21.  Howard, To-Morrow, 17. 22.  Howard, To-Morrow, 16.

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from Crystal Palace (the shopping and recreation arcade).23 The circular design therefore embodied the principles of fairness that gave everyone who lived in the city the same rights and access to all the benefits of city living. Ezekiel’s city by contrast is not circular but square, an equilateral shape that is in itself suggestive of an ideal of equality, although no details are given about the city’s internal features or facilities. Nonetheless, the square shape of the city exemplifies the emphasis on carefully measured and geometric shapes that permeates Ezekiel’s vision of restoration and applies to the arrangement of the whole of the land. From its northern to its southern border the land is divided into horizontal strips that run from the Jordan to the Mediterranean coast, and one strip is allocated to each tribe (Ezek. 48.1–27).24 The ‘territory’ in which the city is to be located is in the eighth of these strips counting from north to south, and is itself divided into three carefully measured strips. Two of these strips contain structures, both of which are square: the sanctuary, in the priests’ strip (45.2–4), and the city, in the city strip (48.15–16). The geometric pattern of the ‘territory’ and its structures is thus of a piece with the entire restoration plan, which is a way of dividing up the land as equally and fairly as possible between all the tribes.25 As a part of this scheme, therefore, in 23.  Howard, To-Morrow, 15. 24.  Nothing is said about the north–south depth of the tribal strips. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, suggests that they are to be thought of as broader than the terumah, and on the basis of the southern boundary given in 48.28 posits a depth of around 30 km [approximately 18 miles] for each of the five strips south of the terumah, covering the distance from Jerusalem to Kadesh, although because no northern border is specified it is not possible to make the same calculation for the seven strips to the north of the terumah (541). However, he also argues that the phrase ‘each…as the other’ (47.14) that is used with reference to the division of the land indicates that each strip is to be thought of as being the same size (533, 541). 25.  The arrangement of equal horizontal strips has been criticized as being quite unrealistic; see, e.g., Pohlmann, Hesekiel/Ezechiel, 623. Greenberg, ‘Design and Themes’, however, argues that far from ignoring geographical considerations it is in fact the only way to ensure that each tribe receives an equal share of all the different types of land that exist within the boundaries of Israel (232). He goes on to remark that in drawing up the scheme of land divisions ‘Ezekiel seizes the occasion to set aright socioeconomic disadvantages arising from the old system of land tenure. All the tribes are equalized as to their holdings… Violations of justice…are a cause of God’s forsaking Israel (8:17; 9:9)’ (235). It should perhaps be noted that, as with the arrangement of the gates around the city (see below), there is a certain amount of theological schematization in the order of the tribal territories; most obviously, the territories named after sons of concubines (Dan, Asher and Naphtali in the north, and



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its very shape the city bespeaks an ideal of equality and fairness that was missing from the pre-exilic Jerusalem, if the earlier prophecies in Ezekiel are anything to go by.26 Access Points A third point of comparison between the two city schemes is that of access points. As noted earlier, in his revolutionary new urban plan Ebenezer Howard envisaged six major arteries (‘boulevards’) cutting through his circular city at regular intervals, leading from centre to periphery,27 thus giving plenty of access points by road to the city around its circumference. He also planned links from the city to railways and other national transport systems, not least in the railway that would surround the entire city with its sidings that gave onto the industrial outer ring, thereby allowing the easy transportation of manufactured goods via factory sidings to the main rail network and thence wherever the manufacturers desired to send them.28 Howard’s claim that no-one would be more than 660 yards from the railway implies that railway stations for pedestrian transport in and out of the city would be accessible around the perimeter of the city, probably from the outer end of the boulevards, although this is not entirely clear from his descriptions or from his diagrams.29 But the basic Gad in the south) are those at farthest remove from the central territory containing the city and sanctuary, while Judah retains a privileged position right next to the central area (although to its north rather than to its south as would have historically been the case). This means that the arrangement cannot be regarded as completely egalitarian. Nevertheless, the scheme as a whole is designed to reverse the grossest inequities of the monarchic period, and is clearly aiming at a much more equitable distribution of lands and power. See Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 540–41; Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 235–36; Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 722–24. 26.  See Cooke, Ezekiel, 536; Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 742. 27.  Howard, To-Morrow, 14. 28.  Howard, To-Morrow, 16–17. 29.  The description of the railway makes no mention of passenger railway stations, and in the later discussion about the financial benefits to industry of locating in ‘Garden City’ Howard cites the possibility of traders claiming rebates from the railway company on the basis that the company was not providing station accommodation (To-Morrow, 55), thereby implying that factories had private (or rather, municipally owned) sidings located directly in front of them, and so would not need stations. A railway station is shown in only one diagram in To-Morrow, that is, Diagram 3 (between pp. 14 and 15), which depicts a single segment or ‘ward’ of Garden City. Although the diagram shows a ward bounded by two boulevards, a railway station and connection to the main line railway is only depicted at the outer

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principle was that there were access points available all round the city, and each access point gave quickly onto the same (or equivalent) facilities as those that were accessible from any other entrance. The abundance of access points would also give considerable ease of movement both for the city’s inhabitants and for those who might want to come and work or trade in it, implying an attitude of openness to the world beyond the city’s boundaries. When these observations are brought to bear on Ezekiel’s city, a similar situation can be observed. His city is shown as having twelve gates, three on each side, which are named after the original twelve tribes of Israel (Ezek. 48.30–34). This means that there is a gate for each tribe, indicating that every tribe has equal access to, and hence a stake in, the city.30 The city thus symbolizes the reunification of the twelve tribes in the land of Israel, while at the same time (as noted earlier) being an area of neutral ground where they are brought together on equal terms.31 But in addition to this, the abundance of gates also means abundance of access,32 an aspect that contributes to the city’s economic functioning and to the quality of its environment, encouraging easy movement of individuals and end of one of the boulevards. However, because of the diagram’s perspective, the point at which the main railway would reach the end of the second boulevard is not shown, because it falls beyond the limits of the diagram. The representation is therefore incomplete, so that the absence of a railway station at the end of the second boulevard cannot be taken as definitive. In the light of his ‘660 yards’ claim, Howard must have envisaged passenger access points to the railway line around the town’s circumference, even if they are not clearly specified in the description or diagrams. 30.  A similar point is made by Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 738–39. 31.  It should perhaps be said that as with the land allocations there is a certain amount of theological schematization in the location of the gates. The gates for Reuben, Judah and Levi—the oldest child, the kingly tribe and the priestly tribe— are on the north side of the city, opening in the direction of the holy area and the sanctuary; but then, the allocations for those three tribes are also to the north of the city. Similarly the gates for Zebulun, Issachar and Simeon are to the south like their tribal allocations, so there is some sort of corresponding logic to the arrangement (Cooke, Ezekiel, 532; Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 546; Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 284; and Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 737, all make a similar observation). It is also true that the gates to the north and south of the city are those named after the six sons of Leah, whereas those to the east and west are the two sons of Rachel (Joseph and Benjamin, on the east) plus the four sons of concubines (Dan on the east, and Gad, Asher and Naphtali on the west) (Cooke, Ezekiel, 532; Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 546; Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 284; Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 238; Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 738). 32.  Block, Ezekiel 25–48, comments, ‘[Ezekiel’s] twelve gates offered unrestricted access to Israelite worshipers from all points of the compass, a point emphasized



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goods both into and out of the city; and the orientation of the gates to all four compass points bespeaks an attitude of openness to the world beyond the city’s boundaries, as in Howard’s ideal city. Territories The fourth area of comparison between the two city schemes is in their relationship to the surrounding countryside. At the heart of Ebenezer Howard’s ‘garden city’ scheme was the principle of regulating the relationship between city and agricultural hinterland: Howard’s conception was not just of a city, but of an urban community of limited size surrounded by agricultural land, so that a co-operative and mutually beneficial relationship between urban and rural economies could be developed.33 Indeed, his proposed ‘city’ design envisaged an estate of 6,000 acres, all of which would eventually be owned by the municipality, but of which a mere 1,000 acres would be occupied by the city,34 with the remainder being available for a variety of agricultural enterprises. The close integration of agriculture and city meant that there would be both a ready market for the agricultural producers and a ready food supply for the city;35 but whether or not agricultural producers chose to take advantage of the local market provided by the nearest city, the principle behind the integration was that of achieving a symbiotic rather than a parasitic relationship between the two modi vivendi. Cities with their promise of high wages and sociocultural advantages were denuding the countryside of a vitally needed workforce, as well as being unwholesome and unhealthy places to live, and the balance between the two environments needed to be restored. Equally important was the idea that cities should not simply bloat outwards into one another, but that once a settlement reached a certain size another satellite settlement should be founded on the same design as the original settlement, on lines of transport and communication with the first city but a self-contained entity in its own grounds, surrounded by a minimum area of agricultural land.36 In this way, communities could be kept at an optimum size for functioning explicitly by naming the gates after the twelve tribes of Israel’ (736–37). While it is not unreasonable to see the gates as allowing access for an influx of pilgrims, it is surely too limited a conception to define their function purely in those terms. 33.  Howard, To-Morrow, 13. 34.  Howard, To-Morrow, 14. 35.  Howard, To-Morrow, 18, 24–25. 36.  Howard, To-Morrow, 130–31.

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in the urban/rural symbiosis that Howard sought. A third feature of Howard’s designs was that the agricultural area should also contain ‘various charitable and philanthropic institutions’ erected and maintained by private individuals at the invitation of the municipality.37 Howard’s diagrams show institutions such as children’s cottage homes, a farm for epileptics, convalescent homes, and industrial schools in the agricultural area of the estate.38 These would primarily benefit the estate economically speaking by their spending power,39 but presumably might also serve the city’s inhabitants should they ever have need of them. When the relationship between urban and rural territories in Ezekiel’s picture is considered, there are several aspects of interest. As is the case with the elements previously discussed, there is much less detail in Ezekiel than there is in Ebenezer Howard, but Howard’s ideas may suggest ways of reading what appears in the biblical text. The description of the city in Ezek. 48.15–17 shows it as a 4,500-cubit square surrounded on all four sides by a belt of land 250 cubits wide, situated in the middle of a 25,000 × 5,000-cubit rectangle of land. The remainder of this rectangle to the east and west of the city—two areas of land 10,000 cubits wide by 5,000 deep—is to be arable land for the workers in the city (48.18–19). This means that one-fifth of the available land is taken up by the city and its surrounding land-zone, and one-sixth by the city proper minus the surrounding land-zone, this latter being exactly the same ratio of urban to agricultural environment as envisaged by Howard in his design. What, then, of the territories surrounding Ezekiel’s city? Starting with the 250-cubit-wide land-zone (migrash) that surrounds the 4,500-cubit square of the city proper, it is interesting to note that a similar belt of land surrounds the sanctuary, which implies that this land is to be understood as ‘open land’ or ‘open space’ (45.2; 48.17), or, as James Barr puts it, ‘a demarcated area extending outside the walls and actual inhabited region of a city’.40 The function of such an area might have been, Barr surmises, legal and religious, or it might have had ‘a sort of numinous spatial function’, for institutions such as cities or sanctuaries, ‘a special zone which separated [them] off and marked [them] as something special’.41 In the case of the sanctuary the purpose of the migrash could well be to 37.  Howard, To-Morrow, 19. 38.  Howard, To-Morrow, Diagrams 2, 6, and 7 (between pp. 12 and 13, and pp. 130 and 131). 39.  Howard, To-Morrow, 19. 40.  James Barr, ‘Migraš in the Old Testament’, JSS 29 (1984): 15–31 (25). 41.  Barr, ‘Migraš’, 27.



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prevent the entry of anything defiling or unholy into the sacred precincts.42 But in the case of the city, and in the light of Ebenezer Howard’s ideas, it is tempting to suggest another function for the migrash: together with the wall, the open land marks the boundary of the city and ensures that the city does not grow excessively.43 Although the idea of an area of open land around a town is by no means a modern invention,44 Howard’s insistence on keeping urban settlements small and separating them from each other by means of areas of open land instead of allowing them to spread uncontrollably was a significant part of his overall plan, and has influenced town planning ideas down to the present time. Part of the purpose of British twentieth-century Green Belt legislation was to prevent towns spreading and merging into one another and to preserve the historic character of smaller towns;45 in effect, a green belt separates off a town and keeps it distinct, both preserving and limiting the town’s dimensions. Similarly, the ‘green belt legislation’ for Ezekiel’s city both marks it out as a special, iconic settlement and limits its growth. Contrast this with the picture in Zech. 2.8 (ET 2.4), where Jerusalem will be unmeasurable because of the great number of outlying villages; quite a different picture, much more like the idea of modern suburban sprawl.46 In this respect, therefore, the city in Ezekiel can be seen as being intended to function on a manageable scale in a way that is beneficial to humans rather than consuming their resources and those of its surroundings in increased urbanization like a great monster. 42.  Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 652, speaks of ‘a protective no-man’s-land…which would serve as a buffer protecting the absolute holiness of the sanctuary itself’. 43.  Block, Ezekiel 25–48, 732, suggests that ‘the term [migrāš] represents an unoccupied strip of agricultural land around the city core, apparently set apart to provide board and sustenance for worshipers temporarily residing in the city’. However, it is not immediately clear why such worshippers could not find board and lodging within the city itself. 44.  Robert Freestone, ‘Greenbelts in City and Regional Planning’, in Parsons and Schuyler, eds, From Garden City to Green City, 67–98 (70). 45.  Freestone, ‘Greenbelts’, 79–81. 46.  De Geus, Towns in Ancient Israel, comments that villages would often be established as secondary settlements outside towns, and their number would increase in good times but decrease in bad times (172). Although the term for villages that appears in Zech. 2.8 is not the same as that discussed by de Geus (Zechariah speaks of perazoth, ‘hamlets’, ‘open areas’, whereas de Geus observes [172] that the commonest Hebrew term for village is hatser, denoting an unwalled settlement), the picture in Zechariah nonetheless seems comparable with the situation posited by de Geus. The abundance of villages would therefore be Zechariah’s way of indicating a time of peace and prosperity.

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But inevitably, cities are dependent upon the surrounding countryside in order to remain viable, and this is where the two 10,000 × 5,000-cubit areas to either side of the city come in. Urban developments require resources from the surrounding countryside to provide sustenance for their workers; for Ebenezer Howard, this relationship had broken down as cities swelled beyond their ability to provide satisfactorily for their inhabitants, and agricultural production was being threatened as farm workers migrated to the cities in the hope of higher wages and other benefits. His ‘garden city’ proposal, whereby a size-limited city constituted one-sixth of an agricultural estate, encouraged sufficient agricultural production in areas near the city in order to meet the city’s needs. Ezekiel’s proposal similarly gives the city the wherewithal to meet its own needs while keeping the urban and rural components in an appropriate relationship to each other. Admittedly, the dynamics of urban–rural relationships in antiquity may have been somewhat different, since there would probably not have been the same degree of dichotomy between urbanites and rural dwellers as there is in the modern Western world. Nonetheless, there may still have been a sense in which large urban developments with increased numbers of administrative and artisanal (i.e. non-agricultural) workers were parasitic upon their environs, to the potential detriment of those not working in the city whose livelihood nevertheless depended on those environs. Giving the city its own arable land, therefore, is a way of addressing such problems. Those who work in the city are entitled to arable lands outside it so that they can support themselves (Ezek. 48.18); indeed, the text may be read as requiring them to support themselves in this way. This means that the city is not sucking all the life out of lands and people from other areas, and enables the urban and rural environments to be maintained in a suitable equilibrium—another way of instituting and preserving a more just social order in the country as a whole. Purpose The final area of consideration for the two city schemes is that of purpose: What are the cities for? In laying out his proposals for a new kind of city, Ebenezer Howard sought not to turn back the clock to a pre-urban paradise, but to embrace city life in a new and planned way that maximized its benefits without destroying those of the rural or social environments on which city life ultimately depends. As noted earlier, he wanted to bring town and country into a proper balance with each other, and to provide people with the social, cultural and employment opportunities offered by urban life without depriving them of the spacious and healthy natural



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environment of the more rural setting. Howard was perfectly at home with the concept of the city per se; indeed, as an urban dweller himself, a citizen of London, his own natural environment was city life,47 and he saw it as offering many benefits despite its corrupted manifestations. As he put it in To-Morrow, ‘The town is the symbol of society—of mutual help and friendly co-operation, of fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, of wide relations between man and man—of broad, expanding sympathies—of science, art, culture, religion’.48 An important part of his goal was therefore to make these benefits accessible to the workers who were currently crammed into overcrowded, insanitary, industrialized towns, working long hours for wages that were insufficient to cover the high rents demanded by private landlords; and his affordable, healthful, size-limited communities were the means via which that goal would be realized. The purpose of the city in Ezekiel, however, is less obvious. Its former function as the place in which the sanctuary was located has been removed, so it is not needed for that—for the Israelites to go up there to meet their God—because they can do that at the sanctuary apart from the city.49 But what is intriguing is that although it apparently is not needed any more as the place where God can be met, it is still retained as a place to which all the tribes—priestly and non-priestly—are entitled to go. Although the city is not holy, neither is it impure; and indeed, its status as ‘common’ (‫ )חֹל‬means that no-one is barred from it—unlike the sanctuary, at which attendance would of course be subject to rules of ritual purity. So the whole people have a stake in the city in the way that they do not in the sanctuary. And in the light of Howard’s understanding of the benefits offered by cities—sociability, science, art, culture, religion—it is possible to suggest a purpose for the new city in Ezekiel. Despite the stress on the Temple that appears in Ezekiel 40–48, these glimpses of the city alongside it challenge the idea that the sanctuary is the real and only centre of Israel’s life: the sanctuary may indeed be the spiritual power-house of the land, but the real centre of life and interaction and fellowship and unity, 47.  Beevers, Garden City Utopia, 5. 48.  Howard, To-Morrow, 9. 49.  Compare the comment of Pohlmann (628): ‘Die Passage [Ezek 48.16–19] berücksichtigt eine Art “Erinnerung” an die ehemalige Wertschätzung der Stadt, die vollkommen bedeutunglos zu werden droht, denn das Heiligtum liegt nicht mehr im Stadtgebiet’. [The passage allows for a sort of ‘recollection’ of the former esteem felt for the city, which threatens to become completely meaningless, because the shrine is no longer located within the city limits.]

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the heart of the people, is the properly constituted city. Like Howard, Ezekiel does not envisage a return to some kind of pre-urban paradise, but a reorganization of the concept of ‘city’ in order to purge it of its faults and exploit its benefits; and this is what forms the climax of his vision. And it is as part of this consideration of purpose that one of the most intriguing similarities between the two schemes is found. Ebenezer Howard’s writings show that he saw his own proposals for newly constituted cities as a master key to solving many problems, which were not limited to physical problems such as poor accommodation, ill health and poverty, but which included ‘the relations of man to the Supreme Power’.50 For Howard, the countryside was the symbol of God’s love, and his aim was to enable a proper appreciation of the rural environment in conjunction with the experience of the social benefits that were to be had from the town;51 this synthesis, in his view, was what would awaken in humankind a transforming awareness of the warmth of divine love, and it was the redesigned city that was crucial to this social and spiritual revolution. Howard named his city ‘Garden City’ to reflect the urban– rural synthesis that he saw it as representing; but although the name refers primarily to the physical characteristics of his new design it can be argued also to represent the entire lifestyle with its opportunities for spiritual fulfilment that in Howard’s mind went along with the new-style city. Indeed, there is evidence that in drawing up his proposals Howard saw himself as rebuilding Jerusalem for his own context,52 a concept that clearly hints at the spiritual overtones of the project, while the new name of his ‘Jerusalem’ reflects its particular nature and its relationship to its own time and space. And here, too, there is a point of contact with Ezekiel: like the pioneering planner, the prophet rebuilds Jerusalem for his own context, and renames it to reflect its new nature and the new kind of life that can be lived in it, calling it Yahweh shammah, ‘The Lord is there’ (Ezek. 48.35). Even though there is no longer a sanctuary in the city, in 50.  Howard, To-Morrow, 5. Among Howard’s unpublished papers is a diagram entitled ‘The Master Key’, in which the parts of a large key are equated with various elements of Howard’s scheme; in the diagram, the barrel of the key is equated with science and religion, the joint forces which would drive the mechanism via which new cities would be built. For a reproduction of the diagram, and a discussion of its meaning, see Beevers, Garden City Utopia, 40–42. 51.  Howard, To-Morrow, 9–10. 52.  A quotation from William Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ appears in To-Morrow at the head of Chapter 1, in which Howard outlines his detailed design proposals for the new style of city: ‘I will not cease from mental strife, / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, / Till we have built Jerusalem / In England’s green and pleasant land’ (12).



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meeting there with each other in fellowship, unity and equity the Israelites can meet with God. Ezekiel’s new city too is intended above all to address the question of human relationships with the Supreme Power. Afterword What is truly remarkable about these two visions for better cities, however, is how subsequent responses to them were apparently so similar. Ezekiel’s revised plan of the land and city has often been described in terms such as ‘utopian’, ‘unrealistic’ and ‘imaginary’,53 as if it were drawn up in complete and deliberate isolation from the actual social and especially physical realities of life in Israel. Similarly, Howard speaks in To-Morrow of the criticism that he received from some of his friends, to the effect that the physical realities of existing infrastructures and urbanization were too deeply ingrained to allow his proposals to succeed. But in typically florid and undaunted prose he refuted these critics, effectively accusing them of buttressing the current systems of inequity by being unable to see beyond them: Some of my friends have suggested that such a scheme of town clusters is well enough adapted to a new country, but that in an old-settled country, with its towns built, and its railway ‘system’ and canal ‘system’ for the most part constructed, it is quite a different matter. But surely to raise such a point is to contend…that the existing wealth forms of the country are permanent, and are forever to serve as hindrances to the introduction of better forms; that crowded, ill-ventilated, unplanned, unwieldy, unhealthy cities—ulcers on the very face of our beautiful island—are to stand as barriers to the introduction of towns in which there may be ample space and ventilation, and in which modern scientific methods and the aims of social reformers may have the fullest scope in which to express themselves. No, it cannot be; at least, it cannot be for long. What Is may hinder What Might Be for a while, but cannot stay the tide of progress. These crowded cities have done their work; they were the best which a society largely based on selfishness and rapacity could construct, but they are in the nature of things entirely unadapted for a society in which the social side of our nature is demanding a larger share of recognition—a society where even the very love of self leads us to insist 53.  So, for example, Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, 285, refers to the plan of land redistribution as ‘theological geography’, a phrase that implies a utopian quality to the vision. Compare also Blenkinsopp’s comment on the land-division scheme (Ezekiel, 233): ‘We are…invited to read it more as a utopian statement—certainly with political implications—than as a program for national emancipation’. Blenkinsopp similarly speaks of the ‘very obviously schematic and idealistic distribution of the land’ which ‘ignor[es] the realities of political geography’ (Ezekiel, 236).

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Although the city plan in Ezekiel took shape under rather different circumstances from those in which Howard’s ideas were proposed, there is much in Howard’s words that apply to Ezekiel’s equally unrealistic conception. Both plans are a way of undoing the negative effects of an inequitable distribution of wealth that privileged certain social classes to the detriment of other such classes; both took shape at a time and in circumstances where there was already an established cultural tradition that would have to be reckoned with; and both were motivated by deeply spiritual concerns. Ezekiel’s vision remained just that, a vision, with no visible implementation in the post-exilic period,55 although it was taken up centuries later by writers for whom it became an expression of the ultimate renewal of the entire earthly order.56 But Howard’s vision was implemented during his lifetime in two locations, Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. The results in those two locations were mixed, and it is fair to say that some of the most fundamental principles behind the ‘garden city’ scheme did not survive the transition from theory to implementation.57 Nevertheless, aspects of Howard’s ideas have been adopted and adapted the world over, from Canberra to Disneyland,58 and it is fair to say that they have been a major positive influence in the development of modern Western town planning. I wonder what Ezekiel would think of that. 54.  Howard, To-Morrow, 134–35. 55.  As Greenberg comments, ‘Wherever Ezekiel’s program [of restoration] can be checked against subsequent events it proves to have had no effect’ (‘Design and Themes’, 235). 56.  The vision of the new Jerusalem in the book of Revelation, though much elaborated, is clearly modelled on Ezekiel’s vision: it is a square city (Rev. 21.16) with twelve gates, three on each side, named after the twelve tribes of Israel (21.12– 13), and it has no temple in it because God is its temple (Rev. 21.22). 57.  The most conspicuous casualty of the implementation was the idea of common land ownership to be achieved at fixed low-interest returns for investors, and an associated democratic form of government. See Beevers, Garden City Utopia, 62–63, 86–96; Clavel, ‘Two Approaches’, 43–44. 58.  See Freestone, ‘Greenbelts’, for a survey of how the ‘green boundary’ aspect of Howard’s scheme has been applied and adapted in a range of locations around the world.



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Bibliography Allen, Leslie C. Ezekiel 20–48, WBC 29 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990). Barr, James. ‘Migraš in the Old Testament’. JSS 29 (1984): 15–31. Beevers, Robert. The Garden City Utopia: A Critical Biography of Ebenezer Howard (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1988). Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Ezekiel, Interpretation (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990). Block, Daniel I. The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 25–48, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997). Clavel, Pierre. ‘Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes: Two Approaches to City Development’. In From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, ed. Kermit C. Parsons and David Schuyler, 38–57, Center Books on Contemporary Landscape Design (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). Cooke, G. A. The Book of Ezekiel, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936). Eichrodt, Walther. Ezekiel, trans. Coslett Quinn, OTL (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1970). Fishman, Robert. ‘The Bounded City’. In From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, ed. Kermit C. Parsons and David Schuyler, 56–66, Center Books on Contemporary Landscape Design (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). Freestone, Robert. ‘Greenbelts in City and Regional Planning’. In From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, ed. Kermit C. Parsons and David Schuyler, 67–98, Center Books on Contemporary Landscape Design (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). Geus, C. H. J. de. Towns in Ancient Israel and the Southern Levant, Palaestina Antiqua 10 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003). Greenberg, Moshe. ‘The Design and Themes of Ezekiel’s Program of Restoration’. In Interpreting the Prophets, ed. James Luther Mays and Paul J. Achtemeier, 215–36 (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987). Howard, Ebenezer. To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1898). Joyce, Paul. Ezekiel: A Commentary, LHBOTS 482 (London: T&T Clark International, 2007). Pohlmann, Karl-Friedrich. Der Prophet Hesekiel/Ezechiel Kapitel 20–48, ATD 22/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001). Tuell, Steven Shawn. The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40–48, HSM 49 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992). Vawter, Bruce, and Leslie J. Hoppe. A New Heart: A Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel, International Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991). Ward, Stephen V. ‘Ebenezer Howard: His Life and Times’. In From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, ed. Kermit C. Parsons and David Schuyler, 14–37, Center Books on Contemporary Landscape Design (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). Zimmerli, Walther. Ezekiel 2, trans. James D. Martin, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983).

Section C

L i t e r a ry a n d E x eg et i c al P e r spe cti ve s

C i t y P a r od y a s a L i t e r ary T r ope i n B i b l i c a l T e xt s

Carla Sulzbach

The Hebrew Bible is a ‘Book of Cities’.1 This insightful comment was made almost two decades ago in a collection of essays devoted to the study of urbanism in ancient Israel and the Near East. Recent trends in the study of the ancient and literary city show an increased interest in its spatial aspects and its functioning as a bounded space that influences and is influenced by the thoughts and actions of its residents from the inside, and from the outside by its onlookers, visitors and invaders, and ultimately by the interaction of both within the larger societies of which the cities formed a part. An analysis of the way that cities (real or fictional) are reflected in a literary corpus can contribute greatly to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the society that gave rise to this literature. The present essay addresses the frequent juxtaposing of Jerusalem and Babylon in the Hebrew Bible, especially in light of the former’s female personification and increasing cosmicization.2 The pairing of the two cities, in a context of rivalry, is not a new concept and has been observed by many scholars from a variety of viewpoints.3 It is to be expected that 1.  R. P. Carroll, ‘City of Chaos, City of Stone, City of Flesh: Urbanscapes in Prophetic Discourses’, in ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 45–61 (56). 2.  This is a common trope found throughout the Hebrew Bible. Cities can be addressed as daughter (‫)בּת‬ ַ or virgin (‫תוּלה‬ ָ ‫)בּ‬ ְ and described in any female role, positive or negative, as demanded by the storyline. See C. M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008). 3.  D. C. T. Sheriffs, ‘ “A Tale of Two Cities”—Nationalism in Zion and Babylon’, TynBul 39 (1988): 19–57; J. Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book

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in the case of cultures that exist within close proximity of each other, and which also share a number of natural similarities such as language, the minor one on the periphery borrows elements from the dominant one. But what are the means for the minor culture to retain its own sense of self and importance? Unable to be victorious in a military assault, one trajectory is the creation of a literary counter universe. The extensive application in the biblical text of Babylon’s architectural features, as well as the glorious epithets which describe it, to Jerusalem are too common and too targeted than to be anything but a deliberate literary and ideological strategy. Babylon was the venerable ancient urban centre that in its last glory days functioned as the political and religious capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626–539 BCE). The central place that it occupied within the Babylonian religious system was emphasized by retrojecting Marduk, the supreme deity of its pantheon, as its actual creator at the beginning of time. Judging from the descriptions in the Hebrew Bible, Jerusalem’s rise to (un)imaginable magnificence grew by leaps and bounds: from a fairly realistic, insignificant, provincial town as it began its career as David’s capital in the ‘historical’ books, to the cosmic subject of song and lament, glory and female personification in its ups and downs in intimate relationship to the divine in the books of the Prophets, Lamentations and of Psalms. Thus it is especially within the narrative universe that the active role of the divine is stressed over that of the human political factor, and the material urban reality becomes a malleable active player within the narrative. It is noteworthy that the jump from little town on the periphery to cosmic capital coincided virtually with Babylon’s similar rise to prominence as this-worldly political power and other-worldly habitat of the gods at the centre of creation. For the text to have Jerusalem successfully mimic and virtually take over the place and role of Babylon, it first needs to become a cosmic, divinely founded capital, eclipsing all other cities. Since this entire undertaking occurs within a narrative universe, within a text rather than in fact and on the ground, the phasing out of other major cities takes place by simply writing them out of the storyline; a literary act of erasure. The phasing out of other cities is closely connected with their perceived tolerating of pagan cults. Thus, we see Jerusalem’s foregrounding as singular holy capital of the religious universe that is biblical Judah, with Israel’s God as supreme Deity. Soon after its inception, this religio-literary universe came to of Jeremiah MT (Leiden: Brill, 1999); M. Kessler, Battle of the Gods: The God of Israel Versus Marduk of Babylon: A Literary/Theological Interpretation of Jeremiah 50–51, SSN 42 (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2003).



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encompass the entire earth, as is befitting a universal Deity, seemingly in a not so pious imitation of Babylon’s cosmos, resulting in cities becoming deities or women and gods marrying cities. The gradual disappearance of the other towns and cults and the development of Jerusalem and Babylon as each other’s counter image are both connected with the negative views on foreign cults. In the following, I illuminate this phenomenon by placing it within a new context, namely that of biblical idol parodies in conjunction with the so-called oracles against the nations, thus creating a sub-genre of ‘city parody’. Israelite idol parodies, in their lampooning of the cult images of neighbouring religions, show a remarkable knowledge of the procedures of idol manufacturing. Needless to say, these caricatures are for consumption by Israelite audiences only. The function of these parodies is not just polemical in the sense of degrading the cult of the Other, but as has recently been suggested, the idol parody also has a political function and should be understood in connection with the common ancient Near Eastern practice of abduction and mutilation of cult statues of rival deities by warring societies.4 Not likely ever to be in a position to overthrow the Babylonian religious system, the Israelite writers had to be content with a literary substitute of denigrating the Other in writing. While placing the idol parody in this wider context is a great contribution to better understand this genre, what is still missing is the spatial component that is implied. A logical consequence of the idol parody is that by attacking the patron deity of a city, the city itself is being attacked. A similar pattern to that of the idol parody, so far not sufficiently recognized, is seen in the way the city is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical city par excellence is, of course, Jerusalem, while the proverbial ‘anti-city’ is Babylon, the urban Other. Since the notions of cult, cult image, temple and city are closely intertwined in the ancient Near East, and the Israelite writers were well aware of Babylon’s lofty mythological status, the workings of the idol parody can be brought to bear on the manner these two cities are described. Before pursuing these issues, I will briefly review the early Mesopotamian view of urban space. This is relevant since it remained the foundation of urban thinking certainly up to the Persian period, but more likely even into the Hellenistic period, and much of it is at the basis of the counter view found in the biblical texts. I then consider the biblical view of the city and the workings of the idol parody. 4.  N. B. Levtow, Images of Others: Iconic Politics in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 6.

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(Re)producing Urban Spaces a. In Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is generally acknowledged as the birth place of the city. Of special interest is the mythological interpretation that emerges from ancient Sumerian literary traditions, crediting the gods with the founding of five primeval cities.5 The gods first created the city to function as their earthly habitat. Humans carried out the actual building and were to live in them to care for the gods. In order to give structure to human society, the gods also created kingship and the first kings were directly appointed by them. During the heyday of the ancient city its centre was thus occupied by the earthly and divine rulers, and customarily the main temple and the royal palace were adjacent to one another in the layout of the city. This model can be encountered in a variety of cultures, including Israel, and remained largely unchanged over many centuries. The two most prominent exponents of later Mesopotamian civilization, Assyria and Babylonia, adopted Sumerian urban thinking and developed it further as witnessed especially in the magnificent capitals of Nineveh and Babylon. The notion of divine creation of the first five cities was later transposed to Babylon, which, in the Babylonian Creation Myth (Enuma Elish) is said to have been created by Marduk himself as a cosmogonic centre of the world. The quarter of Babylon that housed the great Esagila temple was named Eridu, after the first city in Southern Mesopotamia. In this way Babylon itself became equated with this divinely commissioned first city.6 Yet, despite this mythological viewpoint, these cities were also normal lived spaces, where people resided, gods were worshiped and rulers built palaces and planned out military campaigns.

5.  For a historical analysis of the early city, see M. van de Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Also, W. W. Hallo, ‘Antediluvian Cities’, JCS 23 (1970): 57–67; Th. Jacobsen, ‘The Eridu Genesis’, JBL 100 (1981): 513–29. An overview of the issues and texts involved is found in J. G. Westenholz, ‘The Theological Foundation of the City, the Capital City and Babylon’, in Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions. Proceedings of the Symposium held on May 27–29, 1996, Jerusalem, Israel, ed. J. G. Westenholz (Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum, 1998), 43–54. 6.  See A. R. George, Babylonian Topographical Texts (Louvain: Peeters, 1992), 39 (nrs. 13, 21), 244–45, 247–49, 251–52. In contrast, Jerusalem gained a cosmological character only much later, most likely in the wake of the Exile and the close encounter with Babylonian culture. But, even if not directly divinely created, it became the divinely chosen place as well as a cosmic centre.



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b. City Views in Ancient Israel and Judah Unlike the Mesopotamian view, the Hebrew Bible displays profound suspicion regarding the city. This is shown already in Gen. 4.17, which portrays Cain, the banished fratricidal ‘first son’, as the builder of ostensibly the first city. Cain and his descendants are further associated with the development of skills that are particularly appropriate for city life.7 At this point, though, no judgement on the city is yet expressed.8 In contrast to the Mesopotamian position, in the biblical view the founding of the first cities is a completely human affair following human initiative. Among the immediate descendants of Noah’s son Ham, Nimrod is credited with founding the famous southern cities Babylon, Uruk and Akkad (Agade). Another descendant, Asshur, is said to have founded the northern Assyrian cities of Kalah (Kalḫu), and Nineveh (Gen. 10.8–12). Note that in Assyrian thought, the god Asshur is not only seen as the founder of his city Asshur, but has become one with the city; its actual personification.9 Some echoes of the moving of Assyrian capitals are reflected in this short passage; whereas Asshur had functioned as the first capital of the Assyrian Empire, it subsequently was moved to Kalḫu (Nimrud), Dur-Sharukkin (Khorsabad), and finally Sennacherib moved it permanently to the ancient city of Nineveh, which he completely refurbished. All the while, Asshur maintained the status of holy city, the citadel of its namesake god. Genesis 11 contains a more negative city view in its report on the attempt to build a tower reaching all the way to heaven, an edifice which is usually associated with the great ziggurat of Babylon. God actively intervenes and prevents the completion of the work and the formation of an urban civilization. In the next chapter we learn that Abraham left the sprawling metropolis of Ur, by way of the similarly important city of Ḫaran, only to pursue a nomadic lifestyle and to lose his nephew Lot to the lures of Sodom. It is here first that such a clear disapproving voice is heard concerning the lewdness and depravity inherent in an actual city that it incurs divine wrath and suffers the fate of total destruction. Despite the generally negative biblical depiction of the city, which intensifies once major foreign centres are addressed in the oracle texts, the fact remains that the Israelites themselves became city dwellers. Most importantly, 7.  See the references in S. Fraade, Enosh and His Generation: Pre-Israelite Hero and History in Postbiblical Interpretation (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), 206. 8.  Although note that later commentaries do peg a negative view of cities and civilization on these early stories and characters. See Fraade, Enosh, 78–79, 223. 9.  For insights concerning the relationship between the deity and his city, see W. G. Lambert, ‘The God Assur’, Iraq 45 (1983): 82–86.

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there is the divinely chosen city of Jerusalem around which a whole theology, known as Zion theology, developed which flowed directly from its perceived inviolability. There is, however, a very clear thread that connects the negative attitudes. All the cities that are denounced are under the patronage of pagan gods or kings. The greatest of all of these is Babylon which, as the narrative progresses, develops into a mirror image of Jerusalem. They are portrayed as each other’s rival and exact counter space. Similar titles as used to describe the lofty and cosmic character of Babylon are also found with regard to Jerusalem.10 The Hebrew Bible seems to be aware of the Mesopotamian reality that cities have unique patron deities, but strictly within a context of their ineffectiveness.11 For instance, Jer. 50.12 says about the impending destruction of Babylon: ‘Babylon is taken, Bel is shamed; Merodach (both biblical versions of Marduk) is broken in pieces; her idols are humiliated, her images are broken in pieces’. Likewise, Isa. 21.9b exclaims: ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the graven images of her gods are broken unto the ground’. In other words: Babylon’s chief deity was not able to protect her. In the prophetic oracles against the nations, sometimes a city forms the target. Especially singled out are the foreign cities of Tyre, Nineveh and Babylon; but oddly also Jerusalem. This only happens when Jerusalem is abandoned by the divine as punishment for the behaviour of its population or ruler. Left to its own devices it becomes vulnerable and, in a way, just like any other pagan city. In other words, it is the divine presence that safeguards the city against destruction.12 This seems to contradict the almost glowingly positive account in the book of Jonah’s prophecy against the Assyrian capital Nineveh, which is so much unlike the doom prophecy levelled against that city in the book of Nahum and which is the sole topic of that entire book. The common understanding of the book is that even for the people in Nineveh there is divine forgiveness. Threatened with destruction, if only they truly repent and acknowledge the superiority of Israel’s God, which they do, the decree will be averted. It is the acknowledgement of the power and 10.  Compare the lofty names for Babylon in A. R. George, Babylonian Topographical Texts, 39–41, 237–67, with those accorded to Jerusalem in many of the Psalms, and specifically the name changes that Jerusalem undergoes in Isa. 60.14; 62.2, 4, 12; Ezek. 48.35; Zech. 8.3. 11.  The following passages may reflect this: Jer. 2.28 and 2 Kgs 17.30–31. 12.  See Jer. 7.1–15; 8.19 for a connection between the divine presence and the safety of the city as contrasted to the people’s reliance on foreign cult images. These ideas are the source for the notion of Jerusalem’s inviolability.



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presence of Israel’s God, even in Nineveh, which will safeguard a city from destruction, not the idols that these cities usually put their trust in. Of course, this is used as a mirror for the inhabitants of Jerusalem who seem to be more stubborn and who form the real target audience of this tale, rather than the Ninevites. The truly comic relief in Jonah comes when ultimately not only the people and their king repent, but also the animals. A decidedly unhumorous reversal of this trope is found in the oracle against Jerusalem in Jer. 21.6 where God threatens: ‘I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence’. Jonah is generally considered to be a parody, and does not concern the historical city of Nineveh. Although it is most likely a post-exilic text, dating to the Persian period, Jonah does not mention the destruction of Nineveh that actually did take place in 612 when it was captured and utterly destroyed by the Babylonians, never to rise again; instead the book has a ‘happy ending’.13 This story in no way tallies with what we know of historical Nineveh or its most famous king Sennacherib who had moved his court there in 704. Note that this is the same king who laid siege to Jerusalem, destroyed Lachish and devastated the countryside. He greatly enlarged the city and built a magnificent palace. One of the splendid rooms in that edifice would be decorated with reliefs, of unsurpassed quality and detail, depicting the siege and destruction of Lachish, discussed further below.14 The author of Jonah could not have known of these: by his time they were already long since buried and forgotten. But since the story is part of the Hebrew Bible and not of Assyrian history, I would suggest that it too is part of the genre ‘city parody’ and has to do with the competition of which city is protected by which deity under which conditions. In the doom sayings reserved for Tyre, Nineveh and Babylon, the following can be noted. Those against Tyre differ from those of Nineveh and Babylon in two significant ways.15 The city does not undergo female personification and its vices are not found in its pagan cult but rather in being a major mercantile and seafaring centre. Nineveh is subjected to the utmost denigration and graphic rape in the book of Nahum.16 Although portrayed as a ravaged woman, the city is not addressed as ‘daughter’. 13.  On the question of Jonah’s likely date of composition in the Persian period, see E. Ben Zvi, Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud, JSOTSup 367 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 7–8. 14.  D. Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Institute of Archaeology, 1982). 15.  Isaiah 23; Ezekiel 26–28; Zech. 9.2–4. 16.  Nahum; Zeph. 2.13–15.

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The most severe divine wrath is reserved for Babylon, which is often graphically presented in a female guise, addressed as both ‘daughter’ and ‘virgin’, and is castigated for its pagan practices and violence.17 This picture of the dynamics of ancient Near Eastern cities does not conform to social and historical reality. It is very clear that the purpose of such accounts is not to record history but to present a theological point of view. Moreover, they are strictly for Israelite consumption, to instil fear of neighbouring cultures operating in an otherwise very similar religious universe, to instil fear of the Deity, and discourage any venturing out to competing religious systems, or, alternatively, to provide hope in the face of an overwhelming enemy attack; but at the same time, the stories serve to ridicule. In realizing the crucial link between city and deity, the cult or idol parody equally implies a city parody. In the face of Jerusalem’s rise to prominence most of the other (narrative) urban centres in Israel and Judah become reduced to a passing mention. They escape destructive narratives (exceptions being Sodom, Jericho and Shiloh) or the ominous oracles against the nations (or their main cities). Most cities only appear in the context of geographical lists or simply as the place marker for a story or event. Often this is in stark contrast to what we have learned from their archaeological remains as well as corroborating evidence from ancient Near Eastern sources. One such overlooked city is Lachish. This is the only city that has been preserved not only ‘on the ground’ and in word, but especially in image. Although it is mentioned 24 times in the Hebrew Bible, there is no story connected with this urban centre that must have been important enough for Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, to besiege and utterly destroy it prior to his aborted march on Jerusalem.18 Lachish’s destruction is not mentioned at all in the biblical text, unless the unclear hint in Mic. 1.13 offers a clue.19 That passage sees Lachish as the gateway of sin which flows straight into Jerusalem. Scholars suggest that this refers to the syncretistic cult that was rife in Samaria and subsequently filtered down to Judah. Jerusalem would 17.  Isaiah 13; 14.4–23; 21.1–9; 47; Jeremiah 50–51. 18.  The first ten times in Joshua alone, leaving only 14 references for the city of the monarchic period. Despite the fact that Joshua, which is certainly late, is suggestive of a Canaanite city, we do have a bona fide early reference to Lachish’s hoary past in the Amarna Letters. See letter 335, W. Moran, The Amarna Letters (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 357–58. 19.  2 Kgs 18.13 mentions that Sennacherib took all the fortified cities of Judah from Hezekiah. This may perhaps reflect the fact that the Assyrian king indeed took 46 of Judah’s fortified towns and gave them to loyal Philistine vassals. However, there is no indication of any destruction.



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then suffer the same utter destruction that befell Samaria, described earlier in the chapter. But if so, the victim is blamed. In reality, it was Lachish that was completely destroyed, with its inhabitants brutally executed or led into exile. There is no outcry and no lament over the atrocities that took place. Such is the narrative fate of Lachish. But that is not the end of Lachish’s story. A pictorial account of its last days under siege has been preserved by Sennacherib who devoted an entire room in his ‘palace without rival’ to this victory in his new capital of Nineveh.20 We know that it concerns Lachish because of the caption on the reliefs themselves. Yet, the city is not mentioned at all the Annals of Sennacherib’s Western campaign. Thus, Lachish disappears once again from the historical record. Something equally strange is going on with regard to the southern city of Arad, which is mentioned a dismal four times, and only within the context of the pre-Israelite occupation of the site. The immense archaeological remains, the cache of sixth-century BCE ostraca and its spectacular temple, witnessing to the long-term occupation of this fortified city, suggest that it was anything but marginal. Yet no ink is spilled on it. Could there be a faint echo with regard to the fate of the southern cities like Arad and Beersheba in Jer. 13.19? The verse reads, ‘The cities of the Negev are shut, there is no one to open them; Judah is exiled completely, all of it exiled’. The tone of despair and lament is clear; the cities are as desolate as they are nameless. Idol Parodies The biblical view on foreign iconic cults is undisputedly condemnatory, found primarily in prophetic texts, in Psalms as well as in Deuteronomy.21 The approaches to these cults are presented on two levels: the first deals with Israelites following perceived foreign cults, regardless of whether these were taken over from the local Canaanite cultures or imported or copied from abroad, and regardless of whether these were followed by the common population, the ruling elites or both.22 Whilst the cults in question 20.  See esp. J. M. Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival at Nineveh (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991). It is noteworthy that the city of Lachish is also not mentioned by name in the written record of Sennacherib’s Western campaign. Thus, while it is not described in the annals, it is depicted in the reliefs, where it is as well inscribed in the caption. 21.  E.g., Jer. 10.1–16; 50.2–3; Isa. 44.9–20; Hab. 2.18–19; Pss. 115.1–8; 135.15– 18; Deut. 4.25–28. 22.  One of the earlier works dealing with popular religion in ancient Israel/Judah is S. Ackerman’s Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah,

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are denounced, the focus is on the worshiper and the danger to the purity of the Israelite cult. The punishment threatened is ‘divine abandonment’, God’s leaving Jerusalem and all of Judah’s cities unprotected.23 Here the local population is the direct target of the criticism and subsequent wrath. It is these kinds of worship that are the object of the so-called cult reforms attributed mainly to the kings Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18.4) and Josiah (2 Kgs 23.4–20, 24). The cult reforms entail a purging of local cult centres, targeting ‘real’ people, suggesting actual events, whereas the idol parody is literature, strictly targeting foreign cults in foreign lands. The latter approach deals more specifically with what is considered the classical idol or icon parody.24 They are primarily directed at the cults of neighbouring peoples and here the Israelite and/or Judahite is the audience and consumer. The language differs substantially from the first approach and is part of a wider denouncement of hostile nations and their capital cities. The targets of the lampooning are the actual cult images, and not just their worshipers but specifically those who actually produce them. The biblical writers display an acute knowledge of the manufacture of cult images, describing in great detail the materials and process involved. But the function and efficacy of the images are under-described because this is exactly what is being denied. The texts stress what they cannot do. Also omitted from these reports is the notion that the cult image is a representation of the god in question.25 The image and the ‘essence’ HSM 46 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992). Further, see Z. Zevit’s The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001); and most recently, F. Stavrakopoulou and J. Barton, eds, Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah (London: T&T Clark International, 2010). The contributions in the latter volume stress the fact that one cannot so easily demarcate ‘popular’ from ‘official’ religion. This is a very valid observation. However, there is a third party that should not be marginalized: ‘literary’ or ‘written’ religion. It is this one that goes heads on with the real, lived, religion of which we have actual archaeological remains! 23.  E.g., Jer. 7.16–20; 44.15–23. In fact, as a warning, a comparison is made with the fate suffered by Shiloh, the former seat of the Tabernacle and God’s presence. Jer. 7.9–12, 14; Ps. 78.56–64. See F. E. Deist, ‘The Implied Message of the Reference to Shiloh in Jeremiah 7:12’, Journal for Semitics 5 (1993): 57–67. 24.  The most thorough recent treatment of idol parodies is Levtow, Images of Others. 25.  Although in his commentary on The Book of Isaiah Chapters 40–66, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 229–30, J. N. Oswalt argues that Isa. 46.1–2 does make this distinction and that it is the prophet’s intention to teach that it is not correct to reduce the divine to a ‘part of the creation’. While I agree that the biblical writers knew full well that the worshipers distinguished between deity and image, I do not believe that this is what the passage is about. Rather, the author brings the two



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of the deity, although they combine, are not identical—after all, most gods had more than one image functioning in a number of temples. The image, however, becomes part of the deity since an important aspect of the induction process implies that it becomes infused with the essence of the god.26 Based on this logic, one objective in ancient Near Eastern warfare is the abduction or ‘godnapping’ or even mutilation of the enemy’s cult images.27 These acts are intended to either remove the power of the enemy or insult him into submission. Here, as well, the biblical writers knew how to create a caricature. One brilliant example is reflected in Isa. 46.1–2. The Babylonian gods are disgraced and carried away on beasts of burden. Whatever is reflected in the biblical passage, whether pointing to a ceremonial procession during the Akitu (New Year) festival, an act of abduction or an evacuation of cult images, the author knows of the vulnerability of the images.28 He attributes that vulnerability as well as the icons’ inability to safeguard the people to the fact that they were the products of human hands and earthly materials. The worshipers, however, were faced with another source of endangerment. While the gods’ images were in transit, they were separated from their temples, their holy abodes and their cities. Since, for the duration of the ceremonial procession the gods would inhabit the statue so that they could indicate their will to the people (the statue was, in a way, divinely charged), they were therefore not in their regular home. If as a result of such absence, the temple and or city were attacked, it would have been interpreted as the will of the gods and a result of their displeasure with the people. together and it is he who reduces the named deities to their lifeless images. The true satire in the passage is found in the reversal in the next two verses, where instead of worshipers (or godnappers!) carrying the cult images, it is instead Israel’s God who carries his true followers in their time of hardship. On Isa. 46.1–7, see also C. Franke, Isaiah 46, 47, and 48: A New Literary Reading (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 22–50. 26.  See H. Schaudig, ‘ “Bel Bows, Nabû Stoops!”: The Prophecy of Isaiah xlvi 1–2 as a Reflection of Babylonian “Processional Omens” ’, VT 58 (2008): 557–72 (at 561–62 and at n. 14). 27.  A very fortunate term coined by A. Livingstone to describe the act of the abduction of cult images, and given wider circulation by S. W. Holloway. See the latter’s masterful Aššur Is King! Aššur Is King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 144. 28.  These options are discussed by Schaudig, ‘ “Bel Bows, Nabû Stoops!” ’, 561–69. A partial depiction is found on 564. A full procession of deities on beasts of burden and fantastic animals with the Assyrian king at each end is represented in the seventh-century BCE Rock Relief at Maltaya, in H. Gressmann, Altorientalische Bilder zum Alten Testament (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1927), 335.

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As to the origins and purpose of the biblical idol parody, we can make a creative leap. Whereas in the ancient Near East the various warring peoples and cultures would abduct each other’s deities and/or maim or even ‘kill’ them, the tiny Israelite and Judahite societies were not able to do so. They were powerless and could only be conquered. They never in fact went into the territory of the surrounding dominant cultures on a mission of conquest and could, thus, not resort to these forms of diminishing the religion and gods of these nations. But they could write about it and thus create a literary deconstruction of Babylon’s very foundations.29 In addition, since the deities of foreign lands are the targets of the idol parody, it should be remembered that these deities are not just national deities but are specifically urban gods, the patron deities of capital cities or other important national centres.30 Note furthermore that some idol parodies are actually embedded in the Oracles against Babylon in Jeremiah 50–51 and in close proximity to Isaiah 47 (i.e., 45 and 46).31 Especially the idol parodies targeting Babylonian religion add the component of rivalry between Israel’s God and those of Babylon. Here questions are added as to who is the true creator god. It is of great importance to understand that this language implies the acknowledgement that there were other gods who laid claim to being responsible for the creation of the universe. The salient point being that Israel’s God was better at it. How Jerusalem and Babylon Became Very Strange Twin-Sisters It seems that the ancient Near Eastern divine economy was primarily organized along urban lines. Every city had its own primary god and was identified with its deity and vice versa.32 With the development of the capital as centre of empire, that city’s god would rise in prominence and could well develop into a national god. This happened with Asshur in Assyria and Marduk in Babylonia. They would each eclipse the other gods and their cities in the process of their ascent. In the meantime, myths about the gods would reflect the shuffling of divine family ties. This 29.  Levtow, Images of Others, 41, calls this a ‘ “symbolic spoliation” of divine images’. 30.  See Westenholz, ‘The Theological Foundation of the City’, 44. 31.  Jer. 51.44 even has Israel’s God address Bel (Marduk) in person! The tone of these two chapters reveals that there is a divine battle of courtship going on for the favour of Babylon. 32.  K. van der Toorn ‘God (1)’, DDD, 357.



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process came to full maturity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the eighth and seventh centuries33 and around the seventh and early sixth centuries in Babylonia, with Marduk becoming the supreme king of the pantheon, the very creator of heaven and earth, and founder of a now cosmic city of Babylon.34 On the one hand, with the concept of gods of capital cities as national gods well in place, the biblical idol parodies gained in power and effectiveness. Foreign enemies (be they past, present, or future) no longer had to be feared, they could be reduced to the sum of the parts of which their gods were made. In this way, the biblical writer deconstructed the enemy by undermining the source of his power. Again, it needs to be stressed that this was solely for home front consumption and no Babylonian was ever aware of these sentiments; or would have cared. On the other hand, a curious counter development takes place simultaneously within the textual corpus of what has become the Bible: Jerusalem becomes elevated to a true capital city with all the ancient Near Eastern trimmings. It has a palace and a temple adjacent to each other. Both display magnificent splendour. The temple was built by the king at the behest of and following the ancient blueprint communicated by the Deity, and Israel’s God has settled comfortably in the place ‘that he had chosen to have his name rest upon’.35 Through the mechanism of divine election of the place and commission of the temple, Jerusalem became almost as divinely founded as Babylon. In addition, Ezekiel 16 sheds very important light on this development. Couched in an oracle against Jerusalem, with Jerusalem represented as a whoring female, the implications of the chapter are that Jerusalem was solidly founded by the local pre-Israelites and was unloved and discarded, only to be taken in by Israel’s God who showered it with love, showered it with beautiful ornaments and finally courted it to become the divine spouse, only to be betrayed. Once this stage has been set, the textual competition is set to go. The depiction of the city as a female in a relationship with the divine, elevates it to a semidivine status, worthy of being a divine spouse. The so-called cult reforms attributed to the kings Hezekiah and Josiah should most likely be understood within this context as well. In the texts, this is how the path is cleared for Jerusalem to become the sole city of consequence, eclipsing every single competitor. But it is also possible to understand the alleged reforms as a literary band-aid to soften the pain of destruction inflicted by successive Assyrian and Babylonian military 33.  A. Livingstone, ‘Assur’, DDD, 109. 34.  Z. Abusch, ‘Marduk’, DDD, 546–47. 35.  Deut. 12.11; 14.23; 16.2.

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assaults. The archaeological record does indicate that certain urban and religious centres were either reduced to complete insignificance or abandoned altogether in the wake of these acts of war.36 The text itself creates a new, alternate world where all is well with ‘the world’. It has been widely argued, and with good reason, that these texts have an exilic or Persian period provenance. But our reading here sticks with the story as it was transmitted, since the biblical writers deliberately retrojected this notion of a centralized super-Jerusalem to the monarchical past. Thus, these cult reforms and subsequent centralization may not have been historical events, but they were certainly a literary reality which had a direct bearing on the way that cities were described or re-scribed or un-scribed. Concerning the very precarious relations with the mighty neighbour to the East, where something somewhat comparable had taken place with the city of Babylon, the idol parodies would serve as a response in counteracting the only perceived rival within the divine sphere, Marduk. In addition, another literary feature that is applied in the same corpora that apply the idol parodies is the female personification of the city, where Jerusalem is addressed as Daughter Zion (Bat Tzion). In the same way as we see that the idol parodies function to criticize both foreign and domestic cults, the ‘Bat-Geographical Name’-passages focus especially, but not exclusively, on Jerusalem and Babylon. Here too, however, there is a twist. With regard to Babylon the references are undisputedly negative, whereas those regarding Jerusalem criticize, praise or mourn. Of course the female metaphor easily carries over into the marital one. Here the cities with their populations are not merely the followers and servants of the urban deities, they are their spouses and children. From that perspective, too, the idol parodies match up with city parodies. The deity in the guise of husband demands unquestioned loyalty. But he, functioning in a patriarchal culture, is allowed multiple wives, who all need to remain loyal. In this way there is no conflict in a storyline such as Jonah’s where Nineveh is actively courted, or a contest with Marduk for the favour of Babylon. This puts Jerusalem’s stubbornness in a new light; as the metaphorical warning goes: you may be first wife, but you can be replaced, or forced to share the husband’s affections with others.

36.  See M. Steiner, ‘Jerusalem in the Tenth and Seventh Centuries BCE: From Administrative Town to Commercial City’, in Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan, ed. A. Mazar (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 280–88 (at 285).



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Conclusion In this essay, I have presented a model for understanding biblical depictions of Jerusalem and Babylon in connection with discourse on idolatry, particularly the trope of idol parodies. The following findings emerge from such a reading. The presence of a resident deity in a city vouchsafes its inviolability or reversely, his/her absence leaves the city vulnerable to attack. Thus, as long as Israel’s God resided in the Jerusalem Temple, the city was safe. His leave-taking would render Jerusalem as vulnerable as any pagan city. The existence of rival gods as patron deities of other major cities is acknowledged; it is just their efficacy in protecting their cities that is being undermined. Thus, Judean cities that changed their allegiance to pagan gods would lose their protection. A somewhat unexpected result is that in contrast to the much-maligned cult images whose life and efficacy is being denied in the idol parody, cities undergoing female personification are imbued with life, reflective of their indwelling patron gods. For Jerusalem to become a Capital City, it must take over significant characteristics from Babylon. In order, further, to become the Universal Capital City, it must eclipse Babylon as well. This is accomplished by literally writing it into the ground. In light of this, another category of cities may be added to this picture: the city that is literarily eclipsed or absorbed by Jerusalem. Following the centralization of the cult the local city shrines became redundant. Israel’s God would now only be present in the Jerusalem Temple. Therefore, even though these cities did not relinquish their loyalty to their God, the biblical writers lost interest in their existence and they became marginalized. From the moment of centralization on, only one city remained about which it was worthwhile writing: Jerusalem. Thus, in an odd way, Lachish becomes a yardstick by which to measure the ascent of Jerusalem as cosmic capital of Judah. In a double whammy it is silenced in the sources: both in the Hebrew Bible and Sennacherib’s written account because it was not Jerusalem. Ironically, like Nineveh, Babylon, too, would ultimately be reduced to rubble. But unlike Nineveh it would remain engraved in memory and in writing as the place of enduring exile, and would eventually become a cipher for every possible future enemy of Israel and later Christianity.

162

City in the Hebrew Bible

Bibliography Abusch, Z. ‘Marduk’. DDD, 546–47. Ackerman, S. Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah, HSM 46 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992). Ben Zvi, E. Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud, JSOTSup 367 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003). Carroll, R. P. ‘City of Chaos, City of Stone, City of Flesh: Urbanscapes in Prophetic Discourses’. In ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, 45–61, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Deist, F. E. ‘The Implied Message of the Reference to Shiloh in Jeremiah 7:12’. Journal for Semitics 5 (1993): 57–67. Fraade, S. Enosh and His Generation: Pre-Israelite Hero and History in Postbiblical Interpretation (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984). Franke, C. Isaiah 46, 47, and 48: A New Literary Reading (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994). George, A. R. Babylonian Topographical Texts (Louvain: Peeters, 1992). Gressmann, H. Altorientalische Bilder zum Alten Testament (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1927). Hallo, W. W. ‘Antediluvian Cities’, JCS 23 (1970): 57–67. Hill, J. Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (Leiden: Brill, 1999). Holloway, S. W. Aššur Is King! Aššur Is King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2002). Jacobsen, Th. ‘The Eridu Genesis’. JBL 100 (1981): 513–29. Kessler, M. Battle of the Gods: The God of Israel Versus Marduk of Babylon. A Literary/ Theological Interpretation of Jeremiah 50–51, SSN 42 (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2003). Lambert, W. G. ‘The God Assur’. Iraq 45 (1983): 82–86. Levtow, N. B. Images of Others: Iconic Politics in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008). Livingstone, A. ‘Assur’, DDD, 109. Maier, C. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008). Moran, W. The Amarna Letters (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). Oswalt, J. N. The Book of Isaiah Chapters 40–66, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). Russell, J. M. Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival at Nineveh (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991). Schaudig, H. ‘ “Bel Bows, Nabû Stoops!”: The Prophecy of Isaiah xlvi 1–2 as a Reflection of Babylonian “Processional Omens” ’. VT 58 (2008): 557–72. Sheriffs, D. C. T. ‘ “A Tale of Two Cities”—Nationalism in Zion and Babylon’. TynBul 39 (1988): 19–57. Stavrakopoulou, F., and J. Barton, eds. Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah (London: T&T Clark International, 2010). Steiner, M. ‘Jerusalem in the Tenth and Seventh Centuries BCE: From Administrative Town to Commercial City’. In Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan, ed. A. Mazar, 280–88 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).



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Ussishkin, D. The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Institute of Archaeology, 1982). Van de Mieroop, M. The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Van der Toorn, K. ‘God (1)’. DDD, 357. Van der Toorn, B. Becking, and P. W. van der Horst, eds. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd edn (Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). Westenholz, J. G. ‘The Theological Foundation of the City, the Capital City and Babylon’. In Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions. Proceedings of the Symposium Held on May 27–29, 1996, Jerusalem, Israel, ed. J. G. Westenholz (Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum, 1998), 43–54. Zevit, Z. The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001).

C on t es t ed E p on y my : C a i n , E noc h , a n d t h e C i t i es of G e ne si s 1–11*

R. P. Gordon

The story of Cain in Genesis 4 tells of a fratricide who was put under a curse and sentenced to a life of restless wandering. A little surprisingly, the part of the chapter dealing with Cain’s personal account, as distinct from that of his descendants, ends with the notice that he built a city and named it after his son (4.17). This has often been judged to create a tension with Cain’s condemnation to a life of wandering, and the more so once the achievements of certain of his descendants are factored in, since these are often regarded as reflecting an urban emphasis and indeed as tracing important developments in human civilization back to the city-building head of the clan. This is all complicated somewhat by a disagreement among scholars about the subject of the verbs in the second half of Gen. 4.17: in other words, not all are convinced that it is Cain who is responsible for the building of the Bible’s first city. It may have been his son Enoch who built and who ‘named’. There are, too, other cities in Genesis 1–11, in the Table of Nations in ch. 10 (vv. 10–12), and there is Babel, the butt of a satire in ch. 11 (vv. 1–9). This essay will mainly discuss the city of Gen. 4.17, concentrating on some issues of text and translation, and will also relate this city to the wider context of Genesis 1–11.

*  I would like to dedicate this short piece to the memory of Ora Lipschitz in whose private library the original draft was written. In several similar footnotes over the years I have recorded my gratitude for her very great kindness and lively interactions.



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Rival Claims The first point for discussion must be the identity of the builder in Gen. 4.17. The verse reads in full: ‘And Cain knew his wife and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch, and he was building a city, and he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch’. As the MT stands, there is little doubt that Cain is the city-builder. This unambiguity derives as much as anything from the presence of the name ‘Enoch’ at the end of the verse. If the text talks of ‘his son Enoch’, then the father who builds and names must be Enoch’s father Cain. However, the occurrence of Enoch’s name at the end of the verse is sometimes explained as secondary, or as the postponed subject of ‘was building’ (‘And he was building…[that is] Enoch’).1 With this word omitted or otherwise explained, the natural, though not inevitable, subject of ‘was building’ would be Enoch, whose name comes immediately before ‘and he was building’. Other points are made in favour of Enoch as the builder, but first we must consider the translation of MT ‫וַ יְ ִהי ּבֹנֶ ה‬.2 There are three main possibilities for the translation of this phrase: 1. he was building a city; 2. he was the builder of a city; 3. he began to build a city.

1.  For example, both possibilities are noted by William W. Hallo, Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions, SHCANE 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 11. 2.  The Enoch explanation is very old, being represented already by Sulpicius Severus at the beginning of the fifth century CE in his Chronicle, which recounts world history from creation to Sulpicius’s own times. See Karl Halm, ed., Sulpicii Severi Libri qui Supersunt, CSEL 1 (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1866), 4 (‘sed Cain impius fratrem interemit. Filium Enoch habuit, a quo primum ciuitas condita est’ [Chronicle 1.2:3]). For discussion of Jewish and Christian interpretation of Gen. 4.17, especially in the mediaeval period, see Hans-Georg von Mutius, Der Kainiterstammbaum Genesis 4/17–24 in der jüdischen und christlichen Exegese: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Mittelalters nach dem Zeugnis des Don Isaak Ben Jehuda Abravanel, Judaistische Texte und Studien 7 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1978), 31–36. See also Jacques Vermeylen, ‘La descendance de Caïn et la descendance d’Abel (Gen 4, 17–26 + 5, 28b–29)’, ZAW 103 (1991): 175–93 (179 n. 19), who thinks that the name Enoch (now as the son of the builder) was added at the end of the verse to avoid the possibility of taking Enoch as the builder: Cain was the actual builder ‘dans l’esprit du rédacteur’.

166

City in the Hebrew Bible

The first option assumes a past continuous sense (cf. Gen. 37.2; 39.22), and is directly paralleled in Aramaic where indeed it occurs much more frequently. In (2) the participle is sometimes given nominal status; this option is favoured by the MS variant ‫ ּבֹנֵ ה‬in the construct state.3 The third option––the inceptive or inchoative explanation––is discussed by S. R. Driver in his commentary note on 1 Sam. 18.9 where he says that ‫וַ יְ ִהי‬ followed by the participle ‘expresses at once origination and continuance’, and he cites Gen. 4.17 in illustration.4 This marks a change from Driver’s treatment of these compound forms in his monograph on the Hebrew tenses, where Gen. 4.17 is given as one of a number of examples of the durative usage (no. 1 above).5 Those who regard Enoch as the builder tend to cite Gen. 4.2 in support.6 However, the phrasing is different in the earlier verse: ‘Next she gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was/became a shepherd’. In other words, the change in subject from the initial verb in the sentence (‘she added [to give birth]’ [lit.]) is marked by the repetition of the name Abel even though the name concludes the preceding clause. Moreover, in 4.2 there is no possibility of ambiguity since there is a change in gender from ‘she added’ (lit.) to ‘and Abel was/became’. The point was anticipated by Cassuto who notes, with some degree of justification, that in 4.2 the name of Abel is ‘expressly emphasized in contradistinction to that of 3.  This explanation is associated by G. J. Spurrell, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Book of Genesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887), 55, with Karl Victor Ryssel, De Elohistae Pentateuchici Sermone: Commentatio Historico-Critica (Leipzig: L. Fernau, 1878), 59 (‘participium loco nominis ponitur [“Städtebauer”]’), but is rejected as ‘harsh and unnatural’. 4.  Samuel Rolles Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 151–52 (151). See also Moshe Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995), 46 (the construction ‘is not the past continuous, as in later Hebrew’; in a footnote [n. 5] he says that the usage is ‘influenced by Aramaic’). 5.  Samuel Rolles Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 3rd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), 170 (§135.5). Joüon-Muraoka opt for the durative sense in Gen. 4.17 (‘now he was building’) (Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. II. Part Three: Syntax, Subsidia Biblica 14/II [Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991], 411 [§121f]). They do, however, recognize some occurrences with an inchoative sense, especially in later books of the Old Testament (412 [§121g]). Note the limited observation on ‘action continuing in the past [sic]’ in GKC, 360 (§116r), albeit not referring specifically to Gen. 4.17. 6.  So Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Part 1, From Adam to Noah, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961), 229–30.



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Cain’, whereas there is no such issue in 4.17.7 Later in the chapter where (dis)continuity of subject is again an issue, the approach is different from that in v. 2, but there is still clear marking of the subject: ‘Adah gave birth to Jabal; he (‫ )הּוא‬was/became the ancestor of…’ (v. 20; cf. v. 21; 10.8).8 Inevitably, the concluding phrase in 4.17, ‘after the name of his son Enoch’, has come in for much discussion. It is unlikely that Enoch, as the last word in the verse, was there originally as the postponed subject of the verbs (‘was building’, ‘called’) earlier in the half-verse. If it was indeed intended to indicate the subject of these verbs it would be better explained as an editorial or scribal addition made in order to eliminate a perceived ambiguity in the text, in which otherwise the possibility of Cain as subject would remain. However, the ‘elucidation’ would have been clumsily done, since the name more naturally combines with the words immediately preceding to read ‘according to the name of his son Enoch’, and then the attempt to specify Enoch as subject simply undoes itself. We might therefore approach the issue from another angle, to see whether the word-order reflected in ‘his son Enoch’ can shed light on the status of this mention of ‘Enoch’. Normally when relational terms such as ‘son’ or ‘brother’ plus third-person suffix occur with a personal name the order is PN + suffixed noun, as already in this chapter (‘Abel his brother’, vv. 8 [2o]; cf. v. 9), and as a long list of examples would testify.9 However, to the extent that the pattern is not wholly consistent, especially if first- and second-person references are taken into account––though admittedly in such cases there may be more emphasis on the relational terms ‘son’, ‘brother’ and so on––the significance of the word-order in ‘after the name of his son Enoch’, as against ‘after the name of Enoch his son’, remains debatable. The particularly good parallel in terms of general subjectmatter in Josh. 19.47, ‘They called Leshem Dan, according to the name of Dan their ancestor’, has the order PN + suffixed noun. A more productive approach might be to short-circuit the discussion about the secondariness or otherwise of ‘Enoch’ at the end of v. 17 and simply to concede for the sake of argument that he is the subject of the verbs in the second half of the verse, and then to see what the resultant text would be saying. It would run as follows: ‘And Cain knew his wife and 7.  Cassuto, A Commentary, 230. 8.  Presumably this is why König says that, if Enoch were the builder, v. 17b would in that case have to begin with ‫( וְ הוּא‬Eduard König, Die Genesis eingeleitet, übersetzt und erklärt [Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1919], 291). See also the occurrences of ‫הּוא‬ in Gen. 19.37, 38. 9.  See, e.g., Gen. 25.6, 11; 34.20, 26; Num. 20.26, 28; 1 Kgs 16.13; 2 Chr. 33.7. The order ‘his brother Abel’ in Gen. 4.2 has a fairly obvious contextual explanation.

168

City in the Hebrew Bible

she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And [Enoch] was building/became the builder of a city, and he called the name of the city after the name of his son.’ The next verse has the actual ‘birth notice’ for Enoch’s son: ‘To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad became the father of Mehujael…’, which leaves the reference in v. 17 to Enoch’s naming a city after his son looking somewhat premature. This is more or less acknowledged by Sasson when he translates the first words of v. 18 ‘Thus, Irad was born to Enoch’, giving them a resumptive force.10 Sasson holds that the passive construction at the beginning of v. 18 (‘and there was born…’) arises precisely because of the prior mention of Enoch. Moreover, one of the benefits of the reconstruction in favour of Enoch would be the recovery of a parasonantic pun, involving ‫‘( ִעיר‬city’) and ‫ע ָירד‬, ִ with the city being called ‘City’ in honour of Enoch’s son.11 Sasson indeed explains the difference between Yered in the Sethite genealogy (5.15–16) and ‫ ִע ָירד‬in its Cainite counterpart as arising from a modification designed to make the pun possible. At the same time, the word-play between ‫ ִעיר‬and ‫ ִע ָירד‬is not highlighted in the way that such instances often are in the Hebrew Bible. As a result, the relationship between the two remains obscure. In particular: was the city called ‫ע ָירד‬, ִ or is it just that ‫‘( ִעיר‬city’), presumably used as a proper name, is supposed to derive from ‫?ע ָירד‬ ִ A further possibility in terms of word-play is occasionally suggested in support of making Enoch responsible for the building of the city. The son born to Enoch and the one to give his name (ex hypothesi) to the Bible’s first city is called Irad, and the world’s first city according to Mesopotamian tradition was called Eridu. The two names could be related.12 Regrettably from the point of view of a promising congruence, a Hebrew equivalent of Eridu does not feature in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, or anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The uncertainties dogging the explanation of Gen. 4.17 have been addressed by the more radical emendation of ‫ ְּכ ֵׁשם ְּבנֹו ֲחנֹוְך‬to ‫ּכ ְׁשמוֹ ֲחנֹוְך‬: ִ ‘(he called the name of the city) after his own name, Enoch’. This is the solution offered by Karl Budde in his Die Biblische Urgeschichte published in 1883.13 Budde maintains that vv. 2, 20 and 21 in this same chapter present a basic pattern that should also operate in v. 17, and that 10.  Jack M. Sasson, ‘A Genealogical “Convention” in Biblical Chronography?’, ZAW 90 (1978): 171–85 (174). 11.  Sasson, ‘A Genealogical “Convention” ’, 174. 12.  So William W. Hallo, ‘Antediluvian Cities’, JCS 23 (1971): 57–67 (64); idem, Origins, 11–12. 13.  Karl Budde, Die Biblische Urgeschichte (Gen. 1–12, 5) (Giessen: J. Ricker’sche Buchhandlung, 1883), 120–23.



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the mention of any activity after the notice of a birth should relate to the person born.14 So in v. 17 it is Enoch and not Cain who is associated with city-building. Budde favours translating ‘he became a city-builder’ or similar (‘er ergriff das Geschäft eines…’/ ‘er wurde ein Stadtbauender’) and regards this as being inappropriate to Cain.15 He does not explain himself on this point, but presumably he finds city-building incompatible with the Cain tradition in vv. 1–16, as do a number of other writers. Some years after Budde, John Skinner would make Enoch the builder expressly on the ground that Cain could not be responsible for both agricultural and urban pursuits16––thus, as Frick has noted, moving away from textual to other reasons for emending the text.17 Claus Westermann also follows Budde in omitting the reference to a son and reading ‘(he called the name of the city) after his name, Enoch’.18 He thinks that the mention of Cain at the start of the verse is too distant to provide the subject for ‘built’, and he shares Budde’s doubt about the double presentation of Cain as both tiller of the ground and citybuilder.19 However, even if Budde is correct in viewing ‫ ּבֹנֵ ה‬/ ‫ וַ יְ ִהי ּבֹנֶ ה‬as a statement about the subject’s profession, on the analogy of Abel (v. 2) and Jabal and Jubal (vv. 20–21), there is no convincing a priori reason for ruling Cain out. (It might even be argued that a specific building episode does not equate precisely with steady-state pursuits such as shepherding and making music, and that the operative phrase in v. 17 should not be pressed too heavily to make it conform to vv. 2, 20 and 21. There is a difference between being a ‘builder of a city’ and being [by profession] a ‘city-builder’.) The possibility of a double attribution to Cain of the seemingly incompatible pursuits of city-building and agriculturalism had exercised exegetes more ancient than Budde, Skinner and Westermann. Moses Nachmanides (b. 1195), followed by Abravanel and others, explained that Cain ‘was building’ in the sense that he kept coming back to the city all through his nomad life in order to continue the building, for it

14.  Die Biblische Urgeschichte, 121. 15.  Die Biblische Urgeschichte, 121. 16.  John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910), 116–17 (= 2nd edn, 1930, 116–17). 17.  Frank S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel, SBLDS 36 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 243 n. 147. 18.  C. Westermann, Genesis. I. Genesis 1–11, BKAT I/1 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974), 437. 19.  Genesis, 443.

170

City in the Hebrew Bible

was a lifelong project.20 For some modern writers, this perceived tension between the two representations of Cain has been solved by assuming two separate sources for the Cain material in Genesis 4, or even by postulating two different characters that have now been melded in the one biblical figure.21 However, there is not necessarily an incompatibility between Cain’s sentence to restless wandering22 and his city-building. A text such as 1 Sam. 15.5, though it may surprise a distinguished commentator,23 connects the Amalekites––among whom lived the semi-nomadic Kenites, often associated with Cain when viewed as the original Kenite––with a ‘city’. If there are grounds for regarding Enoch as the city-builder in Gen. 4.17, the incompatibility of Cain’s profession as agriculturalist with the building of a city probably should not figure among them (see also below). Civilization and the City In part, the issue is not so much the city as what it is often reckoned to bring in its wake––the civilized arts––in the following section, 4.18–24. While it is true that 4.17 has the first mention of a city in the Hebrew Bible, and that later in the Cain genealogy certain elements of civilization often associated with cities are highlighted, it is possible to make too much of Cain (or Enoch) as the founder of urban civilization on the basis of this verse. Josephus was an early embroiderer of the text, making Cain not only the founder of a walled city but also the inventor of weights and measures, and the instigator of the commerce, greed and craftiness that Josephus associated with this development.24 The Septuagint had translated the ‫ ִעיר‬of the MT by πόλις, but this is a regular correspondence and it is possible to over-exegete the Greek as if it is associating the more advanced conceptuality of the πόλις with Cain’s enterprise.25 Without the 20.  See Chaim D. Chavel, Perushe ha-Torah le-Rabenu Mosheh ben Naḥman (Ramban), I (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav ̣Kook, 1959), 45; von Mutius, Der Kainiterstammbaum, 31, 33–34. 21.  As noted, with references, by Gerhard Wallis, ‘Die Stadt in den Überlieferungen der Genesis’, ZAW 78 (1966): 133–48 (137). 22.  While it would be easy and natural to read Gen. 4.12 as implying lifelong nomady, so much is not exactly stated in the text. 23.  P. Kyle McCarter, 1 Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary, AB 8 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 266. 24.  Ant. 1.61–62. See Thomas W. Franxman, Genesis and the ‘Jewish Antiquities’ of Flavius Josephus, BibOr 35 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1979), 71–72. 25.  Pace von Mutius, Der Kainiterstammbaum, 151–52. Mostly the Septuagint translates BH ‫ ִעיר‬by πόλις, and only occasionally by anything else (notably κώμη in



Gordon Contested Eponymy

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help of the Septuagint, a number of modern writers read Genesis 4 to mean that Cain was the founder of the civilized arts, whether by his building of a city or because of the activities of his descendants as described in the chapter. For Gerhard Wallis Cain is the archetypical city-builder and the founder of urban culture.26 Frank Frick finds it significant that Cain’s descendants include the patriarchs of three guilds, which he takes to be mostly an urban phenomenon.27 And if, as well as the metal-workers and musicians, there are ‘those who dwell in tents and have cattle’ (v. 20), Frick follows Wallis in regarding these last-named as not necessarily nomads but as professional cattle-breeders living near cities.28 This relationship between the city of v. 17 and the section on the development of human culture has been over-played; it has been too easily assumed that, if Cain is the first city-builder, then the pursuits of vv. 20–22 are representative of urban culture. It is far from obvious, however, that the biblical text underpins the connection in this way. The narrowly urban character of vv. 20–22 is not apparent, for example, in the following comment by Gerhard von Rad: ‘The list seems originally to have dealt with a group of professions which were practiced [sic] in the area between the cultivated land and the wilderness, predominantly by Kenites: smiths, tinkers, and musicians, who were either nomadic or had already settled to ply their trade’.29 This is representative of an anthropological approach to a few places). Otto comments on the Septuagint’s ‘depoliticizing’ (‘Entpolitisierung’) of πόλις, which he sees not as a rejection of Hellenism but as attributable to the limited influence of the πόλις concept in Judea and Egypt (E. Otto, ThWAT 6:1/2: col. 74). Similarly, the use of civitas, rather than urbs, by the Old Latin and the Vulgate could be over-pressed to imply a state with political institutions (pace von Mutius, Der Kainiterstammbaum, 152). The equivalent civitas regularly renders ‫ ִעיר‬in the Vulgate of Genesis (to go no further). In Gen. 24.10, 11, 13 we have urbs, oppidum, and civitas used for the same place. Even the Amalekite ‘city’ of 1 Sam. 15.5 is a civitas in the Vulgate, and so also the ‘city’ in the hill-country of Judah to which Mary goes to visit Elizabeth in Luke 1.39. 26.  ‘Die Stadt’, 134, 140. Cf. Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 36: ‘He was the founder of urban culture’. 27.  Frick, The City, 205–6; cf. Wallis, ‘Die Stadt’, 134. Frick, The City, 166 n. 284, comments: ‘The connection of craftsmen with the city can be seen in Gen. 4.21–22, where Cain is both “father” of the smith and the musician, and, at the same time, the founder of a city’. 28.  Frick, The City, 242 n. 140; cf. Wallis, ‘Die Stadt’, 135, comparing 2 Chr. 14.14(15). 29.  Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, rev. English edn (London: SCM Press, 1972), 110–11.

172

City in the Hebrew Bible

the section, and it views Cain as the eponymous ancestor of the Kenite phratry; nevertheless, it is fair comment on the locus of the activities described in vv. 20–22. The reference to tents and livestock in v. 20 has, of course, nothing specifically to do with city life, since living in tents and tending livestock belong, if anywhere, outside the limits of the city (cf. 25.27 referring to Jacob ‘a quiet [‫]ּתם‬ ָ man, living in tents’). The same ‘neutrality’ may also apply to the musical instruments of v. 21. These instruments are not specially tied to urban life. They feature in the temple worship associated with Jerusalem (e.g., 1 Kgs 10.12; Ps. 150.1, 3–4; 1 Chr. 16.5; 25.1), but their use is much more widespread (see Gen. 31.27; 1 Sam. 10.5; Isa. 24.8; Ps. 137.2; Job 30.31). The verb used (‫)תּ ַפׂש‬ ָ denotes skill in using (i.e., playing) the instruments (cf. Jer. 50.16, of wielding a sickle), not their construction, and where the playing of musical instruments is concerned it is pointless to operate on an urban versus rural basis. Which leaves the forging of tools out of bronze and iron, said to be the speciality of Tubal-Cain (v. 22). An urban connection for this activity may or may not be necessary. At least in this case working with the actual metals is indicated in the verbs ‫ ָל ַטׁש‬and ‫ח ַרׁש‬, ָ and association with ‘cities’ may or may not be involved. The ‘valley of the craftsmen’ of Neh. 11.35 (cf. 1 Chr. 4.14) illustrates the ‘sub’-urban connections of such craftsmanship, in a list of towns and villages where Benjamites lived in the post-exilic era. Moreover, and in general, we are sometimes reminded of the dangers of making too severe a distinction between urban and non-urban in the kind of ancient societies reflected in biblical texts: there is good reason not to overemphasize the ‘civis’ (or ‘civitas’) element underlying the word ‘civilization’ when discussing Gen. 4.17–24––whether we think of Cain or of Enoch as the first city-builder.30 The Genesis Cities Genesis 4.17 contains a simple statement about the building of a city and its naming. More was certainly possible within the world reflected in the chapter, which, though set in earliest times, assumes at several points the development of humanity to a stage where city-building was 30.  One might compare Miller’s questioning of the nature/culture polarity as it has been assumed for the ‘Eridu Genesis’ (Patrick D. Miller, ‘Eridu, Dunnu, and Babel: A Study in Comparative Mythology’, HAR 9 [1985]: 227–51 [229] = I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, ed. Richard S. Hess and David T. Tsumura, SBTS 4 [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994], 143–68 [145–46]).



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feasible.31 Noticeably, nothing is said about any special ability having been granted to, or acquired by, the builder.32 In the Genesis scheme of things city-building is principally associated with the great Mesopotamian civilizations, where cities were thought to exist from the beginning of human history. Cities and the power that they represent come to view in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 with the introduction of the hero-figure Nimrod whose domain centred on Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh in Babylonia, and Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen in Assyria (vv. 10–12).33 We might then conclude with justification that Gen. 4.17 wishes to make nothing of its city in ‘first-city’ terms. Or, with Henning Heyde, we might even think of this city as a Vorspiel for Babel.34 Within Genesis 1–11, the prototypical city is unquestionably Babel (11.1–9).35 In the Babel narrative the essentials for Mesopotamian city-building––bricks and mortar––are mentioned as a technological prerequisite, and, as it 31.  The oft-rehearsed points that imply a reasonably populous land include Abel’s keeping of flocks (v. 2), Cain’s killing of Abel ‘in the field’ (v. 8), and Cain’s fear that someone (presumably other than his parents) will kill him (v. 14). For all that, Carl Friedrich Keil is concerned about the existence of a city at so early a stage in the human story and pleads that it must have been a small one (Biblischer Commentar über die Bücher Mose’s. I. Genesis und Exodus, 3rd edn [Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1878], 89). 32.  See Horst Seebass, Genesis. I. Urgeschichte (1, 1–11, 26) (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996), 167. 33.  It is unnecessary to resolve here the question whether Nimrod or Asshur is the subject of the verbs in v. 11. In The Innocents Abroad Mark Twain credits Nimrod with starting to build the tower of Babel, except that ‘circumstances over which he had no control put it out of his power to finish it. He ran it up eight stories high, however, and two of them still stand, at this day––a colossal mass of brickwork, rent down the centre by earthquakes, and seared and vitrified by the lightnings of an angry God’ (Penguin Classics edn [2002], 45). 34.  Henning Heyde, Kain, der erste Jahwe-Verehrer: Die ursprüngliche Bedeutung der Sage von Kain und ihre Auswirkungen in Israel, Arbeiten zur Theologie 1/23 (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1965), 43. 35.  For obvious historical reasons, Babylon acquired a unique symbolic importance within Mesopotamia itself, as witnessed in, for example, Enuma Elish. For another aspect of Babylon’s ‘prototypicality’ within Mesopotamia see Stephanie Dalley, ‘Babylon as a Name for Other Cities Including Nineveh’, in Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale held at The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago July 18–22, 2005: Lexicography, Philology, and Textual Studies, SAOC 62 (Chicago, IL: The Oriental Institute, 2008), 25–33, discussing evidence for the metonymic use of Babylon to represent other cities in Mesopotamia; Dalley regards this practice as also relevant for the explanation of some biblical and other texts mentioning Babylon.

174

City in the Hebrew Bible

would seem, it is the city of Babel rather more than its tower that is the focus of the narrative. (The ‘city’ and ‘tower’ could be read per hendiadys as ‘fortified city’. The use of BH ‫ ָבּ ַצר‬in ‘nothing will be impossible for them’ [v. 6] would then have special resonance, given that the verb is more often used of fortifying cities, thus making them inaccessible or ‘impossible’.) Hugo Gressmann understood the tower to be a temple tower but concluded that this was not what offended God; it was only when the builders started on the city that the divine fear was kindled. And it was not the city as such that offended him, but its representational value as the ‘city of all mankind’.36 According to Gressmann, the supposition of Gen. 11.1–9 is that Babel is the first city on earth and that all nations and languages come from it.37 In a more recent study of Gen. 11.1–9 Theodore Hiebert has argued that the story is not about pride and punishment, which is how it is usually read, but about the human desire for centralism and uniformity. He also holds that the creator’s thwarting of the builders’ scheme is presented as being in the interests of the wider human project.38 While it is true that Hiebert makes little concession to the economic and non-moralizing aspects of some Hebrew narrative writing, and of this one in particular–– or to the larger context, whether of the Protohistory or the Yahwist source, or to intertextual possibilities in the light of such a passage as Isaiah 14, or to the more negative predispositions of two or three key terms in the passage––, to the extent that his Babel39 assumes increased significance as a symbol of human development, the importance of the city of Gen. 4.17 again diminishes by comparison. The prototypical importance of Babel in Genesis 1–11, as compared with the ‘Cainite’ city, is also indicated in the use of the word ‘begin’ (‫)ה ֵחל‬ ֵ in 11.6, as if this urban project marks another step along the road of human enterprise (compare ‘began’ in 4.26; 6.1; 9.20; 10.8). Again, as an index of importance and symbolic status, there is the divine intervention that brings the project to an end. The divine visitation results in a cessation of work and the dispersal of the builders. Though Genesis 4 has important things to say about divine intervention, it is apparent that the city of v. 17 does not attract attention within that judgement context. 36.  Hugo Gressmann, The Tower of Babel, ed. with a Preface by Julian Obermann (New York: Jewish Institute of Religion Press, 1928), 3. 37.  The Tower, 4. 38.  Theodore Hiebert, ‘The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures’, JBL 126 (2007): 29–58. 39.  For Hiebert the emphasis is on the city rather than the tower (‘The Tower’, 33).



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This lack of interest in ‘the city’, in advance of Babel, is also apparent in the flood narrative in Genesis 6–8. There is no mention of cities or city life: nothing concerns the undoing of city, or even ‘civilized’, life. As other studies have noted, the theme is, rather, that of the ‘uncreation’ of what had been, as though only the primal orders and categories of Genesis 1 were in existence. City-life is not presupposed. This contrasts to some extent with the Mesopotamian flood accounts. The Gilgamesh account begins with mention of the Sumerian city of Shuruppak (XI:11), with Utnapishtim being addressed as ‘Man of Shuruppak’ (XI:23), and there are further city references in the text, notably XI:35, 40. The ‘Eridu Genesis’ also includes the destruction of cities in its flood account.40 In Atrahasis the complaint of Enlil about the din (rigmu) caused by the humans may imply city life;41 comparison has been made between rigmu and BH ‫ ָהמֹון‬which denotes, inter alia, the noise generated by crowds in a city (cf. Isa. 5.14; 32.14; Job 39.7) and then crowds more generally (e.g., Judg. 4.7; 2 Sam. 6.19).42 Explaining the First City One explanation for the introduction of a city in Gen. 4.17, already favoured by some early exegetes (who usually assumed Cain’s agency), puts it down to anxiety. Cain wished to be safe. Thus Rabanus Maurus explains: et forte idcirco civitatem condidit in qua salvari posset (‘and perhaps, therefore, he founded a city so that he could be saved in it’).43 A recent writer, Joel Lohr, who thinks that in the original version of the narrative Cain’s son Enoch was the builder, nevertheless holds that the present text associates the city with Cain: the city is comparable with the biblical cities of refuge and, in Lohr’s reckoning, answers to the ‘sign’

40.  3:156; 5:202. See Samuel Noah Kramer in ANET, 44; Thorkild Jacobsen, ‘The Eridu Genesis’, JBL 100 (1981): 513–29 (524). 41.  I.vii:354–59; II.i:3–8. See Wilfred G. Lambert and Alan R. Millard, Atra-Ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 67, 73. 42.  For wide-ranging discussion of rigmu (and ḫubūru) and ‫המֹון‬, ָ and of semantic nuances that include notions of hubris, see Daniel Bodi, The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra, OBO 104 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 117–61 (e.g., 120–21, 124 n. 35, 137 n. 86, 155–56). 43.  Rabanus Maurus, Commentarius in Genesim (PL 111), col. 507. For this and other such references from the eighth and ninth centuries CE, see Ruth Mellinkoff, The Mark of Cain (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981), 47, 118 nn. 83–86.

176

City in the Hebrew Bible

that YHWH established for Cain.44 If this appears to create a tension between the divine sentence to restless wandering and the city-building, Lohr appeals to the well-favoured Septuagintal variant ‘Not so!’ (v. 15 [=? ‫ )]לֹא ֵכן‬which possibly suggests that God is making a major concession to Cain, despite his wrongdoing. Seebass also views the city positively. He sees no conflict between the judgment sentence in 4.12, which was not to nomady as such, and the building of the city. Cain, who was under both divine curse and divine protection, was capable of learning from his errors, and he built the city as a permanent place for his son, after whom he named it.45 In a short but wide-ranging essay on Cain, David Daube views him positively as the first ‘pray-er’ in the Bible.46 He regards Cain’s complaint in 4.13–14 as a virtual prayer, and the mark of protection (v. 15) as the answer to his petition. Daube also views the statement that Cain ‘went out from before the Lord’ (v. 16) as signifying no more than withdrawal after an audience with a monarch, comparing Gen. 41.46, 47.10 and Exod. 35.20 in this respect.47 A very positive view of Cain thus emerges, and it climaxes in Daube’s interpretation of Cain the city-builder. Cain is seen as acting in the tradition of the fugitive city-builders of the ancient world, such as Sarpedon, Miletus, Dorieus and Aeneas. Then, in naming the city after his son Enoch he betrays dynastic pretensions. Even the name Enoch (cf. BH ‫‘ חנך‬dedicate’) is thought to include the idea of ensuring permanency. To buttress this reading of Cain, Daube compares Abimelech the (short-lived) ruler of Shechem in Judges 9, in connection with whom the verb ‫נּוע‬ ַ is used allusively in Jotham’s fable (vv. 9, 11, 13). However, Daube’s citing of these occurrences of ‫נּוע‬ ַ in a loosely argued attempt at cross-fertilization with the phrase ‫ נָ ע וָ נָ ד‬in Gen. 4.12, 14 is unconvincing at any level. Frank Frick thinks that the Yahwistic writer sees Cain’s city as a human answer to God’s sentencing Cain to be a fugitive and a wanderer. By building the city Cain attempts to provide security for himself without 44.  Joel N. Lohr, ‘ “So YHWH established a sign for Cain”: Rethinking Genesis, 4, 15’, ZAW 121 (2009): 101–3 (102). Lohr (103 n.) notes that his identification of the sign with the city was anticipated by John H. Sailhamer, ‘Genesis’, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/ Regency, 1990), 66–67. Lohr regards the potential ‫עיר‬/‫ד‬ ִ ‫ ִע ָיר‬play as a clinching argument in favour of identifying Enoch as the builder of the city (102). 45.  Seebass, Genesis, 167. 46.  David Daube, ‘Two Jewish Prayers’, Rechtshistorisches Journal 6 (1987): 185–208 (185–94). 47.  ‘Two Jewish Prayers’, 189 n. 28.



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regard for God’s undertaking to preserve his life. Cain’s city represents a human attempt to ensure security for oneself independently of God’s provision.48 As we shall see, some such negative evaluation of the city seems right, once it becomes specially associated with Cain. Naming the City Until the late nineteenth century, discussion of the naming of the city, insofar as it occurred, was largely conducted on the premise that Cain was the builder. Abravanel thought that Cain wanted to avoid contradicting the divine intention and so named the city after his son, as if he had built it.49 In the modern period, König noted that it is not said that Cain built the city in order that he himself might live there. It was first and foremost an ‘Alarmplatz’ for the protection of his family, and hence his naming of it after his son.50 According to Frick, the naming after Enoch meant that he and not Cain would be the proprietor and master of the city.51 As we have seen, Seebass thinks that Cain built the city for the protection of his son, in which case his naming it after his son needs no further explanation.52 If we were to follow NEB and REB in translating ‫ וַ יְ ִהי ּבֹנֶ ה‬by ‘(Cain) was then building’, the text would have an implicit explanation of the naming of the city that would apply whether the builder was Cain or Enoch: the birth of the son took place during the building of the city and it, in a very natural way, was named after the newly born. This may be the supposition of the Septuagint translator who, as Wevers notes, does not treat the compound verb-form as a bound phrase (‘was the builder of [a city]’), but renders by (καὶ) ἦν οἰκοδομῶν (πόλιν) (‘[and] he was building [a city])’ (cf. NETS).53

48.  The City, 207. Similarly Heinrich Spaemann, ‘Kain und Abel, ein biblischer Typos: Variationen und Perspektiven’, in Brudermord: Zum Mythos von Kain und Abel, ed. Joachim Illies (Munich: Kösel, 1975), 113–22 (‘Für den biblischen Verfasser trägt die Errichtung von Städten den Akzent der Abwendung von der Buße, auf die Gott den Menschen zu seinem Heil vermiesen hat [Gen 3,17 ff.]’ [118]). 49.  See von Mutius, Der Kainiterstammbaum, 31. 50.  Die Genesis, 291. 51.  The City, 41. 52.  Seebass, Genesis, 167. 53.  John W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis, SBLSCS 35 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), 62.

178

City in the Hebrew Bible

And, as we have observed, if Enoch is credited with the building of the city, and the occurrence of his name at the end of v. 17 is secondary, a further significance attaches to the act of naming. The son in question is then Irad (‫)ע ָירד‬, ִ and this construal of the text offers the possibility of a loose pun on ‫ע ָירד‬, ִ as if the ‘City’ got its name from Enoch’s son. Exegeting the Layers While there is no textual variant in the Hebrew or versional traditions that would support the omission of ‘Enoch’ at the end of Gen. 4.17 and therewith the possibility––strictly, it is no more than that––of identifying the Bible’s first city-builder as Enoch son of Cain rather than Cain himself, the argument for regarding this occurrence of ‘Enoch’ as secondary does not lie down easily.54 It is therefore proper to ask why, with the insertion of Enoch’s name, the act of building may have been turned in Cain’s direction. It is true that the aspiration to the security of city-dwelling is not always regarded negatively in the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 107 in particular describes the struggle of those who trekked through desert wastelands, finding no city where they could settle (v. 4), and it recounts how God, no less, in response to their cries for help, guided them ‘to a city where they could settle’ (v. 7). Yet even the desire for the security of city life takes on a more negative, even pathetic, aspect in the story of Abraham’s nephew Lot, who having committed to the city life of Canaan in what are presented as a short series of stages (Gen. 13.10–13; 14.12; 19.1), and then having been deprived of residency in Sodom, pleads to be allowed to settle in Zoar (‘Is it not a little place?’, Gen. 19.20–22). Reaching further back into Genesis, we encounter the Babel builders seeking the solidarity of city life ‘so that we are not scattered over the face of the whole earth’ (Gen. 11.4). Josephus accuses the Babel-builders of submitting to Nimrod’s scheme to frustrate any repetition of the flood by constructing a tower that would climb beyond the waterline55––evidently Gen. 9.11 carried little weight with them. With or without Josephus, the Babel narrative sees the Babel builders at odds with God, and hence the divine intervention with confusion and scattering. In Genesis 4, the MT’s association of Cain with the city of v. 17 confirms a similarly negative 54.  It is perhaps worth noting that ‘functional grammar’ offers no more help than the more conventional approaches on this issue. See Barry Bandstra, Genesis 1–11: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text, Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Bible (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 265–67. 55.  Ant. 1.114.



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reading of this urban project. Read against the background of both Cain’s action (murder of Abel) and his attitude (his arrogant response to God’s questioning [v. 9]), it is possible to interpret his city as an act of defiance in the face of his sentence to be ‘a wanderer and a fugitive’. We have already noted mitigating explanations of Cain’s city-building,56 but something more sinister may be nearer the mark. Moreover, along such lines it is possible to reconcile the claimed incongruity––to whatever extent it may exist––between Cain’s nomady and his city-building. The Cain of the MT is already chafing at his sentence (vv. 13–14), and the insertion of Enoch’s name at the end of v. 17 and the diverting of the citybuilding to Cain’s account may mark the first step in a long tradition of vilification of an already malformed character. If something of this order has taken place, the interpreter is faced with the necessity not only of exhuming the assumed original but also of explaining the canonical form of the individual text within its wider setting. Bibliography Bandstra, Barry. Genesis 1–11: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text, Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Bible (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008). Bodi, Daniel. The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra, OBO 104 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991). Budde, Karl. Die Biblische Urgeschichte (Gen. 1–12, 5) (Giessen: J. Ricker’sche Buchhandlung, 1883). Cassuto, Umberto. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Part 1, From Adam to Noah, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961). Chavel, Chaim D. Perushe ha-Torah le-Rabenu Mosheh ben Naḥman (Ramban), I (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav ̣Kook, 1959). Dalley, Stephanie. ‘Babylon as a Name for Other Cities Including Nineveh’. In Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Held at The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago July 18–22, 2005: Lexicography, Philology, and Textual Studies, SAOC 62 (Chicago, IL: The Oriental Institute, 2008), 25–33. Daube, David. ‘Two Jewish Prayers’, Rechtshistorisches Journal 6 (1987): 185–208. Driver, Samuel Rolles. A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, 3rd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892). Driver, Samuel Rolles. Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913).

56.  Since death lies heavily across the early columns of Genesis––the judgement in Eden (2.17; 3.19), Abel’s death at the hand of Cain, the obituary page that is Genesis 5, the destruction by flood in chs. 6–8––preoccupation with life, death and the perpetuation of the family, and of one’s name through the family, could certainly not be dismissed as inappropriate in Genesis 4.

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Franxman, Thomas W. Genesis and the ‘Jewish Antiquities’ of Flavius Josephus, BibOr 35 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1979). Frick, Frank S. The City in Ancient Israel, SBLDS 36 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). Gressmann, Hugo. The Tower of Babel, ed. with a Preface by Julian Obermann (New York: Jewish Institute of Religion Press, 1928). Hallo, William W. ‘Antediluvian Cities’. JCS 23 (1971): 57–67. Hallo, William W. Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions, SHCANE 6 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996). Halm, Karl, ed. Sulpicii Severi Libri qui Supersunt, CSEL 1 (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1866). Heyde, Henning. Kain, der erste Jahwe-Verehrer: Die ursprüngliche Bedeutung der Sage von Kain und ihre Auswirkungen in Israel, Arbeiten zur Theologie 1/23 (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1965). Hiebert, Theodore. ‘The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures’. JBL 126 (2007): 29–58. Jacobsen, Thorkild. ‘The Eridu Genesis’. JBL 100 (1981): 513–29. Joüon, Paul, and Takamitsu Muraoka. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. II. Part Three: Syntax, Subsidia Biblica 14/II (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991). Keil, Carl Friedrich. Biblischer Commentar über die Bücher Mose’s. I. Genesis und Exodus, 3rd edn (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1878). König, Eduard. Die Genesis eingeleitet, übersetzt und erklärt (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1919). Kyle McCarter, P. 1 Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary, AB 8 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1980). Lambert, Wilfred G., and Alan R. Millard. Atra-Ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Lohr, Joel N. ‘ “So YHWH established a sign for Cain”: Rethinking Genesis, 4, 15’. ZAW 121 (2009): 101–3. Mellinkoff, Ruth. The Mark of Cain (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981). Miller, Patrick D. ‘Eridu, Dunnu, and Babel: A Study in Comparative Mythology’. HAR 9 (1985): 227–51 (= Richard S. Hess and David T. Tsumura, eds. I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11, SBTS 4 [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994], 143–68). Mutius, Hans-Georg von. Der Kainiterstammbaum Genesis 4/17–24 in der jüdischen und christlichen Exegese: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Mittelalters nach dem Zeugnis des Don Isaak Ben Jehuda Abravanel, Judaistische Texte und Studien 7 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1978). Rad, Gerhard von. Genesis: A Commentary, rev. English edn (London: SCM Press, 1972). Ryssel, Karl Victor. De Elohistae Pentateuchici Sermone: Commentatio Historico-Critica (Leipzig: L. Fernau, 1878). Sailhamer, John H. ‘Genesis’. In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 2:3–284, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990). Sarna, Nahum M. The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989). Sasson, Jack M. ‘A Genealogical “Convention” in Biblical Chronography?’ ZAW 90 (1978): 171–85. Seebass, Horst. Genesis. I. Urgeschichte (1, 1–11, 26) (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996).



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Skinner, John. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910). Spaemann, Heinrich. ‘Kain und Abel, ein biblischer Typos: Variationen und Perspektiven’. In Brudermord: Zum Mythos von Kain und Abel, ed. Joachim Illies, 113–22 (Munich: Kösel, 1975). Spurrell, G. J. Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Book of Genesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887). Vermeylen, Jacques. ‘La descendance de Caïn et la descendance d’Abel (Gen 4, 17–26 + 5, 28b–29)’. ZAW 103 (1991): 175–93. Wallis, Gerhard. ‘Die Stadt in den Überlieferungen der Genesis’. ZAW 78 (1966): 133–48. Weinfeld, Moshe. Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995). Westermann, C. Genesis. I. Genesis 1–11, BKAT I/1 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974). Wevers, John W. Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis, SBLSCS 35 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993).

‘ T h eref ore W e W i l l N ot F e ar ’ ? T he P sa l m s of Z i on i n P sy chologi cal P ers p ect i v e

Rebecca S. Watson

No volume on the city in the Hebrew Bible would be complete without reference to ‘Zion’ and in particular, the ‘Zion Psalms’,1 where Holy City itself comes into such sharp focus. These compositions are also the meeting place where the lived, experienced life of the city and temple intersects with the ideal city and worship of the imagination; and where a focus on place often correlates with one on time, because in these Psalms, Zion is not merely a present reality: its uncertain or ideal future and past history also often come into view. It is a truism of form criticism that the Zion Psalms are not a formal cate­ gory of Psalm, but are rather united by a common theme or set of motifs.2 1.  It is well known that for many psalms, including the three under consideration in the present chapter (namely Pss. 46, 48 and 76), the Hebrew verse numbers are one higher than those in translation, since the superscriptions are not given verse numbers in English. However, all references given here are to the Hebrew only. 2.  A typical statement is that of S. E. Gillingham (The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, Oxford Bible Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994], 212): ‘Their common theme is God’s world-rule from Zion, and his presence among his people who worship there’; more specifically, ‘They appear to borrow from early Canaanite mythology, concerning the deity’s dwelling on a mountain (Ps. 48:2), with rivers of healing flowing through the city (Ps. 46:4), and the appearing of the deity to protect his people and judge the nations (Pss. 46:6; 48:8; 76:8–9)’ (Gillingham, Poems and Psalms, 251). Zenger more expansively identifies six areas of commonality between Pss. 46, 48 and 76, including the conquest of chaos on or from Mount Zion, the destruction of weapons of war and hence the overcoming of the enemies’ power in order that they might recognize Yahweh’s sovereignty, and parallels between historical and mythical elements, besides other minor semantic and motif correspondences. He also notes the pattern of opening confession, narrative development and closing imperatives (Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, HThKAT [Freiburg: Herder, 2000], 2:386 [ET 2:261]).



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Most often they are seen as a subgroup of the ‘hymn’,3 and as predominantly celebratory in tone. Thus, according to Kraus, ‘what we have here is psalms that glorify Zion’,4 in which ‘Zion was celebrated in song’; or, in the words of Gillingham, ‘In these psalms God is praised…for his specific, particular rule in Zion, “the city of God” ’.5 However, greater precision is needed beyond the simple categorization as ‘hymns’ since, at the outset, they appear to fall naturally into two broad groups. Psalms 84 and 122 are often classified as ‘pilgrim hymns’ or ‘pilgrim songs’ and seem almost entirely to fit the consensus position of being ‘celebratory’ in tone, expressing love and longing for Zion in the context of pilgrimage and petition;6 Psalm 87 is more opaque but again delight in Zion by both God and the Psalmist is at its core. By contrast, Psalms 46, 48, and 76 are much more questionable members of the ‘hymnic’ category, since they are concerned with God/Zion as protector/fortress in the face of the assaults of enemies, and contain some kind of call to respond (46.9, 11; 48.12–15; 76.12).7 Scholarly opinion has varied considerably as to whether they 3.  Thus, e.g., Hermann Gunkel and Joachim Begrich, Einleitung in die Psalmen: die Gattungen der religiösen Lyrik Israels, Göttinger Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1933), §2.26,52; Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 1, with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, FOTL 14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), 16. 4.  Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalmen, 6th edn, 2 vols., BKAT 15 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989), 1:62 [ET 1:58]. 5.  Poems and Psalms, 212. Cf. Gunkel, ‘The Zion songs…begin immediately with the praise of God and Zion’. (Einleitung, §2, 17); ‘One may well imagine that this kind of poem was sung at particular occasions that celebrated Jerusalem’s majesty’ (Einleitung, §2, 52). 6.  Cf. Gillingham, who thinks the Zion Psalms as a whole were used as pilgrimage psalms (Poems and Psalms, 212); and Klaus Seybold, who lists Pss. 48, 84 and 122 among the Psalms of Ascents, adding, ‘indeed, the group is open in principle to include all the Zion Psalms’ (Introducing the Psalms [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990], 118). 7.  Note Jörg Jeremias’s analysis of the psalms of Zion Pss. 46, 48 and 76, in which he identifies three key aspects, namely, confession, chiefly thorough nominal predicates; substantiation via a description of Yahweh’s deeds in protecting Zion; and call(s) for the hearer to respond expressed in imperatives sometimes preceded by jussives (Jörg Jeremias, ‘Lade und Zion: zur entstehung der Ziontradition’, in Probleme biblischer Theologie: Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Hans Walter Wolff [Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1971], 183–98, 189–90; similarly Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen, 2:386 [ET 2:261]). The hearers are apparently called upon to follow practices that bring us near to the song of thanksgiving: acknowledging Yahweh and his works (46.9, 11; 48.13–15, in Ps. 46.11 in response to a divine word) and—especially—performing vows (76.12–13). The aspect of threat in Pss. 46, 48

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should primarily be located in particular historical circumstances (e.g., the establishment of the Davidic cult in Jerusalem,8 or the deliverance of the city from Sennacherib in 701 BC9) or in a cultic celebration, e.g., in Mowinckel’s enthronement festival or Kraus’s Zion festival, to say nothing of Gunkel’s prophetic-eschatological understanding. Nonetheless, a closer examination of Psalms 46, 48 and 76, taken individually, reveals greater complexity. For example, it is notable that although Gerstenberger seems to include the Zion Psalms as hymns in the introduction to his commentary,10 he concludes from his closer and 76 is recognized by a number of scholars. E.g., it is reflected in Gunkel’s classification of ‘eschatological Zion songs’ (Einleitung, §9, 1), since he maintains that Ps. 48, for example, was ‘performed so that the congregation which almost succumbs to the misery of this time, can experience the jubilation of the end time in advance’ (Einleitung, §2, 40; similarly §2, 52). This is in marked contrast to his association of Ps. 122 with ‘a happily completed pilgrimage’ (Einleitung, §2, 40) and perception that Ps. 84 is ‘closely related to it in content’ (Einleitung, §8, 20). Westermann reflects a similar contrast when he depicts only Pss. 46, 48 and 76 as ‘Songs of Zion, which speak of a victory over the enemies of Zion’. He considers them to pick up on the ‘mythological notion of the city of God endangered by enemy powers’ (Lob und Klage in den Psalmen [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977], 190 [ET 244]) but classifies Ps. 122, like Gunkel, as a ‘real pilgrimage song’ (199 [ET 255]; see similarly Kraus, Psalmen, 1:62–63, 495–96 [ET 1:58, 459–60]). In a further permutation, Corinna Körting recognizes Ps. 122 as a ‘pilgrimage song’ (Zion in den Psalmen, FAT 48 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006], 22) and Ps. 84 as a ‘song of longing for the courts of Zion’ (88), whilst strongly affirming the identity of Pss. 46, 48 and 76 as Songs of Zion (165, 179, 185). Hossfeld and Zenger make a very similar distinction, identifying Ps. 84 as a ‘prayer of lament far from the Temple’, and the ‘pilgrimage psalm’ Ps. 122 as an expression of post-exilic ‘city theology’ that contrasts with the concerns of Ps. 48 (Psalmen, 2:510–12; 3:455–6 [ET 2:350–1; 3:336–7]). See further the brief survey in Ben C. Ollenburger, Zion, the City of the Great King, JSOTSup 41 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 15–17. Despite the variations in form-critical classification between different scholars, an underlying constant is the perceptible difference in tone and function between Pss. 86, 122 and Pss. 46, 48 and 76, with themes of protection, threat and response dominating in the latter group. 8.  Thus Peter C. Craigie (Psalms 1–50, WBC 19 [Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983], 343) in respect of Ps. 46. 9.  Thus Samuel Terrien (The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological Commentary. Vol. 2, Psalms 73–150 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], 550) regarding Ps. 76, and T. K. Cheyne (The Book of Psalms [London: Kegan Paul, 1904], 128, 131, 212)—like many of the older commentators—in respect of all three psalms, though ambivalently in the case of Ps. 48, which he accepts may be post-exilic; note the LXX superscription to Ps. 76: ‘concerning the Assyrian’. 10.  Psalms, Part 1, 16.



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form-critical analysis that Psalm 46 is primarily a ‘Song of Confidence’,11 whilst Psalm 76 is a ‘Confessional Hymn’ more than it is a true ‘Zion Hymn’.12 Psalm 48 is then more closely defined as a ‘liturgical composition’ in which ‘praise and confidence are the prevailing moods’, hence a ‘Communal Hymn’.13 Despite the majority view that these Psalms are essentially celebratory in tone,14 it is but a short step from the various labels Gerstenberger applies to Psalms 46, 48 and 76 to ask if they should necessarily be viewed as broadly equivalent in their purpose and thrust, or whether they should be examined entirely independently. Moreover, his description of Psalm 46 as a ‘song of confidence’ invites the question whether this psalm at least is at root closer to praise (as in thanksgivings or hymns) or to lament. Is it reflective of circumstances inviting confidence or confessions of trust in God, or conversely, as in Gunkel’s eschatological reading, does it affirm something that is more craved than experienced?15 Gerstenberger’s branding of Psalm 76 as a ‘confessional hymn’ may also raise similar questions. In order to illuminate where on the genre-spectrum each of these psalms might be placed, and to detect aspects of their internal dynamics that might otherwise be missed, methods of psychological interpretation may prove helpful. Are Psalms 46, 48 and 76 essentially joyful, as is often supposed (and if so, should they be understood more as offering praise or thanksgiving?), or are they affirmations of faith from troubled times, or perhaps there may even be some variance between these Psalms themselves? It is with the aim of resolving some of these questions that these Psalms of Zion may be submitted for analysis by the software

11.  Psalms, Part 1, 194. See likewise Westermann, Lob und Klage, 190 [ET 245]), who classifies it as a ‘psalm of confidence of the people’. 12.  Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations, FOTL 15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 87. 13.  Psalms, Part 1, 202. 14.  Here one might note Gillingham’s observation that Pss. 48 and 76 are atypical of the hymnic form, since they ‘are more a collection of reasons for praise, without explicit calls to do so’ (Poems and Psalms, 213–14). 15.  The latter possibility was already explored in respect of Psalm 46 by Edzard Rohland in his 1956 Heidelberg dissertation (Die Bedeutung der Erwählungstraditionen Israels für die Eschatologie der alttestamentlichen Propheten, 123ff.), in which he argued that the divine address in v. 10 constitutes an ‘oracle of being heard’ and hence concluded that this psalm has its origin in a communal lament, which, after a favourable outcome, was reformed into a ‘song of confidence of the community’.

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program Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (better known as LIWC) pioneered by James W. Pennebaker and others.16 Undergirding this method of enquiry are the insights that there are infinite permutations for expressing even quite simple ideas within the same language and that individuals spontaneously devise different language combinations to communicate the same thing. Language use may therefore be a marker of individual difference and reflective of the personality or social or mental state of the speaker or writer. In particular, the degree of use of particular function words—i.e., parts of speech including pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs—or a preference for language which is positive or negative, cognitive or affective, or belonging to certain other categories, may all potentially be indicative of the psychological or social circumstances of the person generating the speech or text under consideration. Function words (also known as ‘particles’) are especially interesting as, in contrast to ‘content words’, they are items of vocabulary which constitute a high percentage of our language use and which are critical for the structuring of language, yet we tend to pay hardly any conscious attention to them. Research shows, however, that there is a significant correlation between the use of certain function words, such as pronouns, and factors as diverse as gender, social status relative to the addressee, or aspects of mental health, such as vulnerability to depression.17 It is because language use is so revealing, 16.  This is available online at: www.liwc.net. For a more detailed analysis of LIWC, its potential and limitations as applied to the Hebrew Psalms, see my ‘ “I Shall Not Want”? A Psychological Interpretation of Psalm 23’, in Methods, Theories, Imagination: Social Scientific Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. David J. Chalcraft, Frauke Uhlenbruch and Rebecca S. Watson, The Bible and Social Science 1, The Bible in the Modern World 60 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014), 124–46. For a recent summary of the language dimensions identifiable through LIWC and their relation to various psychological states, see Yla R. Tausczik and James W. Pennebaker, ‘The Psychological Meaning of Words: LIWC and Computerized Text Analysis Methods’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 29 (2010): 24–54; also of value are James W. Pennebaker, Cindy K. Chung, Molly Ireland, Amy Gonzales and Roger J. Booth, ‘The Development and Psychometric Properties of LIWC2007’ (Austin, TX: LIWC. net, 2007; available at http://www.liwc.net/howliwcworks.php#index1; accessed 5 July 2016) and Cindy K. Chung, and James W. Pennebaker, ‘The Psychological Functions of Function Words’, in Social Communication: Frontiers of Social Psychology, ed. K. Fiedler (New York: Psychology Press, 2007), 343–59. 17.  See further the bibliographies in Watson, ‘ “I Shall Not Want”?’, or Tausczik and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Meaning of Words’, for a sample of the literature on the correlations between language use and mental or social state.



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especially when analysed closely in this way, that the LIWC software has been devised. It is able to conduct a swift statistical analysis of potentially significant patterns in language use, so that the percentage of words in any given passage to fall into particular categories (e.g., first, second, and third person pronouns; past, present and future tense verbs; words expressing positive and negative emotion, and subcategories of these emotions, such as anger or anxiety) may be displayed and the resulting statistics then subjected to psychological analysis. Within the LIWC analysis, individual words may fall into more than one category, e.g., ‘feared’ would score as a verb, in the subcategory of past tense, and as expressing affect, more particularly a negative emotion, falling into the subcategory of anxiety; ‘upon’ would register as a function word, then is progressively more closely defined as a preposition, expressing relativity, in the subgroup space (as opposed to time or motion). Conversely, a word not found in its fairly comprehensive dictionary (e.g., ‘chariot’) or not falling into any of its predetermined categories (e.g., ‘table’) would not appear in the statistical analysis at all. A weakness of the program is that categorization is ultimately probabilistic, and carried out without reference to the context, so ‘love’, for example, is taken as a present-tense verb and associated not only with the social and positive emotion categories but with the biological and sexual, whilst ‘with’ is taken, not in the instrumental sense, but as reflecting cognitive mechanisms and inclusion. The analysis therefore merits careful cross-checking with the text to ensure the highest degree of accuracy. This is especially the case where there may also be a cultural aspect to how words are categorized; for example ‘awesome’ is in LIWC taken as an expression of positive emotion, which is unlikely to reflect the nuance intended in Ps. 76.8, 12. Here careful consideration of suitable forms of translation is important, and various alternatives may be analysed in order to assess the most appropriate categorization. There are two main ways in which LIWC may be applicable to the study of the Psalms of Zion. First, it may be used in genre analysis, as data derived from LIWC may provide a quick and relatively ‘objective’ means of comparison of this group of psalms with those classified as belonging to other genres, such as laments or thanksgivings or hymns. For example, one could examine their collective or individual use of words conveying positive or negative emotions or calibrate the proportions of self-references to language centring on others or God, and compare these data with those pertaining to psalms belonging to a range of genres, in order to gauge their tone in a measured way and to assess where on the genre spectrum they may lie. Second, LIWC may offer fresh perspectives

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in the close exegesis of any single psalm, as it provides a method of identifying mood changes and other aspects of transformation within a single composition, and thus of recognizing different sections and the movement between them. Most significantly, it allows a shift away from the usual focus on what is said (its content, theology, themes and message) and provides linguistic information instead on the how, information on which in the normal act of reading it is difficult to place a conscious focus, but which can nonetheless be hugely revealing. Given the constraints of space available here, it is on the second type of analysis, focusing on transformations and tendencies within specific psalms, that the present chapter will focus. Turning now to Psalms 46, 48 and 76, I would like to suggest that all three of them are very different in tone and force, and belong to situations where distinct moods and a contrasting manner in relation to God are called for. This is not to exclude that they might belong to separate stages in the same extended liturgical event or to sequential points in a series of swiftly-unfolding historical circumstances, but it does highlight their individual distinctiveness and warns against an assumption of broad equivalence. This should become evident if each is examined in turn. Psalm 46 Essential to the understanding of Psalm 46 is an appreciation of its structure, which is then further illuminated by LIWC analysis. This composition naturally falls into three stanzas (vv. 2–4, 5–8, 9–12), each ending with Selah, and the second two sharing the same concluding refrain. Within each stanza a similar movement may be detected, creating a progressive spiral structure throughout the Psalm. Stanza 1: Stanza 2: Stanza 3:

affirmation (v. 2), (denial of) anxiety (v. 3aα), chaos (v. 3aβ–4). affirmation (v. 5), (denial of) anxiety (v. 6), chaos (v. 7a), divine action (v. 7b), affirmation (v. 8). (affirmation—implicit throughout), divine action (vv. 9–10) and exaltation over ‘chaos’ (i.e., the nations / earth, the forces named in vv. 3–4, 7), with added elements of imperative call and divine speech (v. 11); affirmation (v. 12).

There is thus an intensification and development throughout this spiral structure, moving away from anxiety in the face of chaos, to a culmination in God’s decisive action, through which indications of anxiety are replaced with overtones of anger and achievement (vv. 9–10); until



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finally God’s exaltation over the nations / earth is expressed in a divine declaration to this effect, addressed to his people in v. 11. This movement is exhibited on a variety of levels, through the use of pronouns, verb tense and other forms of speech, such as those reflecting affect or cognitive processes. Each of these will be examined in turn. 1. Affect and Cognition It is fairly obvious that Psalm 46 conveys a great deal of assurance at an explicit level, as has been recognized by all the commentators. However, close inspection reveals that the subtext of the psalm may be quite different, with a high level of anxiety apparent not far beneath the surface, especially in the earlier verses of the psalm. Psalm 46 begins positively, ‫ֹלהים ָלנּו ַמ ֲח ֶסה וָ עֹז‬ ִ ‫א‬, ֱ ‘God is our refuge and strength/stronghold’. ‫עֹז‬, whether translated as ‘strength’ or ‘stronghold’, scores in the LIWC analysis as a ‘positive emotion’ word. However, already in this first colon, the word ‘refuge’ hints at a backdrop of anxiety: a refuge is only a refuge insofar as it provides shelter from danger or some kind of adverse conditions (even if only the rain, though the weather is hardly in mind here). This aspect of the negative-in-the-positive is made explicit in the second half of the verse: although ‘help’ sounds encouraging, it occurs ‫ב ָצֹרות‬, ְ the plural of the word quite mildly translated here by NRSV as ‘in trouble’, but elsewhere often as ‘in distress’ (and hence, in situations or occasions of distress). However it is translated, it conveys implicit negative emotion and anxiety.18 Negativity is still more explicit in the next colon, v. 3a, in the phrase ‫לֹא־נִ ָירא‬, ‘we shall not fear’, since it combines the negation ‫לֹא‬, ‘not’ (relating to the cognitive mechanisms of discrepancy and exclusion) with the verb ‘to fear’ or ‘be afraid’, again scoring as registering negative emotion and anxiety. It is important here to emphasize that the formulation of an idea is highly significant: to say ‘we will not fear’ is not equivalent to saying ‘we will be confident’.19 There follow in vv. 3aβ–4 the statements of what the people in whose voice the psalm is spoken will not fear: the changing (or perhaps 18.  ‘Trouble’ and ‘distress’ are both calibrated as reflecting negative emotion, the latter more specifically as anxiety. 19.  See, e.g., James W. Pennebaker and Thomas C. Lay, ‘Language Use and Personality during Crises: Analyses of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Press Conferences’, Journal of Research in Personality 36 (2002): 271–82 (274), and James W. Pennebaker, Tracy J. Mayne and Martha E. Francis, ‘Linguistic Predictors of Adaptive Bereavement’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72 (1997): 863–71.

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quaking20) of the earth, the shaking and trembling of the mountains, the roar and tumult of the sea. Despite variations in translation, it is clear that the overall affective force is negative and reflective of anxiety.21 From a cultural perspective, it may be noted that although in English ‘change’ is not perceived to be innately negative, all uses of the Hebrew ‫( מור‬in all the conjugations) are, and it is frequently used in prohibitions.22 This anxiety is especially intense in v. 3, where we have already identified negation, discrepancy and exclusion (through the particle ‫)לֹא‬,23 together with negative affect–anxiety in the verbs ‫ נִ ָירא‬and ‫‘( מוֹט‬fear/be afraid’ and ‘tremble/shake’). Perhaps the most familiar aspect of anxiety is worry about ‘what if’: when (or if) the worst should happen, what then? How to respond? This is explicit in v. 3: even if the mountains shake and other forms of unimaginable cosmic tumult strike, we will not fear. Related to this, and similarly characteristic of an anxious state, is a greater use of explainers (i.e., words that are expressive of a need or wish to explain, like ‘because, since, in order to’). Hebrew poetry is not exactly replete with such terms—and conjunctions of any sort are in general 20.  DCH (5:187) suggests a derivation from II mrr, ‘flow’, or an emendation to behimmôr, ‘when it quakes’ (i.e. Niphal of II. mwr, ‘quake’); less likely are behimmôg, ‘when it melts’ (Niphal of mwg) or hamār, ‘throat’ (of hell). The readings behimmôr or behimmôg are also proposed in the BHS notes, though LXX ἐν τῷ ταρσσεσθαι (‘when it is troubled/agitated’) is more congruent with the former. Cf. the New JPS translation: ‘reels’. 21.  This is seen in the LIWC results for ‘shake / are shaken’ and ‘tremble’; cf. ‘rage’, which is classified as reflecting negative emotion and its subset, anger. Certain other possi­bilities for translation in these two verses, such as ‘reel’, ‘topple’, ‘quake’, are not in the LIWC dictionary, but it is reasonable to attribute to them the same negative emotional force and aura of anxiety. 22.  Lev. 27.10, 33; Jer. 2.11; 48.11; Ezek. 48.14; Hos. 4.7; Mic. 2.4; Pss. 15.4; 106.20; Prov. 3.35; Sir. 7.18. 23.  The use of negations in combination with a high proportion of self-references correlates with an anxious disposition: see James W. Pennebaker, R. Mehl and Kate G. Niederhoffer, ‘Psychological Aspects of Natural Language Use: Our Words, Our Selves’, Annual Review of Psychology 54 (2003): 547–77 (558), drawing on the earlier research of Walter Weintraub (Verbal Behavior: Adaptation and Psychopathology [New York: Springer, 1981] and Verbal Behavior in Everyday Life [New York: Springer, 1989]). At the same time, the use of exclusive terms like ‘not’, especially in combination with conjunctions, can be indicative of cognitively complex thinking: through them the speaker attempts to make distinctions between different categories and then, by utilizing conjunctions, draws connections in order to create a coherent narrative, and this assists in the active processing of traumatic events (Tausczik and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Meaning’, 35).



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pretty sparse in the Psalms—but v. 3 actually begins with the explainer ‫ל־ּכן‬ ֵ ‫ע‬, ַ ‘therefore’, which may likewise be understood as a product of that nagging anxiety which has to think through (and cannot cease to think about) whatever it is that is causing concern.24 In the stanza as a whole, there is a high density of words betraying cognitive mechanisms (50% of the words in Hebrew).25 In Stanza 2—as in Stanza 1—the opening affirmation in v. 5a conveys positive emotion, in this case, through the use of the verb ‫סמח‬, ‘make glad, gladden’, thus reflecting the rhetorical agenda of reassurance already established at the beginning of the psalm. Once again, the following statement, in 6aβ, ‫ל־ּתֹּמוט‬ ִ ‫ּב‬, ַ ‘it shall not be toppled/shaken/overthrown’,26 as in v. 3a, combines a verb conveying intensely negative emotion27 with a negation and exclusive thinking. A high density of words reflecting 24.  See again Tausczik and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Meaning’, 35–6 and similarly Pennebaker, Mehl and Niederhoffer, ‘Psychological Aspects’, 568; James W. Pennebaker and Janel D. Seagal, ‘Forming a Story: The Health Benefits of Narrative’ Journal of Clinical Psychology 55 (1999): 1243–54 (1249); and James W. Pennebaker and Cindy K. Chung, ‘Expressive Writing and its Links to Mental and Physical Health’, in Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology, ed. Howard S. Friedman, Oxford Library of Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 417–37. Compare also Pennebaker and Lay, ‘Language Use and Personality during Crises’, which shows how Giuliani’s use of words indicating cognitive processing (causal, insight and self-reflective words) increased significantly during his period of personal crisis and immediately following 9/11 (297, cf. 274). 25.  This statistic assumes that words joined with maqqēph should be counted individually and takes Selāh as falling outside the content of the main stanza. Cognitive aspects include words very clearly associated with thought processes, such as ‘therefore’ or ‘change’, and verbs prefaced with ‘if’ or relating to what ‘should’ or ‘might’ happen, as well as conjunctions, the first person plural and the preposition ‘with’. Exact comparison with an English percentage is difficult, as it depends on what translation is adopted, but it is normally lower than in the Hebrew, as although some Hebrew words are cognitive in more than one aspect and unpack into several words which are indicative of cognitive mechanisms in English, English has more function words, such as articles and auxiliary verbs, which cannot directly contribute to the cognitive process. E.g., v. 3a (v. 2a ET) is in the NRSV, ‘Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change’, replacing 6 Hebrew words with 10 in English, and resulting in a 50% cognitive count, but in Hebrew 5 out of 6 (all but ‫)א ֶרץ‬ ָ are indicative of cognitive mechanism (i.e. 83.33%). 26.  The verb is ‫מוט‬, ‘shake, totter, slip’, here in the Niphal. 27.  ‘Shaken’ is classified as displaying the negative emotion of anxiety, as well as being indicative of motion, though of course typically in contemporary contexts ‘being (or “feeling”) shaken’ is an idea used metaphorically. The verbs ‘topple’, ‘overthrow’, ‘totter’ and ‘slip’ are all absent from the LIWC Dictionary.

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cognitive mechanisms is also in evidence in this first half of the stanza: the causative in the streams being made glad, God as the ‘Highest’ or ‘Most High’ and the negation in ‫ל־ּתֹּמוט‬ ִ ‫ּב‬. ַ The higher incidence of cognition in situations of crisis noted above may be pertinent to the recurrence of this phenomenon here. There follows the activity of the nations in terms that clearly induce (and reflect) anxiety, picking up the language of vv. 3–4, but here much more briefly. Thus, to this point in Stanza 2, there is a recurrence, and in its cumulative effect, an intensification, of the negative emotions and yearning for security already laid bare in Stanza 1. However, in v. 7b there is an injection of a new element with the intervention of God with his thundering voice, since ‫ נָ ַתן ְּבֹקול‬is an act of power (cf. Ps. 68.34–36) and, arguably, aggression (cf. Jer. 12.8).28 The aspect of divine aggression is continued in the third stanza where, after the refrain in v. 8, the addressees are invited to see the ‫‘( ַׁשֹּמות‬desolations, devastations’) Yahweh has wrought in the earth. This negative emotional content29 is continued with the ‫ ִמ ְל ָחֹמות‬that he causes to cease, and the various weapons which are ‘destroyed’ and ‘cut in pieces’, since fighting or wars and verbs associated with destruction are reflective of ָ ‘be high, exalted’ in the negative emotion of anger.30 The verb ‫ארּום‬, v. 11, if understood as ‘triumph over’, has overtones of positive emotion and achievement, but if taken as ‘dominate’, it suggests negative emotion and anger, in combination with achievement. Possibly elements of each are present: the triumph of God may induce both fear at his power and relief or delight at its results, as well as providing a channel for vicarious aggression towards the enemy. In any case, the ending has moved beyond the anxiety-infused first stanza to a stronger and more aggressive stance. Indicative also of a ‘working through’ of the anxiety evident at the beginning of the psalm is the occurrence of words indicating divine causation: ‘he has brought desolations on the earth’ (v. 9), ‘makes wars cease’ (v. 10; cf. v. 5, ‘a river, its streams make glad’); there is also direct action by God (v. 10), plus indicators of insight and perception: the people are to ‘know’ (v. 11) and ‘behold’ (‫חזּו‬, ֲ v. 9), which can have the sense of ‘perceive’ or even of seeing in a vision; in addition, further senses are 28.  God’s action in v. 7b thereby provides a fitting counterpoint to the ‘uproar’ (expressed through the verb ‫ )המה‬of the waters and nations in vv. 4, 7. 29.  ‘Desolation’ is absent from the Dictionary, but ‘devastation’ registers as displaying affect–negative emotion–sadness. An alternative rendering, ‘wastes’, is not included in the Dictionary, but ‘appallments’ and ‘horrors’, which are further possibilities, also convey negative emotion, that of anxiety in the latter case, and unspecified in the former. 30.  Thus ‘wars’, ‘battles’, ‘fighting’, ‘destroyed’, ‘cut [in pieces]’.



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engaged in the ‘giving forth’ of the divine ‘voice’ in thunder (v. 7b), or in the ‘burning with fire’ of v. 10c (which is both causatory and sensory). An increase in insight and causation language is a healthy characteristic of the forms of expression of those processing trauma and gradually coming to terms with it.31 2. Pronouns The opening two words may aptly summarize the concerns of this composition: ‫ֹלהים ָלנּו‬ ִ ‫א‬, ֱ ‘God for us…’ (v. 2a). Its interest is in what God can do for us, what he is and can provide for us. This focus on the first person plural continues in v. 3, ‫ל־ּכן לֹא־נִ ָירא‬ ֵ ‫ע‬, ַ ‘Therefore we will not fear/are not afraid’, and resurfaces in the comforting verses of the refrain (vv. 8, 12):

‫ יְ הוָ ה ְצ ָבאֹות ִע ָּמנּו‬

‫ֹלהי יַ ֲעקֹב‬ ֵ ‫ב־לנּו ֱא‬ ָ ָ‫ מ ְׂשּג‬ ִ

The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Thus, a focus on ‘we’ and what God can do for us features at structurally significant points (i.e., in the first verse, and in the refrain found at the end of second and third stanzas, the last of these constituting the final verse of the psalm); as a result, there is a verse of comfort and affirmation, focusing on ‘us’, in a key point in each stanza. In each of these cases also, the use of the pronoun proper and/or the suffixed preposition ‫לנּו‬,ָ rather than a simple nominal or verbal suffix, is emphatic. As the first person plural occurs only in verses which have already been categorized as conveying assurance, a strong correlation between the two is indicated. In addition, in v. 3, which introduces the concerns of the body of the Psalm, the pronoun is implicit in the subject of the verb (the first active verb of the composition). All this suggests that the aim of the psalm is to express (or, perhaps more accurately, to generate) for the group the reassurance and comfort of God’s presence and protection. One might compare the use of the quasi-credal motif of ‘God with us/Yahweh in our midst’ in Mic. 3.11 and Amos 5.14, which was likewise apparently strongly associated with the reassurance of his protective presence. 31.  It is associated with the processing of traumatic events and may suggest the ‘active process of reappraisal’: see Tausczik and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Meaning of Words’, 35–6; and similarly, Pennebaker, Mayne and Francis, ‘Linguistic Predictors of Adaptive Bereavement’, 863–71 (870); Adriel Boals and Kitty Klein, ‘Word Use in Emotional Narratives about Failed Romantic Relationships and Subsequent Mental Health’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 24 (2005): 252–68; and Ethan Kross and Ozlem Ayduk, ‘Facilitating Adaptive Emotional Analysis: Distinguishing Distanced-analysis of Depressive Experiences from Immersed-analysis and Distraction’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34 (2008): 924–38.

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It has been demonstrated in a number of studies that in times of group trauma or shared upheavals, solace and strength is found in group identity and the use of the first person plural pronoun increases.32 In studies of web discussion pages following the death of Princess Diana,33 blogs34 and data from EARs (electronically activated recording devices)35 following the disaster of 9/11, and newspaper accounts and letters generated by Texas A&M University students after a bonfire disaster in which 12 of their number were killed,36 it was found that in each case the use of the first person plural increased as compared to the levels prior to the disasters. A similar phenomenon was also observed in the speeches of the Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, immediately following the destruction of the twin towers.37 Such is the power of group solidarity in a crisis, and the reassurance from being part of a collective unity, that it is associated with ‘adaptive coping’ and can even have a positive effect on health outcomes.38 It is not possible to abstract from the prominence of the first person plural in this psalm that such a situation lies behind it (although it would seem to be congruent with such a possibility), but these studies do illustrate the power of such collective identification and the needs that it may answer. Moreover, further examination of the language of the psalm uncovers additional evidence pointing towards a sense of anxiety and threat, which would independently support such a backdrop.

32.  Chung and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Functions’, 352. 33.  Lori D. Stone and James Pennebaker, ‘Trauma in Real Time: Talking and Avoiding Online Conversations about the Death of Princess Diana’, Basic and Applied Social Psychology 24 (2002): 172–82. 34.  Michael A. Cohn, Matthias R. Mehl and James W. Pennebaker, ‘Linguistic Markers of Psychological Change Surrounding September 11, 2001’, Psychological Science 15 (2004): 687–93. 35.  M.R. Mehl and James W. Pennebaker, ‘The Social Dynamics of a Cultural Upheaval: Social Interactions Surrounding September 11, 2001’, Psychological Science 14 (2003): 579–85. 36.  Eva-Maria Gortner and James W. Pennebaker, ‘The Anatomy of a Disaster: Media Coverage and Community-Wide Health Effects of the Texas A&M Bonfire Tragedy’, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 22 (2003): 580–603. 37.  Pennebaker and Lay, ‘Language Use and Personality during Crises’, 278. 38.  Chung and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Functions’, 352. Thus, although Texas A&M students were clearly upset by the death of 12 fellow students, during the 6 months following the tragedy they visited the student health centre as a result of illness less frequently than in the 12 months previously, and at lower rates than students in other universities at the time (Gortner and Pennebaker, ‘Anatomy of a Disaster’).



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Obviously, it is important to be aware in this connection that there has been a lot of debate about individual and collective consciousness in ancient Israel and Judah, and one cannot assume parity between our use of first person pronouns and that in Hebrew.39 However, collectivity, with a strong focus on the ‘we’, is a salient feature of the first stanza of this psalm in particular, and the use of independent pronouns and suffixed particles in place of suffixed nouns (that is, ‫לנּו ַמ ֲח ֶסה‬,ָ literally ‘to us a refuge’, rather than ‫מ ֲח ֵסנוּ‬, ַ ‘our refuge’, v. 2; cf. ‫ב־לנּו‬ ָ ָ‫מ ְשּׂג‬, ִ 40 vv. 8, 12) is not typical psalmic style, so this invites us to ask why they feature here. Moreover, if in Hebrew individuals perceived themselves as intrinsically bound up with their social context and as having their welfare inextricably linked with it, one might particularly expect this to be manifested in a situation of a threat to the group, which appears to be the background implied here. Possibly the Hebrew ‘we’ might be construed as more analogous with a concern with the self than in English, insofar as the boundaries between the individual and collective are less distinct than in our individualistic society. If so, one might almost think of ‘collective introspection’, bearing in mind that anxiety correlates with a high degree of self-preoccupation and a greater use of the first person. In contrast to the striking use of the first person plural at key points in the psalm, the second person (‘you’) is not employed at all. There is no direct address to God; he is not praised or petitioned directly, and in this, comparison may be drawn with the form of the psalms of confidence (and, negatively, with hymns and laments). Revealingly, the imperative (the nearest thing to a second person verb in this psalm) is utilized in vv. 9, 1141 in order that the group, or someone representing it, may address itself (the ‘we / us’ of vv. 2, 3, 8, 12), and that God may then respond with further words inviting confidence. It thus fosters self-preoccupation rather than reflecting engagement with others outside the group.

39.  For a psychological perspective on the distinctions between collectivist and individualist, Eastern and Western, modes of thought, see, e.g., Chung and Pennebaker, ‘Psychological Functions’, 354–5 and Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why (London: Nicholas Brealey, 2005). For a brief summary of the debate on individual vs. corporate personality in the Old Testament, see John Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 53–5. 40.  ‫מ ְשּׂגָ ב‬, ִ though often translated ‘refuge’, ‘fortress’ or ‘stronghold’, is more literally somewhere very high, and hence safe. See further the discussion below on Ps. 48.4. 41.  ‘Come and see…’; ‘Be still and know’ (‘desist and realize’).

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The words of God in v. 11 also provide the only first person singular form of the psalm: ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫י־אנ ִֹכי ֱא‬ ָ ‫( ַה ְרּפּו ְּודעּו ִּכ‬NRSV: ‘Be still and know that I am God’.) Again, as with the occurrences of the first person plural noted above, the pronominal form ‫ ָאנ ִֹכי‬is used in v. 11a, suggesting a degree of emphasis. Moreover, the following two cola (11bc) actually begin with a first person verb, implying that it has primacy: ‫ָארּום ַּבֹּגויִ ם‬ ‫‘( ָארּום ָּב ָא ֶרץ‬I am exalted in the nations/earth’). This should be thought of, then, as providing the answer which the Psalmist seeks: a divine oracle of (re)assurance which provides a basis for confidence. One might conclude from this that the community and God are so central to the purview of the psalm that they are not only the ‘we’ and the ‘he’ but the ‘you’ and the ‘I’ as well. There is a further permutation to this, insofar as in vv. 5–6 the impersonal ‫‘( נָ ָהר ְּפ ָלגָ יו‬a river, its streams’) may on some level stand for the Edenic presence of God, whilst ‘the city’ metonymically represents the people. Thus there seems to be an attempt in the second stanza, after the very personal needs and anxieties of the first, to adopt a more reasoned and objective stance. Indeed, the position of observation rather than direct participation continues throughout the second stanza until the refrain, which then reverts to the personal perspective of the speakers. However, the nominal and pronominal language outlined here is also reflective of a highly significant transformation within the psalm: at its opening, the community is preoccupied with itself and with God’s protection of them, with ‘we’ and ‘he’. The speakers never address God (perhaps as a reflection of a need for affirmatory statements, and/or of their lack of confidence) and in the second stanza the sense of distance is extended as the community objectifies itself through reference to the city in place of the first person plural. There is the beginning of a transformation at last in the third stanza, when the speakers manage a rallying-call directed only to themselves; and then, despite the fact that the people do not engage directly with God, he suddenly breaks through in the final verse as an ‘I’ addressing their imperativally expressed confessional statements, and with words of assurance that cannot be ignored. This development in attentional focus may therefore be indicative of a journey through the psalm from intense anxiety to a more objective examination of the problem and then to greater confidence. Nonetheless, God and his people in Zion are not the only ‘persons’ in view in the Psalm, since the ‘anxiety verses’ vv. 3–4 and 7 are replete with a striking number of (mainly plural) nouns. Here there is a dense series of nouns and verbs in quick succession, but, consonant with the sense of rapid action, the verb is always placed first, commanding attention ahead



Watson ‘Therefore We Will Not Fear’?

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of the agents that follow. In vv. 3–4 the earth, the mountains, the waters of the sea, and the mountains comprise the swift sequence of subjects, and these are balanced in v. 7 by the similarly tumultuous ‘nations’ and ‘kingdoms’. One might compare here the ‘they’ of the lament Psalms, who are those—the other—who threaten and act on the Psalmist and from whom the petitioner(s) wish(es) to be delivered. The threatening forces thus occur in blocks in those verses conveying anxiety, while the ‘we’ is the focus of the affirmative sections, with a clear distinction pertaining between the two types of material. Verses 3–4 and 7 find their apt counterbalance in the final stanza, where there is again a dense series of verbs, just as here, but this time God is the subject, and various impersonal nouns provide the objects—the wars, bow, spear and wagons, which are variously stopped, broken, snapped and burnt. The psalm thus finds its resolution in God’s decisive action against the enemy. It is therefore evident that, despite the ebb and flow of different focuses throughout the self-interest of the affirmative verses (‘we’ and ‘he’, vv. 2, [5], 8, 12), the action of the enemy in those of anxiety (‘they’, vv. 3–4, 7, cf. v. 10) and the intervention of God towards the close (‘he’ and the imperative, vv. 9–10/11), there is an overarching movement through the stanzas. Initially, attention is concentrated on the collective ‘we’ (and what God can provide for us) in the first stanza. This is followed by a more objective stance on the protected city, which is described in the third person and set against the frantic activity of the ‘they’ of enemies in the second stanza, before the focus falls finally on the decisive action ‘he’, God, has wrought in the last. It thus progresses from the anxious inward concerns of the group, through the confrontation of fears about ‘them’, the enemies, to a final resolution through confidence in salvation by God in the final stanza. 3. Verbs No less significant than the pronouns and the subjects or objects that they represent are the verbs to which they are often attached. These convey the force of the psalm in three respects: first, in terms of their subjects and objects; second, in their density and position; and, third, through their tense and voice. The first aspect, that of subjects and objects, has already been considered in respect of pronoun use. However, related to it is the issue of density, since the verses of affirmation (the opening verse and the refrain, i.e. those in which ‘we’ and God feature heavily) have very light verb use or no verb at all, profoundly communicating a sense of calm and absence of action, reflecting the ideal expressed by the imperative ‫‘( ַה ְרּפּו‬cease, desist’) in

198

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v. 11a. Thus, the refrain (vv. 8, 12) has no verb at all (though ‘to be’ is implied), whilst the first colon of the psalm is likewise verbless, and the second has only a passive with almost adjectival force, placed after the subject and indirect object. There is a similar pattern in the opening verse of the second colon (v. 5), where again there is only one verb, here a causative (Piel), and placed after the unusually structured double subject (‫)נָ ָהר ְּפ ָלגָ יו‬, which is placed in prime position. The general effect here is descriptive, as in v. 2, with both verses offering a solid and reassuring picture of how things are. In striking contrast, the verses concerned with ‘them’—the mountains, waters, nations and so on—have incredibly dense verbal sequences. In particular, there is an extraordinarily swift and intense succession of verbs in the fraught vv. 3b–4, 6–7, 10b–11. In vv. 3b–4 there is a particularly forceful evocation of the extreme destabilizing movement of the earth, mountains, waters and mountains again, as they change, shake, roar, foam and tremble. The psalmist thus powerfully communicates violent movement (and huge anxiety) through the employment of such a concentrated series of verbs. Within the second stanza, in vv. 6–7, the sense of conflict, as if offering a cinematic presentation of God’s engagement with the enemies, is compounded by the swift succession of nouns—God, the city, God, the city as object, nations, kingdoms, the sound of God’s thunder, the earth. It is as if the battlefield is laid out before us, in all its intensity of movement by opposing parties, though the city is here a passive entity vulnerably caught up in the midst of the action (note the passive verb—‫ל־ּתֹּמוט‬ ִ ‫—ּב‬ ַ and the sense that God will come to its aid): it cannot act for itself in the melée of raging and tottering nations and kingdoms, the thundering God and melting earth. Finally, in the last stanza we have God’s decisive and forceful intervention as the sole actant who breaks and shatters and burns, then is exalted and exalted again. In this picture of dominating might, the community is called to be still and trust, so there is reassurance in God’s aggressive power, and hope that despite the people’s continued and recognized weakness, there may be hidden strength in their reliance and dependence on God. As in vv. 3b–4, 6–7, the intensity of action in battle is reflected in rapid verbal sequences, especially in v. 10, where Yahweh himself intervenes to ensure the cessation of war. By contrast, the people’s experience of God as a refuge and source of stability, though achieved through his action, is expressed once again through low verbal density (v. 12), enhancing the sense of divine immovability and solidity, whilst underlining their own passivity.



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Turning then to the third aspect of verb use, that of tense, the interpretation of the Hebrew in this respect is difficult, and of course different renditions can appear in the various translations.42 Nonetheless, the verblessness of the refrain, and the primacy of the nouns in v. 2, may reasonably be understood to communicate a sense of ongoing reality, how God always and unchangingly is, and thus effectively expressing and conveying reassurance. Moreover, the fundamental sense of the imperfect as conveying incomplete, and perfect as complete, action may be especially valuable in this type of analysis, in a way that surmounts and in no way is dependent on the resolution of uncertainties over the precise English equivalent (as if there is one) of the respective Hebrew verbs. Thus it is reasonable to assert that v. 3 (and most probably also v. 4) reflects an uncertain, conditional and hence essentially future aspect. The speakers will / may / can / should / or even do not fear (in the imperfect) when / if / though the mountains shake43 and so on. This very uncertainty and conditionality may mirror an internal anxiety in the speakers, an anxiety that is also communicated by the vocabulary and forms of expression of these verses, as has already been seen above in the analysis of the affective, cognitive and pronominal aspects of its language. Verse 5 has only one verb, an imperfect, which in context seems to communicate an ongoing state, the river which gladdens the city of God—though equally it could be argued that this idea could adequately be communicated by a participle44 and that the imperfect of itself betrays a lack of absolute confidence. The imperfects then continue in v. 6, which is often rendered in the future—what God will (or is hoped to) do, again possibly being associated with uncertainty.45 42.  E.g., v. 3a in the NRSV is rendered in the future (‘Therefore we will not fear’) but in the New JPS translation, as present (‘Therefore we are not afraid’). 43.  Two infinitive constructs followed (in v. 4) by three imperfects. 44.  Cf. ‫ נִ ְמ ָצא‬in v. 2, assuming (with C.A. Briggs and E.G. Briggs. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, 2 vols., ICC [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906–7], 1:396), that this is a participle, rather than a perfect verb. 45.  One might note here the findings of Pennebaker and Lay in their study of Giuliani’s forms of expression in press conferences in the course of his tenure as Mayor of New York (‘Language Use and Personality during Crises’). They observed that, when faced with crises, he ‘focused on present issues without in-depth references to previous events’; more striking still was the way in which his use of the future tense was at its highest around the events of 9/11, as he referred to the city’s immediate and more distant plans (280). In this context, they conclude, ‘the future tense verbs were based on expressions of optimism and hopefulness’ (280)—though one might add that, as perhaps in Ps. 46, they do not stem from a fundamental sense of wellbeing but from an intense need to recreate it.

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By contrast, v. 7 suddenly breaks in with a staccato series of perfects, the first in this composition. To lay aside questions of tense in an English, temporal sense, it can at least be said that the action may be thought of as in some sense ‘certain’ or ‘complete’, whether this is something happening now or not—but it is a recognition of a harsh reality, conveying the certainty or inevitability of war. Equally abruptly, the final verb ‫ָּתמּוג‬ (in ‫ּתמּוג ָא ֶרץ‬, ָ describing the ‘melting’ of the earth) is in the imperfect. This may be cast back into the time of action to make it more immediate and contemporaneous, or may suggest a consequence of the prior action (‫)נָ ַתן ְּבֹקוֹלו‬, but again (as with other instances of this tense) a degree of uncertainty, futurity or conditionality may be present. The stanza then concludes with the verbless security of the refrain. The third stanza begins imperatively. The participants in this psalmic event are called on now, in their present, to come and see the deeds (nominal) that God does or has done (perfect and certain). He is the one who (attributionally, in the participle) causes wars to cease. This all invites a sense of certainty and confidence. Verse 10bc, employing imperfect narrative forms (including a perfect with waw-consecutive), may intend to invite a sense of duration or futurity—but, in actuality, God’s putting a stop to wars is unrealized, so the language betrays that hoped-for but uncertain aspect of the Hebrew imperfect, whatever the originator’s conscious intention. Likewise, v. 11 begins with imperatives confidently commanding the people to be still and trust, but the declaration that God is ‘exalted’ among the nations / in the earth, or perhaps that he dominates them (v. 11bc), is still only (and rightly) imperfect, given its obvious clash with lived reality. Thus, the tenses used may be perceived to undercut some of the psalm’s expressed confidence and to show ‘certainty’ in surprising places, for example, in v. 7, where the perfect may betray the reality of war. The psalm closes with the verbless affirmation of the refrain. A final feature of the verbal aspect of this psalm is the passivity and weakness of the group whose voice it represents. They cling to the God who is a refuge and strength, the one who is so much found in situations of trouble, but verbally the aspiration of this vulnerable community is ‘not [to] fear’ (v. 3), then (in the guise of the city) to ‘be made glad’ and ‘not be shaken/toppled’ (vv. 5 and 6, that is, as the object of a causative and subject of a passive verb respectively). In the confrontation between God and the nations/cosmos, they have no place but to be invited (in the imperative) to ‘come and see what God has done’, and as a result to ‘relax, do nothing’ and realize that Yahweh is God (again, in two imperatives). Their sense of passive helplessness and total dependence on God in the face of overwhelming forces is evident, even if there is a new confidence in their lack of action by the close.



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Summary: Clearly on an explicit level, much of the space in this psalm is given to affirmation and denial of anxiety, and indeed it culminates in an expression of God’s exaltation over the nations. Nevertheless, there is much in the subtext of the composition that undercuts this, for example in the use of negation and words betraying negative affect and anxiety. Similarly, the focus on the community and on the protection furnished by its God, epitomized by the refrain, ‘Yahweh Sebaoth is with us’, is highly congruent with this finding, as is the high instance of cognitive features and especially insight and causation terms in the final stanza, which would be consistent with the working through of a traumatic experience. The passivity of the community reliant on its God, expressed through a sparsity of verbal forms (vv. 2, 5, 8, 12), is set in contrast to the intense movement of hostile agents (vv. 3b–4, 7), which is conveyed through a high density of verbal and nominal terms. This situation finds its resolution in the aggressive intervention of Yahweh (vv. 10b–11), in which the threatening subjects, now reduced to objects of his action, are overcome. Nevertheless, even here (vv. 10b, 11b; cf. v. 6), the imperfect verbs may betray uncertainty, even as they seek to convey a message of hope. Psalm 76 Although Psalm 76 shares with Psalm 46 a focus on Zion, its genre, timbre and thrust could not be more different. This is manifested in a variety of ways, through pronouns and person, verbal tense, words conveying affective content, cognitive elements emphasizing totality and inclusion and an emphasis on time and space. Each of these shall therefore be examined in turn. 1. Pronouns and Person Forms In Psalm 46, a preoccupation with ‘us’ and ‘we’, and the absence of any direct address to God as ‘you’ seemed to reflect a situation of anxiety. By contrast, here in Psalm 76, the composition is replete with bold statements in the second and third person about and to God, which seem to reflect a particular occasion of deliverance: it is very God-focused, not ‘we’-focused. This is interspersed with a recollection about third person plural enemies in vv. 6, 7b, and the psalm ends with a distinctive imperative call (in v. 12ab) to ‘make vows’ and ‘bring gifts’ to the God whose attributes are listed in the last three cola. Thus, we have confident praise and thanksgiving, concrete grounds for this in recent experience of God’s action, and a focus on God as the subject of praise, with no sign of present self-preoccupation or need.

202

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2. Verbs The anxieties of Psalm 46 were reflected in its concern with the future and with the ‘what if?’ uncertainties the community might have to face, together with the universal and present qualities of God that offered grounds for hope. By contrast, in Psalm 76, the dominating tense is perfect, and much of it concerns God’s acts already established in the past, together with his present attributes. Here, it is a future perspective which is lacking, though there may be a hint of this in the final stanza, as the psalm reflects on praise and offerings as an appropriate response to God. Verses 2–6 are dominated by the perfect tense (v. 3a has imperfect with waw-consecutive, and v. 5 offers verbless praise of God’s eternal attributes, but essentially the point holds). Some of these should be translated in the past tense, others possibly as present, but I would like to suggest that, from a psychological perspective, they reflect a sense of certainty. Verse 7 uses a participle, adding immediacy to the preceding recollection, then an imperfect is employed, framed by further verbless attributes, to ask in v. 8b ‫ּומי־יַ ֲעמֹד ְל ָפנֶ יָך‬ ִ (‘who can stand before—or perhaps better, “withstand”—you?’). As this is a question—and therefore uncertain—the use of the imperfect is natural here, not least as the implied answer is ‘I don’t know of anyone’. Further recollection follows in v. 9 with three perfect-tense verbs (the last with waw-consecutive, joining it firmly to that immediately preceding it (NRSV ‘the earth feared and was still’), and the infinitive constructs in v. 10 indicate contemporaneous action. Thus it may be viewed as a secure past event. In the final stanza, the perspective broadens to express the implications of what has occurred, and imperfects in vv. 11 and 13a frame the imperative calls to respond in v. 12 (though the last verb here could be taken as imperfect rather than jussive). This stanza may then hint at a future realization or intend to express as a generality the fearsome activity of God. It might be thought that the imperfect betrays the unfulfilled and not-yet-fully true, though hoped-for, aspect of these claims. Nonetheless, the final colon ends with a perfect or participle, confidently identifying Yahweh as the one ‘who inspires fear in the kings of the earth’. 3. Temporal, Spatial and Cognitive Features Psalm 76 has a high density of words indicating time and (in particular) space. This reflects a spatial preoccupation with Zion and a temporal focus on the concrete events which are celebrated in this composition. The emphasis on place is a dominating aspect of vv. 2–3, with its iteration, ‘In Judah …in Israel…in Salem…in Zion’; then the events recollected in vv. 4ff. are, in the opening word, located ‫ׁש ָּמה‬, ָ i.e., all within (or perhaps ‘towards’) the same space. It is unclear if it is ‘from’ (i.e., ‘on’)



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or ‘compared with’ the ‘mountains of prey’ (‫י־ט ֶרף‬ ָ ‫)מ ַה ְר ֵר‬ ֵ 46 that God is ‘glorious’ or ‘resplendent’ in v. 5, but Zion seems to be represented by or contrasted with these mountains. It is evident, then, that the focus on Zion dominates in the first part of the psalm. Nonetheless, in a dramatic dénouement in vv. 9–10, this mighty God ‘uttered judgment / pronounced sentence’ ‘from heaven’, and ‘rose up’ (‫ )קוּם‬to do so. Thus there is a strong pull towards the heavenly, glorious and terrible aspect of God, especially in the conclusion to the central section, vv. 5–10. Particularly striking is how the action of this heavenly (v. 9a), uprising (v. 10a) God has a global reach, having its impact on the ‘earth’ (vv. 9b, 10b). Finally, Yahweh is ‘surrounded’ by those ‘around’ him who ‘bring/bear’ tribute (v. 12b), and even his wrath is ‘bound around’ or ‘girded on’ him (v. 11b), so the need to localize and worship this God finally dominates, but it is strongly tempered by his fearsome nature (vv. 12c–13). The fear felt among the ‘kings of the earth’ (v. 13b) again demonstrates heavenly power having a pan-terrestrial impact. That God is both of/for Zion/Judah/Israel and in essence heavenly and quite terrifying epitomizes the thrust of this psalm. He is a deity of intense local loyalty yet overwhelming cosmic power, hence the fear of the earth before him and his destruction of the foe are direct consequences of these combined spatial attributes. Temporally, the recollected activity of God is bound together as one connected event by specific temporal indicators (‘at your rebuke’, v. 7; ‘when’, v. 10a and probably also v. 8c47), whilst the reflection on these events in v. 11 is explicitly linked to what precedes with ‫ּכי‬. ִ This is 48 reinforced by the repeated use of further conjunctions. The overall style, 46.  The Syriac and LXX here reflect the much more familiar motif of the ‘everlasting’ mountains (‫י־עד‬ ַ ‫)ה ְר ֵר‬ ַ attested in Gen. 49.26; cf. Deut. 33.15 (‫י־ק ֶדם‬ ֶ ‫ ַה ְר ֵר‬// ‫עֹולם‬ ָ ‫)ּגִ ְבעֹות‬, hence the proposed reading ‫ ַעד‬in the BHS note, followed in many translations (e.g. NRSV, Kraus, Psalmen, 2:688 [ET 2:107–8]). In a further twist, ‫ ַעד‬may itself mean ‘booty’, as in Gen. 49.27, hence ‫י־עד‬ ַ ‫ ַה ְר ֵר‬could also be read with this sense. However, MT may well simply be reverting to the lion metaphor begun in v. 3 with the references to God’s ‘lair’ and ‘den’ and continued with the mention of ‘shattering’ (‫)שׁ ַּבר‬ ִ in v. 4 and the sun-god imagery of v. 5 (thus Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen, 2:383, 385, 395 [ET 2:259, 260, 267]; Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51–10, WBC 20 [Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990], 261). The resultant reading, ‘mountains of prey’, may also find support in Vulg. a montibus captivitatis, so is to be preferred. 47.  Here it is possible MT ‫ ֵמ ָאז ַא ֶּפ‬should be emended to the more classic phrase ‫מעֹז ַא ֶּפ‬, ֵ on analogy with 90.11, as suggested in the BHS note, but this does not command support from the versions. 48.  Colon-initial waw in vv. 3a, 3b, 6c, v. 8b; plus other instances of waw in v. 4b (twice), v. 7b (twice, with the force ‘both…and’), vv. 9b, 12a. Note also ‫ ָׁש ָּמה‬opening

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then, is confident and fluent, with a highly unified narrative and train of thought. This is further reinforced by the use of words communicating cognition in the areas of quantity,49 certainty50 and inclusion.51 Thus, the psalm is bound together into a strong temporal and conjunction-based whole, indicating fluency, confidence and processed thought; insight is also reflected in the notion of ‘knowing’ God, and causation in the idea of God as ‘arousing fear’ in the final colon, and by strong implication also in vv. 8, 9. The overall effect is to convey intensity, totality and confidence. The effect of the positive cognitive categories of inclusion, quantity, certainty and insight, together with divine causation for the implied benefit of his people, is intensified in this psalm by the absence of negative cognitive indicators of discrepancy, tentativeness, inhibition,52 or exclusion. 4. Affect The above analysis has identified elements of the psalm that appear very positive insofar as it seems to exude confidence, but, as even a cursory reading should show, Psalm 76 also has a darker side, as is clear from its affective aspect. Every verse but one scores in a LIWC analysis as having some emotional content, and in the one that provides an exception, v. 6, it is evident that the problem lies with the lack of correlation between the LIWC dictionary and the English translation (which in turn has been influenced by the Hebrew idiom), rather than in the verse itself.53 There v. 4 and binding it to the previous verse; likewise, in v. 10, the content is bound to what precedes by the initial infinitive construct, prefixed with ‫‘( ב‬when he arose’), then the following noun in this colon, and the infinitive construct in the next, are prefixed with ‫ל‬, indicating ensuing and purposeful action. 49.  ‘All’ in vv. 6c, 10b, 12b, and ‘last bit/remnant’ in v. 11b. 50.  ‘Known’, v. 2a, plus the occurrences of ‘all’ again (vv. 6c, 10b, 12b). 51.  ‘And’ (vv. 3a, 3b, 4b [twice], 6c, 7b [twice, with the force ‘both…and’], 8b, 9b, 12a), ‘all’ (vv. 6c, 10b, 12b), and ‫ ְס ִב ָיביו‬in ‫ל־ס ִב ָיביו‬ ְ ‫ּכ‬, ָ ‘all who are around him’ (v. 12b; indicating ‘around’, as well as ‘all’); cf. v. 11b, where a similar notion may be present in God ‘girding on/around him’ the remnant of wrath. 52.  ‘Save’ (v. 10b) is viewed as an ‘inhibiting’ word, but ‘give victory to’, which may better reflect the force of the verb in this context, is not, and nor is ‘deliver’. Another alternative, ‘vindicate’, is not included in the LIWC dictionary. 53.  Thus, among the various translation possibilities, ‘stout of heart’ is not recognized, but ‘strong’ and ‘brave’ have positive emotional content; NRSV ‘sank into sleep’ sounds very mild, and ‘in a stupor’ is not recognized, but ‘stunned’ reflects negative emotion–anxiety; there is no score for ‘troops’ but ‘soldier’ has recognized (though undetermined) emotional content, whilst ‘brave’ or ‘hero’ is positive, and ‘fighting’ or ‘violent’ is associated with negative emotion and anger; the sense of



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is some positive language, mainly relating to the praiseworthy attributes of God: ‘His name is great’ (v. 2b), and he is ‘glorious’ or ‘resplendent’ / ‘radiant’ (from the root ‫אוֹר‬, ‘to be light’) in v. 5a. The notion of ‘praise’ or ‘giving thanks’ to him in v. 11 also (of itself) appears positive, despite the negative context. This may also have some counterpart in the language used to describe the warriors; for example, although NRSV ‘stout-hearted’ might not be recognized as having significant emotional content, the translation ‘brave’ has positive connotations, and may be appropriate. Nevertheless, it seems more likely that the term denotes a bull-like quality,54 implying powerful and perhaps aggressive fighters, rather than simple bravery,55 or should be emended, following the Greek, to ‫ל־ּב ֲע ֵרי ֵלב‬ ַ ‫ּכ‬. ָ 56 However, the psalm is heavily dominated by the language of wrath and the fear that it induces. Even in the claim that God dwells in Salem / Zion (v. 3), he is said to inhabit a ‘den’ or ‘lair’57 befitting a lion, rather than his usual ‘dwelling-place’ (as NRSV still insists on translating it). In v. 4, he ‘broke’ (negative emotion–sad) the ‫י־ק ֶׁשת‬ ָ ‫—ר ְׁש ֵפ‬the ִ term ‫ֶר ֶשׁף‬ surely having highly negative and anxiety-inducing content—and other weapons (negative–anger) of war (negative–anger–and death). All this happened on (or in comparison to) the mountains of ‘prey’ (more negative content; v. 5), where the brave58 (positive) men were ‘despoiled’ (more negativity, though this precise term is not recognized by LIWC); and the warriors/fighters (negative–anger) were stunned (negative–anxiety) ‘able to lift a hand’ is lost in word-by-word processing in English, but ‘helpless’ has negative associations. 54.  In other contexts, the term is often translated ‘mighty’, but it is most commonly used to denote bulls or stallions, whilst its occurrence as an epithet of Yahweh (Gen. 49.24; Isa. 49.26; 60.16; Ps. 132.2, 5: the ‘Mighty One [or Bull] of Jacob’) is also reasonably frequent. It may in addition signify a ‘leader/chief’ (1 Sam. 21.8[7], of shepherds) or even angels (Ps. 78.25). 55.  Could ‫ ַא ִּב ֵירי ֵלב‬suggest the mentality of a bull, for example the tendency to charge unstoppably at its target? NRSV takes the phrase to mean ‘stubborn of heart’ in Isa. 46.12, and this is another possibility. 56.  LXX, supported by the Syriac, here reads πάντες οἱ ἀσύνετο, hence the proposed emendation, giving the meaning ‘brutish, stupid’, but perhaps suggesting violent, brutal men who are impervious to others: see Ezek. 21.36. ‘Violent’, ‘brutal’ and ‘stupid’ register as associated with the negative emotion of anger, whilst ‘brutish’, ‘bullish’ and ‘mighty’ are omitted from the Dictionary. ‘Powerful’ is associated only with achievement, but ‘aggressive’ and ‘stubborn’ indicate negative emotion and anger, ‘stubborn’ also correlating with cognitive mechanisms and inhibition. 57.  ֹ‫ ס‬and ‫מעֹונָ ה‬. ְ 58.  But see notes 54 and 55 above.

206

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and helpless (negative–sad) (v. 6). The noun ‫גְּ ָע ָרה‬, ‘rebuke / blast / roar’ (v. 7a), is not recognized as having emotional content by LIWC (these terms are not included in the Dictionary), but this is surely undoubtedly negative, associated with anger and aggression by the protagonists and anxiety or fear by the recipients; the result is that horse and driver are ‘stunned’ (negative emotion–anxiety). God is ‘fearsome / dreadful’ (anxiety), one whose ‘anger’ (negative emotion–anger) is roused (v. 8); the response to his judgment is ‘fear’ (negative emotion–fear; v. 9). ‘Save’ (v. 10) is positive, ‘give victory to’ is not; ‘oppressed’ (v. 10b) has no LIWC value (though surely it would, had it been included in the Dictionary), but ‘lowly, needy, weak’ are all negative-emotion words (‘poor’ is just associated with money!). Human ‘wrath’ in v. 11a is matched by a more ‘intense wrath’ in v. 11b (both indicative, very strongly, of anger), even if the effect is praise or thanksgiving (positive emotion). Although ‘bring gifts’ (v. 12b) sounds positive, the sense of ‘tribute’ actually injects a negative twist, and God is again described as one who is to be feared (negative emotion–anxiety) in both vv. 12c and 13b. The ‘spirit’ of ‘princes’ might be something positive (it is not shown so by LIWC), but it is ‫בּ ַצר‬, ָ ‘cut off’. Thus the psalm is infused with and dominated by negative emotion, and any positive hint is immediately counterblasted with a negative force. The result is a highly disturbing composition. It has every mark of praise, thanksgiving and confidence, with a coherent focus on space and time, and flecked with marks of inclusive, certain and insight-related words, whilst lacking any hint of uncertainty, discrepancy or tentativeness. Thus, it is in essence confident and optimistic in its outlook, but at the same time it may raise questions in its lack of balance and realism. That is, uncertainty and discrepancy and grounds for being tentative are part of the reality of life—and not just in an academic context!—so to have none of this reflected may suggest a certain fanaticism. More concerning still is the fact that it has a huge preponderance of negative anger- and anxiety-associated words, building a picture of God who is wrathful, unleashing fearsome destructive power against his enemies. There is some positivity: he is ‘great’ and ‘radiant’ and ‘saves the oppressed’ (negative again), but there is a huge preference for focus on God’s power against those he might destroy rather than for those he might save.59 It is difficult 59.  In some cases, the translation affects the emotional content, for example for God to be ‘awesome’ (as the NRSV renders it in v. 8a, 12c) is a positive attribute (not least if taken as in the modern slang idiom, as it apparently is by LIWC), but ‘fearsome’ or ‘to be feared’, which probably better reflects the force of the Hebrew, especially given the context in vv. 8bc and 13, is negative, and (not surprisingly) associated with anxiety. The ‘heavens’ are regarded as universally positive by LIWC, but this cannot be assumed



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to imagine how this can be associated with anything other than a situation of war and victory, and the intense, highly partisan, often vindictive and even fanatical thinking that can accompany it. Psalm 48 This composition is sunny compared with the grimness of Psalm 76, and full of balance and positive sentiment. This is particularly evident from the subjects of the verbs, the tenses employed, the use of conjunctions and from the distribution of positive emotion words. 1. Pronouns and Nominal Subjects Psalm 48 begins like a classic hymn of praise, ‘Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised’, and directly focuses on the deity for his own sake, indicating happy, open praise. The focus on God and Zion continues to v. 4, after which we have a brief (and again very typical) recollection (in vv. 5–8) about ‘the kings’, the ‘they’ who constitute the enemy which ‘sees’ and flees. This in turn provides a springboard for further praise and recollection. From v. 9 the collective ‘we’ comes more to the fore, but only as responding to God, who is directly addressed in vv. 10–11 before jussive and imperative calls for the community to respond constitute the final verses (vv. 12–15) of the psalm. This is the complete opposite of Psalm 46, which begins with the anxious ‘we’ and never fully reaches the unalloyed praise with which Psalm 48 begins; unlike in Psalm 46, too, God is in Psalm 48 directly and confidently addressed, and there is a healthy mix of focus (he, they, we, you). 2. Verbs The positivity and balance expressed through the wide variety of persons indicated by the verbs is reinforced by the tenses employed. In vv. 2–3, the only verb is a participle describing the attribute of God, ‘to be praised’, so we are in the realm, not just of the present, but of unconfined time. The perfect in v. 4 may signal a past tense, which introduces the recollection of vv. 5–8, where the verbs are all in the perfect but for the comparison in v. 8. Likewise, the perfects in v. 9a may most naturally be understood as referring to ‘what we have heard’ and ‘what we have seen’, continuing to be the case in ancient Hebrew thinking. Further, although ‘save’ (v. 10b) is positive, ‘give victory to’ [or ‘vindicate’] may possibly be more apt but again is experienced differently. Conversely, the ‘spirit’ of princes which is cut off in v. 13 is not recognized as having emotional content, but in Hebrew may possibly be thought of as having favourable connotations, especially if it equates here to ‘courage, vigour’ or the like.

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the theme of the previous verses and expressing confident verification of their narrative thread. The final colon of v. 9, though, is in the imperfect: the reference to the city of God is followed by the phrase ‫ֹלהים יְֹכונְ נֶ ָה‬ ִ ‫ֱא‬ ‫ד־ֹעולם‬ ָ ‫‘—ע‬may ַ God preserve it for ever!’, ‘God will establish it for ever’ or maybe ‘God establishes it for ever’. It is not the purpose of the present chapter to argue for one particular English translation, but merely to point out the imperfect tense, and to suggest that this is indicative of an expression of faith and hope: it has an element of uncertainty and incompletion. This is not to suggest that it implies any level of anxiety: rather, it expresses an article of faith in an appropriate form. One might contrast the more intense and apparently fanatical Psalm 76, in which we are told, ‘His den has been established in Salem’60 (v. 3). This is not to claim that the two phrases are equivalent: the author of Psalm 76 may be thinking of an event (perhaps the one recounted) through which God’s ‘den’ was established, but he freely chose to make that statement, rather than to express the article of faith found in Psalm 48.9b. Verse 10 contains one perfect, whilst v. 11 has a non-verbal statement in the first two cola and another perfect in the third. This then continues the tone of bright confidence. The imperfect which opens v. 12 is often taken as cohortative (‘Let Mount Zion be glad, let the daughters of Judah rejoice’), standing as it does before the imperatives of vv. 13–14, whilst the final imperfect of v. 14, following ‫ל ַמ ַען‬,ְ expresses purpose: ‘that you may recount’. The call to rejoice, though here distinctively addressed to Zion in the third person, is of course a recognisable hymnic element61 and intensifies the praise already offered indirectly (vv. 2–3), substantiated (vv. 4–9), then offered directly (vv. 10–12), to God. The psalm ends with a confident verbless claim that God is ‘our God for ever and ever’ followed by the wish (in the imperfect) that ‘he will/might/does lead/ guide us’ (most likely, again, ‘for ever’). This all seems enthusiastic and confident, but balanced. The perfect appropriately expresses the past tense and reflects a sense of definite action; verbless clauses or participles are primarily employed to express the permanent qualities of God or Zion; and the imperfect is used at times to express a sense of hope or futurity, comparison, or encouragement. 60.  Waw-consecutive imperfect in the series of perfects which dominate vv. 2–6. However the use of tense is to be interpreted, it seems that Ps. 76.3 focuses on something previously established, whereas Ps. 48.9, though articulating a similar theme, has a present or future orientation. 61.  The similarity to Pss. 96.11 and 97.1, 8 in particular is striking: note the emphasis on ‫מ ְׁש ָּפ ֶטיָך‬. ִ



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3. Conjunctions These are scattered liberally thorough Psalm 48, giving an impression of confident fluency, and are not solely expressed by means of the standard waw (as in vv. 2 and 13: ‘great and much-acclaimed’; ‘walk around Zion, and go around it’). For example, ‫י־הּנֵ ה‬ ִ ‫ ִּכ‬in v. 5 clearly indicates that what follows extrapolates on the lines above: it gives the historical foundation for the claims already made. The recollection is then framed on the other side by the bold assertion ‫( ַּכ ֲא ֶׁשר ָׁש ַמ ְענּו ֵּכן ָר ִאינּו‬NRSV: ‘As we have heard, so we have seen’), and this in turn has a contrasting counterpart in the narrative itself: ‫‘( ֵה ָּמה ָראּו ֵּכן ָּת ָמהּו‬As soon as they saw it, they were astounded’). There is a climax of cognitive connected praise in vv. 11–15 with ‫ ְּכ‬and ‫( ֵּכן‬v. 11), ‫( ְל ַמ ַען‬vv. 12, 14) and ‫ה…ֹעולם וָ ֶעד‬ ָ ֶ‫( ִּכי ז‬v. 15), plus a waw connecting two imperatives in v. 13. This is expressive of joyful praise, untrammelled by some of the anxieties and anger seen elsewhere. 4. Social and Affective Aspects Psalm 48 is also infused with a social quality, the only exceptions being the Zion passages vv. 3–4a and the comparison with the Tarshish fleet in v. 8.62 As regards affect, there are many ‘positive emotion’ words in the opening verses of praise: in vv. 2–3, we have ‘great’, ‘to be praised / worthy of praise’, ‘beautiful’, ‘joy’ and ‘great’ again.63 The noun ‫ ִמ ְׂשּגָ ב‬in v. 4 may also be understood as having positive associations.64 After the past-tense interlude of vv. 4–9, again in vv. 10–12 we have many positive ָ ‫גִּיל‬. Arguably, Hebrew usage emotion terms: ‫ח ֶסד‬, ֶ ‫ּת ִה ָּלה‬, ְ ‫צ ֶדק‬, ֶ 65 ‫שׂ ַמח‬, indicates that the verb ‫ כון‬in v. 9 may also be placed in this category.66 The architectural terms in vv. 13–14, though no doubt designed to instil a picture of the city’s magnificence, are not precisely clear, and do not rate 62.  Verse 11b, ‘reaches to the ends of the earth’, has an implied human audience; vv. 13–14b do not score as social, but of course there is an implicit ‘you’ in the imperatives used. 63.  Cf. Ollenburger’s recognition in this verse of ‘the joy associated with Zion’, which stems from ‘the rejoicing over Yahweh’s kingship there’ (Zion, the City of the Great King, 46). 64.  ‘Secure height’ or ‘stronghold’ are classified by LIWC as positive emotion terms; ‘retreat’, ‘refuge’, ‘haven’ and ‘tower’ have no rating as they are not recognized in the Dictionary; NRSV ‘sure defence’ is both positive (‘sure’) and negative/anger (‘defence’), but I am not convinced this conveys the essence of the Hebrew. 65.  In the Hebrew idiom, at least: ‘beneficence’, the translation in the JPS, is rated as a positive emotion word; ‘righteousness’, ‘justice’ and ‘vindication’ have no rating, being absent from the Dictionary. 66.  Notice how, though it characterizes the preoccupation of Psalm 46, this word does not occur in that Psalm, but only the negation ‘not moved’, and similar expressions.

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(in their various translations) in the LIWC scale; the psalm ends on a high point, with the statement ‫ֹעולם וָ ֶעד‬ ָ ‫ֹלהינּו‬ ֵ ‫ֹלהים ֱא‬ ִ ‫ּכי זֶ ה ֱא‬. ִ If the suffixed ‫ֹלהינּו‬ ֵ ‫ֱא‬ could be rated independently, this would surely also count as having positive emotional content. Of course, there are also some negative emotional characteristics in the past-tense description of vv. 5–7, but fewer than one might imagine, being confined only to one and a half verses: notably, the advance of the kings in v. 5 is described in very low-emotion terms: they ‘met together’ (Niph. ‫ )יעד‬and ‘passed on’ (‫)עבר‬, ideas without any intrinsic military association at all. NRSV ‘panic’, ‘trembling’ and ‘pains’ (vv. 6b–7) are all negative, the first two also being associated with anxiety.67 In addition, it is arguable that both—and not just the first—of the verbs in v. 6b (‫ ָבּ ַחל‬and ‫)ח ַפז‬ ָ should have a negative emotion–anxiety rating, as happens if, for example, we follow the JPS translation, ‘they were terrified, they panicked’. Likewise, although ‘broken, wrecked, shattered’ (which are all possible translations of the fate of the Tarshish ships in v. 8)68 do not feature in the LIWC Dictionary, it is difficult to deny their negative emotional connotations. Conversely, whilst ‘in labour’ (v. 7b) in English sounds negative, Hebrew ‫ֹיול ָדה‬ ֵ does not always have the same associations.69 However, probably the most striking aspect of this description of the response of the kings is that there is no combat; they ‘see’ (what, it is not clear) and act in fear; God is not mentioned, nor are ‘nations’, ‘kingdoms’, ‘armies’ or ‘enemies’; and there is no anger or aggression, only anxiety (as experienced by the kings). There also seems to be a strong echo of the Exodus tradition: one might compare v. 7, where the verb ‫ אחז‬occurs together with ‫ ְר ָע ָדה‬and ‫חיל‬, ִ with Exod. 15.14b (‫)חיל ָא ַחז‬ ִ and 15.15b (‫אחזֵ מֹו ָר ַעד‬ ֲ ֹ ‫ ;)י‬between these two occurrences we have ‫ נִ ְב ֲהלּו‬in Exod. 15.15a, as in Ps. 48.6b. In Exod. 15.14, the section begins with the people hearing and trembling; here in Psalm 48 the kings see and respond in like manner (cf. Ps. 114:3); the East wind is also reminiscent of that in Exod. 14.21 which parts the waters of the Red Sea. The significance of this is that these verses fulfil the formally important role of substantiating the faith expressed in the opening lines, yet this occurs not through a recollection of a recent event, but via an allusion to traditions which are extremely vague in content and articulated without any hint of aggression. 67.  If the verb ‫ ִחיל‬were translated ‘writhing’ or ‘contortions’ it would escape classification; ‘anguish’ (which is less true to the root sense) would place it in the anxiety category with the other two negative terms, but it is questionable whether overall this is most appropriate. 68.  I.e. Piel ‫שׁבר‬. 69.  See e.g., Mic. 5.2.



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Overall, therefore, Psalm 48 reveals an optimistic outlook. This is displayed not only through free expressions of joy and praise, but also through the manner in which even the depiction of deliverance is stylized, since it lacks expressions of anger or explicit mention of physical harm to the foe. This composition is devoid of antagonism or personal anxiety (though the anxiety of the kings before Yahweh is evident), whilst the free movement between the first, second and third persons implies confidence and social connectedness, including the uninhibited celebration and addressing of God. 5. Cognition and Perception There is a good spread of cognitive language, including insight (‫ּד ִּמינּו‬,ִ 70 v. 10a), cause (‘because’, v. 12c), certainty (‘all’, v. 3b; ‘ever’, vv. 9d, 15, in the latter verse probably 3 times71) and inclusion (‘and’ thrice [vv. 2a, 13a, 15b]; ‘we’ several times; the idea of going ‘around’ or ‘encircling’ Zion twice in v. 13; and ‘together’, v. 5b). There is also an element of tentativeness in the ‘may’ of v. 14c72 (and perhaps v. 9d), which strikes an appropriate balance. Expressions of cognitive processes are complemented by perceptual elements: beauty (v. 3a), seeing (vv. 6a, 9a) and hearing (v. 9a), labour pains (v. 7b) and covenant love (v. 10a). Overall therefore this enhances the impression of the speaker as someone in a state of mental wellbeing, able to blend cognition, emotion and perception in their experience of reality. 6. Spatial Aspects A final aspect to note is the spatial one, namely the centrality of Zion, terms for which are piled up in vv. 2–4, 9, 12–14 (cf. temple, v. 10; Judah, 70.  The translations ‘ponder’, ‘consider’, ‘imagine’, ‘think about’, ‘reflect on’ are all rated thus by LIWC. 71.  The final words of the psalm, ‫על־מּות‬, ַ read awkwardly, to the extent that they are not translated by Kraus (Psalmen, 1:509 [ET 1:472]). They might be repointed ‫ל־מוֶ ת‬ ָ ‫ע‬, ַ ‘unto death’ or understood in a similar sense (though perhaps not implying ‘beyond death’: cf. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Die Psalmen I: Psalm 1–50, Die Neue Echter Bibel [Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1993], 1:296). However, they should probably be emended to ‫ל־[עֹולמֹות‬ ָ ‫]ע‬, ַ in line with LXX εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας (thus Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen, 1:296; Craigie, Psalms 1–50, 351, 352; Mitchell J. Dahood, Psalms: Introduction, Translation, and Notes, 3 vols., AB 16–17A [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966–70], 1:293). The other possibility is that this phrase is a fragment of the heading of Ps. 49: cf. ‫ל־ע ָלֹמות‬ ֲ ‫ע‬, ַ Ps. 46.1. However, on analogy with Ps. 46.1, one might expect it to be placed differently within the superscription to Psalm 49, rather than at its opening. 72.  Imperfect verb following ‫ל ַמ ַען‬,ְ ‘[in order/so] that’.

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v. 12b). The idea of being ‘in’ the city is very strong,73 and is intensified in vv. 13–14, where there is the imperative command to ‘go around’ and ‘walk about’ the city, counting and taking note of certain key buildings, and ‘passing between’ others. The perspective is broadened in the idea that God’s praise and name reach to the ends of the earth (v. 11); nonetheless, the praise originates ‘in the city of our God’ (v. 2); deliverance is seen and heard ‘in the city of Yahweh of hosts’ (v. 9); it is pondered ‘in the midst of your temple’ (v. 10); and the result is to ‘Let Mount Zion be glad and the daughters of Judah rejoice’ (v. 12). Even the unidentified kings seem to advance on the city and then to be overcome at the mere sight of it. However, complementing the very localized view of space is the equally notable extended perspective on time: it is hoped that this precious city will be preserved by God ‘for ever’ (v. 9d) and that he will be ‘our God for ever and ever’ (v. 15); so the details of the city can be recounted to later generations (v. 14c). The intense focus on Zion is therefore a dominant characteristic that needs to be taken into account in the classification of this psalm. It would be foolhardy to hypothesize about particular festivals in Jerusalem and to relate Psalm 48 to them: such an enterprise is too conjectural. Nonetheless, the psalm itself invites a connection with the Jerusalem Temple, and from its joyful tone of praise, present both at the beginning and end of the psalm, one might deduce that a festal occasion (especially given the stylized and traditional form of the past-tense narrative about the trembling kings) would be a plausible setting. If it belongs to a real occasion of deliverance, any threat of further invasion or conflict or residual anger seems to be entirely out of view, in contrast to the unresolved state of Psalm 76; probability therefore overall supports a festal or other celebratory setting. Conclusion It appears that even when only three out of six of the so-called ‘Zion Psalms’ are examined, they appear not to comprise the unified genre that is often supposed. This is especially striking when it is borne in mind that the three discussed here are often considered to comprise a distinct sub-set of the wider category: although they are often distinguished from the pilgrimage psalms Psalms 84 and 122 and from Psalm 87, as a trio

73.  Verses 2b, 9bc; cf. v. 4a, ‘(with)in/through its citadels’, and v. 10b, ‘in the midst of your temple’.



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they are widely perceived to share many formal and thematic features, as identified in the influential analysis of Jeremias. However, the present study indicates that they each express very different sentiments from each other and thus have a contrasting rhetorical force, as well as relating very differently to God and to their respective present realities. Therefore, despite certain conventionally acknowledged formal and thematic similarities, overall, their purpose and historical, social or liturgical setting—even if they were all composed to be intoned in or in proximity to the Temple—must be contrasted. This is significant not only for the identification of the genre of these specific psalms, but also for the wider issue of the most appropriate methodologies and conventions by which to define and recognize genre within the psalms and the place of psychological analysis within this. Overall, however, on the basis of the foregoing discussion, it seems most likely that Psalm 46 stems from a situation of anxiety, and Psalm 76 from one of confidence, but aggression and bitterness, whilst Psalm 48 may derive from a setting of celebration, possibly of a cultic nature. Appendix: Table Indicating Percentages of Words Falling into Selected LIWC Categories The following tables indicate the results of a LIWC analysis of Psalms 46, 48 and 76. Most LIWC categories are included, and those that are not (for example, health, sexuality, work) are excluded since the results are not relevant to the present discussion. In the interests of seeking an impartial approach to the base English text used, instead of employing my own translation, the analysis is derived from the NRSV, except where a preference for a different reading of the Hebrew is in specific, limited instances indicated in the foregoing discussion. This table should be understood as indicative only, for several reasons. First, by changing the English translation of a particular word within legitimate parameters, the LIWC classification can in some cases change. Often this is only slight, for example by refining what form of negative emotion is indicated rather than just placing it in that broad general category. This is why, when alternative translations are possible and would result in a different analytical result, this has been noted in the foregoing discussion. Second, the LIWC Dictionary is not comprehensive and hence does not include certain terms that might ideally be classified (for example, ancient weapons of war), whilst other terms may be misclassified due to cultural difference or a specific, but rarer, usage (for example, ‘awesome’). Again, where these issues occur, they are noted above. Finally, the tables here simply offer an overview insofar as they indicate the results for the psalms in their entirety, whereas a stanza-by-stanza analysis would reveal shifts in mood and voice during the course of each composition. This is most evident

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in the pronominal categorisation, but can also be significant as regards the affective, cognitive and perceptual aspects of these compositions. Such transitions are explored in detail above, and indeed analysis on the level of the individual colon or word is also often beneficial to the understanding of these brief poems. Abbreviations ‘ach’—achievement; ‘affect’—affective processes; ‘anx’—anxiety; ‘auxverb’—auxiliary verbs; ‘cause’—causation; ‘certain’—certainty; ‘cogmech’—cognitive processes; ‘conj’—conjunctions; ‘discrep’—discrepancy; ‘excl’—exclusive; ‘funct’—total number of function words; ‘incl’—inclusive; ‘ipron’—impersonal pronouns; ‘negate’—negations; ‘negemo’—negative emotion; ‘num’—number; ‘perc’—perceptual processes; ‘posemo’—positive emotion; ‘ppron’—personal pronouns; ‘preps’—prepositions; ‘pronn’—pronoun; ‘quant’—quantifiers; ‘relat’—relativity; ‘social’—social processes. Psalm 46, 48, 76 46 76 48

Funct 55.77 56.25 54.69 53.28

Psalm Article 46, 48, 76 12.5 46 16.15 76 9.9 48 8.73

Pronn 9.13 7.81 9.38 10.04 Verb 10.58 13.02 8.33 16.16

Psalm Negate Quant 46, 48, 76 0.48 1.44 46 1.04 0.52 76 0.52 3.65 48 0 0.87

Perc 1.92 1.56 0.52 2.18

See 0.64 0.52 0 1.31

I 0.48 1.56 0 0

Auxverb 7.69 9.38 7.29 6.99

Past 2.24 1.04 2.08 3.49

We 2.08 3.12 0 3.06

You 2.88 0 5.21 3.06

She/he 2.24 3.12 2.6 1.31

Present Future Adverb 6.09 0.96 4.33 8.85 2.08 4.17 5.73 0 4.17 4.37 0.87 4.8

Num Social Affect Posemo Negemo 0.32 11.7 5.93 3.21 2.72 0 7.81 3.65 1.04 2.6 1.04 13.54 8.33 4.17 4.17 0 13.97 6.11 4.37 1.75

Psalm Cogmech Insight 46, 48, 76 9.94 0.8 46 10.42 0.52 76 9.38 1.04 48 9.61 0.87 Psalm 46, 48, 76 46 76 48

Ppron 9.13 7.81 9.38 10.04

Cause Discrep Tentat Certain 1.28 0.16 0.32 1.6 2.08 0.52 0.52 0 0.52 0 0 2.08 0.44 0 0.44 3.06

Hear 0.8 0.52 0 0.44

Feel 0.48 0.52 0.52 0.44

Bio 0.96 0.52 1.04 1.31

Body 0.64 0.52 1.04 0.44

They 1.44 0 1.56 2.62

Ipron 3.53 3.65 2.6 4.37

Preps 15.22 11.46 15.62 16.59

Conj 4.49 4.69 4.17 4.8

Anx Anger Sad 1.44 0.8 0.16 1.56 0.52 0 2.08 1.56 0.52 0.87 0.44 0

Inhib 0.64 0.52 0.52 0.87

Incl 4.33 5.21 4.17 3.49

Relat Motion Space 13.46 2.4 7.21 11.98 2.6 6.25 11.46 0.52 6.77 16.16 3.06 8.73

Time 3.85 3.12 3.65 4.8

Excl 0.48 1.04 0.52 0 Ach 2.24 1.56 2.08 2.18



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Bibliography Barton, John. Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Boals, Adriel, and Kitty Klein. ‘Word Use in Emotional Narratives about Failed Romantic Relationships and Subsequent Mental Health’. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 24 (2005): 252–68. Briggs, Charles Augustus, and Emilie Grace Briggs. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, 2 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906–7). Cheyne, T. K. The Book of Psalms (London: Kegan Paul, 1904). Chung, Cindy K., and James W. Pennebaker. ‘The Psychological Functions of Function Words’. In Social Communication: Frontiers of Social Psychology, ed. K. Fiedler, 343–59 (New York: Psychology Press, 2007). Cohn, Michael A., Matthias R. Mehl, and James W. Pennebaker. ‘Linguistic Markers of Psychological Change Surrounding September 11, 2001’. Psychological Science 15 (2004): 687–93. Craigie, Peter C. Psalms 1–50, WBC 19 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983). Dahood, Mitchell J. Psalms: Introduction, Translation, and Notes, 3 vols., AB 16–17A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966–70). Gerstenberger, Erhard S. Psalms, Part 1 with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, FOTL 14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988). Gillingham, S. E. The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, Oxford Bible Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). Gortner, Eva-Maria, and James W. Pennebaker. ‘The Anatomy of a Disaster: Media Coverage and Community-Wide Health Effects of the Texas A&M Bonfire Tragedy’. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 22 (2003): 580–603. Gunkel, Hermann, and Joachim Begrich. Einleitung in die Psalmen: die Gattungen der religiösen Lyrik Israels, Göttinger Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1933) [English trans.: An Introduction to the Psalms, Mercer Library of Biblical Studies (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998).] Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Die Psalmen I: Psalm 1–50, Die Neue Echter Bibel (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1993). Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Psalmen 51–100, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2000) [English trans.: Psalms 2, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005).] Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Psalmen 101–150, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2008) [English trans.: Psalms 2, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011).] Jeremias, Jörg. ‘Lade und Zion: zur Entstehung der Ziontradition’. In Probleme biblischer Theologie: Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Hans Walter Wolff, 183–98 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1971). Körting, Corinna. Zion in den Psalmen, FAT 48 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). Kraus, Hans-Joachim. Psalmen, 2 vols., 6th edn, BKAT 15 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989) [English trans.: Psalms, 2 vols., Continental Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993).] Kross, Ethan, and Ozlem Ayduk. ‘Facilitating Adaptive Emotional Analysis: Distinguishing Distanced-analysis of Depressive Experiences from Immersed-analysis and Distraction’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34 (2008): 924–38. Mehl, M. R., and James W. Pennebaker. ‘The Social Dynamics of a Cultural Upheaval: Social Interactions Surrounding September 11, 2001’. Psychological Science 14 (2003): 579–85. Nisbett, Richard E. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why (London: Nicholas Brealey, 2005).

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Ollenburger, Ben C. Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult, JSOTSup 41 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987). Oosting, Reinoud. The Role of Zion / Jerusalem in Isaiah 40–55: A Corpus Linguistic Approach, Studia Semitica Neerlandica (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Pennebaker, James W., and Cindy K. Chung. ‘Expressive Writing and its Links to Mental and Physical Health’. In Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology, ed. Howard S. Friedman, 417–37, Oxford Library of Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Pennebaker, James W., Cindy K. Chung, Molly Ireland, Amy Gonzales and Roger J. Booth. ‘The Development and Psychometric Properties of LIWC2007’ (Austin, TX, 2007). Online: http://www.liwc.net/LIWC2007LanguageManual.pdf. Pennebaker, James W., and Laura A. King. ‘Linguistic Styles: Language Use as Individual Difference’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (1999): 1296–312. Pennebaker, James W., and Thomas C. Lay. ‘Language Use and Personality during Crises: Analyses of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Press Conferences’. Journal of Research in Personality 36 (2002): 271–82. Pennebaker, James W., Tracy J. Mayne and Martha E. Francis. ‘Linguistic Predictors of Adaptive Bereavement’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72 (1997): 863–71. Pennebaker, James W., R. Mehl and Kate G. Niederhoffer. ‘Psychological Aspects of Natural Language Use: Our Words, Our Selves’. Annual Review of Psychology 54 (2003): 547–77. Pennebaker, James W., and Janel D. Seagal. ‘Forming a Story: The Health Benefits of Narrative’, Journal of Clinical Psychology 55 (1999): 1243–54. Rohland, Edzard. “Die Bedeutung der Erwählungstraditionen Israels für die Eschatologie der alttestamentlichen Propheten” (ThD diss., Ruprecht-Karl-Universität zu Heidelberg, 1956). Seybold, Klaus. Die Psalmen: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1986). [English trans.: Introducing the Psalms (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990).] Stone, Lori D., and James Pennebaker. ‘Trauma in Real Time: Talking and Avoiding Online Conversations about the Death of Princess Diana’. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 24 (2002): 172–82. Tate, Marvin E. Psalms 51–100, WBC 20 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990). Tausczik, Yla R., and James W. Pennebaker. ‘The Psychological Meaning of Words: LIWC and Computerized Text Analysis Methods’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 29 (2010), 24–54. Terrien, Samuel. The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological Commentary. Vol. 2, Psalms 73–150 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Watson, Rebecca S. ‘ “I Shall Not Want”? A Psychological Interpretation of Psalm 23’. In Methods, Theories and Imagination: Social Scientific Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. David Chalcraft, Frauke Uhlenbruch and Rebecca S. Watson, 124–46 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014). Weintraub, Walter. Verbal Behavior: Adaptation and Psychopathology (New York: Springer, 1981). Weintraub, Walter. Verbal Behavior in Everyday Life (New York: Springer, 1989). Westermann, Claus. Lob und Klage in den Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977). [English trans.: Praise and Lament in the Psalms (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1981).]

A mon g t h e R ui n s of a W alle d C i t y : R e fl ec t i on s on W a r and P e ace i n E ccl es i a s t es 1 2:1–7

Stephen J. Bennett

The ruins of the last encampment of George Washington’s Continental Army can be found on Temple Hill Road in New Windsor, New York. More than a collection of tents, the cantonment provided winter housing for American soldiers in six hundred hastily constructed log huts. After most of the soldiers were dismissed, the huts were sold by auction because the army was deeply in debt. Visitors to the site find the outline of foundation stones in crumbling rows, a stone memorial tower, several buildings constructed as replicas, and one of the original huts (rescued from its post-auction location). The site is conceived as a memorial to the Continental Army and the American Revolution. The overgrown rubble of foundation stones and reconstructed buildings have a story to tell. A sign on the highway reads ‘Freedom Road’. During tourist season, guides dress in eighteenth-century replica clothing and re-enact the activities of soldiers who rested from their warfare. The guides demonstrate by firing muskets, displaying medical equipment, forging iron and squaring logs. Pilgrimages to the ruins of a destroyed city or temple have a long history and, like a visit to the New Windsor Cantonment, offer a time of reflection of what was lost and what remains. The imagery of Eccl. 12.1–7 resembles such reflections and in a literal reading seems to portray a city which is under siege or deserted, having been ruined by the ravages of war.1 A similar idea gives rise to the theory that the account of the battle 1. See Joseph Blenkinsopp, ‘Cityscape to Landscape: The “Back to Nature” Theme in Isaiah 1–35’, in ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 40.

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of Jericho arose from a liturgy associated with encircling the ruins of the city.2 While the allegory of old age has dominated interpretation of the imagery, there have also been serious attempts to make sense of the literal meaning, beginning with the eschatological interpretation of Gregory Thaumaturgus in the third century CE.3 The complexities of perspective in Ecclesiastes have led to divergent interpretations, varying from the view that the author (Qoheleth) is very optimistic about the possibilities that life holds, to the view that he is very skeptical. It seems that his admonitions to enjoy life should be taken seriously, although he recognizes that there are limitations to such joy. His perspective comes from his observations that conditions which lead to joy in life are tenuous and often short-lived, especially because of contingencies such as war. It is in this context that Qoheleth portrays the joys of everyday life in the city as tenuous and temporary, and their potential future loss is a reason to enjoy them in the present. Thus the besieged or deserted city of Eccl. 12.1–7 offers an opportunity for reflection on the necessity of enjoying life in one’s youth, before the opportunity for enjoyment could be taken away by war. The theoretical framework of Edward Soja and others about space may help to identify and clarify this understanding of Eccl. 12.1–7. Soja builds on the work of Henri Lefebvre who developed the categories of perceived space, conceived space and lived space.4 In Soja’s framework, Firstspace is the real-life physical space, the historical and geographical area. This is the perceived space because if anyone went there, he or she could physically see it (at the present time, at least). Secondspace is the imagined space. It is how a place is thought of, or conceived. Thirdspace is the place 2.  J. Alberto Soggin, Joshua: A Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1972), 83–84, 88. Soggin also placed Joshua among the ruins of Jericho for the appearance of the Commander of the Army of Yahweh (Josh. 5.13–15, 77). See Marten H. Woudstra, The Book of Joshua, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), 104. 3.  Gregory Thaumaturgus, Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Co., 1886), 6:17. 4.  Claudia V. Camp, ‘Introduction’, in Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008), 3; Edward W. Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice, Globalization and Community (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 102. See Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 38–41.



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as it is lived in, the activities of everyday life, including social struggle.5 Another way to express the three categories (somewhat oversimplified) is to see the perceived or physical space as the actual place (static), the conceived space as that place on a map6 or in a text and the lived space as what happens in the place (active, dynamic). All three categories are relevant to the city in the Hebrew Bible. The physical space of the remains of biblical cities can be visited in person today although identification of sites and the separation of time means that access is limited. The biblical text and archaeological data give further clues as to the physical characteristics of biblical cities (Firstspace). The way that biblical authors conceived of various cities is discernible from the biblical text. These conceptions vary depending on which city is in view, and the perspective of the author (Secondspace). Various aspects of everyday life and social struggle in the cities of ancient Israel are also portrayed in the biblical text (Thirdspace). An analysis of the imagery of Eccl. 12.1–7 along these lines is helpful in order to identify the literal portrayal of a city under siege or in ruins, as opposed to the common interpretation of an allegory of old age, or the suggestion that elements are (unusual) metaphors for old age.7 Qoheleth seems to portray some of the physical characteristics of a city, and betray his conception of the city as a place of (failed) refuge and a target of war and the locus of everyday life and enjoyment. The latter conception he communicates through descriptions of some everyday activities (and especially their loss). 5. Camp, ‘Introduction’, 3–4; Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 6, 22, 65–74. 6. See Robert Gordon, Holy Land, Holy City: Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible, Didsbury Lectures (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004), 3. 7. The interpretation of an allegory of old age has a long history and, in its full form, is not popular in contemporary interpretation. However, many commentators see some of the imagery as metaphors for old age, or see the poem as an adaptation from an earlier allegory of old age or death. Representative of literal interpretations are Karl Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891), 403–4 (winter, i.e. the wet season); Christian Ginsburg, The Book of Ecclesiastes: Translated from the Original Hebrew with a Commentary, Historical and Critical (1861; repr. New York: Ktav Publishing, 1970), 457–61 (a storm); Charles Taylor, Dirge of Coheleth in Ecclesiastes XII Discussed and Literally Interpreted (Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1874), iii–iv, 77 (a funeral procession, perhaps of a king defeated in war); Tremper Longman, The Book of Ecclesiastes, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 262 (an estate in disrepair).

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City in the Hebrew Bible

Physical Characteristics of the City The physical characteristics of cities in biblical Israel are mentioned in various places in the Hebrew Bible and are also somewhat accessible through archaeology. Cities were relatively small (only a few thousand people), and may have had walls, gates, streets, squares, temple, palace, houses, markets, wells, pools, parks, mills and other industrial centres. They tended to be located on an elevated site (for defence), near a source of water (including ground water) and near a thoroughfare. In Ecclesiastes 12 a few elements of the physical city are in view: the house (perhaps the ruling family; v. 3), the mill (perhaps a quern or handmill in a house; vv. 3–4), windows (v. 3), doors (or gates; v. 4), streets (vv. 4, 5), the road (or way; v. 5), an almond tree (v. 5), fountain and cistern (v. 6). Physical articles mentioned in Eccl. 12.6 are the silver cord (or portion), golden bowl, pitcher, and wheel (or bowl). Verse 7 mentions dust and earth (which do not specifically indicate a city). Physical elements of a city which could have been mentioned, but which were not, include squares, temple, tower, citadel and palace. Neither does Ecclesiastes mention a personal grape vine and fig tree (Mic. 4.4; 1 Kgs 5.5). Conception of the City Biblical Conceptions of the City Various conceptions of the city in the Hebrew Bible betray different perspectives.8 J. W. Rogerson has suggested several of these.9 One is a place of rivalry and bloodshed, rather than cooperation. This is the view in Gen. 4.1–24 where the city is inaugurated by the violent Cain whose descendent Lamech boasts about committing murder. Another is a symbol of human rebellion against God. This is the view in the building of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11.1–10). In some places the city is a symbol of greed and oppression. For example, this is the portrayal of Sodom in Ezek. 16.49, and Samaria in Amos 4.1 (see also Ps. 55.10–12 [ET 9–11]). There are several cities which are centres of worship, for example Shiloh, Jerusalem, Bethel and Dan. The ideal city is conceived of as a symbol of universal peace and justice in Mic. 4.1–4. Additional conceptions of the city, especially Jerusalem, are identified by Robert Gordon.10 Jerusalem 8.  See Lester L. Grabbe, ‘Introduction and Overview’, in Grabbe and Haak, eds, ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’, 25–26. 9.  J. W. Rogerson and John Vincent, The City in Biblical Perspective, Biblical Challenges in the Contemporary World (London: Equinox, 2009), 21–39. 10.  Gordon, Holy Land, Holy City, 8, 24–26, 32, 34–35, 63–73.



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is seen as sitting on the highest mountain (Isa. 2.2; Mic. 4.1; Psalm 48; in fact it is lower than the hills around it). Bethel is portrayed as a link city between heaven and earth (Gen. 28.12). Jerusalem is conceived of as a city with a river (Ps. 46.4; it has a spring, but no river) and a holy city (e.g., Isa. 11.9). None of these conceptions of the city resonates with Ecclesiastes 12. Instead Qoheleth portrays his city as a place of defence or a target of warfare, and as the locale of everyday life. A Place of Defence and Target of Warfare Rather than a venue for rivalry and bloodshed, the city in Ecclesiastes 12 is the target of violence, and is a failed refuge against such violence. Cities have walls, towers, gates, armies and watchmen so that they can defend against attack (Neh. 3.1, 11, 15, 25). Such defences are not always successful (e.g., Jericho, Josh. 6.20; Penuel, Judg. 8.17; Shechem, Judg. 9.49; Thebez, Judg. 9.52). In Isa. 1.7–8 the inadequate defences of Zion are compared with a booth or a shack. Ecclesiastes 11.1–12.7 offers advice for how to behave given the conception of the city as a target of attack. Qoheleth advises generosity: ‘Cast your bread upon the waters’ (11.1, ESV) and ‘give a portion to seven, or even to eight’ (11.2, ESV). The rationale for this advice and what follows is the threat of war or other disaster: ‘for you know not what disaster may happen on earth’ (11.2, ESV). The Hebrew vocabulary for disaster is the general word for evil (‫)רע‬, which can be used for a variety of calamities including natural disasters and war. For example, Lam. 1.21 uses this vocabulary to refer to the sufferings associated with the conquest of the city (see also Jer. 17.17–18; 51.2). Qoheleth also advises decisive action: ‘He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap’ (11.4, ESV; see 11.6). The possible (or perhaps inevitable) calamities of the future lead Qoheleth to advise enjoyment of life (11.8–9). In the next chapter he advises remembering one’s Creator before days of evil arise (12.1). The midrash and Jerome (following his Jewish informant) took this as a reference to the exile, that is, war.11 It is Qoheleth’s conception of the city as a target of war together with his uncertainty about the future that leads him to give all this advice. 11. Matthew Kraus, ‘Christian, Jews, and Pagans in Dialogue: Jerome on Ecclesiastes 12:1–7’, HUCA 70–71 (1999–2000): 220, 194; A. Cohen, trans., Midrash Rabbah: Ecclesiastes (London: Soncino, 1983), 304; A. Cohen, trans., Midrash Rabbah: Lamentations (London: Soncino, 1983), proem 23, 29; Marc Adriaen, ed., S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Commentarius in Ecclesiasten, CCSL 72 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1969), 349.

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Ecclesiastes 12.3–7 goes into a more detailed portrayal of the city as a place under attack and whose defences have failed. Guards and strong men are afraid and ineffectual (v. 3). The city gates (double doors) are shut against the coming enemy (v. 4). Mourners are already lamenting in the streets for those who have been killed (v. 5). Silver and gold are in danger of being plundered, and fountain and well are disused and in disrepair (v. 6). Death would be the fate of many in this eventuality (v. 7). The reference to silver and gold is usually translated something like ‘the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken’ (ESV and similar in New JPS). This is usually interpreted as a golden lamp suspended from a silver cord as a metaphor for death, although C. L. Seow observes that there is no archaeological evidence for such an object.12 The translation snapped is possibly supported by the versions but the ketib (‫)ירחק‬ suggests that the silver is distant (rather than snapped),13 and the word ‫חבל‬ (cord) can be translated portion. The translation broken assumes the root ‫ רצץ‬rather than the more obvious ‫( רוץ‬run). Christian Ginsburg’s translation is ‘the gold bowl escapeth’.14 This maintains a parallelism between the silver becoming distant and the gold running away. Therefore, the text can be interpreted to mean that an invading army may plunder the city by taking the silver portion distant and carrying the golden vessels away quickly (at a run). Rather than the silver and gold being parts of a lamp that represents life, they are treasures of the city which help to make it a target of invasion.15 A Place for Everyday Life The city in Ecclesiastes 12 is no symbol of rebellion against God, but rather a place to live and enjoy life, while there is still time. Along with his portrayal of the city as a target of attack, Qoheleth conceives of the city as the centre of everyday life, a lifestyle which may come to an abrupt end under the threat of war. 12.  C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18C (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 365. A golden bowl is used to supply oil to a lamp in Zech. 4.2–3. 13.  LXX has ‘is removed’ (ἀνατραπῇ); see Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 329; and also, Ernest W. Hengstenberg, A Commentary on Ecclesiastes (repr.; Mulberry, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 1960), 251. 14.  Ginsburg, Ecclesiastes, 465–67. Ginsburg also challenged the identification of ‫ רצץ‬as the correct root in Isa. 42.4, following Hengstenberg, Ecclesiastes, 251, who translated, ‘Before the silver cord be removed and the golden bowl haste away’. 15.  Josh. 6.19 mentions silver, gold, copper and iron as objects of plunder.



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Qoheleth had already portrayed the life of the king in the city in chs. 1 and 2. The king made great works, built houses, planted vineyards, gardens and orchards, made pools and accumulated possessions including silver and gold (Eccl. 2.4–8). In ch. 12 the city as the place of failed refuge and the target of attack also becomes the place where daily activities are lost. He does not focus on the city as a centre of political power, religious ritual, injustice or the other options mentioned above. The city is the place where people live and go about their business. He reveals this conception through his portrayal of the loss of these activities under the conditions of war. The city is a kind of ‘non-space, a space uninhabitable’.16 Living in the City The third category in the theoretical scheme of Lefebvre and Soja is lived space or Thirdspace. The city is usually the locus for opportunity. Ecclesiastes 12.1–7 portrays the loss of everyday life in the city for the purpose of recommending that the everyday aspects of life be enjoyed while they still can, and before that opportunity is taken away by, say, a war.17 The word pleasure in the phrase ‘I have no pleasure in them’ may be thought of as opportunity (Eccl. 12.1, ESV, ‫)חפץ‬. The word is usually translated delight, or desire but also purpose or affair, especially in Ecclesiastes (3.1, 17; 8.6, AV). Ogden suggests the meaning ‘there is no acceptable time for me in them’ or ‘it is too late to do anything in them now’.18 Like many city laments, Eccl. 12.1–7 offers images of desolation and of people no longer fulfilling their assigned tasks.19 Qoheleth focuses on the loss of everyday life in favour of other images of desolation that he could have used, such as a deserted place, a place overgrown with thorns

16. Christl M. Maier, ‘Body Space as Public Space: Jerusalem’s Wounded Body in Lamentations’, in Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008), 136. 17.  Stephen J. Bennett, Ecclesiastes/Lamentations, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2010), 168. 18. Graham Ogden, Qoheleth (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 200. 19. See F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, O Daughter of Zion: A Study of the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible, BibOr 44 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1993), 41, 73; Jennifer Barbour, ‘You Do Not Know What Disaster May Happen in the Land: The City-Lament Mode in Qohelet 12:1–8’ (a paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Boston, 24 November 2008); Lam. 1.1; 5.18; Jer. 9.5, 9.

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and briers and overrun by wild animals and birds of prey.20 The everyday activities that Ecclesiastes 12 alludes to or mentions are coming and going, guarding the city, looking out the window, grinding grain, drawing water and mourning. Coming and Going In biblical idiom, everyday life can by summarized by the phrase ‘going out and coming in’. This was used by Solomon when he complained about his inexperience for governing the people (1 Kgs 3.7). It expresses the totality of human activity, but it is also literally a common activity in a city during times of peace. Although fortified cities had walls for protection, the gate would be open during the day to allow citizens to travel to other towns, or to supervise their fields, as when Boaz looked for his relative coming out through the gate (Ruth 4.1). The names of the various gates of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3 are suggestive of some of their functions: sheep gate, fish gate, old gate, valley gate, dung gate, fountain gate, water gate and horse gate (Neh. 3.1, 3, 6, 13–15, 26, 28, 31).21 During a siege coming and going would cease as the gates of a city would be closed against the enemy. This is explicit for Jericho in Josh. 6.1. This is also the case in Eccl. 12.4 which says ‘the doors on the street are shut’ (ESV). The word doors is in the dual form (‫ ְ)ד ָל ַתיִם‬which is probably a reference to city gates because normal houses did not have double doors or two entrances. Michael Fox notes two exceptions to this.22 In Josh. 2.19 and Job 31.32 the relatives of Rahab are warned not to exit the house in the wall during the battle, and Job defends his righteousness with the claim that he opened his doors to travellers. However, the most common occurrence of double doors are in references to the temple,23 a subject that does not concern Qoheleth (e.g., 2 Kgs 18.16). The other images in Ecclesiastes 12 relate to a city, not a temple, so city gates are the most likely meaning of double doors in Ecclesiastes 12.24 Double doors (double-hung leaves) were the best way to close off the entrance to

20.  See Blenkinsopp, ‘Cityscape to Landscape’, 39–42; Isa. 13.19–22; 24.5; 32.13–14; 34.8–11, 13–15. 21.  See C. H. J. de Geus, Towns in Ancient Israel and in the Southern Levant (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 9, 22–23, 27, 33, 36. 22.  Fox, A Time to Tear Down, 325. 23.  This was Jerome’s interpretation of Eccl. 12.4. See Kraus, ‘Christian, Jews, and Pagans’, 194; Adriaen, ed., Hieronymi, 350. 24. See Frank S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1977), 83. See, e.g., Deut. 3.5; Judg. 16.3; 1 Sam. 23.7; 2 Chr. 8.5.



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the city gate since it had to be wide enough to accommodate chariots and heavy traffic.25 A single door would be less practical. The closing of the gates would be a disruption of everyday life for city dwellers. In times of peace they would only be closed at night against wild animals or a surprise attack, or to restrict the entry of outsiders for some reason, as in the case of Nehemiah closing the gates before the sabbath to keep traders out (Neh. 13.19; Josh. 2.5). Jeremiah also uses the language of closing to portray the emptiness of cities following war. Without mentioning doors or gates he says ‘The cities of the Negeb are shut up, with none to open them’ (Jer. 13.19, ESV). For Isaiah’s image of a ruined city, ‘the gates are battered into ruins’ while ‘every house is shut up so that none can enter’ (Isa. 24.12, 10, ESV). Coming and going requires gates and doors, and also streets and roads. Streets and roads (as well as squares and corners) are often included in contexts which concern the city, including city laments (e.g., Lam. 4.1; Ezek. 16.31). Ecclesiastes 12 mentions the street twice. In the first instance everyday life is curtailed by the closing of the doors/gates (v. 4). In the second, the mourners are going about the streets, signalling the end of someone’s (everyday) life (v. 5). The road (way) is also mentioned as a place of terrors (v. 5). Refraining from the everyday activity of travel on the roads and fields is advised in Jer. 6.25 because ‘the enemy has a sword, terror is on every side’. Going is referenced in the context of a person going to his eternal home (i.e. death) and the mourners going about the streets (Eccl. 12.5). In both cases the situation is the cessation of everyday life because of the disaster that has come upon the city. Guarding the City Posting guards and watchmen is an obvious part of everyday life in a walled city. Guards could walk along the walls for a view of the surrounding country, and towers were also built for better visibility and security. During the siege of Lachish, guards (unsuccessfully) defended the city with arrows, stones, flaming torches, and a chain to ensnare the battering ram of the Assyrians.26 The guards and strong men in Eccl. 12.3 are afraid and bent, apparently at the prospect of a coming invasion. The guards are literally keepers (‫שמר‬, 1 Sam. 26.15–16), and the vocabulary which is used for strong men is used for soldiers in Judg. 20.44. 25.  Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 236. 26. King and Stager, Life, 250.

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The city watchmen are also mentioned in Eccl. 12.5, although the word is pointed for (and usually translated) almond tree and many commentators understand it as a metaphor for old age (the white hair of old age resembles the colour of almond blossoms).27 The connection between the two words is exploited in Jer. 1.11–12 where Jeremiah sees an almond branch and receives the announcement that God is watching over his word.28 The verbal form is used in Ps. 127.1 for the activity of the city guards (‫)ׁשקד ׁשומר‬. The word is also often used in a negative sense, as in a leopard watching for an opportunity to attack (Jer. 5.6), and God watching over people for evil (Jer. 31.28; 44.27). An enemy spy watching for an opportunity to attack would be despised, and this is the ketib meaning of the word for blossom in Eccl. 12.5 (‫נאץ‬, ‘almond tree blossoms’, ESV).29 If one’s own watchman is despised, then it may be that his ability to protect the city from invasion is in question. Looking Out of the Window Ecclesiastes 12.3 mentions the daily activity of women looking out of the window. These windows would often be protected by wooden lattice (since there was no glass) and it is usually assumed to be part of the everyday activity of wealthy women. Women who were not wealthy would be grinding, cooking, spinning, weaving, drawing water or working in the fields, not gazing out of windows. These women who look out of the window in Eccl. 12.3 are dimmed or darkened as they look. This seems to be a darkening of mood or countenance because of something evil which they see through the window, perhaps an invading army.30 Despite the 27. Symmachus seems to have regarded ‫ ׁשקד‬as a watchman; Biblia Hebraica Quinta, 110*; see Robert Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His World: A Study of Ecclesiastes (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 345; Ludwig Levy, Das Buch Qoheleth (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1912), 134–35. The following see the blossoming almond as a metaphor for the gray hair of an old man: C. Hassell Bullock, An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 2007), 242; Gordis, Koheleth, 345; R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, AB 18 (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 255; Daniel J. Treier, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2011), 224; Seow, Ecclesiastes, 379. White or gray hair did symbolize old age in Israel and the ancient Near East; see J. Gordon Harris, Biblical Perspectives on Aging (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987), 11. 28. See Craig Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2009), 350. 29. See Ginsburg, Ecclesiastes, 462; Gordis, Koheleth, 345; Daniel C. Fredericks, ‘Life’s Storms and Structural Unity in Qoheleth 11.1–12.8’, JSOT 52 (1991): 109. 30.  See Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes, 349; Taylor, Dirge of Coheleth, 14–15.



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walls of a city, a window could allow a view of the surrounding country if it was in a higher part of the city, or if the house was in the wall (Josh. 2.15). The portrayal of a woman looking out of a window is common in ancient Near Eastern art and thought, and a study of three biblical cases reveals a loss of prospects or kingdom, sometimes through war.31 The first is the mother of Sisera who hoped for the return of her son, but he had been killed by Jael. In the second, Michal looked out of the window and saw David dancing and despised him. This led to the end of her childbearing and thus the end of her role as matriarch in the dynasty. Finally, Jezebel looked out of the window as Jehu her conqueror approached. Although these examples use a different verb from Ecclesiastes 12 (‫)שקף‬ they show that in the Bible, looking out of a window can be an activity that has ominous results. The darkening of the one who looks in Eccl. 12.3 shows that this is the case in this chapter (see Lam. 5.17). Those women who have the leisure to look out of windows are presumed to be of a higher social class than women who grind grain. The mother of Sisera, Jezebel and Michal were all in royal families as queen mother, queen and princess. This hints at the social conflict inherent in city life. Some city laments mention different classes of people. For example, Lam. 5.11–14 shows how the disaster has impacted women, virgins, princes, elders, old men and young men.32 The poor also seem to be mentioned in Eccl. 12.5 where the hapax ‫ אביונה‬is usually translated desire (ESV) or caperberry (Darby). In form it is the feminine of a common word for the poor (‫)אביון‬.33 With this translation, instead of desire failing in old age, the poor are broken or brought to nothing. The verb ‫( פרר‬fails, ESV) means to break or violate, especially in the sense of a broken covenant. It is also used for the misfortunes of Job in the context of military vocabulary (Job 16.12–14, archers, breach). The poor are usually mentioned in relation to their vulnerability to internal

31.  See Shula Abramsky, ‘The Woman Who Looked Out the Window’, Beth Mikra 25 (1980): 114–24 (in Hebrew); H.-P. Mathys, ‘‫’שקף‬, TDOT 15:463; Prov. 7.6–8; de Geus, Towns, 3, 17–19, 25, 28, 82. 32.  Barbour, ‘City-Lament’. See Taylor, Dirge of Coheleth, 17; Lam. 1.4, 18; 2.21; Isa. 24.2; Ps. 123.2. 33.  J. G. Wetzstein, ‘Excurse zum Hohenliede und zu Koheleth’, in F. Delitzsch, Hoheslied und Kohelet (Leipzig: Dorffling & Franke, 1875), 450 (only in the German edn); see Symmachus (‘painful’), Syriac (‘misery’); BDB, 3a. Delitzsch says this reading is impossible ‘because the form would be unexampled and incomprehensible’ (Delitzsch, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, 416); see Gordis, Koheleth, 344.

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oppression, but for the same reasons they are more vulnerable to violence from without (see Job 5.15; 24.14; Ps. 37.14). In a besieged or desolate city the poor suffer first because they do not have the resources to pay inflated prices for food and other necessities like water and firewood (Lam. 5.4; 2 Kgs 6.25; Isa. 41.17). The mention of different social classes in Ecclesiastes 12 and in city laments is not portrayed to highlight social conflict, but to show that in the end, war affects all levels of society. No one can escape its destructive reach. Grinding Grain The daily necessities of life are listed conveniently in Hos. 2.5: bread, water, wool, flax, oil and drink. Bread was produced in the home each day from start to finish, so making flour was part of the ‘daily grind’ and each home would have a hand mill (quern).34 Bread was baked daily using the flour that was ground that day.35 The mill consisted either of two circular stones, one on top of the other (operated in a circular motion) or a rectangular stone on the bottom with a smaller stone on top (operated in a reciprocal motion). The usual word for millstone is only used in the dual form in biblical Hebrew. These types of simple mills are still operated in some parts of the world today. Millstones were so common in the ancient world that when Jesus wanted an illustration of a heavy object, he thought of the millstone (Matt. 18.6) and a woman found one close at hand when she needed something heavy to throw from the roof of a tower onto Abimelech’s head (Judg. 9.53). Millstones were so essential to daily life that Deut. 24.6 prohibits taking them in pledge, even one of them since this would render the pair useless. There is also evidence for commercial mills36 which used much larger millstones and this must have been the type that Samson was forced to operate (Judg. 16.21). His great strength meant he could do the work of a draft animal. Commercial bread production is also implied by the reference to Bakers’ Street in Jer. 37.21. Qoheleth used the example of grinding grain twice: in 12.3 where the grinders37 cease because they are few, and in 12.4 where the sound

34.  Volkmar Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 184. 35.  See b. Shab. 131a. 36.  Seow, Ecclesiastes, 357. 37.  A feminine noun, i.e., grinding was the work of women, ‫ ;הטחנות‬see Job 31.10. In Lam. 5.13 young men are forced to grind in their servitude to the conquerors.



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of the grinding is low. Qoheleth could have mentioned the related daily activity of baking bread instead. Perhaps he chose grinding because it was so noisy that the cessation during conditions of war would have been audibly noticeable. Jeremiah 25.10 also mentions (the loss of) the sound of the grinding when it predicts the cessation of everyday activities due to the judgement of war.38 Grinders could be few and quiet because of the shortage of grain in a besieged city, or the desolation of a conquered city (see Isa. 24.6). When Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians the king ordered a ration of bread to be given to Jeremiah ‘until all the bread of the city was gone’ (Jer. 37.21, ESV). The light of the lamps also ceases in Jer. 25.10 (see Rev. 18.22–23; Luke 17.33–36). Olive oil lamps were an essential part of daily life in ancient Israel (there were no candles and no paraffin).39 No one would light the lamps in a deserted city. Ecclesiastes 12 does not use this image, although darkness is mentioned in v. 1. This is the darkening of the sun, moon and stars, however, imagery which is drawn from the prophetic day of the Lord.40 The darkness of Sheol is also used in city laments as an image of death (Lam. 3.2, 6). Also, the phrase ‘those who look through the windows are dimmed’ (Eccl. 12.3, ESV) could be interpreted as a reference to lamps, but shine would be a more appropriate verb as lamps do not really look. Drawing Water Another important daily activity in biblical cities was drawing water from a well, spring, cistern or stream. All cities were located near a reliable water source, preferably one that could be defended during an extended siege, although there were some communities which relied on channelling water into cisterns in the wet season for use during the dry season.41 The well was a hub of activity each day and a convenient place to make social connections. A deserted well was an indication of a deserted city.

38.  See also Jer. 7.34; 16.9; 33.10–11. 39.  Archaeological finds do not suggest that lamps were very plentiful (de Geus, Towns, 84). 40.  Job 9.7; Isa. 13.7ff.; Jer. 4.23; 30.6; Joel 2.2, 6, 10; Zeph. 1.15; Amos 5.8, 18–20; Hab. 3.11; see Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994), 235. 41.  E.g., at Qumran, see Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 35.

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Ecclesiastes 12.6 emphasizes the desertion of the well with the inclusion of broken well equipment: the pitcher and the bowl (or wheel).42 Wheels were used for drawing water from the third century BCE, possibly initially only on wealthy estates.43 If Qoheleth meant a wheel, he may have been suggesting that the wealthy were also suffering from the results of the invasion. If he meant a bowl (more likely), then the poetic parallelism is preserved (fountain and well, pitcher and bowl). The broken clay pitcher and bowl suggest not only desolation, but also death. Broken pottery symbolizes death and rejection in Ps. 31.13 [ET 12] and Jer. 22.28, and archaeologists have discovered Jewish tombs into which smashed pottery was placed.44 The connection with military conquest is also made in Ps. 2.9 and Judg. 7.19.45 Archaeologists regularly find a large amount of broken pottery when excavating cities, and the broken pottery at the fountain and well would only be a part of this element of desolation. Biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature mention broken pottery in connection with desolate cities.46 The broken equipment at the well resonates with other contexts where there is broken pottery and shows that another example of ordinary daily life has come to an end in the ruined city.47 Mourning Mourning is part of the everyday cycle of life and death and in ancient Israel mourning was very public and vocal.48 Isaiah 15.3–4 is in an oracle against Moab and mentions sackcloth in the streets, lamenting in the squares and cries on the road to Horonaim (see also Isa. 24.11).49 In Eccl. 12.5 the location of the mourners is specifically in the streets, just as there 42.  Mitchell Dahood, ‘Canaanite-Phoenician Influence in Qoheleth’, Bib 33 (1952): 217; Charles Francis Whitley, Koheleth: His Language and Thought (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979), 101; Taylor, Dirge of Coheleth, 47. 43.  Norbert Lohfink, Qohelet: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 141; Seow, Ecclesiastes, 367. A wheel for drawing water is depicted in an Assyrian relief. The rope is being cut by an Assyrian soldier in an act of war (de Geus, Towns, 127). 44.  See Seow, Ecclesiastes, 366. 45.  See Taylor, Dirge of Coheleth, 47; Seow, Ecclesiastes, 366. 46.  Barbour, ‘City-Lament’; Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, 71, 105–9. See Jer. 48.12; 13.12–14; 19.10–11; 22.28. 47.  See Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes, 351. 48.  King and Stager, Life, 287, 372–73; see Jer. 9.19 [ET 20]. 49.  See Barbour, ‘City-Lament’; Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, 101–2; see also Jer. 9.20 [ET 21]; 48.38; 49.26; 50.30; Amos 5.16.



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is crying for wine in the streets in Isa. 24.11 (in the context of a desolate city). While the sounds of life such as grinding are low in the ruined city (12.4), the silence is filled with the eerie sound of mourners and even birds (12.4).50 While mourners can be found in any city, they would be especially prevalent in a city under attack and they feature in city laments (Lam. 5.15).51 The midrash and Jerome relate the reference to mourning in Eccl. 12.5 to the fall of Jerusalem.52 Enjoying Everyday Life Everyday life comes to a halt in a city besieged, conquered or ruined. Qoheleth portrays the loss of this life to encourage his listeners to enjoy the simple pleasures of life while they still have the opportunity to do so. Everyday life obviously comes to a close for those killed in the attack. They leave their temporary houses in the city and go to their eternal home (the grave, Eccl. 12.5). The midrash understood eternal home as long home and interpreted it as the exile, that is, not just the death of an individual person, but the ruin of the city.53 In what is left after conquest, the city is unliveable. In the words of Isa. 24.10, ‘The wasted city is broken down’ (ESV). Literally this is a city of chaos or emptiness (‫)והת‬, as in a reversion to the formless and void of Gen. 1.2. Part of the order that was established in Genesis 1 was the creation of light, which is reversed in darkening of sun, moon and stars in Eccl. 12.1.54 Daily life could not be lived or enjoyed during war since it was a time of chaos. Desolation as chaos is implied in the reversal of symbols of chaos (the deep, the rivers) in the rebuilding of Jerusalem in Isa. 44.26–28.55

50.  Some birds are associated with mourning, death and depopulation; Seow, Ecclesiastes, 359, 379; see Gordis, Koheleth, 343; Taylor, Dirge of Coheleth, vi, 20–23. 51.  Barbour, ‘City-Lament’; Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, 90–92. 52.  Ecclesiastes Rabbah, 308; Lamentations Rabbah, 35; Kraus, ‘Christian, Jews, and Pagans’, 195, 222; Adriaen, ed., Hieronymi, 350. 53.  Ecclesiastes Rabbah, 308, Lamentations Rabbah, 35. 54.  Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes, 348; Iain Provan, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 213; see Perdue, Wisdom and Creation, 234–35. This is consistent with Qoheleth’s use of ‘Creator’ in 12.1. 55. See U. Berges, ‘Zion and the Kingship of Yhwh in Isaiah 40–55’, in ‘Enlarge the Site of Your Tent’: The City as Unifying Theme in Isaiah, ed. L. H. M. Van Wieringen and Annemarieke Van Der Woude (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 103, 109–11.

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Conclusion The city appears in Eccl. 12.1–7 as physical space (e.g., streets, gates, windows), conceived space (a place of defence and of everyday life) and lived space (e.g., coming and going, guarding, grinding, drawing water). Identifying these three aspects helps to clarify the images in the passage as literal portrayals of a city, especially a city under siege, conquest or in ruins. Qoheleth writes his patchy description in the mood of the reflections of a pilgrim picking his way through the ruins of a city, just as one might walk through the ruins of the New Windsor Cantonment and reflect on the American Revolution. Qoheleth’s reflections are framed in the form of advice to enjoy life in the city before days of evil come, that is, days of warfare and want. He does not write like a person who is personally experiencing loss. There are no emotional cries for justice. Rather, a matter-of-fact portrayal consistent with a tragedy from the past frames his advice, advice which he has offered in other ways throughout the book: enjoy the everyday pleasures of life while you can (e.g., Eccl. 9.9). Bibliography Abramsky, Shula. ‘The Woman Who Looked Out the Window’. Beth Mikra 25 (1980): 114–24 (in Hebrew). Adriaen, Marc, ed. S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Commentarius in Ecclesiasten, CCSL 72 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1969). Barbour, Jennifer. ‘You Do Not Know What Disaster May Happen in the Land: The City-Lament Mode in Qohelet 12:1–8’. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Boston, 24 November 2008. Bartholomew, Craig. Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2009). Bennett, Stephen J. Ecclesiastes / Lamentations, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2010). Berges, U. ‘Zion and the Kingship of Yhwh in Isaiah 40–55’. In ‘Enlarge the Site of Your Tent’: The City as Unifying Theme in Isaiah, ed. L. H. M. Van Wieringen and Annemarieke van der Woude, 95–119 (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Blenkinsopp, Joseph. ‘Cityscape to Landscape: The “Back to Nature” Theme in Isaiah 1–35’. In ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak, 35–44, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Bullock, C. Hassell. An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2007). Camp, Claudia V. ‘Introduction’. In Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, 1–17 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). Cohen, A. trans. Midrash Rabbah: Ecclesiastes (London: Soncino, 1983). Cohen, A. trans. Midrash Rabbah: Lamentations (London: Soncino, 1983).



Bennett Among the Ruins of a Walled City

233

Dahood, Mitchell. ‘Canaanite-Phoenician Influence in Qoheleth’. Bib 33 (1952): 191–221. de Geus, C. H. J. Towns in Ancient Israel and in the Southern Levant (Leuven: Peeters, 2003). Delitzsch, F. Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891). Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. Weep, O Daughter of Zion: A Study of the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible, BibOr 44 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1993). Fox, Michael V. A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). Fredericks, Daniel C. ‘Life’s Storms and Structural Unity in Qoheleth 11.1–12.8’. JSOT 16 (1991): 95–114. Frick, Frank S. The City in Ancient Israel (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1977). Fritz, Volkmar. The City in Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). Ginsburg, Christian. The Book of Ecclesiastes: Translated from the Original Hebrew with a Commentary, Historical and Critical (1861; repr. New York: Ktav Publishing, 1970). Gordis, Robert. Koheleth—The Man and his World: A Study of Ecclesiastes (New York: Schocken, 1968). Gordon, Robert P. Holy Land, Holy City: Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible, Didsbury Lectures (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004). Grabbe, Lester L., and Robert D. Haak, eds. ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East, JSOTSup 330 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Harris, J. Gordon. Biblical Perspectives on Aging (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987). Hengstenberg, Ernest W. A Commentary on Ecclesiastes (repr.; Mulberry, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 1960). King, Philp J., and Lawrence E. Stager. Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). Kraus, Matthew. ‘Christian, Jews, and Pagans in Dialogue: Jerome on Ecclesiastes 12:1–7’. HUCA 70–71 (1999–2000): 183–231. Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991). Levy, Ludwig. Das Buch Qoheleth (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1912). Lohfink, Norbert. Qohelet: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003). Longman, Tremper. The Book of Ecclesiastes, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). Mathys, H.-P. ‘‫’שקף‬. TDOT 15:462–65. Maier, Christl M. ‘Body Space as Public Space: Jerusalem’s Wounded Body in Lamentations’. In Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, 119–38 (New York: T&T Clark International, 2008). Ogden, Graham. Qoheleth (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987). Perdue, Leo G. Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994). Provan, Iain. Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001). Rogerson, J. W., and John Vincent. The City in Biblical Perspective, Biblical Challenges in the Contemporary World (London: Equinox, 2009). Scott, R. B. Y. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, AB 18 (New York: Doubleday, 1965).

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Seow, C. L. Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18C (New York: Doubleday, 1997). Soggin, J. Alberto. Joshua: A Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1972). Soja, Edward W. Seeking Spatial Justice, Globalization and Community (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). Stegemann, Hartmut. The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). Taylor, Charles. Dirge of Coheleth in Ecclesiastes XII Discussed and Literally Interpreted (Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1874). Thaumaturgus, Gregory. Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 6:9–17 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Co., 1886). Treier, Daniel J. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2011). Van Wieringen, L. H. M., and Annemarieke van der Woude, eds. ‘Enlarge the Site of Your Tent’: The City as Unifying Theme in Isaiah (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Wetzstein, J. G. ‘Excurse zum Hohenliede und zu Koheleth’. In F. Delitzsch, Hoheslied und Kohelet, 444–55 (Leipzig: Dorffling & Franke, 1875). Whitley, Charles Francis. Koheleth: His Language and Thought (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979). Woudstra, Marten H. The Book of Joshua, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981).

I n d ex of R ef er e nce s Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Genesis 1–11 164, 173, 174 1 175 1.2 231 2.17 179 3.17 177 3.19 179 4 164, 170, 171, 174, 178, 179 4.1–24 220 4.1–16 169 4.2 166–69, 173 4.6 174 4.8 167, 173 4.9 167, 179 4.11 173 4.12 170, 176 4.13–14 176, 179 4.14 173, 176 4.15 176 4.16 176 4.17–24 172 4.17 4, 13, 151, 164–75, 178, 179 4.18–24 170 4.18 168 4.20–22 171, 172 4.20–21 169 4.20 167–69, 171, 172 4.21–22 171 4.21 167–69, 172

4.22 172 4.26 174 5 179 5.15–16 168 6–8 175, 179 6.1 174 9.11 178 9.20 174 10 164, 168, 173 10.8–12 151 10.8 167, 174 10.10–12 164, 173 10.19 29 11 151, 164 11.1–10 220 11.1–9 13, 164, 173, 174 11.4 178 11.6 174 11.28 30 12.8 66 13.3 29, 66 13.10–13 178 13.12 29 14.12 178 15.18 78 18.24 29 18.26 29 19.1 178 19.20–22 178 19.37 167 19.38 167 24.10 171 24.11 171 24.13 171 24.60 21

25.6 167 25.11 167 25.16 29 25.27 172 28 66 28.12 221 28.19 58 31.13 66 31.27 172 33.19 26 34.2 30 34.20 167 34.26 167 35.1–15 66 35.21 29 37.2 166 39.22 166 41.46 176 47.10 176 49.24 205 49.26 202 49.27 203 76 204 76.2 203, 204 76.3 202, 203, 205 76.4 202, 203, 205 76.5 202, 204, 205 76.6 203–5 76.7 203 76.8 203, 204 76.9 202–4 76.10 203, 204 76.11 203–5 76.12 202, 203

236 Exodus 1.11 21 3.8 81 3.17 81 12.21 45 13.5 81 14.2 29 14.21 210 15.14 210 15.15 210 23.31 78 33.3 81 35.20 176 Leviticus 20.24 81 25.29 30 27.10 190 27.33 190 Numbers 2.3 29 2.10 29 2.18 29 2.25 29 13 79 13.18–19 80 13.19 28 13.27–29 80 13.27 81 13.28 30 14.8 81 16.13 81 16.14 81 20.26 167 20.28 167 21.4 93 24.5 29 31.10 29 33.7 29 34.1–2 77 34.10–12 77 35.5 25 35.9–34 21

Index of References Deuteronomy 1.1–5 77, 78 1.1 77 1.2 77 1.3 77 1.4 77 1.5 77 1.7 78 1.19–45 79 1.19–21 79 1.19–20 77 1.19 79 1.21 79, 80 1.22–28 79, 80 1.22 79, 80 1.24 79 1.25 80 1.26 79, 80 1.27–29 80 1.28 30, 79 1.29–33 79 1.31–33 80 1.31 79 1.33 79 1.35 80 1.40 79 1.41–45 79 1.41 79 1.42 79 1.43 79 2–4 78 2.8 77 2.29 78 2.36 29 3.4–5 28 3.4 30 3.5 30, 224 3.8–10 77 3.8 78 3.14 77 3.20 78 3.25 78 3.27 78 4.21–22 78 4.21 78, 80 4.22 78

4.25–28 155 4.26 78 4.46–49 77 4.46 78 4.48 29 6 82, 84–86 6.1–3 82 6.1–2 83 6.1 83 6.2 83 6.3 81, 82 6.4–6 83 6.7–9 83 6.10–12 82 6.10–11 82 6.10 82 6.11 82 6.12 82 6.14–15 83 8 86 8.3–4 85 8.7–16 85 8.7 85 8.8 85 8.9 85 8.12 85 8.13 85 8.14 85 8.15–16 85 8.17 82 9.1 30, 78 9.6 80 11 83–86 11.1 78, 83 11.2 83 11.8 83 11.9 81, 83 11.10–12 83 11.10 83 11.11 83 11.12 83, 84 11.13 83 11.14–17 84 11.14 84 11.16–17 83 11.16 84

11.17 80, 84 11.30 78 11.34 78 12–26 10, 74 12.10 78 12.11 159 12.12 22 12.15 22 14.21 22 14.23 159 14.27 22 16.2 159 17.5 21 21.19 29 22.15 21 24.6 228 26.9 81 26.15 81 27.2 78 27.3 81 27.4 78 27.12 78 28.3 30 29.20–22 31 30.18 78 31.2 78 31.13 78 31.20 81 32.11 20 32.47 78 33.15 203 34.1–4 78 Joshua 1.4 78 2.5 225 2.15 227 2.19 224 5.6 81 5.13–15 218 5.77 218 6.1 224 6.3–7 93 6.19 222 6.20 221 8.12 58

237

Index of References 8.13 29 10.2 30 11.17 29 12.16 66 13.28 30 14.12 30 14.15 30 15.5 77 15.15 30 15.37 29 15.45 26 16.1 66, 77 18.13 66 19.38 29 19.47 167 20.4 21 21 21 21.11–12 25 21.11 26 Judges 1.22–26 67 1.23 58 1.27 26 1.35 24 4.5 67 4.7 175 7.19 230 8.17 221 9 176 9.9 176 9.11 176 9.13 176 9.28 26 9.46–49 29 9.49 221 9.52 221 9.53 228 16.3 224 16.21 228 20–21 67 20.18 67 20.26–28 67 20.44 225 21.2 67

Ruth 4.1 22, 224 4.11 22 1 Samuel 5.12 27 6.18 28 7.16 67, 93 10.5 172 15.5 170, 171 17.20 29 18.9 166 21.7 ET 205 21.8 205 23.7 224 26.15–16 225 2 Samuel 5–6 130 5.7 23 6.19 175 12.27 21 15.2 27 20.19 26 1 Kings 2.10 23 3.7 224 4.13 30 4.21 ET 78 5–8 130 5.1 78 5.5 23, 220 7.15 93 8.16 23 8.37 30 8.44 23 8.48 23 9.13 28 9.15–19 21 9.19 21 10.12 172 10.26 21 11.36 23 12.29–33 67 13 67

238 1 Kings (cont.) 14.21 23 16.13 167 16.24 24 21 130 22 43 32.36 30 2 Kings 2 68 2.23 58 3.9 93 6.25 228 7.10 22 9.15 21 10.25 22 10.29 68 14.25 29 17.9 29, 130 17.28 68 17.30–31 152 18.4 156 18.8 29 18.13 154 18.16 224 22 37, 43 23 43, 68 23.1 44 23.4–20 156 23.7 45 23.8 45 23.17 58 23.21 45 23.24 156 23.25 45 23.27 23, 46 1 Chronicles 1.43 27 1.46 27 1.50 27 4.14 172 4.32–33 29 5.9 78 6 21 16.5 172

Index of References 18.3 78 25.1 172 2 Chronicles 8.4 21 8.5 224 11.5 21 13.19 68 33.7 167 33.14 93 Ezra 2.28 68 Nehemiah 3 224 3.1 221, 224 3.3 224 3.6 224 3.11 221 3.13–15 224 3.15 221 3.25 221 3.26 224 3.28 224 3.31 224 7.32 68 8.16 29 11.25–30 30 11.31 68 11.35 172 13.19 14, 225 Esther 9.19 28 Job 5.15 228 8.6 20 9.7 229 16.12–14 227 24.14 228 29.7 30 30.31 172 31.10 228 31.35 224

38.10 22 38.17 30 39.7 175 40.22 93 Psalms 2.9 230 9.14–15 30 15.4 190 31.12 ET 230 31.13 230 33.18 84 34.15 ET 84 34.16 84 37.14 228 46 13, 182–85, 188, 189, 199, 202, 207, 209, 213, 214 46.1 197, 211 46.2 188, 193, 195, 197–99, 201 46.2 ET 191 46.2–4 188 46.3–4 188, 189, 192, 196–98, 201 46.3 188–91, 193, 195, 199, 200 46.4 23, 182, 192, 199, 221 46.5 188, 191, 192, 197– 200, 201 46.5 ET 31 46.5–8 188 46.5–6 196 46.6–7 198 46.6 31, 182, 188, 200, 201 46.7 188, 193, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201

46.8

188, 192, 193, 195, 198, 201 46.9–12 188 46.9–10 188, 197 46.9 183, 192, 195 46.10–11 198, 201 46.10 185, 193, 197–201 46.11 183, 188, 192, 195–97, 199, 200, 201 46.12 188, 193, 195, 197, 198, 201 48 13, 182–85, 188, 207, 209, 210, 212–14, 221 48.1 24 48.2 182, 208, 210, 211 48.2 ET 30 48.2-6 208 48.2–4 211 48.2–3 ET 31 48.2–3 207–209 48.3–4 31, 209 48.3 30, 211 48.4–9 208 48.4 195, 207, 209, 211 48.5–8 207 48.5–7 210 48.5 208, 210, 211 48.6–7 210 48.6 210, 211 48.7 209–11 48.8 182, 207–10 48.8 ET 31 48.9 31, 207, 208–12 48.10–12 208, 209

239

Index of References 48.10–11 48.10 48.11–15 48.11

207 208, 212 209 208, 209, 211 48.12–15 183, 207 48.12–14 211 48.12 209, 210, 212 48.13–15 183 48.13–14 208, 209, 212 48.13 209, 211 48.14 209, 212 48.15 208, 210, 212 49 211 55.9–11 ET 220 55.9–10 20 55.10–12 220 68.34–36 192 76 13, 182–85, 187, 188, 202, 206, 208, 212–14 76.2–6 202 76.2–3 202 76.3 201, 204, 208 76.4 203 76.5–10 203 76.5 201, 203 76.6 201, 204, 206 76.7 202, 204, 206 76.8–9 182 76.8 202, 203, 205, 206 76.9–10 203 76.9 202, 203, 205, 208 76.10 202, 203, 205, 207 76.11 202, 204– 206

76.12–13 76.12

183, 203 183, 201, 204, 206 76.13 202, 203, 207 78.8 187 78.12 187 78.25 205 78.56–64 156 84 183, 184, 212 87 183, 212 87.1–3 31 87.2 22 87.3 23 96.11 208 90.11 203 96.11 208 97.1 208 97.8 208 99.9 24 106 106 106.20 190 107 178 107.4 178 107.7 178 107.18 30 114:3 210 115.1–8 155 122 30, 183, 184, 212 122.1–5 31 123.2 227 127.1 23, 226 132.2 205 132.5 205 135.15–18 155 137.2 172 150.1 172 150.3–4 172 Proverbs 3.35 190 5.21 84 7.6–8 227 8.3 30

240 Proverbs (cont.) 11.10 27 15.3 84 18.10–11 31 21.22 31 Ecclesiastes 1 223 2 223 2.4–8 223 3.1 223 3.17 223 7.19 31 8.6 223 9.9 232 9.15 31 11.1–12.7 221 11.1 221 11.2 14, 221 11.4 221 11.6 221 11.8–9 221 12 220–25, 227–29 12.1–7 14, 217–19, 223, 232 12.1 14, 221, 223, 229, 231 12.3–7 222 12.3–4 220 12.3 14, 220, 222, 225–29 12.4 14, 220, 222, 224, 225, 228, 231 12.5 220, 222, 225–27, 230, 231 12.6 220, 222, 230 12.7 220, 222 Song of Songs 1 96 2 96 2.7 96 2.15 94

Index of References 3

93, 96, 99, 102 3.1–5 93 3.1 93, 96, 97 3.2 93 3.3 97 3.4 94, 97 5 94, 98, 102 5.2–6.1 93 5.2–3 98 5.2 96, 98, 99, 102 5.3 96, 102 5.4 94 5.5 95 5.6–7 97 5.6 94, 97 5.7 95, 97, 98, 102 6.2 96 7.11 96 8.4 96 Isaiah 1 109–11 1.7–8 111, 221 1.7 109 1.8 109 1.21 20 1.27 110 2.2 221 3.23 95 5.14 175 11.9 221 13 154 13.7 229 13.19–22 31, 224 14 174 14.4–23 154 14.31 22, 27 15.3–4 230 15.4 29 21.1–9 154 21.9 152 22.2 20 23 153 24 111, 113

24.1 113 24.2 113, 227 24.3 113 24.5 224 24.6 229 24.7–8 113 24.8 172 24.10 225, 231 24.11 230, 231 24.12 225 26.1 30, 31 26.5 31 27.13 23 28.6 21 30.29 23 32.13–14 224 32.14 175 33 111 33.8 113 34.8–11 224 34.11–13 31 34.13–15 224 38.10 30 40.1 116 41.17 228 41.18 115 42 116 42.4 222 44 116 44.9–20 155 44.26–28 231 45 116, 158 45.1–7 116 46 158 46.1–7 157 46.1–2 156, 157 46.12 205 47 154, 158 47.8–9 24, 26 49.9–13 115 49.11–12 116 49.11 116 49.13 116 49.14–15 116 49.26 205 50.1 24 54.1 31

54.4 24 54.13 26 56.7 23 60.14 152 60.16 205 62.2 152 62.4 152 62.12 83, 152 66.20 23 Jeremiah 1 109 1.2–4 109 1.7 109 1.9 109 1.10 109, 110 1.11–12 226 1.15 109 1.16 109 1.19 24 2 46 2.11 190 2.28 152 4 111 4.23–28 112 4.23 229 5.1 46 5.6 46, 226 5.17 20 6.25 225 7 46, 47 7.1–15 152 7.9–12 156 7.9–11 47 7.14 156 7.16–20 156 7.17–18 47 7.19–27 47 7.34 229 8.14 47 8.16 30 8.19 152 9.5 223 9.9 223 9.19 230 9.20 230 9.20 ET 230

Index of References 9.21 47 9.21 ET 230 10.1–16 155 11.5 81 12 111 12.8 192 13.19 155, 225 14.2–3 112 15.7 30 16.9 229 17.17–18 221 19 48 21 47 21.6 153 21.9 47 21.10 23 22.1 23 22.5 23 22.6 23 22.28 230 23 111 23.9–10 112 24.6 84 25.10 14, 229 26 43 26.6 23 26.9 23 26.12 23 26.15 27 29.7 27 30.6 229 30.17 83 31 117 31.2–12 115 31.2 115 31.3 119 31.4 115, 119 31.5 115, 119 31.12 115, 119 31.14 115 31.28 226 32.22 81 33.5 27 33.10–13 115 33.10–11 229 33.10 115 33.12 115

241 35 48 35.1–11 26 36 37, 46, 48 36.5 48 36.19 48 36.21 49 36.26 49 36.32 49 37 49 37.4 49 37.6–10 49 37.15 49 37.21 228, 229 38 49 38.2 31 44.1 29 44.15–23 156 44.27 226 46.14 29 48.11 190 48.18 24 48.38 230 49.26 230 50–51 154, 158 50.2–3 155 50.12 152 50.16 172 50.30 230 50.39 31 51.2 221 51.4 30 51.9 31 51.44 158 51.53 31 Lamentations 1.1 26, 31, 223 1.4 227 1.5 27, 31 1.16 27 1.18 227 1.20 8 1.21 221 2.5–7 23 2.21 227 3.2 229 3.6 229

242 Lamentations (cont.) 4.1 225 5.4 228 5.11–14 227 5.13 228 5.15 231 5.17 227 5.18 223 Ezekiel 7.23 20 8.17 132 9.9 20, 132 11 20 16 123, 126, 159 16.2 24 16.3–6 26 16.3 225 16.8 24 16.20–21 26 16.20 27 16.45–57 26 16.49 220 20.6 81 20.15 81 20.40 23 21.25 30 21.36 205 22 126 22.30 30 23 123, 126 23.4 27 23.37 24 25.4 29 26–28 153 29.10 29 30.6 29 33.21–22 123 34 126 38.11 28 40–48 12, 139 40.2 127 40.3 127 43.6–9 130 45 127 45.1–8 123

Index of References 45.1–6 127 45.1–5 128 45.2–4 132 45.2 136 45.6–7 123 45.6 128, 130 45.7–8 129 45.8 129 47.14 132 47.18 77 48 127 48.1–27 132 48.8–22 123 48.8 129 48.9–22 126 48.10–13 128 48.14 190 48.15–22 123 48.15–17 136 48.15–16 132 48.15 128, 130 48.16–19 139 48.17 136 48.18–19 136 48.18 138 48.19 128 48.20 127 48.21–22 129 48.28 132 48.30–35 123 48.30–34 134 48.35 140, 152

Amos 3.14 67 4.1 220 4.8 27 5.5–6 67 5.8 229 5.11 85 5.14 193 5.16 230 5.18–20 229 6.1 24 6.8 31

Hosea 2.5–9 ET 84 2.5 228 2.7–11 84 4.7 190 4.15 67 8.14 20 10.5–13 67

Habakkuk 2.18–19 155 3.11 229

Joel 2.2 229 2.6 229 2.10 229

Jonah 1.2 27 2.6 30 3.3 30 Micah 1.13 154 2.4 190 3.11 193 4.1–4 220 4.1 221 4.4 220 4.8 24, 29 5.2 210 7.11 30 Nahum 3.1 20 3.13 30

Zephaniah 1.13 85 1.15 229 2.13–15 153 2.13–14 31 3.6 31 3.11 24 3.14 27

Zechariah 2.4 ET 137 2.8 137 4.2–3 222 7.2 68 8.3 152 8.16 21 9.2–4 153 New Testament Matthew 18.6 228 Luke 1.39 171 17.33–36 229 Revelation 18.22–23 229 21.12–13 142 21.16 142 21.22 142

243

Index of References Apocrypha Ecclesiasticus 7.18 190 Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 131a 228 Josephus Antiquities 1.61–62 170 1.114 178 Classical and Ancient Christian Literature Homer Odyssey 6.49–53 38

Ancient Near Eastern Sources Atrahasis I.vii:354–59 175 II.i.3–8 175 Gilgamesh XI:11 175 XI:23 175 XI:35 175 XI:40 175 KAI §22

31

Sefire I A. 32–34 31

I n d ex of A ut hor s Abramsky, S. 227, 232 Abusch, Z. 159, 162 Ackerman, S. 155, 156, 162 Ackroyd, P. 106, 121 Adriaen, M. 221, 224, 231, 232 Allen, L. C. 123, 127, 129, 130, 134, 141, 143 Alt, A. 60, 70 Alter, A. 70 Alter, R. 65 Arav, R. 55, 70 Ayduk, O. 193, 215 Bachelard, G. 100, 103 Bakhtin, M. M. 36, 40 Bandstra, B. 178, 179 Barbour, J. 223, 227, 230–32 Barnett, C. 74, 87 Barr, J. 136, 143 Barstad, H. M. 68, 70 Bartholomew, C. 226, 230–32 Barton, J. 156, 195, 215 Basho, M. 51 Beevers, R. 124, 125, 131, 139, 140, 142, 143 Begrich, J. 183, 215 Ben Zvi, E. 153, 162 Bender, B. 76, 87 Benjamin, D. C. 7, 15, 82, 87 Benjamin, W. 90, 103 Bennett, S. J. 223, 232 Berges, U. 231, 232 Berman, M. 39, 51 Berquist, J. L. 8, 15, 17, 32, 36, 51, 55, 56, 70, 73–75, 87 Biddle, M. E. 18, 24, 32 Black, F. 97, 103 Blenkinsopp, J. 60, 68, 71, 127, 133, 141, 143, 217, 224, 232 Block, D. I. 127, 129, 133, 134, 137, 143 Blum, E. 55, 71 Boals, A. 193, 215 Bodi, D. 175, 179

Boer, R. 36, 52, 95, 103 Boes, T. 35, 52 Bonnemaison, J. 107, 121 Booij, T. 184 Booth, R. J. 186, 216 Borges, J. L. 100, 103 Bourguet, D. 24, 32 Brahinsky, R. 3 Briggs, C. A. 199, 215 Briggs, E. G. 199, 215 Brodsky, H. 57, 71 Brosseau, M. 63, 71 Brueggemann, W. 106, 121 Buccellati, G. 15 Budde, K. 168, 169, 179 Bullock, C. H. 226, 232 Burke, A. A. 29, 32 Burnett, J. S. 68, 71 Burras, V. 97, 103 Calvin, J. 58, 71 Calvino, I. 40, 51, 52 Camp, C. V. 8, 15, 32, 36, 51, 55, 56, 66, 70, 71, 73–75, 87, 218, 219, 232 Carr, D. M. 6, 60, 62, 71 Carroll, R. 109, 112, 115, 121, 147, 162 Casey, E. S. 75, 87 Cassuto, U. 166, 167, 179 Chavel, C. D. 170, 179 Cheyne, T. K. 184 Childe, V. G. 19, 32 Childs, B. 111, 113, 116, 121 Chung, C. K. 186, 191, 194, 195, 215 Clavel, P. 125, 142, 143 Clements, R. 109, 111–13, 115, 121 Cohen, A. 221, 231, 232 Cohen, C. 26, 32 Cohn, M. A. 194, 215 Connolly, P. 7, 15 Cooke, G. A. 123, 127, 133, 134, 143 Cosgrove, D. 107, 119, 121 Craigie, P. C. 211, 214



Index of Authors

245

Dahood, M. J. 211, 215, 230, 233 Dalglish, E. R. 57, 71 Dalley, S. 173, 179 Daniels, S. 107, 108, 119, 121 Daube, D. 176, 179 Davies, D. 108, 121 Davies, P. R. 60, 61, 71 Davis, E. 106, 118, 121 Day, L. 25, 32 De Geus, C. H. J. 19, 28, 30, 33, 55, 71, 130, 137, 143, 224, 227, 229, 230, 233 Deist, F. E. 156, 162 Delitzsch, K. 219, 227, 233 Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. 223, 230, 231, 233 Dodge, H. 7, 15 Donald, J. 91, 92, 101, 103 Douglas, G. C. M. 59, 71 Driver, G. R. 26, 33, 179 Driver, S. R. 166 Dumbrell, W. J. 59, 66, 71 Dunn, K. 110, 122

Garrett, D. 94, 103 Gates, C. 19, 33 George, A. R. 150, 152, 162 Gerstenberger, E. S. 183, 184, 215 Giddens, A. 22 Gillingham, S. E. 182, 183, 185, 215 Ginsburg, C. 219, 222, 226, 233 Glaeser, E. 4, 15 Glissant, E. 97, 103 Gomes, J. F. 56, 61, 62, 67, 68, 71 Gonzales, A. 186, 216 Gordis, R. 226, 227, 231, 233 Gordon, R. P. 7, 15, 219, 220 Gortner, E.-M. 194, 215 Grabbe, L. L. 5, 6, 15, 19, 25, 27, 33, 220, 233 Gray, J. 21, 33 Greenberg, M. 127–29, 132, 142, 143 Gressmann, H. 157, 162, 174, 180 Gunkel, H. 183, 184, 215 Gunn, D. M. 56, 71

Edelman, D. 60, 71 Eichrodt, W. 127, 143 Eissfeldt, O. 59, 71 Ellul, J. 6, 15, 33 Exum, J. C. 94, 96, 103

Haak, R. D. 5, 15 Hallo, W. W. 150, 162, 165, 168, 180 Halm, K. 165, 180 Halpern, B. 60, 71 Hammond, M. 7, 15 Harris, J. G. 226, 233 Havrelock, R. 77–79, 87 Hayes, K. 111–13, 121 Heim, K. M. 18, 33 Hengstenberg, E. W. 222, 233 Herzog, Z. 21, 22, 33 Heyde, H. 173, 180 Hiebert, T. 174, 180 Hill, J. 147, 148 Hillers, D. R. 85, 87 Holloway, S. W. 157, 162 Hones, S. 63, 71 Hook, D. 102, 104 Hoppe, L. J. 129, 143 Hossfeld, F.-L. 182–84, 202, 210, 211, 215 Howard, E. 124–26, 131–33, 135, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143 Howard, S. 117, 121 Hyatt, P. J. 68, 71

Falk, M. 99, 103 Festa-McCormick, D. 64, 65, 71 Finkelstein, I. 59, 71, 105 Fishman, R. 126, 143 Fleming, D. E. 23, 29, 33 Fontaine, C. 96, 98, 103 Fox, M. V. 222, 224, 233 Fraade, S. 151, 162 Francis, D. 118, 119, 121, 193 Francis, M. E. 189, 216 Franke, C. 157, 162 Franxman, T. W. 170, 180 Fredericks, D. C. 226, 233 Freestone, R. 137, 142, 143 Freud, S. 100, 103 Frick, F. S. 7, 15, 20–25, 30, 31, 33, 169, 171, 177, 180, 224, 233 Fritz, V. 7, 15, 55, 71, 228, 233 Fry, E. 19, 28, 33 Fuller, P. 107, 121 Fustel de Coulanges, N. D. 6, 15

246

Index of Authors

Inglis, F. 76, 87 Ireland, M. 186, 216 Jacobsen, T. 175 Jacobsen, Th. 150, 162, 180 Jeremias, J. 183, 215 Johnson, M. 18, 20, 33 Joüon, P. 166, 180 Joyce, P. 127, 143 Keil, C. F. 173, 180 Kellagher, L. 118, 119, 121 Kellermann, D. 29, 33 Kelso, J. L. 59, 71 Kessler, M. 148, 162 Kidner, D. 59, 72 King, L. A. 216 King, P. J. 225, 230, 233 Klein, K. 193, 215 Knauf, E. A. 61, 68, 72 Koenen, K. 56, 57, 61, 72 Köhlmoos, M. 56, 61, 72 Kong, L. 110, 122 König, E. 167, 177, 180 Kort, W. A. 62, 72 Körting, C. 184, 215 Kramer, S. N. 175 Kraus, H.-J. 183, 184, 202, 210, 215, 221, 224, 231, 233 Kripenz, J. 17 Kross, E. 193, 215 Lakoff, G. 18, 20, 33 Lambert, W. G. 151, 162, 175, 180 Latham, A. 74, 87 Laughlin, J. C. H. 57, 72 Lay, T. C. 189, 191, 194 199, 216 Lefebvre, H. 17, 33, 41, 52, 55, 72, 218, 233 Lehan, R. 65, 72 Levtow, N. B. 149, 156, 158, 162 Levy, L. 226, 233 Livingstone, A. 159, 162 Livingstone, D. 57, 72 Lohfink, N. 230, 233 Lohr, J. N. 176, 180 Longman, T. 219, 233 Lundbom, J. R. 23, 33

Maier, C. M. 7, 15, 17, 19, 33, 75, 87, 147, 162, 223, 233 Mallory, E. W. 63, 72 Marcus, J. 7, 15 Massey, D. B. 74, 87 Master, D. M. 26, 34 Mathys, H.-P. 227, 233 Matthews, V. H. 61, 66, 67, 72 Maurus, R. 175 Mayes, A. 79, 83, 87 Mayne, T. J. 189, 193, 216 McCarter, K. P. 180 McCarter, P. K. 170 McKay, G. 119, 121 McKenzie, J. 116, 121 McNutt, P. M. 56, 71 Mehl, M. R. 194, 215 Mehl, R. 191, 215 Mellinkoff, R. 175, 180 Meredith, C. 24, 33, 74, 87 Miles, J. C. 26, 33 Millar, W. R. 66, 72 Millard, A. R. 175, 180 Miller, C. W. 18, 19, 33 Miller, P. D. 172, 180 Mills, M. 8, 17, 23, 30, 33, 121 Moore, S. 97, 103 Moran, W. 154, 162 Muir, R. 110, 120, 121 Munro, J. 93, 104 Muraoka, T. 166, 180 Mutuis, H.-G. von 165, 170, 171, 177, 180 Na’aman, N. 57, 61, 72 Nelson, R. D. 77, 79, 82–84, 87 Neophytou, G. 118, 119, 121 Niederhoffer, K. G. 191, 216 Nisbett, R. E. 195, 215 Oakes, T. 63, 64, 72 Ogden, G. 223, 233 Ollenburger, B. C. 7, 15, 184, 209, 216 Olwig, K. R. 75, 87 Oosting, R. 184, 216 Oswalt, J. N. 156, 162 Otto, E. 20, 28, 33, 171



Index of Authors

Pardes, I. 95, 104 Pennebaker, J. W. 186, 189–91, 193–95, 199, 215, 216 Perdue, L. G. 229, 231, 233 Pfeiffer, H. 67, 72 Pile, S. 92, 104 Pohlmann, K.-F. 129, 132, 139, 143 Pope, M. 93, 94, 96, 104 Preston, P. 65 Price, J. 20, 33 Provan, I. 231, 233 Rad, G. von 171, 180 Rainey, A. F. 57, 72 Rich, J. 7, 15 Richards, P. 120 Richardson, M. 117, 121 Robert, A. 93, 104 Robertson, I. 120 Rogerson, J. W. 7, 15, 89, 104, 220, 233 Rohland, E. 185, 216 Rollston, C. A. 6, 16 Rolston, H. III 75, 76, 87 Rösel, H. N. 25, 33 Russell, J. M. 155, 162 Ryssel, K. V. 166, 180 Sabloff, J. A. 7 Sailhamer, J. H. 176, 180 Sarna, N. M. 66, 72, 171, 180 Sasson, J. M. 168, 180 Saunders, A. 63, 72 Schart, A. 17, 33 Schaudig, H. 157, 162 Schloen, J. D. 26, 34 Schmitt, J. J. 18, 33 Schniedewind, W. M. 6, 16 Scott, R. B. Y. 226, 233 Scully, S. 38, 52 Seagal, J. D. 191, 216 Seebass, H. 173, 176, 177, 180 Seow, C. L. 222, 226, 228, 230, 231, 234 Seybold, K. 183, 216 Sheriffs, D. C. T. 147, 162 Short, J. 105, 121 Simpson-Housley, P. 63, 65, 72 Singer-Avits, L. 59, 71 Skinner, J. 169, 181

247

Sleeman, M. 73, 87 Smith, M. S. 17, 19, 24, 25, 29, 30, 34 Soggin, J. A. 218, 234 Soja, E. 17, 34, 36, 52, 55, 72, 74, 87, 92, 218, 219, 234 Southall, A. 5, 16 Spaemann, H. 177, 181 Spirn, A. W. 108, 121 Spurrell, G. J. 166, 181 Stager, L. E. 26, 34, 225, 230, 233 Stamm, J. J. 20, 34 Stavrakopoulou, F. 156, 162 Stegemann, H. 229, 234 Steiner, M. 160, 162 Stern, P. D. 81, 88 Stinespring, W. 26, 34 Stone, L. D. 194, 216 Tate, M. E. 202, 216 Tausczik, Y. R. 186, 191, 193, 216 Taylor, C. 219, 226, 227, 230, 231, 234 Terrien, S. 184, 2 Thaumaturgus, G. 218, 234 Tigay, J. 81, 82, 84, 88 Till, K. 113, 114, 121 Toorn, K. van der 6, 16, 158, 163 Tournay, R. J. 93, 104 Treier, D. J. 226, 234 Tschumi, B. 100, 104 Tuan, Y-F. 75, 88, 110, 111, 122 Tuell, S. S. 143 Twain, M. 173 Ussishkin, D. 153, 163 Van de Mieroop, M. 7, 16, 150, 163 Vawter, B. 129, 143 Vermeylen, J. 165, 181 Vincent, J. 7, 15, 89, 104, 220, 233 Wallace-Hadrill, A. 7, 15 Wallis, G. 170, 171, 181 Ward, S. V. 124, 125, 143 Watson, R. S. 185, 186, 216 Weber, M. 27, 34 Weinfeld, M. 79, 83, 88, 166, 181 Weintraub, W. 190, 216 Westenholz, J. G. 150, 158, 163

248

Index of Authors

Westermann, C. 29, 34, 169, 181, 184, 185, 216 Wetzstein, J. G. 227, 234 Wevers, J. W. 177, 181 Whitley, C. F. 230, 234 Whybray, N. 116 Winchester, H. 110, 122

Wolde, E. van 18, 19, 22, 34 Woudstra, M. H. 218, 234 Zenger, E. 182–84, 202, 210, 211, 215 Zevit, Z. 156, 163 Zimmerli, W. 123, 127, 129, 132–34, 143