The Women's Bible Commentary is a trusted, classic resource for biblical scholarship, written by some of the best f
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Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction to theTwentieth-Anniversary Edition
Introduction to the Expanded Edition
Introduction to the First Edition
Contents
Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
Introduction to the Expanded Edition
Introduction to the First Edition
When Women Interpret the Bible
Women as Biblical Interpreters before the Twentieth Century
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
GENESIS
Introduction
Comment
Exodus
Introduction
Comment
Leviticus
Introduction
Comment
Numbers
Introduction
Comment
Deuteronomy
Introduction
Comment
Joshua
Introduction
Comment
Judges
Introduction
Comment
Ruth
Introduction
Comment
1 and 2 Samuel
Introduction
Comment
1 and 2 Kings
Introduction
Content
1 and 2 Chronicles
Introduction
Comment
Ezra–Nehemiah
Introduction
Comment
Esther
Introduction
Comment
Job
Introduction
Comment
Psalms
Introduction
Proverbs
Introduction
Comment
Ecclesiastes
Introduction
Comment
Song of Songs
Introduction
Comment
Isaiah
Introduction
Comment
Jeremiah
Introduction
Comment
Lamentations
Introduction
Comment
Ezekiel
Introduction
Comment
Daniel
Introduction
Comment
Hosea
Introduction
Comment
Joel
Introduction
Comment
Amos
Introduction
Comment
Obadiah
Introduction
Comment
Jonah
Introduction
Comment
Micah
Introduction
Comment
Nahum
Introduction
Comment
Habakkuk
Introduction
Comment
Zephaniah
Introduction
Comment
Haggai
Introduction
Comment
Zechariah
Introduction
Comment
Malachi
Introduction
Comment
Women’s Religious Life in Ancient Israel
Introduction
The Apocrypha
Introduction to the Apocrypha
1 Esdras
Introduction
Comment
2 Esdras
Introduction
Comment
Tobit
Introduction
Comment
Judith
Introduction
Comment
The Greek Book of Esther
Introduction
Comment
The Wisdom of Solomon
Introduction
Sirach
Introduction
Comment
Baruch
Introduction
Comment
The Letter of Jeremiah
Introduction
Comment
The Greek Book of Daniel
Introduction
Comment
The Prayer of Manasseh
Introduction
Comment
1 Maccabees
Introduction
Comment
2 Maccabees
Introduction
Comment
3 Maccabees
Introduction
Comment
4 Maccabees
Introduction
Comment
Psalm 151
Introduction
Comment
New Testament
Gospel of Matthew
Introduction
Comment
Gospel of Mark
Introduction
Comment
Gospel of Luke
Introduction
Comment
Gospel of John
Introduction
Comment
Acts of the Apostles
Introduction
Comment
Romans
Introduction
Comment
1 Corinthians
Introduction
Comment
2 Corinthians
Introduction
Comment
Galatians
Introduction
Comment
Ephesians
Introduction
Comment
Philippians
Introduction
Comment
Colossians
Introduction
Comment
1 Thessalonians
Introduction
Comment
2 Thessalonians
Introduction
Comment
1 Timothy
Introduction to the Pasto ral Epistles
Introduction to First Timoth y
Comment
2 Timothy
Introduction to 2 Timoth y
Comment
Titus
Introduction to Titus
Comment
Philemon
Introduction
Comment
Hebrews
Introduction
Comment
James
Introduction
Comment
1 Peter
Introduction
Comment
2 Peter
Introduction
Comment
1, 2, and 3 John
Introduction
Comment: 1 John
Comment: 2 John
Comment: 3 John
Jude
Introduction
Comment
Revelation/Apocalypse of John
Introduction
Comment
Beyond the Canon
The Religious Lives of Women in Early Christianity
Introduction
Acknowledgments
THoROUGHLY UPDATED EDITION OF THE BEST-SELLING CLASSIC
WOM E N ’ S B I B L E COM M E N TA RY
“With this edition of the Women’s Bible Commentary, the blessings of feminist mothers and their offspring are visited upon readers unto the third generation. Interpretive essays in reception history alongside reliable introductions to canonical and deuterocanonical texts provide varieties of voices, views, and values that can serve well lay groups and the academic community.” —Phyllis Trible, Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature, Emerita, Union Theological Seminary
Testament, Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary
Carol A. Newsom is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. She was the 2011 President of the Society of Biblical Literature. Sharon H. Ringe is Professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary. Jacqueline E. Lapsley is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.
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Commentaries
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-23707-3
www.wjkbooks .com
e d i t i o n
edition
Newsom Ringe Lapsley ed i to r s
Women’s Bible Commentary Tw e n t i e t h - A n n i v e r s a r y E d i t i o n
Revised and Updated
Tw e n t i e t h - A n n i v e r s a r y E d i t i o n
The Women’s Bible Commentary is a trusted, classic resource for biblical scholarship, written by some of the best feminist scholars in the field today. This twentieth-anniversary edition features brand-new or thoroughly revised essays to reflect newer thinking in feminist interpretation and hermeneutics. It comprises commentaries on every book of the Bible, including the apocryphal books; essays on the reception history of women in the Bible; and essays on feministcritical method. The contributors raise important questions and explore the implications of how women and other marginalized people are portrayed in biblical texts, looking specifically at gender roles, sexuality, political power, and family life, while challenging long-held assumptions.
t h i r d
Women’s Bible Commentary
“The Women’s Bible Commentary has established itself as an important reference point in the ongoing work of hermeneutics. This new, greatly expanded edition takes seriously the noticeable changes that have occurred in scholarship and interpretation.” —Walter Brueggemann, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old
third
Carol A. Newsom Sharon H. Ringe Jacqueline E. Lapsley ed i to r s
Women’s Bible Commentary
An illustration from the fifteenth-century manuscript Des cleres et nobles femmes depicts Erythraea wearing a blue gown and turning the page of a manuscript on the lectern of a golden altar decorated with icons and books. A rich library with ornately clasped books is visible within the Gothic architectural frame.
Women’s Bible Commentary Revised and Updated Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley editors
© 1992, 1998, 2012 Westminster John Knox Press First edition published 1992. Second edition published 1998. Third edition Published by Westminster John Knox Press Louisville, Kentucky 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396. Or contact us online at www.wjkbooks.com. Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission. The editors have given authors the interpretive freedom to replace the NRSV’s rendering of the name of God as Lord with YHWH, if they wished to do so. See acknowledgments, p. 648, for additional permission information. Book design by Drew Stevens Cover design by Lisa Buckley Cover illustration: Des cleres et nobles femmes. Ca. 1450 Mss. Text. Spencer collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Used by permission. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Women’s Bible commentary / Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley, editors. — 3rd ed., twentieth anniversary ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-664-23707-3 (alk. paper) 1. Bible—Commentaries. 2. Women—Middle East—History. 3. Women—Rome—History. I. Newsom, Carol A. (Carol Ann), 1950– II. Ringe, Sharon H. III. Lapsley, Jacqueline E., 1965– BS491.3.W66 2012 220.7082—dc23 2012011194 printed in the united states of america The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Westminster John Knox Press advocates the responsible use of our natural resources. The text paper of this book is made from 30% postconsumer waste. Most Westminster John Knox Press books are available at special quantity discounts when purchased in bulk by corporations, organizations, and special-interest groups. For more information, please e-mail [email protected].
Dedicated to Jane D. Schaberg, who died during the preparation of this volume, and to the memory of Tikva Frymer-Kensky, a contributor to the original edition.
Contents
xiii Abbreviations xv Contributors xxi Introduction to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition xxv Introduction to the Expanded Edition xxvii Introduction to the First Edition 1
WHEN WOMEN INTERPRET THE BIBLE Sharon H. Ringe
11
WOMEN AS BIBLICAL INTERPRETERS BEFORE THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Carol A. Newsom
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 27 GENESIS Susan Niditch Eve and Her Interpreters 46 Anne W. Stewart Sarah, Hagar, and Their Interpreters 51 Elaine James 56 EXODUS Nyasha Junior Miriam and Her Interpreters 67 Elaine James
viii Contents
70 LEVITICUS Hannah K. Harrington 79 NUMBERS Katharine Doob Sakenfeld 88 DEUTERONOMY Carolyn Pressler 103 JOSHUA Amy C. Cottrill Rahab and Her Interpreters 109 Amy H. C. Robertson 113 JUDGES Susanne Scholz Deborah, Jael, and Their Interpreters 128 Anne W. Stewart
Jephthah’s Daughter and Her Interpreters 133 Anne W. Stewart
Delilah and Her Interpreters 138 Josey Bridges Snyder 142 RUTH Eunny P. Lee 150
1 AND 2 SAMUEL Jo Ann Hackett
164
1 AND 2 KINGS Cameron B. R. Howard
Jezebel and Her Interpreters 180 Josey Bridges Snyder
184
1 AND 2 CHRONICLES Christine Mitchell
192 EZRA–NEHEMIAH Tamara Cohn Eskenazi 201 ESTHER Sidnie White Crawford 208 JOB Carol A. Newsom
Job’s Wife and Her Interpreters 216 Anne W. Stewart
221 PSALMS Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford
Contents
232 PROVERBS Christine Roy Yoder 243 ECCLESIASTES Jennifer L. Koosed 247 SONG OF SONGS J. Cheryl Exum 255 ISAIAH Patricia K. Tull 267 JEREMIAH Kathleen M. O’Connor 278 LAMENTATIONS Kathleen M. O’Connor 283 EZEKIEL Jacqueline E. Lapsley 293 DANIEL Carol A. Newsom 299 HOSEA Gale A. Yee 309 JOEL L. Juliana M. Claassens 312 AMOS Amy Erickson 319 OBADIAH L. Juliana M. Claassens 321 JONAH Kelly J. Murphy 326 MICAH Judy Fentress-Williams 329 NAHUM Julie Galambush 335 HABAKKUK Amy C. Merrill Willis 339 ZEPHANIAH Katie M. Heffelfinger 343 HAGGAI Julia M. O’Brien 346 ZECHARIAH Julia M. O’Brien
ix
x Contents
350 MALACHI Ingrid E. Lilly 354
WOMEN’S RELIGIOUS LIFE IN ANCIENT ISRAEL Carol Meyers
The Apocrypha 365 INTRODUCTION TO THE APOCRYPHA Eileen M. Schuller 367
1 ESDRAS Eileen M. Schuller
370
2 ESDRAS Karina Martin Hogan
376 TOBIT Eileen M. Schuller 383 JUDITH Denise Dombkowski Hopkins
Judith and Her Interpreters 391 Nicole Tilford
396 THE GREEK BOOK OF ESTHER Adele Reinhartz 404
WISDOM OF SOLOMON Sarah J. Tanzer
410 SIRACH Pamela Eisenbaum 418 BARUCH Patricia K. Tull 423 THE LETTER OF JEREMIAH Patricia K. Tull 426 THE GREEK BOOK OF DANIEL Nicole Tilford Susanna and Her Interpreters 432 Nicole Tilford 436 THE PRAYER OF MANASSEH Patricia K. Tull 438
1 MACCABEES Kelley Coblentz Bautch
Contents
444
2 MACCABEES Colleen M. Conway
450
3 MACCABEES Sara R. Johnson
455
4 MACCABEES Judith H. Newman
460
PSALM 151 Carol A. Newsom
New Testament 465
GOSPEL OF MATTHEW Amy-Jill Levine
478
GOSPEL OF MARK Elizabeth Struthers Malbon
493
GOSPEL OF LUKE Jane D. Schaberg and Sharon H. Ringe
Mary and Her Interpreters 512 Brittany E. Wilson 517
GOSPEL OF JOHN Gail R. O’Day
Mary Magdalene and Her Interpreters 531 Brittany E. Wilson 536 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES Margaret Aymer 547 ROMANS Beverly Roberts Gaventa 557
1 CORINTHIANS Jouette M. Bassler
566
2 CORINTHIANS Jouette M. Bassler
570 GALATIANS Carolyn Osiek 576 EPHESIANS E. Elizabeth Johnson 581 PHILIPPIANS Carla Swafford Works
xi
xii Contents
585 COLOSSIANS E. Elizabeth Johnson 588
1 THESSALONIANS Monya A. Stubbs
592
2 THESSALONIANS Mary Ann Beavis
595
1 TIMOTHY Joanna Dewey
602
2 TIMOTHY Joanna Dewey
604 TITUS Joanna Dewey 605 PHILEMON Mitzi J. Smith 608 HEBREWS Mary Rose D’Angelo 613 JAMES Gay L. Byron 616
1 PETER Cynthia Briggs Kittredge
620
2 PETER Cynthia Briggs Kittredge
622
1, 2, AND 3 JOHN Gail R. O’Day
625 JUDE Leticia A. Guardiola-Sáenz 627 REVELATION/APOCALYPSE OF JOHN Tina Pippin 633
BEYOND THE CANON Deirdre Good
640 THE RELIGIOUS LIVES OF WOMEN IN THE EARLY CHURCH Margaret Y. MacDonald 648 Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Eccl. Ecclesiastes Song Song of Songs Isa. Isaiah Jer. Jeremiah Lam. Lamentations Ezek. Ezekiel Dan. Daniel Hos. Hosea Joel Joel Amos Amos Obad. Obadiah Jonah Jonah Mic. Micah Nah. Nahum Hab. Habakkuk Zeph. Zephaniah Hag. Haggai Zech. Zechariah Mal. Malachi
Gen. Genesis Exod. Exodus Lev. Leviticus Num. Numbers Deut. Deuteronomy Josh. Joshua Judg. Judges Ruth Ruth 1 Sam. 1 Samuel 2 Sam. 2 Samuel 1 Kgs. 1 Kings 2 Kgs. 2 Kings 1 Chr. 1 Chronicles 2 Chr. 2 Chronicles Ezra Ezra Neh. Nehemiah Esth. Esther Job Job Ps. (Pss.) Psalms Prov. Proverbs
Apocrypha Let. Jer. Gr. Dan. Pr. Man. 1 Macc. 2 Macc. 3 Macc. 4 Macc. Ps. 151
1 Esd. 1 Esdras 2 Esd. 2 Esdras Tob. Tobit Jdt. Judith Gr. Esth. The Greek Book of Esther Wisd. Sol. The Wisdom of Solomon Sir. Sirach Bar. Baruch
xiii
The Letter of Jeremiah The Greek Book of Daniel The Prayer of Manasseh 1 Maccabees 2 Maccabees 3 Maccabees 4 Maccabees Psalm 151
xiv Abbreviations
New Testament Matt. Matthew Mark Mark Luke Luke John John Acts Acts of the Apostles Rom. Romans 1 Cor. 1 Corinthians 2 Cor. 2 Corinthians Gal. Galatians Eph. Ephesians Phil. Philippians Col. Colossians 1 Thess. 1 Thessalonians 2 Thess. 2 Thessalonians
1 Tim. 1 Timothy 2 Tim. 2 Timothy Titus Titus Phlm. Philemon Heb. Hebrews Jas. James 1 Pet. 1 Peter 2 Pet. 2 Peter 1 John 1 John 2 John 2 John 3 John 3 John Jude Jude Rev. Revelation
Other Abbreviations Aram. Aramaic BCE Before the Common Era (=B.C.) CE Common Era (=A.D.) DH Deuteronomistic History JB Jerusalem Bible LXX Septuagint NAB New American Bible NEB New English Bible
NETS New English Translation of the Septuagint NIV New International Version NJB New Jerusalem Bible NRSV New Revised Standard Version par(s). parallel(s) REB Revised English Bible RSV Revised Standard Version vol(s). volume(s)
Contributors
Margaret Aymer Associate Professor of New Testament Interdenominational Theological Center Atlanta, Georgia Acts of the Apostles
L. Juliana M. Claassens Associate Professor of Old Testament Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch, South Africa Joel; Obadiah
Jouette M. Bassler Professor Emerita of New Testament Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas 1 and 2 Corinthians
Colleen M. Conway Professor of Religious Studies Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey 2 Maccabees Amy C. Cottrill Assistant Professor of Religion Birmingham-Southern College Birmingham, Alabama Joshua
Kelley Coblentz Bautch Associate Professor of Religious Studies St. Edward’s University Austin, Texas 1 Maccabees
Sidnie White Crawford Willa Cather Professor of Classics and Religious Studies University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska Esther
Mary Ann Beavis Professor of Religion and Culture St. Thomas More College Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 2 Thessalonians
Mary Rose D’Angelo Associate Professor of Theology University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana Hebrews
Gay L. Byron Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School Rochester, New York James
xv
xvi Contributors
Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages Mercer University Atlanta, Georgia Psalms
Beverly Roberts Gaventa Helen H. P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton, New Jersey Romans
Joanna Dewey Harvey H. Guthrie Jr. Professor Emerita of Biblical Studies Episcopal Divinity School Cambridge, Massachusetts 1 and 2 Timothy; Titus
Deirdre Good Professor of New Testament General Theological Seminary New York, New York Beyond the Canon
Pamela Eisenbaum Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins Iliff School of Theology Denver, Colorado Sirach Amy Erickson Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible Iliff School of Theology Denver, Colorado Amos Tamara Cohn Eskenazi Professor of Bible Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion Los Angeles, California Ezra–Nehemiah J. Cheryl Exum Professor Emerita of Biblical Studies University of Sheffield Sheffield, United Kingdom Song of Songs Judy Fentress-Williams Professor of Old Testament Virginia Theological Seminary Alexandria, Virginia Micah Julie Galambush Associate Professor of Religious Studies The College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia Nahum
Leticia A. Guardiola-Sáenz Assistant Professor of Christian Scriptures School of Theology and Ministry Seattle University Seattle, Washington Jude Jo Ann Hackett Professor of Middle Eastern Studies University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 1 and 2 Samuel Hannah K. Harrington Professor of Old Testament Patten University Oakland, California Leviticus Katie M. Heffelfinger Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics Church of Ireland Theological Institute Dublin, Republic of Ireland Zephaniah Karina Martin Hogan Associate Professor of Theology and Women’s Studies Fordham University New York, New York 2 Esdras Denise Dombkowski Hopkins Woodrow and Mildred Miller Professor of Biblical Theology Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, DC Judith
Contributors
Cameron B. R. Howard Assistant Professor of Old Testament Luther Seminary St. Paul, Minnesota 1 and 2 Kings Elaine James Ph.D. Candidate Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton, New Jersey Sarah, Hagar, and Their Interpreters; Miriam and Her Interpreters E. Elizabeth Johnson J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament Columbia Theological Seminary Decatur, Georgia Ephesians; Colossians Sara R. Johnson Associate Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Culture University of Connecticut Storrs, Connecticut 3 Maccabees Nyasha Junior Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament Howard University School of Divinity Washington, DC Exodus Cynthia Briggs Kittredge Ernest J. Villavaso Jr. Professor of New Testament and Academic Dean Seminary of the Southwest Austin, Texas 1 and 2 Peter Jennifer L. Koosed Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies Albright College Reading, Pennsylvania Ecclesiastes Jacqueline E. Lapsley Associate Professor of Old Testament Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton, New Jersey Ezekiel
xvii
Eunny P. Lee Independent Scholar Princeton, New Jersey Ruth Amy-Jill Levine University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies; E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies; Professor of Jewish Studies Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee Gospel of Matthew Ingrid E. Lilly Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky Malachi Margaret Y. MacDonald Professor of Religious Studies St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia The Religious Lives of Women in the Early Church Elizabeth Struthers Malbon Professor, Department of Religion and Culture Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia Gospel of Mark Carol Meyers Mary Grace Wilson Professor of Religion Duke University Durham, North Carolina Women’s Religious Life in Ancient Israel Christine Mitchell Professor of Hebrew Scriptures St. Andrew’s College Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 1 and 2 Chronicles
xviii Contributors
Kelly J. Murphy Conrad J. Bergendoff Fellow, Religion Department Augustana College Rock Island, Illinois Jonah Judith H. Newman Associate Professor of Religion and Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario 4 Maccabees Carol A. Newsom Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Candler School of Theology Emory University Atlanta, Georgia Women as Biblical Interpreters before the 20th Century; Job; Daniel; Psalm 151 Susan Niditch Samuel Green Professor of Religion Amherst College Amherst, Massachusetts Genesis Julia M. O’Brien Paul H. and Grace L. Stern Chair in Old Testament Studies and Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Lancaster Theological Seminary Lancaster, Pennsylvania Haggai; Zechariah Kathleen M. O’Connor William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emerita of Old Testament Columbia Theological Seminary Decatur, Georgia Jeremiah; Lamentations Gail R. O’Day Dean and Professor of New Testament and Preaching Wake Forest University School of Divinity Winston-Salem, North Carolina Gospel of John; 1, 2, and 3 John
Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ Charles Fischer Professor Emerita of New Testament Brite Divinity School Texas Christian University Fort Worth, Texas Galatians Tina Pippin Wallace M. Alston Professor of Religious Studies and Chair, Department of Religious Studies Agnes Scott College Decatur, Georgia Revelation/Apocalypse of John Carolyn Pressler Harry C. Piper Jr. Professor of Biblical Interpretation United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities New Brighton, Minnesota Deuteronomy Adele Reinhartz Professor, Department of Classics and Religious Studies Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario Greek Book of Esther Sharon H. Ringe Professor of New Testament Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, DC, and Extraordinary Professor of Old and New Testament Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch, South Africa When Women Interpret the Bible; Gospel of Luke Amy H. C. Robertson Independent Scholar Atlanta, Georgia Rahab and Her Interpreters Katharine Doob Sakenfeld William Albright Eisenberger Professor of Old Testament Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton, New Jersey Numbers
Contributors
xix
†
Jane D. Schaberg Professor of Religious Studies and Women’s Studies University of Detroit Mercy Detroit, Michigan Gospel of Luke
Nicole Tilford Ph.D. Candidate Emory University Atlanta, Georgia Greek Book of Daniel; Judith and Her Interpreters; Susanna and Her Interpreters
Susanne Scholz Associate Professor of Old Testament Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas Judges
Patricia K. Tull A. B. Rhodes Professor Emerita of Old Testament Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky Isaiah; Baruch; Letter of Jeremiah; Prayer of Manasseh
Eileen M. Schuller Professor, Department of Religious Studies McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario Introduction to the Apocrypha; 1 Esdras; Tobit Mitzi J. Smith Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity Ashland Theological Seminary, Detroit Southfield, Michigan Philemon Josey Bridges Snyder Ph.D. Candidate Emory University Atlanta, Georgia Delilah and Her Interpreters; Jezebel and Her Interpreters Anne W. Stewart Ph.D. Candidate Emory University Atlanta, Georgia Eve and Her Interpreters; Deborah, Jael, and Their Interpreters; Jephthah’s Daughter and Her Interpreters; Job’s Wife and Her Interpreters Monya A. Stubbs Assistant Professor of New Testament Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Austin, Texas 1 Thessalonians Sarah J. Tanzer Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism McCormick Theological Seminary Chicago, Illinois Wisdom of Solomon
Amy C. Merrill Willis Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Lynchburg College Lynchburg, Virginia Habakkuk Brittany E. Wilson Visiting Assistant Professor of New Testament Duke University Divinity School Durham, North Carolina Mary and Her Interpreters; Mary Magdalene and Her Interpreters Carla Swafford Works Assistant Professor of New Testament Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, DC Philippians Gale A. Yee Nancy W. King Professor of Biblical Studies Episcopal Divinity School Cambridge, Massachusetts Hosea Christine Roy Yoder Professor of Old Testament Columbia Theological Seminary Decatur, Georgia Proverbs
Introduction to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
In 1989, when Cynthia Thompson, an editor at Westminster John Knox, first raised the possibility of a one-volume commentary that would focus on feminist biblical interpretation, it was a provocative idea. The second wave of feminism had been underway since the late 1960s, but feminism in biblical studies had only started to gain ground in the mid- to late 1970s. Barely a decade later, it was an open question whether there were yet enough feminist biblical scholars who could write across the entire canon. Moreover, at that time most feminist biblical scholarship was focused on those texts that featured women. How one would do feminist analysis on texts that did not directly speak about women was still a question. Nevertheless, it was a tantalizing opportunity. Some of our decisions about the project were controversial. One involved the name. The Women’s Bible Commentary was an obvious and intentional nod of the head to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s publication of The Woman’s Bible in 1895–98. That project, which had inflamed public opinion when it was originally published, had largely languished in obscurity for decades before it was republished in 1974 by the Seattle-based Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion. The radical freedom to critique and to reinterpret and to re-imagine the representation of women in the Bible that Stanton and her colleagues embodied had been invigorating and empowering to early feminist biblical scholars of what is now known as the second wave of feminism. Even as we paid homage to this groundbreaking work, we differentiated ourselves from it. The change from the singular “Woman’s” to the plural “Women’s” reflected the recognition that, however important gender is as a category, it is always complexly mixed with other categories, including race, ethnicity, class, and dis/ability. That recognition, however, raised other issues. Our project could not possibly represent the variety of emergent feminist interpretation as it was beginning to appear in various geographical, institutional, and experiential contexts. In contrast to Stanton’s project, which was written by women with no “credentials” from the scholarly establishment of the emerging discipline of biblical studies, our project was one written by women who were members (or, as some felt, “quasi-members”) of the scholarly guild. Thus our project was more ambiguously placed between “insider” and “outsider” status. Similarly, although some of Stanton’s colleagues were affiliated with religious denominations, most were proponents of New Thought and Free Thought movements, roughly, the precursors of the current New Age Spirituality and New Atheism movements. While not all of our contributors were affiliated with religious communities, we were, on the whole, much more involved with such communities than was Stanton’s group. xxi
xxii Introduction to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
More troubling from our point of view was the impossibility of fulfilling the promise of plurality represented by the term “Women’s.” There was no way, in 1989 or in 2009, adequately to represent the variety of feminist scholarship as it was being produced in different geographic and social locations. So we made another controversial decision. We decided to be “parochial” and to feature North American feminist scholarship—in as much religious and ethnic diversity as possible, but North American in focus. That was, in part, frankly a pragmatic decision. But it was not only that. On principle, we did not want to engage in the tokenism that picks a bit of this and a bit of that and parades itself as deeply inclusive when it is not. Instead, we made what was a calculated gamble of hope. We embraced “parochial” not in the negative sense of “confined, restricted, insulated” but in the positive sense of “based in the neighborhood.” We sensed that feminist scholarship “otherwise located” was quickly developing into a fascinating network of neighborhoods: African American neighborhoods; Latina neighborhoods; European neighborhoods; African neighborhoods; Asian neighborhoods; lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered neighborhoods; evangelical and post-Christian neighborhoods. Our wager was that a modest parochialism could be the basis for a much richer cosmopolitanism. And so it appears to be happening. The wealth of other projects in feminist scholarship now places this edition of the Women’s Biblical Commentary into a rich context of other feminist voices speaking from a variety of different locations. The current edition of the Women’s Bible Commentary is the third, and it is interesting to see the changes that have been made in each supplementary edition. The first edition oriented itself to the Protestant canon, though it gestured to a broader religious literature. The project was, after all, sponsored by a Presbyterian press. The enthusiastic response to the first edition—not only among Protestants, but also among Catholic, Jewish, and “non-aligned” readers—caused us to rethink the structure of the second, expanded edition. After all, some of the books of most interest to feminist readers are in what Protestants call the Apocrypha and Catholics call the deutero canonical writings. It was clear those should be included. But the original articles were, for the most part, not replaced or revised. As we decided to do a third edition of the Women’s Bible Commentary, we realized that a wholesale revision was needed, for several reasons. First, the field of feminist biblical criticism has developed in profound ways in the last twenty years. Issues that were just beginning to be explored in 1989—the hermeneutical significance of sexual identity, analysis of masculinity, and postcolonial positioning—were, by 2009, very much a part of feminist criticism. Second, the number and variety of feminist biblical critics have increased exponentially. Whereas we were anxious in 1989 about finding a sufficient number of authors to invite, in 2009 we anguished over how many people we would like to invite that we simply could not. We also became aware that in the present day not all of the prominent feminist interpreters are in fact female. A small but significant number of men now identify themselves as doing feminist biblical interpretation. We decided, however, that this volume would continue to feature women authors, even as we celebrate the diffusion of feminist methods into the practice of biblical studies at large. One of the most difficult decisions we had to make was which articles to replace and which to revise and retain. Our principle was to identify some of the most interesting younger women working in the field and to invite them to write for the new edition. Even if that meant replacing some of our cherished previous articles, we decided that it was appropriate for the senior women to make way for the new generation. We have been deeply gratified at the graciousness with which the authors of articles that have been replaced have not only accepted but cheered our initiative to include the work of younger scholars. Finally, in envisioning the new edition of the Women’s Bible Commentary, we realized how much the entire field of biblical studies has changed in the past twenty years.
Introduction to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
One of the most profound changes has been in the new appreciation of the importance of reception history, that is, how Christian, Jewish, and modern secular culture has interpreted the Bible. The meaning of the Bible is not just “what it meant” when it was composed, if ever we could fully reconstruct that. Nor is it simply “what it means” now, as our contemporary societies engage the Bible. What the Bible means and the effects it has had include the entire history of its reception and engagement. Significantly, women characters in the Bible have been the site of extraordinary interpretation and contested interpretation, as many issues, both involving the status of women and involving many other things, have been debated. In order to acknowledge this emerging aspect of biblical studies, we have commissioned thirteen articles that sketch the interpretation of significant female figures from the Bible. Since interpretation takes place not only in words but also in images, we are including a selection of artistic images that are part of this history of interpretation. While much of the interpretation of female figures from the Bible was articulated by men, readers of this commentary have a particular interest in what women interpreters have said. So we have also included an essay on women as interpreters of the Bible in the pre-twentieth-century period. On a more technical note, just as the field of feminist biblical studies has changed over the last twenty years, so have the conventions for editorial practices and citations of biblical and related literature. Were we to be starting anew, we would undoubtedly use the increasingly standard SBL Handbook of Style as our norm. Since the first two editions of the Women’s Bible Commentary were edited according to other practices, however, we have judged it better to retain those editorial conventions. Each time the editors write an introduction to an edition of the Women’s Bible Commentary we think it will be the final one. At some point, of course, this volume will no longer have a role to play. But we are deeply gratified that it has served the needs of so many women and men who are interested in feminist biblical scholarship, and we hope that it can continue to be a valued resource for many years to come. Each introduction has thanked persons whose hard, careful, and painstaking work has been important to the production of the volume. The help of others has been even more significant for this edition. The editors would first like to thank Westminster John Knox editor Marianne Blickenstaff, whose championing of this volume was vital. She carried us through times of perplexity and discouragement as we tried to envision our new edition, and she facilitated the details of our work in so many ways that it is impossible to count them. We offer her our deepest thanks. We were also supported by the extraordinary talents of several student assistants whose knowledge, efficiency, and attention to detail were indispensable. Without Robin McCall, Anne Stewart, Chris Hooker, and Amanda Davis, this volume would simply not have been possible. Jacqueline E. Lapsley Carol A. Newsom Sharon H. Ringe
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Introduction to the Expanded Edition
This edition differs from its predecessor in two ways. First, it includes individual essays on the Apocrypha, or deuterocanonical books. These discussions will enhance the usefulness of the volume to those in parts of the Christian church that include these books in the lectionaries or texts assigned for reading in public worship. Historically, the Apocryphal books were accepted by Orthodox and Roman Catholic communions and rejected by the churches of the Reformation, but as a result of recent ecumenical conversations about worship in general and about lectionaries in particular, Protestant churches also listen for God’s word in these texts. (Since we have included here books that are found in the Roman Catholic, Greek, and Slavonic Bibles in different sequences or only in appendixes, there is no commonly agreed upon order to follow. For convenience and accessibility, we have adopted the sequence used in Harper’s Bible Commentary.) In addition to enhancing the usefulness of the Women’s Bible Commentary in the churches, adding the discussions of these books serves those whose principal interest is historical. The deuterocanonical literature provides significant glimpses into both the lives and religious experiences of women and attitudes toward women in the Second Temple period, which was formative of the Jewish and Christian movements and communities that grew out of that common matrix. The second change to this edition of the Women’s Bible Commentary is the addition of a bibliography at the end of the volume to supplement the bibliographies in the articles of the original edition. Although the field of biblical interpretation by women is growing so rapidly that any such list is out of date before it is published, this brief bibliography provides a glimpse of the rich variety of interpretations of the Bible being done by women in all parts of the world at the time of this publication. The general bibliography thus begins to set our work as North American biblical scholars in its global context and to provide some starting points for readers who wish to explore issues more broadly. We have listed in the bibliography only works readily available in English, and we encourage any who translate this work to expand the bibliography to include books and articles in their languages. The essays on the books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament that formed the original edition of this commentary have not been revised or replaced, with one exception. The chapter “Daniel and Its Additions” has been retitled “The Greek Book of Daniel” and moved to the new section on the Apocryphal/ deuterocanonical books. A new article on the Hebrew and Aramaic book of Daniel
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has been included to replace it in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament section of the commentary. We look forward to the opportunity to prepare a fully revised version of the Women’s Bible Commentary at an appropriate time in the future. We wish to thank Faith Kirkham Hawkins and Jacqueline Lapsley for their assistance in compiling the bibliography. Carol A. Newsom Sharon H. Ringe
Introduction to the First Edition
Although women have read the Bible for countless generations, we have not always been self-conscious about reading as women. There are many reasons why it is important that women do so. Women have distinctive questions to raise about the Bible and distinctive insights into its texts: our experiences of self and family, our relationship to institutions, the nature of our work and daily lives, and our spirituality have been and continue to be different in important respects from those of men. But there is another reason, too. Because of its religious and cultural authority, the Bible has been one of the most important means by which woman’s place in society has been defined. Throughout the centuries, of course, the Bible has been invoked to justify women’s subordination to men. But it has also played a role, sometimes in surprising ways, in empowering women. Increasingly, it is difficult for a woman, whether she is a member of a religious community or not, to read the Bible without some sense of the role it has played in shaping the conditions of her life. During the women’s movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there emerged a clear sense of the need for women to read the Bible self-consciously as women. Just over a hundred years ago Frances Willard, president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, made this appeal: “We need women commentators to bring out the women’s side of the book; we need the stereoscopic view of truth in general, which can only be had when woman’s eye and man’s eye together shall discern the perspective of the Bible’s full-orbed revelation” (Willard, p. 21). To that end she urged “young women of linguistic talent . . . to make a specialty of Hebrew and New Testament Greek in the interest of their sex” (Willard, p. 31). That was a problem. The interpretation of the Bible has always tended to be reserved to the “experts.” In part this has been because of the specialized knowledge of ancient languages that is needed, but it is also a matter of institutional and cultural power. So long as women were excluded from both religious offices and educational opportunities, it was difficult for them to enter into the interpretation of the Bible in an authoritative way. Even as outsiders, however, some courageous women began to interpret the Bible and its bearing on women’s lives. In the 1890s Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a small group of collaborators produced The Woman’s Bible. They excerpted and commented on those portions of the Bible in which women appear—or are conspicuously absent. In their comments the authors attacked both the male bias that had distorted the interpretation of the Bible and the misogyny of the text itself. Sharp and outspoken in its content, witty and pungent in its style, The Woman’s Bible remains a fascinating work. Many of its observations, which seemed so daring at the time, have since come to be widely held, even treated xxvii
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as obvious. But The Woman’s Bible was not, even by the standards of its day, a work of biblical scholarship. Although some women had begun to receive training in biblical languages and in the new forms of scholarship that were starting to make such an impact in biblical studies, they were reluctant to participate in Stanton’s project. In her introduction she observes: Those who have undertaken the labor [of The Woman’s Bible] are desirous to have some Hebrew and Greek scholars, versed in Biblical criticism, to gild our pages with their learning. Several distinguished women have been urged to do so, but they are afraid that their high reputation and scholarly attainments might be compromised by taking part in an enterprise that for a time may prove very unpopular. Hence we may not be able to get help from that class. (Stanton, 1:9)
What was the case in 1895 remained the case for almost three quarters of a century. Although a small but not insignificant number of women continued to be trained in biblical studies, women in the academy did not use their skills to read the Bible from a feminist perspective. It was not until 1964 that a female professor of biblical literature, Margaret Brackenbury Crook, published a study on the status of women in Judaism and Christianity entitled Women and Religion (see Gifford). Although insisting that hers was not a “feminist” project, Crook pointedly observed: [A] masculine monopoly in religion begins when Miriam raises her indignant question: “Does the Lord speak only through Moses?” Since then, in all three of the great religious groups stemming from the land and books of Israel—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—men have formulated doctrine and established systems of worship offering only meager opportunity for expression of the religious genius of womankind. (Crook, p. 1)
The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the increasing number of women attending seminaries renewed interest in what it might mean to read the Bible self-consciously as a woman. Books such as Letty Russell’s The Liberating Word and Phyllis Trible’s God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality introduced many women and men to the new possibilities opened up by feminism for reading and understanding the Bible. With increasing self-confidence and sophistication, feminist study of the Bible has blossomed to become one of the most important new areas in contemporary biblical research. Over the last twenty-five years biblical scholarship by women has come into its maturity. Not only are women prominent in the discussions of traditional topics in biblical studies, but the new questions women have posed and the new ways of reading that women have pioneered have challenged the very way biblical studies are done. There are many different directions that feminist study of the Bible has taken. Some commentators have attempted to reach “behind the text” to recover knowledge about the actual conditions of women’s lives in the biblical period. Others have paid attention to what goes on in the telling of the stories and the singing of the songs, using literary approaches to shed new light on metaphors, images, and narratives about women. Still others have tried to discover the extent to which even the biblical writings that pertain to women are shaped by the concerns and perspectives of men and yet how it can still be possible at times to discover the presence of women and their own points of view between the lines. Many have struggled with the issues of how women in communities of faith can and should read the Bible in the light of what feminist inquiry has discovered. Contemporary feminist study of the Bible has not set out either to bring the Bible into judgment or to rescue it from its critics. But to read
Introduction to the First Edition
the Bible self-consciously as a woman is a complex experience, alternately painful and exhilarating. There is a great sense of empowerment, however, that comes from reading the Bible as a woman in the company of other women. That is an experience that this volume is intended to assist. Although there has been a rapidly increasing number of books and articles on the Bible by women, The Women’s Bible Commentary is the first comprehensive attempt to gather some of the fruits of feminist biblical scholarship on each book of the Bible in order to share it with the larger community of women who read the Bible. The title of this volume pays tribute to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s pioneering work almost a century ago. But whereas she entitled her work the “Woman’s Bible,” we have chosen the plural, “Women’s Bible.” The reason for this is our recognition of the diversity among women who read the Bible and study it. There is no single “woman’s perspective” but a rich variety of insight that comes from the different ways in which women’s experience is shaped by culture, class, ethnicity, religious community, and other aspects of social identity. Indeed, one of the insights of feminism has been the recognition of the extent to which knowledge is perspectival. People see things or are oblivious to them in part because of how they have been formed through their experiences. They ask certain kinds of questions and not others for the same reasons. In choosing contributors for this volume we have tried to represent some of that diversity of perspectives shaped by different ways of being female in our pluralistic culture. Included in this volume are Jewish women, Roman Catholic women, Protestant women. Many are laywomen, but some are members of religious orders or ordained clergy. Our relationship to religious community differs, too. Many of us are actively involved with worshiping communities; some are in an uneasy relationship or can no longer make our spiritual homes within traditional religion; and a few have come to the study of the Bible from secular backgrounds. As work on the volume was coming to an end, we invited the contributors to reflect on some of the factors that had both helped to form their interest in the Bible and shaped their way of interpreting it. For some, a sense of ethnic identity—as African American, Native American, Asian American—has been crucial. For others, too, an experience of crossing cultural boundaries was formative: growing up white in an urban black community in the South, being a European in America or an American in Europe. One contributor who grew up Jewish in a largely Christian neighborhood remarked on the way in which her experience of the sins of anti-Semitism and sexism not only formed her as a child but continues to inform her research. Several contributors indicated the strong connections between their feminist reading of the Bible and their involvement in issues of social justice. Jane Schaberg said eloquently of her work on Luke: This commentary is based on the conviction that feminism and social justice are inextricably linked, and that it is an urgent task to analyze this Gospel’s thinking about women and the poor. The commentary is written in Detroit, which has been called the United States’ first Third World city, where the inadequacies of capitalism and the evils of racism and anti-Semitism are daily experienced. It is also written from a position of anguished, stubborn membership in the Catholic church, whose official leaders currently uphold patriarchal values and resist egalitarian, democratic trends in contemporary society. Reading Luke in this context sharpens perceptions of its weaknesses and strengths.
Yet for all the variety of perspectives reflected in this volume, many voices are not represented or are underrepresented, even from among North American women. Readers might also pause and think how different a commentary on the Bible would be that was written by the women of Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, or the Levant.
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One of the things that all the contributors to this volume have in common is a rather similar type of education. We are, in Frances Willard’s words, “women of linguistic talent” who have decided “to make a specialty of Hebrew and New Testament Greek in the interest of their sex.” To that end we have all spent many years in graduate study in American and European universities. Our commitment to feminism has taught us not only to value expertise but also to be wary of the elitism that often goes with it. For our learning truly to be in the service of the larger community of women, it is vital that our work be shaped in dialogue with the laywomen, clergywomen, and students for whom this volume is intended. Many contributors have long been active in Bible study with women’s groups, and all were encouraged to share their work in progress and receive comments from women in their communities. Claudia Camp, in particular, has stressed how important the women’s Bible study group at South Hills Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, was in shaping the article she wrote on 1 and 2 Kings. Such an experience, Claudia says, helps to dispel the illusion of individual achievement and points toward new models of what authorship really means. If the women of South Hills had a direct role in shaping this volume, there are others whose influence was less direct but no less real. A number of the contributors named their mothers, grandmothers, and other women in their religious communities as the ones who in so many ways taught them how to read the Bible. It may be helpful to say a few words about the contents and organization of the material that follows. One of the realities of the differences among religious communities is that when Jews, Catholics, and Protestants talk about the “Bible,” we all refer to something different. The canon of scripture differs for each community, not only in the number and identity of books included but also in the order in which they appear. In some instances, even the chapter and verse references differ slightly between Jewish and Christian Bibles. As a project sponsored by a Protestant publisher, The Women’s Bible Commentary follows the number and order of the biblical books in the Protestant canon, with one small exception: the deuterocanonical additions to Esther and Daniel, including the story of Susanna, have been grouped with the canonical books. The rest of the Apocrypha, included in the Old Testament by Catholics, is treated here in a separate article. We have designated the first section of the book with the dual title Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, in recognition of the fact that these scriptures have a different identity and role in Judaism and in Christianity. Similarly, we have identified dates with the designation b.c.e. (before the common era) and c.e. (common era). Unless otherwise noted, quotations and chapter and verse references are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. There is one exception. The divine name, YHWH, is traditionally rendered by the title “Lord” in most translations. We have preferred to use either “YHWH” or “Yahweh.” The Women’s Bible Commentary does not intend to be a general or complete commentary on the Bible. Each article on a biblical book does begin with an introduction that orients the reader to the contents of the book and provides an overview of the major issues raised by the book. Rather than asking the contributors to comment on each and every section of the biblical book, we have followed the model of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Woman’s Bible and asked contributors to select for comment those passages that they judged to be of particular relevance to women. What contributors have selected includes not only portions of the Bible that deal explicitly with female characters and symbols but also sections that bear on the condition of women more generally. Aspects of social life, marriage and family, the legal status of women, religious and economic institutions, the ways in which community boundaries were defined and maintained, and other such topics are all treated. In addition, there are discussions of certain symbolic ways of thinking, such as the notion of holiness or dualistic conceptions of the world, that are important for understanding the representation of women in the Bible and in the cultures from which it came. Finally, we have included several articles that go beyond the boundaries of the canon. Two articles consider the
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daily lives of women in the biblical period, drawing both on biblical and nonbiblical sources. One article explores the appearance of women in early Christian literature outside the canon. A final essay is devoted to feminist hermeneutics, that is, to the ways in which women in the modern world are engaged in interpreting and assessing the meaning of biblical texts from a self-consciously feminist perspective. The reading of the Bible is a never-ending task, renewed and refreshed by each new community of readers who bring questions and perspectives nurtured by their own experiences. What we offer on the following pages is not intended as a definitive or final word but more as a model of some of the ways in which women reading as women can engage the biblical text. ***** In addition to the persons whose contributions appear explicitly in the book, there are several whose assistance in the development and preparation of this volume should be acknowledged. Above all, recognition should go to Cynthia Thompson of Westminster/John Knox Press, who first conceived of the project and persuaded us to undertake it. Cynthia’s wise counsel and sense of perspective made the task of editing a much easier one than we could have imagined. Rex Matthews generously took the cacophony of divergent word-processing programs used by forty-one authors and translated the files into forms we could use. Colleen Grant and Dorcas Ford-Doward checked the manuscripts and prepared the final copy. To each of them we offer our thanks. Carol A. Newsom Sharon H. Ringe Bibliography
Crook, Margaret Brackenbury. Women and Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964. Gifford, Carolyn De Swarte. “American Women and the Bible: The Nature of Woman as a Hermeneutical Issue.” In Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, edited by Adela Yarbro Collins, pp. 11–33. Biblical Scholarship in North America 10. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985. Russell, Letty M., ed. The Liberating Word: A Guide to Nonsexist Interpretation of the Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, ed. The Woman’s Bible. 2 vols. New York: European Publishing Co., 1895–1898. Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. Willard, Frances E. Woman in the Pulpit. Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, 1889.
When Women Interpret the Bible Sharon H. Ringe
What on earth does the Bible mean? How can modern readers ever understand the assumptions and language taken for granted by ancient authors and their communities? When the reader is a woman, how is the process of reading the Bible, or the result of that process, different? How has the Bible influenced the lives of women and men through history and in the present? How ought it to shape the lives of women and men who look to it as the norm for faith and practice? What does it mean to call the Bible “the word of God”? What might compel one to say, “On this point, the Bible is wrong”? At the heart of such questions is the process of interpretation.
Interpretation as Active Reading Interpretation of the Bible begins with careful and active reading. Such reading attempts to understand the time, place, and purpose for which a particular biblical book was written, the principal concerns of the author and of the communities that shaped the book, and the meanings of particular terms found in the text. This part of the process is similar to the effort to get to know a conversation partner in order better to understand how she uses words, what life story has shaped him, what prompts the conversation—in short, where he or she is coming from—so as not to impose one’s own agenda on the other and thus mute his or her unique voice. A conversation, however, requires two active partners, and even a person carefully sensitive to where the other is coming from still filters what is heard through his or her own experience. What is perceived is thus not always exactly what was intended, and knowing who is reporting a conversation can be as important as knowing who is speaking! The situation for a reader of an ancient text like the Bible is similar. Although the careful reader attempts to distinguish between the voice of the ancient author and his or her own concerns as a modern interpreter, this distinction is never absolute. The place in history, culture, and society occupied by the reader inevitably influences what she or he can perceive in any text and what questions seem important to ask about the text and its context. Therefore, while commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and other scholarly tools can help in this reading process, each of them represents the work of particular readers. Like the biblical materials they seek to interpret, all such resources too reflect their authors’ contexts. What sets the Women’s Bible Commentary apart from others is its authors’ acknowledged commitment to read the biblical texts through the varied lenses of women’s 1
2 When Women Interpret the Bible
experiences in ancient and modern religious and cultural contexts. The result is an attempt to understand and even to ask questions of the biblical authors, through the legacy of their work, concerning the situation of women in the communities from which they came or which they envisioned as desirable.
Biblical Authority and Interpretation Clearly, women’s perspectives or the consequences for women’s lives were not the primary concern of the biblical authors. In fact, it seems evident that those authors rarely if ever raised such questions. But women reading the Bible do want to know such things: they relate to our foremothers’ histories and to our own lives. An important question faced by interpreters raising such questions is whether they are legitimate. If they are not the agenda of the authors or even of their principal audiences, should—or even can—they be pursued? The question must be approached carefully. On the one hand, the Bible does not address every issue of concern to women of this or any other time, any more than it provides specific answers to modern questions in biomedical ethics. To read such answers or to pursue such explicit agenda within the biblical text would not honor its—or the reader’s—historical context. On the other hand, the literary legacy of the biblical authors does include female characters and introduce issues of special concern to women’s lives. To ask about those is to open up the text itself and to make visible the invisible (and often unconscious) values and assumptions of its author. Such a reading is part of the process of “unmasking” the dominant culture and is the particular talent of persons who live on its margins. Women’s questions about women of biblical times and about the implications of the Bible for women’s lives reflect the fact that, for good or ill, the Bible is a book that has shaped and continues to shape human lives, communities, and cultures in the West, as well as in those other parts of the world under the hegemony or influence of Europe and North America. The Bible is a collection of “classic” texts often referred to in other literature, and the values of these texts (usually as they have been interpreted by dominant or powerful individuals and groups) have shaped both philosophies and legal systems. The Bible has become part of the air we breathe without our even being aware of its presence or power. In addition to that common cultural or even “atmospheric” role, in both Christianity and Judaism the Bible as “scripture” or “canon” bears a variety of kinds of religious authority: guide for conduct, rule of faith, inerrant source of truth (factual and/or moral), and revelation of God. Within these communities, the authority of the Bible is explicit as well as implicit, but often ambiguous and finally ambivalent, especially for women.
The Ambivalent Power of the Bible The Bible is a powerful book. Because of that power, the question of interpretation goes beyond merely understanding the Bible, to ask, “Having understood it as best we can, what is its force in our lives, and what are we to do with or about it?” The question is not an easy one, especially for women. In the first place, the power of the Bible in women’s lives has been at best ambivalent. It has functioned as a force for life, for hope, and for liberation. Women’s lives have been enriched, sustained, and empowered in communities that affirm that within the Bible one encounters not only the divine will for human life and behavior, but the very presence of God. Women have found their own lives mirrored in the stories of quiet, valiant women who experience God’s blessing on them. Poor women long accustomed to feeding their families with a
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handful of flour and a little oil (1 Kgs. 17) find confidence to carry on. For centuries, women have affirmed with Paul that “neither death, nor life . . . nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:38–39). At the same time, women reading the Bible have found themselves on alien and even hostile turf. Rarely if ever do women in the Bible get to speak for themselves. Rather, they are portrayed from the perspective of male authors and in the context of religious communities where authority finally came to be vested in men and where men’s experience was the norm. Women are thus absent from the Bible as persons working out their own religious journeys. It is clear that women have always undertaken such journeys, but within the Bible itself their legacy is not to be found. Rather, women appear—to use a metaphor from grammar—as direct and indirect “objects” and not as “subjects” of the verbs of religious experience and practice. Where aspects of their lives are described in stories or narratives, or where their behavior is prescribed (such as in the legal and moral codes of both testaments), or where women’s lives function as metaphors of religious realities (such as in Hosea or the book of Revelation), women are often “flat” characters, perfectly good or villainously evil, or objects at someone’s disposal. Both the silence of women and their silencing—the contempt in which they are held and the violence with which they are treated—in the Bible mirror the realities of many women’s lives. For them, the Bible is experienced as giving a divine stamp of approval to their suffering. Far from bringing healing of the hurt or empowerment toward freedom from oppression, the Bible seems to bless the harm and abuse with which women live and sometimes die.
Approaches to the Task of Interpretation The different ways women have experienced the power of the Bible individually and as members of different religious, social, and ethnic communities have led to a variety of approaches to the task of interpretation. Those approaches range along a continuum from affirmation that the entire Bible, as the word of God, positively informs faith and practice to, at the other extreme, outright rejection of the entire Bible as hopelessly and irredeemably misogynistic. Many women find themselves working in different ways with different parts of the Bible or in different contexts or occasions of interpretation. There is no single “correct” or “acceptable” way to work, but what should be kept in mind is that the various approaches yield different results or conclusions. Being aware of an interpreter’s approach or stance toward the text is important to one’s understanding or assessment of her work. Women who affirm the authoritative, even binding, role of the Bible as a positive force for women often distinguish sharply between the intent of the biblical authors and the results of interpretation and “application” of biblical teachings. Thus the biblical views of women are seen as affirming and supportive of women’s dignity and worth, and where the Bible has been read as demeaning or even as warranting the abuse of women, the error is seen to lie in the interpretation. Others—many African American and Latin American women, for example— recognize the important role played in past and present liberation struggles of their people by such parts of the Bible as the exodus narrative, the teachings of the prophets, and the teachings of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels. Those interpreters read these parts of the Bible as the heart of Scripture, a “canon within the canon,” which provides the key to interpreting all the rest. Under such a reading, any portion of Scripture that might be detrimental to women is read through the lens of the liberating intent of its heart. In a variation of that interpretive option, which focuses not on a generally “liberating” message but on texts specifically related to women, passages affirming women’s role and value are posited as a countervoice to those “against” women. The former
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are then affirmed as representative of the heart of the biblical message, in their stance against the patriarchal assumptions of the surrounding society. Still other women, recognizing the patriarchal values embedded in all of the biblical writings (despite the wide range of historical contexts out of which they arose and the varied purposes for which they were written), find in the negative views of women in the Bible a mirror of women’s experience in any androcentric or male-centered and male-normed society. They read such texts in memory of the women whose lives are depicted in them and those who have suffered because of them. Such texts also become the raw material for critical reflection on the history, doctrine, and theology that have shaped contemporary communities of faith and practice. The power of such texts to reveal anything about God, or about a community in faithful covenant with God, is denied. Finally, some readers experience the patriarchal values embedded in Scripture as so overwhelming that they no longer read the Bible at all. According to this view, the authority of human experience, and especially of women’s experience, to identify norms of justice and dignity stands in judgment over the human words of the biblical text: what is wrong in the treatment of women today always was wrong, and to continue to find any value in literature that perpetuates such wrong can only extend the harm done. For these readers, the interpretive task relative to the Bible is set aside, and the foundations of women’s spirituality and women’s religious experience are sought elsewhere.
A Chorus of Voices: Contextual Readings The variety of stances taken by women toward the biblical text and its authority is multiplied by other dimensions of difference as well. In each of these dimensions it is important to be aware of the specific factors shaping a particular reading and to incorporate a variety of voices into the project of interpretation.
Variety within the Text The first dimension of diversity of which the interpreter must be aware is that of the biblical materials themselves. Written over more than a millennium and collected over even more years than that, and originating among people living in every size and shape of human society from small tribal communities to cosmopolitan cities, the biblical materials reflect widely different assumptions about social forms and values, theology, and religious practice. It is important to recognize the particular context and, as far as possible, the assumptions that this context would convey, in order not to misconstrue the particular voice of a text. In addition to the variety of historical and social contexts of materials in the Bible, there is also a variety of forms of literature—narratives, poetry, laws, letters, songs, and proverbs, just to name some general categories. These different forms reflect different purposes: one does not write a poem for the same reason that one organizes a code of laws! The different types of material not only reflect different purposes but also have different effects on a reader. The beginning “Once upon a time . . .” invites one to relax, settle back, and listen to a story, whereas the opening phrase “Thou shalt not . . .” evokes both tension and attention—or else! And different types of literature are read in different ways, questioned for different purposes, and assessed by different criteria. In a poem or psalm, for example, one might ask about meter or metaphor, while characterization or plot development would be the concern in a narrative. Even the meaning of “truth” is different in poetry from the meaning in a text that purports to be a historical chronicle.
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The “Context” of a Lectionary The diversity within the Bible and the variety of contexts and purposes that gave rise to it are compounded when modern interpretation takes place in the context of public worship, as part of a “lectionary” or set of readings appointed to be read together. In the Christian church, those readings usually (but not always) include a psalm or other canticle, another reading from the First (or Old) Testament (Hebrew Bible or Apocrypha), a reading from an epistle, and one from a Gospel. Traditionally those readings have been grouped according to the season of the church year or according to the theme of the Gospel reading. Such a grouping provides a new context for interpretation, suggesting that the various readings be read not only for themselves but also as interpreting one another. The danger is that the specificity of each voice and its context will be muted. If one of the readings is focused on a female character or on a teaching or other text of special concern to women, an added danger is that this focus will be lost in a more general thematic study.
A History of Interpretation It is important also to recognize that no modern interpreter comes to the Bible directly. Rather, she or he is influenced (often without being aware of it) by centuries of interpretation whose results become nearly indistinguishable from the text itself. If women are to be able to arrive at a fresh hearing of the biblical traditions as they relate to women, an important part of the task is to be aware of that history of interpretation. Two aspects of that history of interpretation require special mention. One relates to passages such as the household codes of the New Testament (Eph. 5:21–6:9; Col. 3:18–4:1; 1 Pet. 2:18–3:7), which have been read as mandating the submission— and often subsequent abuse—of women, children, and other marginalized people. Regardless of the original intent of such passages, the history of their interpretation has included very hurtful readings, and even a short time listening to the stories of victims and survivors of domestic violence will make this clear. That history of (mis) interpretation and the damage it has caused must be taken into account. A second area where the history of interpretation is particularly relevant to women’s reading relates to the picture that is presented of Judaism. In particular, the representation of that history has often contrasted the worst from among the varied teachings concerned with women in later rabbinic writings with the best of the values and practices related to women attributed to Jesus. In fact, Jewish life in Jesus’ day probably mirrored the ambivalent picture of women’s roles in the teachings stemming from the Jesus movement. In both cases, women’s roles were, by modern standards, circumscribed—but not to the degree that the popular caricature of the silent, veiled Jewish woman shut away in her kitchen would suggest. While it seems that women were active among the followers of Jesus, their roles in that context were probably similar to those of their other Jewish sisters in the life of their families and local congregations.
Interpretation in a Global Context In addition to being attentive to the consequences of the history of interpretation, women from the dominant culture, class, and ethnic group—especially in the United States—need to be careful not to generalize our experience as that of all women. Again, the role of the social, historical, and economic context is crucial in shaping the questions one poses to the biblical material and in affecting what one can—and cannot—see in a text. Interpretation is therefore best done as a community project, where the voices of many different women—poor women and rich women; white women and women of color; single women, married women, divorced women, and widows;
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women from one’s own country and from other parts of the world; lesbians, and bisexual, transgendered, and heterosexual women—can all be heard, if not in person, at least in their writings. With the involvement of many voices, the chorus of interpretation can begin to convey the rich texture of the biblical traditions themselves.
Gender, Language, and Interpretation A particular concern in women’s interpretation is the problem of language and gender. The so-called generic use of words like “man,” “brother,” and “mankind” and of masculine pronouns in traditional translations of the Bible obscures or even negates the participation of women in the communities whose stories are conveyed in the Bible. The translators of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) worked strenuously and systematically to address these problems. Their translation, on which this commentary is principally based, uses words like “person,” “human being,” and “brothers and sisters” where the gender of a person is unspecified or where women as well as men are clearly being addressed. A theological issue of great importance in feminist interpretation that was not addressed by the translators of the NRSV is the problem of language about God. All pronouns referring to God in that translation are masculine singular. The explanation given is that these pronouns (or verb endings, as pronouns are often conveyed in Hebrew) are found in the original languages and that therefore the translation is accurate. In both Greek and Hebrew, however, all nouns have grammatical gender, which governs the gender of pronouns used to refer to the nouns. In that sense, those languages are like such modern languages as Spanish, where, for example, “table” (la mesa) is a feminine noun, requiring a feminine pronoun (ella, “she”). If one were translating from Spanish to English, however, where pronouns convey biological and not merely grammatical gender, the pronoun that refers to “table” would be translated with the neuter “it.” The same freedom prevails in rendering pronouns from Greek or Hebrew. Thus, the decision about which pronouns to use for God is one that cannot be made on grammatical grounds alone. It is a theological decision, and one whose resolution affects the way one views God. An interpretive decision that many women make is not to use any pronouns to refer to God (simply to repeat the word “God” or to use the unvocalized “G-d”), thus conveying the theological affirmation that God is beyond human categories of gender. A related but more complex problem is the use of pronouns and titles (such as “Lord”) to refer to Christ. In the Christian confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, clearly the reference is to a human male. That fact itself presents problems for many feminist interpreters, for whom the idea that women are ultimately dependent on a male for their relationship to God is unacceptable. Whether or not one views Jesus’ being a man as problematic for women, and whatever one might conclude about whether the Christ’s being a male was a historical necessity in the religious tradition into which he came, theologically the accent is on the humanity, not the maleness, of the Christ—according to the creeds, fully human and fully divine. Again, the problem for the interpreter is how to convey that affirmation within the limits of the English language, or how to identify the problem when the structure of the language does not allow it to be resolved.
Conclusion One point that is clear, given the complexity of the task of interpretation, is that one cannot simply read a text and “apply” it to one’s own context. For women in particular,
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the passage from ancient text to contemporary context is much more dynamic and multidimensional. It comes into focus finally in a decision by the interpreter concerning what to do about a particular text one has struggled to understand. Interpretation itself is thus an active project, undertaken in a particular context, in dialogue with many partners both ancient and modern, and with the pastoral and theological purpose of hearing and sustaining a word of healing and liberation in a hurting world. Bibliography
Achtemeier, Paul J., ed. The Bible, Theology, and Feminist Approaches. Interpretation 42 (1988). Bach, Alice, ed. The Pleasure of Her Text: Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts. Philadelphia: Trinity Press Int., 1990. ———. Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 1998. Bal, Mieke. Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Bellis, Alice Ogden. Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. Bird, Phyllis. Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,1991. Brenner, Athalya, and Carole Fontaine, eds. Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. New York: Routledge, 2001. Calvert-Koyzis, Nancy, and Heather Weir. Breaking Boundaries: Female Biblical Interpreters Who Challenged the Status Quo. New York: T. & T. Clark, 2010. ———. Strangely Familiar: Protofeminist Interpretations of Patriarchal Biblical Texts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009. Caron, Gerald, Aldina Da Silva, Olivette Genest, et al. Women Also Journeyed with Him: Feminist Perspectives on the Bible. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000. Cheney, Emily. She Can Read: Feminist Reading Strategies for Biblical Narrative. Philadelphia: Trinity Press Int., 1996. Choi, Hee An, and Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, eds. Engaging the Bible: Critical Readings from Contemporary Women. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2006. Collins, Adela Yarbro, ed. Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship. Biblical Scholarship in North America 10. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985. Davies, Eryl W. The Dissenting Reader: Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003. Day, Linda, and Carolyn Pressler, eds. Engaging the Bible in a Gendered World: An Introduction to Feminist Biblical Interpretation, in Honor of Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. De Groot, Christiana, and Marion Ann Taylor, eds. Recovering Nineteenth-Century Women Interpreters of the Bible. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Dube, Musa W. Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001. ———. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000. Exum, J. Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: Trinity Press Int., 1993. Fabella, Virginia, and Mercy Amba Oduyoye, eds. With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988. Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. ———, ed. Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary. New York: Crossroad, 1993.
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———, ed. Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Introduction. New York: Crossroad, 1993. ———. Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation. New York: Orbis Books, 2001. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. Reading the Women of the Bible. New York: Schocken Books, 2004. ———. Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006. Gench, Frances Taylor. Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. Graham, Susan Lochrie, and Pamela Thimmes, eds. Escaping Eden: New Feminist Perspectives on the Bible. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Guest, Deryn. When Deborah Met Jael: Lesbian Feminist Hermeneutics. London: SCM, 2011. Jobling, J’Annine. Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Theological Context: Restless Readings. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. Klein, Lillian R. From Deborah to Esther: Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Kraemer, Ross Shepard, and Mary Rose D’Angelo. Women and Christian Origins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Laffey, Alice. An Introduction to the Old Testament: A Feminist Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1988. Lancaster, Sarah Heaner. Women and the Authority of Scripture: A Narrative Approach. Philadelphia: Trinity Press Int., 2002. Lapsley, Jacqueline. Whispering the Word: Hearing Women’s Stories in the Old Testament. Annotated edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011. Levine, Amy-Jill. “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. Meyers, Carol, Toni Craven, and Ross Shepard Kraemer, eds. Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001. Ostriker, Alicia Suskin. Feminist Revision and the Bible: The Unwritten Volume. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. Pardes, Ilana. Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1993. Pobee, John S., and Bärbel von Wartenberg-Potter, eds. New Eyes for Reading: Biblical and Theological Reflections by Women from the Third World. Bloomington, IN: Meyer-Stone Books, 1987. Polaski, Sandra Hack. A Feminist Introduction to Paul. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005. Reid, Barbara A. Taking Up the Cross: New Testament Interpretation through Latina and Feminist Eyes. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Russell, Letty M., ed. Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985. Rutledge, David. Reading Marginally: Feminism, Deconstruction, and the Bible. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1992. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. Just Wives: Stories of Power and Survival in the Old Testament and Today. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Scholz, Susanne. Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible. London: T. & T. Clark, 2007. Schottroff, Luise. Let the Oppressed Go Free: Feminist Perspectives on the New Testament. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. Schottroff, Luise, Silvia Schroer, and Marie Theres Wacker. Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women’s Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. Schroer, Silvia, and Sophia Bietenhard. Feminist Interpretation of the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003.
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Selvidge, Marla J. Notorious Voices: Feminist Biblical Interpretation, 1500–1920. New York: Continuum, 1996. Spiegel, Celina, and Christina Buchmann, eds. Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1994. St. Clair, Raquel A. Call and Consequences: A Womanist Reading of Mark. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. The Woman’s Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective. Original publication: New York: European Publishing Co., 1895–98. Several modern editions available. Streete, Gail Corrington. The Strange Woman: Power and Sex in the Bible. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. Taylor, Marion Ann, and Agnes Choi, eds. Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters: A Historical and Biographical Guide. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012. Thurston, Bonnie B. Women in the New Testament: Questions and Commentary. New York: Crossroad, 1988. Tolbert, Mary Ann, ed. The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics. Semeia 28 (1983). Torjesen, Karen J. When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. ———. Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Vander Stichele, Caroline, and Todd Penner. Her Master’s Tools? Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-critical Discourse. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005. Weems, Renita. Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible. San Diego: LuraMedia, 1988. Wegner, Judith Romney. Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Williams, Delores. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995. Yee, Gale A. Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
Women as Biblical Interpreters before the Twentieth Century Carol A. Newsom
In her groundbreaking book, published in 1993, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, historian Gerda Lerner provocatively entitled chapter 7 “One Thousand Years of Feminist Biblical Criticism.” Can that be true? Can it be possible that feminist biblical criticism, which has seemed to be such a new phenomenon, actually has a history that is a thousand years old? The answer, of course, is both yes and no. It depends in part on how one chooses to define “feminist” and “biblical criticism.” But what is undeniable is that Lerner was able to identify repeated efforts by women from the medieval period onward to counter interpretations of the Bible that were used to diminish and limit their spheres of activity and authority and to find within the Bible bases for their own empowerment and authorization for leadership. This is a story that is still largely unknown, even to many feminist biblical critics of the twenty-first century. Indeed, one of the things that Lerner points out is that, although a number of interpretive strategies for dealing with problematic texts recur frequently within the works of feminist biblical interpreters, the interpreters are for the most part completely ignorant of the earlier work of women who had worked out these solutions, sometimes centuries previously. Women have been reinventing the wheel for age after age. Lerner interprets this fact negatively, as something that has held women back. Where men “stood on the shoulders of giants” who preceded them, women started from scratch every time. But perhaps there is another way of assessing this data. Perhaps we should rather use the analogy of science, where a single experimental result is worthless unless it can be replicated. What Lerner’s and others’ histories of women’s biblical interpretation have shown is that women who read the Bible critically and in light of their own experience repeatedly come to the same conclusions. It seems to matter little whether one is European or American, sixteenth century or nineteenth century, educated or self-taught. What is wrong with misogynistic texts and the misogynistic interpretation of texts reveals itself again and again to women. Lerner’s “thousand years” is, even as she acknowledges, probably not the entire time during which women have been active in interpreting biblical texts that have been used either to restrict or empower them. For as long as the Bible has been authoritative and employed in local contexts to organize religious activity, women have been engaging or resisting interpretations that affect their roles. Unfortunately, our sources for reconstructing these negotiations are very limited in every period, but they are particularly lacking for late antiquity and the early medieval period. We begin to get some sense of women as biblical interpreters only in the high Middle Ages, particularly in the writings of nuns, especially those who were highly placed as abbesses or other leaders within female monastic communities. 11
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Marginalized from the religious hierarchy of the priesthood and from the emerging universities, these women often self-authorized their voices through mystical experiences. Of these women, the most significant for the history of feminist biblical interpretation is Hildegard of Bingen. As one would expect, she worked from within the normative interpretations of her time; but she found space for resistance and reinterpretation within those boundaries. Hildegard acknowledged that women were physically weaker because they were created from Adam’s flesh, whereas he was created out of the dust of the earth; but she turned that fact into a claim that, having been made from finer stuff, women were therefore suited to more skilled work, presumably spinning, weaving, and sewing. The image of the “garment” was not only used literally but in Hildegard’s work was a potent symbol for the incarnation, a role in which the woman Mary played an essential role. The hermeneutical strategy of noting the different raw materials of males and females becomes a staple of later feminist biblical interpretation. It is sometimes used in complementarian ways, as Hildegard primarily uses it, and sometimes as an argument for female superiority. Daringly, Hildegard draws a parallel between the woman Eve and Christ, noting that both are engendered not from semen but from human flesh—Adam’s and Mary’s. As for the fall, in contrast to most male theologians of the time, Hildegard places most of the blame upon Satan. But why did Satan approach Eve rather than Adam? Hildegard does describe Eve as “weaker” and “softer” than Adam, though she does not mean this in a moral sense but rather in a physical and dispositional sense. Thus it was fortunate that Satan targeted Eve, for “if Adam had sinned before Eve, that transgression would have been so grave and incorrigible, and man would have fallen into such great, unredeemable stubbornness, that he neither would nor could have been saved. Hence, because Eve transgressed first, the sin could more easily be undone, since she was weaker than the male” (cited in Newman, 114–15). Hildegard did defend women as fully made in the image of God, an issue of some dispute in the medieval period. Moreover, she found in the images of Eve, Mary, the Woman Clothed with the Sun in Revelation, and, above all, Wisdom, a symbol of the feminine aspect of the Divine. Indeed, a surprising number of interpretive insights that will be repeated throughout the centuries of women’s biblical interpretation are already presaged in the work of Hildegard of Bingen. Somewhat less is known about the biblical interpretive activity of Jewish women in the medieval period. The women most likely to be educated and trained as interpreters of the Bible and halakah (religious law) were the daughters of learned rabbis who had no sons. Such was the case with the most famous of the medieval rabbis, Rashi. His three daughters, Johabed, Miriam, and Rachel, were educated by their father. When he was too ill to write himself, they served as his secretaries. A tradition even exists that they were themselves the authors of the commentary on the Talmudic tractate Nedarim, but it appears impossible to verify or refute that tradition. Given the limited information about Rashi’s daughters, it is impossible to know if any of their interpretive work addressed the specific concerns of women. Renaissance Italy was also a context within which a small number of highly educated Jewish women were renowned for their scholarship, including Pomona da Modena of Ferrera (late fifteenth c.) and Fioretta (Bathsheba) da Modena (sixteenth c.), though they had no public roles. In a few cases, Jewish women have been identified as public teachers of Jewish law, the best known of whom is Mariam Shapira Luria, who was known by the honorific title Rabbanit Miriam. Although she is said to have taught in Padua, Italy, even the dates of her life are a matter of dispute (thirteenth to fifteenth c.), and there is no information about the content of her teaching. Better attested is Asenath, the wife of Rabbi Jacob Mizrahi (sixteenth and seventeenth c.). With her husband she lectured and maintained a yeshiva in northern Iraq. After his death, she continued to teach and lead the yeshiva, despite serious financial difficulties. A different model of the
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public role of a learned Jewish woman is that of the seventeenth-century Venetian Sara Copia Sullam, who, though fluent in Hebrew, was also educated in the classical traditions. A poet and patron of both Jewish and Christian intellectuals, she was attacked in a published pamphlet by the priest Baldassar Bonifaccio for allegedly denying the immortality of the soul. Her reply, written just two days later, is a brilliant display of immense learning, sharp wit, and relentless logic. That a Jewish woman should engage in public disputation about theological topics with a Catholic priest was a feat of considerable daring at a time when the Inquisition was still powerful. Sources for women’s interpretive activity also become more plentiful for the Christian women of the Renaissance and early modern periods. Even though the number of highly educated women was extremely small, what is remarkable is the sharpness of their focus on issues that we would identify as feminist. Perhaps the most remarkable of these women is Christine de Pizan (1365–ca. 1429). Superbly educated by her father in Paris, she was widowed early and supported her family by copying and illustrating books (in an all-female workshop) and by publishing her own writings. Her most famous book, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405), was a response to a genre of highly misogynistic literature (“the quarrel about women”) that emerged in the late medieval period attacking women’s minds, bodies, behaviors, and will. Christine de Pizan imagines a vision in which the ladies Reason, Rectitude, and Justice appear to her to tell the truth about women. As a woman trained in the classical sources that were so important in Renaissance France, much of her work focuses on exemplary pagan women. But she also lifts up as exemplary biblical women such as Miriam, Esther, Susanna, and Ruth, and the female martyrs of the early church, thus refuting the calumnies that had been leveled against women. Moreover, she engages certain classic theological “blame the woman” arguments in an artful way. In an innovative twist on the felix culpa argument (if no sin, then no salvation), she says this: “And if anyone would say that man was banished because of lady Eve, I tell you that he gained more through Mary than he lost through Eve when humanity was conjoined to the Godhead, which would never have taken place if Eve’s misdeed had not occurred” (de Pizan, 24; I.9.3). Thus the key moments of human history, being, and meaningfulness are mediated through women. Much of the attention of the learned women of the Renaissance was occupied by the “Eve question.” One of the most remarkable pieces of literature was produced by the superb humanist from Verona, Isotta Nogarola (1418–66). Apparently deriving from an actual correspondence carried out between her and the Venetian humanist Ludovica Foscarini, the “Dialogue on the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve” (1451) is a literary disputation in which they debate whether Adam or Eve was the greater sinner. Throughout the debate Isotta refutes the notion that Eve was more to blame. To be sure, some of her arguments are based on Eve’s greater weakness and inconstancy. But for that very reason, she is the less culpable. Eve’s relative insignificance is turned to tactical advantage. Isotta works closely with the biblical text. Citing Genesis 3:17–19, she notes that God says to Adam, “You ate of the tree about which I commanded you [singular].” Thus, it was only Adam, and not Eve, who had been directly commanded not to eat from the tree. And if her action was wrongful, it was simply because she desired pleasure (Gen. 3:6), not because she wanted to “be like God.” Thus her sin was minor. Similarly, Isotta invokes 1 Corinthians 15:22, which says that it was on account of Adam (not Eve) that all die, and she concludes that if only Eve had eaten from the tree, then there would have been no lasting consequence (Lerner, 146–47). No one, I suspect, ever won an argument with Isotta Nogarola, no matter the fact that the conventions of the literary dialogue required a kind of even distribution of the argument as a means of conclusion. Whereas Isotta wrote from a position of privilege, a more traumatic situation was responsible for the writings of Arcangela Tarabotti (1604–52). Forced against her will to become a nun, because her father considered her to be the least marriageable of his
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six daughters, she wrote a book entitled Paternal Tyranny. Hers was a fate shared by many young women whose families could not pay the high dowries required to marry their daughters. In her book she rereads the narratives of biblical women victimized by men in light of her own experience. Naturally, the story of Jephthah’s daughter has a critical place in her argument, although she represents Jephthah in a surprisingly favorable light; she treats him as an anguished victim of his unbreakable vow, in contrast to the voluntary violence inflicted upon Venetian daughters by their fathers, who forced them into monastic lives that they had not chosen. She also defended Eve as a victim of the devil’s deception, Dinah (Gen. 34) as a rape victim, not a seductress, and Bathsheba as also defenseless against the more powerful David. In another text that, unfortunately, has not been translated (Che de donne siano della specie degli uomini, 1651), she refuted a misogynist publication that argued that women were not human beings, citing biblical examples to counter the author’s contentions. Although France and Italy were centers of Renaissance humanism, early modern England also became a context for significant early feminist writing. Aemilia Lanyer (1569–1645) was herself Italian by background, the daughter of an Italian musician in the Tudor court. After her father’s death, she was fostered in the household of the Countess of Cumberland, who provided her with a good education. In 1611 she published a volume of poetry, the centerpiece of which was a long poem entitled Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, a meditation on the passion of Christ. While many of its ideas reflect common views of the time (including blaming the Jews for the death of Christ), the most radical aspect of her work is a section entitled “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women.” Lanyer takes up the reference in Matthew 27:19, in which Pilate’s wife urges him not to execute Jesus on account of a troubling dream that she had, though Matthew does not indicate the content of that dream. Lanyer envisions the dream as one in which Pilate’s wife comes to understand the true nature of events in the garden of Eden and the relative culpability of Eve and Adam. The gist of Lanyer’s argument is that not only was Adam more at fault than Eve, but that whatever her role in the fall, it paled in significance in comparison to males’ guilt in the death of Christ. Eve’s motive in giving the fruit to Adam “was simply good, and [she] had no powre to see, / the after-coming harme did not appeare” (lines 763–65). She was simply deceived by the serpent. In contrast to Eve, “surely Adam can not be excusde / Her fault though great, yet hee was most too blame” (lines 777–78). After all, Adam, not Eve, had been the one God had directly commanded (lines 787–88). Moreover, if he was made as a superior being, why did he not tell Eve what he had heard from God? (lines 804–5). Her conclusion is that men are far more at fault, for they—and not women—were the ones who betrayed and crucified Jesus. “Her weakenesse did the Serpents words obay; / But you in malice Gods deare Sonne betray./ Whom, if unjustly you condemne to die, / Her sinne was small, to what you doe commit” (lines 815–18). The conclusion she draws from this analysis of women’s and men’s culpability has implications for the present order of things. “Then let us have our Libertie againe, / and challendge to your selves no Sov’raigntie; / You came not in the world without our paine, / Make that a barre against your crueltie; / Your fault beeing greater, why should you disdaine / Our beeing your equals, free from tyranny?” (lines 825–30). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Protestant Reformation had complex consequences for women as interpreters of the Bible. The core belief that every person has access to God and has the ability and obligation to interpret Scripture created pressures for the increased education of women as well as men, inasmuch as laity as well as clergy were to be engaged with the reading and interpretation of Scripture. But anxiety at the possibly unsettling effects of such changing roles for women also provoked reactions that attempted to curb women’s roles in teaching and preaching in most Protestant traditions. Although the same conflicting pressures were not present in Catholicism, this period also saw the development of teaching orders of educated nuns, such as the Ursulines, who were instrumental in establishing schools and
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colleges for girls, particularly in the period of the early settlement of North America by Europeans. Although little is known about feminist elements in the writings of Catholic women during this period, the history of Protestant women’s defense of their right to education and to interpret the Bible is better documented. One of the most extraordinary of these women is Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–78), a Dutch scholar who was exceptionally well educated in biblical languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Samaritan Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Ethiopic. She even prepared one of the earliest Ethiopic grammars, though it has unfortunately been lost. Her passion for languages was fueled by the sense that knowledge of the ancient languages was essential for proper biblical criticism. She defended her work in a composition entitled “Whether the Study of Letters Is Fitting to a Christian Woman.” Her answer, of course, was yes, though she restricted that role to unmarried women, so that such work did not interfere with domestic duties. But she defended the appropriateness of such learning on the basis of the equality of all before God. Despite her extraordinary renown as a woman of learning (the philosopher Descartes made a trip to Utrecht in 1640 to visit and converse with her), she later abandoned her work as a scholar and intellectual to devote herself to the religious life of a pietist sect. Increasingly, in Protestant circles women had to contend with traditional and entrenched patriarchal assumptions about women’s roles in relation to religious leadership, especially as these appeared to be enshrined in biblical texts, such as 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:11–12. The “left wing” of the Protestant Reformation (Anabaptists, Quakers) was generally more accepting of women’s leadership than the Calvinists and the Lutherans, but even here the case had to be made for women’s roles as preachers and teachers. Perhaps the most remarkable manifesto was that written by Margaret Askew Fell (1614–1702). Oftentimes referred to as the “Mother of Quakerism,” Margaret Fell was an early follower of George Fox, and after the death of her first husband, she married Fox. The early movement was often persecuted, and Margaret Fell was actually in prison when she wrote Womens Speaking Justified (1666). Fell’s arguments justifying women’s preaching refute the apparent Pauline opposition, contending that Paul’s comments to the Corinthian church applied only to that particular circumstance and were not a universal rule. Moreover, Fell notes Paul’s phrase “as also saith the law” as a further indication that such restrictions do not apply to the present community of grace. Not surprisingly, Fell privileges the creation account of Genesis 1:27 over that of Genesis 2–3, arguing that the subordination of women is itself a product of human misunderstanding, since “God the Father made no such difference in the first Creation, nor ever since between the Male and the Female” (Fell, 116). Men who oppose women’s full participation are attempting to “limit the Power and Spirit of the Lord Jesus, whose Spirit is poured upon all flesh, both Sons and Daughters, now in his Resurrection” (Fell, 121). Fell invokes the long sequence of prophetic female figures from the Hebrew Bible and the special role that women play in relation to Jesus’ teaching and as the first proclaimers of his resurrection. One expects, in a sense, to find feminist biblical interpretation in radical Protestant movements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is perhaps more surprising to find it in a female English philosopher who even rates her own entry in the prestigious Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Mary Astell (1666–1731). Although philosophers know her for her work on metaphysics and epistemology, she also engaged in feminist biblical criticism in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. She secures for women the right to interpret, because “Sense is a Portion that GOD Himself has been pleas’d to distribute to both Sexes with an Impartial Hand” (Astell, 78). Although she acknowledges the authority of Scripture, she mistrusts the history of male interpretation, for “Scripture is not always on their side who make parade of it, and thro’ their skill in Languages and the Tricks of the Schools, wrest it from its genuine sense to their own Inventions” (Astell, 74). Moreover, like Fell, she argues that historical
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context is the proper horizon for interpreting Paul’s strictures on women’s participation. In her reflections on the social implications of her interpretation, however, Astell is less radical than Fell, justifying hierarchy in society, in the church, and in marriage: “We pretend not that Women shou’d teach in the Church, or usurp Authority where it is not allow’d them; permit us only to understand our own duty, and not be forc’d to take it upon trust from others” (Astell, 154). Though less bold than Fell, Astell’s work was nevertheless quite subversive of the structures of interpretive authority as they existed in the early eighteenth century. In Judaism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the tradition of learned women from rabbinical families appears to have continued, although for the most part these women are known only from secondhand reports rather than from their own writings, women such as Krendel Steinhardt and Gittele Eger of Germany as well as Dina Segal of Amsterdam and Sara Oser of Poland, both renowned as Hebrew poets. Some of these women combined talmudic learning with the learning of the Jewish enlightenment, as was the case of Tcharna Rosenthal, who corresponded extensively with the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. In the Hasidic movement, which was characterized by a strong charismatic element, women also seem to have made room for themselves as religious teachers. Given the nature of the sources, however, it has proven frustratingly difficult to distinguish between legend and historically verifiable information about many of these women. A case in point is that of Hannah Rachel Verbermacher (ca. 1806–88). The traditional sources concerning her life indicate that she functioned as a rebbe or religious teacher both in her native Ludmir (in modern Ukraine) and later in Palestine. Although she authorized her unconventional role on the basis of a quasi-mystical experience that left her with a “new and lofty” soul, she led a house of study where she taught both men and women. After her relocation to Jerusalem she appears to have had primarily female followers and led pilgrimages to the traditional site of the tomb of Rachel. While one may surmise that her teachings had some concern with the role and status of women, unfortunately, nothing is preserved about the content of what she taught. Perhaps more significant than the unique case of Hannah Verbermacher, however, was the practice of composing women’s prayers (Kthines) among seventeenth- to nineteenth-century European Jews. Although many of these prayers were composed by men for women, a number of important collections are clearly the work of women. Two of the most important authors of Kthines were Leah Horowitz (1680–1755) and Sarah bas Tovim (eighteenth c.). Although much of the piety reflected in these prayers was of a conventional nature, they tend to invoke the matriarchs and other women of the Bible in ways that are not represented in the synagogue liturgy and in men’s prayers. Moreover, they sometimes have implicitly feminist concerns to authorize women’s religious practices and to oppose misogynistic biblical interpretation. Horowitz argued for the distinctive importance and efficacy of women’s prayers in bringing redemption by citing a medieval commentary on Exodus 38:8 concerning the “ministering women at the door of the tent of meeting,” and contesting the understanding that women obtain merit only vicariously through their husbands and sons. Sarah bas Tovim’s Kthine for the women’s ritual of making candles for the living and the dead before the Day of Atonement contrasts instructively with a similar, contemporary one composed by a man for women. In Sarah’s composition, the sin that brings death into the world belongs to both Adam and Eve. In Simeon Frankfurt’s prayer, the sin is Eve’s alone. In Simeon’s composition the women merely pray for Eve’s atonement, whereas in Sarah’s the women’s prayer and candle making has the effect of awakening the souls of the dead and invoking Eve and Adam to plead before God for the well-being of the living. Thus Adam and Eve may “rectify the sin by which they brought death into the world” and so end death itself (Weissler, 144). Whereas Simeon Frankfurt’s prayer gives women a very passive role, Sarah bas
Women as Biblical Interpreters before the Twentieth Century 17
Tovim’s envisions women’s prayer as having actual effect in soliciting the agency of the souls of both male and female ancestors in effecting eschatological change. During the nineteenth century the spread of education and the growth of reform movements in Europe, Britain, and America engaged more women with the importance of biblical interpretation and gave them increasing resources with which to do it. Although most of the women who did biblical interpretation were working from within their faith traditions, the latter part of the nineteenth century saw the development of a critique of the Bible by women who dissociated themselves from religion. Much if not most of the religious women’s interpretation was not specifically feminist, but the recent publication and study of examples of a wide range of biblical interpretation by women gives us a better sense of larger context of women’s interpretation (see Taylor and Weir and selected essays in de Groot and Taylor). The focus of this article, however, is on the more explicitly feminist interpretation among women in Britain and the United States. For various reasons feminist biblical interpretation developed somewhat later in European countries and has not been as thoroughly studied (but see Wacker). Although most of the nineteenth-century feminist biblical interpreters who have been documented were Christians, the Jewish British novelist, poet, and religious writer Grace Aguilar (1816–47) used her considerable popularity as a writer to argue both for better religious education for Jewish women and for full civil rights for Jews within British society. In some respects her feminism seems of a rather timid sort, as she accepts the notion of women as both physically and mentally weaker than men and the idea that women’s special sphere is the domestic life. Her two-volume work The Women of Israel, however, recounts and interprets the lives of biblical women, as well as selected women from Jewish history, in ways that make a claim for their significance and full dignity. Writing as a Jew in a Christian culture that often denigrated the “Old Testament” for its supposed legalism in general and its denigration of women in particular, Aguilar explicitly challenged this view as a misinterpretation of the narratives and laws of the Hebrew Bible. In this manner she is an important forerunner of many women today whose interpretation of the Bible is self-consciously shaped not only by gender but also by ethnicity. The perspectives of social class also play a role in some of the nineteenthcentury feminist biblical interpreters. Josephine Butler (1828–1906) came from a high-ranking and well-to-do British family that was deeply involved in social reform. Butler herself became a social activist, abolitionist, and advocate for political equality for women. Her work with female prostitutes and sexually exploited children in particular made her into a sharp critic of the cruelties and hypocrisies of Victorian society. In 1894 she published a collection of essays on various biblical texts, entitled The Lady of Shunem. In chapter 4 she recounts the story of Hagar and interprets it through the hermeneutical lens of the victimized prostitutes whose lives she had come to understand. In passionate language she excoriates the behavior of Abraham and Sarah toward Hagar, directly comparing them to the self-righteous “respectable” society of her own day, which refused to see its role in abusing and despising the outcast “fallen” woman. Butler also took to task the commentators who refused to exercise ordinary moral judgment in interpreting the narrative and instead defended the actions of Abraham and Sarah. In the United States, also, involvement in social reform was often connected with feminist consciousness. Many women who became engaged in the abolitionist movement discovered that the fight against slavery led to the struggle for the full freedom of women in society. Just as the Bible was a key text for those who argued for and against the institution of slavery, it became a key text in the struggle for women’s rights. Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873) is the most prominent and influential example. After her sister was abusively criticized for her antislavery speeches in 1837, Sarah composed a series of “Letters on the Province of Women” for the New England Spectator, later
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republished as Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women. A significant aspect of the book was its biblical interpretation. Though not acquainted with the emerging discipline of critical biblical studies, Grimké nevertheless intuitively employed many of its approaches. As Selvidge observes, she uses “what might be considered proto-historical, literary, textual, and canonical criticisms” (Selvidge, 48). Not surprisingly, she bases her claim for the equality of the sexes in the creation account of Genesis 1. The “fall” is a fall from an original ideal state of affairs but not a fall from equality, and the woman’s subjection to her husband in Genesis 3:16 is not to be translated as a divine command (“you shall . . .”) but is merely a prophecy (“you will . . .”). Similarly, she argues from biblical examples from both testaments for equality in marriage. Where she did encounter texts that appeared to state the opposite (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1), she did not hesitate to argue either that the texts were culturally conditioned or simply that “they directly contravene the laws of God, as given in various parts of the Bible” (Grimké, 96). Educated white women like Grimké had greater opportunity to have their words preserved in published documents than did women of color, who were forbidden to be educated if they were slaves or, even if they were free persons, had little access to education. There were exceptions, however, such as the highly educated Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964), who, like Grimké, interpreted the Bible in terms of its ideals rather than its isolated dicta, ideals that, she argued, grew and ripened over time. Among these biblical ideals was “a rule and guide for the estimation of woman, as an equal, as a helper, as a friend, and as a sacred charge to be sheltered and cared for” (Cooper, 18), rather than exploited. If anything, a critical hermeneutic based on race and gender was even more explicit among the often illiterate or informally educated female itinerant preachers of the nineteenth century who were active in the African American community. Sojourner Truth (1797?–1883), for example, preferred to have the Bible read to her by a child rather than an adult, since adults tended to interpret the text to her, and she wanted to hear the text without commentary. “In that way she was enabled to see what her own mind could make out of the record, and that, she said, was what she wanted, and not what others thought it to mean. She wished to compare the teachings of the Bible with the witness within her” (Gilbert, 88). Moreover, in her remarkable speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1854, “Ain’t I a Woman?” she issued the bold challenge, “I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again” (Gilbert, 118). During the nineteenth century a number of the women in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) tradition asserted their right to preach, often to be met with deep hostility from the established male clergy, both because they were women and also because they espoused a Holiness theology at a time when the AME Church was distancing itself from the more charismatic and perfectionist aspects of the Holiness movement. Several of these women composed autobiographies detailing their experiences (Elizabeth [last name not known], Jarena Lee, Rebecca Cox Jackson, Julia A. J. Foote, and Amanda Berry Smith). Often having little formal education, their claims of authority to preach were generally based on visionary and mystical experiences rather than educational credentials. While the autobiographies do not often indicate how they interpreted the Bible, one anecdote from Amanda Smith illustrates the role Scripture played in empowering them. Somehow, I always had a fear of white people . . . a kind of fear because they were white, and were there, and I was black and was here! But that morning on Green Street, as I stood on my feet trembling, I heard these words distinctly . . . ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’ . . . And as I looked at white people that
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I had always been afraid of, now they looked so small. The great mountain had become a mole-hill. (cited in Humez, “My Spirit Eye,” 134)
Phoebe Palmer (1807–74), the highly influential white Holiness movement preacher, author, and social reformer, distanced herself from the more radical women’s equality movements such as Grimké was associated with. Nevertheless, she argued forcefully for the right of women to preach and exert leadership in religious institutions. Given her Methodist and Holiness context, and not relying on charismatic experience as a warrant in the way that the AME women did, she understood that a case for the biblical authorization for women’s preaching was essential. According to Palmer, “the Scriptural way of arriving at right Bible conclusions is by comparing Scripture with Scripture” (Palmer, 50). Thus, armed with an exhaustive set of examples of women who exercised prophetic and evangelistic roles in both Old and New Testaments, Palmer was able to neutralize many of the passages often cited against women. Like Grimké, she also invoked the influence of ancient custom rather than divine intent to account for some of the restrictions placed on women in the New Testament epistles. Although not formally educated, as many of the other nineteenth-century feminists were, Catherine Booth (1829–90), who together with William Booth founded the Salvation Army, also published a defense of women’s preaching and ministry entitled Female Teaching. Her approach to the problematic passages in the Bible was similar to that of Grimké and Palmer, though there are some distinctive interpretive elements. Booth acknowledged the “subjection” of the woman in Genesis 3 as a punishment but argued that it was subjection only to her husband, not to men in general, and even that was mitigated by Christ. Moreover, the subjection did not apply to unmarried women and widows who had no husbands. Regarding the passages in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:12–13 that seem to forbid women to speak in church, she argued that the word translated “to speak” actually means “to chatter” or “to prattle” and so was only restricting disruptive, unseemly speech. Moreover, she observed that the words are directed only to the women in Corinth. With this interpretation and with a parade of biblical examples of women who in fact exercised authority, Booth made the case for women’s public ministries. “You will never be allowed to do this. You will never be allowed to stand in a pulpit nor to preach in a church, and certainly you can never be ordained” (Selvidge, 105). One might think those were the words of a man, denying the right to preach to a woman. They were, rather, the words of Lucy Stone, suffragist and feminist, to her friend and later sister-in law Antoinette Louise Brown Blackwell (1825–1921). Such was the incredulity that met the ambition of Antoinette Brown Blackwell. Today, even for women whose denominations do not ordain women, it is difficult to understand the unimaginableness of women’s ordination in nineteenth-century America. But Antoinette Brown Blackwell did indeed become the first woman in America to receive ordination. Her career was difficult, however. Even at the highly progressive Oberlin College, where she studied, she was encouraged to pursue the theological studies program but was denied her degree and ordination because she was female. Oberlin did, however, publish her scholarly article analyzing the passages that seemed to prohibit ordination of women (1 Cor. 14:34–35 and 1 Tim. 2:12–13) in the Oberlin Quarterly Review 4 (1849): 358–73. Here, for the first time in history, one finds a woman engaging in biblical exegesis for feminist purposes in a scholarly journal. Her particular arguments are actually similar to those that had been anticipated by her nonscholarly predecessors, though she was apparently unaware of them. In her careful study she raises the question of whether the injunctions were intended for women of this particular church and so were not universally intended. She analyzes the vocabulary and compares it to how the critical words are used elsewhere in Pauline letters; she
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considers the literary context of the passages and the cultural contexts of the ancient church. Through very careful analysis she concludes that the only speech by women that is being prohibited is speech “which was not profitable to the church.” Thus there is no biblical bar to women’s speaking and teaching within the church. Modern feminists may not fully agree with Antoinette Brown Blackwell’s analysis, arguing rather that these texts represent a genuinely misogynistic cultural backlash against the new scope for women’s participation that early Christian communities enabled. But what is extraordinary about Blackwell’s article is that she used the tools of the then-current biblical scholarship to make a very credible case for women’s preaching and teaching authority, within the hermeneutical frameworks that were normative at that time. Despite Oberlin’s ambivalent treatment of her, she was called to a church in South Butler, New York, and ordained in 1853, though she served only for a short time. She continued to be a significant lecturer, writer, and activist. She lived long enough to ordain two other women and to cast her vote in a public election in 1920, after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Frances Willard (1839–98), college professor, dean, and president and national leader of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, was also a spirited critic of the arbitrary ways in which male ecclesial hierarchies had interpreted and employed passages in the Bible to deny women equality and to restrict their roles in religious leadership. In Woman in the Pulpit she mocked the absurd selectiveness of such interpretations, while other scriptural statements less congenial to the male interpreters were ignored or interpreted more generously, concluding that “the plain wayfaring woman cannot help concluding that exegesis, thus conducted, is one of the most timeserving and man-made of all sciences, and one of the most misleading of all arts” (Willard, 23). She argued instead for exegesis that acknowledges the changing cultural norms between antiquity and the present, relegating those passages restricting and subjugating women to the same status as those that took polygamy and slavery as accepted practices. She included a chart in which the few passages from the Pauline epistles restricting women’s activities and roles are refuted by other verses in both Old and New Testaments and even by other passages in the Pauline literature itself (Willard, 27–28). As radical as women like Catherine Booth, Phoebe Palmer, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Frances Willard seemed to much of the public, their positions and arguments were endorsed by a progressive wing of Christianity. Frances Willard even prefaced her book with letters of endorsement from prominent male clergy. But in the latter part of the nineteenth century a wing of the feminist movement developed that no longer wished to be identified with orthodox religious institutions and that found these feminists to be far too conservative. There were two branches of this development. On the one hand were those feminists who were engaged by what was known as “New Thought,” an alternative religious orientation that was engaged by Eastern religions (especially Hinduism and Buddhism), Jewish Kabbalah, theosophy, and spiritualism. On the other hand were those feminists who identified with the “Free Thought” movement, a more rationalistic approach to religion, and who, though often not dissociating themselves entirely from religious identification, became fierce critics of the deleterious effects of organized religion in general and of Christianity in particular. If one sees in these movements the precursors of “New Age” religions and of the “New Atheism” respectively, one would not be entirely wrong, though there are many twists and turns to the story of religious and antireligious radicalism. Although New Age religions and the New Atheism tend to be fairly separate phenomena in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in the late nineteenth century the lines between New Thought and Free Thought were not entirely clear. The confluence and conflict between these two radical strands of feminism can be seen, however, in the book that figures as the controversial capstone to feminist biblical interpretation in the nineteenth century: Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Woman’s Bible.
Women as Biblical Interpreters before the Twentieth Century 21
Although Stanton (1815–1902) had invoked the Bible for progressive purposes in her early antislavery writings, in her later years she became convinced that Christianity and its biblical basis were the cornerstone of women’s unjust subordination. She found common cause with English secularist feminist critics such as Annie Besant (1847–1933), a British feminist who wrote in her essay “Woman’s Position According to the Bible” that “Happily for women, the influence of the bible is becoming feebler and feebler as education and heresy make their beneficent way among men. The chains bound round her by the Bible are being broken by Freethought, and soon she shall walk upright and unfettered in the sunshine, the friend, the helper, the lover, but nevermore the slave of man” (Besant, 8). Some of the same sharp critique of Christian tradition that Stanton was embracing was later articulated by Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–93) in her book Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman through the Christian Ages: With Reminiscences of the Matriarchate, published in 1893. It was a scathing history of the mistreatment of women and the violent and corrupt practices of the “patriarchate,” her term for male dominance. Although Gage never entirely severed her connection with the church, she was blunt about the extent of the Bible’s devaluing of women. As a New Thought as well as a Free Thought feminist, one of her strategies was to treat the Bible as only one among many sources of religious knowledge, such as postbiblical gnostic writings, Kabbalah, Eastern religious texts, spiritualism, and scientific inquiry. Already in the 1880s Stanton was frustrated by the increasingly religious opposition to women’s emancipation. A visit by the English feminist Frances Lord prompted Stanton to share with her, “the subject so near my heart . . . the Woman’s Bible” (Stanton, Eighty Years, 390; Kern, 99). In 1886 Stanton and Lord advertised a joint committee of British and American women who would undertake both a new translation of the Scriptures and a new commentary “for the benefit of women anxious to face their Biblical foe” (cited in Kern, 100). In the end, what Stanton and her collaborators produced was not that ambitious. It was, rather, a selective commentary on those passages of the Bible that dealt with women. But for all that, it was a bombshell. Their ambitious project met with decided disinclination to participate from feminists across the political spectrum. Their stated reasons were various. Some, such as Antoinette Brown Blackwell, said that they had not sufficiently kept up their scholarship. Others demurred on grounds that they thought that the biblical teachings, rightly understood, could still support women’s claims to equal treatment. Yet others were simply concerned that publishing such an incendiary volume could have a negative impact on the politics of the push for women’s suffrage (a prediction that turned out to be quite correct). So Stanton could persuade only a small number of fellow feminists to join her in the enterprise of producing The Woman’s Bible. The “committee” never actually met together, and more than half of the two volumes was produced by Stanton herself. Even so, the divergent perspectives between the New Thought feminists and the Free Thought feminists who contributed to the project produced a lively disagreement as to whether the Bible was to be simply exposed and condemned for its negative impact on the lives of women, or whether it could be redeemed through an esoteric interpretation of its spiritual meaning. The Woman’s Bible was a product from the far left end of the feminist spectrum in late-nineteenth-century culture. Not surprisingly, the two volumes of The Woman’s Bible (1895, 1898) touched off a firestorm of reaction. Conservative fury was certainly anticipated. More surprising was the rejection it elicited from supporters of women’s rights across the political spectrum. It was denounced by the National American Woman Suffrage Association and even dismissed by Stanton’s longtime friend Susan B. Anthony as “flippant and superficial” (Kern, 180). It was a document simply too radical and too incendiary for its time, when more feminists identified themselves with a position that has been called “progressive orthodoxy” (Kern, 191).
22 Women as Biblical Interpreters before the Twentieth Century
The violent reaction against The Woman’s Bible led to a significant eclipse of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s reputation in the fight for women’s equality. For nearly a century her leading role in the early feminist movement was displaced, and her more culturally acceptable friend Susan B. Anthony was cast instead as the dominant figure. After the initial controversy and the renewed infamy it received during the fight over the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, granting women’s right to vote, The Woman’s Bible was simply forgotten. It was only decades later, in what is known as the second wave of feminism, that attention was drawn back to this volume. In 1974, Jane T. Walker of Tacoma, Washington, made available to the Seattle-based Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion the text of The Woman’s Bible that she had inherited from her great-aunt, Mary Elizabeth Meech, inscribed by Stanton herself. The reprint of Stanton’s work, sponsored by the Coalition, coincided with the emergence of a new movement for feminist interpretation of the Bible. This time, it touched a chord. Even women who would not agree with Stanton’s scathing critiques of the Bible or her colleagues’ esoteric reinterpretations of biblical texts found the freedom with which these women challenged received interpretations of the Bible to be intoxicating. The radicalness of Stanton and her colleagues was seen as highly congenial to the new ways in which women were defining themselves in relation to religious traditions in the last quarter of the twentieth century. This is not to say, of course, that feminist biblical interpretation found a common voice. If anything is the case, it is the opposite. The contests between the “left” and “right” wings of the feminist movement have reemerged in feminist biblical interpretation, as evangelicals, mainstream, progressive, and postreligious feminists have articulated different positions. More significantly, issues that nineteenth-century feminists were unaware of have emerged as critical issues. All too often, Christian feminist biblical interpretation of the nineteenth century was marked by an uncritical racism and anti-Judaism. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, feminists have attempted to confront these issues. These have not been easy discussions. The earlier assumption that “gender” is a comprehensive category that can encompass all women has become more problematic. It has become more evident that gender, while central, is one of many critical elements in identity and in interpretive stance; other elements include ethnicity, class, culture, nationality, and many other things that resist classification. Nevertheless, the future of biblical interpretation, however it may develop, in whatever contexts, can no longer proceed without making gender a central category of its hermeneutical work. Bibliography
de Groot, Christiana, and Marion Ann Taylor. Recovering Nineteenth-Century Women Interpreters of the Bible. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Deutsch, Nathaniel. The Maiden of Ludmir: A Jewish Holy Woman and Her World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. Searching the Scriptures, vol. 1, A Feminist Introduction. New York: Crossroad, 1993. Humez, Jean M. “‘My Spirit Eye’: Some Functions of Spiritual and Visionary Experience in the Lives of Five Black Women Preachers, 1810–1880.” In Women and the Structure of Society, edited by B. J. Harris and J. K. McNamara, 129–43. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1984. Kern, Kathi. Mrs. Stanton’s Bible. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
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Selvidge, Marla J. Notorious Voices: Feminist Biblical Interpretation, 1500–1920. New York: Continuum, 1996. Taylor, Marion Ann, ed. Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012. Taylor, Marion Ann, and Heather Weir, eds. Let Her Speak for Herself: NineteenthCentury Women Writing on the Women of Genesis. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006. Thickstun, Margaret Olofson. “‘This was a Woman that taught’: Feminist Scriptural Exegesis in the Seventeenth Century.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 21 (1992): 149–58. Wacker, Marie-Theres. “The German-Speaking Countries until World War II.” In Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women’s Perspective, edited by Luise Schottroff, Silvia Schroer, and Marie-Theres Wacker, 16–28. Translated by M. and B. Rumscheidt. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1998. Weissler, Chava. Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. Zolty, Shoshana. And All Your Children Shall Be Learned: Women and the Study of the Torah in Jewish Law and History. New York: Aronson, 1993. Primary Sources
Note: Many of these works are now available online through various digital initiatives. Aguilar, Grace. The Women of Israel. 2 vols. New York: Appleton, 1851. Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. New York: Source Book Press, 1970. ———. The First English Feminist: Reflections upon Marriage and Other Writings. Edited by B. Hill. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Besant, Annie. Woman’s Position according to the Bible. London: Printed by A. Besant and C. Bradlaugh, 1885. Booth, Catherine Mumford. Female Teaching. London: G. J. Stevenson, 1861. Brown, Antoinette L. “Exegesis of 1 Corinthians XIV., 34, 35; and 1 Timothy II., 11, 12.” Oberlin Quarterly Review 4 (1849): 358–73. Butler, Josephine Elizabeth Grey. The Lady of Shunem: Papers on Religious Subjects. London: H. Marshall, 1894. Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Originally published Xenia, OH: Aldine Printing House, 1892. de Pizan, Christine. The Book of the City of Ladies. Translated by E. J. Richards. Rev. ed. New York: Persea Books, 1998. Fell, Margaret. “Womens Speaking Justified.” In First Feminists: British Women Writers 1578–1799, edited by M. Ferguson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Gage, Matilda Joslyn. Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman through the Christian Ages: With Reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2002. Originally published Chicago: C. H. Kerr, 1893. Gilbert, Olive. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Edited by M. Washington. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Grimké, Sarah Moore. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and Other Essays. Edited by E. A. Bartlett. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988. Lanyer, Aemilia. The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer: Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Edited by S. Woods. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Palmer, Phoebe. Promise of the Father. Boston: Degen, 1859. Tarabotti, Arcangela. Paternal Tyranny. Edited and translated by L. Panizza. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
24 Women as Biblical Interpreters before the Twentieth Century
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815–1897. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993. Reprint of 1898 edition. ———. The Woman’s Bible. Seattle, WA: Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion, 1974. Reprint of 1895–98 edition. Sullam, Sara Copia. “Letter to Baldassar Bonifaccio.” In Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook, edited by Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton. Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2009. van Schurman, Anna Maria. Choosing the Better Part: Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678). Edited by M. De Baar et al.; translated by L. Richards. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996. Willard, Frances. Woman in the Pulpit. Boston: F. Lothrop, 1888.
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
GENESIS Susan Niditch
Introduction of Genesis; but in approaching this material with special interest in passages pertaining to women and gender, one must ask, Whose stories are these?
Contents, Composition, and Context The group of narrative and genealogical traditions called the book of Genesis describes the origin of the cosmos and its first inhabitants and unfolds the life stories of the earliest ancestors of ancient Israel. In this way the creation of the people Israel is set within the context of the very creation of the universe itself. To read Genesis is to immerse oneself in the worldview and values of a distant and foreign culture, of a people who believed in a deity, YHWH God, imagined as parent, river spirit, traveling man, and warrior, communicating with the ancestors through dream visions and waking revelations. To read Genesis is to encounter a people who considered the land of Canaan an eternally promised possession, a people who regularly petitioned and appeased their God with the blood sacrifice of animals and who could imagine this God demanding as sacrificial offering a mother’s only son (Gen. 22) and the father’s submitting to the demand. Genesis portrays a people whose women do not appear to exercise power in the public realm but who hold considerable power in the private realm of household and children. Theirs is a different world and a different way of imagining and ordering reality from our own; yet they too love spouses and children, resent siblings, mourn the loss of kin, fear and face deprivation in the form of famine and infertility, attempt to take stock of the comprehensible and make sense of the incomprehensible features of their existence. All of these very human concerns and emotions emerge in the Israelite literature
Questions of History and Historicity The culture of Israel was never monolithic. The history of Israel spans thousands of years and can be divided into three periods: the time before the monarchy (pre-1000 BCE); the time when kings ruled (1000 BCE–586 BCE); and postmonarchic times (586 BCE on). Given the major changes that took place in social structure over this long expanse of time, one must be careful not to generalize about “Israelite culture” or “the life of the Israelite woman” or “Israelite attitudes to women.” Biblical texts reveal considerable variation in the ways Israelites lived and expressed their beliefs. Nevertheless, it is not easy to track changing Israelite attitudes via apparent differences in the texts of the Bible. The Bible’s own story provides a chronology that seems to match the historical periods sketched broadly above. In premonarchic times are the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah) and patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph), the exodus (the time of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam), and the age of the judges (including the warrior heroines Deborah and Jael). In monarchic times are Saul, David and Bathsheba, Solomon, the building of the great temple in Jerusalem, the eventual establishment of the northern and southern kingdoms, the socalled Josianic reform of the seventh century, and the age of classical prophecy. This period 27
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ends with the Babylonian conquest and the destruction of the temple. The postmonarchic period includes the rebuilding of the temple, the last of the biblical prophets, and the work of Ezra and Nehemiah. Within the Bible’s own chronology Genesis is clearly set in premonarchic times, but “real” history and biblical narration are not as neatly matched as they may seem at first reading. The stories now found in Genesis do not necessarily stem from premonarchic authors, nor do they necessarily contain information about the way of life of Israelites who lived before 1000 BCE. Questions about the Genesis of Genesis Many of the stories in Genesis are very old, perhaps as old as storytelling itself. The essential pattern of world creation in Genesis 6–9, for example, is represented in the lore of many cultures and times: from a watery flood emerge or reemerge a world and its inhabitants. Long before the existence of the people Israel, ancient Near Eastern narrators preserved several versions of a tale about the great flood with its favored human survivor(s), very much like the biblical tale of Noah. The story of Noah was no doubt a popular tale in ancient Israel, told by various tellers with their own nuances and variations long before it was first set down in writing. Nor did this writer have the last word, for the biblical tale has been transmitted, elaborated, and edited by subsequent writers until it reached the form in which we now read it. In exploring the text of Genesis one must be aware that the ancient stories were once told in a variety of ways, oral and written. Theories about the Sources behind Genesis Over the last hundred years, biblical scholarship has spoken of separable “sources” or “documents” out of which the whole cloth of Genesis has been woven. The sources are called J (the Yahwist, or Jahwist, source), E (the Elohist source), and P (the Priestly source). J is characterized by the use of the name YHWH for God, by a downto-earth style, and by a theology that allows God a certain closeness to the human realm; for example, God walks in the garden (Gen. 3:8). The Elohist source calls God the more generic Elohim (Hebrew for “god”), supposedly reserving the special name YHWH until the revelation to Moses in Exodus 3; in E, God communicates more indirectly, through mediating dreams and angels. The P source employs the divine epithet
El Shaddai (often translated “God Almighty”) in Genesis; God emerges in this source as an even more transcendent being. The interests of P are genealogy, ritual matters, and laws of purity. J, E, and P sources are said to be layered throughout the first four books of the Bible. J is dated by scholars to the tenth or ninth century BCE of the southern or Judahite monarchy, E to the ninth or eighth century BCE of the northern or Israelite monarchy, and P to the sixth century BCE, the exilic period. Thus Yahwist (J) tales in Genesis should be expected to reflect the worldview of a Davidic courtly writer, and so on. This theory has been modified over the years and recently has been strongly criticized, though in some form it still reigns supreme among theories about the composition of Genesis. The often too neat, line-by-line assignments of verses and larger literary units of Genesis to J, E, and P are not convincing, though variations in style, content, literary form, and message do confirm that various authors, worldviews, and life settings lie behind Genesis. Some of these differences may point to sources of different date, while others may point to authors from different sectors of Israelite society: aristocratic versus popular authors, urban versus rural ones, men versus women. To distinguish the various authors and origins of biblical texts is a complex matter, but one especially important for a feminist enterprise asking whether the Hebrew Bible reveals something about attitudes toward women in ancient Israel and/or about their actual lives. The Patriarchal Age Do the stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs actually tell us about life in pre-1000-BCE Israel, even if the final form of the tales is from a later date? The tales of Genesis portray specific marriage practices; customs of inheritance and the rights of the firstborn; work roles of men and women; and attitudes toward male and female children, toward family and sexual ethics, and toward widows, barren wives, and other marginal females such as prostitutes. Can one connect such information with the considerable extrabiblical information about life in the non-Israelite ancient Near East of the second millennium BCE (e.g., from the ancient Mesopotamian cities of Mari or Nuzi), as some scholars have done, in order to reconstruct a world of early Israelite women? Can one connect the view of the workaday roles of men and women implied in God’s punishing words to man and
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woman in Genesis 3 with archaeological and ethnographic reconstructions of life in the pioneer highland culture of premonarchic Israel, as Carol Meyers attempts to do? Or should one assume that if the texts were written down and shaped during the tenth to sixth centuries BCE, they do not contain reliable information about the lives of women from an earlier, premonarchic period? Some scholars think that the evidence to reconstruct any history of Israel before 1250 BCE is lacking and refuse to speak of this so-called patriarchal age. Others remain confident that even though Genesis was written down in the first millennium BCE, it nevertheless does reflect the lives and attitudes of the second millennium BCE, of a people who lived by farming and herding, without kings or elaborate forms of government, whose lives and work centered on family and flocks. Given these debates and difficulties, how should one read and understand the tales of the lives of the women of Genesis? Rather than beginning with assumptions about the historical reliability of a text and the date when it was written down, one should ask: What sort of literature is this in terms of its style, structure, content, and messages? What sort of audience is this meaningful to? What are its authors’ apparent worldview and concerns, especially those pertaining to women’s issues broadly defined? A range of authors and worldviews should emerge, providing a reflection of the richness and complexity of the tradition in its relationship to women.
Traditional Literature, Genesis, and Women’s Tales Much of biblical literature is traditional literature. Recurring patterns in language, imagery, plot, and theme resonate in the ancient Israelite literary tradition. In the Hebrew Scriptures there are certain ways to describe God’s victories,
recurring reasons for a patriarch’s initial lack of children, ways in which the long-awaited conceptions are announced, favorite plots about the success of the underdog or the escape from seemingly powerful enemies. There are ways to frame a genealogy, to compose a lament, to describe a receiving of divine revelation. When Israelite authors set about presenting a piece of the tradition, they were at home in these conventions and creatively adapted them in accordance with their own perception of aesthetics and their understanding of political and theological verity. Through time, from author to author and editor to editor, various sorts of traditional patterns recur, giving the biblical tradition a certain unity even within its great variety. In exploring the women of Genesis and issues of gender, one must pay attention to the book’s traditional style. Recurrences in language and literary form also imply recurrences in essential messages and meanings; changes in form may mark varying messages. Out of these patterns emerge symbolic maps in which woman is a key feature. Paying attention to these similarities and differences gives rise to questions: Why does the creation myth of Genesis 1, which echoes the basic plot of creation found in the Mesopotamian myth Enuma Elish, not depict the watery chaos as female, even though Isaiah 51:9–11 does preserve this motif? Why are so many tales of women in Genesis tales about tricksters who employ deception to improve their marginal status? Why are wives regularly found by wells? Why are the important mothers barren? Many of the tales in Genesis deal with matters of home, family, and children. These are issues typical of tales from other cultures considered by ethnographers to be women’s stories. Is it possible that many of the Genesis tales were popularly told among women? Can we speak of qualities of male voice and female voice in biblical portrayals? Finally, in what ways are men and women gendered by biblical authors?
Comment Creating and Ordering the World (Gen. 1–11) Creation is not merely the initial coming into being of the universe and its life forms; it includes also the ordering and continuous
unfolding of the world. All of Genesis 1–11 is about the creation of the cosmos, including the more obvious creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2, the Eden narrative in chapter 3, the tale of fratricide in chapter 4, the flood story of chapters 6–9, the story of the tower of Babel in
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chapter 11, and the genealogies in chapters 5, 10, and 11, which help to weave together Genesis 1–11 and form the transition to the stories of the mothers and fathers of Israel in Genesis 12–50. The Creation of Woman in Genesis 1 Woman first appears in the elegant creation account of Genesis 1. Repeating frame language neatly reveals the origins and ordering of the universe with its topography, its solar system, and its rich variety of plant and animal life. God creates by the word—“God said, ‘Let there be’ . . . and it was so”—building day by day—“there was evening and there was morning, the xth day”—until the sixth and final day, on which God makes humankind, a mirror of the divine image itself. And of this creation “in the image of God,” it is said “male and female he created them.” Without establishing relative rank or worth of the genders, the spinner of this creation tale indicates that humankind is found in two varieties, the male and the female, and this humanity in its complementarity is a reflection of the Deity. For feminist readers of Scriptures, no more interesting and telegraphic comment exists on the nature of being human and on the nature of God. The male aspect and the female aspect implicitly are part of the first human and a reflection of the Creator. Scholars often attribute Genesis 1 to a Priestly writer (P) because of its image of a transcendent, all-powerful deity, its almost genealogical style, and its explanation of the origin of the Sabbath. If so, this Priestly writer’s views of men and women differ from the much more male-centered Priestly writers of Leviticus, for whom a woman’s menstruation and childbearing are sources of pollution, separating her from the sacred realm. She regularly lacks the pure status necessary to participate fully in Israelite ritual life. In reading the Hebrew Scriptures as a narrative whole, including both Genesis 1:27 and Leviticus, one may receive the message that the genders were meant to be equal at the beginning. In Genesis 1 the Hebrew term for “deep waters” (tehom) is related to the name of the mother goddess Tiamat in the Mesopotamian creation myth Enuma Elish. Tiamat, the salt waters of chaos, is killed and split like a mussel by the young god Marduk, who builds the world out of her carcass. The Israelite author who has provided the opening chapter of the Bible wants
none of the uncertainty of this battle motif. His account of creation by God’s word is as solid and inevitable as his style. If his account lacks a matriarchal goddess, it also does not present the creation of the world as dependent on her death. The Becoming of Woman in Genesis 2–3 Written in an earthier style than Genesis 1, the tale of Genesis 2–3, with its less-than- complete outline of God’s creations (2:4b–25), its homespun reflections on marriage (2:23– 24), and its God who walks in the garden (3:8) and fears humans’ potential divinity (3:22), has been more influential than Genesis 1:27 in shaping and justifying attitudes toward and the treatment of women in Western tradition. This tale of creation has two parts: the emergence of the cosmos out of the mist of chaos and the emergence of “real life” from the ideal of paradise. Man is the first of God’s creations in Genesis 2 (2:7). His formation is from the dust of the earth (’adamah). He is thus Adam/ Earthling. The creation of other living beings (2:18) is motivated by God’s concern that “it is not good that the man should be alone.” But none of the birds or beasts is deemed a suitable counterpart for the man (2:20). So, out of man’s own rib, God forms woman. The sayings in 2:23 and 2:24 comment positively on the closeness of the conjugal bond. Man and woman are parts of a whole, anticipating the genealogical patterning of Genesis. Men and women will unite and have children, the male children leaving to join wives and form new families. The conjugal couple is the foundation of social and cultural relationships for the writers of Genesis. Even when the world is temporarily subsumed by the renewed chaos of the flood in the tale of Noah (Gen. 6–9), social order remains afloat on the ark in the form of Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives (6:18). This generative, cultureaffirming process, however, does not actually begin until Genesis 4:1, for 2:25 declares that man and woman are naked and not ashamed. That is, they are not aware of their sexual differences; their sexuality is yet to be discovered and expressed. Jewish and Christian traditions postdating the Hebrew Bible and a long history of Western scholarship have viewed woman’s creation in Genesis 2 as secondary and derivative—evidence of her lower status. The tale explaining the departure from Eden into a real world of
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work, birth, and death in Genesis 3 is taken to be an even stronger indictment of woman as the gullible, unworthy partner who let loose sin and death. Her biological function as conceiver and bearer of children is perceived as confirmation of her fall, a punishment shared by all women who come after her. In fact, Genesis 3 has been misunderstood. Certainly, like Pandora in the comparable Greek cosmogonic tradition, the curious woman is a linchpin in the ongoing process of world ordering. She, like Lot’s wife, dares to disobey a command not to use all her sensory capacities in a particular situation—to taste or to look—and this curiosity about forbidden fruit is often in Mediterranean tradition associated with the female. On the other hand, in the lore of all cultures interdictions such as Genesis 2:17 (“But of the tree . . .”) exist to be disobeyed by the tales’ protagonists. That is what makes the story. Eve, as she is named in 3:20, is the protagonist, not her husband. This is an important point, as is the realization that to be the curious one, the seeker of knowledge, the tester of limits, is to be quintessentially human—to evidence traits of many of the culture-bringing heroes and heroines of Genesis (see Trible 1978). Reading Genesis 3 Like Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, Genesis 3 is about a movement from a fixed and unchanging world to a new, nonstatic order. Genesis 1 and 2 describe the way in which a sterile world is replaced by one teeming with life. In Genesis 3 the change is from a well-provisioned, closely controlled world lacking discernment, social roles, and sexual status to a world in which man and woman relate to each other sexually and according to social roles, a world in which they work hard and know the difference between good and evil. The world after Eden is clearly one of birth and death, whereas the garden had been an in-between world, in which no human had eaten from the tree of life but in which no one had yet given birth. In a wonderful tale about a trickster snake, a woman who believes it, and a rather passive, even comical man, biblical writers comment on the inevitability of reality as they perceived it, wistfully presenting an image of an easier, smoother life. Woman, the one who will house life within her, helps to generate this new, active, challenging life beyond Eden. All too often readers come to Genesis weighed down by Augustine’s or Milton’s inter-
pretation of the story. What if one notices that the snake does not lie to the woman but speaks the truth when it says that the consequence of eating from the forbidden tree is gaining the capacity to distinguish good from evil, a godlike power that the divinity jealously guards (compare the snake’s words at 3:5 with God’s words at 3:22)? The snake, like the Greek giant Prometheus, who was said to have given fire to humankind, is a trickster, a character having the capacity to transform situations and overturn the status quo. The trickster has less power than the great gods but enough mischief and nerve to shake up the cosmos and alter it forever. The woman believes the snake and, in an important pun on a root meaning “to see” and “to comprehend,” the narrator says that she sees the tree is good to look at/good for making one wise (3:6). She is no easy prey for a seducing demon, as later tradition represents her, but a conscious actor choosing knowledge. Together with the snake, she is a bringer of culture. The man, on the other hand, is utterly passive. The woman gives him the fruit, and he eats as if he were a baby (3:6). With the eating come the marks of social life and culture: knowledge of good and evil, clothing that defines and conceals, and gender roles. The woman is to be the bearer of children, the Mother of all life. The husband is to work the ground, which will now only grudgingly yield its fruits. A clear hierarchy is established: woman and her offspring over the clever snake, who is now reduced to a mere dust-eating reptile, and man over woman. The status-establishing punishments meted out to man and woman and the social roles they are assigned do reflect the author’s male-oriented worldview, but no weighty accusation of “original sin” brought about by woman is found in the text. That is a later interpretation from authors with different theologies and worldviews. What the author of Genesis does reveal is that man and woman share responsibility for the alteration of their status. The man’s self-defense, like his passive act of disobedience, portrays him in a childlike manner. When accused by God of defying his order, the man says comically, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate” (3:12). Whose fault is it? The woman’s? God’s? And yet the woman initiates the act. It is she who first dares to eat of God’s tree, to consume the fruit of the Divine, thereby becoming, as the rabbis say of human beings, like the angels
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in having the capacity to discriminate and like the animals who eat, fornicate, defecate, and die. The woman herself comes to have the most earthy and the most divine of roles, conceiving, containing, and nurturing new life. She is an especially appropriate link between life in God’s garden and life in the thornier world to which all of us are consigned. “The Daughters of Men” (Gen. 6:1–4) Women—“the daughters of men”—are also involved in another, briefer creation tale in Genesis 6:1–4 that marks the passage from ideal to reality. Here the women themselves are the fruit attracting the divine “sons of God,” members of God’s entourage in ancient Israelite tradition. In this story, sexual intercourse rather than eating is the way that the border between God’s realm and the realm of human beings is breached. Surely the two actions are symbolic equivalents in a pattern that leads to limits on the quality of human existence, in this case to the length of life allowed mortals (Gen. 6:3). In this brief mythological snippet, as in the fuller tale of Genesis 3, the female is integral to the passage to reality, to the onset of historical time and human culture, the days of the “heroes that were of old, warriors of renown” (6:4). Women in the Genealogies One of the markers of time in the creation account of Genesis 1–11 is the genealogy. Women are absent from the lists of begetters and begotten in Genesis 4:17–26; 5:1–32; and 10:1–32, with one interesting exception. In 4:19, a descendant of Cain named Lamech takes two wives, Adah and Zillah. The women are each given credit for birthing sons who found groups responsible for some aspect of human civilization (e.g., dwelling in tents, raising cattle, playing music, forging instruments of bronze and iron). By giving birth, the women further the march of human culture. One daughter is also mentioned by name: Naamah (4:22). In 4:23 Lamech addresses to his wives what appears to be a war boast about his defeat of an enemy. Why does he address this enigmatic, taunting victory cry to his wives? Does he want to impress them with his prowess? Does he wish to encourage them to compose a woman’s victory song of their own for him (see Judg. 5; Exod. 15:20–21)? Unnamed daughters are mentioned along with sons in the list of Genesis 11:10–32. Two women who are important in the genealogy
of Israel’s ancestors are mentioned by name. Sarai (Sarah; see 17:15), the wife of Abram (Abraham; see 17:5), is introduced in 11:29, along with the comment that she was barren. The genealogist of chapter 11 also mentions the name of Abram’s brother’s wife, Milcah. Her children, and notably her granddaughter Rebekah who will be Isaac’s wife, are listed in Genesis 22:20–23.
The Mothers and Fathers of Israel (Gen. 12–50) Commentaries on Genesis 12–50 generally focus on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, ancestral heroes of Israel. Their life stories are built from traditional elements such as the hero’s unusual birth, his stormy relationship with his brothers, youthful adventures often including marriage, the constant presence of a divine helper, and the hero’s aging and finally his death. Theologically, Genesis 12–50 is treated as the foundation story of the patriarchal religion of Israel. It includes important scenes of covenant making with God, altar building, divine promises of land and descendants, and tests of the patriarchs’ faith. Genesis 12–36 and 38 differ significantly from the Joseph tale in chapters 37, 39–50 in style, setting, and orientation. The former’s popular, down-to-earth style contrasts with the latter’s more elaborate style. The context of the former is family, flocks, and sojourning in flight from famine. The characters are socially marginal and often confront authorities via trickery and deception. Joseph, on the other hand, sold into slavery by his jealous, scheming brothers, leaves this pastoral world, eventually rising to become the leading bureaucrat of Egypt, a member of the establishment itself. He and his brothers, all sons of Israel, are later reunited in Egypt, setting the stage for the next book in the Bible, Exodus. Often ignored, the patterns of women’s lives in Genesis are every bit as interesting and important as those of the men, for the women both reflect and help to create Israel. Tales in Genesis 12–15, moreover, reveal attitudes to masculinities and femininities and raise questions about gendered voices behind the narratives. The Matriarchs (Gen. 12–36; 38) Like the tales of Genesis 1–11, with their recurring patterns of world ordering, the tales
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of the matriarchs have recurring narrative patterns typical of traditional literature. In Genesis 12–36 and 38, certain motifs mark the life history of the women at the turning points of youth, marriage, and parenthood. The women often appear by wells or springs and are often soon to become wives (Rebekah, Rachel) or mothers (Hagar); they are often barren women soon to become mothers (Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel). If not barren, the women have other problems associated with sexuality (Dinah, Leah) or fertility (Tamar) that render them marginal unless or until the problem is solved. For those who are to have children, predictions about the birth and lives of their children are received in divinely sent annunciations. Finally, many of the women engage in acts of trickery or deception in order to further the careers of their sons or husbands (Sarah: 12:10–20; Rebekah: chap. 27; Rachel: 31:19, 33–35; Tamar: chap. 38). These recurring motifs or combinations of them tend to emphasize certain themes: (1) the role of the woman as wife and mother in the private rather than the public realm; (2) the frequent position of women intermediaries who link groups of men through marriage alliances; (3) the marginal status of women who are prevented from fulfilling the roles defined for women in Genesis 3 (e.g., the barren women, the raped Dinah, the abandoned Hagar, the childless widow Tamar, and the unloved Leah). On one level, much of this defining appears to be done from men’s perspectives. The tales of marriage, for example, really have to do with relationships between the men, be it Abraham and his kinfolk in Mesopotamia, or Jacob and Rebekah’s brother Laban, or Abraham and Pharaoh. So in Genesis 34, a tale of would-be marital relations gone awry, the central issue is less the victimization of Dinah, who had been the potential link between the sons of Hamor and the sons of Jacob, than the relationships between the men. These relationships have to do with face-saving, feuding, and vengeance, all causes of warfare in prestate, decentralized societies. It is also a male point of view that regards woman with her potent sources of “uncleanness” (see Gen. 31:34–35) as a danger, and a male point of view that places her under man’s control after eating from the tree in Genesis 3. It is logical to assume that men—male priests and a lengthy scribal tradition—are responsible for incorporating into law and custom notions of what the “proper” place of women is, namely,
to be a young virgin in the father’s home or a child-producing, sexually faithful wife in her husband’s. Thus, all women who do not—or who do not appear to—fulfill these roles fall between the cracks of the social structure. They are either rehabilitated by other laws preserved by men or by the male God’s intervention, or they fade away. On the other hand, the God of Genesis, with whom the important value judgment lies, is partial to marginal people of both genders. On some level that God is the god of the tricksters who use deception to deal with the power establishment, whether the establishment is the elders of one’s family or non-Israelites. Although their positions are circumscribed by the men around them, Sarah, Rebekah, Tamar, Rachel, and Leah exercise great power over husbands, father-in-law, and father in situations involving the family, children, and sexuality. It is, moreover, the women who are the critical ancestors for the proper continuation of the Israelites. Isaac must come from Sarah and no other woman. Abraham’s seed is not enough to guarantee his status. Similarly, Joseph must be Rachel’s son. The blessing and the inheritance go to Jacob, Rebekah’s favorite son, not Esau, her husband’s favorite. The women’s wishes and God’s wishes are one in this respect. Finally, a number of the women are portrayed as active tricksters who, like Eve, alter the rules, men’s rules. Would not women authors and audiences take special pleasure in Rebekah’s fooling her dotty old husband or in Rachel’s using men’s attitudes to menstruation to deceive her father Laban, or in Tamar’s more directly and daringly using her sexuality to obtain sons through Judah? Like Adam, the men in many of the women’s stories of Genesis are bumbling, passive, and ineffectual. By the same token, the very effective and smooth founding hero Jacob might well be described as womanish (see Gen. 27 below), hinting at another of the ways in which femininity or a kind of female voice finds status and empowerment.
Wives at Wells and Water (Gen. 16; 24; 29). The associations in literature between fertility and water are ancient intuitive acknowledgments of our watery origins on earth and in our mothers’ wombs, and of the source of life upon which we continue to depend. Four scenes involving water, women, and marriage or childbirth are found in Genesis: 16:7–14;
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21:8–21 (Hagar); 24:10–27 (Rebekah); and 29:1–12 (Rachel). In the latter two scenes, men from Abraham’s kin come to Mesopotamia to seek a wife from among his kin. In Genesis 24, Abraham’s senior servant is sent to seek a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac. In Genesis 29:1–12, Jacob seeks a wife for himself from his mother’s family (see 24:15) after fleeing from the brother whose birthright he has stolen (see below on Rebekah and Gen. 27). The man meets the wifeto-be at the watering hole, is welcomed by her family, and negotiates terms for the marriage. In each case wives are found by wells, but there are important differences. The appearance of Rebekah and her hospitable words are a sign requested of God by the emissary so that he might recognize the right wife for Abraham’s son. God’s control is certain and appears in the repetitious language of traditional literature. Rebekah herself is described as a beautiful, untouched young woman quick to serve and nurture and quick to agree to fulfilling her role in the divine plan (24:58). In a thematic echo of Genesis 2:24, Isaac loves her as soon as he sees her, for she is said to be an emotional replacement for his mother, Sarah, who had died (24:67). In Genesis 29:1–12, Jacob meets the woman, his cousin Rachel, at the well and shows his physical strength by rolling the heavy stone from the well and watering his uncle Laban’s flock (cf. Exod. 2:15–17). Jacob weeps when he greets Rachel, in ritualized behavior typical of kinship reunions in tribal cultures. The woman is acquired in exchange for seven years’ work, but her elder and less attractive sister Leah is substituted on the wedding night by their father, Laban, himself a trickster. Jacob ends up with two wives, indentured to his father-inlaw for seven more years. Jacob’s tale of acquiring a wife is the more humorous of the two, as trickster confronts trickster. In both accounts, however, the emphasis on marriage within the kinship group is very strong. The central issue is relationships between male kin, mediated by the women, who are in effect items of exchange, extremely valuable commodities, as precious as the water with which they are associated, but commodities nevertheless. From a literary perspective, the themes of marriage within the group and of woman as mediator are emphasized, issues that were important to the stories’ authors and audiences. Can more be learned, however, from these scenes about real-life social behavior in ancient Israel?
It has been suggested that Rebekah’s interaction with her family in 24:57–58 indicates that the Israelite woman was asked her permission before marriage agreements were concluded. The story indicates, however, that Rebekah is merely agreeing to leave quickly rather than spend ten days with her family (24:55). No formal law involving the woman’s permission appears to be involved here. The mention of a ten-day good-bye period is a reminder that the young woman’s family and she might never see one another again. Provision of bride-price certainly seems customary in 24:53 and in 29:18, as it is in countless cultures. Was it customary, as Laban claims in his defense of the substitution of Leah for Rachel, to marry off the elder daughter before the younger, or is he, as a trickster, good at finding excuses for acts of deception? It has also been suggested that the tale of Jacob gives evidence of matrilocal customs among Israel’s ancestors, that is, living with the wife’s family. Jacob’s living in Laban’s household is, however, considered irregular by the tradition as we now have it. Things are put right only when he returns to Israel. What does seem clear from the accounts about Rebekah and Rachel is that marriage within the group is an important means of safeguarding group identity and that cross-cousin marriage, a means of maintaining in-group marriage relations in many traditional cultures, may well have been an actual custom in some period in ancient Israel.
Hagar: Mothering a Hero (Gen. 16; 21). The story of Hagar leads to a wider discussion of the major themes of this study: the barrenness of the patriarch’s wives, the annunciation scenes, and the wives’ positions as mother of the patriarch of the next generation. Hagar’s status is contingent on that of her mistress, Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Sarah bears no children and gives Hagar, her Egyptian maid, to Abraham as a wife (16:3), hoping she will become a surrogate mother for Sarah (16:2). The custom of having children through another woman (note the expression “that she may bear upon my knees,” 30:3) is found also in the tale of barren Rachel. It is probably safe to assume that surrogate motherhood was an actual custom in the ancient Near East and would have been eminently possible in a world in which slavery was practiced and persons’ sexual services could be donated by their masters or mistresses. Surrogate motherhood allowed a barren woman
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to regularize her status in a world in which children were a woman’s status and in which childlessness was regarded as a virtual sign of divine disfavor (see 16:2; 30:1–2; and below also on Gen. 38). Childless wives were humiliated and taunted by co-wives (Gen. 16:4). The tension in the scene between Jacob and Rachel in 30:1–2 is fraught with desperate realism, as she cries, “Give me children, or I shall die!” And he responds bitterly, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” It is always the woman in this culture who is perceived as the cause of infertility—so Sarah, so Rebekah, so Rachel. By the same token, virtually no hero worth his salt in Genesis is born under circumstances that are ordinary for his mother. It is the unusual and often initially infertile women who have special births. It is their sons who count in the ongoing tradition. These women mother nations and receive special communications about the child to be born. They often engineer the births, thereby showing considerable power in matters related to fertility and sexuality. Hagar is not a barren woman, but a victim sensing a new power on conceiving Abraham’s child. She now finds her mistress “to be of less worth [literally, “lighter-weight”] in her eyes” (16:4). Sarah knows she has lost status and complains to her husband, who tells her that the maid is hers to do with as she wishes, for this is a woman’s world of competition concerning children. It is in this light that we understand the scene involving Jacob and Leah in 30:14–16. One of the sons of Leah, the fertile wife of trickery whom Jacob had never loved, finds some mandrakes, plants that were believed to have the capacity to produce fertility. Rachel, desperate for children, begs Leah for the plants, and she grudgingly agrees, in exchange for a night with their husband Jacob. Upon returning from the fields, Jacob is told by Leah that he is with her that night, having been “hired” with her son’s mandrakes. Without a comment he goes to her. He obeys in this world of women, as Abraham defers to Sarah in the matter of Hagar. Sarah afflicts Hagar, who flees to the wilderness. There by a spring of water God appears to her in the first of the annunciation scenes in Genesis. She is told about the son to be born and, like Abraham, is promised a multitude of descendants and declares that she has seen God. After the son Ishmael (“God will hear”) is born, Abraham and Sarah are visited by three
men, manifestations of God, who announce that a son will be born to them. Sarah has the nerve to laugh at the unlikely news (18:12), for she and her husband are old and past childbearing. In these scenes the women see God and confront God; they demand and receive some answers. Similarly, when Rebekah, who finally becomes pregnant after her husband petitions God, feels the children moving around violently (literally, “crushing one another”) within her, she inquires of God and is told about the feuding twins, Jacob and Esau. She is made the keeper of the information that the elder, Esau, will serve Jacob, the younger, and she actively sets out to fulfill God’s prediction (25:21–23). Hagar receives a second prediction from God about her son Ishmael in a setting of wilderness and water. Sarah sees Ishmael playing with Isaac (21:9) and demands that Abraham banish Hagar and her son. “The son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac” (21:10). Her words shiver with contempt for the upstarts, the upstarts that she herself had created. Abraham greatly disapproves, for his son Ishmael’s sake, but again the voice of Sarah, the matriarch, and the voice of God are one. Abraham’s wishes in the matter of inheritance are unimportant and misguided, as Isaac’s wishes will be once he has sons. This passage is a difficult one in biblical ethics. Abraham cares not at all about the maid he has bedded, and Sarah is contemptuous of mother and child and would expose them to death. The author works hard to rationalize and justify the emotions and actions of Abraham and Sarah (21:12–13). Yet while reading this story, one has the distinct feeling it is being told from Hagar and Ishmael’s point of view. One is moved by the portrait of the mother who places the child apart because she cannot bear to watch him die; the weeping mother (21:16) and the divinely protected boy ultimately rescued by God and promised a great future; the blessed child and mother, for whom God opens a well of water in the wilderness so that they might drink and live. The motif of the exposed, endangered, and delivered child is as common in the stories of great heroes as that of their mothers’ unusual, difficult conceptions. Compare Moses’ origins (Exod. 2:1–10) and the tale of the binding of Isaac (Gen. 22), anticipated and paralleled by the child Ishmael’s experience. The motif occurs also in Greek narratives about Oedipus and about the Persian king Cyrus. Embedded
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in the Israelite tale of origins is thus another related people’s story of its hero’s youth, and on some level Abraham and Sarah are its necessary villains. God is the god of those deserted in the wilderness, of those on the fringes, who are usually in the Hebrew Scriptures not Ishmaelites but Israelites, whose tales are those of the tricksters to follow.
Tricksters, Israelites, and Women and Gender One of the biblical authors’ favorite narrative patterns is that of the trickster. Israelites tend to portray their ancestors, and thereby to imagine themselves, as underdogs, as people outside the establishment who achieve success in roundabout, irregular ways. One of the ways marginals confront those in power and achieve their goals is through deception or trickery. The improvement in their status may be only temporary, for to be a trickster is to be of unstable status, to be involved in transformation and change. In Genesis, tricksters are found among Israelites sojourning in foreign lands, among younger sons who would inherit, and among women. The Wife/Sister Tales (Gen. 12:10–20; 20:1– 18; 26:1–17). Three times in Genesis, when the patriarch and his wife are “sojourning”— traveling as resident aliens—in a foreign land, the ruler of that country is told that the wife is a sister of the patriarch. In two versions he takes her to be his own woman, and each time the couple is eventually found out. Despite their similarities, the three stories possess quite different nuances and voices. It is assumed in all three versions that a brother has more power to exchange his sister than a husband his wife. The patriarchs are portrayed as assuming that the foreigners would not hesitate to kill a husband in order to get a woman, but that they would engage in normal marital exchanges with a brother. The story that makes the most sense in a crass, male-centered way is the version in 12:10–20, where it is clear that Abram has more to gain as the brother of an unattached, protected woman than as the husband of a “used” one. In Genesis 12:10–20, Sarai and Abram are cotricksters. Abram asks Sarai to participate with him in the deception that she is his sister, praising her beauty and using coaxing language (12:13 begins “Please say you are . . .”; my trans.). She is actually taken as wife by the
dupe, Pharaoh, who showers wealth on the supposed brother-in-law. God, who has other plans, interrupts the trickery with a plague, and Pharaoh, now alerted, dismisses the con artists, who nevertheless leave with their newfound goods intact. This is no woman-affirming tale. Sarai is an exchange item to be traded for wealth. She is shown as accepting this role, as are all the women in Genesis. She and Abram play out their roles in a particular social structure, but do so as marginals. Facing famine in their own land, they flee to Egypt, where they have insecure status. There they use deception to improve their situation at the expense of those who have authority over them. In Genesis 20 and 26 the gender roles are as clearly marked. These tales are again about underdogs but not necessarily about tricksters. In the version in chapter 20 the author apparently worries about the ethics of the situation. He reveals that Sarah is Abraham’s half sister. As in some ancient Near Eastern dynasties, marriage between half siblings is not taboo. The deception is not really a deception after all. Authority is not duped but respected, for the ruler, Abimelech, never actually has relations with Sarah and is portrayed as morally outraged at the thought of taking another man’s wife. Sarah’s role is more sedate in this version, as perhaps befits a more aristocratic but still male-oriented tale. In Genesis 26, the role of the wife Rebekah is even more circumscribed. Isaac, out of fear that the ruler will take Rebekah and kill him, says without consulting her that Rebekah is his sister. But before anything happens, Abimelech observes them “sporting” as man and wife and forgoes any interest in the woman. The three stories differ in their concern for piety and propriety. In Genesis 26, God tightly controls the action and protects the patriarch and his wife so that a good story never develops. Neither Isaac nor Rebekah plays an interesting role. In Genesis 20, a morally upright patriarch and equally blameless ruler relate on a somewhat more equal footing, the woman being a passive character. Only Genesis 12 reveals earthy tricksters who use the woman’s sexuality as a resource to dupe a monarch. It belongs, in this way, to a fund of comparable male-centered folk literature.
Rebekah the Trickster (Gen. 27). In Genesis 27, the woman herself is the trickster who formulates the plan and succeeds, moving the men around her like chess pieces. Lest the
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reader think that here one finally encounters a more liberated woman, beware that again success is gained through the symbolic counterpart of sex—food. Moreover, the status in question is not that of the woman but of her son. Nevertheless, within the confines and assumptions of her male-dominated world, Rebekah is very good at what she does. Indeed, she determines and directs the course of the clan and in doing so is the one who knows and fulfills what God wants. Genesis 27 begins with a father’s intimate words to his elder and favorite son. Isaac, now blind and elderly, tells Esau that he may die at any time. He asks Esau, the hunter, to catch game and make him the food he loves that he may bless him before his death. Someone has overheard the father’s request and his promise. Rebekah, the wife and mother, who has received special information from God that her younger son Jacob, and not Esau, is meant to receive the eldest’s rights and blessing, prepares to actualize that revelation. The theological message gains power from the inevitable pattern of the traditional tale. God’s choice, like love itself, is often serendipitous and inscrutable. The youngest son in folktales inherits even though the patterns of custom and social structure would have it otherwise. Why, as in the case of Sarah and Isaac, is it the woman who knows he is the chosen one? And why are the husbands and fathers left out of the inner circle in the matter of their children? Why are they passive or blind—literally as well as figuratively? One explanation is that children have to do with the private realm of home and hearth, woman’s world. Rebekah’s role as Jacob’s mother is strongly emphasized by repetitions in language in 27:6, 8, 11, 13, 14. It is equally true, as in the creation literature, that women are sources of culture. Here they become the means by which a particular Israelite tradition is established and continued, not merely by giving birth but, in the case of Rebekah, by furthering the career of one of her sons, who does indeed become Israel. From a feminist perspective, one might take pleasure in the fact that Rebekah is so important and in the realization that God’s preference for underdogs here extends to women and to the man who is more his mother’s son than his father’s. Rebekah thoroughly controls the action in Genesis 27. After overhearing her husband’s words to Esau, she repeats them to Jacob and instructs him very much like the wisdom figure
of Proverbs, “Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you” (27:8; cf. Prov. 8:32). She tells Jacob to bring her kids from the flock so she can prepare delicacies for Isaac. Jacob is to bring them to Isaac so he can eat and bless his son. The repetitious language of bringing, eating food, and blessing is economical in the traditional literary style. The repeated words or phrases are used to emphasize key themes. Through deception and disguise, Rebekah and Jacob will be Isaac’s providers, so that Jacob obtains from Isaac the reciprocal blessing of fullness, fertility, and security (27:27–29). Jacob hesitates, but not out of ethical compunction, for he is as good a trickster as his mother. Had he not earlier tricked Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of red food (25:29–34)? He hesitates out of fear that he might be found out and receive a curse at Isaac’s hands rather than a blessing. If the old man should touch him, Jacob’s smoothness would give him away (27:11). Rebekah boldly offers to take the curse upon herself should things go awry, for curses are real, as are blessings. They can be stolen or transferred. His mother prepares a disguise for Jacob, using Esau’s clothes, which smell of the fields, and the woolly skin of the kids to cover his smooth hands and neck (27:15–16). The trickery works and Jacob receives his father’s blessing. Finally Rebekah, again alert to the plans of all the men in her household, engineers Jacob’s safe passage away from the vengeance of Esau (27:41–28:5). Rebekah’s wisdom is a wisdom of women that involves listening closely (recall Sarah in 18:10) and working behind the scenes to accomplish goals. It is a vicarious power that achieves success for oneself through the success of male children, a power symbolically grounded in the preparation and serving of food. It involves as well a willingness to sacrifice oneself (“Let your curse be on me,” 27:13) if necessary for the sake of the son. Such is woman’s power in a man’s world, and it is not the sort of empowerment to which most modern women aspire. It is the power of those not in authority. The woman in ancient Israelite literature who would succeed almost must be a trickster, must follow the path typical of the marginalized. Yet so clever is this trickster, so strong and sure, so completely superior in wisdom to the men around her, that she seems to be the creation of a woman storyteller, one who is part of a male-centered world and is not in open rebellion against it, but
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who nevertheless subverts its rules indirectly by making Rebekah a trickster heroine, for this is also a woman’s power in a man’s world, a power of mockery, humor, and deception. One might even go further and suggest that the biblical writer grapples with masculinities and femininities and reveals in the tales of Rebecca, Isaac, Jacob and Esau a distinct preference for the archetypally feminine.
“My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man.” The ancestor hero of Israel, Jacob, father of the Israelites, is smooth, whereas the founding father of the neighboring, related, Semitic-speaking people, the Edomites, is hairy. Particular cultural messages are encoded in such images. Esau emerges first from the womb, and his hair is an immediate issue: And “emerge did the first red/all of him like a garment of hair” (Gen. 25:25, my trans.). The concept of Esau’s chronological primacy is critical as are images of “redness” and “hair.” To be the firstborn within the social structure of a patrilineal society implies inheriting the father’s status, lands, and clan leadership. This implicit leadership is accompanied by an appearance of ruddiness. The term for “red” is related to the term for the earth, a ruddy substance. Redness thus suggests earthiness, fecundity, and humanity. It is positive for a young man to be called ruddy, as is the young hero David. When we add to these considerations the generally positive views of having lots of hair in the tales of the Hebrew Bible—for example, Absalom’s pride in his hair and others’ initial impression of him, and especially the heroic, manly dimensions implied by tales of Samson and other hairy men such as Elijah—we must conclude that at the outset Esau looks like a promising patriarch. This view is reinforced by the description of Jacob’s birth and the way the boys are as they grow up. Jacob emerges grasping the heel of his younger brother; he is second born. The older brother grows to be “a man knowledgeable in the hunt, a man of the open spaces” (25:27, my trans.). Imagery of nature, skill, and manly endeavors dominate. Jacob grows up to be what the Hebrew calls ’ish tam, one who dwells in tents. The term tam comes from a root meaning “perfect” or “complete” and has been translated with a range of adjectives including “well-behaved,” “quiet,” and “upright/honest.” We might suggest “acculturated” or “domesticated.” Instead of hunting,
Jacob is pictured at the homestead making stew. The he-man Esau returns from the wilds hungry. Bigger than life, speaking in the language of heroic exaggeration, he declares he will die without food, and the younger brother sells him stew in exchange for the elder’s birthright, a deal that the elder certainly does not take seriously. The serious, grasping younger brother does. Esau is Isaac’s son. The storyteller declares that the father loves him because he provides him with game to eat (25:28). Like son, like father. He likes his food, his wild caught food, and thinks in terms of immediate bodily rewards. He is a man of appetites, even when old and blind. Jacob, however, is his mother’s favorite (25:28). Jacob is “her son” (27:6, 17), whereas Esau is Isaac’s son (27:5). “Isaac loved Esau because he was food in his mouth, but Rebekah loved Jacob” (25:28, my trans.). It is the mother who loves her favorite boy, she who masterminds the plan whereby the younger takes Esau’s blessing, a significant act of trickery in a world in which blessings and curses have the power to bring about what they predict. Mother and son are tricksters and underdogs, the woman and the second-born, dare we say effeminate, son, who use deception and roundabout means to further their goals. The son is ambitious; both he and his mother think of the future rather than of near-term gain; they are wily. And Jacob, the trickster, the younger, his mother’s son, the domesticated man, is “a smooth man” who needs to be disguised in animal skins to pass as his brother. It is all about hair. Hair is identity or assumed identity, animal-like, thick, smelling of the fields. Strong contrasts in gender and gender bending are created by the imagery of hair, and all kinds of interesting stereotypes are at play. The manly son is hairy, of the wild, makes food from the hunt, and is loved by his father. The second son is smooth, soft, lives in tents, cooks, and is beloved of his mother. He and she plan clever tricks together in secret, while the father and son interact in a direct, up-front way. And yet, it is not the manly, firstborn who succeeds his father in this patrilineal and patriarchal world. In the tradition, the smooth son, Jacob/Israel, is father of the people Israel; the Edomites, sons of Esau, the manly elder son, are relegated to lower status. The biblical writer is rooting for Jacob, not Esau, for he describes a verbal theophany in which the Deity reveals to Rebekah that Jacob is his choice (25:23).
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The tales of Jacob and Esau partake of a particular biblical symbol system that associates manliness with hair. That the smooth, more effeminate hero is the one who obtains the status and the power implies the influence of a female voice, whether produced by a woman or assumed by a man. The empowerment of smooth Jacob is an empowerment of women, albeit within the contours of an androcentric world. No woman warrior breaks free, no amazon overthrows the patriarchal system. Within that system, however, women and their surrogates succeed in behind-the-scenes ways through deception and trickery. Such stories portraying a loss of power to those who really hold the power in actual everyday life would certainly amuse women, as all such stories amuse and psychologically liberate those without the power. In its own way, Genesis 25–27 uses the equation between hair and identity quite subversively. Even if such stories and such a use of symbols may be rooted in women’s stories and have to do with gender, something bigger is going on, for these stories are now part of the history of the people Israel, and generations of male copyists, preservers, and composers saw them as fundamental expressions of Israelite origins and self-definition. The writers of the Hebrew Bible, in various ways, portray the success of the disempowered, who are aided by their ever present divine ally, the all-powerful YHWH. God loves the weak because their success is testimony to the realization that all power comes from him. Who is weaker than women in the views of androcentric writers? So Israel becomes the female in a relationship with her protector God. The disempowered use deception to improve their lot throughout Genesis.
Rachel: Stealing Laban’s Teraphim (Gen. 31:19, 30–35). In an interesting scene leading up to the departure of Jacob and his household from Laban’s land (31:4–16), Jacob speaks to the feuding wives/sisters. He reviews all that has happened to them, tells of a vision he had promising him much of Laban’s flocks, and of God’s message that the time had come to return to his own land. The women, Rachel and Leah, answer as one, making clear that their allegiance is to their husband and not to their father. They say they are thought of as “stranger women” by their father, who has “sold” them and proceeded to “eat up” all their money.
The language of 31:15 is very strong. Though men are said to acquire wives with the verb that often means “to buy,” nowhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures is a proper marriage described as a father’s selling (makar) his daughters. In the closely related languages of Aramaic and Syriac, mekar means “to buy” and is used for “to marry.” In rabbinic texts moker is a bride-price, but in the Hebrew Scriptures one only sells humans into slavery (e.g., Gen. 37:27, 28, 36; 45:4, 5, about the selling of Joseph; Exod. 21:7–8, laws about selling one’s daughter into slavery). Thus, bitterly and poignantly, the daughters of Laban describe themselves in their relationship to their father as exploited and dispossessed slaves, treated as foreign women unrelated to him. The author of this text assumes that women are economic objects, but implies that at least a man’s own daughters should be treated as more than property. The sisters’ complaint is a remarkably critical statement by women about their treatment and status. Although they do not directly condemn the whole system of which Laban is a part, they state that their rights have not been upheld, even within the requirements of that exploitative system. Indirectly they call attention to a world in which people are bought and sold. Playing the role of mother-wife whose voice is synonymous with the voice of God, the women encourage Jacob to go. It is only at this point that the wives have been fully exchanged from father to husband and that the sisters themselves set aside their own feud to unify with their husband and children as one family. At this point they depart for the husband’s homeland, and at this point of transition Rachel plays the trickster. She steals her father’s teraphim while he is off shearing his sheep. Scholars have long debated what these objects were. NRSV translates “household gods,” implying that they are minor, personal deities represented in statuettes that Rachel might easily carry and conceal. Some have suggested that the teraphim are representations of ancestors, testifying to some sort of ancestor worship among the Israelites. In any event, the role of these objects in the story provides some insight, however murky, into aspects of Israelite popular religion. Laban chases after Jacob and his household, seeming more upset about the teraphim than anything else (31:30). The story receives added tension from Jacob’s declaration that anyone with whom the gods are found shall not live
40 GENESIS
(31:32). Jacob emerges as a full-fledged patriarch having the power of life and death over members of his household. Laban searches in Jacob’s tent, in Leah’s, and in the two maidservants’ but finds nothing. Finally he comes to Rachel’s tent. Rachel has hidden the teraphim in the camel saddle and sits on them. She says to Laban, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me,” that is, “I am in a menstruous condition” (31:35). Laban does not throw her off the saddle. Is this in gentlemanly deference? This interpretation seems inconsistent with the larger portrayal of Laban. He does not discover the teraphim. Is this because in such stories those being tricked have to be tricked— at least for a while? He does not pursue the matter more carefully. Is this because he fears the potent and visceral power issuing forth from the unclean woman, whose capacity to house life links her with the sacred, whose monthly bleeding sets her apart from what is ordinary and normal in a male world, that is, from what is physiologically male? (See Lev. 15:19–24.) If uncleanness is the reason why Laban avoids examining the area close to Rachel, rather than respect for her feigned discomfort, then it provides an instance of a female trickster’s employing woman’s physical source of femininity, the dangerous and polluting power of menstruation, to deter her father from discovering her theft. Laban’s paternal and therefore male authority—an authority related to his ownership of his own household gods—is undermined by his female offspring’s clever exploitation of that which makes her most markedly female. Covert woman’s power in this one brief scene dominates man’s overt authority.
Manning Up Jacob: The Scene at Jabbok (Gen. 32:25–32). In contrast to the trickster tales explored above, the scene at the River Jabbok is dominated by a male voice. Much has been written about this scene in which Jacob wrestles with “a man” who turns out to be a mysterious and unnamed manifestation of the Divine. Scholars have explored its psychoanalytical dimensions and the ways in which it provides a transformation of the hero Jacob, a rite of passage whereby he becomes Israel, returns to the land, and reconciles with his brother Esau. Some have interpreted this scene of painful transformation as recompense or necessary penance for Jacob’s having cheated his brother.
It is above all a manly and heroic scene. Jacob fights with beings, divine and human, and has prevailed (32:28). Could this manly passage, in fact, compensate for the all-too-smooth and effeminate trickster, the son of his mother? Victory is described in the male voice as a matter of physical combat, wounding, and respect between the two male combatants who recognize one another’s power in direct physical terms. Comparisons might be drawn with the way in which relationships are established between heroes such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu, who emerge from their one-on-one combat as beloved brothers and constant companions.
Trickery as Vengeance in Men’s Literature (Gen. 34). Genesis 34 is a tale of trickery involving female sexuality. Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, is raped by Shechem, the son of Hamor. The question of status that is addressed through trickery is not her status, however, but that of her brothers, whose rightful territory— that is, one of their women—has been breached by an outsider. The narrative not only is about women’s status and rape but also deals with the relation between generations and with questions of marriage outside the kinship group. The rape occurs when Dinah goes out to visit the women of the land. A strong impression is conveyed of insider versus outsider, us versus them. Within one’s family is safety; among the people of the land lies danger. The Hebrew word for rape is from a root meaning “to be bowed down, afflicted.” So the Israelites’ oppression in Egypt is described. Yet the assumption in 34:3 is that such affliction is not incompatible with love. Verse 3 says that Shechem’s soul is drawn to Dinah, that he loves her and speaks tenderly to her. He asks his father, Hamor, to obtain her for him as a wife. One of the most striking aspects of the narrative is the degree to which Dinah is absent and present. She is, on the one hand, central to the action, the focus of Shechem’s desire, the object of negotiations between Jacob and Hamor, the reason for her brothers’ trickery, and the cause of tension between Jacob and his sons. On the other hand, she has no dialogue, no voice. How does she react to Shechem’s speaking “tenderly,” or to Jacob and Hamor’s arrangements for her marriage to the rapist? What, for that matter, happens to her at the end of the story? She seems to fade out after her brothers retrieve her (34:26).
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Does a thread in this tale, as in the story of the Benjaminites in Judges 21, condone wife stealing as one way in which new peoples are created? Jacob does not condemn the whole affair but “keeps silent” (34:5) and prepares to do business with Hamor. Two of Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, however, consider Shechem’s rape of Dinah a shocking outrage. How dare he take the daughter of Jacob without permission! And what of their feelings for Dinah, or the narrator’s? She is described as having been made unclean (34:5, 27). Like a prostitute, she has become a person of outsider status, unfit to be a bride. The brothers describe Shechem as having treated their sister like a harlot and condemn him and his kin to death. Once raped, however, Dinah is so consigned to the background of the story that the issue that emerges is less her status as a sufferer than the status of the men who control her sexuality. Shechem has raped Dinah, but in the point of view of the narrator, by doing so he shows lack of respect for the persons of Jacob and the brothers, lack of respect for the proper way of establishing kinship relations. Hamor attempts to mend matters after the fact with promises of trade (34:21) and proper marriage relations. Simeon and Levi reject his offer but not directly. They are, after all, sojourners in what is still the land of the Canaanites, God’s promises for the future notwithstanding. Their position is a precarious one, as Jacob himself indicates (34:30), and so they take their vengeance through trickery. In contrast to Genesis 31:30–35 and Genesis 38, the trickster is not the wronged woman. In contrast to Genesis 27, the point of view is clearly male. Genesis 34, not unlike the tale of Samson and the Timnites in Judges 14–15, is about a feud between two groups of men over ownership of one group’s woman. Whereas Jacob is willing to make accommodation with the Canaanites for the sake of peace and to gain, in exchange for Dinah, permission to stay in the land and trade there, the brothers, more hotheaded and concerned about matters of face than the old man, prepare a deception using Dinah’s sexuality as bait. They lie to Hamor, stating that if he and all males among his people will circumcise themselves, then they will let Shechem have Dinah and engage in further exchanges with them. Hamor agrees, and while his warriors are incapacitated, uncomfortable from the surgery, Jacob’s sons attack. They kill all the men, “slaying them with the sword,”
taking all the enemies’ possessions, their children, and their wives as booty. It is an act that evens the score but also serves as a reminder that wife stealing and rape were regularly associated with war in ancient Israel, even when the reason for war had nothing to do with ownership of the women. Genesis 34 shares with the other trickster tales about women the pattern of a problem in status, deception to improve status, and success of the plan. The rape lowers Dinah’s status but also that of her father and brothers, and it is their status that most occupies the author. Dinah herself does not engineer a deception that will restore her status; rather, she becomes a motif in the artful deception by her brothers. Their status is raised in turn by the success of their plan and the theft of other women, while Dinah’s lowered status remains. Genesis 34 confirms that tales in which women are important to the action are most often about relations between men, at least in narratives as strongly marked by the male voice as this one. Men are the protagonists of the trickster pattern; the woman Dinah serves as an occasion for their contest, as the wives and daughters of Hamor mark its closure. The women are thus on the turning points and borders of narrative action in this tale, echoing the patterns of actual women’s economic and socio-structural roles in all traditional cultures, as those who go between the men of marrying groups and between generations of men within their own families.
Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother (Gen. 38). Genesis 38 begins as a story of Judah, who is left in the land of Canaan during Joseph’s ordeal in Egypt. In the Joseph narrative, Judah is one of the villain brothers. He does not actually want to kill the boy Joseph but suggests he be sold to a passing band of Ishmaelites (37:26– 27). Of course, being sold into slavery is not unlike a death sentence. At the very least, Judah is subjecting Joseph to social death, separating him from kin and culture and from his place as favorite of Jacob, son of the beloved Rachel, who would surely inherit. Judah wishes to keep his own hands free from blood, but is portrayed as guilty by proxy. Some scholars have suggested that the tale in Genesis 38 balances the misdeed to Joseph. As Joseph was taken in ambush, so Judah is taken by deception and forced to do his duty by Tamar. The larger stories of Jacob and Joseph are structured along such patterns
42 GENESIS
of trickery and countertrickery, misdeed, and vengeance. The opening section of Genesis 38 tells of Judah’s marriage to Shua’s daughter and of the birth of his three sons (Er, Onan, and Shelah) in the genealogical orientation typical of family foundation narratives. Then, as in tales of Abraham’s sons and Isaac’s, we are told of marriage arrangements made for the eldest son Er. In one verse (38:6) this brief account introduces Er’s wife Tamar, the heroine of the story. The genealogical orientation continues in 38:7 but with a twist. Er is a wicked man and is slain by God, leaving no offspring. Judah tells his middle son Onan to go in to Tamar (“go in” being a biblical euphemism for sexual intercourse) to “perform the duty of a brother-inlaw.” As discussed in Deuteronomy 25:5–10, the brother of a deceased man who has died without leaving children is to marry the widow. The children born from such a union are to be considered the dead brother’s children and thereby “perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel.” On the one hand, this law might be interpreted as a male-preserving, male-protecting law, and Tamar’s actions in 38:13–19 would be a wife’s act of devotion to her dead spouse. The man’s reproductive powers extend in this way even beyond the grave. In a symbol system like that of ancient Israel, without belief in bodily resurrection, offspring are one’s afterlife. In a world in which the souls of the dead are confined to a dismal place much like Hades, called Sheol, it is especially important to have one’s name preserved among the living. Within the confines of this male-centered world, however, the law of the levirate (brother-in-law) is also important to the widow herself. Under her father’s protection and control as a virgin, she is, like Rebekah, transferred to the care and keeping of her husband and his family. Once married into her husband’s family, she is to be a faithful and fruitful wife, providing children, especially sons. The barren wife is an anomaly, for she is no longer a virgin in her father’s home, but she does not produce children in her husband’s. Even more anomalous is the young childless widow who has no hope of becoming a fruitful member of her husband’s clan once the husband is dead. Indeed, she has altogether lost her tie with that clan. Yet she, like the barren wife, no longer belongs in her father’s household. The law of the levirate suits a male-centered symbol system in that it neatens up that which has
become anomalous according to the categories of that system. But the law must have also saved young childless widows from economic deprivation and from a sort of social wilderness, no longer under father, but having no husband or son to secure their place in the patriarchal clan. Onan takes Tamar as his wife, but instead of helping her to conceive Er’s children, he practices a primitive form of birth control and spills his semen on the ground. Onan’s refusal to help create another man’s children, to become a surrogate father for the dead brother, can be explained in economic terms. Onan might prefer to divide his inheritance with the one remaining brother than to divide it among Er’s descendants, his own, and Shelah’s. God, whose voice and opinion are also the author’s, condemns this selfishness and kills Onan. God’s displeasure with Onan is not to be interpreted as an author’s condemnation of birth control, but as a condemnation of Onan’s refusal to raise up children in his brother’s name and in the process to regularize Tamar’s place in the social structure. Judah’s next step should be to wed Tamar to his youngest son Shelah, but he hesitates, fearing that Shelah will die also (38:11). Perhaps Judah fears Tamar as a witch of sorts who kills her lovers or as the lover of a demon who will not share her with any human man (cf. the book of Tobit). He puts Tamar off, telling her to return to her father’s home until Shelah grows up, but as 38:11 indicates, Judah has no intention of giving the woman to his only remaining son. Tamar returns to her father’s house, neither a virgin nor a wife nor a mother. She is on the fringes of the Israelite social structure, for nowhere does she properly belong. Tamar, the person of uncertain status, is thus the perfect candidate to become a trickster. Through deception she is able to confront those with the power to improve her status and to gain what she desires. Tamar hears that Judah, whose wife has recently died, has gone to Timnah to shear his sheep (38:12–13). Tamar takes off her widow’s clothing and assumes the disguise of a prostitute. Veiled, she waits for Judah at the entrance to Enaim. This trickster’s disguise is an excellent symbolization of her status. As she is at a geographic border, so she is at a transition point in the course of her life. She is dressed as a prostitute, a woman whose sexual role is neither virgin nor wife. So is the real Tamar, though in a different way. Deception through sexual allure
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is a favorite motif in traditional trickster tales. As in Genesis 12, the attractive woman is not who she appears to be. Judah sees her, thinks she is a prostitute, and asks her for sex (38:15–16). She demands to know what he will pay her, playing her role beautifully (38:16), and finally takes as a pledge his signet seal, the cord from which the seal hung, and his staff, which was probably marked with his seal. He promises to exchange a kid for them later as payment. As in the case of Laban’s gods, Judah’s possessions are a sign of his identity, his authority, and his self. Like a signet ring, the seal bore in relief the man’s sign and would be used to make impressions on objects or documents to indicate ownership or origin. Only a man would carry a staff, whether for support or defense. Tamar thus takes symbols of the very personhood of Judah. He has intercourse with her and she conceives (38:18). She resumes her widow’s garb, and when Judah sends his friend to exchange the kid for his things, the prostitute has disappeared. He tells his sidekick to let the matter drop “lest we become objects of contempt,” having been fooled by the prostitute. Little does he realize how much the fool he has been. When it is discovered that Tamar is pregnant, it is Judah, patriarch of the family into which she had married, not her own father, who is in charge of her fate. Again one sees law and custom enforced by the patriarch and not by some external group of elders or priests. The family headed by the patriarch is a self-contained microcosm of the larger community and its customs. Judah’s decision is swift, unconsidered, and cruel. Tension in the story is heightened. “Bring her out and let her be burned” (38:24). Is he happy finally to be rid of the woman he holds responsible for the death of his wicked sons? But Tamar, the trickster, sends to him the tokens of signet, cord, and staff with the message, “It was the owner of these who made me pregnant” (38:25). Judah recognizes his possessions. How could he deny his own seal? He acknowledges them and accepts responsibility, saying that Tamar is more righteous than he, because he had not given her to Shelah. Genesis 38:26 ends on an interesting note: Not again did he know her (sexually). Is this a later editorial comment by a writer anxious to minimize Judah’s having sex with his daughterin-law, in light of the prohibition against incest in Leviticus 18:15? The comment might also be
read as a more integral part of the story. Judah, now more fearful than ever of the woman who survived two husbands and boldly bettered him, keeps his distance from her. Tamar, like Rebekah, gives birth to twin heroes, the mark of a special matriarch. From the younger, Perez, will be descended Boaz, the husband of Ruth, whose tale is very much like that of Tamar. Both women contribute to the genealogical line leading to Israel’s greatest hero, David. Tamar’s rise in status is to be understood within a particular symbol system. She is now under the protection of the patriarch and has produced sons for the line. The tale does not criticize the rules of the social structure overtly, but like the scene in Genesis 31:14–16 insists on a man’s maintaining the status and rights allowed the woman within the system. Like the prelude to the story of the stolen teraphim (31:15–16), Genesis 38 provides an implicit critique, for one sees how easily even these rights can be abrogated. Women in the Joseph Tales (Gen. 37; 39–50)
The Comparative Absence of Women in the Joseph Tales. The Joseph narrative has no heroes who are tricksters, and its women are only two: Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, mentioned in one line (41:45) as part of the reward given to Joseph for successfully interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, and Potiphar’s wife, a stock character portrayed as one of the challenges in life faced by the wise hero. Whereas women find many places in the stories about marginals who enjoy temporary success but remain at odds with the establishment, they are virtually absent from the Joseph tales of Genesis, which are more confirming of authority and the status quo. Potiphar’s Wife (Gen. 39). The story of Potiphar’s wife’s attempted seduction of Joseph is often compared to the ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers.” In each, the upright and trustworthy person who works for a superior (Potiphar in the case of Joseph and the elder brother in the Egyptian tale) is propositioned by the superior’s wife. The younger man rejects her and remains loyal to his superior, whereupon the scorned woman accuses the young man of attempted rape. This plot is found in a wide range of traditional tales and in many popular works of modern fiction.
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The tale of Potiphar’s wife emphasizes themes found throughout the biography of Joseph. Recurring language indicates that everything touched by Joseph prospers because God is with him (see 39:2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9). Seeming misfortunes in Joseph’s life inevitably turn to Joseph’s benefit and to that of Israel (45:7, 8). Thus the serious charge that Joseph attempted to cuckold his master does not lead to his death but to the royal prison. There Joseph interprets the dreams of fellow prisoners, one of whom later recommends Joseph to the Pharaoh as one who can interpret his troubling dreams of cows and sheaves. The incident of Potiphar’s wife is one more link in a chain leading inevitably to Joseph’s becoming vizier of all Egypt. Finally, the tale contributes to the portrayal of Joseph’s character. This is the same almost-too-honest Joseph who reports to his parents the dreams that predict that he will come to dominate them, the same Joseph who reports to his father about his brothers’ indiscretions. The characterization of the almost-too-good-to-be-true Joseph is consistent throughout the narrative. He is a wisdom hero, a type represented in the biblical court narratives of Daniel and the book of Esther and in ancient Near Eastern works such as the story of Ahikar. As has been noted, the wisdom hero lives by the sort of advice offered in wisdom collections such as the biblical book of Proverbs. One of the dominant themes in Proverbs is to keep one’s distance from the loose woman, the adulteress (Prov. 2:16–19; 5:1–23; 7:6–27). Joseph exemplifies the wise man: hardworking, sober, God- fearing, and able to resist forbidden fruit. Potiphar’s wife exemplifies the female personification of antiwisdom: disloyal to her husband, quick to seek satisfaction in forbidden places, strongly sexual, and duplicitous. In vengeance she uses the garment she has ripped from Joseph to accuse him of her own misdeed. Her accusation to the servants (39:14–15), repeated to her husband (39:17), echoes the accurate description of what had happened in 39:12–13, but now recasts the information in a lie. Wisdom and antiwisdom, truth and lies, are thus reverse images. What sort of view of women is found in this tale and what sort of narrator’s voice? The image of the vengeful and conniving woman scorned is an archetype more meaningful to men than to women, a means of asserting the male’s desirability and innocence, projecting all sexual desire onto the woman, who is a manifestation of the
feminine frightening to men. She is aggressive, independent, and sexually demanding. Such women never prosper in the Hebrew Scriptures. In this scene Joseph is the marginal character, a foreign exile and a slave, while Potiphar’s wife is his superior; and yet Joseph is no trickster. He is a different sort of hero, and his is a different sort of literature from that found in the tales of the matriarchs and patriarchs. Whereas the latter repeatedly describe the trickster’s challenge to authority and include many women tricksters who make their way as marginals within a maleoriented system, the stories of Joseph suggest that if a man has God’s favor and lives wisely, he can succeed in becoming a part of the ruling establishment itself.
Conclusions The women of Genesis are markers and creators of transition and transformation. In some sense their narrative roles parallel social positions of and attitudes toward women in male- dominated cultures in which women are marginal in terms of economic or political authority. Yet paradoxically their roles as the people “in between” can be powerful and critical for the development of the stories and for the progress of human civilization and Israelite culture as perceived by biblical writers. Without Eve, the present world would not exist. Without Rebekah, Jacob would not have fathered the people of Israel. The women succeed in behind-the-scenes ways, through the medium of trickery, and their power is in the private rather than the public realm. They evoke sympathy as those whose rights are unstable and always at risk, for the line between successful tricksters such as Rebekah, Rachel, and Tamar and victims such as Dinah and Hagar is easily crossed. The tale of Potiphar’s wife implies a culture in which powerful women are regarded with suspicion, as unnatural and evil. The voice that lies behind the tales of the matriarchs and patriarchs is markedly different from the voice underlying the tales of Joseph. Only the former are imbued with attitudes of those outside the establishment and in some instances speak with the voice of the feminine. The voices behind tales of Genesis might also be explored from the perspective of masculinities and femininities, as seen, for example, in the tales of Rebekah, Tamar, Jacob, and Dinah.
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Bibliography
Brenner, Athalya, ed. Genesis. The Feminist Companion to the Bible. 2nd series. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Gossai, Hemchand. Power and Marginality in the Abraham Narrative. 2nd ed. Princeton Theological Monograph Series. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010. Jeansonne, Sharon Pace. The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar’s Wife. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990. Meyers, Carol L. Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Niditch, Susan. ‘My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man’: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Phipps, William E. Genesis and Gender: Biblical Myths of Sexuality and Their Cultural Impact. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1989. Schneider, Tammi J. Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008. Trible, Phyllis. “A Love Story Gone Awry.” In Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, 72–143. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978.
Eve and Her Interpreters Anne W. Stewart
the mind, which was symbolized by Adam (On the Creation of the World, 165). Other Jews and Christians, on the other hand, did not find that Eve’s secondary creation necessarily implied her inferiority. Christian theologian John Chrysostom insisted that because Eve was created from Adam’s rib, she was equal to him in every respect: “So, from man’s rib God creates this rational being, and in his inventive wisdom he makes it complete and perfect, like man in every detail” (Kvam, 143). The Talmud even argues that God gave greater mental powers to Eve than to Adam. It explains that the phrase “God built (from Heb. banah) her from his side” (2:22) means that God gave more understanding (Heb. binah) to Eve (b. Niddah 45b). Other Jewish traditions tried to reconcile the two different creation accounts. Some medieval interpretations suggest that Eve, the woman created in the second account, was actually Adam’s second wife. The first creation account then refers to Adam’s first wife, who left Adam, prompting God to create another wife for him. The medieval text Alphabet of Ben Sira explains that Lilith, the first woman, and Adam began fighting when Adam told her to lie down below him. She refused, insisting that the two were equal because they were both created from the earth. Lilith flew away, and even God’s angels could not bring her back. In the rabbinic tradition at large, Lilith is known as a menacing demon, and this particular tradition accounts for her behavior by claiming that she wandered the earth after leaving Adam, terrorizing men who slept alone and afflicting babies with disease (Kvam, 204). The significance of the woman’s encounter with the serpent in Genesis 3 has drawn even more attention among biblical interpreters, and the text itself sparks numerous questions. Why does the serpent engage the woman and not the man? Why does the woman state that God forbid them not only from eating the fruit but from touching the tree in the middle of the garden (3:3)? God forbade only eating the fruit;
“She took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her” (Gen. 3:6). The esteem, worth, and role of women is at stake in the interpretation of this verse. The significance of Eve’s act is perhaps one of the most disputed points in the history of biblical interpretation. Did this first woman cause all humanity to descend into a sinful state, or should one place ultimate blame at the feet of her husband? Is she a paragon of feminine beauty, power, and creativity, or a paradigm of vice, condemning all her descendants to hold a place of inferiority to men? Commentators, theologians, artists, poets, and readers alike have advanced various interpretations of the first woman in Genesis, often promoting certain assumptions about womankind as a whole. Consequently, Eve has garnered more attention than almost any other female biblical character. The discrepancies between the two creation stories in Genesis, as well as the significant ambiguities within each of them, provide plenty of room for contradictory opinions. In the first creation account, male and female are created simultaneously (1:26–27). They are equally in the image of God, charged to populate and care for the earth. In the second creation account, however, God forms the male Adam from the dust of the earth and later creates woman from Adam’s rib as a mate for him, only after all other creatures have been eliminated as adequate companions (2:20). Reconciling these two strikingly different accounts and their competing implications for the nature of male-female relations is a significant locus of dispute in the interpretative tradition. Many interpreters place more emphasis on the second account than the first, causing them to suggest that Eve, having been created from Adam, was inferior to him. The Jewish historian Philo, for example, posited a typology of women’s inferiority to men from the second account. Philo interpreted Eve allegorically as representative of sense perception, a faculty inferior to 46
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God said nothing about touching it (2:17). Furthermore, the woman had not yet been created when God issued the injunction, so from whom did she get her information? The circumstances of the man and his wife change dramatically after they eat of the fruit, know their nakedness, and are expelled from the garden. But was there a larger existential change in their condition
and, by extension, the condition of humanity? If so, who is to blame? The story of Adam and Eve in the garden was retold and interpreted in many versions in early Jewish apocryphal texts. Sirach, for example, a second-century-BCE wisdom text, warns about the danger of women, insisting that “from a woman sin had its beginning, and because of
In Creation of Eve, an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), a faint image of the Creator is visible behind Eve and the sleeping Adam. This illustration was published in The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version (London: Cassell, 1866).
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her we all die” (Sir. 25:24). This text was the first to ascribe culpability to woman for all subsequent human sin and death, but it was certainly not the last to view her in negative light. In The Life of Adam and Eve, a first-century-CE text that elaborates various adventures of the first couple, Eve is a weak character, ridden with guilt for their expulsion from the garden. Adam, on the other hand, is a heroic figure who secures forgiveness for Eve so that the human race can endure. In the Greek version of the text, also called the Apocalypse of Moses, Eve tells in her own words the story of her encounter with the serpent. She describes the world before meeting the serpent, when she and Adam were equal caretakers, each charged with half of the garden and creation. This text alludes to the serpent’s encounter with Eve as an act of sexual seduction, for Eve recounts that the serpent poured on the fruit his poison of lust, “the origin of every sin” (Apoc. Mos. 19.3). Lust thus taints human sexuality from that point forward, and Eve holds herself responsible, proclaiming “all sin in creation has come about through me” (Apoc. Mos. 32.3). Early Christian texts contained different views about who is ultimately responsible for human sin. Like these Jewish apocryphal texts,
the New Testament epistle 1 Timothy indicates that Eve, not Adam, bears the blame for eating the fruit. The text also depends on the second creation account to undergird its claim that women ought to be subordinate to men: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim. 2:13–14). On the other hand, Romans 5 attributes blame solely to Adam, for “just as sin came into the world through one man . . . so death spread to all because all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). The gnostic Gospel of Philip, however, suggests that death came into the world not when Adam ate the apple but when Eve was created from Adam’s side. It suggests that the first human was an androgynous being, and when Eve and Adam were separated from a single body, death entered (Gospel of Philip, 63). The negative view of Eve in 1 Timothy had an inordinate influence on subsequent interpretations of Genesis by the church fathers. Tertullian, for example, advanced prescriptive advice for female modesty in dress, in order that each woman “might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve . . . the odium (attaching to her as the cause) of human
Fall of Adam and Eve, a woodcut by Virgil Solis (1514–1562), shows both the serpent offering the fruit and, at left, Adam and Eve being driven from the lush garden (Gen. 3:24). This illustration was published in Summaria uber die gantze Biblia, by Veit Dietrich, Philipp Melanchthon, and Johannes Brenz (Frankfurt am Main, 1562).
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perdition” (The Apparel of Women, i.1). Tertullian goes even further, alleging that all women are culpable with Eve for sin and conspirators with the devil in leading men astray. He thus condemns his female audience, saying, “You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die” (The Apparel of Women, i.1). On the other hand, Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the fourth century, used the 1 Timothy text to different ends. While he too held that woman was inferior to man, he nonetheless noted that Christ was born of a woman. He thus interprets the phrase “she will be saved by childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15) to mean that Eve brings forth human redemption (Paradise, x.47). Romans 5 shaped the Christian theological doctrine of the fall and original sin, the idea that after Adam and Eve’s disobedience, all humanity was thereafter tainted by sin. For this reason, Genesis 3 acquired weightier overtones as the origin of the human condition, and Eve herself was often held responsible for this plight. Augustine, and many theologians following him, associated the consequences of the first sin with shame and sexual lust and held that such effects passed from the first couple to all subsequent humans. He held together 1 Timothy and Romans, insisting that Eve and Adam together bore blame, for even though Eve was deceived, Adam also sinned (City of God, 14.11). The association of the first sin with sexual activity colored interpretations of Eve, and she was frequently associated with seduction and danger. For this reason, many viewed her as the antithesis of the pure Virgin Mary, who redeemed Eve’s disgrace by obeying God and giving birth to Christ. The notion of Mary as a second Eve who rectified the error of the first was introduced by Justin Martyr in the second century, yet it grew in importance after Augustine, as virginity became an ideal of discipleship (Phillips, 135). Although the notion of a “fall” does not hold a central theological position in Judaism, as in Christianity, Jewish tradition also suggests that Eve’s sin had repercussions for contemporary humans. The Talmud reports that God punished her with ten curses that now befall all women, including pain in conception, childbirth, menstruation, and the angst of raising children (b. Eruvin 100b), though another
opinion suggests that such curses do not pertain to righteous women (b. Sotah 12a). Other rabbinic sources take different approaches to the question of who should bear the blame for eating the fruit. Some traditions suggest that it was Adam’s fault, for in an attempt to prevent either of them from transgressing the divine command not to eat the fruit, Adam told Eve that she should not even touch the tree. This discrepancy between the divine command and Adam’s injunction left just the opportunity that the serpent needed to deceive Eve, for when he showed her that she would not die for touching the tree, she ate the fruit. Other traditions, however, place the blame squarely on Eve. One tradition suggests that once Eve ate the fruit, the Angel of Death appeared to her, and she quickly forced Adam to eat the fruit as well, lest he take another wife after she died (Avot of Rabbi Nathan 1.6). Muslim interpretations also consider similar questions. Although the Qur’an does not refer to the creation story, there are several accounts of the first disobedience. One indicates that both man and woman were equally culpable (Q. 7:19–24), but in another, man was the one tempted by Satan (Q. 20:120–21). Later interpreters had much more to say about Eve and her role in the first sin. Muslim commentator al-Tabari (839–923 CE) notes one interpretation in which Adam was tempted out of sexual desire for Eve, since Satan had made her beautiful in his sight, and another that Adam was not in his rational mind, because Eve had made him drunk with wine (Kvam, 189; cf. the rabbinic interpretation that Adam was drunk, Num. Rab. 10.4). In either case, there is an element of feminine danger in accounting for the first sin. Eve has also figured prominently in art and literature in ways that cohere with and diverge from interpretations in the religious traditions. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, for example, Adam willingly eats the fruit after Eve because he cannot bear the thought of being separated from her should she die, an inverse interpretation from that of the rabbinic tradition cited above, though similar to Augustine’s approach (cf. City of God, 14.11). Milton also suggested that Eve had more beauty than intellect and was inferior to her male mate, even claiming that she was less in the image of God than Adam (Paradise Lost, viii.538–46). Paul Gauguin produced several striking renditions of Eve throughout his career. Breton Eve
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(1889) depicted a frightened Eve with blue hair, crouching under the tree, a serpent hovering in the background, while in Exotic Eve (1890) she stands taller than the tree itself and unabashedly grasps its fruit. Gauguin also painted several works presenting Eve as a Tahitian woman in a jungle setting. In Te nave nave fenua (The Land of Sensuous Pleasure, 1892), she stands naked next to a lizard, not a serpent, while picking a flower. Gauguin wrote about this figure that she represented Eve after the fall, serious and not at all self-conscious, a deliberate antithesis to the wanton, seductive Eve found in much of Western art (Maurer, 149). Eve’s influence has not waned throughout the centuries. More recently, she has become a heroine to contemporary feminists who have offered their own readings of the Genesis story. Judith Plaskow, for example, reenvisioned the rabbinic legend of Lilith as Adam’s first wife. In her version of the tale, Eve, curious about this other woman who possessed so much strength and gumption, climbed an apple tree to scale the walls of the garden and meet Lilith on the other side. The two became fast friends, but their friendship was threatening to both Adam and God, for the “bond of sisterhood” between the two women promised to change the nature of the male-female relationship. Indeed, “God and Adam were expectant and afraid the day Eve and Lilith returned to the garden, bursting with possibilities, ready to rebuild it together” (Plaskow, 207). Plaskow’s essay became a touchstone for feminist theology and a rallying cry for those who found a model in Lilith as strong and independent, in Eve as curious and intelligent, and in their mutual friendship as emblematic of the support and camaraderie of the feminist community. Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible has perhaps done the most work to recover Genesis from patriarchal interpretations. Trible saw Eve, the final of God’s creations, not as secondary to Adam, but as the culmination of all creation. She emphasized Eve’s intelligence, sensitivity, and initiative, in contrast to Adam, who remains silent and passive throughout the encounter with the serpent. She viewed Genesis 2–3 not as a mandate for the inferiority of woman to man, but as an affirmation of the equality and mutuality of male-female relations at creation
and, consequently, a strong judgment against the oppressive structures that soured them, a result of disobedience (Trible, 128). Some feminists have found the story of Eve and its reception so troubling that they see little redeeming value in it, but Trible and other feminist scholars have refused to relinquish Eve’s interpretation to those who doubt her equality with Adam or her worth as a woman. Although Eve has been much maligned by some interpreters as inferior to her husband, solely responsible for humanity’s broken condition, and even a gateway for the devil, not all have seen her in such a negative light. Interpreters that emphasize her equality with Adam and her role as “mother of all living” (3:20) draw attention to important aspects of the biblical text, which figures Eve as a dynamic character and fails to cast blame on either Adam or Eve alone. Indeed, such positive interpretations may allow contemporary women to reclaim Eve as a pivotal biblical character of curiosity and intelligence, formed in the image of God. Bibliography
Anderson, Gary. The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. Kvam, Kristen, et al. Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. Maurer, Naomi M. The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1998. Phillips, John. Eve: The History of an Idea. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984. Plaskow, Judith. “The Coming of Lilith: Toward a Feminist Theology.” In Woman spirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, edited by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, 198–209. 2nd ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992. Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978.
Sarah, Hagar, and Their Interpreters Elaine James
4:22–31. He describes their story as an allegory in which the women symbolize sides in his argument against Jewish Christians or Judaizing Gentiles: “these women are two covenants.” He traces the promise through Sarah’s son Isaac, who represents birth in the Spirit, and Hagar and her son are condemned “according to the flesh” and driven out. For Christians, this reading strategy legitimized their ascendancy over Jews and later over Muslims, as is evident in Pope Urban II’s reported invocation of Sarah and Paul’s phrase, “Cast out the slave woman and her son!” (Gal. 4:30) to galvanize Christendom for the First Crusade (Urban II, Council of Cleremont, 1095). Patristic readings were heavily influenced by Paul. In City of God, Augustine likewise dichotomizes the women: Hagar is in the earthly city, which symbolizes sin and wrath, and only prefigures the superiority of Sarah, who, in the heavenly city, denotes grace and divine mercy (De civitate Dei, 15.2). Origen’s seventh homily suggests that Hagar turned away from the letter of the law (represented by the bottle of water given her by Abraham) and drinks fully at the well of living water, which is Jesus Christ (Hom. Gen., 7.5–6). At the same time, he lifts up Sarah as an example of an upright wife who virtuously submits to her husband. This latter move is indicative of a broader patristic interest in the proper ordering of marriage, which reveals a concern for the rectitude of the forebears despite the sexual intrigue of their story (especially the wife-sister episodes and the problem of polygamy). The resultant emphasis on Sarah and Abraham’s virtue minimizes the harm done to Hagar, who remains a foil for their integrity. Early readers, though, are not entirely without sympathy for Hagar. For John Chrysostom, she exemplifies God’s compassion and care for the lowly, and the angel’s visitation dignifies her abject situation (Hom. Gen., 38.5–7). Hilary of Poitiers compares Hagar’s theophany to Abraham’s, which elevates her experience of divine revelation to the level of the patriarch’s (De trinitate, 4.23–27).
The stories of Sarah and her Egyptian slave Hagar (Gen. 16, 21) are intimately intertwined and desperately conflicted. Sarah, to compensate for her barrenness, offers Hagar to Abraham as a surrogate womb. But when Hagar bears Ishmael, the dynamics between the women become embittered, and Hagar flees, to return again by an angel’s command. After Sarah finally gives birth to Isaac, she convinces Abraham to cast Hagar back out into the desert, where she is saved by a theophanic intervention. The conflict between the two women is never resolved, and Sarah’s final words in the story are charged with spite: “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac” (21:10). The shadow of their conflict lingers in the history of interpretation, which has typically chosen sides between Sarah and Hagar, favoring one and neglecting or condemning the other. Theological and aesthetic representations alike tend to polarize the two characters and to understand them as symbols for other things. Philo’s comment might be taken as a kind of banner statement: “It is not women that are spoken of here” (Congr., 180). The discerned meaning of the women’s story varies widely (for Philo, they represent “minds” on a journey to the attainment of virtue), and their complex moral relationship continues to prompt reflection on broader conflicts of all kinds. Early on in other biblical and Christian traditions, attention focuses on the symbolism of Sarah. She is the foremother (Isa. 51:2), the fulfillment of God’s elective power (Rom. 9:9), and a symbol of obedience (1 Pet. 3:6). Philo allegorizes Sarah as virtue, which brings forth happiness represented in Isaac (Legum allegoria, 2.82). Jubilees, in summarizing the Genesis stories, omits many of the details of Sarah’s treatment of Hagar, and the latter’s arrogance, thereby avoiding some of the moral dilemmas of the biblical text (Jub. 14:21–24; 17). Most significant among these is Paul’s Christian typological interpretation in Galatians 51
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Rabbinic discussions tend to highlight the ethics of the story itself, albeit with characteristically diverse evaluations. In the Babylonian Talmud, Sarah’s fertility is a cipher for divine blessing, and the matriarch’s breasts are described as fountains flowing with abundant milk (Bava Metzia 87a). Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai (Rashbi) argues that Hagar was Pharaoh’s daughter (Gen. Rab. 45:1), which both elevates Hagar’s status and is occasionally taken as a sign of Hagar’s idolatry (Pirqe d’Rabbi Eliezer, “Horeb,” 29). Genesis Rabbah portrays Sarah very positively: “The Holy One, blessed be He, never condescended to hold converse with any woman save with that righteous woman” (45:10), yet offers various speculations about the kind of terrible mistreatment she inflicted on Hagar (45:6). Famously, Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman (Nachmanides, Ramban) accuses both Sarah and Abraham of sinning in their mistreatment of Hagar. The midrashic sensibility turns readerly attention back to the thorny story line and, in overtly critiquing Sarah’s behavior, anticipates modern feminist concerns. In Muslim tradition, Hagar has an esteemed position as the mother of Ishmael and the foremother of the Arab followers of Muhammad. The Qur’an mentions neither woman by name, but “Abraham’s wife” receives the promise of a son from the heavenly messengers (Surah 51: Adh-Dhariyat). Hagar’s story is included in the hadith (the oral traditions of the prophet Muhammad), book 15:9, called The Anbiya (Prophets). Here, Hagar’s tireless pursuit of water for Ishmael, and the angelic promise that Allah’s people will come from herself, ennoble her character. She represents the tradition of hijrah, or experiencing exile for the sake of God, and is accorded high esteem at ‘Eid alAdha (the Feast of Sacrifice). Sarah too has a place of esteem: in stories narrated by Bukhari and Muslim, she successfully defends her sexual purity when Abraham gives her to other men by pious invocation of the name of Allah. During the Protestant Reformation, interest in the literal sense of the text increasingly attends to the dynamics of the story, although this leads most Reformers to lift up Abraham and to chastise the womanly pettiness of both Sarah and Hagar. Luther condemns Hagar, but also zeroes in on her pathos, seeing her plight as an example of patience in suffering. She becomes a figure of repentance, modeling faithful confession when she names God (Comm.
Gen., 21:15–16). At the same time, he takes her as a symbol of Islam, and uses her haughtiness to condemn Turks (Muslims) of his own day. Another notable reader is Wolfgang Musculus, who observes that Hagar’s willing acceptance of her exile is more restrained even than Christ’s on the cross (Comm. Gen., 21:14–16). He thereby creates a moment of empathy that nearly compares Hagar to Christ. This theme of sympathy for Hagar is reiterated in the visual arts during this period. Georg Pencz’s Abraham Casting Out Hagar, for example, is a sixteenth-century German engraving that depicts Hagar wiping a tear from her eye as Abraham presses a skin of water to her back. Sarah stands in the doorframe, a hand raised in a gesture of angry expulsion. While aesthetic representations are relatively scarce until the sixteenth century, from this time forward depictions of Hagar’s suffering and Sarah’s spite become increasingly popular. In literary works during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Hagar and Sarah appear mostly as stock characters: Hagar as the figure of an outcast, Sarah as a figure of wifely virtue. So, in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Launcelot, a Gentile, is pejoratively referred to as a “fool of Hagar’s offspring” (2.5.44). In Paradise Regained, John Milton compares Jesus in the desert to Hagar and Ishmael, which would seem to honor their status (2.308), but in Psalm LXXXIII, he lists them among God’s “furious foes” against whom the speaker appeals for God’s vengeance. In Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale, Sarah is held up as an example of wifely virtue for May, the young bride-to-be (CT, 4.1703–5). Such uses suggest the reduction of these complex characters to standard types. One interesting counterexample is Theodore Beza’s Tragedie of Abraham’s Sacrifice (1577), in which Sarah shows some robustness of character in challenging Abraham’s discernment. She is portrayed here with motherly pathos and bids Isaac farewell with a tender kiss and the hope that God will save him. During the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age, Hagar becomes a significant preoccupation in painting and prints. Over one hundred extant paintings represent aspects of her story, the majority of which depict the expulsion or the wilderness rescue. Influenced perhaps by a confluence of theological pietism, increasing interest in the Hebrew Bible, and their own political upheaval, the Dutch
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represent Hagar with uncanny empathy and transform her story into one of redemption. In Jan Steen’s The Expulsion of Hagar (ca. 1660), for instance, Hagar holds a white cloth to her weeping face as Abraham stands on the doorstep between the two women. Ishmael gazes out at the viewer, inviting our sympathetic consideration of their fate. Rembrandt van Rijn
creates two versions of the expulsion scene, both of which place Abraham in a position of dubious mediation between the women. Italian painters are similarly interested in Hagar: Il Guercino produces several depictions in the 1650s, as does Francesco Cozza a decade later. The despondency of Hagar continues to be highlighted over the ensuing centuries. For
Hagar’s desperation and isolation are evident in Hagar’s Despair, an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), which was published in The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version (London: Cassell, 1866).
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example, Camille Corot’s Hagar in the Wilderness (1835) depicts Hagar wailing for her son while an angel soars in from high above. Similarly, Gustav Doré’s woodcut illustration of Genesis 21, entitled Hagar’s Despair, romanticizes Hagar’s desperation and isolation. Simultaneously, Sarah receives decreasing attention. Except as an ancillary figure in depictions of Abraham or Hagar, she tends to be the explicit subject only in scenes of her burial (as in a 1703 Bible illustration by Nicolas Fontaine). As interest in and sympathy for Hagar increases, Sarah slips out of her traditional role as a symbol of virtue and becomes a less honored foil for her maidservant.
In the modern era, readers focus increasingly on the injustice of Hagar’s rejection, and she becomes a representative of oppressed peoples. Perhaps the best example of this is her adoption as a representative figure by African Americans, who note her position as a racial outsider, her slave status, and her theophanic wilderness experience. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, for example, wrote about “the members of the Afro-American Sons of Hagar Social Club” (“The Defection of Maria Ann Gibbs,” 1903). And anthropologist John Langston Gwaltney describes “Aunt Hagar” as “the mythical apical figure of the core black American nation” (Drylongso, 1980, p. xv). African American artists also have shown an interest
California artist Wayne A. Forte’s Hagar (1996), drawn with charcoal on paper, focuses on the maternal bond between Hagar and Ishmael. The boy’s visible ribs reflect their perilous situation.
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in Hagar. Edmonia Lewis, a nineteenth-century sculptor, carved Hagar in the Wilderness (1868), a large white marble statue showing Hagar with a torn dress and her hands pressed together in supplication. Hagar also appears as a literary character, often as an oppressed or violated woman, as for instance in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977). Contemporary feminist and womanist theologians too have been keen to rehabilitate Hagar. Phyllis Trible (Texts of Terror, 1984), and Delores Williams (Sisters in the Wilderness, 1993), and many subsequent others, have explored the story’s potential to illustrate women caught in malignant distortions of power, especially with respect to patriarchy and race. This discussion often emphasizes Hagar’s suffering and her final achievement of liberation and divine recognition. The contemporary visual arts also manifest an ennobling of Hagar. Depictions of Ishmael in Hagar’s arms portray her as a tenderhearted maternal figure. Jacques Lipchitz’s abstract sculpture Hagar in the Desert (bronze, 1969) captures a sense of dynamic power and protectiveness. Wayne Forte’s charcoal Haggar (1996) suggests a maternal intimacy between mother and child, and Hagar’s upraised arms echo Ishmael’s childlike resignation, perhaps even praise. In exonerating Hagar, sometimes blame is placed on Sarah. Marc Chagall, for instance, features Sarah positively in several works, including as a major figure in the angelic visitation, in which Abraham is noticeably absent (Sarah and the Angels, lithograph, 1960). Nevertheless when treating the two women together (as in Sarah and Hagar, colored chalks and ink, 1956), the sinister power of Sarah over her maidservant is striking, as Sarah towers over her with an upraised arm. The rift that lingers between Sarah and Hagar continues to speak powerfully to unhealed wounds of all kinds. Poet Alicia Suskin Ostriker
imagines each woman articulating a yearning for solidarity that remains unfulfilled, perhaps impossible: Sarah grieves, “We should be allies / we are both exiles, all women are exiles,” and Hagar wonders, “She threw me away /Like garbage. . . . But I still wonder / Why could she not love me / We were women together” (The Nakedness of the Fathers, 1995). Throughout the history of interpretation, readers have keyed into this unfulfilled longing and have represented the women as symbols for tragic breaches of all kinds. The story thus continues to prompt ethical reflection on broken relationships, both interpersonal and political. Bibliography
Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis: A New American Translation. Translated by Jacob Neusner. 3 vols. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985. Gwaltney, John Langston, ed. Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America. New York: New Press, 1993 [1980]. Ostriker, Alicia Suskin. The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994. Philo. “On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (De Congressu Quaerendae Eruditionis Gratia).” In The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, translated by C. D. Yonge. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993. Thompson, John L. Writing the Wrongs: Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Trible, Phyllis, and Letty Russell, eds. Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.
Exodus Nyasha Junior
Introduction area. After reuniting with his family, Joseph relocates his family from Canaan to Egypt. The last chapter of Genesis describes the death of Jacob and the death of Joseph. The first chapter of Exodus begins with Jacob’s descendants living and prospering in Egypt, but they are under the rule of a new king “who did not know Joseph” (1:8). The book of Exodus has two major sections, chapters 1–18 and chapters 19–40. Chapters 1–18 form a narrative that details the enslavement and subsequent escape of the Israelites from Egypt. Chapters 1–4 provide background on the oppression of the Israelites by the Egyptians and describe the birth of Moses and his commissioning by YHWH to lead the Israelites to freedom. Chapters 5–12 highlight the multiple confrontations between Pharaoh and Moses, who is accompanied by his brother Aaron. When Pharaoh refuses Moses’ demands repeatedly, the Lord sends multiple plagues on Egypt and the Egyptians. In chapters 13–18, the Israelites leave Egypt and begin their journey in the wilderness. Chapters 19–40 discuss the covenant relationship between these fugitive slaves and their god. In chapters 19–24, Moses receives the law at Mount Sinai, which provides instructions on the requirements of the covenant relationship. Chapters 25–31 and 35–40 provide detailed instructions on the tabernacle, the dwelling place for the Lord. The golden calf incident and its aftermath take place in chapters 32–34. In both Jewish and Christian tradition, Moses was considered to be the author of the book of Exodus as well as the other four books of the Torah/Pentateuch. Contemporary
The book of Exodus describes the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and the establishment of a covenant relationship between these former slaves and their god, YHWH. With its vivid imagery of the burning bush, the splitting of the water, and the cloud by day and the fire by night, the exodus story has been retold and reinterpreted within other biblical texts and in the art, literature, and music of many different cultures. Also, it has inspired men and women to fight against oppression in various times and places. While the narrative of the deliverance from Egypt is perhaps the most familiar aspect of Exodus, the establishing of the covenant at Mount Sinai and the obligations and legal codes that follow are also central to the book. The book of Exodus is the second book of the Pentateuch in the Hebrew Bible and the second book in the Torah of the Jewish Tanakh. The English title “Exodus” is derived from the Greek word that means “going out” or “departure.” In the Tanakh, the Hebrew title is “The book of ‘and these are the names’” or “Names.” This title comes from the first Hebrew word of the book, which in English begins, “And these are the names” (1:1).
Structure and Composition The book of Genesis ends with the extended family of Jacob (also named Israel, Gen. 32:28) living in Egypt. Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel, becomes an important official in Egypt, and his agricultural policies result in an abundance of food during famine conditions in the 56
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biblical scholars dispute this claim to single authorship and have offered various theories regarding the composition and redaction of the text. The book includes material from varied time periods and incorporates texts from different literary genres. Some of these genres stem from various oral traditions that were later written down and then woven together to construct the book in its present form. The majority of Exodus comes from three major written sources, including the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), and Priestly (P) material. Some scholars find limited evidence for a separate E source. Thus, they join the Yahwist and Elohist into a combined JE source, although proponents of source analysis continue to debate this issue. Efforts to date the composition of the text are complex and disputed. Some scholars argue that parts of the text were composed as early as the eleventh century BCE and redacted in the postexilic period, while others argue for both postexilic composition and postexilic redaction.
Historical Issues In the book of Exodus, the people who are enslaved by the Egyptians are referred to as “Hebrews” and as “Israelites.” The terms are somewhat interchangeable, but “Hebrew” is used more often to distinguish the Hebrews from another ethnic group (e.g., Gen. 39:14; Exod. 1:19; 1 Sam. 4:6). Jacob, one of the patriarchs, is renamed Israel (Gen. 32:28), and his descendants are called the children of Israel or Israelites. The term “Israel” refers to both the people and geographic area that they inhabit within Canaan. Also, the geographic area “Israel” may refer to either the unified Israel of the united monarchy or to the northern kingdom of Israel during the divided monarchy. While scholars use biblical and extrabiblical materials together to attempt a historical reconstruction of the events and happenings in Israel, the biblical texts about Israel cannot be assumed entirely and accurately to reflect the historical Israel. For example, the Merneptah stele (ca. 1230 BCE), which is also called the Israel stele, commemorates the defeat of the Libyans by Pharaoh Mer-ne-Ptah. It may provide the first available written reference to Israel and suggests that “Israel” in some form existed within Canaan by the thirteenth century BCE. Yet it is unclear if the stele refers to Israel as a people or as a geographic area. Furthermore,
the mention of “Israel” in the stele does not confirm the particular events described in biblical texts. The book of Exodus is set in a biblical chronology that would place the events of the exodus at approximately 1300 BCE. Nevertheless, there is no archaeological evidence to corroborate the historicity of the events of the exodus. Some persons who are anxious to confirm the historicity of the events of the exodus point out that some of the miraculous events occur in nature and could have taken place. For instance, a low tide might explain the crossing of the sea, and red algae cause water to appear red in color like blood. Yet there is no compelling external evidence to support the notion of this literary text as historically accurate.
Women in Exodus The book of Exodus raises questions regarding the role and status of Israelite women. The text includes a mixed portrait of women and their power and influence. Exodus includes stories of women who are named and who speak and act independently. For example, both Zipporah and Miriam are strong women who exercise leadership in different ways. Yet Israelite women did not have full standing as members of the covenant community and were excluded from serving as priests. Feminist biblical scholars have focused attention on female characters in Exodus and have questioned the interpretation of these characters both as positive role models and as negative tools of patriarchy. Also, feminist biblical scholarship has examined the relationship between biblical texts and the social reality of ancient women. Since the Hebrew Bible is a literary production, scholars have difficulty in determining the extent to which these texts provide realistic depictions of the actual lives of ancient women. Using these texts to attempt a historical reconstruction of the lives of ancient women is difficult and controversial, since we do not know how these texts may relate to actual female experiences. For instance, Exodus mentions Israelite women who are skilled in spinning fabric (35:25; cf. Prov. 31; 2 Kgs. 23:7). Extrabiblical texts and cross-cultural ethnographic data confirm that the production of cloth was primarily a women’s role in the ancient world. Nevertheless, we do not have evidence regarding the role of Israelite women in cloth production or the
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place of these artisans within the economy or social structure. Thus, reconstructing the lives of these women is difficult. Furthermore, while the book of Exodus includes stories that feature women prominently, most scholars assume that biblical texts were written by and for men and preserve traditions that focus on men. Some scholars speculate that women may have had songs, stories, and ritual practices related to pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing that were not part of the experiences or concerns of men within gendersegregated social contexts. Thus many women’s stories and women’s traditions may be lost to us. In contrast, Exodus includes the story of Shiphrah and Puah, who serve as midwives (1:15). Yet the text does not include information that would help us better to understand this gendered experience. Instead, this particular story
was preserved because it explains how male Hebrew babies survived Pharaoh’s attempt to kill them. Feminist biblical scholarship has engaged the book of Exodus using a variety of exegetical methods. In general, feminist interpretations of Exodus analyze power relations in the text, particularly as they relate to gender but also including ethnicity, class, and other categories of difference. Also, feminist readings of Exodus concentrate on women’s experiences. These experiences include those of female characters as well as those of flesh-and-blood women. Such readings highlight the portrayal of women and emphasize how female characters speak, act, and are named in the text. Additionally, some feminist readings draw attention to the ways in which interpretations of these texts have affected real women.
Comment Israelites in Egypt (Exod. 1–4) The descendants of Jacob number seventy when they arrive in Egypt. They multiply and fill the land of Egypt with language reminiscent of the fertility of creation in Genesis (Exod. 1:7; Gen. 1:28). In order to cope with the population growth of these foreigners, the king of Egypt devises four separate plans to address what he perceives as the potential political and military threat of the Israelites. This king is also called Pharaoh, but the text does not identify his name. First, he imposes forced labor on the Israelites. Second, he intensifies the forced labor with harsher treatment. Third, he orders two midwives to kill Hebrew boy babies. Fourth, he instructs the Egyptians to throw into the Nile every boy born to the Hebrews. Ironically, despite Pharaoh’s multiple plans, Moses, a Hebrew boy, is born, survives, and grows up to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Several women play a role in Moses’ survival in the early chapters, but as some feminist scholars have observed, they fade into the background when Moses, the male deliverer, becomes an adult. The two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who are part of the Pharaoh’s third plan, are midwives to the Hebrew women, but one can translate the Hebrew text as either “Hebrew midwives” or “midwives to the Hebrews.” The
Septuagint and other versions treat the women as Egyptians. So the women could be Hebrews or Egyptians. Several arguments can be made to support the idea that the women are Hebrews. The names Shiphrah and Puah may derive from Semitic roots. Pharaoh may have ordered Hebrew women to kill Hebrew boys due to their proximity. Since these women would deliver the children of Hebrew women, they would be in the best position to kill the boys at birth. On the other hand, one could argue that the women are Egyptians. Perhaps Pharaoh would not have trusted such a mission to Hebrew women. The women claim to be familiar with births of both Egyptian and Hebrew women, which may suggest that they were Egyptians. The text depicts these women in a way that straddles the line between clear ethnic identities. This type of characterization intensifies in stories of Moses and the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt. Despite receiving orders from Pharaoh, the midwives disobey and let the boys live (1:17). Then, when Pharaoh confronts them, they claim that, unlike the Egyptian women, the Hebrew women give birth before the midwife arrives, which appears to be a lie. These women are in an important position that affects the political stability of Egypt. Their subversive activity allows the population growth to continue, and they themselves, as a result of their
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fear of God, are rewarded with families. The insubordination of these brave women allows the perceived Hebrew threat to grow. Their effective resistance strategy helps to support the eventual deliverance of the Hebrews. Like the midwives, women are instrumental in saving the baby Moses, who becomes the leader of the Israelites. Moses is the child of Jochebed and Amram, who are Levites (2:1, 6:20). Moses’ mother (unnamed in 2:1 but identified as Jochebed in 6:20) hides Moses for three months. Then she makes a basket for him and puts it in the river. Pharaoh’s daughter, having come down to bathe at the river, notices the basket. She says, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children” (2:6). Presumably, she knows that Moses is a Hebrew child, due to the circumstances of Pharaoh’s order. The text does not mention any ethnic differences between Hebrews and Egyptians that one could detect by sight, such as physical features, hair texture, or clothing. Moses’ sister (unnamed here but identified as Miriam in Num. 26:59 and 1 Chr. 6:3) has watched the baby along the river and offers to find a nurse for the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter agrees, and ironically she consents to pay Moses’ biological mother to nurse her own child. After the child grows up, Moses’ biological mother brings him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopts him and names him “Moses.” The etymology of the name is disputed. It may derive from the Egyptian word “son” or from Hebrew verb “to draw out.” Moses is born a Hebrew but grows up in an Egyptian household. Again, the text is silent on any obvious physical characteristics that would have distinguished Hebrews and Egyptians. It seems that Moses is able to “pass” or to assume the identity of an Egyptian without difficulty, as ethnicity is a matter not simply of birth but also of socialization. Like the midwives, he is a deliverer of the Israelites (cf. Num. 11:12) whose ethnic identity is not clarified in the text. The literary motif of the endangered child appears in other ancient texts. For example, in the Akkadian story of Sargon (third millennium BCE), Sargon’s mother conceives a child and gives birth in secret. She puts the child into the basket and places the basket in the river. He is saved by a drawer of water who finds the baby when he dips his bucket. He adopts the baby, who still grows up to be king. This type of parallel points to the importance of oral traditions underlying the written biblical texts.
The Hebrew Bible does not provide a description of Moses’ childhood or upbringing. After an unspecified amount of time, Moses, presumably as an adult, sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Moses kills the Egyptian and hides him in the sand. He may have intervened because he regards the beating as unjust, but his particular motivation for killing the Egyptian is unclear, as is his decision to kill rather than to intervene in some other manner. The narrator identifies the Hebrew as “one of his kinsfolk,” but Moses does not make any statements regarding his allegiances. Moreover, we do not know whether he is sensitive to the distress of the Hebrews in particular, because a few verses later he intervenes to save Midianite women (2:17). Because Moses “looked this way and that” (2:12) and conceals the body, he seems to regard his actions as illegal or improper in some way. Moses appears to be guilty of what we would call premeditated murder, but we do not know Moses’ motivation or intent. Still, this incident raises important questions regarding one’s ethical obligations to others and the appropriate use of violence. The next day, when Moses intervenes in a fight between two Hebrews, one challenges him and asks, “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (2:14). It is unclear if the Hebrew regards Moses as a Hebrew or as an Egyptian. In fear, Moses flees Egypt and goes to Midian. In Exodus, Midianites are portrayed positively, but in other texts, they are enemies of the Hebrews (Num. 25; 31:1; Judg. 6:1–10). Moses defends the daughters of the priest of Midian from shepherds who have driven them away, and then he waters the daughters’ flock. This priest has different names that may result from different Pentateuchal sources. Jethro (Elohist) and Reuel (Yahwist) are also referred to as Hobab (Priestly; Num. 10:29, Judg. 4:11). The daughters assume that Moses is Egyptian, but their reasons for doing so are not specified. Although Moses is biologically Hebrew, perhaps culturally he is marked as Egyptian due to his clothing, hairstyle, or language. This ability to “pass” highlights his in-betweenness in both the Israelite and Egyptian communities and illustrates the porous boundaries of ethnicity. While Moses is tending the flock of his father-in-law at Horeb (Yahwist; also called Sinai by the Elohist), he sees a bush that is burning but not consumed. In this theophany or appearance of the Divine, the Divine is
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identified as the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (3:6). Linking the God of the exodus with the God of Genesis identifies the God of the patriarchal promises with the God who delivers the Israelites. Having heard the cry of the Israelites, God promises to deliver them from Egypt and to give them the land of Canaan. In chapter 3 God reveals to Moses the divine name “I am who I am” (3:14). This cryptic name could also be translated in a future tense: “I will be who I will be.” Although it is given as the divine name, in Hebrew it is a verbal phrase, not a noun. In the following verse, the name is given as four Hebrew consonants, YHWH. This four-lettered name is called the Tetragrammaton, which is derived from the Greek and means “four-lettered.” Starting in the Second Temple period, Jews develop a custom of not pronouncing the divine name. When reading the Tetragrammaton, Jews pronounce an alternate Hebrew word such as “Adonai,” which means “my Lord.” Typically, the Yahwist uses the name “YHWH” to refer to the god of the Israelites, while the Elohist uses the name “Elohim.” In general, in English, “YHWH” is translated as “the Lord,” while “Elohim” is translated as “God.” These and other names are used to identify the god of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. Yet all of these sources present this deity as male. After revealing the divine name, the Lord instructs Moses on the events that will transpire in order to bring about the deliverance of the people. In contrast to the group of women who work together for deliverance in the opening chapters, the gender of the primary deliverers becomes male after chapter 4 and includes Moses, Aaron, and the Lord. As instructed, Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh and request time off to celebrate a festival to YHWH (3:18; 5:1; 8:25). The time off is ostensibly to sacrifice to their god, but Moses deceives Pharaoh as part of the plan to take the Israelites out of Egypt (5:8–9). As in the story of the midwives, Moses seems to lie to Pharaoh in an effort to save the Israelites. The Lord explains that he knows Pharaoh will not let them go “unless compelled by a mighty hand” (3:19). Therefore, the Lord will bring about “wonders” in Egypt in order that Pharaoh will let them go (3:20). Further complicating the escape of the Israelites is the Lord’s hardening the heart of Pharaoh (4:21). This drawn-out process raises questions regarding divine power and human agency. In the text,
the Lord appears manipulative and controlling. He seems quite concerned with demonstrating his power, particularly his power over that of Pharaoh. Although Pharaoh also hardens his own heart (8:15), the text highlights the ultimate power of the Lord over the natural world and over human leadership. After being commissioned to lead the Israelites, Moses returns to Egypt with his wife and children. Along the way, the Lord “tries to kill him” (4:24). In this case, “him” may refer to Moses or to his son. It is not clear what would motivate the Lord to kill Moses or his son. Moses’ wife, Zipporah, cuts off her son’s foreskin and touches Moses’ “feet” (NRSV). Here, “feet” is used as a euphemism for genitals (cf. Ruth 3:7; Isa. 7:20). The Hebrew text is ambiguous here. It reads only “his” feet, which could refer to Moses’ genitals, her son’s genitals, or the genitals of the Lord. Circumcision is an important part of making a man a part of the Israelite covenant community (Gen. 17:9–26; 21:4; Lev. 12:3). Then Zipporah says, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” (4:25). This bizarre and enigmatic statement adds confusion to the already confusing text. She may be speaking to Moses or to the Lord. Zipporah has a major role in this curious incident. She is named, takes action, and speaks in this text. Once again, a woman saves Moses’ life. Also, she appears to perform a ritual function, which is unusual for a woman. The origins of this enigmatic story may be lost to us, but Zipporah’s role hints at possible priestly leadership roles for women that are not included in other biblical texts. Nevertheless, the book of Exodus restricts the priesthood to males at Sinai (Exod. 28–29).
Moses and Pharaoh (Exod. 5–12) As instructed, Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh and request time off to celebrate a festival to YHWH. Pharaoh refuses and increases the Israelites’ work load by no longer providing straw to make bricks. The Israelites are angry with Moses, who in turn complains to the Lord. The Lord reassures Moses that the Israelites will be delivered, and as part of this reassurance YHWH again reveals the divine name. The Lord explains, “I am the Lord [YHWH]. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty [El Shaddai] but by my name ‘the Lord’ [YHWH], I did not make myself known to them” (6:2–3). The meaning of “El Shaddai”
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is disputed, but it is traditionally translated as “God Almighty.” Yet some scholars have argued that the root of shaddai may link to the Hebrew word for breasts, which highlights maternal imagery for God as one who provides and who offers fertility (Gen. 28:3; 35:11). The genealogy in Exodus 6 interrupts the interaction of the Lord with Moses and Aaron. This genealogy focuses on the Levites and on Aaron. It includes the names of Moses’ parents, who were unnamed in Exodus 2. It includes the names of some of the women who marry into the lineage, but it does not include daughters in each family. The genealogy mentions that Shaul is the son of a Canaanite woman (6:15). Despite prohibitions against intermarriage in other texts (e.g., Exod. 34:15), the mention of a Canaanite within the genealogy provides an example of ethnic mixing among the Israelites and non-Israelites. The Lord instructs Moses that the Israelite women are to ask the Egyptian women for clothing and jewelry (3:21–22), and before the death of the firstborn, both men and women are instructed to ask for these items (11:2–3). When the Israelites leave Egypt, they follow these instructions (12:35–36). While the text has emphasized the harsh oppression of the Egyptians, this text gives an example of Egyptian generosity. They provide resources so that the Israelites do not leave empty-handed. As in the opening chapters, both Hebrew and Egyptian women play a role in the deliverance of Israel. Upon leaving Egypt, the Israelites number 600,000 men (12:37), but women and children are not included in this number. This group includes a “mixed crowd” (12:38) that presumably includes Egyptians and perhaps other peoples as well. The Israelites have a unique relationship to the Lord, who distinguishes Egypt and Israel (11:7). Yet the diversity among those who leave together suggests that, despite the Israelites’ particular notion of themselves as a people, there is an openness to inclusiveness within the community.
Exodus and the Wilderness (Exod. 13–18) When the Israelites leave Egypt, they do not take the route through the territory of the Philistines, although that is nearer. God thinks that the Israelites could be tempted to return to Egypt if they face war (13:17). Thus, the people are led toward “Red Sea” (13:18 NRSV). The
Hebrew here, yam suf, is better translated as “Sea of Reeds” despite its popular translation as “Red Sea.” There are several possibilities for the location of this sea, including the lakes and marshes near the Gulf of Aqaba or the Gulf of Suez. Given the difficulty in locating this body of water, it is also difficult to trace the Israelites’ route from Egypt to Canaan. Furthermore, it is unclear if these locations refer to actual sites. The Song of Moses (15:1–18) is one of the most ancient texts in the Hebrew Bible. It includes a number of archaic terms that suggest an early date. In the song, the Lord is a warrior god who makes his people victorious over their enemies. He controls the natural world, including the sea, and terrorizes other enemy kingdoms. In Psalm 74, God defeats the sea monster, Leviathan (Ps. 74:12–17), and in Isaiah, the Lord is remembered as defeating Rahab the dragon (Isa. 51:9–10). As a divine warrior, the Lord is similar to other ancient Near Eastern gods. For example, Baal is a Canaanite storm god who defeats Yamm and Nahar, gods of the sea and river respectively. In Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story, the god Marduk defeats Tiamat, the sea monster. These texts illustrate the ways in which the Hebrew Bible is not entirely unique but is, rather, part of ancient Near Eastern literature. While the notion of God as a divine warrior may seem disturbing to some readers, this militaristic image emphasizes God’s power and sovereignty. Within its ancient Near Eastern context, the Song of Moses does not focus on God as simply aggressive and violent. Instead, it celebrates God as in charge and in control of all creation. Following the Song of Moses, Miriam sings. She is described as a prophet and as the sister of Aaron (15:20). She leads the women with tambourines and with dancing. Traditionally, there was a custom that women would come out to welcome victorious warriors (Judg. 11:34; 1 Sam. 18:6–7), but the Israelites are not warriors but escapees in this instance. Miriam is one of the few women identified as a prophet in the Hebrew Bible. Other women include Deborah (Judg. 4:4), Huldah (2 Kgs. 22:14), Noadiah (Neh. 6:14), and the unnamed mother of Isaiah’s child (Isa. 8:3). While Miriam is named as a prophet, the text does not provide information on her leadership or her activity in using traditional modes of prophetic speech on behalf of the Deity. It may be that Miriam represents a form of female leadership that is
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not represented in other Hebrew Bible texts but may have been part of Israelite society. In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron have a dispute with Moses regarding his marriage to a Cushite women and regarding their leadership (12:1–2). Although Aaron is not punished for his impudence, Miriam is punished with an undetermined type of skin disease and is put out of the camp for seven days (12:14; cf. Deut. 24:8–9). This text hints at Miriam’s leadership due to the dispute with Moses. Yet it does not explain how or why Miriam and Aaron feel that their leadership, if it exists, is not respected. In Exodus 18, Jethro, Moses’ father-inlaw, offers advice to Moses on organizational management and leadership. He suggests that Moses handle major disputes and delegate minor issues to subordinate officials who will serve over groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens (18:21). Women are not included in leadership as officials in this text.
Revelation of the Law at Mount Sinai (Exod. 19–24) While the Israelites are encamped in the wilderness of Sinai, YHWH reveals the law to Moses at Mount Sinai, and Moses reports to the Israelites. In most cases, “Israelites” refers to both male and female Israelites, but women are excluded from observance of the law in this instance. The most obvious example takes place when the people are consecrated. As part of the instructions for consecration, Moses says, “Do not go near a woman” (19:15). Moses is instructing Israelite men to abstain from sex, which would make a man ritually impure (cf. Lev. 15:18 [P]; 1 Sam. 21:4), but he is not addressing women. This exclusion does not mean that women are permitted to transgress the law with impunity, but it does suggest that women are not treated as subjects. Nor are they full members of the community with the same obligations and responsibilities as men. Men are required to appear at the three major pilgrimage festivals, and the text specifies twice that it is the “males” who shall appear (23:17; 34:23). Women appear to be exempt from participation. Similarly, women are mentioned but not addressed directly in the Decalogue (20:1–17) or Ten Commandments, as they are commonly known. These texts are not set apart in any special way in the Hebrew text. The subheadings in many English Bibles are editorial additions.
A similar set of texts is found in Exodus 34 and in Deuteronomy 5 (cf. Lev. 19; Jer. 7). Different faiths and denominations have differences in how to order and to number these commandments. They are in the form of apodictic or unconditional laws, in contrast to conditional or case law that usually includes an “if . . . then” (e.g., Exod. 21:26). While ancient Israelite religion is often considered to be a form of monotheism, in some sense it might be better thought of not as strictly monotheism but as monolatry. Monolatry is the worship of a single god while acknowledging the existence of other gods. For example, the Decalogue reads, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:2–3). In Jewish tradition, this is the first commandment, while for Protestant Christians, it is the prologue to the Ten Commandments. Here “before me” can be translated also as “except for me” or “other than me.” Also, within the Covenant Code, Exodus 22:20 states, “Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.” These and other texts recognize the existence of other gods but require allegiance to YHWH alone. The other gods mentioned in this text could have included female deities, since female deities appear frequently in other ancient Near Eastern texts as well as in other parts of the Hebrew Bible (1 Kgs. 11:5, 33; 18:19; 2 Kgs. 23:4; Jer. 7:18; 44:17–25). These texts seem to acknowledge the existence of male deities even as they discourage Israel from worshiping them. In the Ten Commandments, women who are mothers are to be honored along with fathers (20:12; Lev. 19:3; Deut. 5:16). The length in the land that is promised may refer to either personal longevity or the length of time that the Israelites will remain in Canaan. Also, death is the result for anyone who strikes father or mother (21:15). Women are not addressed in the Decalogue. In Hebrew, the imperative or command forms are in the second person masculine singular. That is, the “you” who is addressed is male. The exclusion of women is obvious in the instruction not to covet. It specifies not to covet “your neighbor’s wife” (20:17; Deut. 5:21), which is clearly directed toward a male. It does not require that a woman not covet her neighbor’s husband. Exodus 20:18–23:33 is often called the “book of the covenant” or the Covenant Code
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(24:7). Many of the laws are similar to those found in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (second millennium BCE). Several segments of these legal codes relate especially to women. Among the laws relating to slavery is a stipulation regarding the selling of a daughter as a slave (21:7–11). If she does not please her master, he is not allowed to resell her. If he takes another wife, the daughter shall continue to retain the rights of a first wife. Otherwise she is set free. The daughter in question is an Israelite. While the book of Exodus involves the Israelites obtaining their freedom from the Egyptians, the Hebrew Bible does not support an antislavery agenda. The text is unconcerned with slavery of foreign people or of Israelites except regarding their payment and treatment. Slavery itself is not forbidden. This text reminds us of the difficulty in appropriating biblical texts for particular causes within our modern context. There is significant historical and cultural distance between contemporary peoples and the world reflected in the ancient text. In the ancient Near East, slavery was a legitimate institution that was embedded into the fabric of the culture and the economy. Readers who are citizens in modern democracies do not operate under the same presuppositions regarding the worth and rights of human beings. These texts are context- specific, and we are free to choose not to abide by these ancient practices. The law specifies that if a pregnant woman is injured during a fight and miscarries, the responsible party is to be fined. If further harm beyond the miscarriage takes place, then the law of retribution (Latin lex talionis), which requires “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” shall apply (21:22–25; cf. Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21). Thus the punishment should be commensurate with the crime committed. If a man has sex with (“seduces,” NRSV) an unmarried woman (“virgin,” NRSV), he is required to pay her bride-price and to marry her. If her father refuses to give her to him, the father can require an amount equal to the brideprice for unmarried women (“virgins,” NRSV) (22:16–17; cf. Deut. 22:13–30). The exact nature of the sexual encounter is not specified in this text. The Hebrew verb, which the NRSV translates as “seduces,” can mean “entices,” “persuades,” or “deceives” (Deut. 11:16; 1 Kgs. 22:20; Ezek. 14:9). It implies a consensual encounter. In other instances, the Hebrew Bible
uses harsher language to convey the sense of a sexual assault (Deut. 22:25; 2 Sam. 13:14). The woman is an unmarried woman and her physical virginity is not a point of concern initially (cf. Num. 31:35; Judg. 11:39). The bride-price involves money or property that is paid to the father of the betrothed woman before the marriage (cf. Gen. 24:53; 31:15; 34:12). It is customary compensation for the loss to his household. If the father refuses to give her to him, the father is still paid, because the father has been damaged economically. Since the daughter is not a virgin, her marriage prospects may be hampered, which could affect the father’s getting paid the bride-price. Her virginity would make her more marriageable. Thus her virginity is an economic asset to her father. The law is silent on the woman’s desire to marry or her well-being. Exodus 22:18 states, “You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.” While Deuteronomy states that “no one” may practice divination or cast spells (18:9–14), in Exodus the specific female grammatical form is used. It is possible that women are specified because they may have had a particular role in female cultic practices that were frowned upon by adherents of mainstream Yahwism. At the end of the Covenant Code, the Lord reiterates the promise to give the land of Canaan to the Israelites. The land that YHWH has promised to the Israelites is inhabited by at least six other groups: the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (3:8, 17; 23:23). These people are to be rooted out in order that the Israelites may settle in their territory. After the crossing of the sea, the Israelites defeat the Amalekites, and the Lord tells Moses, “I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven” (17:14). In chapter 23, the Lord promises to drive out the indigenous people of Canaan. While Exodus is often thought of as a text that supports liberation and freedom, that liberation is solely for the Israelites by the god of the Israelites. Furthermore, the Israelite deliverance is to be followed by genocide and forcible removal of the native peoples.
Instructions for the Sanctuary and Priesthood (Exod. 24:9–31:17) While on the mountain for forty days and nights Moses receives instructions for the
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construction of the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant, as well as instructions on consecration of priests and construction of priestly vestments. The tabernacle (“dwelling place” in Hebrew) will provide the Lord with a residence among the people, as indicated when he tells Moses, “I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will be their God” (29:45). Yet the golden calf incident, which threatens the presence of the Lord among the people (33:3), occurs before the Israelites can implement these instructions. Aaron and his sons are designated to serve as priests in perpetuity (29:9; 40:15). Thus women are excluded from service as priests. Also, women are not specifically mentioned as participating in the construction of the tabernacle. Nevertheless, women may have had a role in preparing garments for the priests and linens for the tabernacle. According to the Lord’s instructions, Aaron’s vestments are to be prepared by skilled workers (28:3). Since fabric production was largely the purview of women in the ancient Near East (Prov. 31; 2 Kgs. 23:7), it is possible that women could have been involved in making these vestments. Following the golden calf incident, female involvement becomes more explicit.
The Golden Calf and Its Aftermath (Exod. 31:18–34:35) For forty days and forty nights Moses is on Mount Sinai, where he receives instructions from YHWH (24:18). The text does not specify how much time has elapsed, but during this time, the people approach Aaron and ask him to make gods for them. Aaron instructs them to bring to him “the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters” (32:2). The text mentions only taking earrings from one’s wives and children. Yet in the following verse the people take off “their” earrings and bring them to Aaron (32:3). A Jewish midrash interprets the “people” in verse 3 as referring only to Israelite men. It contends that the women refused to give their earrings for idol worship. Stemming from this interpretation, women were rewarded for not participating in the construction of the golden calf. Thus it became a custom that women do not work during the holiday Rosh Chodesh (literally “Head of the Month”), a minor festival on the first day of each month, although men are permitted to work during the holiday.
Aaron constructs a calf from the gold. He gives this image credit for the people’s deliverance and claims, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (32:4). Yet Aaron conflates the calf and YHWH by building an altar before the calf and proclaiming that the next day would be a festival to YHWH (32:5). The Israelites are forbidden to construct idols (20:4, 23) or to worship idols (20:5; 23:24). It is unclear whether they are both constructing and worshiping a foreign god, or they are worshiping a representation of YHWH. Regardless of the particular commandment or commandments that they have violated, they have broken their covenant quite soon after making it. Aaron chooses to create an idol in the form of a calf. The calf is an important symbol of strength and virility in Canaanite religion. The calf was linked with the supreme god, El, who is sometimes called the bull god. Also, the Canaanite storm god, Baal, is often depicted riding on a bull. Jeroboam I (ca. tenth c. BCE), the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, makes two golden calves, one in Bethel and the other in Dan. Jeroboam uses the same words as Aaron when he sets up these alternate worship site to Jerusalem: “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kgs. 12:28). Although Israelites are warned not to be like other peoples, we find instances in the Hebrew Bible in which the worship of the Israelite god is not entirely distinct from or devoid of Canaanite practices. The people seem to be comfortable with mingling their worship of the Lord with worship of other gods. During this golden calf festival, the people offer burnt offerings, make sacrifices, and eat and drink, just as they did when cutting the covenant with the Lord in chapter 24. Yet during this festival the people “rose up to revel” (32:6). The Hebrew root for the term “revel” is also the root of the name “Isaac,” which is a play on the laughter of Abraham (Gen. 17:17) and Sarah (Gen. 18:12–13, 15) at the notion of having a son in their old age. The root has a sexual connotation (Gen. 21:9; 26:8; 39:14, 17) and suggests a grown-up get-together with adult sexual activity, which implies the participation of both men and women. The Lord is angry about the people’s idolatry and sends Moses back down the mountain. The Lord plans to consume them, but Moses intercedes. Moses suggests that destroying the
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Israelites would make the Lord look bad in front of the Egyptians. Also, he reminds the Lord of the covenant with the Israelite male ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Israel/Jacob (cf. 6:3). Then the Lord changes his mind about the planned destruction. This phrase can also be translated “He regretted or relented or repented of the evil” (32:14; cf. Gen. 6:6; 1 Sam. 15:11; Jonah 3:10). The notion of the Deity having a humanlike feeling of regret contrasts with other texts in which the Deity is more transcendent and mystical. Some scholars argue that these differences are the result of different sources, and they attribute to the Yahwist source these and other Pentateuchal texts in which the Deity exhibits anthropomorphic behavior. When Moses and Joshua approach the camp, there is so much commotion that Joshua thinks that an enemy has invaded the camp, but Moses clarifies that it is not war but a party going on. Moses throws down the two tablets of the covenant that had the writing of God engraved on them. Moses burns the calf, grinds it into powder, mixes it with water and makes the Israelites drink the concoction. When Moses confronts Aaron, Aaron blames the people. Surprisingly, despite Aaron’s lack of leadership, he is not punished (cf. Miriam in Num. 12). Moses calls, “Who is on YHWH’s side? Come to me!” (32:26). The Levites gather and they kill three thousand people (32:28). Their action results in their ordination to the Lord’s service and a blessing, although it has come “at the cost of a son or a brother” (32:29). Moses again attempts to have the Lord forgive the sin of the people, but the Lord says, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book” (32:33; cf. Ps. 69:28/Heb. Ps. 69:29; Isa. 4:3). The book that the Lord refers to may be a type of genealogy or list of the names of the living. Mesopotamian gods had a similar “Tablet of Destinies” that listed the fates of those subject to the deities. In the New Testament, the “book of life” becomes a metaphor for salvation (Rev. 3:5). After the massacre by the Levites, the Lord sends a plague on the people (32:35). The text adds the justification for the plague by specifying “because they made the calf—the one that Aaron made” (32:35). In this way, the text holds both the people and Aaron responsible for the golden calf. At the tent of meeting the Lord would speak with Moses “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (33:11 [E]). This tent, which is outside
of the camp, has a different placement than the tent of meeting with the tabernacle. The difference may be due to different sources, with the Priestly source including the tent of meeting with the tabernacle (cf. Num. 12:4, 8). Moses’ speaking with the Lord is inconsistent with the following section in which the Lord, responding to Moses’ request, says that Moses cannot see the Lord (33:20). In order to reconcile these texts, some contend that the Lord’s “face” was not a physical manifestation but a representation of the Lord in some way. Without resorting to such contortions, one can simply acknowledge that the texts offer multiple and conflicting traditions regarding the Lord and the form that he takes. Under instructions from the Lord, Moses cuts two replacement stone tablets, which are described as both “the terms of the covenant” and the ten “words” or commandments (34:28; Deut. 4:13). In contrast to the Ethical Decalogue in Exodus 20, this text is sometimes described as the Ritual or Cultic Decalogue, because it focuses on worship practices. Exodus 34 mentions the dangers of interacting with the Canaanites. Intermarriage will result in idolatry, as their daughters will “prostitute themselves to their gods,” and in turn will make the Israelites’ sons “also prostitute themselves to their gods” (34:16). This text uses imagery of gender and ethnicity to discuss safeguards for mainstream Yahwism. In another theophany on Mount Sinai, the Lord describes himself as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger” (34:6) among other positive qualities, but also punishing. The violence inflicted by the Lord against the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and even the Israelites may seem difficult to reconcile with the notion of a god who cares for and is concerned with creation. While the Deity in the Hebrew Bible is often caricatured as angry and cruel, in fact, the Hebrew Bible includes multiple portraits of a deity, which range from forgiving to wrathful, even within the same story. It is impossible to narrow such rich literature into a singular image. In the aftermath of the golden calf incident, the Lord renews the covenant with the Israelites and again promises to drive out the residents of Canaan. The people are to tear down the Canaanite altars and to cut down their “sacred poles [asherim]” (34:13). These asherim were wood cultic objects that were part of the worship of the Canaanite goddess Asherah. While
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the asherim are regarded as improper, in several instances Israelites incorporate them into their worship of the Lord (Deut. 16:21; Judg. 6; 1 Kgs. 21; 2 Kgs. 21:7). Also, based on inscriptions from archaeological sites at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qôm, Israelites may have regarded Asherah as the Lord’s consort. Thus some speculate that goddess worship may have been practiced by Israelites alongside of Yahwism and that it may have been part of female-centered worship practices (Jer. 44:17–19).
Construction of the Sanctuary and Priesthood (Exod. 35:1–40:38) After the golden calf incident, the Israelites begin construction of the tabernacle as God has instructed. Women have multiple roles in these final chapters. For example, women spin yarn and linen for the tabernacle, and they are specifically referred to as “skilled women” (35:25–26). Both men and women bring offerings for the construction of the tabernacle, and due to the abundance of offerings both men and women are prohibited from bringing additional offerings (36:6). Women serve at the entrance to the tent of meeting (38:8), but the text does not detail the nature of their service (cf. 1 Sam. 2:22). In the closing chapter, Moses alone assembles the tabernacle (40:17–33). The book concludes with God occupying the tabernacle
(40:34–38). Nevertheless, Moses does not build the Lord’s dwelling place without the benefit of the work of others. As in the beginning of Exodus, Moses requires women to accomplish his task. Women are intimately involved in the activities that ensure that God will dwell among his people. Bibliography
Ackerman, Susan. “Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets (and Is Zipporah among the Priests?)” Journal of Biblical Literature 121 (2002): 47–80. Dozeman, Thomas B., ed. Methods for Exodus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Langston, Scott M. Exodus through the Centuries. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Meyers, Carol. Exodus. The New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Propp, William H. C. Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 2. New York: Doubleday, 1999. ———. Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 2. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
Miriam and Her Interpreters Elaine James
musical instrument and leading the women in song and dance. In reading the Exodus tradition, patristic exegetes preferred to highlight the role and integrity of Moses, and so Miriam largely slips out of view in theological interpretation. This bias toward Moses is also evidenced in the frescoes from the Jewish synagogue at Dura Europos (third c. CE). A panel that depicts Moses’ infancy shows Moses’ sister passing the baby from Pharaoh’s daughter in the river into the arms of another woman on the shore. But at the depiction of passage through the Red Sea, Moses and Aaron appear, with no representation of Miriam at all. There are hints, though, that the tradition surrounding Miriam may at one time have been larger than what we now have: In one fragmentary manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls, in a somewhat expanded text from the Pentateuch, there is a psalm of praise that is apparently attributed to Miriam (4QRPc6). While the text is broken and incomplete, it suggests that Miriam, like David, may have been ascribed an important role in worship traditions, and it points to the possibility that there once existed a body of songs and psalms ascribed to women that has not survived. Christian tradition will come to interpret Miriam as a prototype of Mary (Mary in Greek is Mariam). Both figures have crucial roles in bringing redemption (through Moses, and through Jesus, whom the NT describes as the new Moses), and both women sing a song of triumph praising God for overturning the powers of the world (Exod. 15:21; Luke 1:46–55). Ambrose, for example, connects Mary with Miriam in his treatise on virginity; he extols Mary’s purity and imagines Miriam welcoming her into heaven with a victorious song, timbrel in hand (De virginibus, 2.2.17). In medieval Judaism, there emerges an emphasis on Miriam’s liturgical leadership, and particularly her dancing. The four extant fourteenth-century Spanish Passover seder
Miriam is a prophet and leader alongside her brother Moses during the exodus and wilderness wanderings. Tradition holds that Miriam is the unnamed sister who saves the infant Moses from death (Exod. 2:4–8), since two genealogies list Aaron, Moses, and Miriam as the only children of Amram (Num. 26:59; 1 Chr. 5:29 [NRSV 6:3]). Her actions are bold and loyal, as the girl stands guard over the baby. In Exodus 15:20–21 she is identified as a prophet and leads the women in song and dance in celebration of the triumph over Pharaoh’s armies after the crossing of the Red Sea. In Numbers, however—the other major source for traditions about Miriam—the question of who can legitimately lead the people becomes a contentious issue. Amid accounts of the Israelites’ grumbling in the wilderness, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses, and two reasons are given for their rebellion: first, “because of the Cushite woman whom he had married”; and second, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has [the Lord] not spoken through us also?” (Num. 12:1–2). God overhears them and punishes Miriam with a skin disease, of which she is healed only after Moses’ intervention and a period of seven days’ quarantine outside the camp. After this, Miriam is not heard from again, except in the mention of her death (Num. 20:1–2). In the history of interpretation, Miriam does not receive a great deal of attention. Other biblical texts mention her in passing, either in connection with her leadership alongside Moses and Aaron (Mic. 6:4) or, in the case of Deuteronomy 24:9, in conjunction with skin diseases that require purification. Treatments of Miriam by later interpreters tend to focus on one of these two strains: they emphasize either her liturgical presence (following the Exodus tradition) or her rebellion (following Numbers). Of the two, her prophetic, liturgical leadership at the exodus is far more commonly evoked, and is often symbolized in the arts by her holding a
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guides—the Haggadot—include illuminations of women dancing. The Golden Haggadah, from Catalonia, depicts Miriam holding a timbrel, joined by young maidens dancing and playing contemporary musical instruments (folio 15). Bible illustrations similarly represent Miriam embodying motion, swaying her hips in corporeal worship, as in “Miriams Tanz” from the 1360 Bulgarian Psalter. This theme is taken up in the mystical Spanish text, the Zohar, which describes Miriam as performing her dance in the courts of heaven (3167b), and in commentary on Exodus 15:20, leading the women’s choir of heaven in singing the Song of the Sea three times each day. This tradition highlights the importance of physically enacted worship practices, and may point to historical women’s worship traditions that have been overlooked or forgotten. The Exodus tradition of Miriam continues in the visual arts. In a Sistine Chapel fresco (attributed to Cosimo Rosselli), the drowning of Pharaoh’s army is dramatically depicted, and Moses and Aaron stand on the shore in triumph, Miriam kneeling between them, playing a psaltery (a medieval stringed instrument). Contemporary artists too focus on her
musicianship: in one of his Bible illustrations, Marc Chagall depicts a statuesque Miriam with upraised hands, each holding a tambourine (Plate 35, 1958). Phillip Ratner’s sculptural depiction of Miriam shows her head thrown back in a deep backbend as she worships God. Her triumphal song is a text for musical compositions as well, as for example Schubert’s Miriams Siegesgesang, composed for soprano, mixed chorus, and piano (Op. 136). Representations of the Numbers tradition are far less popular. In the third century the Apostolic Constitutions took her skin disease to be a symbolic warning of inevitable punishment against those who would instigate schism in the church (6.1.1). A miniature from a History Bible from Utrecht depicts the scene of Aaron and Miriam complaining and being rebuked by God (Alexander Master, 1430). A sixteenthcentury Bible from Strassburg dramatizes the scene, depicting Miriam with a monstrous outstretched hand kneeling below Aaron, whose hands are folded in a gesture of supplication before an angry Moses (Wolf Köpfl, 1532). Miriam’s death (Num. 20:1–2) report hints at a connection between the Exodus and Numbers
Miriam leads the women in song and Moses produces water for the people in Bitter Water and Miriam’s Song, a woodcut by an unknown artist from Bibell, das ist, alle Bücher Alts und News Testaments nach alter in Christlicher Kyrchen gehabter by Johann Dietenberger (1582).
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traditions: when Miriam, whose life has been associated with water—from Moses on the Nile, to the celebration at the exodus, to the finding of wells (Exod. 15:22–27)—dies, the water in the wilderness dries up. Pseudo-Philo writes, “And these are the three things which God gave his people for the sake of three persons, that is, the well of the water of Mara for Maria’s [Miriam’s] sake, and the pillar of cloud for Aaron’s sake, and the manna for the sake of Moses. And when these three came to an end, those three gifts were taken away from them” (Biblical Antiquities, 20:8). According to a midrash, “Miriam’s Well” miraculously accompanied the people for their forty years’ wandering by virtue of her prophetic eminence (Legends of the Jews, 3, 50–54). A sixteenth-century Bible illustration by Dietenberger makes this connection explicit. In it, Moses strikes a rock, while Miriam leads the women in song and dance beside them. Among Jewish feminists, Miriam’s Well has become a symbol of female fortitude and
leadership. To ritualize her role, sometimes a second cup, called Miriam’s cup, is added to the Passover dinner table, filled with water to symbolize the miracle of Miriam’s well. Such practices honor the role of Miriam in the exodus, her importance as Moses’ sister and as a prophet in her own right, and highlights the past and present contributions of women to Judeo-Christian tradition. Bibliography
The Biblical Antiquities of Philo. Edited by Harry M. Orlinsky. Translated by M. R. James. New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1971. Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Trible, Phyllis. “Bringing Miriam Out of the Shadows.” Bible Review 5.1 (1989): 170–90.
Leviticus Hannah K. Harrington
Introduction eligibility (Lev. 21–22), and the calendar of holy days and years with attending rituals (Lev. 23–25). Two short narratives are included as well: the untimely deaths of Aaron’s sons who offered “strange fire” in the sanctuary (10:1–11), and the case of the blasphemer (24:10–23), all of whom were killed by divine action. The book ends with blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Lev. 26) and an appendix on sacred vows and dedications (Lev. 27). Consideration of the book’s date and audience is at the heart of contemporary scholarship on Leviticus. The book includes traditions that claim to be Mosaic (e.g., God speaks to Moses from inside the tabernacle, 1:1; some laws were given at Mount Sinai, 26:46; 27:34), and in antiquity the book was often referred to as “the book of Moses” (Ezra 6:18; Mark 12:26). Many of the rituals prescribed in Leviticus, for example, sacrifices and festivals, are presupposed by First Temple authors (Lev. 23:5; Josh. 5:11). Further, modern scholars have argued for the antiquity of many of the cultic rites by comparison with neighboring cultures of the biblical period. At the same time, there is no doubt that the book reflects a long history of editing and compilation. Critical scholars recognize two large blocks of material in the book, the first being the Priestly Writings, or simply P (Lev. 1–16), part of a larger set of cultic material also apparent in other parts of the Pentateuch, primarily in Numbers. The second block is known as the Holiness Code, or H (Lev. 17–26), because of its repeated calls for all Israel, not just the priests, to be holy (e.g., 19:2; 20:7–8, 26; 21:8,
Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, treats matters that are the responsibility of the Levitical priests (descendants of Levi through Aaron, the high priest), although much of the book is addressed to the laity as well. The title is taken from the Latin Vulgate, which translates the Greek Septuagint’s Levitikon. The Hebrew title, VaYikra, “And he called,” follows Jewish tradition to name books after their first word(s). It reflects the opening sentence, where YHWH calls to Moses from inside the sanctuary. The early rabbis considered Leviticus a priestly manual and called the book Torat Kohanim, “Instruction of the Priests.” Indeed, several instructions within the book begin with the formula: “This is the instruction for . . .” (e.g., the burnt offering, 6:8; cf. 6:14, 24; 7:1). Nevertheless, most of the book is addressed to all Israel. From a narrative point of view, the story of Leviticus begins at the Israelite camp at Mount Sinai a little over a year after the divine revelation described in Exodus 19–24. YHWH speaks to Moses from the newly constructed sanctuary and gives specific instructions for its operation. The giving of the entire law runs from Exodus 20:1 to Numbers 10:10, and the laws of Leviticus stand significantly in the center of this corpus. The book’s main concerns are the maintenance of holiness among Israel, in both its cultic and its ethical dimensions. To this end, the book details the proper workings of the cult, including prescriptions for sacrifices (Lev. 1–7), the inauguration of the priesthood (Lev. 8–10), ritual purity (Lev. 11–15), the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16), eating meat (Lev. 17), sexual and social relations (Lev. 18–20), priestly 70
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23; 22:9, 16, 32). Chapter 27, which treats vows and dedicated items, functions as an appendix. It is likely that the compiler of H also edited the entire book of Leviticus (so Milgrom). Most scholars place the final product in the Persian period (although some argue even for a Hellenistic context). Leviticus was certainly prominent during the early Second Temple period and played a strong role in shaping Israel’s self-identification. It may have been used to combat narrow modes of thinking about holiness and purity as the entitlement of only a small segment of Israel, which considered the people in general as impure, simply because they were outside of the privileged group. Texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls (such as the Temple Scroll and other legal texts), as well as many passages of the New Testament, show that intimate knowledge of Leviticus’s rules was shared by the priests of the Second Temple period. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple, the book remained central in rabbinic circles, and until today children begin their Torah study with this book.
Scholars have wondered why, in an important collection of national origins such as the Pentateuch, the central core preserves a lengthy catalogue of cultic rituals. While the prescriptions of the cult may appear formulaic and dry at first glance, upon further investigation they reveal theological principles that characterize the relationship between YHWH and his people. These continue to have significance for all faith communities who hold Leviticus as part of Scripture. The instruction to eat the thanksgiving offering for well-being in one day or forfeit it (7:15), for example, is the way the law encourages fellowship between the offerer and friends and relatives who will be invited to the sacred meal. Similarly, the laws separating pure and impure animals for Israel’s diet seem incomprehensible and unnecessary, but they force Israel’s separation from non-Israel and protect the nation from absorption into other cultures (20:24–26). The writer offers no lengthy treatise explaining these matters but simply sets forth well-crafted rituals and requirements that will produce the desired results.
Comment Holiness The overarching theme of Leviticus is the pursuit and maintenance of holiness in Israel. “Holiness” (Heb. kedushah) can be defined, on the one hand, as YHWH himself. (Note: masculine pronouns are used for YHWH in this article to reflect the way in which Leviticus genders YHWH as masculine.) Holiness is what he is that no one else can ever be, since his essence is completely different. He is supreme in perfection and power, yet he is also unfailingly good and concerned with the welfare of his people. Like others in the ancient world, Israel worships its God through a cult, that is, a system of sacrifices offered at a sanctuary through priestly agents. In this way, Israel maintains a working relationship with YHWH as a people who belong to him and reflect his holiness. The sons of Aaron, the priests (Heb. kohanim), function as YHWH’s representatives to the people and the mediators in this relationship. They are the only ones who may enter the sanctuary, tend to its sacred objects, and offer sacrifices on the bronze altar in its court. But this is no priestly
secret society; they are also commanded to teach Israel “the statutes” (10:10–11). In order for YHWH to be in residence among Israel, he must have his “own space,” a high-voltage area that is free of impurity. The tabernacle (Heb. ohel mo’ed) and its sacred objects, already set up in Exodus 25–40, are assumed by the writer of Leviticus. The impurities of Israel, both ritual and moral, contaminate this space, even though the laity may not enter it, and sacrificial blood is the means of purgation and purification (17:11). The people must bring expiatory offerings to God’s house (Heb. qorban, “sacrifice,” comes from the verb “to bring near”) to appease the Deity after their inadvertent violations and to purify his house with the lifeblood of an animal that substitutes for that of the sinner. One can think of the animal’s blood as a kind of spiritual detergent or disinfectant that makes the sacred space clean and holy again. Altogether there are five types of sacrifices: burnt, grain, well-being, purification, and guilt. The burnt offering, although used for various purposes throughout Scripture, is primarily
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a habitual twice-daily sacrifice on the bronze altar. A large animal is to be burnt to its embers morning and evening in order to keep the altar fire burning and atonement continuous for Israel (6:12–13). According to Leviticus 9:24, this fire originated from YHWH himself. The duty of Israel’s priests is to maintain this fire and keep it going for the needs of the cult. The grain offering is usually an accompanying offering to the blood sacrifices but may be used for atonement if the sinner is too poor to offer an animal. Well-being sacrifices are eaten by offerers, priests, and friends to mark the completion of a vow or simply to give thanks to God for particular blessings. Purgation (often called “sin”) offerings provide purification of the sanctuary against unintentional moral and ritual impurity. Guilt (or “reparation”) offerings are offered after one has committed “sacrilege” (Heb. ma’al), including improper handling of sacred things or false oaths using the divine name. Also, wrongful action against the property of another person is taken personally by YHWH and constitutes ma’al. Repentance and restitution with a fine in cases of violation of another person’s (man or woman) property is required before God will accept any sacrifice. The sacrificial system is designed to rectify inadvertent transgressions and pollutions against God, his sanctuary, and people. Atonement is not guaranteed by the mechanics of the rituals. Rather, confession and repentance are required (5:5). According to Numbers, defiant sinners, who will not repent, are to be excised from Israel (Num. 15:30–31). Yom Kippur is a national day of atonement and purification of the sanctuary from inadvertent sins and impurities that might have been overlooked throughout the year (Lev. 16:33–34). Although no human can truly be holy like God, paradoxically Israel is commanded by Leviticus, “Be holy, for I, YHWH, your God am holy” (19:2; cf. 11:44). On the surface, this is a conundrum. Yet it is YHWH’s way of designating Israel as belonging to himself and requiring the people to maintain their identification with him. To this end, Israel does not aspire to divinity but rather imitatio Dei, the human reflection and imitation of the divine character. Thus the pursuit of holiness is not limited to cultic laws of ritual and sacrifice but also requires ethics. The task of maintaining ethics is explained in the holiness traditions of the latter part of Leviticus. Here the command to be holy (19:2)
is placed between a list of commands regarding suitable sexual partners (Lev. 18) and a section regulating social ethics (19:3–37). The most famous of these laws is “Love your neighbor as yourself ” (19:18b), quoted by Jesus as one of the two greatest commandments, the other being to love God (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31). Leviticus 19:14 orders Israel not to insult the deaf or obstruct the blind on account of one’s fear of God. Thus YHWH takes personally Israelites’ treatment of each other, and improper interrelationships will diminish holiness. Even holding a grudge and withholding compassion will obstruct holiness (19:18a). Holiness also permeates time. In addition to the Day of Atonement, Leviticus provides a calendar of sacred times, including the Sabbath (Lev. 23–25). Most of these holy days are festivals marking important moments in the agricultural cycle. The people give the best of the crops to God via his agents, the priests, and celebrate the bounty of the land together. God is the owner of the land, and they are his fortunate tenants who are promised crops and safety as long as they are obedient to his commandments. Giving back the firstfruits and prescribed portions to him is part of their duty. The Sabbath year (25:1–7) and the Jubilee (25:8–55) are also important periods of time and affect the “holy land.” Leviticus 25 is the most explicit statement in the Torah guaranteeing the right of Israel to the land of Canaan. The land is owned by YHWH, who has given his tenant Israel the right to live on the land. Along with this privilege comes the responsibility of stewardship. Every seventh year the land enjoys a “Sabbath rest” and lies fallow. In the Jubilee, the fiftieth year, all debts are forgiven, slaves are released, and land returns to its original owner. This institution preserves the original land promise to Israel according to its tribal allocations and prevents monopoly by greedy landowners and permanent confiscation of family homesteads. It also functions as an early welfare system that prevents lifelong slavery for debtors who might be forced to sell themselves or family members into slavery to repay what they owed to a creditor. At first glance, it might appear that women do not play a role in Leviticus, since they are ineligible for the priesthood, which was limited to the male descendants of Aaron. However, the vast majority of this book is not addressed just to priests, but also includes the laity. Its major
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concerns of holiness and purity are the responsibility of all Israel, men and women, a trait that has been called “the democratization of holiness.” Unlike in most other ancient cultures, the whole community and even the land are included in this quest and responsibility.
Purity Like the sanctuary, the bodies of Israel must be kept pure, although at a lower degree of purity. The human being is susceptible, not only to moral infractions that pollute the sanctuary, but also to various ritual impurities, which, if not rectified, will also pollute the sanctuary and community; thus Israel is commanded to purify itself. Ritual purification is not for health or sanitary reasons but, rather, marks the difference between the sacred and the profane, and psychologically prepares the individual to interact with holiness. Also, ritual cleansing symbolizes the moral purity required of YHWH’s people and reinforces the distinction between them and others. Significantly, throughout the Hebrew Bible the word tahor (“pure” or “clean”) rarely refers to physical cleanness but is often used in a figurative sense to indicate moral uprightness and ethical goodness (Job 4:17; 15:14). Rites of passage and purification are common across the globe. Biological changes in life—for instance, birth and death—are times of great concern and thus are marked appropriately by special purity rituals. But while many peoples of the ancient Near East conceived of impurity as a demonic force that had to be appeased and curtailed, Israel’s impurity was considered a byproduct of the human condition. Purity provides a foundation for holiness; the latter cannot exist without the former. While holiness is the active divine force, purity is a state of being. The specific ritual impurities that threaten Israel’s holiness are discussed in Leviticus 11–15 (also cf. Num. 19) and can be outlined in three categories: death, scale disease, and sexual emissions. Few of these laws are direct prohibitions; rather they concern temporary conditions of the body, most of which are part of the normal course of life. Nevertheless, according to the biblical system, they defile the Israelite community and threaten the sanctity of the sanctuary if not properly purified (Num. 19:20). Impurity related to death is addressed in Leviticus 11 by means of a catalogue of non kosher animals that are defiling when dead. Not
only may their carcasses not be eaten (see below on “Food”), but even touching them or having their bodies in contact with many household items can communicate impurity. Since coming into contact with a human corpse also transmits impurity, in some cases only the closest kin prepare the body for burial (21:1–4). Becoming impure is a part of being human. One must care for the dead, and sometimes contact with unclean dead animals is unavoidable. Leviticus does not treat this impurity as a wrongful act, but it does insist that a person take steps to purify what has been made impure. When comparing Israel and her neighbors, one is struck by the universality of certain taboos; becoming impure is part of being human. For Greeks and Romans, as for Jews, death was the greatest impurity and had to be kept away from the sacred realm. Artemis abandons Hippolytus on his deathbed with the words, “Farewell. Sacred law forbids me to look upon the dead, or stain my eye with the exhalation of death” (Eur., Hipp., 1437ff.). In Greece, contact with death temporarily excluded a person from worshiping the gods. In the play Antigone Sophocles describes scraps of an unburied corpse being dropped by birds of prey upon sacrificial altars, dousing the sacred fire and dooming the city (Soph., Ant., 999–1015). Scale disease, with no relationship to modern leprosy, was one of the severest ritual impurities, and two chapters are relegated to its symptoms, contagion, and purification (Lev. 13–14). The sight of a person with extreme psoriasis, with skin peeling off, is a picture of decay, an image of living death. The condition can also exist in fabrics and houses infested by mold and fungus, and affected areas must be torn out. Throughout the ancient world, scale disease was considered a severe pollution. The Babylonians regarded it as a divine curse requiring immediate ostracization of the diseased person from society in order to avoid disaster. The Greeks too regarded scale disease as the result of a divine curse. In Jewish tradition, as well, the disease was definitely considered a punishment from God (Lev. 14:34; Num. 12:11–12; 2 Sam. 3:29; 2 Chr. 26:33; 4Q266–272; 1QH 1:32; t. Neg. 6:7; b. Arakh. 16a; Lev. Rab. 17:3; 18:4). The extensive rites prescribed for purification were not curative, however, only purificatory. Just as the curse came from God, so healing had to be entreated from him via repentance. Then the purification rituals could be employed.
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Sexual discharges from both men and women were considered polluting in Israel. Leviticus 12 and 15 detail both abnormal discharges, such as gonorrhea and abnormal menstruation, and normal discharges, such as seminal emissions and blood flows resulting from childbirth and menstruation. Individuals engaged in purification rituals after the cessation of their discharges. Ritual purification is thus a rite of passage. The initial “normal condition” has been breached, and thus the impure person has been separated from the community. Purification rituals provide the way back into the community and restoration to the “normal condition.” Depending on the degree of impurity, uncleanness is removed by sacrifices, ablutions (e.g., immersion in water), sprinkling with special mixtures, and waiting for sunset. Blood and fire are also used for certain purifications (Lev. 14:6; Num. 31:21–23). Leviticus indicates that spring water or a natural pool large enough to cover the body is good for purification (11:36; 15:13–16). The rabbis explain that only water flowing directly from its source, such as rain or spring water, is capable of purifying from impurity, because it is given directly by the Holy One. No human intervention, such as drawing out or pouring water in vessels, is allowed for ritual immersion (m. Miq. 8:5). Although no “immersion pools” (Heb. miqva’ot) have been discovered from First Temple times, many have been uncovered from the Second Temple period. Archaeologists report that these pools were cut into bedrock, deep enough for complete immersion, contained steps leading to the bottom, and were often filled by means of channels that carried rain or spring water. Stepped pools large enough for full immersion have been found in many places, including the Hasmonean palaces at Jericho, Herod’s palaces, the Upper City in Jerusalem, Qumran, and synagogues and ordinary homes in Jerusalem, Sepphoris, Gamla, and Masada. What then is the meaning of Israel’s impurity system, and how does it reinforce notions of holiness in contrast to its neighbors? As suggested above, much of the implicit symbolism associated with the purity system has to do with the contrast between life and death. The corpse is the most impure item in the system. Even items secondarily contaminated by death and animal carcasses are ritually polluting. The person afflicted with scale disease appears to be a visibly decaying person, and thus a constant
reminder to the living of the realm of death. Sexual flows that create life, that is, menstrual blood and semen, are impure when they waste away from the body. Indeed, the most common cause of extended bleeding outside of a woman’s period, and one of the most severe impurities, is bleeding from a miscarriage. Thus, just as Deuteronomy urged the Israelites to “choose life” instead of death (Deut. 30:19), the observance of the purity laws was a way of embodying the value of life in everyday activities.
Women’s Issues The pursuit of holiness and purity is not just a priestly concern but a mandate that rests on the entire nation. Holiness must be lived out, not just in the sanctuary but also in the home and in interpersonal relationships. As Tamara Cohn Eskenazi puts it, “In Leviticus, a person’s body, the sanctuary and the community each constitute a microcosm of the universe in its sacred aspect. Each reflects and has an impact upon the larger, integrated whole” (Eskenazi, 567). Despite the preponderance of instructions for the priests, a men-only cadre, many matters treated in Leviticus are, as it turns out, of special interest to women. Some of the most important of these topics are (1) food preparation; (2) sex, menstruation, and childbirth; (3) marriage; and (4) women and the cult. It is to these matters that we turn now. Food Preparation Food for the Israelite table is under the auspices of the women of Israel. The diet of the Israelites was largely based on grain, beans, and vegetables, supplemented with milk products like curds and yogurt cheese, together with some wine and olive oil. Women were responsible for preparing these foods: making flour from the grain; kneading, shaping, and baking the bread; making cheese and yogurt from the milk of the goats and sheep; gathering olives and fruit and preparing them for consumption. Leviticus mentions particularly the activity of baking bread as a woman’s job (26:26). Thus it is women in charge of the family kitchen who ensure the kashrut, or dietary purity, of the home. To a large extent the woman’s responsibility in the home parallels that of the priest’s responsibility in the sanctuary. Like the woman in the home, the priest cooks the grain offerings for YHWH’s house in a griddle,
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pan, or oven and flavors them with olive oil, salt, and frankincense (2:1–7). Just as sacred meat is washed, flayed, and cooked on the altar according to detailed prescriptions, so also the meat of Israel is prescribed. Although the consumption of meat is a rarity in the diet of most Israelites, a series of laws differentiate between what is pure and what is impure. The main categories of acceptable meats follow these criteria: land animals must both chew the cud and have a split hoof, fish must have scales and fins, and fowl must not be on the list of twenty prohibited birds. Also, insects with both wings and legs—except for the grasshopper, cricket, and locust, and eight “swarmers”— are forbidden. Fat and blood too are prohibited at the Israelite table. Blood represents life and atonement; thus, out of reverence it is not to be eaten but drained at the altar (17:10–12). For this reason, kosher meats have to be ritually slaughtered from an early period and continue to be so now in Orthodox Jewish homes. Scholars have searched relentlessly for a rationale for these food laws. The underlying symbolism appears to be that the clean animals are seen as analogous to Israel, while impure animals represented surrounding nations (so Milgrom). Also, a number of the laws reflect the polarity between life and death. For example, the identifiable forbidden birds feed on carrion. Most significantly, the food laws reinforce a barrier between Israel and non-Israel (20:24–26). Israel does not eat the same food as the cultures around them, and so they are less likely to engage in social intercourse leading to intermarriage that might threaten the continued existence of the people. The early Christian movement, consisting of both Jewish and Gentile Christians, struggled with the status of these laws, given by YHWH and ingrained for centuries within their culture, but gradually let them go. Acts 10 reflects this struggle. Nevertheless, much of the cultic language was retained and new symbolism attached. The New Testament depicts Jesus Christ as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” the supreme sacrifice to end all sacrifices (John 1:29; Heb. 10:12). The central sacrament of Christian worship, which commemorates the sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood, is a ritual meal, celebrated at every Eucharist across Christendom. In rabbinic Judaism, the importance of sacrifice becomes an academic matter after the
destruction of the temple, but the household meal grows in significance as rituals surrounding it remind the participants of temple practice. The woman’s role is highlighted, because, like the sanctuary priest, she is the one in charge of “differentiating between the pure and the impure” in the home. The Talmud, in fact, makes the analogy of the family table and the sacred altar explicit (b. Ber. 55a). As the priests washed before officiating, so the layperson washes before the meal. As the priests prepared the weekly shewbread for the sanctuary, so the Jewish woman prepares challah, the Sabbath bread. Sex, Menstruation, and Childbirth Ritual purity regulations had to be observed by women as well as men, in order to keep impurity outside of Israel. The concerns are not unique to ancient Israel. Cross-culturally, sexual emissions are considered polluting and threatening to sacred things. In Greek culture too, sex must be kept apart from the sacred. In the play Lysistrata, Myrrhine pleads with her eager husband, “[If I yield to you] I won’t be pure enough to go back up to the acropolis.” “No trouble about that,” answers her husband; “you can wash in the Clepsydra fountain” (Ar., Lys., 912f.). Similarly, when Electra tells her brother that her husband has never approached her, her brother asks, “Is he under some sacred requirement of purity?” (Eur., El., 256). In Israel, purification is necessary after sexual intercourse, even if one is not entering the sanctuary. According to Leviticus, both a man and a woman who have engaged in sexual intercourse must bathe (15:18). In the area of sexual discharges, women are especially affected by the blood flows of childbirth (Lev. 12) and menstruation (Lev. 15). It is the close association of blood with life that makes its discharge from the body a matter of such ritual concern. The menstrual taboo is also cross-culturally attested, and some cultures go as far as to seclude the woman from the rest of the community during this period. Babylonians, for example, isolate menstruants from the community for six days. The Greek philosopher Aristotle claims that a menstruant dims the mirror in front of her. Roman writers insist that menstrual blood damages wine and blights trees and crops, even blunting knives, killing bees, rusting metals, and making dogs crazy (Parker, 103). None of these fancies is present in Leviticus. Nevertheless, a label of
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impurity is attached to the menstruant and, to a lesser degree, also to those who make contact with her or her bed or seat. The menstruant remains impure for an entire week, even if her bleeding stops earlier. It is not clear from Leviticus to what degree the woman should be separated from those around her; nevertheless, the menstruant’s bed and seat are defiling to anyone who touches, sits on, or lies on them, requiring them to wash themselves (15:20–23). Since these persons are required to wash, it makes most sense that the menstruant herself is also required to bathe, although this is not explicit in the text. Abnormal menstruation, that is, vaginal bleeding that continues beyond a week or is simply inconsistent with the normal cycle, is a severe impurity requiring the woman to bring a sacrifice to the sanctuary after healing. Any bed or seat belonging to this woman also transmits impurity to one who touches it (15:27). In the New Testament a woman who had abnormal bleeding for twelve years comes to Jesus for healing. Probably from a desire to remain anonymous and to prevent ritual contagion, she simply reaches for the hem of Jesus’ garment and is healed (Matt. 9:20; Mark 5:25; Luke 8:43). Leviticus does not explain how one recovers from such a condition but simply provides purification procedures after one is cured. After a period of seven days of health with no emissions, the individual brings two birds to sacrifice at the sanctuary on the eighth day to complete her purification and mark reentry into society. Abnormal emissions from a man (e.g., gonorrhea) are also severe and require the same purification rituals after healing. Childbirth, a more severe impurity than menstruation, due to extended vaginal bleeding, is addressed in an even more prescribed set of regulations divided into two periods. The first is the initial week after the birth, when a mother comes to the sanctuary and offers a burnt offering and a purification offering. The translation in many versions, “sin offering,” has led to unnecessary leaps of interpretation. But the term often translated “sin offering” (from Heb. hata’), when it is applied to matters of ritual impurity, is morally neutral. Thus the better translation is “purification offering.” According to Leviticus, a new mother remains impure forty days if she gives birth to a boy and eighty days if a girl (12:2–5). During the first stage of her impurity, seven days (boy)
or fourteen days (girl), she contaminates others like a menstruant (by touch but not by sharing the same roof). During the second stage, she is not contagious to anything but sacred objects. This differentiation is curious and has been analyzed repeatedly since ancient times. The implicit logic behind this difference is apparently this: a daughter, over her lifetime, will be ritually impure and contagious more often than a son, because of her own menstruation and childbearing, and so her birth causes greater defilement to the mother. This should not be understood, however, as a value judgment. In fact, the mother is the vessel through whom holiness is continued in Israel, and childbirth is the normal channel for the next generation of holy people. Marriage In Israel, the body is a microcosm for the sanctuary. Just as the sanctuary is sacred and only certain items may be sacrificed within it, so the body is protected by guarding who has access to it. Hence, laws regarding appropriate sexual partners are of utmost importance. Leviticus 18 lists sexual partnerships that are forbidden to a man: mother, stepmother, sister/half sister, granddaughter, stepsister, aunt, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, a woman and her daughter or granddaughter, two sisters, menstruant, a married woman, a man, and an animal. The text is directed to a male audience, so interpreters have had difficulty figuring out how it would read if addressed to women. For example, the community responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls considered both aunt/nephew and uncle/niece marriages forbidden by the principle of analogy, but the rabbis took the literal approach and prohibited only aunt/nephew marriages, since Leviticus does not explicitly address the question of an uncle/niece marriage. The most striking omission in the list is sexual relations between a father and daughter. Some regard this prohibition as self-evident, since the introduction to the list prohibits a man from having any sexual relations with “his own flesh” (18:6). Also, a man’s granddaughter is off-limits to him sexually, so it follows that his daughter would be also (18:10). Finally, a man is forbidden to have relations with a woman and her daughter, thus precluding his own daughter (18:17). Same-sex intercourse between males is forbidden directly by the text (20:13). While the text prohibits the sexual act between men, it
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does not condemn genuine affections and close relationships between them. Since the specific reference here is to homosexual intercourse between males, commentators continue to argue about the ramifications for women. Women in ancient Israel, like their nonIsraelite counterparts, did not have full rights to their own bodies. Their marriage and sexual relationships were controlled by their fathers and brothers. While a father had every reason to protect the chastity of his daughter in order for her marriage and children to be of the highest order, she belonged to him until she was married, when control passed to her husband. Nevertheless, a father must not “desecrate” his daughter by turning her into a prostitute; this action degrades the whole land (19:29). The text continues with an order to keep the Sabbath and revere the sanctuary (19:30). Thus the bodies of women as well as men are to be sacred vessels analogous to the Sabbath and the sanctuary. These laws reveal the concern of the writer to maintain the family’s integrity and hence the nation’s. Israel is exhorted not to follow the sexual practices of the Canaanites, who lost their rights to the land when it “spewed them out” because of their immorality (18:1–4). The destiny of the nation of Israel is bound up with the sexual and social ethics of each Israelite family. Furthermore, from a practical point of view, the value of marriage dowries depends on legitimate blood lines and proof of virginity, and proper marriage practices are necessary to establish the legitimacy of children and their claims to inheritance rights. Women and the Cult Women are forbidden to be priests, as are most men. The priestly line is limited to the male descendants of Aaron between the ages of thirty and fifty (apprenticing at age twentyfive). Nevertheless, women participate in the cult, bringing sacrifices to the sanctuary, as is recorded in other biblical texts. Along with her husband, Hannah brings and slaughters an animal as payment for a vow (1 Sam. 1:3–4, 21, 24–28; cf. Num. 30:4). Indeed, Leviticus requires a woman to bring a sacrifice after giving birth (12:6–8). Other biblical texts depict women, as well as men, slaughtering animals for sacrifices (1 Sam. 28:24; Prov. 7:14). The women of a priest’s family are associated with him and his holiness in direct ways, and thus greater restrictions apply to them.
Expectations are often physical as well as moral; just as the sacrifices of Israel have to be without defect, so also do the cultic personnel. This high standard affects whom, which women, priests are allowed to marry. A prostitute, any woman born from an illegal sexual union (this second category is open to interpretation), and a divorcee (probably due to suspicion of adultery) are forbidden (21:7). The high priest can marry only a virgin of a priestly family, not a widow (21:13–14). The daughter of a priest who engages in prostitution (probably meaning any illicit sex) “defiles her father” and must be burned (21:9). Although women of priestly families have to follow greater restrictions than other women, they also reap special benefits. Most sacred offerings, including the grain offering, purification offering, and guilt offering, are eaten only by priests. However, the choice parts of the well-being sacrifices, the breast and right thigh, as well as the firstfruits offerings, which are given to the priest, can be enjoyed by his family members as long as they are in a state of ritual purity. A daughter of a priest who has married a nonpriest, however, is not allowed to eat of the priest’s food (22:12–14). Nevertheless, if she is widowed or divorced and without children, she can rejoin her father’s household and again eat of the family’s food. Of special interest to women may be the priestly vestments. The Torah describes six garments of the high priest: the breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a fringed tunic, a headdress, and a sash (Lev. 8:7–9; Exod. 28:2–43). Twelve jewels, each representing a tribe of Israel, are affixed to the breastpiece, which also carries the Urim and Thummim, the items by which the high priest communicates with God. The headdress is adorned with a gold crown inscribed with the words “Holy to the Lord.” Thus the high priest functions as a mediator between God and the people. Only he has access to the most sacred area, but he symbolically carries Israel into the presence of God with him as represented by the jewels on his breastpiece. All of these garments are probably sewn by women, since they weave the same types of fabrics for the tabernacle (cf. Exod. 35:25; 28:5). Hannah too makes a little robe for her son Samuel to go with his linen ephod when he serves in the sanctuary (1 Sam. 2:18–19; cf. also Exod. 28:5–12; Lev. 8:7). Women as well as men are allowed to make dedications to the sanctuary (although
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according to Num. 30:4–9 a father or husband can annul a woman’s vows). In Leviticus 27:1–8 one finds a provision for vowing to the sanctuary the equivalent value of a human being. These verses specify different valuations for males and females and for different age groups. A man age twenty to sixty is worth fifty shekels, whereas a woman is valued at thirty shekels. At first glance, it seems that the author is suggesting that men are intrinsically more valuable than women. However, the text is concerned with the economic productivity of each gender at various stages of life. Since a woman on average is of less physical strength and is occupied with childbearing and childrearing, her labor potential outside of the home, and thus her economic value, is lower. Similarly, the valuations for young children and old people are less than for men and women in the prime of their lives.
Conclusion Leviticus is a book about Israel’s access to and continued relationship with its God through a life centered around holiness. Women, although in significant ways under the control of men, are instrumental in this endeavor. Both women and men offer sacrifices for atonement, and both consume sacrifices of fellowship. Both create impurity by moral infractions and ritual impurity, and both are offered a means of purification. Women’s issues loom large in the middle of Leviticus concerning purity in the home, especially with regard to the kitchen table and the marriage bed. The book also emphasizes the importance of proper treatment of others and considers interpersonal relationships a matter of holiness. Although many mistake the book
as simply an ancient treatise on cultic matters, Leviticus continues to resonate with both men and women today on scholarly and devotional levels. Examining the themes and issues of this book from a feminist perspective opens up new ways of understanding the profound theology behind the practices it describes. Bibliography
Douglas, Mary. Reading Leviticus: Conversations with Mary Douglas. Edited by John F. A. Sawyer. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn, et al. “Leviticus.” In The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss, 567–786. New York: URJ Press, 2008. Harrington, Hannah. Purity Texts. Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 5. London: T. & T. Clark, 2004. Klawans, Jonathan. Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Levine, Baruch. The JPS Commentary: Leviticus. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1991. ———. Leviticus 17–22. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2000. ———. Leviticus 23–27. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Parker, Robert. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
Numbers Katharine Doob Sakenfeld
Introduction and sacrificial system. They also incorporated significant portions of an earlier tradition that scholars call the Old Epic, probably composed sometime during the first two centuries of Israel’s monarchy (ca. 1000–800 BCE) and updated periodically in the intervening centuries. Many scholars suggest that some further revising and editing of the exilic work took place in the years after return from exile. The basic framework of Numbers is a prose narrative about Israel’s forty years “In the Wilderness” (the Hebrew name for this book). Into this narrative are incorporated all sorts of other literary forms, most notably instruction for religious practice (e.g., Num. 28; 4; 19), elaborate examples of “case law” (e.g., 5:11–31), poetry, and lists. The poetry includes a blessing (6:24– 26), several songs (e.g., 10:35–36; 21:27–30), and a series of oracles in Numbers 23–24. The lists include a travel itinerary (Num. 33) and two census summaries (Num. 1; 26). It is from these “numberings” of the people that the book received the name “Arithmoi” in the ancient Greek version and its English name “Numbers.” Numbers is among the most disjointed books of the Bible. Although it contains a narrative sequence, many of the pieces of religious instruction and civil legislation seem to be introduced randomly, so much so that explanations of their location in the book seem artificial or arbitrary. Scholars have attempted to outline the book in various ways. The approach developed by Dennis Olson is gaining wide acceptance. Olson focuses on the two censuses of the “whole congregation of the Israelites” in chapters 1 and 26 as markers of two major divisions
The book of Numbers is the fourth of the five books that make up the Pentateuch or Torah. These books appear first in the Bible partly because they belong there chronologically; they tell the story of God’s dealing with the world and with ancient Israel from the creation onward until the Israelites are poised to cross the Jordan River into the land promised to their ancestor Abraham. But the Pentateuch also appears first in the Bible because its content is theologically foundational to understanding the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Thus the book of Numbers, even though it is not well known today by comparison to Genesis or Exodus, helped to provide basic religious guidance for the ancient Israelite community.
Composition, Authorship, Structure Biblical scholarship of the last 250 years has reached a broad consensus that the Pentateuch is a composite of materials put together over many centuries in the life of ancient Israel and attributed to Moses only very late in its history. Although there is disagreement about details, it seems likely that the first four books of the Pentateuch received their present shape during the period called the Babylonian exile (587–538 BCE). It is hypothesized that this work was done by a group of Jerusalemite priests who had been exiled to the city of Babylon in Mesopotamia after its king, Nebuchadrezzar, and his army had destroyed Jerusalem. These priests drew on ancient traditions from their own religious heritage and are thus responsible for a great deal of our knowledge of Israel’s priestly 79
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of Numbers. Chapters 1–25 present a picture of the original generation of Israelites, those who fled from Pharaoh’s oppression in Egypt, as a sinful generation disobedient to God. By the end of chapter 25, all of this generation has died in the wilderness; chapter 26 then provides an enumeration of the second generation, born in the wilderness. This new generation, by contrast, is presented as living fully obediently and is meant to serve as a positive example to future generations. Beyond these two major divisions, it is difficult to identify a coherent outline; here only the broad contours of the sequence of material can be traced. The book opens with the people still at Mount Sinai, and the opening chapters concern arrangements for the journey through the wilderness toward the promised land. After an initial census of the adult males (except for the Levites), Moses is given instruction for the arrangement of the Israelite camp during the wilderness march, along with elaborate instruction for the special duties of the Levites. A census of male Levites is followed by a miscellany of laws relating to uncleanness, restitution of damages, suspicion of adultery, and Nazirite vows. After the famous Aaronic benediction (end of Num. 6), the dedication of the altar and the consecration of the Levites are reported. Then the people move out from the area of Mount Sinai (10:12). Complaints about food lead to the establishment of a body of elders (all male) to assist Moses (Num. 11). Aaron and Miriam complain against Moses and are rebuked (Num. 12). In a critically important climax of the narrative, the people refuse to obey God’s command to go up into the land (Num. 13–14). As a result of their disobedience, this first generation is condemned to die in the wilderness. The events recorded for the remaining thirty-eight years of that generation include a rebellion against Moses (Num. 16), confirmation of Aaron’s leadership (Num. 17), Moses’ and Aaron’s failure to “show God’s holiness” (Num. 20), and the well-known story of Balaam and his talking donkey (Num. 22–24). Again, regulations of special interest to priestly groups are interspersed in the narrative. The first part of the book concludes with a story of Israelite men involving themselves with foreign women and their gods, and resulting judgment upon them (Num. 25). The second census (Num. 26) is taken as preparation for an eventual equitable division
of the land among the tribes. At this point only Joshua and Caleb (two heroes of the Num. 14 story) and of course Moses himself remain alive of the original generation. This second section of Numbers is bookended by the two-part story (Num. 27; 36) of the five daughters of Zelophehad, a story about the rules for tribal inheritance. The capture of the east side of the Jordan is reported (Num. 32), and the book concludes with the people near the Jordan River opposite Jericho, poised to enter the land. Other chapters in this section give the impression of miscellaneous appendixes, including topics such as the keeping of vows (Num. 30) and cities of refuge (Num. 35).
Numbers and Women’s Experience In many ways the presentation of women in the book of Numbers illustrates the typical existence of women in many cultures throughout many historical periods. The book, written by males from an elite group, proceeds generally as if there were no real difference between women and men. Thus stories about the “congregation” or the “people” are told as if everyone were involved in the same way. But from time to time unintended clues remind attentive readers that women are not really in the narrator’s mind, as when the dissidents against Moses worry about their wives (Num. 14) and when the laws governing unintentional taking of human life (35:22–28) seem highly unlikely to be enforceable for female perpetrators. The absence of women from public religious leadership is completely taken for granted, and their role as congregational participants is left unspecified. When questions concerning women come explicitly to the fore, they are focused primarily in the domestic realm, the realm in which most women of that culture functioned and the realm that the male writers regarded as in need of special regulation with regard to women’s place. Marriage, divorce, sexual relations, passing on of the family name, control of land, and family economic condition are all singled out for special attention in this book. The notable exception to this domestic focus is, of course, Miriam. She serves as a reminder that even in cultures that emphasize domestic roles for women, some women do achieve public leadership. Miriam’s story here typifies much of such leadership: it is exceptional, it is not regarded as fully comparable to that of the men,
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and it is much more easily challenged, compromised, and undercut. As people attuned to the modern debate about the place of women in contemporary cultures read this ancient book, they may well be first aware of the great gulf between that ancient culture and their own. But it is important that this sense of distance not deceive the reader, for the correspondences to the situation of modern women and men continue to be very great indeed.
Themes and Central Concerns Numbers is about a people on a journey, a journey from a context of economic and racialethnic oppression (the land of Egypt) toward a context (the land of promise) where justice, righteousness, freedom, and joy are envisioned as the order of their existence. The journey was initiated by God in their deliverance from Egypt (book of Exodus) and will still be incomplete at the end of Numbers. Indeed, the larger biblical story bears witness that a community of justice, righteousness, freedom, and joy always remains more a future hope than a present reality. Thus many racial-ethnic and women’s groups, believing that God has promised a better future, have constructively appropriated the biblical theme of a wilderness journey. The Numbers story reminds readers of the difficulties, dangers, and disagreements that seem always to arise on such a journey, as well as of the persistent determination of God to carry through. Although women remain mostly “invisible” within this book about community counted as adult males, they do appear here and there, either as examples of faithful living or as potential or actual threats (from the viewpoint of the male-oriented tradition) to communal stability. Themes such as human authority, leadership, trust in God, and insider-outsider that pervade the book raise significant issues for feminist readers, even when women are not explicitly in view in the text. In both explicit and very subtle ways, the narrative of Numbers deals with the meaning of living faithfully before God and with how God deals with unfaithfulness. The people’s failure to enter the land (Num. 13–14) is the central example, although their various other rebellions are also part of this theme. In chapter 14, we see how easily fear can subvert trust in God, how easily a “herd” mentality can develop
in a community under stress, how easily a community can move backward. While God cannot ignore the disobedient unfaithfulness of the people, they are neither destroyed nor abandoned. The promised future is delayed, but the promise is reiterated: God’s plan will indeed come to fruition. In the meantime, the wilderness becomes a place of learning, growing, and testing. So also modern women and men still ask over and over again, as did ancient Israel: Is God really doing a new thing? To whose opinion should we listen about the way forward? How are we called to express our resistance to the present scene, while preparing for the right moment for change yet to come? The censuses show that the size of the Israelite community remains constant through the wilderness period, a sign of divine faithfulness despite the pattern of persistent rebellion. The basis for land distribution in the promised land will be the ancestral houses identified in the second census, with procedures to ensure that each group receives an equitable share. In a subsistence agricultural economy with limited food transportation and storage, where nearly everyone farms and must survive on the food grown by a family or small village, the rules for ownership of arable land are foundational for economic justice. In this context, women and their concerns receive special attention in Numbers 27 and 36, as the daughters of Zelophehad ask whether women may receive land if there are no male heirs. Moses’ complaint about his inability to lead single-handedly results in a cadre of divinely designated male assistants (Num. 11). Challenges to leadership are made by Moses’ immediate relatives (including Miriam, Num. 12), by the people as a whole (Num. 14), and by the Korahites (Num. 16). Moses and Aaron are rebuked for failing as leaders (Num. 20). With the significant exception of Miriam’s challenge to Moses, women play no role in these leadership questions; but the disputes among males resonate broadly with twenty-first-century feminist questions about authority, power, control, how to initiate change, and what counts as evidence of divine approval for religious leaders. The material concerning correct worship specifies the leadership duties of priests and Levites, roles reserved for men in Israelite practice. The various texts concerning offerings, sacrifices, and festivals do not make clear what role, if any, women could play on these
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occasions. It seems to be assumed that among the laity the male heads of households, clans, or tribes have primary responsibility for carrying out the commanded religious rites. Numbers incorporates a variety of rules concerning spiritual and bodily purity, most of which explain how to reestablish a “clean” state of being after some defilement. Defilement may come through committing an unintentional sin (15:22–31) or through contact with a dead body or a person with a skin disease (5:1–4; 19:1–22). In these cases the rituals appear to be applicable equally to men and women, as the inclusive phrasing of the NRSV indicates. The
laws concerning Nazirite vows (6:1–21) may be regarded as a special case of ritual purity, especially since the prohibition concerning contact with dead bodies is so stringent for the Nazirite (6:6–8). Here the law is specifically applied to women as well as to men (6:2). Scattered legal material provides guidance for the Israelite community in matters of family life. Most notable are the regulations concerning women who make sacred vows (Num. 30) and concerning wives whose husbands suspect them of adultery (5:11–31). Israel’s patriarchal presuppositions about family structure are particularly evident here.
Comment Numbers refers to women sporadically and in uneven ways. In large sections of the book they are noticeable by their absence, most obviously with respect to priestly and Levitical leadership in worship, but also as they are absorbed invisibly into a community in which male spies are chosen to represent each tribe (13:2) or only males of military age are counted in each census (Num. 1; 26). Nonetheless, women have some significant part in no fewer than nine of the thirty-six chapters of this book. The following comments will focus especially on these chapters.
Part One: The Old Generation (Num. 1–25) Preparations for Leaving Sinai (Num. 1:1–10:10) Although Part One of the book concerns the rebellious failure of the exodus generation, there are no narratives of rebellion in the opening chapters. Topics covered include census reports, the sacred duties of the L evites, instructions for organizing the physical arrangement of the tribal camp and procession away from Sinai and through the wilderness, and a review of the dedication of the tabernacle. The well-known Aaronic benediction, found in 6:24–26, expresses God’s intent to bless, keep, be gracious, and give peace to the Israelite community. God’s blessing and keeping presence among them is a gift, but God’s holy presence must not be violated, lest disaster ensue. Thus divine instruction establishes zones of sacred space around the tabernacle and identifies
ranks of sacred officials who may safely operate in the “danger zone” closest to the holy space. Although the text says nothing of special honor accruing to those allowed closest to the sacred things, it is easy to imagine how such thoughts might arise. Challenges to the leadership structure recorded in subsequent chapters reveal such tensions in the community. Chapters 5 and 6 present the first of numerous blocks of legal materials scattered throughout the book. Most of the regulations in chapters 5 and 6 (concerning, e.g., bodily impurity, restitution, Nazirites) apply to women and men alike, but the case of a woman suspected of adultery requires special attention.
Suspicion of Marital Infidelity (Num. 5:11–31). This legislation specifies procedures that a husband is to follow if he suspects his wife of having intercourse with another man but has no proof that she has done so. (Various cases susceptible to proof are covered in Deut. 22.) The text begins in a style typical of ancient Near Eastern case law: “if thus and such circumstances happen . . .” (5:12b), with a variety of subclauses (5:13–14), followed finally by a “then . . .” clause (5:15) specifying what the husband shall do. According to this law, the husband may bring his wife before the priest, whether he has genuine suspicions or is simply overcome by a “spirit of jealousy.” The wording of the law generally presumes that the woman is guilty; it is only in the last phrase of verse 14 that the possibility of her innocence is finally mentioned. Editorial headings such as “concerning
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an unfaithful wife,” found in some Bible translations, misleadingly accept this presumption of guilt without reflecting the dominant theme of the husband’s unverifiable suspicion. Verses 16–28 describe the procedure to be undertaken by the priest to determine the woman’s guilt or innocence. The key to understanding the procedure is the requirement that the woman say “Amen, Amen” (5:22), thus accepting the potential results of the curse to be laid upon her if she is guilty. The effect of the potion not only shows her guilt or innocence but also constitutes the punishment if she is guilty. The meaning of the Hebrew describing the results in a guilty case (“her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop,” 5:27) is obscure, so it is not possible to associate the phrase with a specific medical condition. The social consequences of being regarded as “an execration among her people” are not spelled out but may well have involved severe social ostracism. The concluding paragraph of the law (5:29– 31) provides a topical recapitulation typical of such legislation. It then goes on, however, to note that “the man shall be free from iniquity.” Since the law presupposes that the woman’s partner (if she is guilty at all) is not legally identifiable, the man referred to here is apparently the husband, who is absolved of any guilt for making a false accusation. Not only may he invoke this procedure on mere suspicion; he is not to be held accountable for his suspicions, even if his wife is vindicated. Even though this law seems outrageous to modern Western sensibilities, and even though the possibility that the potion (apparently only dirt and water) might have a real effect on a woman seems remote by modern Western standards, one should not conclude that the practice was never carried out or that this curse-bringing water could not produce an effect in the context of a culture that accepted the possibility of such powers. The law invites readers to reflect both upon the many ways in which diverse cultures have sought to control women’s sexual behavior and upon the terror reigning among women wherever such customs prevail. The Journey from Sinai to the East Bank of the Jordan (Num. 10:11–25:16) Once the journey is underway, the bulk of this section of Part One focuses on disputes about leadership. Wholesale disobedience
(Num. 14) results in a thirty-eight-year pause in the journey. Once the community finally arrives in Transjordan, this section concludes Part One of the book with a dramatic contrast between God’s determination to bless the people through the foreign seer Balaam and the Israelite men’s worship of foreign gods.
God Like a Mother (Num. 11:11–15). Chapter 11 records Moses’ complaint that leadership of the people is too burdensome for him, and God’s establishment of a cadre of (male) elders to share the leadership with Moses. Moses initiates his complaint by pressing God with a rhetorical question: “Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child’?” Of course Moses’ point is that God, not he, has conceived and given birth to this people, so that God should carry them as a nurse carries a sucking child. The maternal imagery for the work of the Deity here is indirect, and such imagery is rare in the Bible, but the comparison is unmistakable. God, who is so often portrayed as king of the people and occasionally in the OT as father of the people, is here described as their mother (cf. Isa. 49:14–15). Miriam’s Challenge to Moses (Num. 12). In chapter 11, Moses seeks and receives help in managing the needs of the community, and Moses’ spirit is shared with others. But is Moses’ role still unique? Chapter 12 takes up this question. Together Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ sister and brother, complain about Moses’ Cushite (Ethiopian) wife and go on to suggest that God has spoken through them as well as through Moses. In the narrative, the matter of Moses’ Cushite wife is quickly dropped in favor of a focus on God’s pronouncement that Moses’ relationship to God is indeed unique. But the Cushite wife must not be overlooked; she is presumably black, and this text has therefore played significantly in religious debates over interracial marriage. Because of their questioning, whether about Moses’ wife or about his special authority, Miriam and Aaron are rebuked by God (12:5, 8c). In the course of emphasizing Moses’ unique position, the narrator uses Miriam as a foil. This is the same Miriam who led Israel in song after the deliverance at the Reed Sea (Exod. 15:20– 21) and presumably is the sister who watched
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Pharaoh’s daughter find the baby Moses (Exod. 2:4–8, although there she is not named). The prophet Micah remembers her as a leader together with Aaron and Moses (Mic. 6:4). And yet here Miriam is severely punished for speaking against Moses, while Aaron receives no punishment at all. God’s anger is kindled against both, but only Miriam becomes “leprous” (i.e., having some skin disease, probably not modern Hansen’s disease, which does not occur in the Middle East until later times). Why is only Miriam punished? Some suggest that Aaron is spared by his quick words to Moses (“Do not punish us,” 12:11) upon seeing Miriam’s leprous condition, but this view does not explain why both have not been equally affected in the course of God’s appearance to them. Alternatively, one may speculate that the answer is related to the role of Aaron as priest and the rules about ritual cleanness of the priests that are known from Leviticus 21–22. The regulations of Leviticus emphasize that the Aaronic priesthood must be physically unblemished and that those priests who find themselves ritually unclean at any time must absent themselves from priestly duties and special priestly food until they are purified. Skin diseases such as that infecting Miriam are explicitly listed as a source of such uncleanness (Lev. 22:4). Since Aaron is the paradigmatic priestly figure, the one from whom all priestly lineage is descended, it is perhaps inconceivable to the narrator that Aaron can be presented as contracting such a skin disease. This “narrative impossibility” is further compounded by the great care exercised by the Priestly writers throughout Exodus and Numbers to achieve a delicate balance between the power and authority of Moses and Aaron. This balance would clearly be upset if Aaron were pictured as unclean and outside the camp. Our modern question of “unfairness” to Miriam does not appear to have worried the ancient storytellers; at least they do not express any explicit concern for the difference in treatment of Aaron and Miriam. When Aaron sees Miriam’s condition, he turns to Moses for protection (“Do not punish us”) and to intercede for Miriam, and Moses responds by interceding with God on Miriam’s behalf. How is God’s response to Moses’ intercession for Miriam to be understood? Moses’ request for her healing is met with God’s command that she “be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again”
(12:14). The text is not clear whether Miriam is healed immediately, or only at the end of her seven days outside the camp. Neither the regulations of Numbers 19, nor those of Numbers 5, nor Leviticus 13–14 seems to correlate precisely with Miriam’s case, though the theme of being outside the camp because of skin disease or for ritual purification may be present here. Apart from these legal details, God’s comparison of Miriam’s case to one whose “father had spit in her face,” that is, to a woman who has heinously disrespected male authority, appears to be the central issue. Miriam (and only Miriam) is shut out of the camp to shame her because she has tried to claim authority comparable to that of God’s chosen leader Moses. Aaron is not so judged. Even though the camp awaits her return, the unfairness of Miriam’s treatment by comparison to Aaron’s remains a painful signal of the patriarchal perspective underlying the narrative. The lineage of Miriam is a lineage of generations of women who have been rejected or humiliated for doing exactly the same thing as their male counterparts. But the larger biblical tradition presents us with another face of God, beyond the face of the One who puts Miriam outside the camp. That other is the face of a God who stands close to and defends those on the “outside,” a God who has likewise been rejected, put outside, by people who thought they knew best. God appears to Hagar after her expulsion from Abraham and Sarah’s camp (Gen. 21); even as the exile is portrayed as divine judgment, God is portrayed as present with the exiles for comfort and restoration (esp. Isa. 40–55); the NT portrayal of Jesus’ crucifixion in an unclean place outside the Jerusalem walls (Heb. 13:12) reprises this theme for Christian readers. The starkness of Numbers 12 must not be undercut, but Miriam outside the camp may point us not only to the painful arbitrariness of her situation but also, however indirectly and allusively, to God’s presence beyond the camp and even to the suffering of God in the face of human injustice.
Miriam’s Death (Num. 20:1). In contrast to the fuller reports of the deaths of Aaron (Num. 20:22–29) and of Moses (Deut. 34:1–8), the one-sentence statement concerning the death and burial of Miriam is uninformative. Its very brevity, with absence of detail and no reference to a period of mourning, indicates her lesser
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status in the tradition in comparison with her two brothers. On the other hand, that her death is reported at all suggests her importance, and the location of her death geographically and narratively functions to raise her status closer to that of her brothers. Miriam dies in the same location (Kadesh) where the story immediately following, concerning Moses and Aaron, takes place. In 20:2–13 her two brothers fail to respond properly when the people cry out for water. What exactly they do wrong is debated, but clearly they violate their responsibilities as God’s designated leaders. God therefore says to Miriam’s two brothers, “You shall not bring this assembly into the land” (20:12), and by the end of this chapter Aaron’s death is also reported. Moses, of course, continues on to lead the people to the edge of the Jordan, but here in Kadesh, where Miriam dies, Moses’ death outside the land is announced as well. Thus the narrator heightens the significance of Miriam’s death by reporting it immediately before the announcement of the fate of her brothers.
The Danger of Foreign Women (Num. 25). In this complicated narrative, both Moabite women generally and a specific Midianite woman named Cozbi (25:15) are portrayed in a classical biblical role of the foreign woman who leads Israel (at least the males) astray from the true God. The theme reappears, for example, in the criticism of Solomon’s foreign wives (1 Kgs. 11) and in the requirement of divorcing foreign wives (Ezra 10 and Neh. 13). Through this painful story the narrator explains God’s selection of the descendants of the priest Phinehas for special privilege; this honor is gained because Phinehas kills Cozbi and her lover and thus averts a threat to Israel’s faith. Elsewhere in the canon the book of Ruth presents a powerful challenge to this negative perspective on foreign women. Part Two: The New Generation (Num. 26–36) A second census (Num. 26) marks the opening of a new phase of God’s work with the people. By contrast to Part One, the final chapters include stories where disobedience may have been brewing but is averted. Sometimes communities that have gone off track do indeed make a fresh start.
Women Challenge Authority (Num. 27:1– 11). This chapter presents the first of a two-part story about five daughters whose father has died without sons. The story occurs immediately following the second census of the people and God’s instructions to Moses about how the promised land is to be allotted among the families of the second generation. The five daughters of Zelophehad present to Moses their special situation, pointing out that according to the rules (26:52–56) their father’s name will be lost because no one from his family will receive an inheritance in the land. Moses seeks God’s guidance, and God announces the specific decision concerning their petition (27:7), followed by a more general and extended law of inheritance (27:8–11). Only verse 8 of this extended law is directly related to the petition of the five women. How incredibly daring are Mahlah, Noah, Milcah, Hoglah, and Tirzah in coming forward to speak personally and publicly (27:2) to the great Moses! Moreover, their question involves not just Moses’ opinion but a suggestion that a direct decree of the Deity is inadequate and should be revised. The narrative is dramatic and suspenseful. What will Moses’ response be in this extraordinary situation? Once he turns to the Deity, what will be God’s response? The rustle in the crowd is almost palpable as the women approach, as everyone waits, as the word is announced: “The daughters of Zelophehad are right.” But why was this story preserved in the canon? The drama of the story and the courage of the sisters are not sufficient explanation. It seems probable that the story survived because the basic point at issue was the preservation of the father’s name (27:4). The storyteller presumes an intricate connection between possession of land and preservation of family name. The women themselves are pictured as taking action for the sake of their father’s name, not for the sake of their own opportunity to possess land. This story could be heard even in ancient Israel as a story of comfort for women who would not be left destitute, but it was preserved primarily as a story of comfort for men who had the misfortune not to bear any male heirs: their names would not be cut off from their clans. Part two of their story appears in chapter 36 and concludes the book of Numbers. Women’s Vows (Num. 30). Chapter 30 concerns the requirement that all vows must be
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fulfilled. The requirement for men is stated succinctly in verses 1–2: no exceptions are allowed. The remainder of the chapter focuses on conditions under which vows made by women are and are not binding, and specifically on circumstances in which a male in authority over a woman may nullify her vow. The chapter treats vows made by women living within their fathers’ households (30:3–5) or within their husbands’ households (30:10–15), covers divorced women and widows (30:9), and gives special attention to changes in jurisdiction when a woman marries (30:6–8). There is very little evidence concerning the typical subject matter of women’s vows, though it seems likely that they are often concerned with fertility and the possibility of children (see 1 Sam. 1:9–11; Prov. 31:2). Whatever was typical, there is no evidence for restriction on the goals women can hope to gain through their vows. With regard to what women vow to do or to offer if their requests are granted by God, again the evidence is slim. Three main possibilities have been suggested: fasting, sexual abstinence, and some economic payment. What might a male authority figure gain, practically speaking, by being able to nullify such vows? With regard to sexual abstinence, a father might want the right (for economic reasons) to ensure that his daughter remain marriageable, while of course a husband would want control of his conjugal rights. If the goal of a vow is to bear a child, of course, it seems unlikely that sexual abstinence would be what the woman would offer. But with regard to sexual abstinence as well as to fasting, interpretation is hampered by lack of information about special women’s rituals that may exist alongside the more official male world of religious practice attested in the Bible. Is there “another world” of religious practice over which men hope to have at least some rudimentary control? Might it provide a means for women to “evade” or “get an intermission from” an oppressive family situation? The absence of evidence must be noted, but the possibility of such women’s rituals cannot be discounted. Finally, it seems obvious that men would have sought to maintain economic control within their households. Vows often involve payment of animals, property, or even persons to the sanctuary. If a woman in her desire for a child follows the example of Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 1), that child will either be lost to the economic future of the
family or perhaps be redeemed for a payment according to the categories laid out in Leviticus 27:1–8. A vow involving animal sacrifice might likewise affect the economic status of a family rather substantially. However the law is read, its ancient purpose seems to be the promotion of family stability within a culture of male- dominated households.
War Captives (Num. 31). After a military victory over the Midianites, the Israelite soldiers kill all the males but keep all the women, children, and animals as booty. An angry Moses reminds the officers that these Midianite women are responsible for the apostasy of Israel recorded in chapter 25 (the stories disagree about which women were involved) and commands that all except the virgin women be killed (31:17–18). The number of virgin women reported (32,000, in 31:35) is surely an exaggeration, but it leaves the reader appalled at the number of others who are slaughtered, as well as at the fate of the virgins taken by force into the Israelite camp. What becomes of those allowed to live is not of interest to the narrator, but Deuteronomy 21:10–14 gives some indication of the procedures involved if an Israelite man chooses to marry a war captive. Civilians Left at Home (Num. 32). After the capture of land east of the Jordan, Moses rebukes the tribes of Reuben and Gad for asking to settle there before the rest of the land has been taken. After extended discussion Reuben and Gad are given the land on condition that they cross the river to fight alongside the other tribes. For their part, they decide to leave their children, wives, and animals settled east of the Jordan for the duration of the military action (31:26). The story highlights the full obedience of the generation born in the wilderness, but it shows the thoughtful reader that it is solidarity among the males of Israel that is the focal point of obedience for the narrator. Reflection on the place of the women and children in this story also points to the Bible’s glaring silence concerning the role of the women and children of the other tribes in the battle narratives of the book of Joshua. Repercussions (Num. 36:1–12). After the capture of Transjordan, the male relatives of the tribe to which Zelophehad belongs suddenly wake up to what from their point of view is a
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major omission in the ruling announced back in chapter 27. Numbers 36 is concerned with their appeal. The heads of the other families of the Joseph tribe to which Zelophehad belonged come before Moses and state their concern: If these five women marry men from other Israelite tribes, then “their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestors and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry” (36:3). Moses announces the divine decision that the daughters of Zelophehad must marry within their own tribe so as to avoid any possibility of transfer of property from one tribe to another, and again the law is generalized beyond the specific case. The story concludes with an account of the women’s compliance with this regulation, so that the entire book ends with an illustration of the narrator’s overarching theme of the perfect faithfulness of the second generation. Although chapters 27 and 36 exhibit a superficial similarity of pattern, there are significant differences between them. In the second story the place of meeting is not specified, and the only audience is the (male) heads of ancestral houses. The specifically religious elements of chapter 27 (tent of meeting, priest, and congregation) are missing from the proceedings in chapter 36, as indeed are the five women themselves. Furthermore, in the second story Moses proceeds directly to the announcement of God’s decision, without consultation with the Deity. Thus the narrator here reports Moses’ speech to the Israelites, rather than God’s speech of command to Moses, as is recorded in chapter 27. The women themselves are completely invisible, and the Deity is present only by indirection. In fact, the pronouncement that “the descendants of the tribe of Joseph are right” (36:5) appears quite abruptly, since the petitioners, unlike the daughters in chapter 27, have not proposed any solution to their problem. Information concerning Israelite marriage customs and regulations is so scanty that it is difficult to project the effect of this law. If the story
implies that women without fathers or brothers can choose their own husbands (36:6), then the law simply restricts their choice of mates. If, however, other males in the extended family are responsible for the choice of husbands for such women, then the law restricts the greed of such men (who might otherwise maneuver to get the best price for that rare woman who brings to marriage a parcel of arable land, the ideal dowry in an agrarian society). In this sequel to the basic story, the focus has shifted; suddenly land and the rights to it, rather than the father’s name, are the center of attention. It becomes evident that the daughters’ landholding is only temporary, until their marriage, at which time the property will pass to their husbands; a battle among males for male property rights takes shape. The women do not end up where they began, with no place or space of their own within Israel’s inheritance and property structure; yet the limits of their freedom are made very clear by the end of the story. Bibliography
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. “The Strange Case of the Suspected Sotah (Numbers V 11–31).” Vetus Testamentum 34 (1984): 11–26. Kramer, Phyllis Silverman. “Miriam.” In Exodus to Deuteronomy: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series), edited by Athalya Brenner, 104–33. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000. Olson, Dennis T. Numbers. Interpretation Commentary. Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1996. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. Journeying with God: A Commentary on the Book of Numbers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. Shemesh, Yael. “A Gender Perspective on the Daughters of Zelophehad: Bible, Talmudic Midrash, and Modern Feminist Midrash.” Biblical Interpretation 15 (2007): 80–109.
Deuteronomy Carolyn Pressler
Introduction These and other parallels led an earlier generation of scholars to identify Deuteronomy with the “book of the law” that, according to 2 Kings 23, prompts Josiah’s religious reform. The historicity of the 2 Kings account is no longer assumed, but scholars continue to find Josiah’s nationalistic reform the most likely setting for Deuteronomy. At the time of Josiah’s rule, Assyria, the empire that has long dominated Judah, is itself struggling to survive. Josiah takes advantage of Assyria’s loss of control over the western edges of its empire to make a bid for national independence and even to extend Judah’s rule over parts of the former northern kingdom, Israel. Many key characteristics of Deuteronomy, such as its emphasis on Israelite unity and hostile attitude toward all it deems non-Israelite, its martial character, and its centralization efforts, are understandable in the context of Josiah’s nationalist campaigns. Josiah’s efforts are abruptly halted with his death at Egypt’s hands in 609 BCE. For a few years Judah is subject, first to Egypt, and then to Egypt’s conqueror, Babylon, before rebelling against Babylon repeatedly during the opening years of the sixth century BCE. Babylon razes Jerusalem, destroys the temple, ends the kingdom, and exiles the Judahite elite in 587 BCE. The final form of Deuteronomy is shaped by exilic editors, who add a new framework to the law (1:1–4:48), revise some of its laws, and use it to introduce their massive history of Israel in its land (Joshua–2 Kings). Much of Deuteronomy may be understood as exilic editors’ efforts to explain Judah’s national trauma, to offer hope, and to help Judah resist assimilation
Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of the Pentateuch, gets its name from the Greek to deuteronomion, “second law,” a phrase found in Deuteronomy 17:18 referring to the copy of the law that the king is to study. In keeping with the Jewish practice of naming biblical books after their opening words, it is also called haddebarim, “the words.” Both names are apt. The Pentateuchal story line presents Deuteronomy as “the words” of Moses, addressing Israel on the plains of Moab at the end of their long wilderness sojourn. God entrusted Moses nearly forty years earlier with a “second law,” in addition to the laws of Exodus 20–23. Now Moses, about to die, conveys that second law to his people. The literary setting imbues Deuteronomy with tremendous authority, presenting it as the last will and testament of Israel’s great founder. Moreover, it makes Deuteronomy foundational, given to Israel upon entering its land. In actuality, Deuteronomy was composed centuries after Israel arose in its land. To be sure, numerous Deuteronomic laws revise cases found in Exodus 21–23, an earlier monarchical or even premonarchical collection. Indeed, part of a common Afro-Asiatic legal tradition, Deuteronomy’s roots go deeper in time to Mesopotamian laws from the early second millennium. Scholars widely agree, however, that the book itself was decisively shaped during the reign of Judah’s King Josiah (640–609 BCE). Deuteronomy’s distinctive drive to centralize sacrificial worship, and its impassioned opposition to idolatry, parallel key aspects of Josiah’s reform as described in 2 Kings 22–23. 88
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to Babylonian culture. Still later, Persian period editors detach Deuteronomy from the historical work and join it to Genesis through Leviticus. The form of Deuteronomy is nearly as complex as its composition history. As noted earlier, the book is presented as speeches of Moses. In addition, it is heavily influenced by ancient Mesopotamian law collections and treaties. Despite its complexity, Deuteronomy pre sents a coherent vision, calling on a unified Israel to exclusive, impassioned loyalty to Israel’s one God, YHWH, who is to be worshiped in one place, (implicitly) Jerusalem. The vision would serve Josiah’s centralization movement well. After the Babylonian conquest, it would help the fragmented, colonized, and geographically scattered community maintain its identity and its courage. At a highly abstract level, the Deuteronomic reimagining of Israel’s narrative and legal traditions offers women’s biblical studies a usable resource. The Deuteronomic authors and editors provide their people with a story and ethos grounded in their sacred, collective ancient memories, yet dynamically serving the urgent needs of their own times. Women who have opted to remain within biblical religions may
find warrant for reimagining their faith traditions in the dynamism of the Deuteronomic reappropriation of Israel’s stories. At a concrete level, Deuteronomy is more problematic for womanist, mujerista, and feminist interpreters. Without question, Deuteronomy emerges from and is thoroughly shaped by a patriarchal culture. Both its sermonic framework(s) and the laws at its core reflect a male perspective and support patriarchal authority structures. Moreover, the aims of Josiah’s nationalist independence movement and, later, the urgent survival needs of the beleaguered colony of Judah result in a call for strong and fiercely defended boundaries between “us” and “them,” “Israel” and “Canaanite other,” couched as religious intolerance (Deut. 12) and even genocide (Deut. 7; 20). Understandable in its historical contexts, this “minority literature” has been used by dominant cultures to legitimize and motivate imperialistic aggression. Womanist, mujerista, and feminist interpreters face the challenge of listening respectfully to the text in their own contexts, identifying and appropriating resources it offers current-day liberation struggles, while critiquing its patriarchal and exclusivist dimensions.
Comment Construction of a Shared Story (Deut. 1:1–4:43) The first of the Moses speeches, Deuteronomy 1:1–4:43, consists of two sections: a “historical review” (Deut. 1–3) and a sermonic interpretation of the commandment against idolatry. The speech presupposes a male audience. The “you” of chapters 1–3 is slippery; most often, it refers to Israelite warriors. In 3:18–22, the second person pronoun refers more narrowly to the warriors of three tribes: Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, whom Moses charges to lead the invasion of Canaan, leaving behind “your wives, children, and livestock.” At a concrete level, these legends of origins offer little in the way of resources for women’s biblical studies. At a more abstract level, the chapters may contain clues for women’s reappropriation of biblical traditions. According to the Pentateuchal story line, by the opening chapter of Deuteronomy, nearly all of the exodus
generation has died out; the story speaks of Moses addressing the second, wilderness generation. Yet his speech puts them at Horeb. The narrative resists literal interpretations of it. Viewed through a historical-critical lens, the “historical review” addresses an exilic audience, whose sense of identity and unity has been shattered by the Babylonian conquest and subsequent colonization. The redactors who preface an earlier version of Deuteronomy with freely reshaped traditions of origin understand the importance of a shared story to rebuilding communal identity. The aniconic message of chapter 4 may also be a resource for women’s biblical interpretation—again, at a highly abstract level. The chapter elaborates on the second commandment’s prohibition against creating any graven or molten images of YHWH. No creaturely form can contain Israel’s God. Feminists have argued that the exclusive use of male imagery for God amounts to idolatry, containing the divine in
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the “likeness of male” (Deut. 4:16); similarly, African American scholars have argued that racism idolatrously reifies white skin.
Moses’ Second Speech (Deut. 4:44–28:68) Moses’ second speech, 4:44–28:68, opens with the heart of Deuteronomy: the Ten Commandments (5:6–21) and Israel’s central confession of God’s sovereignty and unity, the shema‘ (6:4–5). In contrast to chapters 1–3, these chapters, setting out foundational principles binding on the entire community, specifically mention women. Mothers as well as fathers are to be honored (5:16). The Sabbath commandment is enjoined on “you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants.” (See also Deut. 12:12. Deut. 16:11, 14 adds to these household members who are to celebrate festival meals four categories of particularly vulnerable people: Levites, resident aliens, fatherless minors, and widows.) As elsewhere in Deuteronomy, the “you” of the Sabbath command is masculine; commentators debate whether or not it includes the otherwise missing householder’s wife. Some believe that wives, whose work is essential to daily life, are exempt. Others (including myself) find it difficult to believe that the command, encompassing daughters and female slaves, would not also include wives. The Deuteronomic vision is inclusive. “Inclusive” does not mean egalitarian, however. Here as elsewhere in the book, the Deuteronomic vision of Israel is patriarchal. The perspective of the commands is that of male heads of households who possess land, slaves, and animals, and to whom other members of the household are subordinate. This is most clearly indicated in 5:21, which prohibits the addressee from coveting “your neighbor’s wife”; no comparable command prohibits a woman from coveting her neighbor’s husband. Presumably women are prohibited also from killing, committing adultery, stealing, and so forth, but they are included in the commandments only derivatively. The first commandment, to have no gods besides (or before) YHWH, is positively restated in the Shema, which may equally well be translated “Hear, O Israel, YHWH our God, YHWH is one,” and “Hear O Israel, YHWH is our God, YHWH alone.” The former affirms the unity of Israel’s God; the latter, God’s sovereignty. Confessing divine unity may be particularly
important for women. Women’s lives are often fragmented by conflicting demands of family, work, faith, community, and so on. That the power and purpose at the heart of reality is whole, not divided against itself, can provide a hope of wholeness. Confessing the sovereignty of one’s God can serve and has served both liberating and oppressive ends. For ancient Israel, affirming their God’s sole sovereignty undercut human claims to ultimate allegiance. Numerous scholars, noting the influence of ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties on Deuteronomy, characterize it as a countertreaty, set forth in deliberate opposition to the claims of Assyrian or, later, Babylonian overlords. For beleaguered communities today, the same may hold true; acknowledging their God’s sole sovereignty can undergird survival efforts and fuel resistance against oppressive claims of power. Ethnocentrism and Religious Chauvinism (Deut. 7; 20) These chapters make starkly visible the violently chauvinistic possibilities inherent in claiming the sole sovereignty of one’s own God vis-à-vis other religions. Deuteronomy 7 commands Israel to destroy utterly all the indigenous peoples of Canaan, prohibits them from intermarrying with those peoples, and exhorts them to destroy non-Israelite worship centers. The reason for this commanded genocide is to eliminate the temptation to worship others’ deities. The exhortations are formulated as law in Deuteronomy 20. There, an older stratum of law calls for subjecting to forced labor the populations of towns that surrender to them, and slaying the warriors of towns that resist them; women and children may be taken as spoil. A later editor amended that law by adding 20:15– 18, which distinguishes populations inside the boundaries of the land promised to Israel from those at a distance. Like 7:2, Deuteronomy 20:15–18 requires Israel to annihilate the entire indigenous population. Deuteronomy 7 and 20, along with the conquest stories (Josh. 1–12), are among the most problematic in the Hebrew Bible. Deuteronomy 7:2 and 20:15–18 cannot be intended literally; when they are composed in the late seventh century BCE, there are no Canaanites. The martial tone of Deuteronomy would support King Josiah’s military resistance. Especially after the Babylonian conquest, when Judah is a small,
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unarmed colony, the command to destroy the indigenous peoples would help Judahites resist assimilation to the dominant and presumably attractively cosmopolitan culture of their overlords. Deuteronomic Revision of Worship (Deut. 12:1–16:17, 21–22) The exclusivist tone is found again in chapter 12. Until the time of Josiah (640–609 BCE), Judahites offered sacrifice at sanctuaries throughout their land. One main concern of the Deuteronomic authors is to centralize all such worship in the Jerusalemite temple. Deuteronomy 12 weaves together several layers of text commanding Israel to worship at “the place that YHWH your God will choose out of all your tribes” (Deut. 12:5). As a corollary, the texts deem as “Canaanite” worship places, objects, and practices outside Jerusalem, which have previously been acceptable parts of Yahwistic worship, and order their destruction. Within their historical context, these centralization laws may be understood as the Deuteronomic authors’ efforts to promote a unified, nationalistic spirit, first in the face of Assyrian (and possibly Egyptian) domination, and later in the struggle to help Judah survive exile and subsequent colonization. Nonetheless, the passage directly contradicts a key tenet of most mujeristic, feminist and womanist theologies: acknowledging and respecting cultural and religious differences. The command to “burn their sacred poles” presents a particular problem for women’s biblical studies. The term underlying “sacred poles” is a plural form of Asherah, a Phoenician goddess found linked to YHWH in some ancient Judahite inscriptions. The precise relationship of the sacred poles and Asherah is uncertain, but it is clear that Deuteronomy commands the destruction of poles that are in some way related to a goddess (12:3; 7:5). How centralization of worship in Jerusalem would have impacted women is related to questions about the religious concerns and practices of Israelite women that go well beyond the limits of this essay. Scholars, drawing on crosscultural studies, suggest that local and regional worship sites would have been more important to Judahite women than the great Jerusalemite temple. If so, the elimination of worship sites outside of Jerusalem would have adversely affected women. On the other hand, Israelite
women’s religious concerns may have been so centered on birth, lactation, childraising, mourning, healing, and other family-related matters that the centralization of official maledefined sacrificial worship, including worship sites, may not have mattered to them particularly. (For discussion of Israelite women’s religious lives, see Meyers, 2005.) Centralization would have had at least one positive impact on women. Prior to the Deuteronomic reform, the slaughter of animals eligible for sacrifice (such as cattle, sheep, and goats) had to be carried out sacrificially; only those who were ritually clean could eat the meat. Both women and men were subject to periods of ritual uncleanness. The uncleanness associated with menstruation and childbirth, however, would have disproportionately barred women from participating in sacrificial meals. Women may thus have disproportionately benefited from the possibility of profane animal slaughter, which ritually unclean persons could eat (12:22). Deuteronomy 13 starkly illustrates the religious intolerance inherent in Deuteronomy’s nationalistic campaign. The chapter calls for the death of any prophet (13:1–5), individual (13:6–11), or town (13:12–16) advocating the worship of a “foreign” god. While the perspective of the chapter is that of male heads of households (13:6 refers to the “wife” but not the “husband” “whom you embrace”), female as well as male offenders were liable (13:6; 17:2, 5). The law was probably never practiced. Rather, the chapter expresses the passionate urgency of the Deuteronomic command to worship YHWH alone. That urgency would have served Josiah’s nationalistic movement well, and may later have helped beleaguered Judah resist assimilation to the dominant culture. Historically, however, these biblical ideals have dangerously fueled cultural and religious crusades. Concern for the Poor (Deut. 14:22–15:18) Deuteronomy is both inclusive (of those comprising “Israel”) and, at the same time, exclusive (of non-Israelites). It is composed by and addressed to urban elite and at the same time, expresses a much-noted concern for the poor. Deuteronomy 14 reframes the tithe in light of centralization and of Deuteronomy’s inclusive vision of Israel. The head of household is not to give the tithe to the temple or palace, but to eat it in a celebratory meal shared by his whole
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household (14:26) and by the Levites, landless priests, many of whom would have been made unemployed by the elimination of local and regional shrines. Deuteronomy 14:28–29 mandates that every third year, the tithe be set aside for four groups of landless, and thus vulnerable, people. Resident aliens (refugees forced by lack of land and kinship networks to seek the patronage of landed households); widows, particularly those without other male kin to protect them; and fatherless children were together considered special objects of concern and charity by the elite of Israel and its neighbors. To these three groups, Deuteronomy adds the Levites. Recent studies have criticized Deuteronomy for not addressing the structural causes of these groups’ poverty. In the case of widows and fatherless children, the causes are specifically patriarchal; patrilineal inheritance practices left women and children without male protectors highly vulnerable. Nonetheless, as my nation extends tax cuts for the wealthy, while slashing health and human-service programming, I hesitate to disparage Deuteronomic compassion for the poor. The theme of alleviating the worst effects of poverty continues into Deuteronomy 15, which sets out the Deuteronomic sabbatical law. Deuteronomy 15:1–11 requires Israelite creditors to cancel debts owed by their fellow Israelites every seven years. Deuteronomy 15:12–18 mandates the release of Israelite debt slaves after seven years of servitude. The latter has been the topic of much gender analysis. It revises an earlier law in ways that some scholars have argued sought to improve women’s status. According to Exodus 21:2–11, if a man was married when he was enslaved, his wife and children followed him into servitude and were released with him. If, however, his master had provided a wife for the debt slave, she and their children remained the master’s property. The Exodus law also includes a subcase, ruling that a daughter sold as a slavewife would not be released after six years, presumably because her release would frustrate the purpose of the sale. The subcase does require the owner/husband to provide the slave-wife with certain basic necessities or let her go free. The Deuteronomic law of release makes no mention of the slave’s wife or children following him into servitude, and does not deal with the competing claims of the slave and his master over his dependents. Moreover, it explicitly includes women in the release (15:12 and 17b).
The differences between Exodus 21:2–11 and the Deuteronomic revision are probably more apparent than real, however. Under the Deuteronomic law, the indebted man’s family would still have followed him into slavery and would still have been released with him. Under the Exodus law, widowed or divorced women who were unable to pay their debts probably would have been released after six years. The differences amount to the absence of any regulation in the Deuteronomic law exempting the slave-wife from release. That exemption may have been taken for granted; alternatively, the Deuteronomic authors may have considered the statuses of “slave” and “wife” to be incompatible and so eliminated the subcase. It is unlikely that they sought to secure the release of a daughter sold into slave-wifery. Distribution of Powers (Deut. 16:18–18:22) Deuteronomy 16:18–18:22 deals with four national offices that together comprised Israel’s leadership: the judiciary (16:18–20; 17:8–13); kingship (17:14–20); priesthood (18:1–8); and prophecy (18:10–22). The chapters raise three issues specifically related to gender. First, the law of the king prohibits him from acquiring “many wives.” The law explains that his wives might cause “his heart” to “turn away”; that is, foreign wives might lead the king to worship their national deities (cf. 1 Kgs. 11). Implicitly, the prohibition is part of a remarkable effort to restrict royal powers. “To acquire many wives” allowed a king to cement regional and international alliances, just as acquiring horses allowed him to build up his military power, and accruing gold and silver to exploit his royal position to enrich himself. The law restricts the role of the king to studying and observing Deuteronomic law (17:19). A second issue is that women would have served in some of the offices treated by these laws. Given the martial character of Deuteronomy, the masculine pronouns used throughout the book, and the patriarchal assumptions and ideals that many of the laws convey, it is easy to picture the officers as exclusively male. During the monarchical and postmonarchical periods, women were excluded from the Israelite priesthood. There were female prophets, however, including Huldah, who according to 2 Kings 22:12–20 authenticated the book of the law that scholars associate with an early form of
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Deuteronomy (see also Exod. 15:20; Judg. 4:4; Neh. 6:14; Isa. 8:3). The book of Judges depicts Deborah as a prominent judge, indeed, the only one of the book’s heroes to judge in the technical sense of rendering legal decisions. Even Judah’s list of monarchs includes two women: Athaliah (2 Kgs. 11:3) and the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra. That a culture is patriarchal does not mean no women serve in official roles. Rather, it means that positions of power are normally reserved for men, and that female leaders are exceptions. The third gender-related issue arises in connection with the office of prophecy. Afro- Asiatic cultures, including Israel, acknowledged numerous ways of discerning and influencing a deity’s will, such as necromancy, divination, and dream interpretation. Exodus 22:18 condemns female sorcerers to death. Deuteronomy 18:9– 12 expands this law, proscribing seven other forms of mediation. Although Deuteronomy identifies the prohibited activities as Canaanite, some of them were probably considered legitimate Yahwistic practices before the Deuteronomic reform. Carol Meyers cites cross-cultural studies and various biblical clues to argue exclusion from central roles in the male-dominated national cultus may have drawn women to religious expressions commonly labeled “magic.” If so, and if the prohibitions were put into practice, they would have restricted women disproportionately (Meyers, 2005, 19–22). Beyond these explicitly gender-related issues, the Deuteronomic description of national offices raises a more general matter related to women’s biblical studies. To the extent that womanism, mujerista theory, and feminism oppose totalitarian forms of power, this ancient blueprint for distributing the powers of governance is a relevant and welcome part of our heritage. Family and Civil Laws (Deut. 21:10–25:19) The family laws of Deuteronomy 21–26 contain the greatest number of explicit references to women. Not surprisingly, they have garnered much attention from womanist and feminist Deuteronomic scholars. Assessment of the treatment of women (or construction of gender) in these laws varies widely. Some scholars believe that Deuteronomic family laws represent a significant advance in the status of women, establishing a woman’s legal personhood and making her a full member of the covenant community. A majority of feminist, pro-feminist,
and womanist scholars disagree. I have previously argued that the Deuteronomic family laws primarily serve male interests by undergirding patriarchal family structures, while offering limited protections to dependent family members (Pressler, 95–105). Cheryl Anderson goes farther, considering that the construction of gender in Deuteronomic laws not only describes or reflects patriarchal violence against women, but also, by excluding female perspectives, is itself violent (Anderson, 2004). The subject of these laws is not women per se, nor is the subordination of women their direct purpose. Rather, they seek to safeguard the continuity and integrity of the family, and to strengthen familial authority structures (Frymer-Kensky, 57–68). In practice, however, the interests of the Israelite family in large part coincided with its (normatively) male head. The integrity of the family was defined vis-à-vis the father, who could have numerous wives, but whose wives must be unilaterally loyal to him; its lineage was traced from father to son, and its authority structures were patriarchal. Gender was not the only factor determining the status of a family member; generation, class, and ethnicity interacted with gender to determine each member’s privileges and responsibilities. The father’s primary wife would have had authority over sons as well as daughters, over male as well as female clients and slaves, and over other wives and daughters-in-law. Nonetheless, comparing women in given family positions with their male counterparts (mother/father; daughter/son; wife/husband) reveals consistent gender inequality. The laws protect and define rights of dependent family members, but never do so in ways that challenge the basic patriarchal structure of the Israelite family.
Relationships in the Family (Deut. 21:10– 21). Three laws in Deuteronomy 21:10–21 define relationships of authority between the male head of the household and certain dependent family members: a captive woman whom a warrior has chosen to marry, a firstborn son, and an incorrigible son. The case of the captive bride, Deuteronomy 21:10–14, was traditionally interpreted as prohibiting rape on the battlefield: “If you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her, (then) you shall take her as your wife.” The term “then” is implied rather than explicated; the verse can be read: “If you see among the captives a beautiful
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woman whom you desire and want to bring into your household, then she shall shave her head.” So read, the law provides a way for a man legally to marry a captive, when the normal way of legalizing marriage is not possible (Pressler, 10). Marriage was normatively a contractual arrangement between a groom or his parents and the parents (or other agent) of the bride. In the case of a captive woman, such a contract is not possible. The law provides a way for the man to marry her and also to ensure that their children are his legal heirs. The rituals that it sets out for her to perform and the thirty-day mourning period facilitate the foreign woman’s assimilation into the Israelite household. The thirty-day period also provides time to ensure that she is menstruating and, hence, not pregnant by another man. The main case of the law thus serves the interests of the warrior who wants to marry her. Subsequently, a number of scholars, noting that the woman has no say in the matter, have argued that, far from prohibiting rape, the law actually codifies and legalizes it. Whether one accepts this reading probably depends on one’s methodology. A culturally cued reading asks how a text might have been heard by an ancient Israelite (male) audience. The earliest audience is unlikely to have interpreted it as a matter of legal rape. Read from our twenty-first-centuryCE perspective—and, plausibly, from the perspective of a young captive woman, torn from her people and forced into marriage with one of their conquerors—the law indeed legitimates violence. At any rate, the main case of the law (21:10–13) serves the warrior’s interests, not the interests of his captive. The subcase, verse 14, is intended to protect her. Once she has been made a wife, she cannot be reenslaved. The man has “dishonored her.” The Hebrew term that the NRSV translates “dishonored,” when referring to sexual intercourse, does not necessarily imply force. It does, however, imply that the intercourse was outside the bounds of a normative marriage. If the man no longer wants her, he may not sell her as a slave. He must let her go free (see Exod. 21:11 for a similar provision). In Afro-Asiatic cultures, a man’s firstborn son inherited a double share of his father’s property. Deuteronomy 21:15–17 restricts the father from assigning the firstborn’s inheritance to a younger son. The law does not seem to be intended to protect the hated wife.
Ancient Israelite law dealt with concrete cases, not with principles. Probably the reference to the “hated” and the “loved” wives provides a concrete example of circumstances that would lead a father to prefer a younger son over an elder, rather than restricting the prohibition to that situation. It does make clear that a father’s choices are not unlimited. The third family law rules that parents must bring an incorrigibly rebellious son before the elders of their village for judgment. If the son is convicted, the men of the village are to stone him to death. The law has been interpreted in two distinctly different ways. Perhaps a majority of interpreters understand it as limiting a father’s power over his children. Prior to Deuteronomy, they argue, fathers had nearly unlimited power to condemn their children to death, suggested by Judah’s sentencing of his widowed daughter-in-law when she is found to be pregnant (Gen. 38:24). Deuteronomy requires the parents to bring their son to be tried by village elders, rather than to execute him summarily. Others (including myself) doubt that, by the late monarchical period when Deuteronomy was compiled, fathers had the authority to execute dependent family members. Timothy Willis most fully develops this interpretation. He presents cross-cultural evidence to show that a community is far more likely to pressure disruptive offspring’s parents to give them up for execution than to restrain parents from killing their children. Parents are more likely to try to protect their offspring from community pressure, and themselves from dishonor, than to kill their child. By this reading, the law is intended to force parents to surrender incorrigible sons to the elders’ judgment, underlining the importance of filial submission to parental authority. It is notable that both father (i.e., the male head of household) and mother (i.e., the father’s primary wife, not necessarily the son’s biological mother) have to be obeyed. Both father and mother bring their son to court, and both parents complain that he is a drunkard and glutton. The authority of the parents is a matter of generation, not of gender; in the intrafamilial affair of a consistently rebellious son, they play symmetrical roles.
Inadmissible Mixtures (Deut. 22:5). Deuteronomy 22:1–12 interweaves cases expressing concern for the neighbor (22:1–3, 4, 6–7, 8) and prohibitions against inadmissible mixtures
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(22:5, 9, 10, 11). The first of these, verse 5, prohibits cross-dressing: “No warrior’s object shall be on a woman, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing” (my trans.; NRSV: “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment”). In an earlier day, when women were not allowed on stage, this was one of the scriptural passages invoked to demonstrate the immorality of playacting and actors, which involved men dressing in women’s clothes. Further, the case is cited to admonish women against wearing slacks; and it is used as a basis for condemning transgendered persons and transvestitism. In fact, scholars continue to debate the meaning and rationale of the verse. The meaning of keli-geber, which NRSV translates “apparel of a man,” is uncertain. The term keli is not found elsewhere in biblical Hebrew with the meaning “clothing.” It can refer to an article of leather or to jewelry that one wears; it also frequently means vessel, weapon, or instrument. Geber derives from a root meaning “strong, powerful”; it primarily refers to a warrior or some other man of prowess. The verse may prohibit a woman from bearing a warrior’s weapons or other accoutrements. The meaning of the first half of the verse is further obscured by its highly unusual construction. If the verse stated that a woman shall not “carry” or “wear” or “utilize” a strong man’s object, the verb would give us some clue to the object’s nature. Despite the NRSV’s translation, however, “woman” is the object of the preposition “upon,” not the subject of the verb “wear.” In part because of this translation issue, scholars interpret the underlying rationale of the prohibition differently. Some suggest that wearing the clothes of the opposite gender was part of “pagan” rituals and so was to be avoided by YHWH worshipers. Others envision a military background for the rule; men were not to dress as women in order to avoid military service, nor were women to carry a warrior’s weapons into battle. A third proposal envisions men dressing as women and vice versa in order to gain access to members of the opposite sex for the purpose of seduction. Still others maintain that the drafters of the law found transvestitism inherently repugnant. The placement of the prohibition in a chapter that deals with prohibited admixtures (22:9, 10, 11) and sexual offenses suggests to some, including myself, that its rationale has to do with maintaining clear boundaries and categories.
In Afro-Asia, the opposite of creation was not “nothingness” but chaos. Structures needed to be kept carefully in place, lest creation revert to primordial chaos. To that end, sowing two kinds of seed in a vineyard was prohibited, as was making cloth of wool and linen. As evidenced by the unusually strict sexual offense laws found later in this chapter, the Deuteronomic authors had rigid views of gender roles, and much anxiety about the boundary-blurring capacity of sexuality. They may have felt that socalled cross-dressing blurred those gender roles and threatened the created order. For those of us who do not feel that the integrity of creation is fundamentally threatened by women wearing slacks, the primary value of the law may be to illustrate how uncertain the biblical bases of dogmatic ethical pronouncements can be.
Sexual-Offense Laws (Deut. 22:13–23:1 [ET 22:30]). Deuteronomy 22:13–29, the most extensive biblical treatment of the topic of adultery, is a valuable if ambiguous source of at least one Judahite group’s assumptions and ideals about women’s sexuality; they have been the subject of much feminist and womanist scrutiny. It is not possible in the space allowed to discuss the issues and questions that the varying scholarly positions raise, much less to assess them in detail. There are many possible interpretations of nearly every verse. Careful reading of these laws requires an understanding of how their ancient drafters worked. They did not set out abstract principles that were then applied to specific cases. Rather, they began with a set of similar concrete cases, then changed one or two variables. Not every possible permutation was included. Rather, the reader was expected to reason from one case to another. Deuteronomy 22:13–29 revolves around two variables: (1) the girl or woman’s marital status and (2) whether she consented or was forced. Deuteronomy 22:13–23:1 (ET 22:30) is composite. In its final form, the six laws comprising Deuteronomy 22:13–29 have been redacted into a unit tightly bound by subject matter, genre, and repeated terms. Deuteronomy 23:1 (ET 22:30), which prohibits a man from sleeping with any of his father’s wives, appears to have been appended to the adultery laws because it also deals with a sexual offense. The first law consists of a case (22:13–19) and subcase (22:20–21). The main case deals
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with a newly married man, who, disliking his bride, charges that she was not a virgin at the time of her marriage. The law instructs the girl’s parents to inform the elders of their town about their son-in-law’s slanderous accusations and to show them proof that the accusations are false. In numerous cultures, a blood-stained sheet is regarded as proof of a bride’s virginity prior to marriage. Presumably, the parents guarded the stained sheet after their daughter’s wedding night and now bring it out to the gate as evidence of her innocence. The groom is either punished (probably with a flogging) and then fined 100 shekels, or punished by being fined 100 shekels (the Hebrew leaves room for either translation).The shekels go to the girl’s father. Later, the rabbis assigned them to the girl. A brief description of marriage in ancient Afro-Asiatic cultures is necessary to understand this judgment. Marriage was a contractual matter by which authority over the girl was transferred from her father to the groom or (if the latter is too young) the groom’s father. Normatively, this transfer involved an exchange of goods. The groom or his family gave bride wealth to the bride’s family, who, in turn, provided a dowry for their daughter. Bride wealth is not a purchase price; in fact, cross-culturally, it is often less than the dowry. Anthropologists studying preindustrial tribal societies indicate that women often have more power when marriage involves bride wealth. In any case, the exchange of goods complicates divorce. In the ancient Afro-Asiatic world, a man who divorced his wife without cause had to return her dowry; the bride or her family kept the bride wealth. If, on the other hand, she was at fault, the groom kept the dowry and the bride’s family had to return the bride wealth. Deuteronomy 22:13–19 probably envisions a groom spreading slander in order to establish he had cause to divorce his despised bride and thus had a right to keep the bride wealth and dowry. Deuteronomy prohibits the husband, who sought to secure for himself a cheap divorce from his spurned bride, from ever divorcing her. To our ears, this provision sounds appalling, binding a young girl for the rest of her life to a man who “hates” her. In patriarchal ancient Judah, where women’s social status and economic survival depended on membership in a male-headed household, the provision was probably intended to guarantee her security.
If the parents cannot or will not disprove the groom’s accusation that the bride was not a virgin at the time of her wedding, the penalty is harsh (22:20–21). The men of the town are to stone her to death. The communal execution indicates that her offense harmed the whole community. The site of the stoning, outside the door of her father’s house, mirrors her offense— she fornicated while living in her father’s household, and shamed her father, who was unable to control his daughter’s behavior. Many scholars believe that the Deuteronomic authors added verses 20–21 to the main case (22:13–19). With this addition, the husband’s exclusive and unilateral rights over his wife’s sexuality become retroactive. The verses appear to be in tension with the resolution of the case of violation of a never-betrothed girl in 22:28–29. There, and in Exodus 22:15–16 (ET 16–17), the couple who engaged in premarital sex are forced to marry; neither the man nor the girl is executed. The case is also in tension with Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15, which require the evidence of two or more eyewitnesses before a guilty party can be executed. The nonvirgin bride is executed on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Probably Deuteronomy 22:20–21 was never intended to be a practicable law. As Tikva Frymer-Kensky argues, parents could have saved their daughter’s life—and their own honor—by falsifying the evidence (Frymer-Kensky, 62). Rather, the countercase forcefully inscribes the Deuteronomic ideal that a girl must guard her virginity until marriage. Tensions between the subcase and other Deuteronomic laws would have mattered less if the case were not intended to be enforced. Why an unmarried girl’s virginity was considered so important is beyond the scope of this commentary. The case provides insights into the various roles of ancient Israelite women. Here, as she did in the case of the rebellious son (21:18–21), the mother (that is, the father’s primary wife) appears in court. Unlike the case of the rebellious son, however, only the father speaks. Perhaps the mother shares authority with the father in intrafamily affairs, but not in disputes between families. Verse 22 is the oldest and most basic of the adultery laws. If a man is discovered having sex with another man’s wife, the adulterous couple shall die. The law makes the woman’s marital status very clear. The Hebrew term underlying “wife of another man” is be‘ulat-ba‘al, the
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feminine passive participle of a verb meaning “to master or rule over” and the masculine noun derived from that verb; hence, it means “a female ruled over by a master.” She is under the authority of her husband, who has exclusive rights to her sexuality. Here, as elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible—and in legislation still current in the state where I live (!)—adultery is unilaterally defined as sex between a married woman and a man other than her husband. In the Hebrew Bible, for a married man to have sex with a woman other than one of his wives is discouraged (Prov. 5:15–19) but is not a crime unless he violates another man’s claims over his paramour’s sexuality. The phrase “is found” indicates that the adulterous couple is caught in the act; there are eyewitnesses to testify against them (Deut. 19:15). Like 22:20–21, verse 22 may not reflect Israelite practice. Other texts in the Hebrew Bible indicate an ancient Israelite husband’s discretion to respond to his wife’s adultery in any of several ways. Proverbs 6:35 presupposes that an offended husband might accept payment from the male culprit. In none of the biblical narratives that treat adultery are the offenders put to death (and see Hos. 2). The uncompromising language of the Pentateuch laws concerning adultery appears to be a statement about the drafters’ view of the gravity of the offense. Presumably Deuteronomy 22:22 applies to cases of consensual sex. Deuteronomy does not deal explicitly with the rape of a married woman, but the next two laws establish that a rape victim is not to be punished. Deuteronomy 22:23–27 sets out the case and countercase of a betrothed young woman caught in consensual adultery (22:23–24), and a betrothed young woman who is raped (22:25–26). The English word “engaged” does not capture the nature of betrothal in ancient Israel. The exchange of bride wealth and dowry radically changed the girl’s status vis-à-vis a third party. The couple was not yet fully married. The bride’s family or the groom could still back out of the arrangement, albeit with a financial penalty for breach of contract, but for another man to have sex with her was now adultery, a theoretically capital offense. The two cases use location as a rough way of indicating the girl’s consent or lack of consent, rather than take them as absolute rules. Presumably, as the ancient rabbis believed, a young woman who could prove that she had been
raped, even if it happened in the city, would be considered innocent. Similarly, if witnesses could prove the betrothed woman seduced a man in the countryside, she would be held guilty, even though it happened in the country. The use of force does not impact the gravity of the offense; that is established by the girl’s marital status. The last of the six closely related cases (22:28–23:1; ET 22:28–29) involves a young girl who has never been engaged; thus her father has not received bride wealth for her. It is resolved by requiring the man who lay with her to pay her father fifty shekels and marry her, without the option of divorce. The case parallels an older law found in Exodus 22:15–16 (ET 22:16–17), concerning the seduction of a virgin who had never been engaged. The two cases differ in that the Exodus law requires the seducer to pay the father the “bride wealth of a virgin,” while Deuteronomy sets the sum at fifty shekels. Exodus explicitly gives the father the right to withhold his daughter from the seducer, who must still pay the bride wealth, a right that Deuteronomy does not mention. The ancient rabbis and many modern commentators have interpreted the Exodus case as one of seduction and the Deuteronomic case as one of rape. The verbs used in each law do suggest such a distinction. In Exodus, the verb is pth, “entice.” In Deuteronomy, it is tps, which connotes force. The distinction does not correlate with the judgments given in the two cases, however. Why would the father be able to prohibit the marriage in the case of seduction, but not in the case of rape? Nor are fifty shekels a large enough sum to suggest that the assailant is required to pay a fine greater than bride wealth would be. It seems, rather, that the drafters considered the girl’s consent or lack of consent irrelevant. She had no right to engage in sex with her seducer in the Exodus case; her sexuality belongs to her father. Deuteronomy shares that perspective, depicting rape not as a violation of the girl, but as an offense against her father, who had the right to arrange his daughter’s marriage, and thus, control the alliances into which his household entered. The law also recognizes an economic injury to the father, who no longer can command as much bride wealth for his daughter. The violator pays the father fifty shekels and marries the girl, with no right of divorce. As in
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the case of the slandered bride, the clause ruling that the guilty man may never divorce his victim was probably intended to force him to provide for the girl whom he had violated. It was probably meant to protect her. To our sensibilities, of course, this constitutes further abuse of her; it is not clear what the ancient Israelite girl would have felt. 2 Sam. 13:16 reflects its author’s or redactors’ view that the girl would share the perspective shaping Deut. 22:29—but the author and redactors were themselves male. Deuteronomy 23:1 (ET 22:30) is the only Deuteronomic incest law. The injunction prohibits a man from marrying any of his father’s wives, presumably after the father’s death or in the case of divorce. Otherwise, it would be a matter of adultery. Engaging in sex with one’s father’s wife is deemed “uncovering the father’s skirt.” The phrase recalls the language of the incest laws of Leviticus 18, which calls the “nakedness of the woman” “the nakedness of ” the man who has authority over her. His wife’s sexuality belongs to the father so intimately and entirely that uncovering her skirt is equivalent to uncovering him, and similarly dishonors him. The distance between ancient ideals and twenty-first-century values is well illustrated by the Deuteronomic sexual offense laws. They presuppose that women’s sexuality is a man’s possession or, rather, since property offenses in ancient Israel are never punishable by death, belong to the man’s very person. The father has the right of disposal, the husband an exclusive and unilateral right of access. Rape is considered a violation not of the girl or woman, but of her father or husband. The gravity of the offense is determined by her marital status. Her consent or resistance is relevant only to the question of whether she, along with the man, is culpable and subject to death. Daughters and wives are not chattel. Five motive clauses insisting on the rape victim’s innocence demonstrate that the authors recognize her as a person who, if innocent, cannot be executed. Two cases that prohibit a man from ever divorcing the wife whom he has wronged appear aimed at providing her the security of marriage. The prohibitions also illustrate the failure of these laws to attend to her perspective.
The “Assembly of YHWH” (Deut. 23:2–9 [ET 23:1–8]). Deuteronomy conveys an inclusive vision of Israel: sons, daughters, male and female servants, resident aliens, all are bound
by Torah and benefit from its protections. The “Assembly of YHWH” is exclusive: a subsection of Israel, composed of adult, male, presumably landholding Israelites who collectively make decisions and act in religious military and judicial matters. Deuteronomy 23:2–9 (ET 23:1–8) establishes the parameters of the Assembly. The first to be excluded are men with damaged genitalia. Scholars debate the rationale underlying this exclusion. Some suggest it refers to eunuchs, a class of men castrated either by themselves or their parents, who served as officials elsewhere in ancient Afro-Asia, and plausibly also in Israel. If so, the exclusion may reflect repugnance felt toward deliberate mutilation. This understanding of the verse seems to underlie the ancient rabbis’ ruling that the exclusion did not apply to men whose genitals were damaged by a birth defect, injury, or illness. Other commentators note that the Assembly functions at times as a religious body and so, like priests, its members are required to be physically whole. Crushed testicles are among the “blemishes” that disqualify a man from the priesthood (Lev. 21:20). Others believe that the prohibition reflects respect for male power, and particularly male reproductive power. In any case, this quintessentially male-oriented ruling requires that participants in Judah’s protodemocratic decision-making assembly have unblemished male genitals. The effort to maintain clear boundaries continues in verses 18 and 19 (ET 17 and 18), two laws intended to maintain the sanctity of Israel’s temple. The first prohibits women and men from serving as a qedeshah or qadesh, some sort of cult functionary. Traditionally, the terms have been translated “sacred prostitute” and “male sacred prostitute,” temple personnel with whom male worshipers were supposed to engage in ritual sex. Recent studies convincingly challenge the existence of sacred or cultic prostitution in Israel and the cultures surrounding it. The actual function of the qedeshah and the qadesh is uncertain. Biblical texts do associate the qedeshah with the zonah, promiscuous woman, but that may simply mean that the qedeshah, a woman free from the strictures of male authority, is automatically deemed sexually suspect by the elite male authors and editors of the biblical texts. The following verse (23:19; ET 23:18) prohibits bringing the fee of a prostitute or “pay of a dog” into the temple. The NRSV translation of the term “dog” is based on the parallel between it and the prostitute. However, keleb, “dog,” is
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not associated with prostitution elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, and its use as a man’s name makes that translation doubtful. Jewish tradition has taken the term literally and assumed that payment received for a dog could not be used for a temple donation because dogs were unclean. Discovery of a massive canine graveyard in Ashkelon (a Philistine city) has led others to suggest that dogs played a role in some non-Israelite religious practices. Commentators are probably correct that the Deuteronomic authors sought to maintain the sanctity of the temple by prohibiting the payment of vows or offerings with “dirty money.” The assumption underlying the law (and many modern interpretations of it), that prostitution is primarily a matter of immoral choices on the part of the prostitute, is highly problematic. In the ancient world, as now, the sex trade is—at best—a matter of the exploitation of impoverished women and men who feed themselves and their families using the only means available. At worst, in our day prostitution is less a survival strategy than out-and-out slavery. Minneapolis, where I live, is the third largest center of human trafficking in the United States. The average age at which its young victims enter—or are forced into—the sex trade is between twelve and thirteen. The young women and boys caught up in it often recount experiences of kidnapping, gang rape, and threats against their lives or the lives of their families. A womanist, feminist, or mujerista response to Deuteronomy 23:19 might be to call for congregations to investigate who is making “dirty money” by human trafficking in their own communities, and how they might minster to sex-trade victims.
Prohibition of Remarriage (Deut. 24:1–5). Deuteronomy 24:1–4 prohibits a man from remarrying a woman whom he had divorced if she subsequently had married a second man, who has either divorced her or died. The law is much discussed, in part because it includes a rare biblical reference to grounds for a divorce: “she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her.” The meaning of “objectionable thing”—and hence what Torah deems grounds for divorce—has been debated for more than two thousand years. The reference to a bill of divorcement provides the biblical basis for the Jewish practice of requiring a man who divorces his wife to give her a “get,” a Jewish divorce decree.
The case is also much discussed because there is no agreement on its rationale. Scholars have offered multiple proposals including the following: The remarriage would be incestuous, since the first marriage made the man and woman close relatives. The prohibition is intended to discourage the first husband from divorcing his wife too hastily. The law seeks to prevent the woman and her first husband from colluding against the second husband. The remarriage too closely resembles adultery, in that the woman first has sex with man A, then man B, then again with man A. The first three explanations ignore at least one of the clauses of the law. The fourth, which I have previously followed, is an argument from desperation. Raymond Westbrook proposes another rationale that provides an elegant economic explanation that accounts for all of the clauses in the law. Emphasizing the phrase “he found something objectionable in her,” Westbrook argues that the first man divorced the woman for cause, allowing him to keep her dowry and the bride wealth. The second husband either dies or divorces her because he dislikes her; that is, without cause. Whether the woman was widowed or divorced without cauuse, she would keep the dowry and the bridewealth. By this reading, the case prohibits the first husband from remarrying his former wife in order to control her property. Westbrook’s argument hinges on the distinction that he draws between the clauses “finds something objectionable in her” (v. 2) and “dislikes her” (v. 3), which is far from certain (Westbrook, 387–405). Perhaps the most honest response to this case is to acknowledge that we do not know why such remarriage was prohibited. The text does provide insight into Deuteronomic assumptions about the divorced or widowed. It appears that the women may marry men of their choosing. While Deuteronomy views the young woman as an object, not a subject of her first marriage, it appears to regard a widow or divorcee as a subject of a subsequent marriage. Deuteronomy 24:5 relates back to the war laws of Deuteronomy 20, especially 20:7, which exempt from military service a man
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who had betrothed but not married a woman, lest another man marry her. In 24:5, a recently married man is given a one-year military deferment. The purpose of the law differs from 20:7. Here, he is given the year, not because of his own needs, but to “give pleasure,” including conjugal pleasure, to his new wife. Some ancient manuscripts read “enjoy his new wife,” but the textcritical principle that the more difficult reading is the more likely one supports “give pleasure to his wife.” In any case, the law shows that while the Deuteronomic lawgivers forcefully asserted a man’s authority over his wives’ or daughters’ sexuality (22:13–29), they did not view sex as inherently wrong. According to the Masoretic Text, the lawgivers explicitly cared about the woman’s pleasure. A second, implicit concern of the law is maximizing the opportunity for the couple to have a child, which was vital not only to the woman’s economic security and to establishing the man’s lineage, but also to the seriously underpopulated Judahite society.
Levirate Marriage (Deut. 25:5–10). In numerous preindustrial societies, a male relative of a deceased man is expected to marry or to have sex with the dead man’s widow. Such relationships, called “levirate” from the Latin levir, “brother-in-law,” vary in form and purpose from culture to culture. In ancient Israel, the purpose of the levirate institution appears to have been multipronged. First of all, it provided an heir for a man who died without sons. A kinsman was to marry the widow; by legal fiction, the first male child born to them counted as the deceased’s son. Another function of the levirate institution in Israel was (apparently) to provide for the widow of the deceased and to ensure social continuity by preserving the family’s lineage (so Josephus, Antiquities, 4.8.23). Based on the two biblical narratives that entail the levirate (Gen. 38 and Ruth), the kinsman who fathers a son for the deceased could be any one of several relatives. The Deuteronomic levirate law (25:5–10) appears to deal with only one aspect of the levirate institution. The main case of the law (25:5–6) comes into effect in a very narrowly defined set of circumstances. When two brothers live together and one dies childless, the surviving brother must marry the widow in order to provide his dead brother with an heir. “Live together” probably means that the brothers had
not yet divided the property they inherited from their father. Such a brother would at once be the deceased man’s closest possible relative, and the one with the least incentive to raise up an heir for him. If the two brothers had co-owned the land, after the one brother’s death, the other would have sole ownership of it, so long as he did not father an heir for the deceased. The narratives that involve the levirate suggest that a kinsman other than such a brother may have been morally but not legally obligated to father an heir; the law seeks to pressure the brother who had the least incentive to fulfill his moral obligation to do so. The purpose of the Deuteronomic law is also narrower than that of the institution, to ensure that the dead man’s “name is not blotted out of Israel.” Establishing his “name” appears to refer to establishing a household or lineage for the deceased and seems to involve his fictive descendants inheriting the dead man’s share of the property. In the Hebrew Bible, one’s “name” carries something of one’s essential being. Preservation of one’s name seems to secure one’s ongoing existence—or at least the meaning of one’s existence—after death. The extreme importance of having offspring who will perpetuate one’s name is widely attested in the Hebrew Bible. Among the worst possible fates for an Israelite is to die childless (Isa. 14:22; Job 18:17–19; 1 Sam. 24:22 [ET 24:21]; 2 Sam. 14:4ff.; Num. 27:4; see Isa. 56:4–5). In any case, the main case of the law clearly serves the deceased man’s interests. The subcase of the law (25:7–10) provides the surviving brother with a way out of his obligation, even as it exerts some pressure on him to marry his sister-in-law. If the brother fails to have sex with her, the widow is to tell the elders. They in turn summon and question the brother. If he refuses to marry her, then the woman is to engage in three ritual acts intended to humiliate her brother-in-law: she is to draw off his sandal, spit in his face, and declare, “This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.” The subcase seems to serve multiple purposes. The humiliation would pressure the brother to fulfill his obligation, even as it provides him with a way out. The ritual also provides a way for the woman to be released from her obligation to her dead husband’s family. The passage provides a number of insights about Deuteronomic assumptions and ideals vis-à-vis gender. First, it envisions inheritance
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exclusively through the male line. In the Hebrew text, the wording of the law makes it clear that during the monarchical period, the heir who establishes a man’s name must be male (the term “firstborn” is gender exclusive). In the postmonarchical period, this apparently changed, allowing daughters to inherit if their father had no sons (see Num. 27:8; the Greek translation of Deut. 25:7–10 used gender- inclusive language of the man’s heir). Second, the obligation of a woman to her husband’s family extends even beyond his death. Third, the emphasis on providing a name for the deceased man raises the question, how is a woman’s name established? Isaiah 4:1 suggests that the woman’s name is derived from her man’s: “Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, ‘. . . take away our disgrace.’” Fourth, at least when she has no male relative to speak for her, an ancient Judahite woman had access to elders in their role as judges and could, moreover, perform legally meaningful acts. If verses 7–10 provide a way for the woman to be released from levirate obligations, the law reflects some concern for her well-being. Nonetheless, the release is necessary only because of the gender inequality inherent in the law; the woman is not free to dissolve the bond. The following law, Deuteronomy 25:11–12, treats the case of a woman who intervenes in a fight between her husband and another man by seizing the genitals of her husband’s opponent. The law mandates an extreme punishment: her hand is to be cut off. Apart from the legal principle stated in the words “an eye for an eye (etc.),” this is the only law in the Hebrew Scriptures to punish an offense with physical mutilation. The rationale behind this harsh law is far from obvious. Some have argued that the woman’s action risked damaging the opponent’s genitals, thus making him incapable of fathering children. Others suggest that the woman’s offense is that of immodesty. Defending her husband would have been seen as the most extenuating possible circumstance. Even then, a woman dared not touch the genitals of any man besides her husband. If so, the case witnesses to the Deuteronomic lawgivers’ extreme anxiety about female sexuality. The woman’s action may have been understood as a violation of the man seized, akin to our modern understanding of rape. If so, the contrast between the
lawgivers’ treatment of the female “assailant” of a male, and that of the violation of a young woman (Deut. 22:28–29), is striking. This law once again demonstrates the Deuteronomic view that male genitalia are sacrosanct (see on Deut. 23:2 [ET 23:1]).
Equal-Opportunity Curses (Deut. 27–28) As noted in the introduction, the shape of Deuteronomy has been influenced by ancient treaties. Curses are part of the treaty genre. Chapters 27 and 28 set out blessings that will result from obedience to Deuteronomic torah and curses that will result from disobedience. The curses in chapters 27–28 include women as well as men. Both sons and daughters will go into captivity, to their parents’ anguish (28:32, 41). The famine will be so severe that the most tender man (28:54–55) and most tender woman (28:56–57) will cannibalize their offspring, refusing to share that ghastly food with their surviving family members. Most scholars view chapter 28 as one of the later layers of Deuteronomy. It is possible that the explicit references to both men and women reflect a rise in women’s status. Some evidence suggests that women’s condition improved after the monarchy ended. Alternatively, the explicit references to women as well as men may be a stylistic matter. The curses of Assyrian treaties, which greatly influenced Deuteronomy, frequently refer to both men and women.
Covenant at Moab (Deut. 29:1–31:30) Exodus 19 depicts the covenant at Sinai as enacted between God and the men (not the women) of Israel. “The people” prepare for the event by not going “near a woman” (Exod. 19:15). In keeping with the Deuteronomic vision of “all Israel,” the late editor who added the description of the covenant at Moab explicitly included women, along with children and resident aliens (29:10–11). Women are also part of the assembly that is to gather every seven years to hear the law read (31:12). The language of these verses sets out Israel’s hierarchical structure: “the leaders of your tribes, your elders, and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your women, and the aliens who are in your camp” enter into covenant with YHWH (Deut. 29:10–11).
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Moses’ Final Words and His Death (Deut. 32:1–34:12) As noted in the introduction to this essay, the Deuteronomic redactors shaped the whole of their book as the last will and testament of Moses. After the discussion of law and covenant, redactors have appended materials couched as Moses’ very last words. “The Poem of Moses” (Deut. 32), widely regarded as exilic, indicts Israel for disloyalty and declares divine judgment against them. “The Blessing of Moses” (Deut. 33) draws on traditions of a father offering a final blessing to his children as he is about to die (Gen. 49). In Deuteronomy 34, Moses dies. One final text of special interest to women is found in these materials. Deuteronomy 32:18 includes one of the relatively few texts in the Hebrew Bible that depicts God with female metaphors: “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth” (32:18). The verb that NRSV translates “gave you birth” (JPS “brought you forth”) literally means “writhed in travail” with reference to labor pains. A similar image of God as a powerfully creative mother writhing in labor is found in Isaiah 42:14. At a concrete level, Deuteronomy is problematic for women’s biblical studies. Its authors’ and editors’ religious vision of Israel was inclusive, but it was also patriarchal and fiercely nationalistic. The need to establish a unified, clearly boundaried community, during Josiah’s reign
and later in the conquered, colonized Judah, resulted in dangerously intolerant and warlike rhetoric. While a few specific passages (such as 32:18) offer positive resources for gender justice, the greatest contribution of the book to a womanist, mujerista, or feminist hermeneutic is at a more abstract level. That is, the book serves as a model and a warrant for reappropriating sacred faith traditions to serve a beleaguered people’s new and empowering vision. Bibliography
Anderson, C. B. Women, Ideology, and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law. London: T. & T. Clark Int., 2004. Frymer-Kensky, T. “Deuteronomy.” In Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by C. Newsom and S. Ringe. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. Meyers, C. L. Households and Holiness: The Religious Culture of Israelite Women. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Pressler, C. The View of Women Found in the Deuteronomic Family Laws. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1993. Westbrook, R. “The Prohibition of Restoration of Marriage in Deuteronomy 24:1–4.” In Studies in Bible, edited by S. Japhet. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1986.
Joshua Amy C. Cottrill
Introduction The sixth book in the Hebrew and Christian canons, the book of Joshua falls directly after the book of Deuteronomy and is the first book of the Hebrew (former) prophets. Its position in the canons connects it both with the Pentateuch and with the narratives that follow. Representing events from approximately 1400–1200 BCE, the book of Joshua continues the narrative of the Hebrew people’s flight from Egypt. At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses, the liberating hero and lawgiver, dies overlooking the promised land. It is Joshua, the military leader, who will conquer the land inhabited by the Canaanites and pave the way for Hebrew settlement. Because of Joshua’s role as the successor to Moses, much narrative attention is given to aligning the characters of Joshua and Moses: “Just as YHWH had commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone from all that YHWH commanded Moses” (11:15; all translations are mine). Despite Joshua’s central role, the overwhelming message of the book is that the conquest is God’s victory. Joshua’s obedience enables him to be God’s rightful leader, but God is the divine warrior and architect of the victory (and sometimes the defeat) of the Hebrews. The book of Joshua contains the narrative of the conquest of Canaan (Josh. 1–12), the division of the land into the territories belonging to the twelve tribes (Josh. 13–22), and the final speeches of Joshua (Josh. 23–24). In numerous parallels with the book of Exodus, God brings the people into the new land of freedom, a land that has been taken away from the Canaanites.
The Deuteronomistic tone of the book of Joshua is widely recognized. A full discussion of the compositional history of Joshua and the various theories of the Deuteronomistic History (DH) is not undertaken here, though some orientation will be helpful. Because of the theological and linguistic connections between the book of Deuteronomy and the material from Joshua through 2 Kings, it is now commonplace to refer to that collection of books as the Deuteronomistic History (DH). The editor (or editors) of the DH is often referred to as the Deuteronomist. Many theories exist about the origin and development of the DH, but the most widely asserted theory is that there were two editions of this history, one during the Josianic reforms (seventh c. BCE) and one postexile (sixth c. BCE). Though the compositional history of the DH remains an unsettled issue, what is important in this context is that the editor(s) used materials at hand to construct a narrative of the Israelite past to address particular theological, political, and historical issues facing the Israelites. Theologically, the Deuteronomist privileges obedience, faithfulness, and YHWH-alone worship. The Deuteronomist’s anxiety about foreign religious practices that might cause the Israelites to stray from YHWH is evident in the frequent negative portrayal of foreign women who might seduce Israelites into worship of their gods (e.g., the Jezebel story in 2 Kgs. 9). Like the Hebrew Bible taken as a whole, the book of Joshua is a multivocal work that reflects the diverse interests of the Hebrew and Israelite people over hundreds of years. At times, those 103
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interests do not align neatly. As L. D. Hawk notes, “Abrupt shifts and contradictory assertions create an overall sense of uncertainty and openness” (xviii). These “abrupt shifts” are easily seen in Joshua’s claims of victorious conquest of land (see 10:28–42; 11:12–23; 12:7–24) that are negated in other places (see 15:63; 16:10; 17:11–12; 19:47). The “openness” that Hawk describes, the fact that the book of Joshua does not speak with one unified voice but reflects the editors’ ongoing attempts to provide the Israelites with a usable history, is a feature of the text that should be especially important to readers interested in gender issues. The editors of Joshua shaped and reshaped inherited stories to address issues of crucial importance to their communities. The composition of the book itself models for feminist readers a process of interpretation wherein inheritors of the tradition are invited to respond to what is usable in the book of Joshua for their own modern communities.
Hermeneutical Questions related to Feminist Criticism The book of Joshua is ripe for feminist consideration. Some questions, among many, that relate to the feminist analysis of texts are
these: How are the female and male characters portrayed? What are the assumptions of femininity and masculinity embedded in the characterizations? How is God portrayed, and how does that articulation of authority relate to the construction of systems of power? Who is empowered by this text, and whose interests are not served? How does the text construct relationships (between individuals, peoples, and nations) of power, subordination and domination, inferiority and superiority, marginalization and privilege? How is otherness defined, and where are the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion? Where does the text invite the reader to come to specific conclusions and judgments, especially as they relate to gender roles? As the questions above illustrate, feminist criticism is interested not only in female characters, but also in the overall structures of power, domination, and privilege that are created and maintained by texts. Feminist analysis casts light on the particular ways texts create and sustain structures of power and cultures of violence in which women—and indeed any who are marginalized—are disempowered. In this way, feminist criticism has much in common with ideological and postcolonial criticisms, though these approaches to texts do not always overlap.
Comment Be Strong and Resolute! (Josh. 1) That the reader enters a particular ideological and theological world in Joshua is evident from the first verses of chapter 1 (1:6–9), which introduce the voice of the Deuteronomistic editor. A favorite refrain of the Deuteronomist, “Be strong and resolute,” reflects the theology and ideals of the editor. Strength, strict obedience, fearlessness, and decisiveness are privileged in this text. This is not a voice that invites or tolerates hesitation, doubts, or misgivings about the editor’s theological agenda. Correspondingly, the introduction of Joshua as the new leader is accompanied by a clear indication of the consequences of resisting Joshua. God says to Joshua, “No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life” (1:5). This introduction to the book makes clear
what is at stake for the recipient of the text. One is either with Joshua or against him in the mind of the narrator, and God will not abide opposition to Joshua’s leadership. The threatening tone of these words warns the readers against resistance to the editor’s theological and ideological assertions. With the editor’s endorsement of Joshua as God’s chosen leader, Joshua makes his first speech. Significantly, he quickly separates the warriors from the women, children, and animals: “Let your wives, children, and livestock remain in the land that Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan; but all of your warriors will cross over in fighting companies before your kin” (1:14). The rest of the book addresses the warriors among the tribes; therefore, Joshua’s primary audience is male. Rhetorically, women readers are not addressed by the text that follows.
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The Spies and Rahab the Canaanite Prostitute (Josh. 2) Even before Joshua’s character is fully developed, the reader is introduced to Rahab, a Canaanite who has a starring role in the success of the Jericho conquest. On a mission from Joshua to investigate the state of affairs in Jericho, Hebrew spies first visit a Canaanite prostitute. She bravely defies an order from her own king to produce the spies and hides them instead. Then she plots the escape of the spies and deftly orchestrates the confusion of the Jericho pursuers, despite significant danger for herself if she is caught. The spies seem witless and helpless compared to her. She does all this because she, prophetically, recognizes that God has already given the land to the Hebrews: “I know that YHWH has given the land to you, because dread of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land are melting before you” (2:9). She continues with a lengthy speech that passes every Deuteronomistic test in theology and evidences a deep and improbable familiarity with Hebrew history and tradition. So eloquent is this speech that the spies even use Rahab’s words when they report to Joshua on their return (2:24). Rahab, a Canaanite, provides the Hebrews with confidence that their first and most important victory has already been accomplished by God. Because of her bravery, prophetic knowledge, and confidence, Rahab’s family is spared in the conquest of Jericho, and she and her family live among the Hebrews in the land. Rahab’s starring role in Joshua is ironic and intriguing, because the Deuteronomist is normally opposed to the presence of foreign women among the Israelites and uses prostitution as a metaphor for worshiping gods other than YHWH (see Deut. 31:16). In the Rahab story, however, the Deuteronomistic editor preserved a story of a foreign prostitute who is a successful military strategist, easily recognizes and chooses to side with the Hebrew people, acts bravely to save her family from harm, and speaks with Deuteronomistic theological clarity that the spies themselves do not evidence. Moreover, the instruction regarding the conquest in Deuteronomy 7:2 does not provide for including figures like Rahab and her family, or any Canaanites, among the Hebrews: “You must utterly destroy them, make no covenant
with them, show them no compassion.” For an editor committed to strict obedience of the law, this seems a strange inclusion in the narrative. Why did the Deuteronomist retain a story that positively portrays a foreign prostitute, a symbol of faithlessness? Why was Rahab not edited out of the text? There are certainly multiple plausible readings of the character of Rahab, due to the text’s ambiguous portrayal of her. Musa Dube offers one provocative and important interpretation of Rahab. As Dube notes, many scholars have noticed how Rahab’s speech closely mimics the Deuteronomist’s language and theology. According to Dube, Rahab’s story is included in the book of Joshua because she serves the interests of the creators of the text. Though she has an unusually long speech for a woman in the Bible, let alone a Canaanite prostitute, Rahab embodies the ideals of a colonizer. She has been invaded already, just as her body has been invaded by the patriarchal society in which she lives, and she speaks the language of a colonizer. Her speech affirms the correctness of the Hebrews’ actions and erases doubt from the mind of the reader about the acceptability of these acts of conquest. According to Rahab (or her creator), even the conquered recognize the validity of the actions of God and the colonizers (the Hebrews). In fact, it is precisely her role as a prostitute that makes Rahab as a character so valuable to the Deuteronomist. If we assume that the Deuteronomist wrote Rahab’s speech, on a literary level the Deuteronomist takes advantage of Rahab’s position as a prostitute and engages her in an exchange in which the commodity is not sex but ideologically loaded words. The editor puts words in Rahab’s mouth in the form of a lengthy six-verse speech, treating her as an object to fulfill his ideological desires by making her repeat his theological language. He makes her play the role of his fantasy Canaanite, one who sees the conquest of her own land and people as right and good, according to her conqueror’s theological assumptions. As compensation, Rahab earns her rescue and that of her family. Letting her live, in fact, allows the Deuteronomist to play another desirable role, as the benevolent and merciful conqueror who makes exceptions for those who affirm the justice and inevitably of the conquest.
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The Conquest of the Land (Josh. 3–12) Readers are given a good clue as to the direction of the narrative when the captain of YHWH’s army comes to Joshua with a sword in his hand (5:13). He tells Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy” (5:15). Moses’ sign of God’s presence was a burning bush; Joshua’s is a captain of an army with drawn sword. This depiction of God the divine warrior is an important one for feminist readers on a number of levels. On whose behalf does God conquer? Who is conquered and why? How are the conquered given voice in the text? Who controls this narrative? Whose perspective is not included? For many, the conquest of the promised land is a story of ultimate liberation, the fitting conclusion to the exodus narrative in which God intervenes to save an oppressed people and bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey. The slave spiritual “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” memorializes this interpretation of the story and evidences the power of this narrative to shape the theological imagination of a suffering people, who are ultimately confident in the liberating power of God. Moreover, this interpretation aligns with the tone of Joshua as a whole, which celebrates with enthusiastic optimism the power of God to act on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized Israelites and bring them to a place of freedom. Without negating the liberating influence of this story, counterinterpretations of the conquest narrative have emerged that make problematic readings of the story as solely one of liberation. Robert Allen Warrior, reading from a Native American perspective, articulates the central problem for those who have experienced conquest: “As long as people believe in the Yahweh of deliverance, the world will not be safe from Yahweh the conqueror” (Warrior, 294). The book of Joshua inextricably links deliverance and conquest. In order to celebrate the strength of the conquering and delivering God of Joshua, the narrative erases evidence of Canaanite loss and pain. Warrior does not deny that the text is a liberation story, but recommends asking whose liberation story this is, a question that necessarily keeps the Canaanites in mind. Warrior’s comments clarify what is at stake for modern readers of the book of Joshua. If we ignore the worldview of the text, and the way that worldview is upheld by excluding
other perspectives, we run the risk of maintaining structures of erasure that exist in the text and our modern world. Joshua evades more than the Canaanite perspective, however. Textual opportunities for the reader to acknowledge or feel discomfort about the conquest or sympathize with the Canaanites are not abundant. Because of the editor’s theological priority on strength and obedience, expressions of confusion, struggle, or dismay about the conquest and its ultimate justice are overshadowed by calls for strength and decisiveness. In some instances, in fact, it seems as if the editors anticipated the reader’s potential chagrin at so much destruction and discomfort at being in the role of the conqueror. In 10:24–27, Joshua instructs his officers (and also the readers) on how they should envision themselves as conquering warriors who embrace their victory and their power over the Canaanites, given to them by God. At the conclusion of a significant battle in which five Canaanite kings are captured, Joshua says to his army officers, “Come near and place your feet on the necks of these kings” (10:24). When they do so, he says, “Do not be frightened or dismayed; be firm and resolute. For this is what YHWH will do to all the enemies against whom you fight” (10:25). It is especially interesting that Joshua asks the officers symbolically to perform the conquest of the kings who have already been captured. Much of the conquest of the land remains to be accomplished at this point in the narrative, and in fact the land is not completely conquered even at the end of the book. This performance does not prepare the officers militarily to conquer, however. In fact, a repeated assertion of the book of Joshua is reiterated in this passage; ultimately the Israelite victory is in YHWH’s hands and will not be accomplished through the army’s military skill: “For this is what YHWH will do” (10:25). The symbolic performance of standing on the necks of the kings addresses another area of preparation for war, the self-perception of the warrior. Does Joshua sense some discomfort among the officers at adopting the stance of the victorious warrior that he addresses through this rehearsal of warrior behavior? The motivation for this performance is unclear, but literarily it is potent instruction to the officers (and the readers) about how they should see themselves and God. Joshua asks the warriors
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physically to rehearse his ideological, theological, and gender instruction. Through this embodied performance, Joshua (the warrior and the book) constructs an ideal Israelite and an ideal follower of YHWH. What is most important to Joshua is that the Hebrews attitudinally inhabit, in their actions, thoughts, and demeanor, the warrior culture, which is both militarily and theologically constructed. In fact, failure to demonstrate the appropriate military confidence in conquest is a theological failure as well. The Hebrews must not simply be obedient and win the battles; they must be YHWH’s conquering warriors.
Division of Property (Josh. 13–22) These chapters of Joshua contain the continued efforts to drive out the remaining Canaanites and divide the land among the tribes. These chapters reflect the bureaucratic work of conquest: negotiating, maintaining, allotting, and defining boundaries. Considering this context, it is perhaps not surprising that another sort of property transfer is described in Joshua 15 (see also the parallel story in Judg. 1:11–15), that of a father trading a daughter in a beneficial land acquisition. What seems at the beginning to be a story of a woman circumscribed by her patriarchal location also contains elements that offer a surprising countervoice to female repression. Though the story is brief and textually problematic, Achsah’s few verses stand out in a book that is almost entirely about the actions of male warriors. The story begins when Achsah’s father, Caleb, declares that he will give his daughter in marriage to anyone who conquers Debir. So far, this is a story that reflects the patriarchal power of men over women. Othniel is the victor; true to his word, Caleb delivers his daughter to Othniel as a reward for military prowess. Like the land around her, Achsah is a piece of property awarded to the military victor. The story develops, however. Othniel and/or Achsah decide to ask Caleb for more land. The question is who induces whom to ask Caleb for the additional property (15:18). Many translations favor Achsah as the subject of the action, translating the Hebrew verb as “she incited him,” but some translators choose an alternate manuscript tradition, yielding “he incited her.” The translator’s role here is paramount in the characterization of Achsah and Othniel. What
difference does it make for Achsah to incite Othniel or for Othniel to incite Achsah? This is a textual issue that reflects a history of confusion about and interest in the gender dynamics of this story. Textual problems notwithstanding, it is Achsah who gets on her donkey, travels (apparently alone) to see her father, and crafts the language of the request. It is Achsah who successfully accomplishes the goal of acquiring more land. Othniel has no more than a bit part in this negotiation. Achsah’s surprising assertiveness is evident from her first words to her father, expressed in the Hebrew imperative form: “Give me a present” (15:19). The translations of her next words differ. The NRSV renders her words in verse 19, “Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me springs of water as well.” The Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh provides a different translation: “Give me a present, for you have given me away as Negeb-land, so give me springs of water.” Does Achsah complain about being in the Negeb or being traded like a piece of unwatered, unfertile territory, a piece of Negeb-land? These translations should actually be read side by side, as both are possibilities. Achsah’s shrewd words linguistically connect the unfavorable land she has been given to her own diminished value in this patriarchal world. In the end, Achsah remains a traded piece of property in this text. She does not remain silent and passive, however. She acquires more land from her father and gives voice to her condition in a way that is unusual and noteworthy in the patriarchal world of the Bible (akin to Num. 27).
The Call to Choose (Josh. 23–24) Beginnings and endings of narratives are always important. Joshua 1 begins with the assurance of God’s victory and a call to obedience and strength. Chapter 24 closes the book with a rehearsal of the history of the Israelites and God’s overwhelming efforts to secure their future. Speaking for God, Joshua says, “I have given you a land for which you did not labor and cities which you did not build, and you are dwelling in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant” (24:13). Joshua provides these examples of God’s provision for the Israelites as evidence that they should choose to worship YHWH
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alone. Again, readers must ask, Whom does the text support? How does the text generate and affirm assumptions of justified violence, and at whose expense? These kinds of questions will help readers become more skilled at reading for the missing or overlooked voices of the conquered and disempowered, even as they hear the voices in the text that celebrate God’s faithfulness to the Israelites. Significantly, the book of Joshua ends with a resounding call for choice: “Choose this day whom you will serve” (24:15). Joshua announces his choice clearly: “I and my household will serve YHWH” (24:15). In the book of Joshua, the god Joshua serves mirrors Deuteronomistic theology and practice and the principles of the warrior culture that the book of Joshua both reflects and creates. Feminist readers should embrace Joshua’s call to choice, however, as a theological opportunity. Choice involves moral and ethical reflection, consideration of questions unasked in the text itself, and communal conversation about the limits and possibilities of particular interpretive trajectories. Feminist readers must contend with Joshua’s troubling representation of conquest, imperialism, and violence, even as they affirm the potential for empowering interpretations of Joshua. The questions raised by this book related to gender, power, and interpretive practice offer the
possibility for rich conversation, and that is no small gift. Bibliography
Dube, Musa W. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. “Reading Rahab.” In Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, edited by Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay, 57–67. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997. Hawk, L. Daniel. Joshua. Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000. Stone, Ken. “What Happens When Achsah Gets Off Her Ass? Queer Reading and Judges 1:11–15.” In Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literature and Culture, edited by Roberta Sterman Sabbath, 409–20. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Warrior, Robert Allen. “A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians.” In Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah, 287–95. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991.
Rahab and Her Interpreters Amy H. C. Robertson
The character Rahab, celebrated for her role in bringing about the conquest of the land by the Israelites, claims marginal status in the world of the Hebrew Bible in three different senses: she is a woman, she is a non-Israelite, and she is a prostitute. As we might expect, the very aspects of Rahab’s biography that make her an “outsider” are the subject of significant attention from biblical interpreters, both Jewish and Christian. She becomes one of many women whose place in the history of biblical interpretation is arguably more significant than her role in the biblical story itself. Rahab is introduced in the Hebrew Bible in Joshua 2, where she is described as a Canaanite prostitute—a zonah—who works at the perimeter of the city of Jericho, which the Israelites
have been ordained to capture. When Joshua sends Israelite spies to look over the land, she not only takes them in and hides them, but, when the king of Jericho comes looking for them, she gives him misinformation, so as to give the spies more time to escape. She tells the spies that she has heard the fantastic tales that have preceded them, naming in particular the incident at the Sea of Reeds (Exod. 14–15), and having heard all these things, she declares that the God of Israel must be the one true God. Fully believing that the spies will be successful in their mission in Jericho as well, she offers her aid to the spies on the condition she and her family will be spared in the conquest. The spies agree, and she proceeds to lower them out her window, advising them which route to take so
Rahab hides Joshua’s spies on the roof while their pursuers, tricked by Rahab, leave through the city gate in Rahab, an engraving by Otto Elliger and Joseph Mulder (1659/60–1718), from Historie des Ouden en Nieuwen Testaments by David Martin (Amsterdam, 1700). The rope by which the spies will escape dangles from the window.
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that they may safely escape the king. The spies instruct her to mark her home by hanging a crimson cord out the window when they return to take the city, and tell her that they will spare all her family who are gathered in her home at that time. In Joshua 6, when Jericho is seized, Rahab and her household are named as the only persons spared. Rahab is remembered in the New Testament at least two (more likely, three) times. The first and most ambiguous of these is in Matthew 1:5, where someone named Rachav is named as the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz—and thus part of the lineage of Jesus. There is some debate about whether this first reference actually has Rahab the harlot in mind, because elsewhere in the New Testament she is referred to as Raav rather than Rachav. But since the other women listed in that genealogy—Ruth, Tamar, and the “wife of Uriah,” that is, Bathsheba—are also women from the Hebrew Bible who are known for their unlikely relationships with powerful men, it seems likely that the biblical author had Rahab in mind. The second New Testament reference is clearer.“Rahab the harlot” is remembered in Hebrews 11:31, where her survival is credited to her faith. The third reference is in James 2:25, where she is praised for her actions. In the trajectory of Jewish interpretation, Rahab’s occupation as a harlot and her identity as a non-Israelite are often treated in one fell swoop. That is, her occupation is associated with her fellowship among the Canaanite rather than the Israelite community, and after her encounter with Joshua, she is said to have a conversion experience wherein she simultaneously abandons her occupation and the Canaanite religion. Some traditions relate that she marries Joshua and that the two begin a line of descendants that variously includes kings, prophets, and priests: King David, Huldah, Jeremiah, Hilkiah, and Ezekiel among them (Ginzberg, 1093n65; 843; 844n12; 1070n10). Insofar as she joins the Israelite community as a proselyte and then becomes an ancestor to one or more of its most central characters, she is not unlike Ruth, who begins a line of descendants that includes King David. In contrast to the story of Ruth, however, Jewish interpreters highlight the religious element to Rahab’s conversion narrative: based on her own statement that she has heard about the things the Lord has done for the Israelites and her proclamation that
“the Lord your God is the only God in heaven above and on earth below” (Josh. 2:11b), she is said to be a better convert than even Jethro and Naaman (Deut. Rab. 2:26). Indeed, her connection to the God of Israel seems so strong that Josephus considers her a prophetess: he reports that she was “instructed by signs from God” and that this is how she knew about the coming Israelite victory (Ant., 5.2.8). How else would a Canaanite harlot have known about the exodus if not through her own prophetic abilities? In the aforementioned line of interpretation, Rahab’s occupation is eclipsed somewhat by her religion; she is a pious convert, and once she becomes a proselyte, she immediately changes her lifestyle. Other interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, also imagined her as a convert not only in terms of religion but in terms of lifestyle, but they were not satisfied to dismiss her past profession. Instead, they saw it as an important part of her story that puts the miracle of her conversion into more stark relief (Ginzberg, 844n12). These interpreters saw her knowledge of the Israelite history not as prophetic, but as directly related to her sinful occupation. Since she had had intimate relations with every prince and ruler in the area, she did not need to be a prophet: she was well-informed of goings-on (Bronner, 149). In contrast, Josephus, perhaps following Targum Onqelos on Joshua 2:1, connects the word for harlot (zonah) to the verb “to feed” (zon) and suggests in Ant., 5.1.2 that she was an innkeeper, running something more akin to a bed and breakfast than a brothel. If Josephus believes Rahab to have been an innkeeper, not a prostitute, it follows that he has a different explanation as to how she receives her information. Whereas Rahab’s name meaning “wide” or “broad” can be understood rather crudely in the sense of her occupation, Origen—and many other Christian interpreters with him—repurpose it as a foreshadowing of the church (Lyons, 39). He suggests that Rahab complained that her home was too narrow to offer the spies a hiding place, and that when they replied and said, “Enlarge your tent,” she found a way to enlarge it. This is seen as an allegory for the widening of the covenant or an opening of the doors of heaven to welcome the Gentiles (Origen, Homilies on Joshua, 3.5). Furthermore, many Christian interpreters have noted that her family was to be saved only if they were within the walls of her home at the time of the conquest, driving home the point that, while the doors of the
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church may be open to all, there is no salvation outside the church (Kritzinger, 26–27). Similarly, Jerome compares Rahab’s home to Noah’s ark, a sanctuary amid God-ordained destruction (De Exodo in Vigilia Paschae, 1.20). Her character traits are also considered at length—and, generally speaking, greatly lauded—in both the Jewish and Christian traditions. Midrash Mishle counts her among the twenty-two women of valor, and Megillah 15a numbers her among the quartet of the most beautiful women in Israelite history. Fourthcentury Christian interpreters identify several personality traits for which Rahab should be commended: she is hospitable, merciful, faithful, and repentant (Gregory the Nazianzen, Select Orations, 7:40.19; Ambrose, Epistles, 10.63.105; Chrysostom, Homilies 14.27). Her lie to the king of Jericho brings mixed reviews from Christian interpreters: Cassian believes that lying for a good cause is the most virtuous of the many things she did (Collatio, 17.17, PL XLIX: 1063), and the Greek church fathers all thought it was perfectly appropriate for her to lie. In fact, Chry sostom praised her wisdom in how carefully she crafted the lie of partial truths and misinformation, so as to persuade the king that it was true (Stander, 46). At least one Christian interpreter, Augustine, disagrees sharply, saying that the outcome of her lie does not make it excusable. Rather, she is forgiven on account of her other virtuous deeds (Contra Mendacium, 32). Christian interpreters as early as the midsecond century saw another important allegory in the story of Rahab: the crimson cord as the sign of (and vehicle toward) salvation. The identification of the crimson cord with the saving power of the blood of Christ is widespread in Christian interpretation, witnessed in the writings of Origen, Justin Martyr, Clement, Jerome, and Augustine, among others (Lyons, 38). Though the comparison seems apt enough on its own, an anomaly in the LXX paves the way for it even more strongly. In the MT, Joshua 2:12, Rahab asks for a “sign” that the spies will spare her life if she helps them. Later, in Joshua 2:18, the spies tell her to hang “this thread of crimson cord” from her window; it will function as a sign to them, but it is not named as such in the MT. In the LXX, however, the two references are combined, and Joshua 2:18 is rendered “this sign of crimson cord,” further motivating an allegorical reading; it is a sign not only of where Rahab’s home is, but also of the
salvation to come through the blood of Christ (Hanson, 56). Though the relative importance of works and faith becomes a more pressing issue for Christians than it is for Jews, generally speaking, both Rahab’s faith and her works are variously highlighted in both traditions. Her faith is highlighted in Hebrews 11:31 and among those Jewish interpreters who favorably compare her conversion to those of Naaman and Jethro, while her works are highlighted in the New Testament in James 2:25 and also in Mekhilta of R. Ismael (Yitro 1), where she prays, “Master of the Universe, just as I have sinned with three things, bring about my forgiveness with three things: a rope, a window, and a wall.” That is, she sees godly acts as balancing ungodly ones. Rahab’s marginal status not only makes her an interesting focal point for the history of interpretation but is also important to the plot of the biblical story: her courageous actions would have been unlikely—if not impossible— if she were more fully integrated into her community. Her occupation may have allowed her access to information about the coming of the Israelites in the first place, and her home at the very border of the city—in the city walls, in fact—provides a perfect sanctuary for the spies to see the city without risking too much. At least as important as these more practical points, though, Rahab clearly has very little reason to feel a vested interest in the city of Jericho as it is. She is tolerated there but is far enough outside of mainstream Canaanite society to be able to envision something else for herself. Perhaps this vision—and the sense that she has little to lose by bringing about change—helped move her to risk what she had, in order to see what else could be. Bibliography
Bronner, Leila Leah. From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. Hanson, A. T. “Rahab the Harlot in Early Christian Tradition.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 1 (1978): 53–60. Kritzinger, J. P. K. “Rahab, Illa Meretrix.” Acta Patristica et Byzantina 17 (2006): 22–36.
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Lyons, William. “Rahab in Rehab: Christian Interpretation of the Madame from Jericho.” In Women in the Biblical World: A Survey of Old and New Testament Perspectives, edited by Elizabeth A. McCabe,
31–42. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009. Stander, H. F. “The Greek Church and Rahab.” Acta Patristica et Byzantina 17 (2006): 37–49.
Judges Susanne Scholz
Introduction The book of Judges, the seventh book in the Hebrew Bible, contains many stories that report various kinds of war crimes, acts of ethnic cleansing, and sexual violence, as well as statements of political chauvinism and explicit preferences for authoritarian rule. The extremism of the promoted positions makes it a ready catalyst for discussions on ideology, culture, and politics. Yet since the emergence of the scientific-empiricist epistemology in the sixteenth century CE such considerations have not played a major role, due to the quest for historical origins, authorship, and linguistic composition. Only with the development of biblical feminist scholarship in the 1970s did scholars begin to scrutinize the book of Judges for its portrayal of women as leaders (e.g., Deborah and Jael in Judg. 4–5), women as victims of murder (e.g., Jephthah’s daughter by her father in Judg. 11), and women as rape and murder victims and victim-survivors (e.g., the unnamed woman in Judg. 19 and the women of Jabesh-gilead and Shiloh in Judg. 21). In early feminist readings, women-centered perspectives prevailed. More recently, they have given way to investigations about the interplay of gender, sexuality, masculinity, and ethno-religious discourse in the book of Judges. The narrated events are placed into the era of the so-called “judges,” the imagined premonarchical era in ancient Israel’s history of the eleventh century BCE. This is the moment when the Israelites arrived in Canaan, the land in which other peoples already lived. Importantly, none of the stories or characters can be reliably identified as historical. Initially, the narratives
were transmitted orally and written down only during the Babylonian exile of the sixth century BCE, perhaps to instruct exilic and postexilic Israelites about their political, cultural, and religious heritage in a foreign country, Babylon. Especially in the early part of the twentieth century CE, historical critics debated the historicity of the events mentioned in the book of Judges. Scholars concluded that the literature is part of a much larger composition developed by the so-called Deuteronomistic Historian(s) during the seventh or sixth century BCE. Hebrew Bible scholar Martin Noth coined this notion in an influential book entitled The Deuteronomistic History, originally written in German as Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien and first published in 1943. The book of Judges, or in Hebrew shope tim, means literally “the ones who judge” or “the judges.” The noun appears in Judges 2:16 for the first time and refers to those appointed by YHWH to liberate the people of Israel from political oppression. Each judge is to deliver the Israelites from the “plunderers” who oppress them (2:14). The appointment of each judge follows a circular pattern described in Judges 2:11–23. First, the Israelites turn away from YHWH and begin worshiping other gods. Then, second, as punishment, YHWH hands them over to a dominating political power that, in turn, oppresses the Israelites. Third, YHWH appoints a judge militarily to deliver the Israelites from the oppression. But, repeatedly and, fourth, after some rest, the Israelites return to worshiping other gods, and the whole cycle begins again. A series of judges is the result, 113
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and the book of Judges tells their stories. This neat pattern, however, appears in a less orderly fashion in the actual stories about the judges. Except for one, all judges are male. There are six major judges, so named because there are extensive narratives about them. They are Ehud (3:11–29), Deborah (Judg. 4–5), Gideon (Judg. 6–8), Abimelech (Judg. 9), Jephthah (11:1– 12:7), and Samson (Judg. 13–16). Mentioned with little detail, the seven minor judges are Othniel (3:9–11), Shamgar (3:31), Tola and Jair (10:1–5), Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (12:8–15). The book of Judges has been outlined in different ways, but there is general agreement about the basic literary structure of the book. A prologue, composed of two introductions, begins the book. The first introduction (1:1– 2:5), probably added by subsequent editors, presents various narrative fragments on the initial settlement phase of the Israelite tribes in Canaan. The second introduction (2:6–3:6) outlines a doctrinal explanation for Israel’s difficulties in settling the land and the people’s repeated need for judges. The central section of the book (3:7–16:31) contains the stories of the thirteen judges of Israel. The final section (Judg. 17–21), often called “Two Appendices” (a title that effectively marginalizes one of the most significant tales in the Hebrew Bible), consists of two conclusions: a story about the establishment of a worship center by a male Levite, first in Ephraim and then at Dan (17:1–18:31), and the gruesome tale of the gang rape and dismemberment of an unnamed woman (19:1–29), and the murder, rape, and abduction of the women of Jabesh-gilead and Shiloh (Judg. 20–21). Hermeneutical challenges proliferate, and they characterize today’s interpretative context for feminist exegetes. Three of them stand out. First, a focus on “women” needs to connect with other social categories. Undoubtedly, an almost exclusive focus on women made initial sense after two thousand years of exclusively androcentric interpretation. Hence, some feminist interpretations, including some early ones, highlight the women in Judges because, in their views, biblical writers included women characters merely to illustrate the deteriorating relationship between Israel and YHWH. Yet these interpretative approaches to the women in Judges leave unquestioned the prevalent ethnocentric ideology and, in fact, assume it. In other words, the emphasis on women often reinforced a sociopolitically and religious-culturally
authoritarian and hierarchical ideology and sometimes even endorsed it. Some more recent feminist interpretations, aware of this limitation, interrogate relationships between gender and other social categories. For instance, they include ethnocentric assumptions prevalent in the book of Judges. Second, another hermeneutical challenge to contemporary feminist biblical readings pertains to notions of masculinity and the portrayal of male characters. Warmongering attitudes and practices depicted in the twenty-one chapters of the book of Judges provide ample illustration for biblical teachings about male behavior that are destructive, violent, and harmful. Rarely have interpreters questioned these portrayals about “heroic” men in Judges; instead, they have approved of them as militarily necessary, religiously appropriate, and sociopolitically desirable. To expose such romanticized ideas about the male characters in Judges, the field of masculinity studies has helped greatly in deconstructing these notions about masculinity as socially and politically harmful. Third, yet another hermeneutical development defines the contemporary context of feminist biblical interpretations. It pertains to the emergence of queer biblical hermeneutics. Feminist interpreters have begun to examine the interrelated constructions of sex, gender, and sexuality in the book of Judges, going far beyond the early feminist interest in women characters only. That Judges includes explicit stories on sex has long been recognized. As Deryn Guest observes, “[f]or over a century, commentators have recognized the ribald, often coarse sexual language and imagery that pervades the text” (Guest, 189). She suggests that queer readers and not only heterosexual white male commentators are best situated to examine the various levels of biblical meanings and how they affect contemporary readers. She also offers a queer interpretation of three narratives: the “erotic encounter” between Ehud and Eglon (3:12–30), the story of Deborah and Jael based on a lesbian-identified hermeneutics (Judg. 4–5), and the threatened male rape and woman trafficking (19:22–30). Her approach illustrates that queer readings need to employ “strategies of resistance and operate from a hermeneutic of hetero-suspicion in order to counter the general erasure of women’s interests and friendships and the particular suppression of female homoerotic relationships” (Guest, 178).
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Her approach also demonstrates that it is not enough to reject these texts. Their “queerer elements” have to be reclaimed, and such reclamation requires the readerly imagination to fill textual gaps, omissions, and ambiguities. Such resistant and innovative hermeneutical work
dismantles heterosexual assumptions so that interpreters do not perpetuate harmful views about women, men, gender, and sexuality, but contribute to liberating perspectives on the stories of Judges.
Comment Macho-like Destruction or Peaceful Settlement among the Nations? Two Introductions (Judg. 1:1–3:6) The book of Judges begins with two introductions that depict early life of the Israelites among the Canaanites. It presents both violent encounters with the local population and the cooperative sharing of the land, the latter in stark contrast to the military battles reported in the book of Joshua. Yet, as in Joshua, male leadership also dominates the introductory chapters of Judges. For instance, a reference to the death of Joshua, originally mentioned in Joshua 24:29, is here repeated twice (Judg. 1:1; 2:8), as if to connect both introductions as legitimate continuations of the previous biblical book. The two introductions in Judges 1:1–3:6, probably added later to the main stories of Judges 3–16 during different editorial phases of the book, emphasize that the Israelite occupation of Canaan was not smooth and simple. Macholike destruction and peaceful settlement went hand in hand, bringing the Israelites into permanent contact with other religious traditions and ways of life. The fear of the “other” is deeply embedded in these stories of Canaan’s settlement by the Israelites. Failure to Conquer the “Other”? Living with the Locals and Giving Real Estate to a Woman (Judg. 1:1–2:5) Not really an “introduction” in the classic sense of the word, the initial part of the book of Judges seems to contradict the book of Joshua. Not only does it start with the repeated announcement of Joshua’s death (1:1) with which the book of Joshua left off (Josh. 24:29), and which is mentioned a second time in 2:8; the first chapter of Judges also contradicts the report of the just-completed conquest of Canaan. Not all places and peoples seemed to have been subdued, because in this report the
Israelites do not uniformly murder and kill the local populations. Here they settle next to them and live with them. Yet the cooperation is limited, as the Israelites, after growing stronger, enslave the Canaanites for labor (e.g., 1:28). In a few cases the local people even push the Israelites back into the hill country, as in the case with the Amorites, who do not allow the Danites to settle with them in the plain (1:34). In short, the report of successful conquest in the book of Joshua is not confirmed in Judges 1:1–2:5, which portrays a more complicated picture of the Israelite settlement process. Yet the Israelite settlement of Canaan is violent, whether it appears as a brutal conquest narrative in the book of Joshua or as a mixed settlement process in the book of Judges. In either case, the general notion holds true that “[t]he identity of Israel, united as one people threatened by the Other, is constructed through acts of violence” (Kim, 179). In the book of Judges, the settlement process is theologically justified in the second verse of the book: “YHWH said, ‘Judah shall go up. I hereby give the land into his hand.’” Ten thousand are killed, the Canaanites and Perizzites are defeated, and one king’s thumbs and big toes are cut off. The Judahites set Jerusalem on fire and defeat the people in the Negev and the population of Hebron. It is slaughter totale in the first ten verses. Readers need to remember that this is not a historical report of actual events, and Western notions of nationalism ought not to be projected onto this literature, although biblical scholars have often rationalized the colonialization of other peoples and territories with the Bible’s stories of conquest, occupation, and murder of the Canaanites (Kim, 169–71). In Judges 1:1–2:5, the report of violence against other peoples is briefly interrupted with a tale about Achsah, the daughter of Caleb (1:11–15). This story is also told in Joshua 15:13–19, and Achsah is mentioned yet another
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time within the male-dominated genealogy of 1 Chronicles 2:49. The few verses report that her father, Caleb, will give Achsah as a marriage prize to the man who conquers the city of Debir. Othniel, a nephew of Caleb and the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, conquers the city, and so Achsah becomes his wife; then, “when she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field” (1:14). Yet it is she who does the asking in 1:15: “She said to him [Caleb]: ‘Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also Gulloth-mayim.’” Her father complies and gives her the land with the water sources. The scholarly discussion often centers on whether it is upon the initiative of Achsah or Othniel that she asks her father for the land (1:14b) because the Septuagint and Vulgate differ from the Hebrew text. In the Greek and Latin translations “he urged her” to ask her father. Yet it is always the woman who makes the request. Feminist interpretations stress that she does not manipulate or beguile her father but “goes about her business unhesitatingly” and “knows what is important in her world.” In fact, her action erodes “the earlier masculine image of a prize woman as a passive, decorative bangle” (Klein, in Brenner 1999, 23). Achsah knows that her land needs water and, like the daughters of Zelophehad (Num. 27:1–11; par. Josh. 17:3–6), she makes sure to get the additional resources. It is also important to realize that Achsah is the daughter of a Kenizzite marrying a Kenizzite. In Genesis 15:18–19 the Kenizzites are listed among the foreign peoples, and in Genesis 36:11 the Kenizzites are explicitly named as the descendants of Edom. Are Caleb, Achsah, and Othniel, who is the first judge of Israel (3:9–11), immigrants who do what Israel could not do? Or does the emphasis on their ethnic identities illustrate the validity of more recent theories according to which “the Israelites were not outsiders to Canaan at all” but “in fact Canaanites” (Kim, 172)? The notion of insiders and outsiders, Israelites and “others,” produced a tradition that established identity through the negation of the Other, whether it pertained to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or religion. This kind of identity construction justifies acts of violence against the Other, even when a few of the “others” are eventually included, such as Achsah, whose real-estate claim is highlighted here but often ignored in the androcentric history of
interpretation. In short, the story of Achsah and her Kenizzite family demonstrates that “others” are accepted only if they adapt to the sociopolitical and cultural-religious goals of the Israelites. The second introduction repeats this point as if to dispel any lingering confusion on this matter. Religiously Inclusive Practice as Evilness? Additional Demarcations of Israelite Identity in Canaan (Judg. 2:6–3:6) The second introduction in the book of Judges, also going back to the time of Joshua, depicts a faithful Israel that worships God exclusively. After the death and burial of Joshua (2:8) the following two generations continue this practice. The trouble begins when “another generation grew up after them, who did not know YHWH or the work that God had done for Israel” (2:10), a faint reference to the Egyptian pharaoh who did not know of Joseph anymore (Exod. 1:8). Now the Israelites forgo their religious tradition and follow Canaanite gods, worshiping Baal and the Astartes (2:13). This passage, traditionally attributed to the Deuteronomistic writers, explains that religious diversity leads to political oppression. God’s anger about the Israelite abandonment of YHWHalone worship brings Israel’s eventual loss of their governing power. Only the appearance of a series of judges liberates the Israelites from political disenfranchisement. Yet they continue to “lust” for other gods, a terminology that evokes the so-called marriage metaphor in Hosea 2, Jeremiah 2, and Ezekiel 16 and 23, and again and again they lose political sovereignty. The second introduction also proclaims that the other peoples had remained in the land as a test for Israel “whether or not they would take care to walk in the way of YHWH as their ancestors did” (2:22). The repeated failure of the Israelites and their need for judge after judge demonstrates the narrative’s religiously exclusive attitude combined with views favoring hierarchical and macho-like behavior. The notion is reinforced that identity demands the exclusion of the Other, especially when they are the religious others. What is taught is the negation of those who do not do as “we” do. And in case one of “our” own moves to the other side, they must be punished for their boundary transgression. There is no compromise or middle ground. Israel’s religious identity formation requires absolute conformity to the traditions of the ancestors, as successfully practiced by
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Joshua and his contemporaries. In short, both introductions ensure that this basic message is repeated so that anybody who reads or hears it obeys it and sees the errors of the generations depicted in the book of Judges.
Male Saviors, Sexual Violence, and Killings of Women and Men in the Name of YHWH and Other Gods: The Main Section (Judg. 3:7–16:31) The main body of the book of Judges, Judges 3–16, focuses on the fate of the various judges in their efforts to liberate the Israelites from political oppression. The repeated lapses from exclusively worshiping God bring the Israelites into the hands of powerful kings, so the story goes, and exclusive loyalty and obedience to the one god is required for Israel to live in peace and harmony. When this ideology is broken, only male saviors (with one exception) can bring Israel out of their misery. Here we also find child killing, sexual violence, and numerous killings of women and men in the name of YHWH and other gods. A hermeneutics of suspicion creates some room to break free from this ideology that promotes religiously exclusive, macho-like, and empire-friendly attitudes and practices. Gay Hate Crime or Justified Act of Liberation? The Story of Judge Ehud and King Eglon (Judg. 3:12–30) Ehud, “a social bandit” (Niditch, 55), is more traditionally recognized as an important “judge” who saves the Israelites from Moabite oppression. However, his characterization as a Benjaminite and a left-handed warrior and the repeated references to his “hand” encourage some interpreters to view the entire episode as a “deliberatively scripted figurative rape scene” (Guest, 170). It tells of Ehud and the king of Moab, Eglon, entangling in a homoerotic and sexually violent encounter that ends in the bloody murder of the king. Sometimes interpreters point to the link in the narrative between sexual-erotic allusions, on the one hand, and aggressive-combative references, on the other hand. To them, the short blade in verse 16 is a phallic image, and the reference to the king’s body size in verse 17 is a feminizing attribute; these combine in a vaginal image when the sword disappears in the belly fat of the king in verse 22, especially since the noun for belly means “womb” in the original
Hebrew text. In other words, Eglon performs in the position of a woman who is penetrated and passive. He is feminized and hence not so subtly ridiculed. The sexual insinuations also include the location of the sexually murderous encounter, which is ambiguously described and thus variously translated. Some believe that verse 23 refers to a balcony or a cool, upstairs room. Others suggest the location must be imagined as a royal toilet room, a locked, private space where Eglon went alone. There the king stands with his pants down, and Ehud performs in this “male-male sexual innuendo” (Guest, 173), killing the king in the end. The ethnic-racist humor is part of this maleon-male sexually violent depiction. The Israelite audience, the addressee of the narrative, knows who the “bad boys” are: the Moabites. They are feminized, sexualized, dehumanized, and hence discredited as foreigners, the others, who deserve contempt, ridicule, sexual violence, and even murder. Nobody wants to be on the Moabite side, because the Moabites are the oppressors of Israel. In short, the sexualized representation of the Moabite king goes hand in hand with the ethnic denigration of the entire nation, taking the penetrated role of a woman in verse 30, when this time not only Ehud’s but all of Israel’s “hand” subdues Moab. And again, ignoring the sexually violent imagery, interpreters have sided readily with the victorious Israelites. When Judges 3:12–30 is read this way, the story of Ehud the judge turns into a highly uncomfortable and shocking “text of terror for gay-identified readers” (Guest, 176). The narrative exonerates quickly the assailant and murderer, as well as the conquering Israelites who killed ten thousand Moabite males, “all strong, able-bodied men,” and then the Israelites lived in peace for the next eighty years (3:30). The male-on-male rape story culminates in the assassination of the oppressive king. It also plays with feminizing metaphors, inviting the warmongering killing of the enemy in the readers’ minds, even though initially it is God who “strengthened King Eglon of Moab against Israel” (3:12). But perhaps only a later editor, who attempted to justify the murder, added this argument to the story. Or is the imagined revenge of a people against its former oppressor acceptable after all, especially when it relies on images of hate crimes?
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Woman Power against the Heroic Oppressor? The Story of Deborah, the Judge and Prophet, and Jael, the Wife (Judg. 4–5) When feminist scholars began to scrutinize the Bible for prominent women characters, they soon discovered the tale of Deborah in Judges 4–5. She is introduced as a prophet and a judge (4:4) who is either the wife of a man called Lappidoth or, if the phrase is translated literally, “a woman of fire,” a reference to her character. Her superior leadership of Israel, her authoritative advice to the military commander, Barak, and her guidance of ten thousand warriors make for a hero who is remembered for her public success, rather than for her children or wifely duties. She tells Barak what God wants him to do in defense against the Canaanite king, Jabin of Hazor, and his military (4:4–6). Meanwhile the military commander insists that she accompany him (4:8), and she agrees. Is he afraid to go alone, fearing the Canaanite military and unsure about the outcome, or does he distrust her word and want to be certain she stands behind it? She does not question him, but simply agrees, and also informs him that a woman, not he, a man, will defeat the commander of King Jabin’s army, Sisera. Does Deborah put down the macho-military man, or does she, the prophet, tell the Israelite commander what will happen in the war, or both? When Deborah tells Barak to start the battle (4:14), he and his ten thousand soldiers defeat the enemy army, just as the prophet had said they would (4:15–16). Traditional gender roles are reversed in this narrative. The reversal challenges androcentric expectations when the goal is to defeat the oppressor’s army. Yet the focus is not only on gender; there are also clues about ethnicity. This narrative too plays with the particular ethnicity of the Kenites. The question is whether it depicts them as the Other who betrays or simply uses the Israelites when their survival is at stake. In 4:11, Heber the Kenite, the husband of Jael, is mentioned. He “separated from the other Kenites,” and so later, when Sisera, the military leader of the Canaanites, runs for his life and comes to the tent of Heber’s wife, he assumes he is with allies “for there was peace between King Jabin of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite” (4:17). The Kenites appeared previously in the story about Achsah (1:16), where they had assimilated with the Israelites. In other biblical texts
they appear among conquered peoples (Gen. 15:19) or even as enemies (1 Sam. 27:10). Here in Judges 4 one Kenite couple exhibits their loyalties to Israel (4:18). But perhaps it is Jael’s quick assessment that, in order to survive under a defeated Canaanite king, she has to trick Sisera into her tent, give him a drink, and offer him rest on the bed (4:19). She kills him when he least suspects it. Does he sink between her knees while rejuvenating in other ways as well (5:27)? In any case, his dead body proves to the approaching Israelite commander, Barak, that the Kenite woman is indeed on the side of Israel. Then she makes sure that he sees for himself. She invites him into the tent, “and there was Sisera lying dead, with the tent peg in his temple” (4:22). A “woman warrior, disguised as a would-be lover or mother,” really a “guerrilla warrior,” brought an end to Canaanite domination (Niditch, 67). The scene, again linking violence and sexuality (seen in Judg. 3), is celebrated at length in the ancient poem of Judges 5, probably one of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible. In this explicitly heterosexual plot, women’s roles appear as leaders (5:7, 12, 15), seductive killers (5:24), mothers (5:28), wise women (5:29), and “spoils of war” reduced to their reproductive organs (5:30: “a womb, two wombs”). For sure, none of the women speak with each other, support each other, or even meet the other women. One of them, the king’s mother, even assumes the rape of the enemy women by her son and his soldiers (5:30). All women approve of or commit violent acts to help their men to become victorious. They serve a patriarchal agenda and do not seek its subversion. Biblical scholar Deryn Guest is profoundly disturbed about this “heteropatriarchal concept of woman” and wants readers to “question [the] heterosexual assumption and undertake a new analysis of the relationships and status of women in the Bible” (Guest, 179–80). It requires that readers interrupt the sociopolitical gender status quo, heterosexist norms, and the apparently natural order of things, and creatively reimagine the women in Judges and the Bible in general. As a minimum, Guest’s lesbian hermeneutic assumes a willingness to expose the heterocentric dynamic of Judges 4–5 so that women’s and men’s full potential as human beings with manifold, transgressive, and queering lives become imaginable when they read the book of Judges.
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Real Men Kill: The Stories of Gideon and Abimelech (Judg. 6–9) Issues of masculinity permeate the stories of Gideon, the judge, whose name later changes to Jerubbaal (6:32), and Abimelech, one of his seventy sons (8:31). The extensive story of the father begins with a paradigmatic characterization of Israel’s oppression by the Midianites as divine punishment for Israel’s apostasy (6:1–10). A full-blown call of Gideon places the protagonist in the limelight of God’s rescue mission (6:11–27), which recalls Abraham’s encounter with God (Gen. 18) and especially Moses’ call (Exod. 3). Like Moses, Gideon speaks with God, asking for further clarification (6:13), resisting the call to action (6:15), receiving God’s assurance (6:16), and requesting a sign (6:17–18). Then, after an offering of meat and unleavened cakes, Gideon sees the angel of YHWH “face to face” (6:22), just like Abraham (Gen. 12:7; 18:1–2) and Moses (Exod. 33:11). Gideon then receives the divine charge to destroy Canaanite places of worship, especially the altars of Baal and Astarte, standing emblematically for the “other” in biblical formulations of identity. Gideon obeys his orders and begins his relentless battles against the Midianites, the Amalekites, “and the people of the east” (6:33). A “mighty warrior” (6:12), Gideon stands in direct contact with God (e.g., 6:39; 7:9–14), who gives Gideon signs to go into battle (6:40) and to let God do the miracle of military victory (7:1–8). In this narrative, then, the Deity nurtures and endorses an aggressive, warriorlike masculinity that eliminates the Other in battle. Gideon’s macho-like religiosity blends the sword with God and the man (7:20), and other men follow such a man (7:24; 8:1–3). They kill male leaders of the enemy without a second thought (7:25), while the mighty warrior battles on, threatening and eventually killing the male leaders of the towns through which he passes (8:4–17). This is indeed a real man’s job, and so Gideon’s son, Jether, is still too young, not yet strong or “man” enough to kill the two kings Zebah and Zalmunna (8:20). They admit to having killed Gideon’s maternal brothers (8:19), and so, without further ado and after the kings challenge Gideon to “come and kill us; for as the man is, so is his strength” (8:21), he kills them. Yet he rejects the Israelite request to become their king, because “YHWH will rule over you” (8:23). Macho masculinity interchanges with macho divinity in this horrendous tale.
Later, Gideon forgets his own theological commitment when he begins practicing Canaanite religion, which Judges 8:27 promptly classifies as a snare or lure to Gideon and his family. The religious practice is tersely characterized: “Gideon made an ephod of it, and put it in his town, in Ophrah; and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family” (8:27; see also 8:33). This reference recalls the so-called marriage metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, which use pornographic and sexually violent imagery to reject this kind of religious practice. This narrative, however, does not dwell on what the prophets condemn as apostasy. The next sentence explains merely that “the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon” (8:28). Finally, the strong man is resting from war and killing. He marries many women and has many children, including a son of a concubine from Shechem; that son’s name is Abimelech (8:31). Like Gideon, Abimelech battles against other peoples, but he also is an internally embattled character, struggling against his mother’s low class. As a concubine, she is not a full wife of Gideon and is at best of secondary status in the harem. In fact, at the end of Abimelech’s life, his mother is even called a “slave woman” (9:18). Yet the matrilineal tracing of Abimelech’s origins stands out in the Hebrew Bible, as does his demise when “one woman of Thebez” executes him (9:53; see also 2 Sam. 11:21). The narrative challenges his masculinity, perhaps in order to promote only the sons of full-wife mothers, while Abimelech is the son of an enslaved woman, from the class-stratified bottom of Israel. As Abimelech himself recognizes, he is nonheroically killed by a woman (9:54). Whereas his father was a mighty warrior for YHWH, this son is a failure who not only is killed by a woman but even kills women in the enemy towns (9:49, 51). He tries to keep intact his real-man status by asking a young man to kill him, so that he does not die of the wounds perpetrated by the woman. But regardless, he is remembered as a failure (2 Sam. 11:21). A real man does not need help from a boy. The Deity too does not approve of failing macho-men. God makes him pay “for the crime he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers” (9:56). In other words, the message is that real men do not go against their brothers. Yet Abimelech, bothered so deeply by his mother’s class status,
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ignores this central lesson about manliness: a real man does not kill his brothers; and if he does, he is like a woman, like an inferior other, despised, penetrated, and killed in a dishonorable, unmanly fashion (see also Sisera in Judg. 4:21 and Saul in 1 Sam. 31:4). He is not only slain by a woman. The killing involves “a kind of spatial gender reversal, which might even be said to ‘queer’ the scene of death” (Stone, 79). The woman, taking on the traditional role of the male aggressor, stands above Abimelech, who, as the passive and sword-penetrated male, looks at her from below. He must die of what all real men fear: the act of being unmanned, robbed of his male strength, status, and power. A Dutiful Daughter for the Preservation of Male Honor? The Tale of Jephthah’s Daughter (Judg. 11) The scandal of a father killing his daughter did not make the frontlines of biblical commentaries until feminist scholars brought Judges 11:29–40 out of the exegetical shadows in the early 1980s. In contrast, the tale in Genesis 22 of Abraham’s readying himself to slaughter his son, but being prevented from complying with the divine command, captured the Jewish and Christian imagination for centuries. The son was saved, and androcentric interpreters did not worry much about a slaughtered daughter. When some of them did, they made sure to focus on Jephthah and to keep God blamefree. They often stressed that the narrative of Genesis 22 indicated the abolishment of child sacrifice among the Israelites, in contrast to the surrounding peoples. Yet the fate of the nameless daughter remained on the margins of their theological and exegetical horizon. This changed only when feminist interpreters placed the daughter at the center of attention and expressed regret for her father’s thoughtlessness and foolishness. They have also asked readers to stay with the daughter’s lamentable fate and to mourn over it, like the daughters of Israel (11:40). Early feminists in particular expressed outrage about Jephthah’s recognition among famous men and his reportedly peaceful death (12:7). They wanted his daughter not to be forgotten and her story to be remembered (Trible, 93–118). Later feminist exegetes called for a resistant reading that would expose the ideology of male supremacy in the text. Accordingly, they
emphasized the literary strategies, such as the narrator’s point of view, word selection, omissions, and repetitions that keep Jephthah in the center of the narrative, marginalizing and silencing the daughter. They showed that every literary move of Judges 11 excuses Jephthah’s murder, makes the dilemma of his position palpable, and requires his daughter’s acquiescence. In short, the ideological construction of the narrative understates the father’s responsibility at the expense of the daughter. This is the case even for the story’s postscript, which mentions the annual mourning for the daughter among Israelite women (11:40). It too is a powerful literary strategy trying to soften the daughter’s horrible death with a reference to a ritual in her memory. Contemporary feminist readers do not buy into this ideology of obfuscation. Rather than mourning the daughter, they expose and resist the narrative’s androcentric ideology. Many feminist interpreters maintain that the daughter’s compliance with her father’s vow must be critiqued and resisted (11:36–37). They characterize the daughter as a dutiful daughter who seeks to please her father and accepts his predicament as her unquestionable and unchangeable fate (11:36). She does not cry, object, or resist. She merely asks to spend two months with her friends in the mountains (11:37) and then silently, so it seems, succumbs to her death by her father’s hands (11:39). Of course, her acquiescence must be understood as an ideological strategy teaching daughters to submit to their father’s commands, to be obedient regardless of the consequences, and to subordinate themselves to the androcentric order. Hence feminist interpreters recommend outrage over this father’s murderous behavior as a prerequisite to any approach to this story. To them, the early feminist advice of mourning the death of Jephthah’s daughter is insufficient. Perhaps a retelling of the narrative is needed in which the daughter runs away from her cowardly father. In such a retelling, the father has to be portrayed as an idolater who rather keeps his vow than protects his daughter. Is his quest for power and status related to his humble origins and early experience of rejection (11:1–3)? As the rabbis often explained, God never wanted or demanded of Jephthah to kill his daughter; it is his gravely mistaken belief in the need for a vow that makes him murder his daughter (Valler, in Brenner 1999, 55–58).
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Out-of-Control Israelite Masculinity, Ethnic Hatred, and Philistine-Israelite S/M Delight? The Story of Samson and His Philistine Women (Judg. 13–16) In the Samson cycle, issues of masculinity, queer gender practice, and possibly sexual violence abound, enmeshed with ethnic hatred against the Philistines. Wildly popular in art, music, and even children’s Bibles, Samson is an action hero whose virility needs to be controlled, as it controls him. Women thus lead to his eventual demise. Yet at the story’s beginning his mother plays a prominent role (13:1–25). She receives the announcement from a visiting messenger about the birth and life path of her son. It is also she who understands the implications of the message, while her husband, Manoah, is portrayed “as outside the loop” (Niditch, 145). He even questions his wife, although he receives less information from the angel than she does. The instruction of the angel to listen to his wife does not help much either (13:13). A male sense of superiority to women pervades this nuclear family. Some feminist interpreters see Ms. Manoah as empowered in this story, because she knows the details about Samson’s future. Yet, again, a literary pattern that limits a woman’s significance to motherhood and childcare promotes androcentric gender bias. After this brief story, the emphasis is on Samson’s masculinity. He takes one woman after another, is assertive, aggressive, and single-minded about his desires, and even involves his parents to help him close his first deal (14:1–15:20). Patterns of masculinity and ethnocentrism intertwine. When Samson goes down to Timnah and falls in love with a Philistine woman, he tells his mother and father. Initially they object, reminding him that she is “a woman from the Philistines, the uncircumcised” (14:3), but he insists: “Take her for me, because she is right in my eyes” (14:3, my trans.), and so they comply. The macho-man, Samson, knows no ethnic boundaries and takes women from anywhere, but the parental objection indicates that the engagement with the Other is shortsighted and not the way to go. The entire section of Samson wanting to marry the Philistine woman centers on men. Pronouns in the third-person singular masculine abound (14:4–9), and the voice of the woman is absent. She does not speak, presumably agrees
to marry him, and later simply obeys the men of her tribe (14:15–17). The exchange is only between the men: Samson and the Philistine men, who eventually trick Samson (14:18) and anger him into killing thirty of them (14:19). When they come after him in revenge, threatening the people of Judah, Samson ends up killing another one thousand men (15:15). Apparently God is on his side and provides water to Samson (15:19). In short, Samson’s masculinity is relentless, violent, and divinely endorsed; he kills the ethnic enemy without further thought and without any hesitation. After a brief intermezzo with another Philistine woman, perhaps a prostitute (16:1–3), the cycle presents the most famous story of Judges 13–16: Samson’s encounter with Delilah (16:4–31). To the long list of androcentric interpreters, the woman in the Valley of Sorek (16:4) has always stood for the quintessential femme fatale, the woman bringing down a successful man with her seductive irresistibility. Cultural appropriations are endlessly fascinated, wondering about Delilah loving Samson, her betrayal for money, or her life as a prostitute who feels no guilt about his fate. Androcentric commentators depict her as deceiving a powerful but trusting male, so even today Delilah is one of the paradigmatic “evil” women, the most famous of whom is, of course, Eve (Yee). Yet the story of Samson and Delilah also invites other possibilities in which Delilah does not turn out to be deceptive. Some feminist scholars stress her independence (Smith, in Brenner 1999, 108–14), as she takes care of herself, accepts Samson’s overtures, and later rejects him to improve her financial situation. The narrative describes in a stylistically repetitive manner how Delilah asks Samson three times “how [he] could be bound” (16:6, 10, 13), how three times the Philistines try to overwhelm him (16:9, 12, 14), and how each time Samson defeats them (16:9, 12, 14). The fourth time Delilah uses a different strategy, saying: “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great” (16:15). She then reportedly nags and pesters him day after day until he “was tired to death” (16:16). Eventually, he tells her “his whole secret” (16:17; literally “his whole heart”): “A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a nazirite
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to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be like anyone else” (16:17). Delilah informs the Philistines that this time Samson told her the truth. When he falls asleep “between” her “knees” (16:19), she initiates the shaving of his hair. The Philistines come and attack Samson, blind and shackle him, and put him in prison, but his hair begins to grow back—a hint at what is to come in the second part of the narrative (16:23–31). The linguistic ambiguities make some interpreters see a “pattern of domination” in Judges 16:4–31 that defines the story as “a tale of bondage and degradation,” as an S/M role-play scenario (Rowlett, 106). Artistic adaptations fortify this interpretation and often present the characters’ gender as fluid and mutable. For instance, in early musical productions, men played the female roles, and even when the feminine roles were played by women, they were usually enacted with drama and exaggeration, as if the Samson and Delilah were cross-dressers or gender impersonators. Thus, when the narrative is read with an S/M role-play in mind, Delilah becomes a dominatrix, and Samson submits freely to her sex games of dominance and submission. Repeatedly he allows her to bind him with various ropes, always successfully terminating the game when her methods of domination begin to overwhelm him. After he wins three times, he gets bored, “delves into an act of deeper submission,” and plays at the edge of lifethreatening danger (Rowlett, 110). In the final game Samson loses because Delilah leaves the dangerous play. She also disappears from the story (16:20ff.). At this point God steps into the “cat-and-mouse game” (Rowlett, 115), abandoning Samson initially and putting him into the violent hands of the Philistines (16:20ff.). Then God reappears (16:28) and enables Samson to go beyond his limit; at that moment Samson kills the Philistines and himself in the temple. Read accordingly, Samson is a man who deliberately seeks out violence, sexual or not. His display of masculinity communicates that he feels sexually and ethnically superior. He is also fascinated with the lure of the “other” and addicted to mixing sex with danger. Samson is not a fool for love, as commentators sometimes suggest, but he is into classic bondage games. He risks his life several times and purposefully kills himself and the ethnic others, the Philistines, in order to find redemption, satisfaction,
and closure. His virility and masculine aggression seek destruction rather than coexistence, and his attitude finds approval. His male family members bury him in the family plot, and the last verse affirms that “he had judged Israel twenty years” (16:31). Indeed, feminist interpreters have moved Samson, the hero, far beyond the man so admired in the Christian and Jewish traditions. There is yet another interpretative possibility, admittedly a hidden and rarely proposed option, but one to be considered in the narrative’s linguistic context of veiled allusions to violence and sex. Could it be that Delilah and the Philistine men were ready to rape Samson? The infinitive of the Hebrew verb,‘inna, in verses 5, 6, and 19 is key, although most interpreters translate it as “to afflict,” “to weaken,” “to make helpless,” “to humble,” or “to subdue.” The one term that commentators do not use is “to rape,” perhaps because they believe it is impossible for a woman to rape a man or because they assert that this verb does not signify sexual violence. Yet the exegetical possibility exists. It is a rhetorical game, a connotative possibility, in which the text plays on the verb’s ambiguous meaning, ranging from “humiliate” to “force sexually.” The possibility of indirect sexual references is also present in 16:25 and 16:27, where Samson is forced to “play” or “perform” for the Philistines while imprisoned (Niditch, 167). The narrative does, however, not directly portray Samson as being raped, perhaps because it would not only put into doubt but utterly destroy his masculine appeal in a heterosexist and phallocentric paradigm that expects men, and especially Samson, to be in charge, not to be like a woman, and to act as the penetrator. Social stereotypes about masculinity emphasize physical strength, size, initiative, male agency, and aggression as superior male characteristics. Thus one only whispers about male rape; better yet, one should not even mention it. Should it then surprise that most interpreters see Samson as the long-haired and strongwilled hero battling the Philistines to the bitter end? The narrative places the question squarely before its readers: Do you admire Samson’s masculinity? Do you assess his relationship with the Philistine woman, Delilah, as kinky and queer, or do you see a possible undercurrent in the linguistic allusions in Judges 16 that turn Samson into a raped man? The answer shapes how readers view Samson’s ethnic hatred
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for the Philistines that he so freely displays. In any case, it is clear that sociopolitical prejudices relate directly to one another in this narrative. Heterosexist notions of masculinity go hand in hand with racist, ethnophobic, and geopolitical domination. The Samson cycle exemplifies the ongoing validity of this dynamic.
Places of Worship, Gang Rape, Genocide, and Wife-Stealing: Two Conclusions Two conclusions complete the book of Judges. They are packed with provocative narratives that enhance discussions about identity, gender, masculinity, and violence. About Mother Love, Idols, and Conquest of the Peaceful: The Stories about Dan (Judg. 17:1–18:31) The first conclusion in the book of Judges begins abruptly, with no apparent connection to what came before. A first scene reports that a man, Micah, has stolen money from his mother, which he remorsefully returns to her (17:1–6). In response, his mother blesses him and pays for the making of two worship artifacts (17:4). The four-times-repeated phrase, “In those days, there was no king in Israel. A man would do what was right in his eyes” (17:6, my trans.; see also 18:1; 19:1; 21:25), underscores that this is indeed “a wicked age” that includes “cultic chaos” (Yee, 149). It also relates the chaos to a son’s theft of his mother’s money whose return begins the troubles in Israel, or at least in the tribe of Dan. Is the origin of Israel’s chaos to be sought in a mother-son relationship? A second scene (17:7–13) describes how a Levite priest arrives at Micah’s house and settles there. Invited to serve as Micah’s “father,” the priest becomes instead like his son. The relationship does not work out, and a third scene (18:1–12) shows that the Levite supports the spies (18:6). They continue northward and meet the people of Laish, who are “quiet and unsuspecting” (18:7). In the next scene (18:13–26), they threaten Micah, take with them the worship artifacts and the Levite priest, and then in the last scene (18:27–31) conquer Laish, kill the inhabitants, and destroy the town (18:27). They rename the town and place the artifacts into the shrine there (18:29). Is this Deuteronomistic propaganda against northern Israel that attempts to justify the appropriateness of the Assyrian destruction (Yee, 151)?
This narrative is filled with scheming, warring, and murdering Israelite men who scrupulously capture and kill other people. In fact, the people of Laish are reportedly “quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing on earth, and possessing wealth” (18:7); they are unable to defend themselves against the conquering Danites (18:27). In this story the Other is portrayed in positive terms, whereas the Israelite warriors appear sneaky, ready to steal what they like, and eager to murder to get the land they want. Still, as part of the larger anticonquest ideology found in Genesis to Kings (Kim, 175), Judges 17–18 criticizes meekly the dispossession, depopulation, and annihilation of an entire town with the refrain: “In those days, there was no king in Israel.” After all, the story promotes a strongman ideology as the solution to Israel’s needs for territory. Kings rarely end conquest, oppression, and murder, as evidenced in the books of Samuel and Kings. But life under anarchic political conditions is bad too, as the book of Judges tries to show. Hence, the second conclusion depicts what happens when no political authority holds men in check. Gang Rape in Peacetime and More Rape in Wartime: The Stories of Women and Men in the “Appendix” (Judg. 19:1–21:25) In older commentaries Judges 19–21 is often ignored because these chapters appear at the book’s end, part of the “appendix” from Judges 17–21. The first story in Judges 19 contains one of the most brutal, sexually violent, and murderous texts in the entire Hebrew Bible. Feminist biblical scholars have always regarded this tale as a horror story that reinforces androcentric chauvinism and male assertions of superiority, on the one hand, and women’s experiences of sexual violence, murder, and victimization, on the other (Trible, 65–92). Feminists usually read this tale from the perspective of the concubine and are united that Judges 19 is “the most horrible story of the Hebrew Bible” (Bal, in Brenner 1993, 209). Not a historical report, this literary creation depicts “the rejection, gangrape, murder and dismemberment of a young woman whose body is subsequently used as writing” (Bal, in Brenner 1993, 209). Even nonfeminist interpreters agree with this assessment. For example, Andrew HockSoon Ng uncovers the sexist discourse in Judges 19 and correlates the biblical story with Gothic horror literature that emerged in Britain
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at the end of the eighteenth century as a reaction to rationalism. Similar to Gothic literature, which plays with the possible destruction of male dominance, only to reassert its social validity, the biblical tale criticizes, exposes, and challenges the patriarchal system that simultaneously keeps assertive women, such as the concubine escaping her husband, in their places. Ng shows that the biblical story should be read against the status quo of androcentric hierarchies, as a tale that develops resistance in the readers to such societal habits and customs. Read accordingly, the gruesome treatment of the concubine indicts the androcentric system and exposes “the entrenched sinfulness of the men” (Ng, 201), even though in the end the narrative affirms androcentric power. The story connects an individual woman’s sexual violence with the severe violence against both women and men on the collective level. It emphasizes the need to interrogate structures of societal domination and not to limit sexual violence to an individualized problem, as if it were unrelated to society in general. It is important to link the peacetime rape and murder of the unnamed woman in Judges 19 with the wartime rapes and murders in Judges 20–21 because of the general feminist insight that war intensifies peacetime gender roles. When androcentric gender roles prevail in peace times, the gender injustice worsens and leads to mass rapes in times of war. When this insight is applied to Judges 19–21, the peacetime rape of the concubine has to be linked with the wartime rape of the young women. The three chapters emerge as a literary unit that relates gross peacetime misogyny, rape, and even murder to wartime rape of whole groups of women.
Gang-Rape, Murder, and Dismemberment in Times of Peace (Judg. 19). In Judges 19, an unnamed woman, identified as pilegesh, a Hebrew term of unclear social status and often translated as “concubine” but sometimes also as “secondary wife,” runs away from her husband, a Levite. She returns to her father’s house. After some unspecified time passes, the man travels to her in an attempt to get her back. He stays and drinks with the father for several days, but eventually he and the woman leave. When night falls, they are invited to stay with an old man in Gibeah, the town of the Benjaminites. During the night, a male town mob
wants the Levite to step outside so that they may “know him.” The German Luther translation of 1984 indicates the ambiguous meaning of the Hebrew verb, yada‘, by translating it as: “that we can fall all over him” (my trans. of the original German). This is a demand for rape that occurs also in a parallel story (Gen. 19). The men in the house refuse but also offer their two women—the concubine and the host’s daughter (19:24). Eventually the Levite pushes his concubine to the outside. There she is gangraped by the mob for the duration of the night. At dawn, the men let her go, and she manages to reach the doorstep where she collapses. When the Levite opens the door in the morning, he talks to her but there is no answer. He then puts her on his donkey and returns home, where he cuts her into twelve pieces, “limb by limb,” and sends “her throughout all the territory of Israel” (19:29) with the following message: “Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out” (19:30). Literary observations provide clues for the interpretation of this story. One relates to 19:2, where it is unclear why the unnamed woman leaves the Levite man. At stake is the meaning of the Hebrew verb zanah. Androcentric commentators often translate this verb as “to play the whore or harlot” and explain that the unnamed woman prostituted herself. Sometimes interpreters reject this translation, because they find it unlikely that a prostitute would run back to her father’s house. Yet other commentators prefer the modified text of the Septuagint, which is based on a different consonantal spelling of the verb. Instead of zanah, the Greek translation assumes a different verb with almost identical Hebrew consonants: zanakh, a verb that depicts the woman’s emotional attitude. The verse then reads: “But his concubine became angry with him, and she went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months.” Even then, it is unclear why the woman became angry, and some feminist interpreters surmise that perhaps the Levite abused her and she could not stand the conditions of her life any longer and ran away (Reis, 129). Another linguistic observation consists of the repetitive phrase, “father of the woman,” which appears six times in the short section of 19:3–9. Why so often? Pamela Tamarkin Reis maintains that the father’s inadequate response
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illustrates the utter and total disintegration of ancient Israelite values and commitment levels to each other, which reaches down to family members (Reis, 126). The repetition underscores that a daughter cannot expect her father’s protection anymore (Reis, 132), and so the narrative denigrates him and not the daughter. The text stresses that he is the “father, father, father, father, father, father, but he does not act like a father” (Reis, 133). Even her father fails her, and she is on her own. Yet the narrative, pointing to this social disintegration, sides with the daughter, who remains, however, unnamed. Other interpreters, relying on a queer approach to Judges 19, tackle the phallocentric order assumed in the narrative. One of them is Michael Carden, who wonders why the host refuses to send out his male guest and instead offers his daughter and the concubine. To him, the answer lies in the hermeneutical conviction that the narrative presents a lesson about compulsory heterosexuality that constructs all sexuality in a phallocentric way. In such a system, even sexual violence reinforces a rapist’s heterosexuality, because men affirm their male heterosexuality by penetrating others, male or female. However, if a man is penetrated, whether voluntarily or forced, his sexuality is cast into doubt. This dynamic explains why in Judges 19 the host refuses to send out his male guest and instead offers his daughter and the concubine. A woman’s status is low in the phallocentric order, whereas raped men lose their heterosexual status and become like women. In a phallocentric society nothing is worse than that (Carden, 90). Thus the host’s refusal protects this order in which the rape of men is worse than the rape of women. At the same time, in a phallocentric order, men engage each other in power struggles over who lies on top and who penetrates whom. Women are the objects of men in the male heterosexual effort to win over the other men. The Levite man is thus the intended target of the mob’s violence, even when it is directed against his concubine. They violate him through his concubine and emasculate him, or, as Michael Carden states, they “queer” the Levite (Carden, 92). Interpreted accordingly, Judges 19 is a tale about homophobic and xenophobic violence (Carden, 91). Sexual violence against women is accidental in the battle for the requisite of phallocentric domination: unquestioned heterosexuality. Hence, in this narrative all males
are “sodomites,” whether they are misogynists or rapists, because ultimately they value men only (Carden, 93). Other interpreters do not focus on linguistic or hermeneutical observations and instead create textual meanings based on their social locations. One of them comes from the self-described queer Asian Pacific American exegete, Patrick S. Cheng, who stresses the correlation between the sexual and geographic multiplicities of the concubine and queer Asian Pacific Americans. Cheng’s hermeneutical strategy creates a sympathetic comparison of biblical and contemporary contexts that classify both the concubine and queer Asian Pacific Americans as “radical outsiders” from mainstream positions in the biblical text and contemporary Western or Eastern societies (Cheng, 119). The concubine is an outsider on two accounts: her sexuality and her geography. The woman’s outsider status, based on her sexuality, comes to the fore in the story when she runs away from her husband. At this moment she transgresses the rules of male-dominated society, as presented in the story. Her transgression is punished, and so the woman becomes a victim of gang rape, mutilation, and even murder. Yet she is also an outsider on the basis of her geography when she moves from the south to the north, which contributes to the narrative’s geographical tensions. Cheng finds similar tensions in the lived experiences of queer Asian Pacific Americans when he writes, “Like the unnamed concubine, queer Asian Pacific Americans are radical outsiders in terms of both our sexualities and our geographies” (Cheng, 122). Both share additional characteristics. They are called by many different names, which he calls “a multiplicity of naming.” It indicates their powerlessness, because a lack of a name disempowers individuals and groups. It is also a sign of radical otherness, because the larger group does not know the “other” and therefore does not have a unique category for it. Other similarities consist in the form of “multiple silencing,” “multiple oppression,” and “multiple fragmentation” (Cheng, 124–28). Readers need to recognize these multiplicities because they preserve “the complexity and multidimensionality of scriptural texts,” and they prevent a singular, “onedimensional” meaning. Cheng also hopes that the recognition of multiplicities emboldens queer Asian Pacific Americans to celebrate their
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diverse life experiences as they “paradoxically . . . result in the preservation of wholeness and integrity” (Cheng, 129). According to Cheng, the concubine becomes a model character for queer Asian Pacific Americans, helping them to celebrate the paradoxical connections of difference, integrity, and wholeness. In short, the story’s pervasive misogyny is grounded in a phallocentric order, the notion of compulsory heterosexuality, and other forms of discriminatory practices, all of which lead to further sexual violence. In other words, the rape and murder of the unnamed woman do not end with Judges 19 but merely set the stage for the entire cycle from chapter 19 to chapter 21. After the horror story of peacetime rape, the remaining chapters report on more rape, this time during war.
Genocide and More Rape in Times of War (Judg. 20–21).When the other tribes realize what happened in Gibeah, they gather in Mizpah and ask the Levite: “Tell us, how did this criminal act come about?” (20:3). Identified as “the husband of the woman,” the Levite gives an answer that crucially modifies the events leading to the woman’s murder. He does not mention that the male Benjaminites first asked for him and that it was the Levite himself who pushed the woman to the outside. His summary omits the threat of rape directed at him and his own participation in the concubine’s death when he led her to the outside where the mob gang-raped her the entire night (19:25). The Israelites listen to his report and then decide to request that the Benjaminites release the “wicked sons” of Gibeah. The Benjaminites refuse, and an inter-Israelite battle ensues in which the Benjaminites kill twenty-two thousand Israelites. The defeated Israelites mourn the loss and pray to God, who tells them to fight again. The following day they advance against the Benjaminites, but again they lose, and eighteen thousand Israelites are dead. After burnt offerings and other sacrifices, they receive divine encouragement to battle again. On the third day they devise a military strategy tricking the Benjaminites into defeat. Initially, they kill 25,100 Benjaminites, and when they move into the city of Gibeah, they kill all inhabitants and animals. Only six hundred Benjaminite warriors escape and flee into the wilderness. After an unspecified time, the Israelites realize that Israel has lost one tribe. They also
remember that several male Benjaminites survived and that the Israelites have vowed not to marry their daughters to the Benjaminites (21:7). They come up with a solution. In Mizpah, they had also promised that whoever did not come up to YHWH at Mizpah (21:5) shall be killed. Since the men from Jabesh-gilead had not been in Mizpah (21:8–9), the Israelites send twenty thousand warriors to kill them, “every male and every woman that has lain with a male” (21:11). They also capture four hundred unmarried young women “who had never slept with a man” (21:12) and bring them back to the Israelite camp in Shiloh. Afterwards, the Israelites make peace with the remaining six hundred male Benjaminites and hand over the captured four hundred women. Since two hundred male Benjaminites still lack a woman, the Israelite elders devise yet another plan, which involves the abduction of two hundred “daughters of Shiloh.” The two hundred male Benjaminites follow the advice of the Israelites (21:20–21). They abduct two hundred women, return with them to their land, rebuild their towns, and live there (21:23). The narrative does not report any resistance from the women of Jabesh-gilead or Shiloh, who never speak. Alice Bach notices the silence in the text and in the history of interpretation, stating: “Male and female commentators alike seem to identify deeply with the portrait of female victimization expressed in the narratives of violence to one woman, but silence greets the genocidal brutalization of the women of Shiloh” (Bach, 16). The story piles horror upon horror; so some interpreters explain that the story is a reminder of what happens when there is no king in Israel. To them, this is “promonarchic propaganda” that concludes the book of Judges with the statement: “In those days there was no king in Israel; a man did what was right in his eyes” (21:25, my trans.; see also 17:6; 18:1; 19:1). It is thus incumbent upon readers to read between the lines, look for the unsaid, and imagine the women of Shiloh as speaking out. Only then will readers not keep the women in silence, refuse to participate in the gynocide, and acknowledge the rape of the daughters of Shiloh. The women’s fate of rape and forced marriage should not be mollified and excused by political necessity. This story depicts sexual violence in war as sanctioned by the Divinity and executed by male Israelites. Alice Bach puts
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it bluntly when she exclaims that this tale is “the perfect psychological backdrop” for men “giving vent to their contempt for women” (Bach, 7, 9–10). In short, the narratives of Judges 19–21 demonstrate that misogyny, rape, and war are interrelated structures of oppression. In such structures women are objects, to be used and even abused, murdered and cut into pieces, trafficked and forced to marriage. They are there for the taking, objects of men, there to fulfill male needs. The problem for readers is what to do with these stories. Shall we be complicit and accept assumptions of phallocentric superiority, or shall we come to recognize the links of misogyny, rape, and established hierarchies of sociopolitical and economic life? In the metaphoric language of biblical prose, Judges 19–21 illustrates the misogyny during so-called peacetime and the prevalence of rape during war. The narratives remind readers of the pervasive and persisting problems in androcentric society that include misogyny, gang rape, murder, and war.
Conclusion The book of Judges provides rich ground for explorations into the constructions of masculinity and femininity, the semiotics of “othering” in regard to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion, the articulation of sexual violence and violence against children (especially daughters), the negotiation of authoritarian governance structures in the political and theological imaginary, and the omnipresence of warmongering military manhood as a path to power and status religiously and historically legitimized. Contemporary feminist interpretations take into account these interrelated dynamics and uncover their connections with structures of domination prevalent in the text and in the world. The book of Judges emerges neither as a history book nor as literature, but as an ideological construction practiced and lived even today. Bibliography
Bach, Alice. “Re-reading the Body Politic: Women and Violence in Judges 21.” Biblical Interpretation 6, no. 1 (1998): 1–19.
Brenner, Athalya. A Feminist Companion to Judges. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. ———. Judges: A Feminist Companion to the Bible. 2nd series. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Carden, Michael. “Homophobia and Rape in Sodom and Gibeah: A Response to Ken Stone.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 82 (1999): 83–96. Cheng, Patrick S. “Multiplicity and Judges 19: Constructing a Queer Asian Pacific American Biblical Hermeneutic.” Semeia 90–91 (2002): 119–33. Guest, Deryn. “Judges.” In Queer Bible Commentary, edited by Deryn Guest et al., 167–89. London: SCM, 2006. Kim, Uriah Y. “Postcolonial Criticism: Who Is the Other in the Book of Judges?” In Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, edited by Gale Yee, 161–82. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Ng, Andrew Hock-Soon. “Revisiting Judges 19: A Gothic Perspective.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32, no. 2 (2007): 199–215. Niditch, Susan. Judges: A Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Reis, Pamela Tamarkin. “The Levite’s Concubine: New Light on a Dark Story.” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 20, no. 1 (2006): 125–46. Rowlett, Lori. “Violent Femmes and S/M: Queering Samson and Delilah.” In Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible, edited by Ken Stone, 106–15. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 334. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2001. Stone, Ken. “How a Woman Unmans a King: Gender Reversal and the Woman of Thebez in Judges 9.” In From the Margins, vol. 1,Women of the Hebrew Bible and Their Afterlives, edited by Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg, 71–85. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009. Trible, Phyllis. Texts of Terror: LiteraryFeminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. Yee, Gale, ed., Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.
Deborah, Jael, and Their Interpreters Anne W. Stewart
The vivid account of Deborah, Jael, and the demise of Sisera in Judges 4–5 is striking for the details it provides and the details it omits. It highlights Deborah as a wise and influential leader, a prophet, a poet, a judge, and a military commander whose advice her male comrades seek. As Israel faces a daunting battle with a potent enemy, Deborah foretells that God “will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (4:9). From this statement, it is unclear if Deborah knows exactly how or at whose hand Sisera will die. Yet soon the narrative highlights another woman, Jael wife of Heber the Kenite, who welcomes Sisera, the vanquished warrior, into her tent after the battle. After covering him with a rug and offering him milk, she drives a tent peg through his head with a hammer. The text leaves entirely to the reader’s inference any conclusions about Jael’s actions and motivations. Did Jael violate standards of hospitality or serve as God’s arm of justice? Was she simply trying to protect herself against the approaching Israelite army, hot on Sisera’s heels, and perhaps ready to claim her as a spoil of war? The rich interpretive tradition of this text illumines many of the narrative gaps and moral ambiguities in the tale. As Pseudo-Philo relates the story of Judges 4–5 in Biblical Antiquities, an expansionary retelling of the biblical story likely written in the first century CE, he makes every effort to highlight the important role that Deborah plays as leader of Israel. Pseudo-Philo even portrays Deborah as a counterpart to Moses, sent directly by God to call Israel back to the law. In this version of the story, an angel appears to the Israelites and proclaims that a woman will rule over and enlighten them for forty years (Biblical Antiquities [L.A.B.] 30:3), the same length of time that Moses led them through the wilderness. Deborah’s capacity as a prophet is also expanded; she possesses the ability to read the stars and determine when the stars’ alignment would be favorable to Israel in battle. Barely any mention is made of Barak; Deborah is the one who directs the forces. Pseudo-Philo also
develops the character of Jael, not only as a faithful and victorious woman, but also as an alluring temptress. He describes her as very beautiful in appearance and having a bed with rose petals scattered upon it (L.A.B. 31:3). She also adorns herself before going out to meet Sisera and laces his milk with wine, vowing to God that she will kill him if God gives her a sign that she acts with God’s blessing. According to Pseudo-Philo, both Deborah and Jael receive and are able to interpret divine communication. They are women made powerful by God’s prerogative—even to the point of overshadowing or prevailing against the men in the story. In Jewish Antiquities, the Jewish historian Josephus is a bit more circumspect than PseudoPhilo in his retelling of the story, yet Josephus also lends his own interpretation to the text. In this version, Deborah agrees to accompany Barak to battle but offers a stinging rebuke, saying, “You resign to a woman a rank that God has bestowed on you! But I do not decline it” (Ant., 5.203). Even as her words imply that Barak has inappropriately ceded authority to a woman, Deborah also proves worthy of her position. Josephus states that Barak and the Israelites were panicked at the sight of Sisera’s massive troops and wanted to surrender. But Deborah forbade this and ordered them to go to battle, promising that God would bring victory. Within the rabbinic tradition, Deborah’s leadership receives a mixed reception. Some interpreters herald Deborah as one of the prophets and a discerning judge. One interpretation suggests that her title ’eshet lappidot— which can be translated as “wife of Lappidoth” or “woman of fire”—indicates that Deborah made candles with thick wicks for her husband to take to the sanctuary to keep it lit with fire (b. Megillah 14a). Other interpretations, however, depict her in more negative light, suggesting that she was boastful in calling herself “mother of Israel” and too proud in standing haughtily over a man. For this reason, the Holy Spirit departed from her and left her speechless
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(b. Pesahim 66b). One of the main problems for the rabbis was how a woman could hold such a position of leadership. According to one tradition, the reason that Deborah judged under a palm tree was so that she would not violate modesty laws, which prohibited a female from being alone in a room with a man who
was not her husband, a situation she could have encountered as a judge (b. Megillah 14a). Jael also receives mixed favor from the rabbis. While they accentuate her beauty and seductive nature, even suggesting that she slept with Sisera—as many as seven times!—before killing him (b. Yevamot 103a–b), they also insist
Deborah holds court at the city gate in Deborah, an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), which was published in The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version (London: Cassell, 1866).
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that she must have derived no pleasure from sleeping with such an evil man, and they praise her for toppling one of Israel’s great enemies. In fact, the Talmud cites the case of Jael as evidence that an act that transgresses the law, but is carried out with good intentions, is as righteous as an act that obeys the law, yet with ulterior motives (b. Nazir 23b). For this reason, Jael, “most blessed of women” (Judg. 5:24), is as praiseworthy as the matriarchs of Israel. Early Christian interpreters, reading the story of Judges 4–5 allegorically, praise Jael as symbolic of the church, the bride of Christ, or even as Christ himself. A third-century-CE text, “The Harmony of the Fathers,” suggests that Jael’s victory with a wooden weapon foreshadows Christ’s victory over death on a wooden cross. Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the fourth century, states that, just as Jael was guided by Deborah the prophet, so too the Gentile church is guided by prophecy to gain final victory over the enemy; just as she triumphed against Sisera with milk and weapons, so the church triumphs over the enemy with wisdom and spiritual arms (Ambrose viii:47–49). According to the medieval text Speculum Humanae Salvationis (ca. 1360), Jael, who overcame Sisera, prefigures Mary, who overcame the devil (Gunn, 57). On the other hand, however, Puritan preacher John Gibbon (1629–1718) likened Jael to sin itself: “When sin, like Jael, invites thee into her tent, with the lure and decoy of a lordly treatment, think of the nail and hammer which fastened Sisera dead to the ground” (Gunn, 73–74). Similarly, a nineteenth-century poem by John Leicester Warren, drawing subtle allusions to the interpretation of Eve, likened Jael to the deceptive serpent in Eden: “She stood, the mothersnake, before her tent, / She feigned a piteous dew in her false eyes. . . . Then he slept—she rose, / Slid like a snake across the tent—struck twice— / And stung him dead” (Gunn, 77). Deborah—and Jael, to some extent—has often been at the center of disputes about the ability of women to hold positions of leadership in the church and the political sphere. Although many suggested that Deborah’s leadership as a woman was an exception that proves the rule, Ambrose argued that Deborah’s story was told in order to encourage future women that they too could lead, as any man. He exhorted his audience of widows that they need not feel disadvantaged because of their gender, for Deborah proved that “widows have no need of
the help of a man, inasmuch as she, not at all restrained by the weakness of her sex, undertook to perform the duties of a man, and did even more than she had undertaken” (Ambrose viii:44). Deborah, he argues, was a woman who governed the people, led armies, selected generals, and triumphed in war. He concludes: “It is not sex, but valour which makes strong” (Ambrose viii:44). In The Gallery of Heroick Women (1652), French Jesuit Pierre Le Moyne also praised Deborah for her power and authority, as well as her “sweetnesse” and efficacy. To his contemporaries who suggested that women were not capable of governing, he replied: “These Politicians are no Evangelists. . . . The example of Debora is a famous and Prophetical proof against their Doctrine” (Gunn, 62). Le Moyne was not the only one who found Deborah to have a combination of masculine authority and feminine charm. In the nineteenth century, Christian temperance leader Clara Lucas Balfour extolled Deborah in Women of Scripture (1847) as an example for contemporary women to be commanding and intelligent without sacrificing “womanly qualities,” such as tenderness and piety (Gunn, 64). For these authors, Deborah epitomizes an ideal of womanhood that exudes confidence and authority while maintaining certain softer, more feminine attributes. Jewish poet Grace Aguilar (1816–47) extolled Deborah for her “meekness and humility,” yet she cited Deborah to quite ambitious aims: social and religious reform. Although Deborah was a wife, Aguilar observed, she was “a prophetess in her own person, wholly and entirely distinct from her husband,” a point that makes impossible the idea “that her position as a wife forbade her rising above mere conjugal and household duties” (Aguilar, 220). Yet Deborah’s work cannot be modeled by her female descendants, for “woman can no longer occupy a position of such trust and wisdom in Israel” (Aguilar, 224). Yet “with the history of Deborah in their hands, the young daughters of Israel need little other defence or argument, to convince their adversaries that they require no other creed, nor even a denial of the Oral Law, to teach them their proper position” (Aguilar, 225). Aguilar reasoned that in Deborah’s day women must have been treated with equal esteem as men, and while she lamented that this was no longer the case, she urged her compatriots to take courage and dedicate themselves
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to serving God in whatever station they found themselves, fully aware that God sanctioned such behavior in the Bible. Similarly, suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton thought that Deborah should be more of an inspiration to women: “We never hear sermons pointing women to the heroic virtues of Deborah as worthy of their imitation. Nothing is said in the pulpit to rouse them from the apathy of ages, to inspire them to do and dare great things, to intellectual and spiritual achievements, in real communion with the Great Spirit of the Universe” (Stanton, 19–20). Stanton did not laud Deborah’s meekness, but her authority, ambition, and wisdom. Deborah and Jael have also provided much inspiration to artists through the centuries. Artwork featuring Jael tends to depict her either as a victorious woman, violently administering Sisera his just deserts, or as a seductive temptress, stealthily maiming the sleeping warrior. English painter James Northcote, for example, portrays a long-locked maiden with a sharp
stake leaning over a peaceful, handsome Sisera (Jael and Sisera, 1787). On the other hand, Artemisia Gentileschi’s Jael and Sisera (1620) evidences a demure Jael who is neither a seductive figure nor a violent murderer. She acts with a quiet determination reflective of moral superiority. Gentileschi’s depiction is reminiscent of medieval Christian sculpture and illuminated manuscripts, which alluded to Jael as a prefiguration of the Virgin Mary (Bohn). While the moral complexities of Jael’s act result in a diversity of images, Deborah is more often depicted as a confident, commanding hero, though at least one image portrays her as a working mother, with two children in tow as she gives orders (Mariel Wilhoite, Heroes of the Bible, 1940, cited in Gunn, 67). Finally, the dramatic story of Judges 4–5 has also been captured through music. One famous rendition is George Frideric Handel’s Deborah, an oratorio based on the libretto by Samuel Humphreys (1733). This version remains fairly close to the biblical text, though it assumes that
Jael and Sisera, a 1787 painting by James Northcote (1746–1831), depicts a beautiful young woman preparing to murder the sleeping army commander Sisera with a hammer and a sharp stake.
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Deborah and Jael knew one another personally, which is not clear from the Judges account. The two women emerge as unquestionable heroes who conquer the foe in praise of their God. In Ildebrando Pizzetti’s opera Debora e Jaele (1922), however, the two women are much more ambiguous characters. Not only is it clear that Deborah and Jael know one other, but Jael meets Sisera before he goes into battle with the Israelites. In fact, there is a romantic spark between the two that, though Jael resists it at first, later prompts her to profess her love to him and to harbor him in the tent when he returns in defeat. She offers him milk out of compassion, but while he sleeps in her tent, Jael exits and confronts Deborah, who demands that she kill the enemy. The two exchange opposing opinions on the nature of divine justice. Jael vows to protect Sisera and argues that he is worthy of mercy from the Israelites, reasoning that God allowed him to flee the battle. Deborah, on the other hand, insists that God gave Sisera into Jael’s hands in order to requite justice. As the Israelite soldiers surround the tent and prepare to ambush, Jael enters alone and drives the tent peg into the head of her lover, an act more of mercy than of justice. Judges 4–5 offers ample fodder for the interpretive tradition, and the diversity of interpretations underscores the ambiguity of the biblical text. Yet one of the most prominent themes throughout interpretations of many periods
is an aspect of the text that is quite clear: the female protagonists are powerful, dynamic characters who cannot be lightly brushed aside. They have been sources of inspiration to those who wish to advance the cause of women’s equality and leadership, but even those who do not approve of their actions or positions must reckon with the force of their character. Bibliography
Aguilar, Grace. The Women of Israel, vol. 1. New York: Appleton & Co., 1851. Ambrose. “Concerning Widows.” In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series, edited by P. Schaff and H. Wace, 10: 389–407. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Bohn, Babette. “Death, Dispassion, and the Female Hero.” In The Artemesia Files, edited by Mieke Bal, 107–27. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Gunn, David. Judges. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. Leneman, Helen. “Re-visioning a Biblical Story through Libretto and Music: Debora e Jaele by Ildebrando Pizzetti,” Biblical Interpretation 15 (2007): 428–63. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. The Woman’s Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective. New York: European Publishing, 1895–98. Repr. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002.
Jephthah’s Daughter and Her Interpreters Anne W. Stewart
The story of Jephthah’s daughter is one of the most troubling accounts in Judges. Before marching into battle, Jephthah vows to God, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then the one that comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering” (Judg. 11:30– 31, my trans.). Unfortunately, Jephthah’s daughter is the first to appear upon his return, and he must sacrifice his only child. Such a prospect is repugnant to modern ears, but within the history of interpretation, commentators have assessed differently the character of Jephthah and his daughter, as well as the consequences and the ethical import of their acts. While some interpreters produced various explanations for their behavior or refused entirely to excuse the notion of human sacrifice, others lauded the daughter as an exemplar of faithfulness. The early Jewish interpreters Josephus and Pseudo-Philo both wrestle with the notion of Jephthah’s culpability in sacrificing his daughter. In Josephus’s rendition of the story in Jewish Antiquities, Jephthah places blame on his daughter for the consequences of his vow, chiding her for rushing out in haste to greet him. Josephus, who aims in this text to present the Jews in a favorable light to his Greco-Roman audience, insists that the sacrifice was “neither sanctioned by the law nor well-pleasing to God” (Ant. 5.265), thus making clear to his readers that even though Jephthah did offer his daughter as a burnt offering, Jews do not endorse human sacrifice. Pseudo-Philo likewise finds the sacrifice to be inappropriate, though in his interpretation Jephthah shoulders full blame for his rash vow. In Biblical Antiquities, an expansionary retelling of the biblical story from Adam to David, Pseudo-Philo explains this instance of child sacrifice as divine punishment for Jephthah’s foolishness. The text makes clear that Jephthah’s vow greatly angered God, for it opened the possibility of an inappropriate sacrifice. God
reasons, “if a dog should meet Jephthah first, will the dog be offered to me?” (L.A.B. 39:11). Jephthah’s vow not only endangered his daughter but also offended the Deity. Consequently, God ordains that Jephthah’s daughter will be the one to emerge first upon Jephthah’s return as a punishment for Jephthah’s foolishness. Although in one sense Jephthah’s daughter is the hapless victim of her father’s stupidity, Pseudo-Philo also envisions her as a heroine of noble character. Jephthah’s daughter utters much more dialogue than in the biblical text or in Josephus’s rendition. Pseudo-Philo imagines an extended conversation between Jephthah and his daughter, here named Seila, meaning “the one asked for” or “requested.” Seila urges her father to proceed with the sacrifice in order to fulfill his vow, and she compares herself to Isaac, the patriarch nearly sacrificed by Abraham in obedience to divine command (see Gen. 22). She offers herself willingly, fearing that otherwise her sacrifice would not be acceptable and her death in vain. Pseudo-Philo depicts Seila as a faithful and articulate woman, and indeed God affirms that Seila, whom he considers wiser than her father and more perceptive than all of the sages of Israel, remains precious in his sight. In a final dramatic speech, Seila further laments her fate, describing the underworld as her bridal chamber and detailing the wedding garments that will remain unworn. As she bewails her virginity, Seila calls on creation itself to weep with her, and thus the mountains and rocks become grieving witnesses of her tragic death. Pseudo-Philo’s version of the story is much more expansive than Josephus’s, but both writers attempt to account for the problem of human sacrifice in the story. While Josephus emphasizes that God is not pleased by human sacrifice, Pseudo-Philo implicitly raises the more vexing problem of God’s failure to intercede. Pseudo-Philo’s presentation may in fact raise more disturbing issues than it solves. Rabbinic commentators continue to wrestle with the notion of human sacrifice. They are 133
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particularly troubled that Jephthah’s actions contradicted the law. Some interpreters view the sacrifice as punishment for Jephthah’s acts, whether his foolish vow, as Pseudo-Philo, or Jephthah’s slaughter of thousands of Ephraimites (see Judg. 12:4–6). Another stream of interpretation ponders why no one with knowledge of the law interceded to prevent Jephthah from offering an inappropriate sacrifice. One
interpretation portrays Jephthah’s daughter as more knowledgeable about the law than her father or even Torah scholars, for she explains to her father that the law speaks only of animal, not human, sacrifices and cites biblical examples of those who did not fulfill vows to God by human sacrifice. In this interpretation, Jephthah’s daughter uses the period before her sacrifice to visit various Torah scholars in the
Jephthah’s daughter leads young women in music and dancing in Jephthah’s Daughter, an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832– 1883), which was published in The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version (London: Cassell, 1866).
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hope of having the vow annulled, though her appeal falls on deaf ears because all failed to remember the relevant law (Exod. Rab. 15.4; Ginzberg, 876). Like Pseudo-Philo’s version, these interpretations suggest that God sent Jephthah’s daughter to greet him as a punishment for his acts. However, they also emphasize that the law prohibits human sacrifice, and thus the intent of the punishment is to teach Jephthah how dangerous his vow was, for it left open the possibility of losing his daughter and transgressing the law. Jephthah, however, is too foolish to realize that he need not sacrifice his daughter. In the final analysis, then, Jephthah, not God, is fully culpable for his daughter’s death. Another interpretation holds that Jephthah’s daughter perished needlessly, caught between the egotism of her father and the high priest, the one able to annul the vow. In this explanation,
Phineas, enamored with his position as the high priest, refused to humiliate himself by visiting Jephthah, whom he considered to be of inferior intelligence, and Jephthah, citing his supreme position as chief, refused to humiliate himself by visiting the high priest. Both men were punished for their culpability in the death of Jephthah’s daughter—Jephthah by a gruesome death and Phineas by losing his priestly position (Gen. Rab. 60.3). Each of these interpretations gives a slightly different explanation of the circumstances surrounding Jephthah’s vow and his daughter’s death, but all of them assume that Jephthah did fulfill the vow, even if unnecessarily so, and that his daughter did indeed die. Beginning in the Middle Ages, however, several Jewish commentators propose an alternative end to the story of Jephthah’s daughter, suggesting that Jephthah did not actually sacrifice his daughter
Jephthah’s daughter celebrates her father’s return from victory over the Ammonites in Jephthah’s Daughter, an engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794–1872), from Die Bibel in Bildern (Leipzig, 1860).
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but consecrated her to God. For example, David Kimhi (1160–1235) explains an alternative reading of the Hebrew text. Instead of “the one that comes out . . . will be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering” (my trans.), Kimh>i translates the conjunction differently, reading it “will be the Lord’s or I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” In this interpretation, Jephthah implies that if the first object to appear is an appropriate sacrifice, he would give it as a burnt offering. If it is not an appropriate sacrifice, however, he would dedicate it to God. This reading allows Kimhi to argue that because Jephthah’s daughter was not an appropriate sacrifice, Jephthah consecrated her to a celibate life of divine service. Kimhi said that Jephthah’s daughter “secluded herself as do the ascetics enclosed in the cells,” much like monastic nuns of Kimhi’s day (Berman, 230). This theme appears in several medieval artistic renditions of the biblical text. Even though rabbinic commentators since the Middle Ages promote an alternative interpretation, disavowing the death of Jephthah’s daughter, this trend does not appear in Christian interpretations until the fourteenth century. Yet the Christians are often just as troubled by the nature of Jephthah’s vow. John Chrysostom explains the act as a kind of divine preventative medicine, suggesting that God permitted Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter so as to deter future generations from doing likewise. The tale thus illustrates God’s “providence and clemency,” suggests Chrysostom, and indeed “after this sacrifice, no one vowed such a vow unto God” (Chrysostom, 434). Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) likewise considered Jephthah’s vow to be a cautionary example. In his book The Duties of the Clergy he cites this episode to assert that at times it can be contrary to the clergy’s duty to fulfill an oath, for Jephthah would have done better “to make no promise at all, than to fulfill it in the death of his daughter” (Thompson, 119). In Questions on the Heptateuch Augustine (354–430) offers both a literal and a typological reading of Judges 11. Observing that the Latin translation of Jephthah’s vow reads that whoever (quicumque)—not whatever—first comes out will be the Lord’s, Augustine suggests that even as he uttered the vow, Jephthah intended to sacrifice a human being—if not his daughter, then perhaps his wife! While Augustine entertains the possibility that Jephthah’s vow might be excused if it were a divine command or had
prophetic significance, he determines that neither was true in this case. Augustine also offers a typological interpretation of the story, likening Jephthah to Christ, and his wife and daughter to the church. Augustine argues that when Jephthah vowed to offer a sacrifice, he prefigured Jesus, who vowed to hand over the kingdom to God (cf. 1 Cor. 15:24). The kingdom, Augustine explains, is the church, symbolized here by Jephthah’s wife and his daughter, offered as a burnt offering to God (Thompson, 126). Furthermore, Quodvultdeus, a young friend of Augustine who later became bishop of Carthage, said that Jephthah’s daughter was a type of Christ, likening her retreat to the mountains to Christ’s ascent to the Mount of Olives, where he prayed before his crucifixion (Thompson, 133). Both of these commentators paint Jephthah’s daughter in exemplary terms, going beyond even Pseudo-Philo or the rabbinic commentators who emphasize her wisdom and piety. Even though early Christian commentators apparently are not aware of the nonsacrificial interpretations of their Jewish counterparts, some do cite Jephthah’s daughter as a model for young nuns. For example, Paschasius Radbertus, the mid-ninth-century abbot of Corbie, invokes the example of Jephthah’s daughter in order to urge young women to comply with their parents’ vows to commit them to the cloister, for “not only did she not flee, she exhorted her father to perform what he promised to God. So too should you, beloved girls, fulfill in yourselves the happy vows of your parents” (Thompson, 135). Peter Abelard (d. 1142) also exalts Jephthah’s daughter as a model in a poem written for nuns to recite. Building on Pseudo-Philo’s interpretation, Abelard presents a sympathetic portrait of the woman, whom he too calls Seila. In Abelard’s poem, the spirit with which Seila embraces her sacrificial death is a model for monastic women who devote themselves to God, a sacrifice that Abelard views as akin to death. In Abelard’s retelling, Seila encourages her father to carry out the sacrifice, even as the maidens of Jerusalem hint at Jephthah’s insanity for making such a vow in the first place. Seila’s friends describe her thus: “Girl more to be marveled at than mourned—how rare to find a man as brave as she!” (Baumgarten, 186). Jephthah’s daughter is also a character in numerous poems, novels, plays, and musical
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compositions. Charles Segard’s play La Fille de Jephthé (1909) heightens the tragedy of the tale. In this version, the maiden’s death is precipitated when she does not receive a message of warning, and the play ends as her lover stabs himself to death after witnessing the maiden die in flames (Sypherd, 98). The British Romantic poet Lord Byron composes a short yet poignant rendition of the tale in 1814 as a lyric to be set to music, portraying Jephthah’s daughter as a willing victim of sacrifice, a cheerful martyr whose actions win freedom for her father and her country. Jephthah’s daughter eschews sympathy and with strong voice advances her memory as a cause for pride. In her parting words, Jephthah’s daughter proclaims, “Forget not, I smiled as I died!” (Vogel, 32). Judges reports that it was a yearly custom in Israel to remember the death of Jephthah’s daughter (Judg. 11:40), and indeed her memory lives on in the history of interpretation. In fact, her voice has only grown with time, as various interpreters have imagined her sagacity, eloquence, and faithfulness. As figured in the interpretive tradition, Jephthah’s daughter is more heroine than victim. Perceptive and prudent, she claims with strength and honor her place among the faithful.
Bibliography
Baumgarten, Elisheva. “‘Remember That Glorious Girl’: Jephthah’s Daughter in Medieval Jewish Culture.” Jewish Quarterly Review 97, no. 2 (2007): 180–209. Berman, Joshua. “Medieval Monasticism and the Evolution of Jewish Interpretation to the Story of Jephthah’s Daughter.” Jewish Quarterly Review 95, no. 2 (2005): 228–56. Chrysostom, John. “Homily XIV.” In The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, 9:431–38. 1889. Repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995. Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. Sypherd, W. Jephthah and His Daughter: A Study in Comparative Literature. Newark: University of Delaware, 1948. Thompson, John. Writing the Wrongs: Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Vogel, Dan. “Lord Byron’s Midrashic Lyrics, Part I: Saul and Others.” Jewish Bible Quarterly 37, no. 1 (2009): 24–34.
Delilah and Her Interpreters Josey bRIDGES Snyder
The story of Delilah has captured the imaginations of the religious and nonreligious alike for centuries. She is the irresistible woman, a femme fatale, the woman who brought down the strongest man alive. But who was this irresistible woman, and why did she betray the man who loved her? Was she an Israelite or a Philistine? A prostitute, an independently wealthy woman, or a young girl ready to be wed? Did she love Samson, or was she only looking out for herself? What about her was so desirable that Samson would divulge his secret? What happened to Delilah after she delivered her lover into Philistine hands? The biblical text is surprisingly sparse on such details. And yet these are the very details readers of the story have sought—and, in their
absence, supplied—from the earliest interpreters to those of the modern day. Delilah is introduced in Judges 16:4, and her entire story is contained within the next sixteen verses. The third of Samson’s women, she is the only one to be named. Yet we know little else about her. That she lives in the valley of Sorek does not positively identify her as either Israelite or Philistine. Moreover, that she is identified without reference to father or husband does not necessarily relegate her to the status of prostitute. What we do know is that Philistine leaders approach her and offer her money to discover the source of Samson’s strength (16:5). We also know that she does not give up easily, since she inquires of Samson four times over several days before discovering his secret (16:6–17). And, of
Delilah cuts the sleeping Samson’s hair while his enemies wait at the door in Samson and Delilah, a woodcut by Virgil Solis (1514–1562). This illustration was published in Summaria uber die gantze Biblia, by Veit Dietrich, Philipp Melanchton, and Johannes Brenz (Frankfurt am Main, 1562).
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course, we know that Samson loves her (16:4). To speak of Delilah beyond these sparse details, we must read between the lines—and beyond them, into the history of interpretation. Perhaps it is Samson’s propensity to be attracted to Philistine women (14:1) and prostitutes (16:1) that results in Delilah being identified as such. For whatever reason, the label is firmly attached to Delilah as early as the first century CE, when Jewish interpreters Josephus and Pseudo-Philo both describe Delilah as a Philistine prostitute. When Josephus narrates the story in Jewish Antiquities, he has Samson proclaim (after his first wife’s betrayal), “Nothing is more deceitful than a woman” (Ant. 5.294), thus setting the stage for the reader to distrust Delilah from the moment she enters the scene. Simply being a woman makes her untrustworthy. And, of course, she lives up to that expectation. For Pseudo-Philo in Biblical Antiquities, the primary problem with Delilah is her status as a foreigner. That she is also a prostitute is almost a side point, as if such sexual immorality were simply expected of foreign women. In Pseudo-Philo’s retelling, God speaks, becoming a narrator of sorts, and condemns Samson for “mingling with the daughters of the Philistines” and thus “afflicting his seed.” Moreover, because Samson allows his eyes to lead him astray, God proclaims that he will be blinded. So, while Delilah does betray Samson, her act of betrayal is presented as part of God’s plan. Also according to Pseudo-Philo, Delilah becomes Samson’s wife, though this twist is perhaps intended to salvage Samson’s character more than that of Delilah (L.A.B. 43:5–6). The Babylonian Talmud—more interested in expounding what the text says than what it does not—makes no claim as to Delilah’s nationality or profession. Instead, it offers commentary on the appropriateness of Delilah’s name. Using a play on words, the Talmud suggests that, even if Delilah were not her name, she would be called Delilah because “she weakened” (Heb. dildelah) Samson. How did she weaken Samson? She weakened his strength (16:19), his heart (16:18), and his actions (16:20). Also, in wondering how Delilah convinced Samson to reveal his secret, the rabbis question what is meant by the phrase “she nagged him” (16:16) and offer, as explanation, that “at the time of consummation, she detached herself from him” (b. Sotah 9b). Here, the rabbis make explicit
something that is at most implicit in the biblical text, which never directly mentions sexual relations between Samson and Delilah. For the most part, early Christian exegetes follow in the footsteps of Jewish interpreters when expounding Delilah’s story. Like Josephus and Pseudo-Philo, Ambrose (ca. 333–97) labels Delilah a foreigner and a prostitute. Moreover, he too locates her danger primarily in her foreign status. Seeking a moral to the story, Ambrose concludes that “men should avoid marriage with those outside the faith, lest, instead of love of one’s spouse, there be treachery” (Letter to Vigilius 35.34). However, contrary to the Talmud’s explanation that Delilah uses sex to urge Samson to reveal his secret, Ambrose deduces that “she gained his confidence by her tears” (Letter to Vigilius 35.29). Here Ambrose is likely conflating Delilah’s story with that of the Timnite woman, who does persuade Samson through tears (14:16–17). Finally, Ambrose blames Delilah’s deception on her “love of money,” thus warning his clergy audience to avoid the lure of wealth (Duties of the Clergy 2.26.131). For many Christian interpreters, the demonization of Delilah corresponds to the lifting up of Samson as a saint. These interpreters build their characterization of Samson on a New Testament passage that lists Samson as a man of great faith alongside men like David, Samuel, and the prophets (Heb. 11:32). However, they carry their praise even higher than the author of Hebrews by claiming Samson as a figure of Christ. Caesarius of Arles (ca. 470–543), for example, sees Christ prefigured in Samson’s death. When he describes Samson’s final act in the Philistine temple, Caesarius remarks: “Notice here an image of the cross. Samson extends his hands spread out to the two columns as to the two beams of the cross” (Sermon 118.6). Interpreting Samson as a figure of Christ cannot but affect one’s depiction of Delilah. For Caesarius, Delilah (again, a prostitute) becomes “the church which committed fornication with idols before knowing one God” (Sermon 118.3). Following this trend, Renaissance commentaries compare Delilah’s temptation of Samson to Satan’s temptation of Christ and her betrayal to that of Judas (Krouse, 76). Thomas de Vio Cajetan (1469–1534), on the other hand, finds some sympathy for this biblical character in his commentary on Judges 16. First, unlike any other interpreter discussed thus
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far, he suggests Delilah was actually a Hebrew, not a Philistine. Since the text does not explicitly name Delilah as a foreigner, Cajetan argues, we should not assume that she is. Even more, Cajetan suggests that Delilah never intended for Samson to be wounded or killed. Instead, he proposes that the Philistines convinced her to accept their bribe, in part, by suggesting that Samson would only be weakened, and not injured in any way (Opera Omina II 62f.). Turning to literary portrayals of Delilah, we find an array of imaginative depictions that bring her character to life. Even more than the Jewish and Christian exegetes discussed thus far, poets, novelists, and filmmakers have taken advantage of the gaps in the biblical text to tell Delilah’s story in new and creative ways. The range of interpretations is illustrated well by a comparison of Camille Saint-Saëns’s 1877 opera Samson et Dalila and Felix Salten’s 1928 novel, translated and published in English in 1931 as Samson and Delilah: A Novel. In both, Delilah dies with Samson in the final scene, but the circumstances surrounding and leading up to that death are vastly different. For Salten (best known as the author of Bambi), Delilah is a young and innocent girl— albeit still a Philistine—who has never before known a man. Having come to believe in Samson’s god, Delilah refuses to betray him, even at the urging of her mother and sister. Though she does ask Samson about the source of his strength, she never intends to reveal his secret. Instead, it is Delilah’s younger sister who learns Samson’s secret by eavesdropping and subsequently steals his strength by cutting his hair. When Samson is captured, Delilah stays by his side and vows to die with him—a vow she fulfills—loyal to Samson and his god until the end. For Saint-Saëns, Delilah (a Philistine and priestess of Dagon) is not at all loyal to Samson but hates him and plots his downfall from the beginning. Moreover, when the high priest offers her money for delivering Samson into his hands, she refuses the reward, claiming that she is motivated by vengeance alone. Though Samson is warned to avoid this evil woman and seems to understand love of her as a direct rejection of his deity, he eventually succumbs to her seduction as if helpless to refuse. Indeed, her words are so sweet and the music so beautiful, even the audience—who knows her plan of betrayal—may begin to suspect her love for him is true (see Exum, 178). Yet at the opera’s end
Delilah’s treachery is revealed when she appears in the temple to mock the captured Samson for having fallen for her wiles. Another artistic rendition, Milton’s Samson Agonistes (1671), offers a complicated characterization of Delilah that is neither as positive as Salten’s nor as negative as that of Saint-Saëns. Concerned with her motive for the betrayal, Milton’s poem imagines Delilah’s attempt to defend her actions to a blinded Samson after his capture. Claiming penitence, she offers a wide variety of excuses from the weakness of the female sex (lines 773–74), to the desire to keep him always by her side (line 794), to loyalty to her god and country (lines 850–61). Specifically denying that she betrayed him for money (line 849), Delilah swears she was promised he would not be harmed (lines 800–802) and begs him to forgive her (line 909). Finally, she offers to procure Samson’s freedom and care for him as a way to redeem herself for the betrayal that caused his demise (lines 920–25). The amount of space Milton devotes to possible defenses for Delilah certainly takes steps toward redeeming her character. But in the end Milton’s Delilah is revealed as the traitor she always was. When Samson, having lost all trust in her smooth words, refuses her excuses and offer of aid, Delilah changes her tone completely and boasts of how her people, the Philistines, will celebrate her patriotism. Thus, even though the poem’s final analysis rejects Delilah as “a manifest Serpent” (line 997), we are left with the realization that not all would judge her as such. Moreover, unless we share Samson’s severe distrust of Delilah, we may also be left with a degree of sympathy for her, or at least for the struggle she apparently felt over the decision to betray him. One more literary construction of Delilah, Cecil B. DeMille’s 1949 Hollywood movie Samson and Delilah, adds a new twist by suggesting that Delilah was the younger sister of Samson’s first wife, the Philistine woman of Timnah. Jealous of his affections for her older sister, Delilah strives obsessively to win his love and obtain him as a husband. When Samson rejects her, she becomes angry and vows in a jealous rage: “If it takes all my life, I’ll make him curse the day he was born.” Yet Delilah clearly never stops loving Samson, but only lashes out at him in jealousy. Even when she has seduced him and learned his secret, Delilah’s first thought is that they run away together to Egypt, where they will no longer
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be “Danite and Philistine,” but “only Samson and Delilah.” Only after her jealousy is ignited again and she fears losing him to a Hebrew woman, does Delilah betray him into Philistine hands. Yet, when she learns he has been blinded, her jealous hatred melts. In the end, DeMille’s Delilah reveals her undying loyalty to Samson by returning to him in his hour of need and choosing to die by his side in the temple. In the interpretations we have examined— with the possible exception of Milton’s poem (and even here only if we are willing to read against the poem’s final evaluation)—Delilah is either written off as a treacherous woman or rehabilitated by showing that she, at least in the end, proves her loyalty to Samson. Are these our only options? Can we redeem Delilah without imagining that she regretted her deeds? Perhaps, especially if we are willing to read from the Philistine perspective (see Smith, 109). As the Delilah of Milton’s poem suggests, the Philistines would have praised her behavior, in much the same way that the Hebrews lauded Jael for delivering Sisera into their hands. We may even find parallels with Rahab, who betrayed her people into Israelite hands for personal gain. We began our investigation of Delilah with the realization that the biblical text leaves many questions unanswered. These gaps are not flaws, but opportunities. Moreover, the myriad ways interpreters have answered these questions should not limit, but only expand, the interpretive possibilities of this well-known story. As we begin to construct our own versions of Delilah,
we should heed Smith’s call and return first to the text (Smith, 115), attending equally to what the text says and to what it has left unsaid. Instead of looking for the one best way to tell the story, we should attend to the boundaries of possible meanings. The voices of Delilah are many, and they all deserve a chance to speak. Bibliography
Exum, J. Cheryl. “Why, Why, Why Delilah?” In Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women, 175–237. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 215. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Gunn, David M. Judges. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Krouse, F. Michael. Milton’s Samson and the Christian Tradition. Princeton: Archon Books, 1963. Leneman, Helen. “Portrayals of Power in the Stories of Delilah and Bathsheba: Seduction in Song.” In Culture, Entertainment, and the Bible, edited by George Aichele, 139–55. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 309. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Smith, Carol. “Delilah: A Suitable Case for (Feminist) Treatment?” In Judges: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series), edited by Athalya Brenner, 93–116. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.
Ruth Eunny P. Lee
Introduction Ruth occupies a unique place in the biblical canons in that it is the only book to be named after a foreign woman. Its title and Moabite heroine immediately raise questions of gender, ethnicity, and otherness. These thorny issues, however, are taken up subtly and are sometimes even obscured, in a story that on the surface reads like an idyll. Literary and ideological sensitivity therefore are necessary to appreciate more fully the complex dimensions of the text, some of which are in tension with one other.
Content, Structure, and Composition Often heralded as a model short story, Ruth has been crafted to move compellingly through various scenes before reaching a climax and denouement. It opens with a crisis—famine, displacement, barrenness, and death—that will be resolved in the end. At the center of this drama stands Naomi, who has been stripped of everything that gives her life meaning and security. And it takes the loyalty and resourcefulness of another woman, her daughter-in-law Ruth, to reconnect Naomi to her kinsman Boaz and reintegrate her within her community. Remarkably, this ancient story dwells extensively on women’s experience and women’s voices, so much so that some commentators have seriously entertained the possibility of female authorship. While that cannot be proven, the prominent presence of women invites readers to probe the ways in which it subverts, even as it serves, the concerns of patriarchal discourse. It demonstrates the possibility of recovering the
feminine, without idealizing the past or whitewashing its patriarchal tendencies. The narrative is structured symmetrically in four chapters that highlight the themes of loss and restoration. The first chapter, consisting of three scenes (family history of loss, 1:1–5; female negotiation of kinship ties, 1:6–18; Naomi’s lament before the women of Bethlehem, 1:19–22), is balanced by the three scenes of the final chapter (male negotiation of kinship ties, 4:1–12; celebration by women of Naomi’s restoration, 4:13–17; family history of fecundity, 4:18–22). Likewise, the middle chapters mirror one another (deliberation between Ruth and Naomi about means of survival, 2:1–3 and 3:1–5; encounter between Ruth and Boaz, 2:4– 17 and 3:6–15; Ruth’s report to Naomi, 2:18–23 and 3:16–18). The movement from emptiness to fullness is further underscored by a purposeful repetition of words and images that advances or rounds out important themes (see commentary).
Date and Purpose Scholars continue to debate the date of composition, with proposals ranging from the time of David and Solomon to the postexilic era. Arguments revolve around the language of the text, customs assumed in the story, literary parallels and their provenance, as well as its ideological or theological orientation. These criteria, subject to underlying assumptions and biases, have not produced a consensus. The combination of standard and late biblical Hebrew linguistic features suggests a transitional period in the language,
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allowing for a relatively broad window between the late preexilic to the early postexilic era. Some who date the book to a postexilic setting regard it as a protest against the exclusionary policies of Ezra and Nehemiah and the forced dissolution of foreign marriages (Ezra 9–10; Neh. 13). The inclusion of Ruth, in the line of David no less, was meant to subvert the establishment’s constrictive interpretation of who constitutes Israel. Others, who date the book earlier, posit that it originally functioned as an apologia for the Davidic dynasty. The depiction of David’s ancestors as models of piety and good conduct was a way to defend his pedigree (despite the Moabite lineage) and his right to the throne. The book, however, does not have an overtly polemical or propagandistic tone, and to tie it narrowly to a specific political agenda during a specific historical context runs the risk of obscuring its multiple layers of meaning—social, political, religious, as well as aesthetic. Ruth is a masterful literary composition, meant both to delight and to provide a model of faithfulness. It witnesses not only to divine hesed (covenantal faithfulness) but especially to human acts of hesed that are transgressive. That is, they defy convention and cross cultural boundaries and go beyond the requirements of Torah to ensure the preservation of a family, and by extension, the flourishing of a nation. In doing so, the book commends an inclusive attitude toward outsiders, challenging both personal and communal constructions of identity and otherness. Indeed, regardless of how the book is dated, it functions as an important counterpoint to those biblical texts that are not so hospitably disposed to the other. Neither is Ruth entirely innocent of the xenophobia that overtly characterizes texts such as those from Ezra and Nehemiah. But it treats this perennial issue in a way that highlights the possibility of mutual transformation by the presence of a stranger in “our” midst.
Canonical Context The Hebrew Bible places Ruth in the Writings (third section of the canon), among the five festal scrolls. Ruth is read publicly in synagogues during the feast of Weeks (Shavuot), which celebrates the harvest season, a prominent motif in the scroll. The feast also commemorates the giving of Torah to Moses, and this association too is appropriate for a story that features characters that model obedience to Torah by their extraordinary deeds of hesed. According to rabbinic tradition, this is the book’s primary theme, an assessment seconded by many. In Christian Bibles, the book is located between Judges and 1 Samuel (following the sequence of the Septuagint and Vulgate), as a kind of transition between the era when “there was no king in Israel” (Judg. 21:25) and the emergence of the Davidic monarchy. The connections to Israel’s larger historical narrative are made explicit in the book itself. The opening verse sets the narrative in the time of the judges, marked by warfare and increasing violence as the tribes of Israel vied to establish themselves in the land. In its final chapters, the book of Judges depicts a terrible escalation of violence in the brutal rape and dismemberment of a Levite’s concubine and the near annihilation of an entire tribe, saved only through further sexual violence against women. Next to these disturbing tales of moral disintegration, Ruth offers an alternative vision of a caring community. The book then ends with a genealogy of Israel’s preeminent king (4:17, 18–22; cf. references to Ephrathah/Bethlehem/Judah in 1:2 and 4:11, another Davidic connection). In this canonical context, the relationship between the tale of a Judean family—both its male and female members—and Israel’s larger story becomes more pronounced.
Comment Naomi’s Homecoming (Ruth 1:1–22) Prologue: Journey to Moab (Ruth 1:1–5) The opening verses briefly recount the migration of a Judean family to Moab. Moab holds the possibility of life when Bethlehem (literally, “house of bread”) has been depleted
by famine. But leaving home is often fraught with risk. In Genesis 12:10ff. and Genesis 26:1ff. (the two other OT texts that contain the exact phrase “there was a famine in the land”), sojourning into foreign lands endangers the safety of Israel’s matriarchs (Sarah and Rebekah, respectively) and the continuity of the
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family. Here in Ruth too, the journey to Moab threatens the very survival of a family, as all the men quickly succumb to death. Only Naomi remains. The narrative immediately focuses on how the tragedy impacts the woman, allowing her to emerge as its central subject. Whereas the family members are initially identified by their relationship to the patriarchal head of the household (1:2), they are all gradually identified with respect to Naomi (1:3, 5). But the primary characterization of her at the end of the prologue is as a woman bereft, “left without” her husband and her sons. In addition to famine and displacement, the trauma of widowhood has befallen her, all the more devastating for her because of the lack of male offspring. Indeed, the special protection afforded to widows in biblical law attests to Naomi’s extreme vulnerability. She is not entirely alone, however. Her sons had married Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. Apparently childless over the course of ten years, these unions provide no solace for Naomi, nor any hope for the family’s continuation. Hence, as the story moves forward in earnest, with no blood ties to hold them together, Naomi and her Moabite daughters-in-law must decide how best to secure a future for themselves, whether together or apart. Although the narrative does not elaborate on the significance of Moab/Moabites, the repetitive, almost redundant, naming of Moab/ Moabites (1:1–2, 6, 22; cf. 2:2, 6, 21; 4:5, 10) is fraught with background. The most memorable narratives concerning Moab are marked by scandal and animosity. Genesis 19:30–38 traces the nation’s origins to incest and duplicity, making Moabite women particularly dangerous, possessing the power to seduce Israelite men away from YHWH (cf. Num. 25:1–3; 1 Kgs. 11:1, 7, 33). Because of this ancient hostility (see also Num. 22–24; Judg. 3), Deuteronomy 23:3–6 forbids Moabites from entering Israel’s religious assembly, even to the tenth generation, and this prohibition later provides the rationale for the excommunication of foreign wives in Ezra and Nehemiah. But the Hebrew Bible is not univocal about Moab, which occupies an ambiguous place in Israel’s genealogical imagination. Despite the pejorative tone of Genesis 19, Moabites are nevertheless regarded as kin (offspring of Lot). Deuteronomy 2:1–25 remembers a peaceful procession through Moabite territory,
acknowledging that these distant relatives also possessed a promised land. The biblical evidence suggests that there was regular exchange between the two peoples, including intermarriage (cf. 1 Chr. 4:22; 8:8–10), with counterefforts to preserve ethnic and religious distinctiveness. Moab thus represents the familiar “other.” And often in the OT, danger lies not in the foreign “other” but in those close enough to pose the threat of assimilation. In Numbers 21 through Joshua 3, Israelites encamp for an extended period in the plains of Moab, overcoming various obstacles and relearning their heritage until they are finally ready to enter Canaan. Moab is thus a theologically evocative space, the boundary to the promised land. It represents the liminal, where strenuous cultural negotiations and identity (re)construction take place. Homeward (Ruth 1:6–18) Naomi too must work out a new identity and destiny. Hearing of YHWH’s provision of food, she sets out for her native land, initially accompanied by her daughters-in-law. But somewhere between Moab and Judah, they find themselves at a crossroad. The narrative slows down and shifts to dialogue, to give voice to what is at stake for the women, as each decides where home is. The key verb in this section is shuv (variously translated as “return, turn/go/ bring back”), which reinforces both the idea of separation and the idea of return. It marks nothing less than a change in social orientation. There is also an unusual concentration of kinship terminology (“mother’s house,” “husband’s house,” “daughters,” “sons,” “husbands,” “daughters-in-law,” “sister-in-law”), as well as references to two peoples (“your people,” “her people,” “my people”). Naomi employs these terms in her attempts to sever her ties with her daughters-in-law. She does so, first, by invoking YHWH’s blessing on Ruth and Orpah, which she firmly locates in their “mother’s house” (cf. Gen. 24:28; Song 3:4; 8:2) and ultimately in the house of a new husband. The two have acted faithfully (hesed) with her family, but she now entrusts them to YHWH’s care. When this fails to persuade them, she shifts from the mode of blessing to that of lament, insisting that, with her, there is only bitterness. Her tortuous speech moves from one hypothetical condition to another, in which she allows herself the fantasy of becoming
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a wife and mother again (a desirable and fertile woman), only to despair of the impossibility of it all. For Naomi, a woman’s hope lies only in the security provided by a patriarchal household that includes husbands and sons. The notion of offspring that may grow up to become husbands for her daughters-in-law is reminiscent of levirate marriage, the custom designed to protect widows within the family, as well as to ensure the preservation of the deceased husband’s name (see Deut. 25:5–10; Gen. 38). Naomi will eventually be redeemed by something of a levirate marriage. Her bitter protestations here, however, stand as a subtle critique of a social reality that makes women so dependent on men. Orpah yields to Naomi, but Ruth “clings” to her. The Hebrew verb expresses the deepest commitment, not unlike a man’s union with his wife, for which he must leave his father and mother (Gen. 2:24). Rather than forsaking Naomi, Ruth takes leave of her family of origin (cf. 2:11), even if that means venturing to unknown places and an unknown people. Indeed, her first words as an independent character—a solemn declaration of loyalty—define her in terms of solidarity with another woman. The unconventional bond between two women is all the more striking because they are motherin-law and daughter-in-law, a relationship often filled with tension and rivalry. Given the frequent negative interpretation of Orpah as one who turned her back, it is important to note that the narrative nowhere passes judgment on the woman who honors her own cultural roots and silently makes her exit. Her place in the story is secondary, designed to highlight Ruth’s extraordinary loyalty. Yet some women have found inspiration in Orpah’s independence and refusal to live self-sacrificially for her mother-in-law. This readerly response points to the danger of upholding Ruth’s loyalty uncritically as a universal role model. Naomi’s “Arrival” (Ruth 1:19–22) The appearance of Naomi and Ruth causes a commotion in Bethlehem. The women’s query—“Is this Naomi?”—expresses both delight and dismay. It is provoked, in part, by the poverty of her homecoming. Unlike other heroes, biblical and otherwise, who return home as a multitude (Jacob, for example, in Gen. 32–33), Naomi is accompanied only by an
unknown woman. The Moabite signifies Naomi’s estrangement from her land and people. The question also gives Naomi the opportunity to vent her despair. In poetic language that recalls Job’s indictment against God (esp. Job 27:2), she laments YHWH’s harsh and unjust treatment of her. Her use of the epithet “Shaddai” (traditionally translated as “Almighty”) is poignant in its irony, because outside of Job, it occurs predominantly in the ancestral narratives and is associated with the God of blessing and fecundity. The charge that God is responsible for her calamities amounts to a widow’s cry for redress, and the rest of the narrative will be occupied with its steady resolution. For now, Naomi disavows her name (meaning “pleasant” or “sweet”) and identifies herself as Mara (“bitter”). And with Ruth (meaning “saturation,” “refreshment,” or “fullness”) resolutely standing by her, she pronounces herself utterly “empty.” Why this silence about Ruth? Following the conventions of Hebrew narrative, readers are given minimal access to Naomi’s inner thoughts. Indeed, even after Ruth’s stirring vow of loyalty, the narrative simply reports that Naomi “said no more to her” (1:18). The pregnant silence allows for a range of interpretive possibilities, but one has to wonder whether the Israelite woman would have preferred to put Ruth and anything Moabite far behind her.
Gleaning for Survival (Ruth 2:1–23) Coping with Emptiness (Ruth 2:1–3) Ruth soon proves to be invaluable for Naomi. Chapter 2 begins by introducing Boaz and establishing his family connections with Naomi. Moreover, he is “a prominent rich man,” with the resources to provide the protective care his kinswoman needs. But the family ties become redemptive for Naomi only through Ruth’s initiative and industry. With her despondent mother-in-law offering no help, Ruth sets out to find someone who will allow her to glean in his field. Israelite law required landowners to practice a form of charity in which those with no land of their own—aliens, widows, and orphans—were permitted to gather the grain left by the harvesters (Lev. 19:9–10; 23:22; Deut. 24:19–22). Desperate to feed herself and her mother-in-law, Ruth resorts to this difficult work. “As it happened,” she providentially comes upon Boaz’s field.
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Encounter with Boaz (Ruth 2:4–17) A character’s first words are revealing, and Boaz appears on the scene pronouncing blessing. His next words express interest in the newcomer, probing the stranger’s possible connections to the community: Whose servant is she? Of what family and what people? From the foreman’s viewpoint, the most significant aspect of Ruth’s identity is her ethnicity. But he acknowledges that she is not entirely an outsider, adding that she had “returned with Naomi” from Moab. The narrative has already repeatedly underscored Boaz’s kinship with Naomi. So it is not surprising that Boaz next speaks directly to Ruth, addressing her as “my daughter,” much like Naomi. His demeanor, however, is markedly different. His first words (“do not go,” 2:8) reverse Naomi’s (“go, turn back,” 1:8; cf. 2:2). He urges her to “keep/stay close” (2:8, 21, 23) to his servants, just as Ruth “kept close” (NRSV “clung,” 1:14) to a resistant Naomi. The ensuing dialogue sets in motion a mutual transformation in their understanding of self and other. Ruth does not look for a way to “pass” as an Israelite; she acknowledges her ethnic difference. Yet this acknowledgment is embedded in a question of her own: “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice [nkr] of me, when I am a foreigner [nokriyyah]?” (2:10). The words “to take notice” and “foreigner” come from the same Hebrew root. Indeed, the former may itself mean “to recognize/acknowledge” or “to treat/act as a stranger,” depending on the conjugation. This contrary semantic development reflects the varied reactions one may have to what stands out as strange or different. Ruth’s carefully crafted question subtly confronts Boaz with a moral choice: will he regard her as a stranger or as one of his own? What began as an interrogation of Ruth’s identity thus becomes a moment of self-evaluation for Boaz. Ruth issues this implicit challenge while on her knees before the wealthy landowner, an appropriate posture for a destitute foreigner. She is aware of her vulnerable position as an outsider. Boaz too is aware. His insistence that she stay close to his female servants (2:8; cf. 2:21–23), and his warnings to the men not to touch or harm her (2:9; cf. 2:22) attest to the potential harassment she faces. The stories of violence in Judges 19–21 are a tragic reminder of what may happen when unruly men are set
loose upon defenseless women. Boaz, however, establishes himself as Ruth’s protector. Moreover, he invites her to the table at mealtime and serves her himself. He extends her gleaning privileges far beyond the norm, to ensure that she has a bountiful harvest. And this hospitality is practiced in a public setting, where he, the owner of the field, exercises considerable influence and authority. His words and actions thus function as an important moral witness. Emboldened by Boaz’s generosity, Ruth dares to identify herself as his “servant” (2:13), someone within the protective circle of an Israelite household, albeit on the lowest level of inclusion. She quickly retracts even this deferential term, lest she has overstepped her bounds, but she has begun to imagine herself in a category other than “foreigner,” and asks the same of Boaz. Nor does she shy away from calling Boaz to account for the divine blessing he invokes upon her (2:12). She deftly reminds him that she is in need of his favor. Moreover, the idiom “speak to the heart” (often translated as “speak kindly” or “tenderly”) has multiple nuances, including that of wooing a woman (see Gen. 34:3; Judg. 19:3; Hos. 2:16). Ruth’s language both communicates her gratitude and delicately suggests that she has been won over by him. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Boaz refrains from identifying himself as Naomi’s kinsman. Ruth must wait until Naomi informs her of the full significance of his kindness. The delay may be a narrative strategy meant to build suspense and heighten delight when a newly animated Naomi excitedly reveals that Boaz is “a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin” (2:20). But perhaps Boaz’s silence also indicates a deep-seated ambivalence concerning the Moabite. When Ruth happens upon the portion of the field that belongs to Naomi’s kinsman and he “recognizes” her, it all seems very promising. But instead of claiming her as family, he tacitly upholds her self-definition as “stranger” and “your servant, though . . . not one of your servants” (2:13). Seeds of Hope (Ruth 2:18–23) This section marks the beginning of Naomi’s movement from emptiness to fullness. When she “sees” the abundance of Ruth’s gleanings, Naomi’s self-perception begins to change. Moreover, the leftovers from a satisfying meal signal to her that Ruth was met with extraordinary kindnesses as she gleaned. Learning
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the identity of the benefactor—Boaz!—finally opens her eyes to the kindness of God still at work in her life. She had formerly identified herself with the dead (1:8); now she places herself among the living (2:20). The critical point is that Boaz is her kinsman-redeemer (go’el, NRSV “nearest kin”), a close relative with the responsibility of protecting the rights of a family and reclaiming what is lost to it (see Lev. 25; Num. 5:5–8; Deut. 19:6–13). His generous provisions give Naomi hope that he may hold the key to their long-term survival.
Ruth’s “Repair” in the Night (Ruth 3:1–18) Desperate Measures (Ruth 3:1–5) With the end of the harvest season, the women can no longer count on Ruth’s daily gleanings, and they remain alone (2:23). Naomi now takes the lead in securing a future for Ruth (and for herself), reciprocating Ruth’s earlier initiative. As in 1:9, finding “security” implies finding a husband, since the women have no protection or standing on their own. Boaz has made no move, so Naomi instructs Ruth to beautify herself and seek him out at the threshing floor, where he has been winnowing grain. It is risky business to send out a young woman alone at night, to a place where men have been laboring hard and possibly drinking hard. Hosea 9:1 associates the place with illicit sexual activity. The sense of danger is compounded when Naomi tells Ruth to keep herself hidden until an opportune moment, then uncover his “feet” (the Hebrew may mean “legs”; the more common word for “feet” is sometimes a euphemism for genitals), lie down next to him, and wait for the man to tell her what to do. The sexual overtones that permeate the chapter (repetitive use of the verbs “to lie down,” “to enter,” “to know”) further underscore Ruth’s sexual vulnerability. The scenario is reminiscent of Hebrew Bible narratives in which women use trickery and sexuality to force a man’s hand, to manipulate those in power to do right by them (see Gen. 19:30–38; 29:21–30; 38:6–26). Rather than condemning such tactics, these narratives memorialize the desperate struggles of women who have few or no other options, who risk everything just to survive. They have a mimetic function, forcing us to see where unjust socioeconomic structures place women in a similar plight today.
Scandal and Valor (Ruth 3:6–15) The atmosphere is marked by secrecy, ambiguity, and danger. Identities are kept hidden; the narrative speaks only of “the man” and “the woman.” But the night becomes a moment of uncovering on multiple levels. The scene repeatedly employs words related to “knowing/not knowing” and “recognizing/not recognizing” (3:2, 3, 4, 11, 14, 18) to suggest the interplay between concealment and disclosure. Ruth moves stealthily toward an unsuspecting Boaz and uncovers him. He is “startled” (3:8). The Hebrew verb, often communicating panic or alarm, suggests that the moment is radically destabilizing. Perhaps he fears what may have happened in the night with the stranger lying beside him. Perhaps he trembles at his exposure. He demands to know who has encroached upon his space. Departing from the measured tone in 2:5, he poses the question to the woman directly and urgently: “Who are you?” Ruth identifies herself by name, the first to do so in the story. Then, instead of awaiting the man’s instructions, she asks him to “spread his cloak” over her (3:9), a metaphor for espousal (cf. Ezek 16:8). She effectively proposes marriage, using the very language that Boaz used earlier to bless her (the Hebrew uses the same word for “cloak” and “wings,” 2:12). She thus suggests that he can make good on his prayer and provide the protective cover that he invoked in YHWH’s name. And as a basis for her daring request, she reminds him that he is a kinsman-redeemer (go’el, 3:9). In response to Boaz’s interrogation of her identity, she confronts him with a neglected dimension of his own identity. Her audacity shocks him into recognition. The resonances with Tamar’s story suggest that Boaz has a moment of epiphany. Judah declares of Tamar, “She is more in the right than I” (Gen. 38:26); Boaz confesses to Ruth, “You are a worthy woman” (3:11). The Hebrew word for “worth” may also indicate “strength,” “valor,” or “wealth” and is used to describe Boaz as a “prominent rich man” (2:1). Boaz thus acknowledges Ruth as a fitting mate (even an ideal wife, cf. Prov. 31:10), equal to him in strength of character. He also commends her latest instance of “loyalty” (hesed, 3:10), understanding that she has chosen him over a husband that appeals to her personally, out of faithfulness to Naomi’s family.
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Boaz will no longer let ethnic or socioeconomic barriers stand in his way. There is, however, a possible complication, another kinsman-redeemer with prior rights. But Boaz vows to see to Ruth’s needs, one way or another. He begins by giving her lodging for the night and by ensuring that no one knows of her scandalous visit to the threshing floor. Then he sends her home, once again loaded with plentiful grain. “Emptiness” Revisited (Ruth 3:16–18) Naomi welcomes Ruth back by asking, “How did things go with you, my daughter?” The Hebrew reads literally, “Who are you, my daughter?” Prompted by the awkward formulation, the ancient rabbis deliberate: “Did she then not recognize her? Yes, but she meant, ‘Are you still a virgin or a married woman?’” (Rabinowitz, 84). In other words, Naomi wants to know if anything happened at the threshing floor to change her circumstances. But perhaps the inquiry does in fact convey a persisting lack of recognition. The question echoes Boaz’s panicked interrogation of Ruth in 3:9, and may reflect, however subtly, his hesitations about the foreigner. Ruth appears to catch something of the anxiety. She presents Boaz’s grain, claiming, “He said, ‘Do not go back to your mother-inlaw empty-handed.’” The language of “emptyhanded” recalls Naomi’s lament in 1:21 that YHWH had brought her back from Moab “empty,” while Ruth stood beside her unacknowledged. In these final words of the two women, the narrative, with some irony, allows Ruth to counter that earlier judgment and articulate her own worth.
Redemption and Resolution (Ruth 4:1–22) The Town Gate (Ruth 4:1–12) Just as Naomi predicted (3:18), Boaz moves quickly to settle the matter. The gate represents the legal assembly of the town, where its male citizens determine judicial and economic cases. It is a locus of male power and privilege. But it is also where social justice is to be upheld for the most needy members of society (see Amos 5:12, 15). Boaz ceremoniously gathers the nearer kinsman-redeemer and a quorum of elders to conduct his business. The deliberation initially centers around the redemption of Elimelech’s land, which falls within the duties of the kinsman-redeemer (Lev. 25:25–28). But
Boaz then ties the land redemption with marriage to Ruth, for the preservation of “the dead man’s name upon his inheritance” (cf. Deut. 25:5–9). The legal issues are difficult, and further complicated by scribal disagreement over the Hebrew text in 4:5. The dual responsibility, first suggested by Ruth (3:9), is unprecedented in biblical law, but both Boaz and the men at the gate seem to accept it. More important than the legalities is the skill with which Boaz maneuvers the right outcome for Ruth and Naomi. He goes beyond legal requirements to protect not only Elimelech’s patrimony but also the women’s welfare. Accordingly, the narrative that has belabored the importance of a man’s name memorializes Boaz’s (4:11, 21), while deliberately suppressing that of the nearer kinsman (he is called “So-and-so”; NRSV “friend”). However, as the witnesses at the gate heap their blessings of fecundity and renown upon Boaz, they invoke the names of Israel’s matriarchs, Rachel and Leah, “who together built up the house of Israel,” as well as Tamar, who bore a son to Judah. Building houses is ultimately a divine prerogative (see 2 Sam. 7:5, 11, 27; 1 Kgs. 11:38; Ps. 127:1). Yet Bethlehem’s court of justice cannot but acknowledge the critical agency and partnership of women in the founding of its dynasty. Women’s World (Ruth 4:13–17) The story finds its formal resolution in 4:1– 12, with its male principal actors. This section offers a countertestimony about the significance of that event. It first reports succinctly that YHWH blesses Ruth’s union with Boaz by giving her conception. Throughout the book, God’s name appears predominantly in the speech of God-centered people who invoke blessing on one another. The blessings are worked out as the story progresses, often by the very ones who utter and receive them. Divine providence and human agency are therefore inseparable. Ruth 4:13, the only time the narrative directly reports divine activity, is a reminder that fruitfulness is finally God’s gift (cf. 1:6). Ruth is the bearer of that gift; without her the preceding negotiations fall short of their intended purpose. The narrative then returns to the perspective of the women of Bethlehem, who celebrate YHWH’s blessing upon Naomi. Witnesses to her lament in 1:20–21, they now rejoice in her full restoration, made possible because of the
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“kinsman-redeemer” (NRSV “next-of-kin”) given by God through Ruth. It is no small matter that, at the climax of their blessing, they praise Ruth’s love for her mother-in-law, declaring her to be more valuable than seven sons. But Ruth is absent from the scene (except in the women’s praise). Indeed, it is somewhat troubling that Naomi takes Ruth’s child into her bosom, and her kinswomen declare, “A son has been born to Naomi.” Does this suggest that the Moabite and her child must somehow be naturalized before inclusion in the household? The unusual birth announcement, however, departs from convention in several ways. Neither the biological mother nor the father is in view; it says nothing of the meaning of the newborn’s name. It is crafted, instead, to highlight the primary beneficiary of his birth. The focus on Naomi’s fullness is intended to round out the problem of emptiness set up so poignantly at the start. Despite railing against God’s bitter providence, or perhaps because she courageously did so, Naomi returns center stage and is wholly reintegrated into her community. Finally, despite the marginalization of the Moabite mother, her otherness cannot be expunged. It has been deeply inscribed in the narrative by its propensity to distinguish her by her ancestry. Ruth the Moabite too has been incorporated into Israel, generating an ongoing self-interrogation and transformation of Israel’s self-understanding, all the more pressing because of Ruth’s place in the lineage of Israel’s hero. Indeed, in early Jewish interpretation, David’s dubious origins posed a scandal that had to be addressed exegetically and theologically. In his defense, the rabbis repeatedly appeal to a revision of the law prohibiting Moabites from entering Israel’s assembly (Deut. 23:3): “Moabite [is prohibited], but not Moabitess.” Given the repetitive insistence, the gendered reading should not be dismissed as fanciful rabbinic exegesis. It registers a profound anxiety about Israel’s very identity. The Moabite within Israel represents a destabilizing force that subverts rigid constructions of identity and necessitates an ongoing openness to the other. Genealogy (Ruth 4:18–22) The genealogy, perhaps a later addition, incorporates the women’s story into a chronicle
of patrilineal descent. The official record sees procreation exclusively as a male phenomenon. But at this point in the book, it is impossible to read this steady succession of males without relishing the pivotal role of women. Indeed, it stands as a reminder that any androcentric discourse that erases the agency of women is partial and deficient. Moreover, the genealogy begins with Perez, the son born of Judah’s shameful union with Tamar. It turns out that neither of Obed’s parents has a pure pedigree, but that does not prevent Boaz’s honored seventh position in the genealogy. In the NT, Ruth’s place is valorized by her inclusion in the Matthean genealogy (Matt. 1:1–16), where she is joined by Tamar, Rahab (Josh. 2; 6:22–26), and “the wife of Uriah,” the Hittite (2 Sam. 11). These women of questionable repute and non-Israelite descent prepare the way for the scandal of Jesus’ origins (Mary’s extraordinary conception), and for the gospel’s gracious inclusion of all nations. Bibliography
Brenner, Athalya, ed. A Feminist Companion to Ruth. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Lapsley, Jacqueline. “The Word Whispered: Bringing It All Together.” In Whispering the Word: Hearing Women’s Stories in the Old Testament, 89–108. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. Lee, Eunny P. “Ruth the Moabite: Identity, Kinship, and Otherness.” In Engaging the Bible in a Gendered World: An Introduction to Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, edited by Linda Day and Caroline Pressler, 89–101. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Pardes, Ilana. “The Book of Ruth: Idyllic Revisionism.” In Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach, 98–117. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Rabinowitz, L. Midrash Rabbah: Ruth, Ecclesiastes. London: Soncino Press, 1939. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. Ruth. Interpretation Series. Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1999.
1 and 2 Samuel Jo Ann Hackett
Introduction Composition and Literary Structure
Summary of Contents
The books of 1 and 2 Samuel are a gold mine for readers interested in women in ancient Israel. Many of the narratives concern women, more or less centrally. There are stories about royal women involved in events that had major political repercussions throughout Israel, but there are also narratives in which nonroyal women play a significant role: Hannah, the medium at Endor, and the two “wise women” from Israel’s villages. There is also a surprising amount of incidental information about women’s lives, so much that there is simply no room here for every interesting detail. First and Second Samuel are part of a larger work known as the Deuteronomistic History (DH) that traces the history of Israel from the conquest to the exile in the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. The editors of the Deuteronomistic History used already-existing narratives, adding interpretive material at various points. The extent of Deuteronomistic revising and editing is not consistent in the various books. In Samuel there is very little of the sometimes heavy-handed interpretive comment that one finds in the book of Judges, with its system of divine rewards and punishments, and in 1 and 2 Kings, with their judgments on the reigns of each king. In Samuel the narratives are for the most part allowed to speak for themselves, and editorial activity is most conspicuous in the simple arrangement of originally separate stories into several cycles (e.g., the stories of Saul’s reign, the narratives of David’s rise, and so forth).
The books of Samuel are organized around the careers of Samuel, Saul, and David. They begin with the story of Hannah and her giving birth to Samuel, and Samuel’s early life at the Shiloh sanctuary (1 Sam. 1–3). Then come narratives about the ark, the portable chest that was said to contain the tablets of the law and that represents the invisible presence of YHWH within the community (1 Sam. 4–6). Chapter 7 reports Samuel’s activities as judge in the context of the ever-present conflicts with the Philistines. Israel’s desire for a king is the topic of chapters 8–12 and the occasion for the introduction of their first king, Saul. The story of Saul’s struggle with the Philistines and his loss of his dynasty continues through chapter 15. David is introduced in chapter 16, and in chapter 17 he is reintroduced in the famous Goliath story. At first Saul is pleased to have David as part of his court. The focus of the narrative quickly shifts, however, to the rivalry between the two for the affections of Saul’s family and of Israel as a whole; to Saul’s attempts to kill David; and to David’s flight from Saul, which takes him ultimately into the company of the Philistine enemy (1 Sam. 18–27; 29–30). In chapter 28, when Saul has lost all contact with YHWH but desires to know the outcome of his upcoming battle with the Philistines, he has a medium call up the spirit of Samuel, whose death was reported in chapter 25. As Samuel predicts, Saul loses the battle, in which he and three of his sons die. The book of 1 Samuel ends with a major character’s death, as do
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Genesis, Deuteronomy, and Joshua (the deaths of Joseph, Moses, and Joshua). The book of 2 Samuel begins with David’s reaction to the deaths, particularly Saul’s and Jonathan’s (2 Sam. 1). It moves on to David’s gradual acquisition of the thrones of both Judah and Israel, and of Jerusalem as his capital city (2 Sam. 2–5). In chapter 6 David brings the ark to his new capital, and in chapter 7 he is promised an eternal dynasty. Second Samuel 8–10; 21; and 23:8–39 recount David’s military administration and accomplishments. David’s affair with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11–12), the wife of one of his soldiers, is a watershed, marking the beginning of a downward spiral for David and his family. Chapter 13 is the story of the rape of David’s daughter Tamar by one of his sons, Amnon, and the consequent killing of Amnon by another son, Absalom. Absalom flees and is brought back on the advice of a “wise woman” (2 Sam. 14) and immediately
begins his attempt to take over the throne from David (2 Sam. 15–19), an attempt that ends in Absalom’s death. Chapter 20 reports another revolt against David’s throne and the intervention of another wise woman. The books of Samuel end with an assortment of pieces. Second Samuel 22 (=Ps. 18) is thought to be a very old poem of thanksgiving, here attributed to David; the beginning of chapter 23 is another lovely poem, generally known as “the last words of David,” about the relationship between YHWH and Israel’s rulers. Chapter 24 begins with the story of David’s census of Israel and Judah, presumably for military draft and taxation purposes, and the plague that resulted because of YHWH’s anger with the census. The final verses in Samuel record David’s purchase of the threshing floor of Araunah, where he erects an altar at the place that will later be the site of the temple of Solomon.
Comment Roles of Women in 1 and 2 Samuel Despite the apparent abundance of information about women in 1 and 2 Samuel, the reader needs to be careful not to assume that the narratives are simply straightforward historical accounts. It is extremely difficult to judge the extent to which the narratives give information about the historical Bathsheba, for instance. Part of the problem is that the persons involved in the narratives are never mentioned in contemporary writings outside the Bible (with the recently discovered exception of the phrase “House of David,” used to identify Judah in a ninth-century Aramaic inscription from Tel Dan). Further, some of the stories in 1 and 2 Samuel are shaped according to traditional storytelling patterns, making it difficult to separate historical facts from the storyteller’s art. In sum, it would be hazardous to use these narratives to try to reconstruct a historical biography of Michal or Abigail. But the stories do show how Israel’s early narratives remembered and represented women and their involvement in this formative period of Israel’s history, and they were remembered in a way that made sense to the ancient audience. Even if one must be cautious in moving from the stories about women to historical
knowledge of their individual lives, that is not to say that 1 and 2 Samuel can tell nothing about how women actually lived. The biblical narratives are full of information about women’s lives. The authors did not specifically intend, so far as we know, to record for posterity the details of women’s lives; rather, they seem to have included these details quite incidentally, with little attempt to make them fit a particular religious or political agenda. Ironically, it is precisely because these details are mentioned just “in passing” that they might be historically reliable. As valuable as this incidental information is, however, its fragmentary nature and the difficulty of confirming it from other sources mean that one should remain cautious in estimating how much one can know about women’s lives in early Israel. With these cautions in mind, one can collect important information about women’s roles scattered throughout the books of Samuel. The following list is not exhaustive but includes the most important of those scattered notices. The intersection between domestic events and public affairs is reflected in the brief account of how a woman who is not named, the wife of Phinehas, gives birth to a child during a battle in which the Philistines defeat Israel’s
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armies (1 Sam. 4:19–22). As was undoubtedly typical, women attend at her childbirth. Their words to her, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son,” suggest that bearing a son is more important than bearing a daughter. The woman herself names the child, and the name she chooses, Ichabod (explained in the text as “the glory has departed”), reflects her concern for public, national events: “She said, ‘The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured’” (1 Sam. 4:22). There are also many scattered mentions of women as victims of war, both Israelite women and Amalekite women: women killed in holy war (1 Sam. 15:3); women bereaved by war (1 Sam. 15:33); women and children killed alongside men in a revenge attack (1 Sam. 22:19); women killed as part of a general annihilation to leave no witnesses (1 Sam. 27:9, 11); women as captives recovered and restored (1 Sam. 30). As in most societies, the warriors in Israel all seem to have been male. First Samuel 21:4–5 observes that in order to be eligible to eat holy bread, soldiers are required to have kept themselves from women. First and Second Samuel disclose only a little information about the religious roles of women. According to 1 Samuel 2:22 (cf. Exod. 38:8), there were “women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting,” the major religious shrine of Israel before the building of the temple. It is not certain what the exact service of these women was. There is no evidence for the suggestion sometimes made that they were cultic prostitutes (see the commentary on Hosea). Although their service was somehow involved in cultic matters, it was apparently not priestly. Probably, like that of the Levites, it was more concerned with physical, day-to-day maintenance of the tent and its apparatus than with blood sacrifice itself, something women are almost never involved with throughout the world (see the discussion in Jay). In the story of Hannah, for instance, all blood sacrifice involves Hannah’s husband, Elkanah, and the priests. Even in 1 Samuel 1:24–25, where Hannah brings the sacrificial animals to Shiloh, the verbs switch to the plural when the actual sacrifice is made (1 Sam. 1:25), presumably to signify that the priests, or Elkanah and the priests, perform the ritual. The sacrifice, of course, is part of the fulfillment of the vow that Hannah had previously made when she asked YHWH to give her a son. That women made
religious vows and incurred obligations is also recognized in the law of Numbers 30:3–16, where the conditions under which a father or husband may and may not annul the vow are stipulated. The involvement of women in religious activities outside the official cult will be discussed below in connection with the medium of Endor. The reader gets other glimpses of women’s world and work. There are references to young women who come out to draw water (1 Sam. 9:11–13); to a nurse who saves Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth when Saul and Jonathan die (2 Sam. 4:4); to women as mourners, when the Israelite women are encouraged to mourn Saul (2 Sam. 1:24); and to women as singers of victory songs, when the Israelite women sing of Saul and David (1 Sam. 18:7; 21:11; 29:5) and when the daughters of the Philistines are imagined as rejoicing over the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1:20). That a man who holds a spindle is a sign of a curse suggests that spinning wool was a woman’s occupation and improper for a man (2 Sam. 3:29). Other occupations filled by women include those of perfumer, cook, and baker (1 Sam. 8:13). These details, as precious as they are, also serve as a measure of how little is known about the lives of women in early Israel.
Issues of Particular Interest to Gender Studies No discussion of women’s lives and the sources of their power in 1 and 2 Samuel can be undertaken without an attempt to describe some of the features of the society the narrative assumes. The books of Samuel describe Israel as a society where power was becoming centralized, inherited, and hierarchical, that is, the kind of society where men tend to dominate positions of public power. Such a society is different from the one described in the book of Judges, where there are only the beginnings of centralized, inherited power. In Judges there is in general a decentralized society more open to “charismatic” leadership. Decentralized charismatic power can lead to a society that is more chaotic and less stable than one with an inherited monarchy, but it is also the kind of society in which women may hold positions of public power more easily or more commonly. It is then not surprising that there is no Deborah or Jael in the books of Samuel.
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Royal women can be an exception to this general rule, sometimes wielding a great deal of power: when no male of the appropriate bloodline is available to rule, a royal woman can fill the position. But in the books of Samuel even the royal women are not rulers, whatever else they may be. All women in a patriarchal society derive much of their power from their family position, and in a royal family in particular this can mean a great deal of jockeying for power: it is desirable to be the chief wife of a king, or the wife who bears the heir (a wife who, if she outlives her husband, will be the queen mother). This kind of lobbying is not obvious in the books of Samuel, but will be immediately afterward in the story of Bathsheba’s involvement in Solomon’s rise to the throne in 1 Kings 1–2. In the social organization represented by 1 and 2 Samuel, the primary forms of authority are passed down from father to son, regardless of the moral qualities of the son. The priesthood, the role of judge, and the monarchy are all represented as hereditary, and male only. Eli’s two sons become priests, even though they are described in derogatory terms (1 Sam. 2:12–17, 22–25, 27–36; 3:10–14). Samuel’s sons seem to inherit his office as judge, in spite of their poor qualifications (1 Sam. 8:1–3). Saul’s loss of the kingship is really a loss of dynasty, in which his son would become king after him, since he personally remains king until he dies (1 Sam. 13:8–15a; 15:1–35). The royal theology expressed in 2 Samuel 7 declares that a son of David will rule after him (2 Sam. 7:12–14a). In most societies, the more hierarchically organized and centralized public power is, the less likely it is that women will hold positions of public power. This analysis holds true within the institutional forms of power depicted in the books of Samuel. Given such a situation, it is not surprising that three stories about women wielding public power in the books of Samuel concern women who are depicted as operating in areas somewhat removed from, and therefore less dependent on, the central monarchical government. Saul appeals to a medium at Endor and assumes her ability to help him when his usual means of contacting YHWH fail (1 Sam. 28). The two stories of “wise women” in Tekoa and Abel of Beth-maacah (2 Sam. 14 and 20) assume the status and authority of these two women. It is impossible to write of gender in the society in question without considering the lives of men as well as those of women. In
particular in 1 and 2 Samuel, David, as a character, is not only part of many important stories about women, but is also intimately connected with several men in his life. The long story of his defeat of the Philistine Goliath (1 Sam. 17) is preceded by one story in which his lyre-playing soothes King Saul’s outbursts (1 Sam. 16) and another in which his own brothers are suspicious of his ambition and arrogance (1 Sam. 17:24–30). Much of the rest of 1 Samuel is a playing out of the relationship between David and Saul, including David’s relations with Saul’s family, especially Michal and Jonathan. In 2 Samuel we read of David’s difficult relationships with his own sons Amnon and Absalom, and their part in the struggle for a successor to David will only finally be played out between two other sons, Adonijah and Solomon (at the beginning of 1 Kings). In sum, the books of Samuel do not describe a great deal of public power for women, although on a local level there is perhaps a hint of power that operates outside the centralized government and religious establishments. Most of the women mentioned are royal women who derive their power not from ruling but from their relationships to ruling men. The centralization of the government and the beginning of centralization of worship in Jerusalem brought with them traditions of inherited male power that meant fewer public positions for women. The stories in the books of Samuel are also notable for their illustrations of relationships between women and men and between men and men.
1 Samuel 1–7 Status, Power, and Children: The Story of Hannah (1 Sam. 1–2) The books of Samuel begin with the story of the birth of a son to a woman previously childless. According to the narrative, Hannah, the favored wife of Elkanah, has no children, because YHWH has “closed her womb.” Hannah is not Elkanah’s only wife. His other wife, Peninnah, has several sons and daughters and torments Hannah because of the differences in their families. This motif occurs elsewhere in biblical narrative: a similar story is told about the sisters Rachel and Leah, both wives of Jacob, in Genesis 29–30. One of the implications of both of these narratives is that children were seen as a solace or even compensation to a woman whose
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relationship with her husband was not good enough to fill her emotional needs. First Samuel 1 goes further, however, and actually suggests that, from a man’s point of view, a woman with a happy marriage need not be distraught about not having any children. Hannah’s situation made her very unhappy, especially at the time of the annual sacrifice, when she would cry and would not eat. Elkanah’s reaction to Hannah’s unhappiness is worth noting: “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1:8). This response, hardly that of a patriarch who can see value in women only as childbearers, implies the possibility of a relationship in which love was more important than childbearing. It should be noted, however, that Elkanah was not himself childless. His society gave him the opportunity, and he was apparently able to afford to have both a wife to love and a wife to make children. Since he had already filled his need for a family to remember and honor him (the only kind of “immortality” known to these narratives), his lack of understanding for Hannah’s unhappiness begins to look less sentimental and more naive or even insensitive. Even more important, however, is the future Hannah would have as a childless woman. Since men were usually considerably older than the young women they married, it is likely Hannah would have outlived Elkanah. At marriage, Hannah would have become part of Elkanah’s family and the responsibility of the men in the family. We do not know whether Elkanah had other male kin who would have supported Hannah upon his death, but if not, and if she herself had no children (particularly sons), she would have become kinless, a fringe member of society; without a son (or son-in-law?) to support her, she would have only a life of extreme poverty to look forward to. Hence the frequent biblical refrain that the good Israelite gives alms to the fatherless and the widow: both are without males in their kin group and so are wards of the society and dependent on its largesse. Hannah, then, while she may have loved her husband, still needed children: for her future support, as we have seen, but also for her position in the society she lived in. A woman’s prestige was based at least partly on her demonstrated ability to produce offspring. It was in such a situation that Peninnah could torment her. The same situation is behind verse 5, where the extent of Hannah’s participation in the
celebration of the sacrifice was determined by the number of her children. Such an attitude is reflected even in the narrator’s choice of words: it was YHWH who closed Hannah’s womb. To the narrator, and presumably his audience, childlessness was not understood as a physical phenomenon, but as a decision of God—and, indeed, in some instances as a punishment from God (see Gen. 20). Hannah seems to agree with this understanding and takes her case directly to YHWH. If it is YHWH who “closed her womb,” only YHWH can give her children. She goes to the sanctuary and vows that if YHWH will give her a son, she will, in effect, give him back to YHWH as a temple servant. This vow is in itself telling: far from wanting a child for emotional comfort, she is offering to forgo the pleasure of having him with her while he is growing up. She needs simply to give birth to a son. At that point her societal position and her future will be secure, even though she would live in the present without him in the household. It is possible to take another view of Hannah’s vow, however, that is perhaps more nuanced. In Israel, one gave the firstfruits of animals and of the harvest to YHWH, probably in hopes of receiving in return the blessing of continued fertility. (See, e.g., Exod. 13:2, 12–15; 23:16, 19a; 34:19–20, 22, 26a; while continued fertility is nowhere explicitly named as a motive, the covenant blessings and curses in Lev. 26 and Deut. 28 supply broader fertility motives for Israel’s ritual system.) If Hannah’s offer to dedicate her firstborn to YHWH can be seen in this light, her motives are more complex. She does not simply desire a secure future, or the societal status and relief from rival-wife torment that bearing a son would bring, but also “offers up” her firstborn to YHWH in hopes of receiving more children in return. The priest Eli operates within the same frame of reference and, after Samuel’s birth and dedication to his temple, habitually blesses Elkanah this way: “May YHWH repay you with children by this woman [Hannah] for the gift [Samuel] that she made to YHWH” (1 Sam. 2:20). And this is what happens: Hannah bears three sons and two daughters (1 Sam. 2:21). Meanwhile Samuel grew up literally “in the presence of YHWH.” Following the story of Samuel’s being taken to Shiloh to live with Eli comes the Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1–10). Most scholars suggest that the insertion of this song into the narrative is
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secondary, since there seems to be little detailed connection between the song and the narrative that surrounds it. Further, it mentions a king, although in the surrounding narrative Israel does not yet have a king. The song does, however, include themes appropriate to Hannah’s story. It is, after all, a hymn of praise for good fortune that is attributed to YHWH. The theme of reversal is particularly appropriate for Hannah’s story as told in the surrounding narrative. Verses 4, 5a, and 8a describe general reversals of fortune with no obvious application in Hannah’s story, but verse 5b reports the overturning of the status quo between a previously childless woman and a woman who had many children (“the barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn”). Even if this phrase was originally used in the poem as a general illustration, in the poem’s secondary setting in Hannah’s narrative the phrase obviously takes on significance as a reference to Hannah and Peninnah’s relationship. Some of the expressions of praise included in this song may seem odd to us in a poem that purports to be written by a woman: for instance, the use of martial language in verse 1 (“my mouth derides my enemies”), verse 4 (“the bows of the mighty are broken”), verses 9–10 (“for not by might does one prevail. YHWH! His adversaries shall be shattered”). But women in ancient Israel are often credited with singing battle songs (see Exod. 15:20–21; Judg. 5; 11:34; 1 Sam. 18:7; 21:11; 29:5; 2 Sam. 1:20). There is significance to incorporating into a narrative of childbirth a poem that includes language and themes appropriate to a wide range of Israel’s religious life: thanksgiving and praise of holiness, defeat of enemies, wisdom, battle, creation and power over life and death, storm god imagery, YHWH’s relationship to chosen leaders. This juxtaposition has the effect of recognizing, without fanfare, fertility in childbirth as an issue equal in importance to the others and worthy of the attention of YHWH and of Israel’s singers. Fertility and childbirth are mainstream religious issues in this literature and are not treated separately from other pressing matters.
1 Samuel 8–31 David and Saul (1 Sam. 8–16) Much of 1 Samuel is dedicated to the fact that Israel’s first king did not establish the dynasty that offers stability to united Israel and
later the southern kingdom of Judah; rather, David did. Because of the switch from Saul’s family to David’s, it is possible to view David as a usurper, but the narrator is at pains to avoid that interpretation. At the beginning of his story, Saul is clearly the man whose family will make Israel “like other nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). The establishment of a monarchy, as opposed to the earlier charismatic rule by judges, presupposes a dynasty, an office that would be passed down from father to son. It is actually this kind of stability in rule that the Israelites ask Samuel for. There are in fact three entire stories with three different reasons for Saul’s choice as Israel’s king (and the one expected to establish a dynasty): (1) God’s choice of Saul and Samuel’s anointing him, in 10:1, presumably because of Saul’s handsome looks and stature (1 Sam. 9:2); (2) Saul’s choice by lot in 10:21–24; and (3) Saul’s deliverance of Jabesh-Gilead from the Ammonites, demonstrating his prowess in war (1 Sam. 10:27–11:15 [beginning with the episode added to the NRSV from a text of Samuel found at Qumran]). All three stories imply that Saul’s masculinity was an important factor in his choice as king: in the first two his height is mentioned as a “kingly” trait, and in the third his violent dealings with both a yoke of oxen and with the Ammonites cause even skeptical Israelites to praise his choice as king. The scene is soon set, however, for Saul’s attempt to establish a dynasty to fail. When his army becomes tired of waiting for Samuel to offer a burnt sacrifice before the battle begins (as a way of determining YHWH’s approval of the battle and assurance of a victory), Saul offers the sacrifice himself (1 Sam. 13:8–9). Samuel comes immediately afterward and tells Saul that since he offered the sacrifice and did not wait as Samuel had instructed him, YHWH has changed his mind and will not “establish [Saul’s] kingdom over Israel forever.” In fact, YHWH has already found a replacement (which we know to be David, although he is not mentioned here). As if none of this has happened, Saul is again castigated by Samuel in chapter 15 for not destroying absolutely everything the army captured in a battle with the Amalekites. Again, Samuel says that YHWH has found another to take Saul’s place, but this time also says that Saul himself has been rejected as king (1 Sam. 15:26–28). Since Saul does not die for some time and remains king until the day of
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his death, Samuel’s use of “king” here can only mean that YHWH has rejected Saul as the man who would provide the future dynasty. In two very different stories, David insinuates himself into Saul’s entourage, and their stormy relationship begins. In the first story in chapter 16, YHWH commands Samuel to anoint David king despite his lack of stature. Later, this same David is brought to an unsuspecting Saul in order to play the lyre and soothe Saul’s disappointment with his situation. Saul is said to “love” David greatly and to make him his armor-bearer. Then in chapter 17, David’s meeting with Goliath is recounted, and in this story Saul again does not know David, yet he is impressed with the young man. David and Goliath (1 Sam. 17) Up to this point, besides the fact that YHWH has told Samuel to anoint him, David has shown no special qualities that would qualify him to rule Israel as king: it is the battle with Goliath that establishes David as a potential leader for Israel. What may seem to be a story about the powerless young David overcoming the arrogant Philistine warrior can also be read as a deliberate attempt on David’s part to display his masculine traits, despite his youth and unimpressive physique. David’s brother Eliab certainly thinks that David is up to no good (1 Sam. 17:28) and that he should stay at home with the sheep, where he belongs. David brags, however, even in front of Saul, that he has tackled far worse than Goliath while guarding his sheep (a clear metaphor for his future). Furthermore, he is not simply a keen (or lucky) shot with a stone, because after he stuns Goliath, he kills him with his own sword and cuts off his head. This is hardly the act of an eager kid who just wants to see some action in the war but rather a deliberate attempt to display his power to Israel, to Saul (and to us). Again, his fierce killing of Goliath, his public masculinity, is what first proves that YHWH’s choice has been shrewd. David and Jonathan (1 Sam. 18:1–5) Jonathan, Saul’s son and king-in-waiting (or so it would seem), is a pivotal character in David’s replacement of Jonathan’s father as king. Immediately after the Goliath incident, we are told that Jonathan felt he was a soul mate of David’s and loved him as much as his own life (1 Sam. 18:1), just as Saul had immediately loved David in the story in chapter 16 when
David came to him with his lyre. Much has been made of 18:1 as an instance of approved homosexuality among the Israelites, but it is more likely that the narrator’s focus is the statement that Jonathan thought of David as though they were somehow the same. This equivalence is continued in verse 4 when Jonathan gives over to David his royal robe, armor, and weapons, metaphorically “anointing” David the true royal successor. Later, when David and Saul refer to each other as father and son, the text has already prepared the reader for that relationship. David and Saul, Again (1 Sam. 18:6–16) In 1 Samuel 18:7–9, Saul sees the result of his quick elevation of David as head of his army. The people of Israel, represented by the women who sing the victory song as Saul and David return from the battles with the Philistines, have begun to see David as superior to Saul (“Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands”). From then on, David and Saul have a love-hate relationship that has Saul attempting to kill David as he plays the lyre for him and hoping that he can use David’s ambition to be part of the royal family to get him killed. Each time, David escapes and in fact, as we shall see, does marry into Saul’s family, winning his daughter Michal by bringing Philistine foreskins to Saul (to prove that he has killed them). David moves from metaphorical son to actual member of the royal family as Saul’s son-in-law. Michal (1 Sam. 18:17–30) In the societies of the ancient Near East, a woman’s sexuality was generally under the control of a man in her family. A father controlled his daughter’s sexuality, and a husband his wife’s. The marriage of a young woman was a matter of negotiation and financial arrangements between the groom or a male member of his family and the father or leading male of the bride’s family (see, e.g., Gen. 24; 29; 34). Among royal families, not only financial but also political matters had to be negotiated. For a king of Israel or Judah to marry a princess from a neighboring country implied that the Israelite king and the king of the neighboring country had concluded negotiations that would include not simply the usual bridewealth/dowry arrangements but also, presumably, agreements about friendship between the two countries, nonaggression pacts, and so forth. David’s son and successor Solomon, for example, was
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married to a daughter of Pharaoh (1 Kgs. 9:16– 17) and to many other foreign women (1 Kgs. 11:1–8). Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, is perhaps the most famous biblical example of a political marriage (1 Kgs. 16:31). Since the narratives in 1 and 2 Samuel cover the emergence of the Israelite monarchy, the story of David’s marriages casts important light on the role of women in securing political power—and also in losing it. David’s marriages offer an intriguing narrative of gender relations and power on a number of levels. When King Saul becomes jealous of David’s success and the love of his people for David, he offers David his elder daughter, Merab, in marriage (1 Sam. 18:17–19). From David’s point of view, marriage to the king’s daughter would bring him close to the center of power. Saul in return negotiates David’s services in his battles against the Philistines, but Saul’s motives are more complex. What he hopes is that David will be killed in the fighting. When David offers a humble disclaimer to be worthy of the alliance, Saul does not withdraw the offer but does impetuously marry Merab to another man. Merab herself has no role in the dealings. The proposed and the actual marriages are negotiated between the men. Next, Saul offers a younger daughter, Michal, to David in exchange for the foreskins of one hundred Philistines (1 Sam. 18:20–29). Saul again hopes that David’s quest for Michal will result in his death at the hands of the Philistines, but David delivers the payment. In this case, it is at least said that Michal loves David; but, as before, the real negotiations over her are out of her hands. Saul sets the price, and David pays. The story of Michal’s relationship with David is a puzzling one. When she first appears in the story, she loves David, is won at a dangerous price, and is married to him. Soon afterward, with her father still obsessed with getting rid of David, Michal helps David to escape her father and lies to her father’s messengers about David’s whereabouts. When she is discovered, she lies again, this time to her father, telling him that David had threatened to kill her if she did not help him escape (1 Sam. 19:17). (One assumes that her story is a cover; no such conversation between David and Michal is reported.) Nothing more is heard of Michal until 1 Samuel 25:44, during a report of David’s next two marriages, when it is said that Saul had at some time in the past given Michal to another man. (Note
that the narrator still calls her “David’s wife” in that passage.) Abigail (1 Sam. 25:1–42) David’s second wife, Abigail, is introduced as the wife of Nabal (1 Sam. 25:3). While she is described as having “good sense,” his very name means “fool” (surely an epithet and a joke within the story; who would name a child Fool?). Unlike Nabal, she understands the gravity of the threat that David and his men represent to their property and their lives and rushes to counteract the bad impression her husband has made on David. The narrator takes care to mention that she goes to meet David secretly, without her husband’s knowledge. When she does tell Nabal what she has done, he is so stricken by this information that he is paralyzed and eventually (and conveniently) dies. Abigail is not only sensible but beautiful and now a wealthy widow, whose land and assets David and his people could surely use (in fact, have been using, hence the problem in the first place). Ahinoam (1 Sam. 25:43–44) The third of David’s marriages, to Ahinoam of Jezreel, is mentioned in a single verse immediately after the Nabal-Abigail story and immediately before the notice that “Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish” (1 Sam. 25:44). Nothing is known with certainty about Ahinoam’s identity, but it is tantalizing that the only other Ahinoam mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is Saul’s wife (1 Sam. 14:50). The text does not say that the woman David married was Saul’s wife (or, if so, how he managed to obtain her). In a later episode, however, the prophet Nathan delivers an oracle from YHWH to David that includes the following statement: “I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah” (2 Sam. 12:7–8). If David had managed to obtain one of Saul’s wives, his action could have signaled his desire to displace Saul as king as well. Because the text does not identify Ahinoam more explicitly, these possibilities must remain speculations, however enticing. David and Saul, Yet Again (1 Sam. 24; 26) It is during this period in the relationship between David and Saul that Saul is most
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admiring of David, even as he tries to kill him. Twice, in 1 Samuel 24 and 26, we read of opportunities for David to kill Saul quite easily, opportunities he rejects. Here David refers to Saul as father, and Saul calls David his son, another attempt by the narrator to prepare us for David’s family to rule, without an obvious change in dynasty. But those touching moments do not convince David that Saul has accepted the situation, as Jonathan had once told David he had (1 Sam. 23:17). From this time forward, they are on opposite sides. The Medium at Endor (1 Sam. 28) In 1 Samuel 28 Saul’s kingship and life are at risk in a battle with the Philistines. The story is set up with two notes in verse 3: that Samuel has died and that Saul has expelled the mediums and wizards from the land. It is a sign of Saul’s desperation that, in spite of this attempt at expulsion, he asks his servants to find for him a woman who is a medium. He has been consulting YHWH to attempt to determine the battle’s outcome, as was customary (see, e.g., 1 Sam. 23:1–5), but the usual methods are not eliciting a response (1 Sam. 28:6). When told that there is a woman at Endor who is a medium, he disguises himself to visit her. (Since Saul had expelled the mediums previously, she could hardly be expected to cooperate with him if she recognized him or his apparel.) She does recognize him, but Saul has promised that she will not be punished; she does as he asks and brings up the spirit of Samuel, whom she describes as a god coming up out of the ground (1 Sam. 28:13). What is of interest in this passage is the fact that the medium is female. In nearly all religious systems, there are both central institutions and practices and those that operate on the periphery. In ancient Israel, with its all-male priesthood, the only professional contact women could have had with the central religious hierarchy would have been as temple servants of various kinds, presumably performing the kinds of domestic tasks that would be necessary there as everywhere (see Bird). Women could have performed priestly or quasi-priestly duties only in the peripheral religious culture, as in the set of practices Saul had recently banned in 1 Samuel 28, divination and consultation of spirits (cf. Lev. 20:27 and Ezek. 13:17–23). After Saul’s séance with Samuel, in which his defeat and death are predicted, Saul is distraught and falls to the ground. He
has not eaten, probably in preparation for this séance. The woman and his servants urge him to eat, and he finally agrees. The text says that the medium slaughters the fatted calf she has and bakes cakes and serves Saul and his servants. The Hebrew verb used of her action in slaughtering usually, though not always, means “to slaughter as a sacrifice.” There is, then, some ambiguity about her actions. Although she may simply be preparing an ordinary meal, it is also possible to understand that Saul and his servants participate in an extraordinary sacrificial meal prepared by this female medium as part of her quasi-priestly function in a peripheral, and banned, religious subsystem.
2 Samuel 1–24 The House of David and the House of Saul (2 Sam. 1–5) At the end of 1 Samuel, Saul and three of his sons are killed in battle. Second Samuel begins with David’s reaction to the deaths of Saul and his sons. Despite the enmity between David and Saul, he mourns openly and recites a lovely song about their deaths. Still, the rivalry between David, Saul’s son-in-law, and Ishbosheth, Saul’s remaining son, continues until David is finally crowned king over both Judah and Israel (2 Sam. 2:4 and 5:3). We shall see that the possibility that members of “the house of Saul” have survived and may have a claim to the throne will continue to haunt David. We have also seen that a man’s public display of masculinity is one key to his ability to rule. This may be one reason that, in the midst of the narrative of war, the narrator turns for a few verses to tell us about six sons of David, born to six wives (two of whom are Ahinoam and Abigail; 2 Sam. 3:2–5). (There is a similar passage in 2 Sam. 5:13–16.) In another such episode, which follows immediately in chapter 3, Saul’s remaining son accuses Saul’s general, Abner, of having sex with one of Saul’s secondary wives, while Ishbosheth considered that “inheriting” his father’s women was part of his claim to the kingship. Whether his accusation was true in this instance or not, to betray the king by sleeping with one of his wives was the same as undermining his claim to the throne. Michal, Again (2 Sam. 6) Finally, when Ishbosheth is ready to make peace with David and to accept David as king
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over Israel as well as Judah, David refuses to agree until his wife Michal is taken away from the husband Saul had given her to (“annulling” her marriage to David) and returned to him. What are David’s motives? One obvious explanation for David’s insistence on the return of Michal before he will enter into negotiations with Abner is that Michal was or could easily become a hostage. The story makes clear that she was under Ishbosheth’s power, since he is the one who eventually takes her from her second husband and sends her back to David. If David still cared for Michal, he might have been afraid that Michal would become a victim of his overt attempt to capture the throne of Israel. If this is indeed what the narrative means, then one notices that either Ishbosheth is somewhat stupid, or else his general Abner has him completely cowed (see 2 Sam. 3:11). It is also possible that Michal, as Saul’s daughter, in some way legitimates David’s claim to Saul’s throne, so that it was not necessarily affection that prompted him to worry about her welfare before he accepted Abner’s offer. In line with what we have seen above, however, we can understand that as long as the Saulides have control over any of David’s women, they are in effect challenging David’s masculinity and his claim to be king. Michal’s last major scene is certainly not one of affection between her and David. David’s bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem and housing it there with great ceremony (2 Sam. 6) is usually interpreted as an attempt on his part to help legitimate his rule (and his choice of Jerusalem as capital) by tying himself to the traditions of Israel’s past. It is perhaps this attempt at legitimation that is behind Michal’s anger with David over his performance. David has been dancing clad only in a linen ephod, a garment usually worn by priests. Michal says that her indignation is over his shameless display of his body before even the lowliest women in Israel (2 Sam. 6:20), but when she complains, she pointedly calls him “king of Israel.” His response to her is equally telling: he justifies taking her father’s throne, as if that were the issue, saying that it was YHWH who made him king instead of her father and, in fact, instead of all her father’s house. There is an odd mixture of royal conflict and sexual conflict here. The result of Michal’s outburst (which is either about David’s abundant sensuality or about his occupying a throne that should have remained
in her family) is that she remains childless until the day of her death. It is not said whether Michal is unable to have children, an affliction generally believed to be from YHWH, or whether David simply refuses to impregnate her. But whichever is meant, the punishment resembles Michal’s outburst, in that it is for Michal both a sexual tragedy and a family tragedy, since it means that no children will be born to one of the few surviving offspring of Saul’s house. Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11–12) David’s most famous wife was Bathsheba, also the wife of another man when her story begins (2 Sam. 11). It seems the narrator is portraying David, albeit subtly, as a consummate usurper—of kingdoms and of wives. At the beginning of 2 Samuel 11, we read that David noticed Bathsheba bathing and that she was purifying herself (probably from her menstrual period). The import of this information is that when David and Bathsheba have intercourse, she has just menstruated and so is clearly not pregnant with her absent husband’s child. Bathsheba is pictured as almost entirely passive in this episode; except for her first-person message to David (“I am pregnant,” 2 Sam. 11:5), she is always spoken of in the third person. The only hint that she might have cooperated willingly in her predicament is her initial act of bathing in a place where she could be observed by the king out walking on his roof (not an uncommon place to stroll in the Middle East for the cool evening breeze). Still, the text offers no judgment on her for that. Bathsheba is rarely even called by name here. In the books of Samuel her name occurs only in 2 Samuel 11:3 and 12:24 (where she is also called David’s wife); otherwise she is called Uriah’s wife (typical for a widow; 2 Sam. 11:3, 11, 26; 12:9, 10, 15), the woman (2 Sam. 11:5), or just “she” or “her.” The narrative does not seem to hold her responsible for her actions with David, and the punishment that is meted out, that their child should die, is aimed by YHWH and Nathan at David, not Bathsheba. Her feelings are not ignored completely: it is said that David comforted her in her grief (though it is David’s grief and not Bathsheba’s that the narrator describes at length). Further, she and David have another son, Solomon, to replace the dead child. This rather passive picture of Bathsheba as royal wife will be replaced in 1 Kings 1–2 with a portrait
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of her as a strong and active favorite wife and queen mother. Rape, Revenge, and Revolt: The Story of Tamar (2 Sam. 13) The story of the rape of Tamar by her halfbrother Amnon and the revenge taken against Amnon by Tamar’s full brother Absalom cannot be read apart from some of the details of the palace and family politics that the narrative takes for granted. According to 2 Samuel 3:2, Amnon was David’s first son (by Ahinoam). We know of David’s second son (by Abigail) only that he was called Chileab in 2 Samuel 3:3 and Daniel in 1 Chronicles 3:1; he figures in no narrative. Absalom is David’s third son. His mother, Maacah, is royal, the daughter of a Transjordanian king (Talmai, king of Geshur; 2 Sam. 3:3), and Tamar is his full sister (2 Sam. 13:1). Jonadab, Amnon’s adviser in the affair, is himself a member of the family—a nephew of David and so first cousin to the other three (2 Sam. 13:3). It has often been pointed out that this narrative is sprinkled liberally with relational words. Absalom is called David’s son in 13:1, and Tamar is Absalom’s sister. Amnon is also called David’s son (2 Sam. 13:1), and Tamar Amnon’s sister (2 Sam. 13:2). Jonadab’s relation to them all is clearly spelled out in verse 3, and he addresses Amnon as “son of the king” in verse 4. In the same verse Amnon refers to Tamar as “my brother Absalom’s sister.” And so it goes, as the narrator emphasizes the intertwining relationships in this polygamous family. It is Jonadab who puts the idea into Amnon’s head that he can be alone with Tamar with David’s blessing, by pretending to be ill. The narrative report of Jonadab’s advice stops short of suggesting rape, but if his recommendation were in any way innocent, there would be no need for the deception. David apparently goes along with the plot without suspecting anything. Amnon is his eldest son and presumed heir; one would expect David to be anxious for Amnon’s health and well-being. What Amnon has asked Tamar to do, and what she does, is to make heart-shaped dumplings. The very words are, perhaps, meant to be suggestive. The noun for heart (lebab) and a related verb (labab) are used five times here: twice in verse 6, twice in verse 8, and once in verse 10. In verses 6 and 8 the word is used both as a noun, “heart-shaped dumplings,” and as a verb that describes their making. That the word has erotic overtones
is suggested by the use of the verb in Song of Songs 4:9. Verse 12 is a crux for understanding what is at stake in the situation. Tamar says, “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do anything so vile!” Just exactly what is Tamar protesting against? Amnon has just called her “sister” when he grabs her and urges her to have sex with him willingly. When she begs him not to rape her and says that such a thing is not done in Israel, is it rape she is referring to, or incest? What precisely is it that is “vile”? In verse 13 she goes on to say that he need only speak to “the king,” for he would not withhold Tamar from Amnon. But how is one to read even this declaration? Several possible answers have been suggested. Perhaps the narrative operates as if there were no laws in effect at the time of Amnon and Tamar to prevent brother-sister marriages or, more specifically, to prevent marriages between two persons with the same father (cf. Abraham and Sarah, Gen. 20:12). This interpretation assumes that the narrative does not know, or ignores for this setting, the laws in Leviticus 18:9, 11; 20:17; and Deuteronomy 27:22, which prohibit such unions. Dating the legal material in the Bible is notoriously difficult, and it is certainly possible to make such an argument about this narrative. Another possibility is that such laws were known and were followed as custom for most people, but that the royal family lived by its own rules, although no loophole for the royalty is included in Leviticus or Deuteronomy. The nuances are important, because one would like to know whether Amnon would have been considered guilty of incest as well as of rape. If marriage between brother and sister was forbidden, then Tamar is saying in verse 13 that David would be willing to override even this and allow them to be legally married. If, however, there is no incest implied in the narrative, then Tamar is making a much simpler argument: Why rape me when you can marry me, simply by asking our father? A royal daughter, especially a beautiful one, could be a great asset to David in forging alliances with wealthy or royal potential fathers-in-law, but he would not say no to Amnon, even if it meant giving up such a resource. Whatever the precise meaning of Tamar’s outcry, it is futile. Amnon rapes her and then immediately hates his victim. Amnon’s response is generally described as realistic. In fact, there is
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good evidence that people who force their dominance on others (rapists and sadists, for example) are fighting what they perceive as weakness in themselves and that their victims’ defeat only reminds them of their own weakness and consequently enrages them. Amnon exhibits this exact behavior, and he has Tamar removed from his presence. When Tamar says that sending her away is worse than raping her, she understands that according to Israelite law he now must marry her (see Exod. 22:16; and esp. Deut. 22:28–29; if the narrative assumes similar laws to be in force, he cannot send her away). The reproach that she had said she could not bear (“Where could I carry my shame?”) is now hers. She tears the robe she wears, puts ashes on her head, and cries out, as signs of her grief. Absalom has a suspiciously easy time determining the source of Tamar’s grief, but tells her not to dwell on the episode. Surprisingly, the reason he gives is that Amnon is her brother, as if that removes the horror of it. Perhaps one is to understand that the close relationship makes impossible the kind of blood revenge that Dinah’s brothers exacted from Shechem and all the men of his city in Genesis 34; or perhaps the point is that since Tamar’s brother is the firstborn and heir apparent, care must be taken before her rape can be avenged. David’s lovehate relationships with his own sons mirror that with his “father” Saul. The last that is heard of Tamar, whom Absalom has just called “my sister,” is that she lived out her life “a desolate woman” in her brother Absalom’s house (2 Sam. 13:20). Relational language dominates to the end of this story. David does not punish Amnon (because he was his firstborn son, according to several versions), but Absalom hates Amnon because he raped his sister. Finally, after two years, Amnon goes to a feast at Absalom’s sheep shearing, apparently not suspecting that Absalom harbors such intense feelings still. Absalom has his servants kill Amnon, and then Absalom flees across the Jordan River to his maternal grandfather. He is later allowed to return, and the text reports (2 Sam. 14:27, but cf. 18:18) that Absalom had three sons and one daughter, a beautiful woman whose name was Tamar. The Wise Woman of Tekoa (2 Sam. 14) A textbook example of a woman exercising public power in a village setting comes in the first “wise woman” story in 2 Samuel 14. Joab,
David’s general, calls upon a “wise woman” from Tekoa to speak to David in such a way that he will make a decision about her invented situation without realizing that it will also apply to bringing Absalom back to Jerusalem. (Compare the strategy of the prophet Nathan’s story of the “poor man’s ewe lamb” in 2 Sam. 12.) The text says that Joab put the appropriate words into her mouth, but even so, her position as a wise woman meant that she was a good actor, or a clever speaker, or someone David would listen to because of her position at Tekoa—or all three (see Camp). Wives as the Symbol of Kingship (2 Sam. 15–19) Whatever justification Absalom might have claimed for killing Amnon, such as Amnon’s rape of Tamar, Absalom’s own royal ambitions are not hurt by having Amnon out of the way. Indeed, as soon as Absalom is admitted back into the royal household following his murder of Amnon and subsequent flight to his maternal grandfather, he begins to plot his own rule, even while David is still alive and well (2 Sam. 15:1–12). Because a king’s chief wives and secondary wives were such a symbol of his political connections and authority, a usurper could manifest his displacing of a reigning king by sleeping with members of the king’s harem. From what we have already seen, it is obvious that to claim a king’s harem was tantamount to claiming his throne. The clearest examples of this practice occur in the stories of David’s sons, vying for the throne both before and after his death. Second Samuel 15–19 tells the story of Absalom’s revolt against David and of his temporary success at taking the throne in Jerusalem. David is forced to flee Jerusalem and cross to the eastern side of the Jordan (15:13–16:14; 17:21–22), leaving ten secondary wives behind “to look after the house.” When Absalom and his men then move in to Jerusalem, Absalom is declared king by Hushai. The first thing Absalom is advised to do as the new king is to “go in to [his] father’s [wives]” whom David had left behind; and Absalom does so, before all Israel. The explanation for this act offered in the text is that Absalom will demonstrate to all Israel that he is “odious” to his father, that is, he has upstaged David in his masculine prowess, which is a major qualification for a king. (Note the anticipation of this situation in Nathan’s oracle in
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2 Sam. 12:11; cf. 1 Kgs. 2:13–18, 22–23, where a comparable dynamic is involved.) The Wise Woman of Abel-Maacah (2 Sam. 20) The second story about a wise woman (2 Sam. 20) is more instructive. When Joab is besieging the town of Abel of Beth-maacah and attacking it in order to drive out a rebel who had taken refuge there, a wise woman from within the city calls out to him to speak with her. He does so, a clear indication that she holds a position of authority that Joab would have recognized. She uses clever language, as did the wise woman in chapter 14, and negotiates for the lives of the people in Abel by agreeing to turn over the rebel (or, rather, his head) to Joab. The narrator does not hesitate to paint her as the representative of the people of Abel and as a person they will listen to in matters of war and politics. They agree to her plan, and the attack is called off. Both the woman from Tekoa and the woman from Abel lived in places that were far from the center; they would not have been much affected by the institutional structures of the monarchy; instead, older patterns of authority persisted. Their authority is recognized both by their people (2 Sam. 20) and by national figures (in both stories). They were quick thinkers and good talkers—hence, their designation “wise.”
Conclusion In the summary of the contents of the books of Samuel in the introduction, it was said that the books are organized around the careers of three men: Samuel, Saul, and David. Yet that is a somewhat misleading summation, as the subsequent discussion has made clear. Women play a larger role in the books of Samuel than in most of the rest of the Bible, and they appear in these narratives in the domestic sphere (Hannah, for instance), in the public sphere (the medium of Endor and the two wise women), and in the gray area that is the domestic sphere of a ruling family, where private decisions have public consequences. It has, in fact, been suggested that one of the major themes in the stories of David and his family is precisely the unavoidable link between public and private life within a ruling family. When David stops ruling himself and his family, the succession to the throne is threatened, and in this way all Israel suffers. The same could be said for Saul: he loses control
of himself, and his use of the women in his family to control David backfires. Even the women who sing battle songs are more impressed with David than with their king. Some of the more fascinating narratives about women in Samuel are all the more suggestive because the text offers so little information to help in understanding them. The women who serve at the tent of meeting and the medium of Endor are clearly religious professionals, but in systems that can no longer be fully described. What kind of local power did the wise women have, and what was the relationship between the system that supported them and the central government? Hannah offers her long-awaited son to a kind of religious order and then receives more children. Does the text imply a connection? Was it common among childless women to offer to “repay” the deity if the requested child was granted? It is clearly easier to understand the roles of the men in these stories than those of the women. The men’s stories seem straightforward and typical; the women are not so accessible. As a general rule, less is known about women’s lives in the ancient world than about men’s, and so it is more difficult to fill in whatever gaps may appear. But ironically this situation makes the women’s stories more intriguing and all the more inviting to the interpreter. Bibliography
Ackerman, James S. “Knowing Good and Evil: A Literary Analysis of the Court History in 2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2.” Journal of Biblical Literature 109 (1990): 41–60. Bird, Phyllis. “The Place of Women in the Israelite Cultus.” In Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, edited by Patrick D. Miller Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride, 397–419. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987. Camp, Claudia. “The Wise Women of 2 Samuel: A Role Model for Women in Early Israel?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981): 14–29. Gunn, David M. The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story. Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1980. ———. The Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation. Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1978.
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Hackett, Jo Ann. “In the Days of Jael: Reclaiming the History of Women in Ancient Israel.” In Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, edited by Clarissa W. Atkinson, Constance H. Buchanan, and Margaret R. Miles, 15–38. Harvard Women’s Studies in Religion Series. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. Hiebert, Paula S. “‘Whence Shall Help Come to Me?’ The Biblical Widow.” In Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, edited by Peggy L. Day, 125–41. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. Jay, Nancy. “Sacrifice as Remedy for Having Been Born of Woman.” In Immaculate and
Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, edited by Clarissa W. Atkinson, Constance H. Buchanan, and Margaret R. Miles, 283–309. Harvard Women’s Studies in Religion Series. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. Levenson, Jon D., and Baruch Halpern. “The Political Import of David’s Marriages.” Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980): 507–18. McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. I Samuel. Anchor Bible 8. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1980. ———. II Samuel. Anchor Bible 9. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1984.
1 and 2 Kings Cameron B. R. Howard
Introduction The books of 1 and 2 Kings relate stories of the Israelite and Judean monarchies from the united kingdom under Solomon in the second half of the tenth century BCE until the fall of Judah to the Babylonians in 587 BCE. Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings together constitute the “Former Prophets” in the Hebrew Bible, while Christian canons—including those of Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and other Eastern Christian churches—situate Kings between Samuel and Chronicles as part of the “Historical Books.” The division of the single Hebrew book of Kings into two books of more manageable length is a development of the late medieval period and is modeled off of the Septuagint (LXX), which labels the books as 3–4 Kingdoms (or 3–4 Reigns). The LXX, like the Hebrew tradition, places those books directly after the books of Samuel, known in the LXX as 1–2 Kingdoms (or 1–2 Reigns). Indeed, the book of Kings continues the chronology of Samuel; together, Samuel and Kings provide a continuous account of the Israelite monarchy from its inception through its division to the fall of both the northern and southern kingdoms. Despite the continuities of Kings with the books of Samuel, Kings manifests a distinct literary beginning. With the opening of Kings comes a subtle shift in narrative focus. While the primary concern of Kings remains, as in Samuel, monarchic, the narrative opens with an image of an old, ailing King David, whose sons are vying to be his successor. If the book of Samuel in broadest overview recounts the waxing of the ancient Israelite monarchy, then the book of Kings recounts its waning. The “glory
days” of David are over, and the narrative’s critiques of apostasies, immediately identified with Solomon and his foreign wives, continue to intensify as subsequent kings worship gods other than the God of Israel. An account of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and exile to Babylon ends the books of Kings, but the shadow of that imminent event looms over the books from their earliest chapters. The monarchic history is told with an eye to providing a theological explanation for the causes of the exile. God warns Solomon in very specific terms, for example, that worshiping other gods will cause YHWH to “cut Israel off from the land” and to make the temple a “heap of ruins” (1 Kgs. 9:7–8). In addition to the more ominous turn of the tone of Kings, the pace of the narrative quickens significantly. Samuel lingers on the details of the political, military, and personal exploits of Saul and especially David, while Kings surveys the successive rulers of the northern and southern kingdoms over more than three hundred years. Because it gives an account of events that happened in the past, the book of Kings is broadly “historical.” Compared to Samuel, Kings is manifestly more historiographical, in that it exhibits more obvious strategies of history-telling; the inner lives of its characters often recede into the background, for example, while public, state events receive primary attention. Nonetheless, Kings should not be narrowly construed as pure “history,” in the sense of a consistently factually accurate reconstruction of those events. The narrative still claims knowledge of the dreams of Solomon and the private
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prayers of Elijah alongside accounts of military strategies and regnal years. The author(s) of Kings likely used a variety of sources, including historical records and folktales alike, to assemble a portrait of the monarchic era that provided a compelling narrative and that fit a particular theological vision: namely, that the military defeat of both Israel and Judah was brought on by God as punishment for the apostasies of those kingdoms’ leaders. Scholars have long recognized consistencies in the theological outlooks of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The idea that those books form a distinctive literary unit received its most influential articulation in the work of mid-twentieth-century German scholar Martin Noth, who described the Deuteronomistic History (DH) as the work of a single exilicera author explaining the disintegration of Israel and Judah as the result of their royal leadership’s failure to keep the Mosaic covenant. Scholars have since debated how many additional layers of redaction—that is, moments of editorial revision—can be identified in DH. Frank Moore Cross’s notion of a “double redaction” identifies two competing themes within DH: a theme of doom that dwells on the “sin of Jeroboam,” and a theme of assurance centered on God’s promises to David. The first redaction, in Cross’s view, was produced before the exile, during the reign of Josiah, and combines the two themes: apostasy led to the fall of the northern kingdom, but God’s promises were realized in the reformer King Josiah. The second redaction came together during the exile, adding passages that extend the theme of doom toward that event. Scholars since Noth have continued to identify additional layers of redaction, and it is likely that DH underwent several moments of editing from the preexilic era, through the time of the Babylonian exile, and perhaps even into the Persian period (see Römer). Nevertheless, the thematic and theological connections between each book of the Former Prophets remain. In order to understand the authorship of Kings, then, it is first important to acknowledge its continuities with Deuteronomic thought. Regardless of whether Kings shares one specific author with the other books of DH, these texts hold in common a sense of God’s use of the international military landscape to punish Israel and Judah’s religious infidelities. In the view of Kings, the political history of Israel and Judah never can be separated from their religious practices.
The Deuteronomistic perspective prioritizes two religious practices as hallmarks of covenant-keeping: centralized worship of YHWH at the Jerusalem temple, and worship of YHWH alone. Advocacy of centralized worship is often described in Kings through negative examples of sacrificial worship at the “high places,” that is, shrines other than the Jerusalem temple, often on elevated terrain. Those high places were probably used for the worship of YHWH, but they were certainly also used for the worship of other gods. Thus the high places in Kings evoke ideas both of improper (i.e., noncentralized) worship of YHWH and of the worship of deities other than YHWH. Those other deities include both gods and goddesses, the most prominent of whom in Kings are Baal and Asherah. Baal is a Canaanite storm god who is said to be in control of the rain, making the showdown between the prophets of Baal and Elijah during a time of famine (1 Kgs. 18) particularly freighted. In the Ugaritic (i.e., Canaanite) pantheon, the goddess Asherah is the consort of the high god El. Particularly in texts in Kings, the Hebrew Bible tends to refer to “the asherah” as a cultic object, some sort of stick or pole. However, as inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom attest, YHWH and Asherah were likely worshiped together as high god and consort, just as El and Asherah were paired at Ugarit. Diana Edelman points out that the addition of the definite article, which turns the proper name into a common noun, reads as a “deliberate tampering with the grammatical construction” five times in Kings: 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Kings 18:4; 21:7; 23:4, 7 (Edelman, 244). Hidden under the explicit narrative of the book of Kings, where prophets and reformminded kings work to rid Israel and Judah of the ’asherim, is an implicit narrative that writes out the consort status of Asherah from the portrait of legitimate Yahwistic cult practice. Given the stratified composition history of Kings, it is difficult to point to one particular author or editor for that work or for DH as a whole. The Deuteronomistic perspective shows a distinct antipathy toward the northern kingdom of Israel, pointing to a probable Judean origin for the book. Rather than trying to pinpoint a single authorial vision beyond that, it is helpful to talk about the robust character of the narrative itself, which has a dominant theological agenda and yet preserves voices of dissent around that. This multiplicity of perspectives
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is what Cross’s idea of a “double redaction” began to parse, and it is what redaction critics are exploring when they do the very important work of identifying multiple editorial layers. Furthermore, consideration of the dissonant, yet sonorous whole is an especially important hermeneutical task for people whose identity falls outside of what a given culture, society, or religion considers normative. Ken Stone’s advocacy of this hermeneutic for queer readers is applicable, mutatis mutandis, for any socially marginalized identity: “Since ‘queer’ readers, who have often been asked, or forced, to conform our sexual and gendered lives to particular interpretations of political, social, and religious reality, know all too well the importance of acknowledging alternative perspectives and modes of life, we ought to read the books of Kings with special attention to the multiple points of view that can be detected there” (Stone, 224).
Women and the Social World of Kings Despite its dubious value as “history” in the modern sense of the term, Kings provides snapshots of the social world of ancient Israel that can inform our understanding of the monarchic era. The political context of ancient Israel and Judah as presented in Kings can be broadly understood as “imperial.” Though Solomon’s territory reportedly included territories from the Euphrates to Egypt (1 Kgs. 4:21), it would be an overstatement to describe even the united kingdom of Israel as an “empire,” given the paucity of its territorial holdings relative to its other imperial neighbors such as Egypt and Assyria. Nonetheless, the monarchic system as presented in Kings operates on the characteristically imperial principle of extraction: empires exist only by means of—and for the sake of—extracting resources from their constituent social units (Berquist, 79–80). When the prophet Samuel responds to the people’s request for a king (1 Sam. 8:1–22), he warns them that the modus operandi of the king will be to co-opt people and property for his own uses. The narrative underscores the extractive nature of kingship by using the verbs “he will take” (yiqakh) and “he will take a tenth” (ya‘sor) a total of six times in seven verses (1 Sam. 8:11– 17), listing all the people and property that will be taken over for royal service. The monarchic system, sustained by military violence, assumes
no right to bodily integrity on the part of its subjects. Instead, all bodies, including and perhaps especially those of women, may be co-opted for the uses of the king. Nevertheless, despite many moments in the narrative that appear to oppose the machinations of the monarchy, Solomon’s royal grandeur still marks a high ideal in the national memory: “Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy” (1 Kgs. 4:20). Thus, while the overall evaluation of kingship in Samuel–Kings does not reveal a single, clearcut “promonarchic” or “antimonarchic” stance, a strand of vigorous critique persists across the narratives, one that most vociferously criticizes practices of extraction. The social system described in Kings, in both its religious and political manifestations, is patriarchal: the prophets and the monarchs are men, and the moments in which women yield that kind of power are usually either aberrations or abominations. The social system is also patrilineal: title and property pass from father to son. That social system is presented, however, through a relatively narrow lens. As the book’s English title suggests, the primary focus of Kings is on the individual rulers of Israel and Judah. The narrative gives its principal attention to the Israelite and Judean royal realms and their personages. Both male and female characters in the books of Kings appear in service to that focus. In fact, the narrative strategies employed in Kings frequently echo the extractive impulses of the governmental system it describes, using “minor” characters to build fuller portraits of the royal stars. Characters largely exist in Kings to provide further means for the evaluation of the kings themselves. Nonetheless, readers can glimpse a wide variety of social roles among the books’ female characters, from servants to women prophets to queens. Kings presents, then, no uniform portrait of women in the monarchic era of Israelite history; the portraits of female characters in Kings are shaped by class, ethnic or national status, and the exigencies of the narrative. At the same time, nearly all of the women in Kings are mothers who are described in some relationship to that part of their identities. This is true across social classes, from the prostitutes who come before Solomon to the mothers of kings to the widow whose son Elijah brings back from the dead. This trend speaks to the overall cultural milieu of patrilineal societies in the
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ancient world, where a woman’s worth was often situated in her ability to produce children, especially a male heir. The ancestral stories of barrenness and miraculous conception in the book of Genesis and the story of Hannah in the book of Samuel make much of this cultural expectation. Likewise, in 2 Kings 4, Elisha bestows the gift of a child to the Shunammite woman, a wealthy woman who ostensibly has everything. Outside of the implicit facts that sex is necessary for procreation and is the commodity sold in prostitution, the book of Kings does not often dwell explicitly on the sexuality of “women” as an overall identity category. The book is practically fixated, however, on the seductive nature of foreign women. “Foreignness” is not confined to certain ethnicities, but rather is defined as not-Israelite or not-Judean. Foreign women are dangerously alluring, not simply enticing men to sex, but particularly “turning men’s hearts” toward foreign gods. Knowledge of the gods and goddesses of the surrounding regions would have entered the region of Palestine in any number of ways, such as trade, military engagement, and immigration. According to the Deuteronomistic perspective, simply having knowledge of those alternate deities could not be enough to provoke a man to apostasy.
Foreign women receive the blame for enticing men to the worship of foreign gods and goddesses. Implicit in the Deuteronomistic critique is an understanding of all women as charmers who can draw men away from what is “right”— usually what the patriarchal social structures deem right—and into sin and idolatry. Kings is thoroughly heteronormative; it assumes sexual acts occur between women and men, and it even lacks descriptions of the kind of deep intimacy the book of Samuel describes in Jonathan and David’s relationship, be they friends or lovers. One possible reference to homosexual activity could be the “the holy man” (haqadesh) mentioned at several points in the narrative (1 Kgs. 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Kgs. 23:7). The NRSV translates this phrase as “male temple prostitutes,” but the precise function of these holy men remains contested in biblical scholarship. They may be general cultic functionaries, or their ritual functions may be sexual in nature, though the idea that any cult prostitution at all existed in or around Israel is disputed. The “holy men” are in every case roundly condemned, but the narrative’s condemnation always falls within a list of improper worship acts, so that the book of Kings makes no specific comment about homosexual practices.
Content Solomon’s Kingship (1 Kgs. 1–11) The Death of David and the Rise of Solomon (1 Kgs. 1–2) The book of Kings opens with the conscription of an Israelite virgin girl, Abishag the Shunammite, for service to the elderly and declining King David. The very first scene of Kings, then, features a woman whose body has been co-opted for the uses of the monarch. Though couched in language of keeping the king “warm,” the nature of Abishag’s service is surely supposed to be sexual; however, the text recounts that, although she lay in the king’s bosom, he did not “know her sexually.” Abishag’s presence reveals the king’s sexual and political impotence. David’s waning physical virility provides an analog for his fading kingship; his impotence has become a matter of national security. Not even the most beautiful virgin found in Israel could rouse his masculinity to its former glory; thus, Israel
seeks a new king. In this scene, not only is the woman’s body subject to the uses of the state, but even the king’s body itself becomes spectacle for those waiting to crown his successor. Fitness for office is measured in terms of sexual virility. The king, it seems, has not shown himself to be a “real man,” and so no longer is an able king. David’s wife Bathsheba provides a marked contrast to the character of Abishag. Though both initially were brought to David for his sexual pleasure, Abishag is a virgin at the time of her conscription, while Bathsheba is a married woman (2 Sam. 11). David lies with Bathsheba but never with Abishag, and Bathsheba bears sons to David. Abishag never speaks in the narrative, but Bathsheba plays an active, vocal role in Solomon’s accession to the throne (1 Kgs. 1–2). Bathsheba plots with the prophet Nathan to win David’s appointment of Solomon over Adonijah, David’s oldest living son and expected heir, as David’s successor. In the wake
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of Solomon’s accession, Adonijah attempts to negotiate with Solomon via Bathsheba, requesting that he be given Abishag as his wife. Sex with Abishag had been the test of kingship that David failed, but Adonijah is ready to pass that test. Adonijah’s marriage to Abishag would signal that he was indeed fit to be king, able to accomplish things that David could not. Taking this request as a plot to undermine his own kingship, Solomon orders the killing of Adonijah. Thus Abishag the Shunammite becomes the silent, conscripted cause for the death of Adonijah, just as her virginal presence signals the imminent death of David. David’s deathbed charge to Solomon (1 Kgs. 2:1–9) provides an early indication that the Deuteronomic perspective persists in the book of Kings: if Solomon will keep the law of Moses, he will prosper. The Reign of Solomon (1 Kgs. 3–11) Four primary markers characterize Solomon’s kingship over Israel as presented in the book of Kings: his superlative wisdom, his remarkable prosperity, his accomplishment of building the temple, and his penchant for marrying foreign women. Solomon’s wisdom is described as a gift from God in fulfillment of Solomon’s prayer (1 Kgs. 3:12), and God provides the riches as a kind of “bonus” for a right request (1 Kgs. 3:13). The famous “split the baby” story of 1 Kings 3:16–28, in which Solomon judges a case brought by one prostitute against another, provides a stirring example of his wisdom on the “home front,” within the land of Israel. Prostitutes held little standing in ancient Israel, as a scene later in 1 Kings shows: when Ahab dies, “They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; the dogs licked up his blood, and the prostitutes washed themselves in it, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken” (1 Kgs. 22:38). The story works on assumptions of the “nature” of women in particular social roles. Reading with Phyllis Bird, Claudia Camp describes how the story plays on competing expectations of the women as both prostitutes and mothers. As prostitutes, they are presumed to be liars; as mothers, they are presumed to hold the life of their children as their highest value. According to the text, “real” mothers preserve the life of their child at any cost. Thus, as Camp goes on to explain, Solomon knows how, in the language of Proverbs, to discern between a “wise woman”—one with
“true speech”—and a “strange woman,” who is “just” a harlot. The queen of Sheba’s visit provides a detailed anecdote of Solomon’s international influence, standing in complementary relationship to his adjudication between the two prostitutes. The two accounts show Solomon’s fitness to rule at home and his ability to navigate the international political landscape. In international scope, Solomon’s wealth and wisdom stand linked in Kings; the more the nations are impressed by his wisdom, the more they bring him gifts, adding continuously to his riches (1 Kgs. 4:34; 10:23–25). When word of Solomon’s reputation reaches the queen of Sheba, she visits him with “hard questions” (1 Kgs. 10:1). After Solomon addresses those questions even beyond her expectations, the queen lavishes extravagant gifts upon him. In turn, “King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba every desire that she expressed, as well as what he gave her out of Solomon’s royal bounty” (1 Kgs. 10:13). This reciprocal gift-giving implies a political alliance (accomplished with a woman, yet without marriage); through his wisdom, Solomon builds Israel into a nation of international repute. Moreover, in what borders on a Yahwistic confession of faith, the queen proclaims that Solomon’s wisdom is a result of YHWH’s love of Israel: “Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness” (1 Kgs. 10:9). The nations of the world can see not only the glory of Solomon himself, but also the grandeur of his God. The queen’s visit mitigates the portrait of foreign women in Kings, inverting the seduction usually enacted by foreign women onto Israelite men. Upon observing Solomon’s wealth and experiencing his wisdom firsthand, the queen is left breathless: “there was no more spirit [Heb. ruach, “spirit” or “breath”] in her” (1 Kgs. 10:5). Solomon has taken her breath away. With her heart now aflutter, the queen of Sheba is ready to praise YHWH, the God of Israel. These three female characters—the two prostitutes and the queen of Sheba—represent opposite ends of the social spectrum with very different levels of power. The prostitutes are local and of a low social class, while the queen of Sheba is the immeasurably rich leader of a distant land. Yet these characters all serve the same narrative purpose: their presence in the
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narrative aids the characterization of Solomon as wealthy, wise, and divinely favored. In addition to instituting an era of prosperity for all of Israel and Judah (1 Kgs. 4:20), Solomon is credited in Kings with supervising multiple construction projects, most notably the temple. The dedication of the temple falls in the center of the account of Solomon’s reign in 1 Kings 3–11; as Walter Brueggemann observes, the temple dedication (1 Kgs. 8) serves as a “pivot point,” with references to key themes like wisdom, foreign wives, and forced labor arranged in loose symmetry around the dedication (Brueggemann, 123). Among the five chapters (1 Kgs. 5–9) devoted to the construction accounts, multiple mentions are made of the forced labor Solomon used for all of his building projects, but statements on the identities of those laborers conflict. First Kings 5:13 affirms, “King Solomon conscripted forced labor out of all Israel,” while 1 Kings 9:20–22 emphatically asserts that “of the Israelites Solomon made no slaves.” This discrepancy testifies to the use of multiple sources by the author of Kings, though it is difficult to imagine why the author would allow such a blatant contradiction to stand. The defensiveness lingering in the refutation of Israelite enslavement echoes an overall ambiguity in the narrative’s assessment of the Solomonic age: life was great, but it could not have been too great, or else the kingdoms would not have been destroyed. The idea that Israelites were indeed among the forced laborers finally wins the day in Kings, as it is precisely that issue that drives the secession of the northern kingdom under Jeroboam. The first report of Solomon’s governmental activity announces his marriage to the daughter of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt (1 Kgs. 3:1). Royal marriages were utilized to make political alliances in the ancient Near Eastern world, just as readily as they have been, for example, in the European monarchies of recent centuries. The text provides no commentary to indicate that this move is unusual or problematic, though the notion of so close an alliance with Egypt may be particularly ominous in a Deuteronomistic work, given that tradition’s frequent invocation of the exodus from Egypt (e.g., 1 Kgs. 8:51; 9:9; 2 Kgs. 21:15). Still, there is no clear sense of judgment in the announcement of Solomon’s marital alliance. Likewise, the following verse mentions worship at the “high places” without particular vitriol, noting that this was
happening “because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord” (1 Kgs. 3:2). Nonetheless, these two comments placed together at the outset of Solomon’s rule foreshadow the two connected issues that the Deuteronomistic authors will see as initial causes for the longterm decline of the monarchy: Solomon’s many foreign wives and worship at the high places. Throughout Kings, the worship of foreign gods is repeatedly linked with the influence of foreign women. Solomon’s wives’ seductive powers extend outside the matrimonial realm to the religious, where they “turn his heart” to the gods of their homelands. According to 1 Kings 11:1, the peoples represented in Solomon’s marriages include Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites. Notably, this list does not correspond to the book of Deuteronomy’s injunction against intermarriage (Deut. 7:1–6), even though the narrator seems to be invoking that prohibition. Marvin Sweeney notes that Solomon’s list corresponds instead to alliances and conquests made by David, and that the invocation of Deuteronomic law was probably a later redaction to make Solomon’s actions fit it, rather than having composed Solomon’s list in light of the Deuteronomic prohibitions (Sweeney, 155). This inconsistency further underscores the tension in Kings between politics and religion. Certainly the overall message of Kings sees Israel and Judah’s political and military outcomes as the result of YHWH’s favor or disapproval. Even so, Solomon’s coterie of wives represents the Davidic dynasty’s high status and plentiful international alliances.
The Divided Monarchy (1 Kgs. 12–2 Kgs. 17) Dividing the Kingdom (1 Kgs. 12–15) From the death of Solomon at the end of 1 Kings 11 until the fall of the northern kingdom in 2 Kings 17, the narrative generally alternates between accounts of the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. The confrontation between Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and successor, and Jeroboam, Solomon’s appointed supervisor of forced laborers, initiates the division of the united kingdom and the narrative’s concomitant alternation. Rehoboam’s refusal to lighten the load of the forced laborers incites the rebellion of Israel, but his process of discernment on that issue echoes the measure of masculinity—and, by extension, kingship—by sexual
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virility that the encounter of David and Abishag illustrates. Rehoboam’s older advisers tell him to lighten the laborers’ work to win their hearts and minds: “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever” (1 Kgs. 12:7). In contrast, his younger advisers see the request as an affront to Rehoboam’s power: “Thus you should say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions’” (1 Kgs. 12:10b–11). In other words, Rehoboam should see himself as “more of a man” than his father, and therefore he should not bend to the requests of those under his power, nor to the aging—and, by implication, less potent—elder advisers. In his inability to consummate his relationship with Abishag, the aging David was unable to demonstrate his masculinity via sexuality— specifically heterosexuality—and therefore his kingship was deemed at an end. The narrative appears to endorse that test, or at least not to make any overtly negative judgments about it. However, Rehoboam’s assertion of his masculinity, metaphorical though his sexual imagery may be, reads as an illustration of his arrogance. The imperial strategy of extraction becomes intertwined with constructions of gender and power, so that a “manly man,” ostensibly even more sexually potent than his father Solomon (a man with a thousand sexual partners!), is also one who adds new levels of brutality to the kingdom’s strategies of domination. Rehoboam’s decision backfires, of course; not only does the kingdom split, but he incites a perpetual enmity between Israel and Judah (1 Kgs. 12:19; 14:30). Keeping with the Deuteronomistic theological outlook, the text attributes Rehoboam’s poor decision making to “a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord,” so that Ahijah’s prophecy to Jeroboam would be fulfilled (1 Kgs. 12:15). Despite the negative evaluation that the narrative gives to Rehoboam, its assessment of Jeroboam is much grimmer. Jeroboam has already taken refuge with King Shishak of Egypt to escape the wrath of Solomon in the wake of Ahijah’s prophecy, thus creating an ironic association between Jeroboam and the site of the Hebrews’ ancient enslavement (1 Kgs. 11:40). The same King Shishak later invades Judah (1 Kgs. 14:25–28)—and Israel, according to
archaeological sources—which does nothing to rehabilitate the narrator’s opinion of either Egypt or Jeroboam. Worried that regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem for sacrificial worship will entice the people of the north to reunite with the southern kingdom (and kill him in the process), Jeroboam fashions two golden calves, setting up one at Bethel and one at Dan (1 Kgs. 12:28–29). This establishment of alternate shrines is remembered throughout the rest of Kings as “the sin of Jeroboam.” His proclamation, “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,” echoes almost word for word the cry of the Hebrews in the wilderness when Aaron makes a golden calf for them (Exod. 32:4). The parallels in the presentation make compelling rhetoric against Jeroboam. Having come up from Egypt himself and having delivered the enslaved Israelites from their bondage under Rehoboam, Jeroboam shows himself to be no Moses, instead making the same idolatrous mistake as Aaron. Though God relents from his wrath in the wilderness episode (Exod. 32:14), the outcome is still wrenching; at Moses’ direction, the sons of Levi kill three thousand people in the camp, and a plague from God follows (Exod. 32:25–29, 35). Any reader familiar with the exodus traditions, as the first audience of Kings surely would have been, knows that no good can come from golden calves. To compound Jeroboam’s sin, he establishes high places, declares festival days of his own accord, and appoints priests who are not of a priestly caste to work at Bethel. In the view of the Deuteronomistic voice of the text, his apostasies run deep and wide. Jeroboam’s wife is never named, nor does she ever speak. Nonetheless, she is the agent whose actions deliver the prophecy promising the doom of Jeroboam, his house, and the kingdom of Israel altogether. She is also the one whose step across the palace threshold signals the moment of her child’s death. The narrator never specifies whether the wife of Jeroboam who acts in 1 Kings 14 is also the mother of Abijah. The reader learns of that familial tie only when God tells the blind Ahijah that “the wife of Jeroboam is coming to inquire of you concerning her son” (1 Kgs. 14:5). In the narrator’s framework, “Abijah son of Jeroboam” and “the wife of Jeroboam” are described only in relation to Jeroboam, never in relation to each other. This trend is in keeping with the point of view
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of the text, which constructs nearly all the characters in Kings in terms of what they can contribute to the portrait of the kings themselves. Jeroboam instructs his wife to disguise herself and approach the prophet Ahijah at Shiloh in order to discover the fate of the child. Despite the prophet Ahijah’s blindness, her identity— still only “wife of Jeroboam”—is discovered. Ahijah, who had once declared the division of the kingdom because of God’s displeasure with Solomon’s religious infidelities, now proclaims, “Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city, the dogs shall eat” (1 Kgs. 14:11a). Jeroboam’s lineage will be cut off, and the death of Abijah will be the first of many. Ahijah does have a word of comfort to offer to Jeroboam’s wife: Abijah alone of Jeroboam’s family will receive a proper burial, because of some unspecified quality God has found pleasing in him. Even so, her reentrance into the city will mark the moment of the child’s death, leading readers to imagine how long she lingered at the threshold before crossing over to her inevitable grief. Through its failure—or refusal—to name Jeroboam’s wife (regardless of whether the author had access to her name in any source), this episode underscores how ultimately the women of the Israelite and Judean monarchies can earn a place in the historical memory recorded in Kings only by contributing an heir, or else by association with remarkable apostasies. The book of Kings quite consistently names the mothers of the kings of Israel and Judah (see below) to identify their genealogical heritage. Jeroboam’s wife has borne an heir to Jeroboam, or perhaps two, if Nadab is also hers. But because the prophet has already declared that “the Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam today” (1 Kgs. 14:14), it is as if her name is now a moot point. The end of the line of Jeroboam is imminent, and so the genealogical precision that would otherwise preserve her name is no longer required. She is a casualty of the Deuteronomists’ historical polemic. The book of Kings’ march through the regnal history of Israel and Judah employs a regular formula to identify each monarch. This formula identifies the year of accession with reference to the king of the opposite kingdom, tells how long the king’s reign lasted, reports his mother’s name, and provides a summary evaluative statement about the king’s faithfulness or lack thereof. The formula for the accession of Abijam
is typical: “Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah. He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom. He committed all the sins that his father did before him” (1 Kgs. 15:1–3a). Including the name of the king’s mother provides genealogical clarity about the king, but it does not serve to introduce the woman herself (e.g., 1 Kgs. 22:42; 2 Kgs. 21:19). There does, however, appear to have been an official role for the “queen mother,” evidenced by King Asa’s removing Maacah from that position because she made an image of Asherah (1 Kgs. 15:13). It is unclear what kind of power the queen mother would have held, or whether that position was afforded to every mother of a king in either kingdom. It does seem that “queen” was neither role nor office in Israel or Judah. The narrative presents only stories with wives of kings who may take more or less active roles, but the title of “queen” is not afforded to them as it is, for example, to the queen of Sheba. Even Athaliah, whom the narrative reports “reigned over the land [of Judah]” (2 Kgs. 11:3), is not called “queen,” though she is probably the daughter of Jezebel, and the narrative does not view her rule as legitimate anyway. Jezebel, Elijah, and the Northern Kings (1 Kgs. 16–22) At 1 Kings 16 the narrative turns much of its attention to the intrigues of the northern kingdom, focusing upon it until the inception of the Jehu dynasty and the end of the Omride dynasty in 2 Kings 10. The kings of Israel receive no benefit of the doubt from the Judean Deuteronomistic perspective. They consistently are said to have “walked in the ways of Jeroboam,” participating in a host of idolatries that incite the anger of God. The account slows dramatically at the reign of Ahab, devoting the end of 1 Kings 16 through much of 1 Kings 22 to that era. Interwoven with stories of Ahab and his wife Jezebel are stories of the prophet Elijah, who makes a dramatic figure of prophetic power pitted against the monarchic power of the royal couple. Jezebel’s very name has become an epithet for women with any number of perceived characteristics, from seductiveness to promiscuity to prosperity to self-assuredness to ruthlessness. Her power, her religious devotion, her ready deployment of violence, the drama and
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gore of her death, and the attention accorded to her by the narrative all make the story of Jezebel stand out to readers of Kings. She is introduced to the narrative at 1 Kings 16:31 in the description of Ahab’s accession. Taking on a sardonic tone, the narrator remarks of Ahab, “And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.” This marriage was surely a political move, creating an alliance with the Sidonians, that is, the Phoenicians, whose kingdom was just north of Israel. Solomon had employed the same strategy hundreds of times, to the disdain of YHWH and the Deuteronomists, though with great political effect. In the eyes of the narrator, it is as if Jezebel herself is capable of more harm than Solomon’s seven hundred foreign wives and three hundred concubines put together. Ahab is not without culpability, either. The text repeatedly remarks on the superlative nature of his sins, for he “did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him” (1 Kgs. 16:30). The narrative lingers over the sins of Ahab and Jezebel with judgment and blood lust. The prophet Elijah is introduced immediately after the first mentions of Ahab and Jezebel, thus bringing to the fore all the main characters involved in the impending showdowns between prophet and monarchy. The Elijah and Elisha narratives were likely separate source collections of accounts of acts of power and holiness by each “man of God,” as the narrative calls them. The Deuteronomistic author probably inserted these independent sources among others into the larger history he was constructing. This process of composition makes clearer why some of the Elijah and Elisha accounts have little or nothing to do directly with the Israelite and Judean monarchies on which the rest of Kings focuses so acutely. At the same time, the prophetic legends provide an effective counternarrative to monarchic profligacy. Elijah and Elisha depend upon the hospitality of “ordinary citizens” of Israel, even as they interact with kings. They sleep in caves and under trees, rather than inhabiting pristine palaces. Their miraculous tales testify to the power of the God of Israel to work wonders grander than foreign gods and to provide for the people outside of the monarchic strategies of extraction.
The first presentation of Elijah shows him proclaiming to Ahab an imminent drought in Israel. YHWH then tells Elijah to go into hiding, where the ravens will feed him. The language of pursuit pervades the Elijah-Ahab stories, adding to the sense of opposition between prophet and king. Elijah persistently must flee for his life from Ahab, who relentlessly pursues him (1 Kgs. 18:10), knowing that Elijah proclaims his doom. After his wadi of refuge dries up in the drought, Elijah then travels at God’s command to Zarephath, in the territory of Sidon, Jezebel’s homeland. He seeks food and drink there from a widow; biblical law specifies that widows are a group in society who require special care, far from the wealth and power of Israel’s palaces. Instead of taking from the widow of Zarephath until nothing is left, Elijah brings tidings of plenty from YHWH the God of Israel. The meal and oil last through the time of drought. (The narrative does not address the plight of the rest of the poor of the land, who are surely suffering without prophets at their doorsteps.) When her son falls ill to the point of death, Elijah is able to bring him back to life, leading her to profess her faith not only in the power of YHWH, but in Elijah’s own status as a miracle-working “man of God”: “So the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth’” (1 Kgs. 17:24). As a Phoenician woman who is poor, awed by Elijah’s power, and who professes the word of YHWH as truth, the widow of Zarephath stands in marked contrast to the wealthy, unflinching, Baal-worshiping wife of Ahab. The widow is a foil character to Jezebel in particular, but as a foreign woman who confesses YHWH, she also ever so slightly softens the text’s polemic against foreign women. Like the queen of Sheba, who also carries praises of YHWH on her lips, the widow is not another in the book’s line of seductive women turning men’s hearts against YHWH. Her Yahwistic confession mitigates her otherness; at the end of the day, religion still trumps ethnicity in the judgment of Kings. After these two scenes featuring Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, the narrative turns to a face-off between Elijah and the king. Elijah asks Obadiah, “who was in charge of the palace” (1 Kgs. 18:3), to deliver the news of Elijah’s return. Obadiah is reluctant, fearing for his life, and both he and the narrator testify that he has
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endangered his own life on behalf of YHWH’s prophets before. Here the narrative invokes an event understood to have occurred in the past but not otherwise referenced in the book of Kings. Obadiah says he hid and fed a hundred of YHWH’s prophets “when Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord” (1 Kgs. 18:4, 13). In the sequence of the narrative so far, Jezebel has only appeared as another foreign woman married to an Israelite king. From Obadiah’s passing reference to her slaughter of Yahwistic prophets (1 Kgs. 18:13), the reader learns that Jezebel is much more than just a bad influence. As the story proceeds, Elijah calls for an assembly with “the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kgs. 18:19). Again, the reference to Jezebel herself is made in passing, but the implications for her character are profound: Jezebel hosts prophets of Baal and Asherah while actively killing off prophets of YHWH. Still, though, the narrative does not turn to study Jezebel, watching instead the dramatic showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. The drought, which has plagued the land for three years, will end in this confrontation; will Baal, rider of the clouds, show himself to be the true God, or is YHWH really in charge? The proof will not take the form of rain, but rather fire. The prophets of Baal have their chance to bring fire to the bull on their altar, but their efforts fail. Elijah—in a ritual that uses so much water that it surely made the droughtridden Israelites very nervous indeed—builds an altar and trench, prays to YHWH, and soon every part of the altar, from the bull to the water in the trench, is consumed with fire. In the wake of his victory, Elijah kills all the assembled prophets of Baal. Shortly thereafter, the rain begins. By slaughtering the prophets of Baal and thus answering Jezebel’s murders of the prophets of YHWH, Elijah shows that his zeal for his God is well matched to Jezebel’s own religious fervor. He also knows that she does not make empty threats. Upon hearing of Elijah’s deeds, Jezebel vows to kill him within a day, and he must again flee for his life—this time from Jezebel rather than Ahab. The replacement of Ahab with Jezebel as Elijah’s most terrible enemy looks forward to the story of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kgs. 21:1–29), when Ahab withdraws from the exploitative privileges of his kingship, and Jezebel takes over in his stead.
Situated between Elijah’s defeat of the prophets of Baal and the story of Naboth’s vineyard is a bit of international intrigue. Elijah’s political involvement has escalated from reviving the dead son of a widow to slaughtering rival prophets to anointing kings both foreign and domestic. YHWH instructs Elijah to anoint Hazael king in Aram and Jehu king in Israel and to find a successor for himself in Elisha, thus bringing another central prophetic figure into the narrative. In the account of war between Israel and Aram that follows, Ahab successfully leads his army to defeat the Arameans, and prophets as well as YHWH himself seem to support Ahab’s campaign. Even so, the king of Israel receives a stinging rebuke from a prophet for allowing Ben-hadad the Aramean to live: “therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people” (1 Kgs. 20:42). Ahab has received the rebuke of both prophet and narrator before, but here his lapse has not been idolatry, but rather failure to kill Ben-hadad, with whom he made a treaty in exchange for Ben-hadad’s life. In the wake of this rebuke, Ahab returns to Samaria “resentful and sullen,” an attitude that will resurface in the story of Naboth’s vineyard. The story of Naboth’s vineyard represents the convergence of monarchic modes of extraction with the narrative’s anti-Ahab and anti-Jezebel sentiments. Ahab wants to take over nearby Naboth’s vineyard for a vegetable garden convenient to the palace. Naboth refuses to sell or trade the vineyard because it is his ancestral inheritance. When Jezebel discovers Ahab pouting about Naboth’s vineyard, she mocks his unwillingness to exercise his powers of extraction, saying, “Do you now govern Israel?” (1 Kgs. 21:7a). She then arranges for Naboth to be stoned under false accusations of cursing God and king. When the deed is accomplished, she instructs Ahab to take possession of the vineyard, and he readily complies. For this act, Elijah returns to Samaria to confront Ahab, promising that his and Jezebel’s bodies will be eaten in the streets by dogs. This last blast of prophetic venom before the death of Ahab holds Ahab himself ultimately responsible for his seizure of Naboth’s vineyard, even though the agency in the seizure was almost entirely Jezebel’s. In this episode, the Deuteronomistic religious polemic has given way to a moral critique. Perhaps Jezebel’s foreignness, coupled with the extent of the brutality she has already demonstrated, makes her involvement
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almost a foregone conclusion. Ahab, though, has “sold [himself] to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kgs. 21:20). He has not only continuously worshiped idols, but he has now disrespected one of the pillars of the religio-ethical system of his land: the ancestral inheritance. Even Jeroboam did not stoop so low; for all the gravity of his sins, he also led Israelites out of enslavement by their own king. Ahab, both idolater and extractor, but without the favor of God that Solomon enjoyed, now represents the worst of all imperial worlds. He dies in battle with Aram, with dogs licking the blood that filled his chariot, just as Elijah had promised. Given that kingship has been so closely tied to masculinity earlier in Kings, it is reasonable to see a masculinization of Jezebel in the steady escalation of her power and influence as Ahab’s profile recedes. In the story of Naboth’s vineyard, one might say that Jezebel’s little finger is thicker than her husband’s loins (see discussion of 1 Kgs. 12:10 above). Though Jezebel is a mother—her sons Ahaziah and Jehoram will rule Israel in succession, and later her daughter Athaliah for a brief time—the Kings narrative does not engage that aspect of her identity beyond the remarks that Ahaziah “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and mother” (1 Kgs. 22:52), while Jehoram “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he removed the pillar of Baal that his father had made” (2 Kgs. 3:2). In all of its condemnatory language about Jezebel, the Kings narrative never comments on her sexuality. There is no indication that she was ever anything but faithful in her marriage to Ahab, and there is no language in the text that unambiguously points to promiscuity. There is one reference to “the many whoredoms and sorceries of your mother Jezebel” (2 Kgs. 9:22), but that language reads as a comment on religious practices—either the practice of cultic prostitution that may have accompanied the worship of some deities, or more likely as a metaphor for religious infidelity. That Jezebel has become associated in the popular imagination with harlotry or sexual indulgence is surely a comment on the images of women in the history of biblical interpretation or on assumptions about female power in our modern culture; the text does not make judgments about Jezebel’s sexuality.
Elisha and the House of Ahab (2 Kgs. 1–8) Second Kings begins at the death of Ahab and the accession of his son Ahaziah. The break between 1 and 2 Kings is purely a pragmatic move, to divide the longer narrative into more manageable chunks, so readers should regard the narrative as continuous, despite the separation of the books. As the fall of the northern kingdom creeps closer and closer, the narrative focuses more and more on international politics and the many wars swirling in the region. Elijah continues his prophecies against the house of Ahab by proclaiming to Ahaziah that he will not recover from his fall through the palace latticework. Ahaziah’s brother Jehoram (a.k.a. Joram), another son of Ahab and Jezebel, succeeds him. Elijah too needs a successor, and after Elijah is taken up into the heavens on chariots of fire, Elisha assumes his duties. Elisha’s prophetic abilities are confirmed by the “company of prophets” looking on from a distance. Elisha soon is confronted by the wife of one of these prophets. Her husband has died, she has been left with many debts, and one of her creditors is coming to enslave her children. In a miracle reminiscent of Elijah’s making the widow’s oil and meal last through the end of the drought, Elisha instructs the prophet’s wife—another widow—to fill multiple vessels from the same lone jar of oil, so that she may sell the oil and pay off her debts (2 Kgs. 4:1–7). The infinite multiplication of a finite food supply is a continuing theme of Elisha’s miracle stories (see also 2 Kgs. 4:38–41 and 42–44). In the face of a militaristic, extractive governmental establishment, the miracle-working men of God create a portrait of YHWH as a giver of fullness. Elisha’s next encounter is with a wealthy woman of Shunem, who with her husband has built a room onto their house so that Elisha may stay with them when he passes through their town. Elisha is grateful for her hospitality and wishes to do something to show his thanks. When he learns that she has no children and is not likely to conceive, he decides to give her a child—specifically a male child. The supposition that conception would be the gift a childless woman most desires reflects a cultural assumption prevalent throughout the Hebrew Bible. The Shunammite woman seems to have everything else, including money, power, and social standing; she even turns down a special word with the king or commander of the army,
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because she has no need of it. Yet the promise of a son seems to resonate as her deepest wish. Indeed, the woman replies to Elisha’s declaration with disbelief, as if she dared not hope such a thing could be true: “No, my lord, O man of God; do not deceive your servant” (2 Kgs. 4:16). Thus motherhood continues to be a role shared by almost all the women in Kings across class and ethnic distinctions. When the Shunammite woman’s child dies, Elisha brings him back to life in a manner very much like Elijah’s revival of the widow of Zarephath’s child, though in a slower-paced, much more meticulous narrative. The detailed account gives the fullest portrait of a female character anywhere in the book of Kings. She is married, but her husband is very passive in comparison to the woman’s forthright activity (see Camp). She proposes to set up Elisha’s guest room, and after her son dies in her lap, she saddles the donkey, rides to Elisha, and compels him to return with her to resuscitate the boy. This dramatic tale with its detailed dialogue reveals a woman who is selfreliant, pious, and a leader. In 2 Kings 5 the narrative introduces a young Israelite slave girl who serves the wife of Naaman, Aramean military commander. The girl is a spoil of war, a victim of one of the many wartime encounters between Israel and Aram. She suggests to Naaman’s wife that the “prophet in Samaria”—that is, Elisha—could cure Naaman of his leprosy. Naaman jumps at this suggestion, and after some resistance by both Elisha and Naaman, he is indeed cured. His cure leads to conversion, though with an “out” (2 Kgs. 5:18) when keeping his job requires acknowledging the god of Aram. The Israelite slave girl is, like so many characters in the narratives of Kings, an “agent” who functions to move the plot in a certain direction. For Naaman, an Aramean, to request an audience with Elisha, an Israelite prophet, he must somehow learn about Elisha’s efficacy. A slave taken during war is a practical choice for the narrative, since she would be an Israelite with close access to Naaman. No more mention is made of the girl after this scene; her character has served its purpose. Her identity as slave is unremarkable to the narrative, an everyday reality of the violence that helps realize the imperial dream. Elisha’s acts of prophecy, power, and zeal continue, intersecting with both Israelite citizens and the political elite, and with even more prominent references to international players.
A second siege of Samaria by King Ben-hadad of Aram (cf. 1 Kgs. 20) brings severe famine to the city, another consequence of the international military engagement that monarchy has brought. Elisha advises the king of Israel against the strategies of the king of Aram, such that the relationship between prophet and king is more cooperative here than in other prophetic accounts. The king of Israel is circling the city wall wearing sackcloth when he encounters a woman crying for help. The woman says that a second woman urged her to give up her son as food for them both the day before, promising that the next day they would eat the second woman’s own son. The first woman complied, and now she complains to the king that the second woman has hidden her son rather than give him up. The horror of this image of cannibalism— a taboo widespread across cultures—is compounded by the identity of eater and eaten as mother and son. The expectations in wise Solomon’s well-ordered world that mothers value their children’s lives above their own (1 Kgs. 3:16–28) have crumbled in the face of the chaos born of war (Camp). Moreover, the conditions are so severe that the notion of some social value gained through bearing children, especially male children, gives way to raw survival. As Walter Brueggemann writes, “She intends to survive, no matter what the cost may be. She is an unexpected witness ‘from below,’ a marginalized woman who attests to the deep cost of famine and war brought about by patriarchal power. Indeed, the makers of war rarely pay the costs of war regularly borne by the voiceless, surely the poor, always the mothers” (Brueggemann, 356). The Israelite king—unnamed here, as in most of the Elisha material, though the surrounding chronology points to Jehoram—is grieved to the point of rage. That he would blame Elisha for the famine is peculiar, as Benhadad’s siege is clearly identified as the cause of the famine. More than that, though, the king’s turn to Elisha has completely ignored the woman’s request. The king immediately sends a man to kill Elisha—who now, like his predecessor Elijah, is sought out for assassination by the king of Israel. In angry despair, the king enters on the heels of the messenger, exclaiming, “This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I hope in the Lord any longer?” (2 Kgs. 6:33). Elisha promises that the price of food will drop by
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its exorbitant rates to a mere shekel in just one day; in other words, the famine caused by the Aramean siege will soon be at an end. Four leprous men—more outsiders of low social standing—contemplate defecting to the Arameans in hopes of being fed, figuring the worst that can happen is that they will die, which is what they know will happen to them if they stay and starve to death. When they arrive at the camp, they discover that it is deserted. After plundering the camp on their own for awhile, the men decide to report the matter, and the Arameans’ food is made available to the people. Again the king has been associated with war and want, while the prophet of YHWH is purveyor of plenty. Second Kings 8 brings another encounter between Elisha and the Shunammite woman. Elisha warns her of an impending seven-year famine, so she and her household go to Philistia until the famine ends. When she returns, she must appeal to the king for her house and land, and the implication of the narrative is that the king has confiscated it in her absence. Imperial extraction is at work again, and again the prophet provides recourse out of that cycle. Having once turned down the offer of Elisha’s word with the king (2 Kgs. 4:13), the Shunammite woman now finds herself in need, and she takes full advantage of her relationship with Elisha to win her appeal. She, her son, and Elisha’s assistant Gehazi all testify to Elisha’s wonders, and the king restores her land and all seven years’ worth of revenue from it. Amid scarcity wrought by the monarchy, the man of God is a source of plenty. Returning more prominently than ever to a role in international politics, Elisha travels to Damascus, where the ill King Ben-hadad sends Hazael to ask the man of God if he will recover from his illness. Elisha tells Hazael to lie to Ben-hadad, knowing that he will not recover and that Hazael will become king in Aram. This prophecy moves Elisha to tears as he foresees the havoc the new Aramean king will wreak in Israel. This emotive account of the emotionally wrought prophet, one of the last stories involving Elisha, makes a fitting transition from the collection of prophetic tales into the wars and political intrigue of the rest of the Deuteronomistic History. The prophetic promises of a world of plenty grounded in Yawhistic faithfulness give way to the machinations of the imperial system. If the narrator has guaranteed God’s judgment on Israel and Judah throughout DH,
then with Elisha’s tears the stories constituting the narrative itself now have yielded to that inevitability. Jehu’s Coup and the Death of Jezebel (2 Kgs. 9–11) After an extended foray into prophetic tales, the narrative returns its primary focus to the monarchy and its machinations. Two kings of Judah, Jehoram and Ahaziah, receive negative evaluations in the narrative and are linked with the Omride dynasty of the northern kingdom. Jehoram is married to Athaliah, who is likely the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. Ahaziah, son of Jehoram and Athaliah, eventually succeeds him. After such an extended look at the evils of the northern kingdom, this familial crossover of the Omrides into Judah cannot bode well for the south. At this point Elisha makes his penultimate appearance in the narrative. He sends a young prophet to anoint Jehu, son of the southern king, Jehoshaphat, as ruler over the northern kingdom of Israel, unseating the Omride dynasty there. The proclamation of this anonymous prophet includes the cutting off of the house of Ahab and the ignominious end of Jezebel: “The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her” (2 Kgs. 9:10). Jehu kills Joram and Ahaziah at Naboth’s vineyard, where the allied kings of Israel and Judah are gathered, thus fulfilling (albeit indirectly) Elijah’s prophecy that “in the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood” (1 Kgs. 21:19). He then rides on into Jezreel, where, in preparation for his arrival, Jezebel has “painted her eyes, adorned her head, and looked out of the window” (2 Kgs. 9:30). The image of painted eyes and adorned head might lead interpreters to think Jezebel plans to attempt to seduce her way out of her predicament, or that her vanity distracts her from understanding the danger she is in. On the contrary, Jezebel’s dialogue with Jehu shows that she is acutely aware of the future before her. She asks if he comes in peace, but the question drips with sarcasm, for she addresses him as “Zimri, murderer of your master.” Zimri had killed King Elah of Israel, but that assassination resulted in only one week of kingship for Zimri (1 Kgs. 16:8–20). Jehu wastes no time, calling up to any supporters who may be in Jezebel’s house. At Jehu’s prompting, eunuchs in Jezebel’s service throw her down from the
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window. The narrative’s description is graphic, reveling in the gore of the scene: blood on the wall, blood on the horses, Jezebel’s broken body under trampling hooves. Jehu sits down for a meal and as an afterthought sends to have Jezebel buried, “for she is a king’s daughter” (2 Kgs. 9:34). “But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands” (2 Kgs. 9:35). As Elijah promised, Jezebel’s body has been eaten by dogs until it is beyond recognition. This scene marks the ultimate triumph of the anti-Jezebel vitriol that has permeated the book of Kings, a release of violent rage not simply by the eunuchs or Jehu, but by the narrative itself. It is as if, by her evisceration, her mutilation, the erasure of her very face, the Deuteronomists could erase the apostasies Jezebel represents from the unfolding history of the fall of Israel and Judah. Yet the idolatry, like the memory of Jezebel herself, persists. Jehu continues his purgation of the house of Ahab, slaughtering all the remaining family and friends he can find. He then sets his sights on the prophets, priests, and worshipers of Baal, gathering them together under false pretenses and then murdering them as they worship (2 Kgs. 10:18–27). Despite his zeal for cleansing Israel of Baal-worshipers, he still cannot manage to let go of the sin of Jeroboam, so he worships the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Syria—led by the hand of God, according to the Deuteronomistic perspective—begins to take territory away from Israel, bit by bit (2 Kgs. 10:32–33). In the midst of all the kings of Israel and Judah is one lone queen, though the narrative does not acknowledge her with that title. Athaliah, daughter of Jezebel and Ahab, mother of Ahaziah, and wife of Jehoram of Judah, reigns for six years after Ahaziah’s death. She who has lived through the violent deaths of her parents and son seizes the throne by attempting to murder all the possible Judean heirs, just as Jehu has done to Israel. Yet one heir survives: Jehoash (a.k.a. Joash), son of Ahaziah, is hidden by his aunt Jehosheba, sister of Ahaziah, in the temple until he is seven years old. At that point the priest Jehoiada arranges for Jehoash’s coronation and Athaliah’s execution. The daughter of Jezebel, whose mother was trampled into an unrecognizable skull, palms, and feet by horses, is dragged through the horses’ entrance to the king’s house and killed (2 Kgs. 11:16).
The End of the Northern Kingdom (2 Kgs. 12–17) This section of 2 Kings returns to the pattern of loosely alternating accounts of Israelite and Judean kings. Both monarchies repeatedly botch the same old tasks: the southern kings fail to remove the high places from the land, and the northern kings continue to walk in the sins of Jeroboam. The military landscape becomes more and more dire, as both Aram and Assyria press Israel and Judah for alliances and tribute. Israel and Aram, allied, attack Jerusalem to try to force Judah into an anti-Assyrian coalition (2 Kgs. 16). This Syro-Ephraimite war weakens all involved, though Israel continues to rebel against Assyria. After King Hoshea withholds tribute one last time (2 Kgs. 17:3–4), Assyria lays siege to Israel, destroying it in 722 BCE. The Deuteronomistic voice, which is attempting in this historical retelling to provide a theological understanding of these events, sums up its dominant theology at 2 Kings 17:7: “This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” The passage goes on to specify those sins, which involve idolatry, high places, ignoring covenant law, and ignoring the prophets (2 Kgs. 17:7–18). In what is surely a later addition, the text goes on to say that the fall of Israel is simply a foreshadowing of Judah’s fate: “The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel; he punished them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had banished them from his presence” (2 Kgs. 17:20).
The End of Judah (2 Kgs. 18–25) Hezekiah and the Siege of Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 18–20) This final section of the book of Kings begins with praises for Hezekiah, king of Judah, who has instituted religious reforms crucial in the Deuteronomists’ eyes, including finally removing the “high places” from the land. He also “cut down the sacred pole” from the temple, that is, removed the cultic object of the goddess Asherah, who was probably being worshiped alongside YHWH as his consort. In the meantime, Assyria has taken Samaria and now has its sights set on Jerusalem, laying siege to it in 701 BCE. The Rabshakeh, an Assyrian official, comes to Jerusalem to taunt the people and their king,
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using Hezekiah’s religious reforms to incite fear: “But if you say to me, ‘We rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?” (2 Kgs. 18:22). The implication is that Hezekiah’s reforms have distanced the people from their worship of YHWH, rather than fulfilling what YHWH wishes. The Rabshakeh goes on to claim that YHWH told him to destroy Judah (2 Kgs. 18:25). While God’s hand in military conquest is one of the primary theses DH wants its readers to affirm, here the Rabshakeh’s words beg incredulity, given the steps Hezekiah has taken to keep apostasy at bay. In the face of this crisis and the goading propaganda being disseminated by the Rabshakeh, Hezekiah turns to the prophet Isaiah. In his prophecy concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, Isaiah uses metaphors of Jerusalem as “daughter” and “virgin daughter” (2 Kgs. 19:21). Though the metaphorical rendering of Jerusalem as girl or woman can be highly problematic in the prophetic literature, fraught with images of sexual violence (e.g., Ezek. 16; 23; Hos. 2), here the metaphor functions as a term of endearment. God declares through Isaiah that Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem will not succeed, and that prophecy holds true; Judah survives for more than a century more. Even so, Isaiah delivers an ominous word to Hezekiah after visitors from Babylon come and see all that the king of Judah has in his storehouses. Isaiah declares that all the riches of Judah will be taken up to Babylon, along with some of Hezekiah’s own sons. The Babylonian exile is now intractably on the narrative’s horizon. Manasseh (2 Kgs. 21) In the eyes of the Deuteronomists, Manasseh is the most reviled of all the Judean kings. All the religious reforms his father Hezekiah instituted, Manasseh immediately undid, with more and varied apostasies besides. Baal and Asherah are back in full force. His offenses are moral as well as religious: “Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin that he caused Judah to sin so that they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kgs. 21:16). His son Amon is no better (2 Kgs. 21:21–22). God thus promises the destruction of Jerusalem with a remarkable domestic metaphor: “I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish,
wiping it and turning it upside down” (2 Kgs. 21:13b). The exile creeps closer. Josiah (2 Kgs. 22–23) Upon the assassination of Amon, eightyear-old Josiah is made king. In the narrative’s presentation, Josiah is as extraordinarily good as Manassseh is extraordinarily bad. He walks in the ways of King David without any of the exceptions by which earlier kings are marked (e.g., Amaziah son of Joash, who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his ancestor David” [2 Kgs. 14:3]). In the process of making repairs to the temple, the high priest Hilkiah finds “the book of the law in the house of the Lord” (2 Kgs. 22:8). Perhaps historically, but certainly in the narrative imagination, this book is some form of the law code of Deuteronomy. Josiah’s secretary Shaphan reads the book to Josiah, who is so convicted by its contents that he tears his clothes and sends an envoy to “inquire of the Lord.” The group makes this inquiry to Huldah, a prophet. Huldah presents a glimpse of another social role for women. Though the text mentions her husband’s work, Huldah is clearly a prophet in her own right. She does not, however, appear to be directly associated with the temple cult, since her visitors must go out from the city center to meet her where she sits. This could indicate that she is a court prophet, consulted at her home. Diana Edelman raises the possibility that Huldah could have been a prophet of Asherah, that is, of the consort of YHWH at a shrine away from the city center, and that the Deuteronomistic editor who inserted her oracle either did not know this or purposefully obscured that fact. Either way, Huldah’s oracle stands authoritatively before Josiah. Huldah’s declaration of coming destruction for the people of Judah because they have failed to keep the law certainly proves to be true. Some readers have held that the second half of her prophecy, in which she tells Josiah that he “shall be gathered to your grave in peace” (2 Kgs. 22:20), is an incorrect or failed prophecy, since he dies in a confrontation with Pharaoh Neco (2 Kgs. 23:29). However, this phrase need not indicate manner of death as much as proper burial (Edelman, 240–41). The content of the prophecy moves Josiah to renew the covenant and to institute sweeping religious reforms, even more remarkable than those attempted by Hezekiah. He reinstitutes the celebration of
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the Passover, and he takes down all high places, alternate altars, and sacred poles. Yet in the wake of Huldah’s prophecy these remarkable changes do seem to be too little too late. This chapter gives all the blame to Manasseh (2 Kgs. 23:26), but the book of Kings has been rolling steadily toward Judah’s destruction since the death of David, with every apostasy and breach of morality by its leadership marking the way. The Fall of Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 24–25) The monarchy for which the people clamored in 1 Samuel 8, the monarchy that will take, take, take, take a tenth, take, take a tenth, is now itself taken away to Babylon. Every treasure of palace and temple is taken; every official, every warrior, every artisan, all but the poorest of the land have been carried away. While a brief epilogue to the book (2 Kgs. 25:27–30) celebrates the release of the Judean king Jehoiachin from prison to dine at the Babylonian king’s table, it is but little solace. There is hardly any sense in the book of Kings that Israel and Judah could ever not be destroyed. Despite its literary artistry and historical formulae, Kings is at its heart a theological declaration, looking backwards through a narrative history to answer why a chosen nation with an anointed kingship would have its capital destroyed, its temple razed, and its people sent out of the long-promised land into exile. Looking back from the Babylonian exile (or beyond) in a kind of pained nostalgia, the narrative longs for the wealth, glory, and national autonomy the united kingdom of Israel once enjoyed, especially in the “golden age” of Solomonic rule. The book wields its editorial power sharply, crafting nearly of all of its characters in ways that point to its monarchic focus and further its theological agenda. Readers are left more with literary types than a straightforwardly historical, social-scientific portrait of either women or men in ancient Israel and Judah. Foreign women receive a particularly damning critique as seductresses whose religious practices are ultimately at the heart of the demise of the kingdoms. The book of Kings often thus effaces individual female characters within the story; recounting the gory death of Jezebel, the narrative revels in her literal defacement, so that represented in the broken body of a foreign woman is everything the Deuteronomistic narrative hates about the past that has paved the way to its doomed future.
Despite its longing, the book of Kings is not altogether settled in its nostalgia. The book recounts a system of rule based on the extraction of resources, be they agricultural, monetary, or human, from the communities under its governance. That kind of system exploits the bodies of both women and men for service to kingdom. The narrative shows some resistance to this, especially in the accounts of Elijah and Elisha, whose miracles point to an alternate reality governed by God, in which giving and fullness rather than extraction and famine are the structures in place. Those portraits draw the narrative’s view away from the kings and toward the widowed, grieving, and destitute who suffer under the effects of their policies. The critique leveled by Kings, then, is ultimately not only about religious fidelity. A quieter but no less fervent thread assails imperial, patriarchal systems that yield only suffering. Bibliography
Berquist, Jon L. “Postcolonialism and Imperial Motives for Canonization.” In The Postcolonial Biblical Reader, edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah, 78–95. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Brueggemann, Walter. 1 & 2 Kings. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary. Macon, GA: Smith & Helwys, 2000. Camp, Claudia V. In Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, 102–16. Expanded edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. Edelman, Diana. “Huldah the Prophet—of Yahweh or Asherah?” In A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, edited by Athalya Brenner, 231–50. The Feminist Companion to the Bible 5. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994. Römer, Thomas. The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction. London: T. & T. Clark, 2007. Stone, Ken. “1 and 2 Kings.” In The Queer Bible Commentary, edited by Deryn Guest, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, and Thomas Bohache, 222–50. London: SCM, 2006. Sweeney, Marvin A. I and II Kings: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007.
Jezebel and Her Interpreters Josey Bridges Snyder
Jezebel is one of the few biblical characters treated almost uniformly negatively both in the biblical text and in the subsequent interpretive tradition. The daughter of a Phoenician king, Jezebel becomes queen over Israel through her marriage to Ahab (1 Kgs. 16:31). From this introduction, we know that the Deuteronomistic editor thinks poorly of Jezebel. The fact of her marriage is sandwiched between two negative statements: first, that King Ahab’s sins exceeded those of Jeroboam and, second, that Ahab served Baal. The biblical text does not indicate direct causality between Ahab’s taking Jezebel as a wife and his sinfulness or worship of Baal. Still, the proximity of the statements in 1 Kings 16:31 creates the association in the mind of the reader—an association strengthened by a later verse that does directly blame Jezebel for Ahab’s misdeeds (1 Kgs. 21:25). While never the center of the story, Jezebel appears numerous times in the narrative of 1 and 2 Kings. She kills the prophets of YHWH (1 Kgs. 18:4, 13); provides sustenance to the prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kgs. 18:19); threatens revenge against Elijah after the episode at Mount Carmel (1 Kgs. 19:1–2); orchestrates the murder of Naboth in order to obtain his field for her husband (1 Kgs. 21:5–15); and boldly meets her death with painted face and freshly done hair (2 Kgs. 9:30–37). From the viewpoint of the Deuteronomist, everything Jezebel does is sinful, and she fully deserves the gruesome death predicted by Elijah (1 Kgs. 21:23) and Elisha (2 Kgs. 9:7–10). Moreover, while we have no indication in the text that Jezebel’s misdeeds include sexual exploits, Jehu, YHWH’s chosen usurper, accuses Jezebel of “whoredoms and sorceries” (2 Kgs. 9:22). Whether Jehu intends to insinuate sexual looseness or, more likely, religious infidelity (i.e., worship of multiple deities) is not clear. After her death, Jezebel is neither mourned nor buried, and the text never speaks of her again. And yet her character is not silenced. Her influence, perhaps greater than any other
woman’s in the course of Israelite political history, continues to live on (for better or worse!) in the course of interpretive history. In the New Testament canon, Jezebel’s name appears once, as a rhetorical device to discredit another powerful woman in the church of Thyatira who is charged with proclaiming herself a prophet and leading others to fornication and idolatry (Rev. 2:20). While none of the Thyatira woman’s deeds overlap with those attributed to Jezebel in Kings, this invocation of Jezebel’s name evidences an early example of associating her with a growing array of sinful behaviors, including fornication. In the Talmud, where we find the warning “he who follows his wife’s counsel will descend into Gehenna” (b. Bava Metzi’a 59a), Jezebel is again depicted as a sinful and troublesome woman. Interpreting the biblical verse about the prostitutes who bathe themselves in Ahab’s blood after he dies in battle (1 Kgs. 22:38), the Talmud narrates that Jezebel painted images of harlots on Ahab’s chariot in order to arouse him sexually, those painted harlots being the ones “bathed” by Ahab’s blood when he was mortally wounded in battle (b. Sanhedrin 39b). The implication, of course, is that Jezebel was an exceptionally sexual woman, possibly so much so that Ahab struggled to keep up with her. Perhaps drawing on Jehu’s accusation of Jezebel’s “whoredoms,” the legend may also intend to imply that Jezebel both expected and approved of extramarital affairs. Early Christian interpreters likewise amplify Jezebel’s sins and paint her in a wholly negative light. Ephrem the Syrian (306–73 CE), who refers to Jezebel as “the insane woman” and “the mad queen,” claims Jezebel made her husband and children her slaves and thus holds her responsible for the sins of the entire family. When Jezebel’s son, Ahaziah, inquires of the god of Ekron and subsequently dies for his apostasy (2 Kgs. 1:1–17), Ephrem blames Jezebel (despite the fact that she nowhere appears in the story), claiming Ahaziah acted on her
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advice (On the Second Book of Kings 1.1). Moreover, adding to the growing depictions of Jezebel as a lascivious woman, Ephrem interprets Jezebel’s adorning herself in her final scene as a fleeting attempt to seduce Jehu into taking her as his wife before the sight of him ignites her rage and she resorts to taunting him instead (On the Second Book of Kings 9.30). Clearly, for Ephrem, Jezebel is a dangerous woman, always acting in sin and striving to lead astray the men who surround her. Others take pains to depict Jezebel as wholly negative, so as to be a foil for Elijah, who is then viewed as wholly positive. Even though both Jezebel and Elijah murder hundreds of prophets, Augustine (354–430 CE) distinguishes between these acts, condemning Jezebel and vindicating Elijah, since Elijah murdered false prophets, while Jezebel murdered prophets of YHWH. Thus, Augustine concludes, “I think there was a difference in merit between the doers as between the victims” (Letter to Vincent 93.6).
Along similar lines, several Christian interpreters exhibit discomfort with the notion that Jezebel may have had influence—or, worse, victory—over Elijah when her threat caused him to flee. To deal with this difficulty, Ephrem insists that the death Elijah hopes for is not the same as the death Jezebel had threatened two verses earlier, since such might indicate a victory of Baal over YHWH (On the First Book of Kings 19.4). Likewise, Ambrose (333–97 CE) clarifies that Elijah did not flee from a woman (i.e., Jezebel), but from the world enmeshed with sin (Flight from the World 6.34). Five centuries later, Isho’dad of Merv is still concerned about Elijah’s flight from Jezebel, particularly in conjunction with his earlier complete lack of fear of Ahab. To resolve the apparent discrepancy, he determines that it was not Jezebel’s influence, but Elijah’s momentary lapse of faith, that caused him to succumb to fear and flee (Books of Sessions I Kings 19.2). In these examples, it seems the interpreters are equally troubled that Elijah
Jezebel is thrown to the ground among the dogs and horses that play roles in her gory demise, in Death of Jezebel, an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), which was published in The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorised version (London: Cassell, 1866).
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might have fled from a woman as from a devotee to a foreign god, preferring any explanation other than that this woman, Jezebel, might have caused Elijah to stray. Negative portrayals of Jezebel increase exponentially when we consider her appearance in literature—poems, plays, novels, and movies—up through the modern era. As Janet Howe Gaines observes in her detailed analysis of many of these cultural artifacts, “[Jezebel’s] name serves as a sort of shorthand, a quick and efficient allusion to sinfulness” (Gaines, 147). Even when the Jezebels in literature do not intend to portray the “real” Jezebel from biblical tradition, the use of the name Jezebel creates a connection with the biblical character (at least in the mind of the reader) that is not easily broken or erased. The most-remembered Hollywood image of Jezebel is probably that of Bette Davis, who plays a willful and ruinously selfish Southern belle named Julie Marsden in the 1938 film Jezebel. Like the biblical Jezebel, Julie Marsden is always scheming, and though her schemes in the movie tend to fail, we get the impression that Julie is accustomed to getting what she wants. Aside from the title, the name “Jezebel” is evoked only once. After one of Julie’s selfish schemes turns deadly for a family friend, her aunt solemnly remarks, “I’m thinking of a woman called Jezebel who did evil in the sight of God.” At times, Bette Davis’s character seems too fickle and immature to carry the memory of the biblical Jezebel. In fact, when she loses her fiancé and locks herself, pouting, in her house, her actions are more reminiscent of Ahab’s sulking when he fails to purchase Naboth’s vineyard. Yet something of Julie Marsden’s resolve to follow her aims regardless of what others think— and perhaps too her courage in greeting death unafraid in the film’s final scene—does evoke the biblical character. Indeed, it is refreshing to see at least one example of allusion to Jezebel that focuses less on a woman’s sexual allure and more on her attempts to wield power. Turning to an earlier example, an eleventhcentury Norman poem titled “Jezebel” features a quick-tongued, irreverent female in a question-and-answer debate with an unidentified inquisitor. Her answers to the series of questions range from irreverent to shocking, continually depicting her as a woman who relishes sexual promiscuity and licentiousness. Though the only clear connection with the biblical character is the name, some have read this poem as
a debate between the biblical Jezebel and her nemesis, Elijah. Yet, even without making such a direct identification, it is not possible to read this poem without bringing to mind the biblical Jezebel. Moreover, once one is familiar with the poem—particularly due to its spicy language and vivid imagery—it is no longer possible to read the story of the biblical Jezebel without this “acid-tongued vixen” (Gaines, 152) also coming to mind. Haldane MacFall’s 1898 novel The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer draws on the reader’s memory of the biblical Jezebel to create the character of a black Caribbean woman who goes by the same name. Here again, it is not Jezebel’s political savvy or ambition that is remembered, but her supposed loose sexuality. MacFall—a white British author who lived in Jamaica for a time while serving in the military—places the following words in his main character’s mouth: “I has always been loose in me affections, honey, always, dat a fact—just de same like dat dar Jezebel in Holy Writ” (MacFall, 53). Here we see not only a (mis?)representation of the biblical Jezebel as sexually uninhibited, but the use of that stereotype to paint a black woman as similarly promiscuous. Such characterization is neither happenstance nor benign. As Patricia Hill Collins informs, images of black women Jezebels originated under slavery and have been an integral part of the oppression and control of black womanhood and, in particular, black women’s sexuality ever since (Collins, 81). Faced with such a stark reality, the potential benefits of reclaiming Jezebel as a positive female character—or at least as the politically bold and independent woman depicted in the biblical text—become ever clearer. Indeed, even in the historical interpretive tradition, such positive images of Jezebel exist. For example, some have suggested that Psalm 45, a royal wedding psalm, may have been written to celebrate Jezebel’s marriage to Ahab. While there is no clear criterion to prove the claim, the simple association of this psalm with Jezebel opens the possibility of interpreting Jezebel positively. In the psalm, the coming queen is greeted with enthusiasm and anticipation, with no hint of the difficulties in Jezebel’s reign to come. Of course, if the psalm does speak of Jezebel, the queen does not follow the psalmist’s advice to “forget your people and your father’s house” (Ps. 45:10 [Heb. 45:11]).
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Jewish interpretive tradition also offers an early example of interpreting Jezebel positively. Wondering why Jezebel’s hands, feet, and skull were neither trampled by the horses nor consumed by the dogs, Jewish tradition offers that these body parts were left unscathed because they were the portions of her body that she had used for good. As the tradition goes, Jezebel was an empathetic queen who would often join in the rejoicing or the mourning of wedding and funeral processions that passed by her palace (Pirke Rabbi Eliezer 17). Thus, even if the underlying implication is that Jezebel had never used any other body part toward a worthy end, we at least have one positive character trait associated with this oft-despised woman. In more recent material, we find several examples of those who wish to reclaim this hated queen from her history of interpretation—and, in some cases, even from her portrayal in the biblical text itself. Lafayette McLaws’s 1902 novel Jezebel: A Romance in the Days When Ahab Was King of Israel depicts a queen who is sympathetic to her husband’s religion and cares deeply for the welfare of the people of Israel. At the novel’s end, McLaws’s Jezebel even converts to monotheistic worship of YHWH. Thus, while McLaws certainly depicts Jezebel differently from the Deuteronomist, she accepts his premise: a good person means a good Yahwist. More recently still, two new publications— Eleanor Ferris Beach’s The Jezebel Letters and Lesley Hazelton’s Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen—have sought to reread the biblical material and reclaim Jezebel on her own terms, retelling the story from her perspective. Though they differ in their approach and execution, both books share a distrust of the biblical bias against Jezebel and seek to recover the “true” story of the Israelite queen. For both, Jezebel is primarily a strong political leader, ruthless perhaps, but no more so than other monarchs of her day. Though both books are at times overly confident in their historical claims, the images of Jezebel they portray are compelling, particularly because they allow her to be complex, hiding neither her virtues nor her faults. For these authors, Jezebel was not just the evil woman who led her husband astray. She was a woman torn between two worlds: Phoenician and Israelite. Loyalty to the gods of her ancestors conflicted with loyalty to her husband and his chosen deity. And, as both
of these authors point out, if the story were told from a Phoenician perspective, Jezebel’s character would be portrayed quite differently. So who was the real Jezebel? It is up to each reader to decide, but we cannot pretend the choice we make is an insignificant one. The biblical Jezebel challenges us. In her duel with Elijah, we are forced to take sides: male or female; YHWH or Baal; one deity or many; religious intolerance or tolerance. The Deuteronomist has chosen the former in each case, and the interpretive tradition has often done the same, but are we limited by this tradition? Even more, are we confined by the dichotomy it suggests? Can we reclaim Jezebel without demonizing Elijah? Can we celebrate the female without denigrating the male? Can we reject intolerance without becoming intolerant ourselves? Attending to Jezebel’s story and tradition raises more questions than it answers. Yet it also opens up new possibilities for reading and understanding. As this never-buried woman continues to live on in our memories and in the interpretive tradition—and as new traditions continue to arise—we are invited to return to her story, to read between the lines, and to listen for her voice speaking across the generations. Bibliography
Beach, Eleanor Ferris. The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2000. Gaines, Janet Howe. Music in the Old Bones: Jezebel through the Ages. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Hazelton, Lesley. Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Pippin, Tina. “Jezebel Re-vamped.” Semeia 69–70 (1995): 221–33. Trible, Phyllis. “Exegesis for Storytellers and Other Strangers.” Journal of Biblical Literature 114 (1995): 3–14. Ziolkowski, Jan M. Jezebel: A Norman Latin Poem of the Early Eleventh Century. Humana Civilitas 10. New York: Peter Lang, 1989.
1 and 2 Chronicles Christine Mitchell
Introduction First and Second Chronicles, known as Divre Hayyamim (The Annals) in Hebrew and as Paraleipomena (Things Omitted) in Greek, is found in all the canons of the Hebrew Bible. Its English name derives from the Vulgate’s Chronica. In the Jewish Tanakh it is one book, usually located at the end of the third division of the canon, Kethuvim (Writings), thus usually the final book of the canon. In the Christian Old Testament it is two books, located in the midst of the historical books, after 1–2 Kings and before Ezra, and thus in the middle of the canon. By immediately following 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings, and being a repetition of much of their content, 1–2 Chronicles is often overlooked or assimilated to the previous books. In the Tanakh, the final Hebrew word, vaya‘al (“let him go up”), is a word of hope oriented toward the future, leaving the possibility of restoration unfulfilled. The Christian Old Testament uses that ending to make the transition to Ezra (which begins with the same sentence), which continues the story. First Chronicles may be divided into genealogies (1 Chr. 1–9) and the reign of David (1 Chr. 10–29). Second Chronicles may be divided into the reign of Solomon (2 Chr. 1–9) and the reigns of the kings of Judah from the death of Solomon to the Babylonian exile, ending with the decree of Cyrus restoring the Judahites to Jerusalem (2 Chr. 10–36). The building of the temple in Jerusalem by Solomon occupies the center of the combined book of 1–2 Chronicles (2 Chr. 3–9). Within the largely narrative portions of 1 Chronicles 10–2 Chronicles 36 there are lists, psalms, and speeches placed at key points.
Almost all of Chronicles has some parallel with another biblical text. The genealogies parallel texts from Genesis, Numbers, and Joshua. The story of David parallels 1 Samuel 31–1 Kings 1. The story of Solomon parallels 1 Kings 2–11, while the story of the remaining kings of Judah parallels 1 Kings 13–2 Kings 26. David’s psalm in 1 Chronicles 16 uses Psalms 96, 105, and 106. Yet Chronicles does not slavishly follow its source texts. It omits the stories of Samuel, Saul, and David’s rise (1 Sam. 1–30), the stories of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kgs. 17–2 Kgs. 6), and almost all the stories about the kings of the northern kingdom of Israel that follow from Solomon’s death (1 Kgs. 12 and following). Above all, Chronicles is concerned with the Davidic line of kings, Jerusalem and its temple, the Levites who serve in the temple, and the definition of “all Israel” as being those who worship God in the Jerusalem temple, whether their origin is Judahite (southern kingdom) or Israelite (northern kingdom). Theologically, the God of Chronicles is a rather remote, all-powerful deity, who punishes the wicked kings and rewards the faithful kings within their lifetimes (the doctrine of immediate retribution). The blame for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile lies with the final king, Zedekiah. The ritual impurity and pollution accumulated within the land of Judah over the centuries is removed by the land remaining empty, fulfilling its Sabbaths (2 Chr. 36:21). Chronicles deftly combines the theodicy in Kings with the Sabbath and purity laws of Leviticus in its formulation of the reason for the exile.
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There is a general consensus among scholars that Chronicles was written in the fifth to fourth centuries BCE, the latter part of the Persian period, and probably before the widespread Hellenization of Judea following Alexander the Great’s conquest of the late fourth century. Scholars call the anonymous author the Chronicler; Jewish and Christian tradition has held that Ezra was the author. In the twentieth century, many scholars considered that the author of Chronicles was also the author of Ezra and Nehemiah; this hypothesis has been largely discarded. That Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah are all written in the same form of Hebrew (known as late biblical Hebrew) is largely agreed upon. However, the individual styles and vocabulary of Chronicles and Ezra– Nehemiah suggest different authors. The historical conditions of the fifth and fourth centuries in Yehud (the Persian province corresponding roughly to the former kingdom of Judah) are not well understood. The written evidence outside of Ezra–Nehemiah is scarce. Scholars rely on Greek sources such as Herodotus for the history of the Persian Empire, as very few Persian inscriptions or narrative texts from within the empire exist. Nevertheless, we can say that during the second half of the Persian period, Yehud was a relatively small, out-of-the-way province. The Chronicler was likely a Jerusalem temple official/scribe, perhaps a Levite, writing in an impoverished and neglected province of the vast Persian Empire. He does not seem to have had access to any texts outside of those that have come to us as part of the Hebrew Bible. He wrote in a form of Hebrew that was not the classical Hebrew of his sources, perhaps because his Hebrew imitated the spoken Hebrew of his time or because he saw classical Hebrew as the language of the golden age long past.
Women in Chronicles/Women as Readers of Chronicles Chronicles does not seem at first glance to be a book that might hold interest for women. There are very few women in the text; many of the women we find in Samuel or Kings appear in stories that Chronicles does not tell. As Roland Boer has noted, “Chronicles reminds me a little of East Sydney: men as far as the eye can see. . . . And if East Sydney was one of the first gay ghettos in the city, Chronicles is one of the first
men-only utopias. . . . [A] feminist criticism is that this male-only world relies on the silencing of women” (Boer, 251). Overwhelmingly, the most obvious characterization of the women who do appear in Chronicles is as mothers. Women appear often in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9 as the mothers of certain children (almost entirely male children). The most frequent mention of women in 1 Chronicles 10–2 Chronicles 36 is also as mothers: the usual formula at the beginning of each king’s reign notes the name of the king’s mother. There has been very little feminist scholarship on Chronicles: the only book-length work is Julie Kelso’s O Mother, Where Art Thou? While one of the dominant figures of Chronicles scholarship of the past forty years, Sara Japhet, is a woman, her work has not engaged with feminist discussions. What can we do for a reading of Chronicles that would be of interest to women? Cataloguing the occurrences of women would be tedious and short. Instead, I propose to read through the lens of gender performance. Originating in Judith Butler’s groundbreaking work Gender Trouble, the concept that gender may be analyzed as a performance, beyond a simple construct, has been used profitably in literary analysis. Since Chronicles is such a relentlessly textual book, drawing explicitly on previous texts and using many more texts than it explicitly cites, looking at how gender is performed in some other biblical texts may be of some use. In Isaiah and other prophetic texts, as Cynthia Chapman has shown, gender is performed in the deployment of imagery that links defeated enemies with women. YHWH is depicted as performing masculinity in his treatment of his daughter/wife Jerusalem. Extrapolating from this analysis of prophetic texts to the textworlds of the Hebrew Bible more generally, we may hypothesize that femininity is performed by not performing as a man. As a negative formulation this may be unsatisfactory for the reader of this commentary. As a positive formulation, we may hypothesize that performing femininity in ancient Israel and Yehud involves performing maternity and submission. What place is there for procreation? Women give birth—the biological fact. But this biological fact becomes part of a contested stage of performance. I shall argue that Chronicles attempts to depict procreation as a masculine performance, while attempting to efface the
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biological fact of procreation as a woman’s prerogative. Roland Boer’s essay in The Queer Bible Commentary offers one way into an analysis of the male-only world of Chronicles. I offer another. We both use Julie Kelso’s work as foundational; we both seek a liberational reading, and while Boer undoes the male utopia by showing its fundamental campiness, I hold out less hope that the male utopia can be undone. Readers
of this commentary hoping for a hermeneutics of recuperation will not find it. Chronicles is concerned with cleanness and simplicity (as in the doctrine of immediate reward/retribution). Often described as “inclusive” of foreigners, as having a “pan-Israel” theology, this text is actually highly exclusive: it overwrites, effaces, and erases women. This tendency toward describing that which excludes as “inclusive” is just as strong today. Chronicles teaches us how to see it.
Comment Genealogies: The Birthing Father (1 Chr. 1–9) Surely 1 Chronicles 1 is the most masculine chapter in the entire Hebrew Bible. Beginning with Adam, a genealogy of sons traces the male line to Esau and Jacob, concluding with a genealogy of the kings of Edom. As Julie Kelso points out, all this procreation happens without women and, more importantly, using the verb yalad, “he gave birth/he bore.” The men bear other men. The more usual form of the verb used of men is holid, “he caused to bear=he begot,” which does not require a named feminine partner but implies one. Compare Genesis 11:12–13 (“Arpachshad was alive for thirty-five years when he caused to bear [wayoled] Shelah. After his causing to bear [holido] of Shelah”) with 1 Chronicles 1:18 (“And Arpachshad bore [yalad] Shelah” [all translations mine]). The first woman to enter the text is Keturah, Abraham’s pilegesh (secondary wife), who bears (yaledah) sons (1 Chr. 1:32). These sons are then explicitly named as “the sons of Keturah” (1 Chr. 1:33). This maternal line is not the line of Israel. A woman performs maternity, and her children are outside the people. The most extensive genealogies in 1 Chronicles 1–9 are those of Judah, including David and the Judahite kings (1 Chr. 2:3–4:23), Levi (1 Chr. 5:27–6:66 [ET 6:1–81]), and Benjamin (1 Chr. 7:6–11; 8:1–40; 9:35–43). The Judahites, Benjaminites, and priest-Levites who (re)settled after “Judah was exiled to Babylon” (1 Chr. 9:1) are briefly described in 1 Chronicles 9:1– 34, with the bulk of the description going to the Levites. While the genealogies of both Judah and Benjamin include women—although in a complicated manner—the genealogy of Levi
includes only one woman: Miriam, the sister of Moses, who is never associated with maternity. Priests follow, in a long line of masculine procreation using the verb holid: priests cause—someone—to bear, but the mothers are all effaced and silenced. In a fantasy of masculine performativity, men replicate themselves, bypassing their women altogether. The mother of Jabez and her son are the only two speaking figures of 1 Chronicles 1–9. She speaks in 1 Chronicles 4:9, but she is not named. Her speech is to name her son Jabez (ya‘bets), “because I bore him in pain [‘otseb].” A woman who voices the performative act of maternity names it as pain and is herself left unnamed. Jabez’s father is not clearly named— Jabez “dangles.” Julie Kelso argues that Jabez’s speech, his prayer to God (1 Chr. 4:10), is a calling upon the surrogate father to negate the mother’s expression of authority through her act of naming. To extend this reading, by calling on God to perform the father’s role, Jabez seeks to undo the expression of the mother’s performance of maternity. It cannot be coincidence that the speech of the mother is immediately overspoken. We might take the acts of Jabez’s mother and Jabez as typological for the entire book of Chronicles. As the woman performs femininity through the ultimate performative act of birth and naming, the man immediately acts to perform his masculinity. The performance of masculinity requires that all creative acts (speech acts, naming acts, procreative acts) be appropriated. The allusion in 1 Chronicles 4:9 to Genesis 3:16—YHWH’s punishment of Eve, “in pain you shall bear sons”—also invites us to consider its continuation: “and/but for your man shall be your desire, and he shall rule over you.”
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Jabez’s mother, who performs maternity, does not desire any man, so Jabez takes her place and performs maternal desire for God, his man, at the same time as he rules over her speech.
David: The Begetter (1 Chr. 10–29) The second major portion of Chronicles is the story of David in 1 Chronicles 10–29. The story does not begin with David, but with the death of Saul. Saul is positioned in the story as the anti-David: everything David does is the opposite of Saul. We should not ignore the gendered aspects of 1 Chronicles 10. In the battle of Mount Gilboa, Saul was wounded/ pierced by arrows, asked his armor bearer to run him through, fell upon his own sword, was stripped by Philistines, and had his head nailed through. A body so exposed and pierced is not just humiliated, it is feminized: gazed upon, raped by the sword, pierced by the “uncircumcised” who Saul fears will humiliate him (the verb hith’allel has connotations of rape as well as humiliation). No wonder his body is named as a hollow shell (gufah), emptied of his sons (1 Chr. 10:4, 12). Saul performs femininity even as he most fears it. David, on the other hand, is a masculine man. His first act is to perform the masculine act of war and conquest of Jerusalem, and he succeeds—in contrast to Saul. Then Jerusalem/Jebus/Zion (1 Chr. 11:4–5) is renamed the City of David: David is the subject of the act of naming, as if he himself had given birth to the city. The first two chapters of David’s stories then enumerate all the warriors who established themselves or supported David. First Chronicles 11:10 introduces a term that is characteristic of Chronicles and rare outside of it: hithkhazzeq, “to make oneself strong/to establish/to strengthen”; fifteen of the twenty-seven occurrences in the Bible are in Chronicles, appearing with respect to almost every king (see Table 1). While the common verb khazaq “to be strong/to grasp” is frequently used, this rarer form emphasizes how the man performs his strength. David’s story begins with an account of his pumped-up manly men, pages and pages of them, all pledging loyalty. What do these manly men do next? They attempt to bring the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr. 13). The manly men start singing and dancing— a moment of high camp, as Roland Boer notes. Perhaps the ultimate manly man, YHWH,
disapproves: he strikes down one man and makes David afraid. The ark’s journey is interrupted, which gives David time to build a house for himself. This house is both literal (a building) and metaphorical (sons). The text betrays a little anxiety here: David took more women and caused to bear more sons and daughters (1 Chr. 14:3), yet the narrative has not given any earlier procreative exploits (only in the genealogy—1 Chr. 3:1–3). Tellingly, none of his Jerusalemite wives are named: David causes to bear all these sons. At this point the manly men warriors fade from the picture, as David’s two battles against the Philistines in 1 Chronicles 14 are won by God, not by them. The next groups of men to appear are the priests and Levites—swarms of them in 1 Chronicles 15—with their instruments and choirs, and David himself leaping and dancing. Michal, daughter of Saul, sees David dancing and “despises him in her heart” (1 Chr. 15:29). The reason for her distaste is not given, nor is she named as his wife as in 1–2 Samuel. Michal is the last woman we hear of for quite some time; in fact, she is the last woman we hear of in the story of David. She is a dangling woman, looking out a window, with a dead (feminized) father and no named husband or sons. She is a decorative object, without function. She despises David. Do we see Chronicles’ masculine utopia disturbed? Do we see a fear that, in their hearts, the women despise the men? If performing maternity has been displaced from women to men already in the text, is hatred all that is left for the woman to perform? No wonder no other women are permitted to speak or act until the queen of Sheba in 2 Chronicles 9! The transition from David to Solomon is unmarked by women. Solomon is brought forward, named as David’s successor, popularly acclaimed and crowned in 1 Chronicles 28–29. The transition has been recognized as having been patterned on the transition from Moses to Joshua in Deuteronomy, complete with instructions for the work to be undertaken by the successor. In Solomon’s case, this work is the construction of the temple, for which David has provided not just the idea, but the site, the plans, the materials, and the arrangement of cultic personnel (1 Chr. 21–29). For a man of blood (1 Chr. 22:8; 28:3), David is peculiarly concerned with decoration and performance of cultic duties; Roland Boer is undoubtedly right also to describe David’s arrangements as high camp.
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Solomon: The Temple-Birther (2 Chr. 1–9) The man of peace (1 Chr. 22:9), Solomon, is a peculiar character in Chronicles. Stripped of his role as temple builder, and relegated to being a mere general contractor and decorator, he is also stripped of his women: no catalogue of wives and secondary wives, those women who cause him so much trouble in other texts (cf. Sir. 47:19–20). If to perform masculinity in Chronicles is to produce (give birth to?) sons, and to make one’s self strong, then Solomon immediately does the latter (2 Chr. 1:1), but not the former. We can see the temple as his procreative issue. In that case, David is the begetter and Solomon the birther. David causes Solomon to bear the temple, if we return to the causative meaning of the verb holid. At one stroke, Solomon becomes both the feminine object and is effaced as masculine subject. No wonder Solomon’s temple, the fruit of his labor, takes the form of an enormous phallic representation. As Julie Kelso and Roland Boer have both astutely recognized, modern commentators have been quick to ascribe the 120-cubit-high vestibule to scribal error (2 Chr. 3:4). Kelso goes on to suggest that the phallic vestibule in front of the womblike temple interior is an expression of the text’s desire for mono-sexual reproduction. If we read Solomon as the birther of this temple, his anxieties about performing the feminine role have been overwritten by his monstrously phallic vestibule. Yet we should note that Solomon has not caused to bear any actual sons. Solomon has effectively effaced the role of the woman in Chronicles. No stories of women are allowed to compete with him as producerprocreator of the temple. No hint that children of unknown fathers may be produced by women (1 Kgs. 3). No suggestion that a mother might be important for succession to the kingship (1 Kgs. 1). Solomon’s production is a representation of mono-sexual reproduction, the ideal expressed in the genealogies taken physical form. Solomon’s actual wife is mentioned in merely one verse. In this verse (2 Chr. 8:11), Solomon gives the reason for moving Pharaoh’s daughter to his own palace: “My own wife shall not live in the house of David, King of Israel, for the precincts are holy since the ark of YHWH has entered them.” The ark of the covenant of YHWH was brought into the Holy of Holies of the temple in 2 Chronicles 5:7, so the house
of David is conflated with the temple. No woman can be allowed to remain within the site of mono-sexual reproduction. Returning to 2 Chronicles 5, instead of the glory of YHWH filling the Holy of Holies when the ark enters (as in 1 Kgs. 8:10), the ark with its long carrying poles is the only representation of YHWH’s presence. Instead of YHWH as divine begetter entering the womb-temple, the priests withdraw from the Holy of Holies, because they have made themselves holy (2 Chr. 5:11). Holiness is human withdrawal, and so Solomon withdraws his wife from the temple precincts as well. Perhaps Solomon also withdraws from his wife, trusting in his ability to perform monosexual reproduction. The longest episode involving any woman in Chronicles is 2 Chronicles 9, the visit of the queen of Sheba. That this episode is in this text, this text that has written so many women out, is surprising. A woman’s judgment on Solomon’s wisdom, wealth, and general state of blessedness surely does not count for much in this male-oriented text. How does this episode depict the performance of masculinity and femininity? First, that this woman should come to Solomon places her as performing the active role and Solomon as performing the passive receiver. She tests him with riddles and speaks to him. The last speaking woman in Chronicles was Jabez’s mother in 1 Chronicles 4, who spoke Jabez into being and was overspoken by her son. The queen of Sheba can be read as all the displaced women of Chronicles. She comes, she gives of herself, she blesses Solomon and all his men, and then she leaves to return to her own land. By blessing Solomon’s kingdom and his God, she legitimizes the silencing of all the other women. Solomon does not beget any children in his own narrative. He produces only the temple, not sons. While Solomon’s reign ends on a narrative high, the production of the temple in place of sons soon comes to be a problem. Not until the very last verse of his story is his son Rehoboam mentioned (2 Chr. 9:31).
Kings and Queens of Judah (2 Chr. 10–36) Rehoboam is blamed immediately for the division in the kingdom, for the rebellion (from the Chronicler’s perspective) of the northern tribes under Jeroboam and the subsequent formation of the northern kingdom of Israel. The remnant
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faithful to David’s house forms the kingdom of Judah, centered on Jerusalem and its temple. Rehoboam attempts early and publicly to perform his masculinity. When confronted by the unhappy people, he ignores the wisdom of his father’s advisers and listens to his contemporaries instead. Their advice is to say, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins” (2 Chr. 10:10). They advise him to publicly expose himself, to show he’s a real man. Since Rehoboam’s existence is the only evidence that Solomon could perform his masculinity, the taunt is of greater import than we might expect (Solomon’s wives and secondary wives being written out of Chronicles). But when speaking to the people, Rehoboam declines to comment on the size of his finger, displacing his performance into the promise-threat of more work and oppression for the people. After the withdrawal of Israel from Judah, Rehoboam performs his masculinity in other ways in an attempt to outdo his father. He takes eighteen wives and sixty secondary wives, and causes to bear twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters (2 Chr. 11:18–21). He also spends a good deal of time building fortified cities: words for building and strengthening appear frequently in 2 Chronicles 11–12. However, he is forced to perform submission, both to Shishak of Egypt and to YHWH. Rehoboam humbles himself before YHWH and then strengthens himself. There is a constant back-and-forth between performances of masculinity and performances of submissiveness in the story of Rehoboam. Beginning with Rehoboam’s narrative, a certain number of formulaic features appear in the stories of the kings of Judah (see Table 1 at the end of this article). Typically, each king is given a regnal notice(s) that includes his age at accession, the length of his reign, the name of his mother, a source citation, and judgment as to his deeds being good or evil in YHWH’s sight. (In Chronicles there is recognition that a good king can go bad and a bad king good, so some judgments are mixed.) He is also described as having strengthened himself (hitkhazzeq) and having humbled himself (nikna‘) before YHWH; these terms are almost unique to Chronicles. His building activities, especially in regard to the temple, are also noted. There is a pronounced tendency to depict the kings in father-son pairs, especially so that a bad king is balanced by a good king. The most conspicuous representative of this trend is Ahaz (2 Chr.
28) and his son Hezekiah (2 Chr. 29–32): Ahaz is the most wicked king, the only one to close YHWH’s temple (2 Chr. 28:24); Hezekiah is the best king since David, especially in terms of temple restoration and worship (2 Chr. 29:2; 30:26; 31:20–21), and it is not a coincidence that his name means “May YHWH strengthen.” Dueling performances of gender are enacted by Jehoiada and Athaliah in 2 Chronicles 22–24. Athaliah, mentioned in 2 Chronicles 22:2 as the mother of Ahaziah and daughter of Omri, does not perform the maternal role as expected. Instead, she counsels Ahaziah to do evil (2 Chr. 22:3). Upon his death, she comes to the fore. She performs the masculine role: she destroys/ speaks (dibber) all the “royal seed” (2 Chr. 22:10). The speaking woman then goes on to “be king” (moleket) over Judah (2 Chr. 22:12). The performance of masculinity by Athaliah comes not coincidentally at the point when the Davidic line is closest to extinction. Only a sixyear-old boy, Joash, remains alive, but hidden. In Chronicles this is the most severe disruption imaginable (given more narrative space than Ahaz’s closing of the temple): not just that a woman reigns, not just that she is a daughter of the reviled house of Omri/Ahab, but that she speaks and performs masculinity. Athaliah’s performance is ended by the priest Jehoiada, the only nonroyal man who strengthens himself (hitkhazzeq) (2 Chr. 23:1); the term is often translated as “took courage,” but it is important to highlight the performance of royal masculinity by Jehoiada. He arms Joash’s bodyguard and stations the army to protect Joash’s anointing (2 Chr. 23:9–10). He makes a covenant between himself, the people, Joash, and YHWH (2 Chr. 23:16), and he restores cultic worship (2 Chr. 23:17–18). Jehoiada takes wives for Joash: it is possible to read this sentence “And Jehoiada took for himself two wives and he caused to bear sons and daughters” (2 Chr. 24:3), harkening back to the genealogies where men procreate. Finally, Jehoidada’s death is described the same way as David’s (2 Chr. 24:15–16, cf. 1 Chr. 29:28). And what of Athaliah? Before this display of male performativity she speaks again: “Treason! Treason!” (2 Chr. 23:13). Her performance is overwhelmed and negated: she is put to death, but most specifically, put to death by the sword (2 Chr. 23:21): penetrated by a whole army of men. It is not enough to silence this speaking woman by over-speaking her (as with Jabez’s
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mother), or by banishing, sending her off (as with the queen of Sheba); she is subjected not just to the male gaze, but to the performance of masculinity upon her body. With women so effectively written out of Chronicles, and the ultimate revenge fantasy enacted upon Athaliah, the final speaking woman is merely the channel for YHWH’s words. After Josiah’s men find a scroll of instruction while repairing the temple, they take it to Huldah the prophet (2 Chr. 34:22–28), who says no words of her own, but uses the formula “thus says YHWH” three times (2 Chr. 34:23, 24, 26) and “declares YHWH” once (2 Chr. 34:27). This speaking woman is the vessel for YHWH’s speech. She performs as every woman in the genealogies has performed: the elided means by which the male fantasy of autoprocreation is enacted. Josiah’s death at Megiddo in 2 Chronicles 35, pierced by arrows while in disguise, reminiscent of the deaths of both Saul (1 Chr. 10) and Ahab (2 Chr. 18), brings to mind the disruptions in the male bodies found in Chronicles. Even the good kings Asa, Uzziah, and Hezekiah are afflicted with disease, while the evil king Joram’s innards exit his body in a gruesome parody of birth (2 Chr. 21:18–19). Many of the evil kings are “put to death,” some explicitly murdered
(e.g., Joash in 2 Chr. 24:25). The frailty of the male body is on display. Yet by erupting in “birth” and by being pierced by arrows and swords and spears and knives, the male body performs femininity, as well. The idea of monosexual reproduction is exhibited, effacing and erasing the women of Chronicles. Bibliography
Boer, Roland. “1 and 2 Chronicles.” In The Queer Bible Commentary, edited by Deryn Guest, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, and Thomas Bohache, 251–67. London: SCM, 2006. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990, 1999. Chapman, Cynthia R. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter. Harvard Semitic Monographs 62. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. Japhet, Sara. I and II Chronicles: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. Kelso, Julie. O Mother, Where Art Thou? An Irigarayan Reading of the Book of Chronicles. London: Equinox, 2007.
(Re)builds temple Bearing sons Disease Pierced Good or evil or YHWH cult
Rehoboam Naamah 12:13 12:6, 12 No Yes Evil 2 Chr. 10–12 Abijah Micaiah 13:21 Yes Yes Implied good 2 Chr. 13 Asa Maacah 15:8 Yes Yes Good 2 Chr. 14–16 Jehoshaphat Azubah 17:1 Yes Good 2 Chr. 17–20 Jehoram 21:4 No Yes Evil 2 Chr. 21 Ahaziah Athaliah d. of Omri No Yes Evil 2 Chr. 22 Joash Zibiah Yes Yes Yes Good, then evil 2 Chr. 24 Amaziah Jehoaddan 25:11 No Yes Good, implied evil 2 Chr. 25 Uzziah Jecoliah Yes Yes Good 2 Chr. 26 Jotham Jerushah 27:6 Yes Good 2 Chr. 27 Ahaz YHWH No Evil 2 Chr. 28 humbled him 28:19 Hezekiah Abijah 32:5 32:26 Yes Yes Good 2 Chr. 29–32 Manasseh 33:12 No, then yes Evil, then good 2 Chr. 33:1–20 Amon Didn’t No Yes Evil 2 Chr. 33:21–25 33:23 Josiah 34:27 Yes Yes Good 2 Chr. 34–35 Final four kings 36:12 No Evil 2 Chr. 36
King Name of mother Strengthens Humbles himself
Table 1
Ezra–Nehemiah Tamara Cohn Eskenazi
Introduction The Book and Its Context To the remnant of Israel in exile, the conquest of Babylon by King Cyrus of Persia in 539 BCE signaled the dawn of a new era and the rebirth of the nation; Ezra–Nehemiah recounts the story of this rebirth. Only fifty years earlier the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem (587/586 BCE) and exiled its inhabitants. Israel suffered a devastating shock that irreversibly altered its religion and culture. Suddenly all the secure structures were demolished: the land that had been so essential to the religion and politics of the nation was now controlled by strangers; the temple had been razed; Jerusalem was in ruins; and many people (including the leaders) were taken captive to a foreign land. When Cyrus defeated the Babylonians and permitted the exiles to go home, the survivors of what had been ancient Israel faced an overwhelming challenge: rebuilding not merely their homeland but their very identity as a people and a religion. Ezra–Nehemiah is the only biblical book that attempts to give a history of the crucial yet obscure postexilic era. The book itself is complex and often difficult to interpret. Most English translations of the Bible separate it into two books: Ezra and Nehemiah, even though Ezra–Nehemiah constitutes a single book in the most ancient manuscripts and is best interpreted as such. It had been common to attribute Ezra–Nehemiah and the books of Chronicles to the same author, but most modern scholars recognize that Ezra– Nehemiah is a distinct work with its own literary and theological coherence.
The book begins with Cyrus’s edict, exhorting the people of God to go up to Jerusalem and build the house of God. Its account concludes about one hundred years later, after Jerusalem’s temple had been rebuilt (516/515 BCE) and the walls of the city restored and rededicated (445/444 BCE). Ezra–Nehemiah focuses its account on three stages of response to the edict, each with its own distinct contribution. The first, in which Zerubbabel and Jeshua are prominent, restores proper worship and rebuilds the temple (Ezra 1–6). The second, in which Ezra is prominent, implements the teachings of the Torah and reshapes the community by excluding foreign wives from its midst (Ezra 7–10). The third, under Nehemiah, rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem, thereby enclosing the community with a solid and secure boundary—both physically and metaphorically (Neh. 1–7). Once rebuilding is complete, the community celebrates its renewal in grand ceremonies climaxing with a public reading of the book of the Torah (Neh. 8–13). In recounting these events, Ezra–Nehemiah weaves a specific ideology into the very fabric of the story it tells. Through an effective use of sources and literary techniques such as repetition and shifts in perspective, the book articulates three themes: first, the community as a whole, not simply its leaders, is responsible for postexilic reconstruction; second, the house of God is no longer confined to the temple but encompasses the whole city of Jerusalem; and, third, the written text becomes the authoritative vehicle for divine communication and the source for insights and guidance. These themes express a shift toward greater democratization
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of society and therefore imply greater opportunities for women. To what extent these opportunities were realized in the lives of actual women remains unclear. In the book itself women remain silent. Their voices are not heard in the text, even when decisions directly involve them. Some easily overlooked details in Ezra–Nehemiah, however, offer intriguing glimpses into women’s lives and at least acknowledge their presence in each important event. In addition, certain extrabiblical sources help round out these glimpses into a fuller view by providing information about several Jewish women from the Persian period. A crucial issue for the postexilic community was self-definition and identity. What had been ancient Israel was suddenly reduced to a small province, known as Judah, under the rule of the Persian Empire. It became, in the words of one scholar, a colonially subject people. Notable portions of its population continued to be dispersed in other lands such as Babylonia, Persia, and Egypt. The term yehudim, “Judahites” or “Jews,” gained currency alongside “Israelites,” because the dominant portion of the population considered itself heir to the southern kingdom and the tribe of Judah, even when living for generations outside the land. During this era the land of Israel was populated by diverse ethnic groups (including Ammonites, Moabites, and others); diversity also characterized the Jewish community. There was tension between Jews whose families had gone into exile (and were transformed by the experience) and those who had not. Tension arose also between Jews who permitted exogamous marriages (marriages outside the clan) and those who did not. It is difficult to determine to what extent these groups overlapped (i.e., to what extent exogamy, for example, was directly related to the specific background of the population). The composition of these groups and their historical controversies remain subject to speculation, because the evidence is limited and tendentious. According to the perspective of Ezra–Nehemiah, the authentic Judahite community was constituted by the returnees from Babylon. These returnees distinguished themselves from another group called “people of the land,” who, according to Ezra–Nehemiah (e.g., Ezra 4:4), were people of foreign origins who now dwelt in the land and whose practices conflicted with authentic Israelite tradition, endangering loyalty to God. Earlier scholars had identified
the people of the land with the Samaritans, but they may actually have been Judahites who had not gone into exile and who did not, therefore, share the traditions of the transformed returnees. The conflict between the returnees and the “people of the land” thus could have been an intra-Judahite one, rather than one between different ethnic groups. Two particular issues in this period prove especially pertinent for understanding women’s lives: the consequences for women of ethnic and religious crises of identity and the effect of pioneer life on the place of women in a society.
Ethnic and Religious Crises of Identity Sociological studies of both ancient and modern societies reveal some common survival patterns in the face of the radical experience of exile and return. Typically, boundaries against the outside world become more rigid, in an attempt to protect a fragile sense of communal identity. Internally, flux and reorganization follow the disruption of stable patterns and hierarchies: new groups rise to leadership, and gender roles become more fluid under the pressure of ad hoc adaptation to rapid change. Ezra–Nehemiah clearly reflects similar patterns. It advocates ethnic purity and prohibits intermarriage in order to sustain group identity. Such strategies, however, were not universally accepted. Apparently, some of Judah’s best families either did not have the same concern or defined the community in more inclusive terms. They considered “foreign” women as acceptable marriage partners even for priests (Ezra 9–10; Neh. 13:28). The issue of communal boundaries appears to be a contested subject in the postexilic era, with the book of Ruth, as well as Isaiah 56:1– 8, showing ways in which foreigners may be included. In both of these cases, the foreigners who are included evince a commitment to Israel’s God and God’s teachings (Ruth 1:16–17; Isa. 56:6). Ezra–Nehemiah aims to exclude persons whom it charges with practices that resemble those of earlier Canaanite inhabitants of the land (Ezra 9:1). It does not refer to foreigners who have chosen to adopt Judahite religion and practices (although the mention of those who separated themselves from the people of the land in Ezra 6:21 may refer to such persons; these people are included in the celebration). Several scholars connect opposition to exogamy explicitly with the need to protect
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land rights. Religious membership and land ownership, they claim, were closely intertwined. Lacking a native king, the community was organized around the temple, with all members bearing responsibility for its upkeep. The land owned by members of the temple community, in fact, constituted the Jewish province. Intermarriage, however defined, endangered the physical as well as the spiritual boundaries of the community. A non-Jewish partner who had legal control over property could, once the Jewish spouse had died, rejoin the ethnic community of origin and remove the land from Jewish jurisdiction. Children of such marriages could do likewise, reducing the actual land belonging to the Jewish community and hence the province of Judah. As a result, foreign partners became a particular threat, because through them territory might be lost to the community as a whole. The language used for marriage suggests that land rights are indeed of concern. Uniquely in Ezra–Nehemiah, the verb that most translations render as “married” (Ezra 10:2, 10, 14, 17; Neh. 13:23) means in fact “to settle” or “to dwell.” Such terminology underscores the preoccupation with the fate of the land as a reason for opposition. According to this scholarly view, Ezra–Nehemiah seeks to prevent the loss of communal land by prohibiting marriage with outsiders.
Other Political Developments Ezra–Nehemiah promotes broader distribution of authority and power in the postexilic community (in contrast with the preexilic period, when power and authority were concentrated in the monarchy and related state elite). Such developments also influence attitudes toward women. With decisions and obligations more widely shared, the affiliation of adult members of the household becomes relevant. Similar developments take place in Pericles’ Athens (at about the same time, specifically 451 BCE), where citizenship is redefined. With the entrenchment of democracy in Athens, a new law demands that both father and mother must be Athenian if an offspring is to be a citizen. The parallels with Ezra–Nehemiah, in which women and not only men must be Judahites to be included in the community, are suggestive of a similar phenomenon and motives. This concern over the ethnic and
religious affiliation of the woman indicates that a woman’s social identity or religious affiliation was not (or no longer?) to be determined by or absorbed into her husband’s. Her status in these respects had to be assessed on a basis similar to how the status of the men in the household was assessed.
Women and Pioneer Life In Discovering Eve, Carol Meyers points out that women gain power during times of pioneer conditions in rural societies, when families constitute a central socioeconomic and political unit. She argues on the basis of sociological and archaeological data that women in premonarchic Israel, living in pioneer societies, must have possessed more power and greater equality than readers have recognized. Although Meyers herself does not analyze the postexilic era, her findings, if correct, suggest that women in the postexilic era would have benefited from a similar redistribution of power, because in some important ways they lived in similar circumstances. As in the premonarchic period, the family is central. Ezra–Nehemiah underscores the fact through the frequent use of the term ’abot (literally, “fathers”) to designate the family as the dominant force in the community. These three factors—the evolving communal boundaries in the face of radical change, the greater importance of families, and the increased concern over women’s own status— combine to suggest that women in the postexilic community possessed more power than the fleeting references to them in the canonical literature indicate at first glance. Extrabiblical sources corroborate this conclusion.
Extrabiblical Sources: Elephantine, Egypt Persian-period contracts and letters in which women figure quite prominently give evidence concerning the diversity of Jewish women’s roles and powers. The Elephantine documents unambiguously show that Jewish women in the postexilic era had more power and privileges than biblical texts and later traditions suggest. These documents come from the Jewish colony in Elephantine, Egypt, and can be precisely dated (mostly to the fifth c. BCE). They contain original contracts and letters,
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many belonging to Jewish women. From this storehouse of information about actual postexilic practices among one group of Jews, one can reconstruct social and economic realities of women’s lives. Various contracts from Elephantine show that these Jewish women were able to initiate divorce, buy and sell property, and inherit property, even when there were male siblings. The Elephantine documents also illustrate how women were able to climb the social and economic ladder. An interesting example is the case of an Egyptian slave named Tamut (or Tapmut) and her daughter. While still a slave of one man, Tamut married a Jewish temple official. She eventually gained her freedom and some kind of position in the temple comparable to her husband’s (although the precise nature of their titles is unclear). Her daughter (born during slavery as a child of either the master or the mother’s future husband) became wealthy and important in the community. Tamut’s daughter, not only her son, was a designated heir to the parents’ property, belying the notion that women could inherit only when there were no male descendants (cf. Num. 27). Marriage contracts from Elephantine are particularly fascinating. They list what each woman brought into the marriage and state that she retained control over such possessions. In cases of divorce, her belongings remained hers. The marriage contracts also indicate that either partner could initiate divorce. Some even specify procedures and financial responsibilities in cases of abuse. Tamut’s marriage contract, for example, includes the following:
If tomorrow or another day Anani rises on account of her [?] and says, “I divorce Tamut my wife,” the divorce money is on his head. He shall give to Tamut in silver 7 shekels, 2 R and all that she brought in. . . . If tomorrow or another day, Tamut rises up and says, “I divorce my husband Anani,” a like sum shall be on her head. She shall give to Anani in silver 7 shekels, 2 R, and all which she brought in her hand she shall take out. (Kraeling, 2:7–10)
Upon the death of the husband, the property was to go to the wife—not to a male relative, not even his son. Several documents concern another woman, the thrice-married Mibtahiah, who was a wealthy property owner and also her husband’s business partner. Mibtahiah’s third husband appears to have been an Egyptian who eventually took a Hebrew name and presumably joined her Jewish community. Their children bore Hebrew names and were clearly influential members of the community. These documents greatly augment the understanding of the lives of women in the Persian period and help to shed light on the more shadowy references in the biblical texts themselves. Although there is no parallel evidence from Judah concerning women’s legal status in that society, it may be reasonable to assume that the practices in one Jewish community (Egypt) were consistent with those of another (Judah) during the postexilic period, when both were under the same Persian authority.
Comment Cyrus’s Edict to Build the House of God in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1–4)
God’s People Build the House of God in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:5–Neh. 7:73)
Cyrus’s edict opens Ezra–Nehemiah with an exhortation to the people of God to go up to Jerusalem and Judah to build the house of God. Although this edict is not preserved outside the Bible, it is consistent with what is known about Cyrus and conforms to other ancient decrees. If historical, this declaration would have been proclaimed in 538 BCE.
A brief introduction sums up the events to follow: “Then rose up the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, and everyone whose spirit God had stirred, to go up and build the house of God in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:5, my trans.). Ezra– Nehemiah describes three stages of return and reconstruction. Each begins in exile and ends in
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Jerusalem, highlighting the book’s main themes: the centrality of community, a broadened notion of the house of God as city, and the authoritative role of the written text. The book recounts these stages by focusing primarily on the roles and deeds of men, but includes some intriguing references to women at each important event. First Movement: Returnees Build the Altar and Temple (Ezra 1:5–6:22) The first section describes the return from Babylon of a large contingent of exiled Judahites (or Jews). Upon their arrival, the Judahites build an altar and resume proper worship. They also begin to rebuild the temple in accordance with Cyrus’s decree. Their leaders include Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, and Jeshua, a priest. But the real focus of the story is on the larger participating community. The people of the land, whose earlier background, according to Ezra 4, was non-Judahite (but see the introduction above), volunteer to help rebuild the temple but are rejected. After difficulties and delays, the returnees finish building the temple (probably in 516/515 BCE) and celebrate the event (Ezra 6:14). One of the most striking aspects of this first part of the book is the list (repeated in Neh. 7) that enumerates the returnees as descendants of specific ancestors or people of a particular place. The names of household heads are typically male. However, according to Ezra 2, the returnees included the descendants of hassoperet (Ezra 2:55). The word hassoperet literally means “the female scribe” (see also Neh. 7:57). The most obvious reference of this term is to a group (perhaps a guild) whose members traced their descent to a female scribe. Unfortunately, this meaning is usually lost in translation. Translators typically treat the word as a personal name, and most commentators confine themselves to noting a guild without mentioning the possibility that a female stood at its head. The rationale for ignoring the possible reference to a woman is based on Ecclesiastes 1:1, where a similar grammatically feminine noun refers to an apparently masculine subject (qohelet, “one who gathers an assembly”). This argument overlooks the numerous other occurrences of such grammatically feminine nouns that are recognized as references to women (e.g., the feminine herald in Isa. 40:9). It is noteworthy, however, that one medieval Jewish commentator (Ibn Ezra) supposed that
hassoperet in Ezra–Nehemiah referred to a female scribe. There were female scribes in the ancient Near East in preexilic times, although there is no clear information about them for the postexilic period. Another intriguing reference in the list of returnees mentions “the descendants of . . . Barzillai (who had married one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called by their name)” (Ezra 2:61//Neh. 7:63). Although families generally did not trace their descent through the mother’s line, this reference shows that men did sometimes relinquish their own family name for that of their wife (and presumably also for the wife’s family inheritance). The list of returnees in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 claims that approximately forty-two thousand people returned. In addition, there were male and female servants and singers (Ezra 2:65// Neh. 7:67). The roles of women as music- makers is well attested in ancient sources (see, e.g., Exod. 15:20, where Miriam “took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing”). It is tempting to link these female singers with the temple cult, but their place in the list (between servants and animals) suggests, rather, that they were entertainers of relatively low status. Temple singers appear earlier in the list without specific references to women. Second Movement: Ezra and the Exiles Build the Community according to Torah (Ezra 7–10) The second stage of the return features Ezra as an outstanding figure, commissioned by the Persian king Artaxerxes to implement divine teachings in Judah. According to the biblical account, Ezra arrives in Judah in 458 BCE. Ezra is presented as a priest and scribe of the Torah, entrusted with virtually unlimited powers to bring the Jewish province into conformity with the law of God and the law of the king (Ezra 7:26). It is generally assumed that Ezra’s Torah is some form of the Pentateuch or portions thereof. Recent studies link Ezra’s seemingly religious mission with the political agenda of the Persian Empire in the face of military unrest in the Mediterranean region. Among the new arrivals with Ezra appear the descendants of Shelomith (Ezra 8:10). In the Bible the name Shelomith can refer to either a man or a woman. The Greek versions of Ezra add a name in a way that precludes reading
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Shelomith as a woman’s name (“of the descendants of Bani, Shelomith son of Josiphiah”). Such a translation could either reflect later discomfort with the implication of a feminine name or represent a genuine alternate tradition. Many English translations follow this reading. The Hebrew text, however, leaves the gender unspecified. Given the pattern in the other names in the list, the sentence should be translated: “From the descendants of Shelomith: the son of Josiphiah, and with him 160 men.” According to 1 Chronicles 3:19, Shelomith was a daughter of Zerubbabel, the last known descendant of David to possess any political power (see his role in the return in Ezra 1–6). A postexilic seal referring to Shelomith and to Elnathan the governor has been discovered. If this is the seal of Shelomith the daughter of Zerubbabel, it might indicate that Elnathan, a governor of Judah (approximately 510–490 BCE), attached himself to the Davidic line by marrying Shelomith. It is conceivable that Ezra 8:10 also refers to relatives of the famed princess. According to Ezra 9:1–4, Ezra learns shortly after his return to Jerusalem that some of Judah’s leading citizens had married so-called foreign women from the peoples of the land. This crisis leads Ezra to mourn publicly and to convene an assembly. The offending men are pressed to divorce their foreign wives, and many of them do (Ezra 10). The actual background of these women is unclear. They could actually be foreign or simply from Judahite families whom the author of Ezra–Nehemiah refuses to recognize as members of the people of Israel. Both possibilities can be supported by the available evidence. The reasons given for divorce in the text are what one might call religious: the practices of the offending outsiders are compared to those of the earlier Canaanite inhabitants of the land, who were a threat according to Deuteronomy 7:1–6 (Ezra 9:1–2). Economic, social, and political factors, however, would have been important, possibly the most important considerations (the distinction between such categories is itself modern and does not adequately represent ancient societies). The constant reference to marriage in the Hebrew with the verb meaning “settle” (Ezra 10:2, 10, 14, 17) highlights this possibility. The urgent need to redefine identity probably combined with practical and economic concerns to establish specific boundaries from which certain groups were
excluded. Ezra–Nehemiah does not record any protest from the women, nor does it report what specific arrangements were involved. According to a later book, 1 Esdras, which is included in the Apocrypha, foreign wives were “put . . . away together with their children” (1 Esd. 9:36). Many English translations insert this statement as the conclusion of Ezra 10. However, the Hebrew of Ezra 10:44 that concludes the episode is different. It is best rendered as informing readers that some of the foreign wives had children who were “placed,” but the sense of “placed,” alas, remains obscure. Only the men in the high priest’s family explicitly divorce their wives, according to Ezra 10:18– 19, a step that conforms to the restrictions on priestly marriages also mentioned in Leviticus 21:14–15. It is possible that the marriages of nonpriestly members were of less concern. The silence about a dissolution of marriages of nonpriestly men indicates that these were of lesser concern to the author. The procedure may have been primarily to challenge priestly violations. Nonpriestly families may have remained intact. The documents from Elephantine lead one to suppose that economic compensations had to be made (which may account for the length of time it took to effect the separation), but Ezra–Nehemiah shows no interest in these details. Its aim is to establish the principle that such marriages are to be forbidden. It is noteworthy that, although the prohibition against marrying outsiders applies to both men and women, Ezra 9 does not mention any Judahite women marrying foreigners. Modern readers react in different ways to the exclusion of the foreign wives. Unsympathetic readings focus on the harshness of the expulsion and on the exclusivism it reveals. In particular, the silence about the reaction of the women is striking; they appear to have no choice and no voice. Sympathetic readings stress the plight of the new Judahite community struggling for spiritual, economic, and ethnic survival when it finds itself a minority society in a sea of diverse cultures. Recent studies of the postexilic Judahite community link religious concerns with socioeconomic ones. Opposition to mixed marriages is placed in a larger context in which the issue is not simply one of ethnic or religious purity, but rather is tied to the impact of marriage on communal land ownership: marriage with outsiders spells loss of land to the Jewish province. Moreover, with
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the broadening of communal participation, the identity and loyalty of all members matters. As in Pericles’ Athens in the same fifth century BCE, affiliation depends on both parents now being reckoned as community members. In addition to political concerns, sympathetic readings point out the need to secure partners and families for the women of the new Judahite community in the face of competing possibilities (see the emphasis on remaining faithful to the wife of one’s youth in the contemporary writing of Mal. 2:14). The pressures on new immigrants to marry up and out is well documented in ancient and modern situations. An opposition to foreign women is thus understood not as a misogynist restriction, but rather a defense of the rights of women in the community against outside competition, and therefore a matter of maintaining communal cohesiveness and continuity. Whatever the attitude of the reader, Ezra– Nehemiah’s preoccupation with the separation of foreign wives implies that women and their status were important in reshaping religious and social life. This preoccupation also implies that women’s rights to property in Judah were similar to those in Elephantine. It is when women can inherit land from their husbands or fathers that foreign women pose an economic threat; without such rights they would not represent a loss of land to the community. Third Movement: Nehemiah and the Judahites Build Jerusalem’s Wall (Neh. 1–7) The third stage is presented through the eyes and words of Nehemiah in a first-person recollection often labeled “memoirs” (which many scholars attribute to Nehemiah himself). These chapters relate how Nehemiah, at first a favored cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, is overcome by concern for the welfare of his people. Leaving the comforts of the royal court, he hastens to Jerusalem as its newly appointed governor in order to rebuild the city’s walls (445 BCE). Nehemiah spurs the Judahites to rebuild despite threats from neighbors. Under his leadership, the walls are quickly restored, and Jerusalem is repopulated. Nehemiah 3 lists the names of the actual builders, emphasizing communal involvement. That list of builders includes the daughters of Shallum (Neh. 3:12). Although the reference to daughters is unquestionably clear
in the Hebrew text and in all ancient manuscripts, some translators have obscured their presence. One translation even replaces the word “daughters” with “sons,” presumably under the assumption that daughters would not have been mentioned. Writing in 1913, L. W. Batten stated: “Daughter” is a regular term for the hamlets which grow up about a city and which are dependent upon it, 11:25–31. Ryle prefers a literal interpretation that Shallum’s daughters aided him in the work. But as women in the East were quite sure to have a large share in such work as this, their special mention here is unnecessary. Against the other view it may be urged that a solitary mention of hamlets is inexplicable. Berth. [Bertholet] says it would be easiest to reject the words but that such a course is arbitrary. The meaning is really unknown. (Batten, 213–14, emphasis added)
It is intriguing to read that the meaning of “he and his daughters” is unknown. The confusion of commentators in the face of such a clear statement appears to be bred solely by a refusal to recognize the book’s recognition of the role of women in building the city walls. Fortunately, modern commentators fare better, both as translators and interpreters. They usually preserve the reference to women. Some, like H. G. M. Williamson, conclude on the basis of Numbers 36:8 that, if Shallum had no sons, “it would be natural for the daughters to help on an occasion like this, since they would inherit his name and property” (Williamson, 207). From the Elephantine documents one learns that daughters may inherit even when there are sons. Nehemiah’s “memoirs” describe his confrontations with opponents whose opposition he views as interference with the cause of God. After one confrontation with the prophet Shemaiah, Nehemiah calls upon God to punish his opponents: “Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid” (Neh. 6:14). Nehemiah’s words ignore Shemaiah and complain instead about two of Nehemiah’s best-known opponents and about an otherwise unknown prophet. Tobiah
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is described as an Ammonite official who hampers Nehemiah all along; Sanballat was the governor of Samaria. The mention of this mysterious female prophet together with such highly placed officials suggests that her status was comparable to theirs and that she, like them, was a prominent person. The importance of this reference to Noadiah the prophet is highlighted when one realizes that the Hebrew Bible names only four women as prophets. The other three are preexilic (Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah). With Noadiah there is evidence that the prophetic office was open to women in the postexilic period. The basis of her disagreement with Nehemiah remains unknown.
God’s People Celebrate and Dedicate the House of God (Neh. 8–13) Ezra–Nehemiah reaches its climax with the public reading of the book of the Torah, after the walls of Jerusalem are restored. As the celebration begins, all the people gather in the plaza before the Water Gate. Ezra reads from the Torah to an attentive communal assembly. The reading is followed by a celebration of the holy day of Sukkot and several days of festivities and rededication ceremonies. Perhaps the most significant reference to women in Ezra–Nehemiah comes on this momentous occasion. Later Judaism compares this time of rededication to the giving of the law at Sinai. But although there have been doubts about the role and presence of women at Sinai, since the message “do not go near a woman” (Exod. 19:15) implies that only men were addressed, no such doubts occur in this receiving of the Torah. Ezra–Nehemiah is explicit: And Ezra the priest brought the Torah before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Torah. (Neh. 8:2–3, my trans.)
The Hebrew term qahal used here for the assembly does not refer to a mere aggregate of people but to a religiously constituted
community. The fact that this assembly includes men and women implies religious egalitarianism at least on this level of participation. Men and women gather; men and women hear and heed; men and women celebrate. The teaching of God belongs to the entire community. Women, however, are not named (as far as one can discern) among the citizens who later help Ezra read aloud and interpret the teachings to the community. Women are mentioned in the festive events that follow, though their roles are not specified (Neh. 12:43). It is particularly important to observe that the communal pledge that delineates communal responsibilities for the temple, for keeping Sabbath, prohibiting foreign marriages, and other obligations explicitly includes women as signatories, even though no individual woman is named (Neh. 10:28). As the book concludes, the danger of foreign wives looms once more. Having erected the wall as a physical boundary, Nehemiah engages in securing other communal boundaries. He mounts an attack on a wide array of religious violations, including the marriage of Judahite men with outsiders (this time described as women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab). According to Nehemiah, half of the children of such marriages speak the language of their mothers, one of several signs in postexilic texts that women’s influence in the home was strong. Enraged, Nehemiah rails against foreign partners: “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not King Solomon of Israel sin on account of such women?” (Neh. 13:25b– 26a). Nehemiah does not allege that a woman is dangerous by virtue of being a woman. Nevertheless, his association of sin with foreign women helped pave the way to views that too easily link women in general with sin.
Conclusion A careful reading of Ezra–Nehemiah discloses a little more than one expects concerning women but not as much as one would like. One knows of an important prophet Noadiah but not about her concerns; one knows that Shallum’s daughters helped build the wall but no longer knows their names; one knows that women were expelled but does not know their story; one knows that women celebrated with men but not to what extent. These and other tantalizing references
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offer glimpses into a world that the literature largely ignores. They acknowledge the participation of women in each important task: return, rebuilding, and reading of the Torah. Combined with the evidence from Elephantine, such glimpses lead to a more precise reconstruction of the postexilic era. Although the women still remain silent, their presence and growing visibility help to fill in the empty spaces in the text and in Israel’s pivotal age of return and rebirth. Bibliography
Batten, L.W. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. International Critical Commentary. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913. Dor, Yonina. “The Composition of the Episode of the Foreign Women in Ezra IX–X.” Vetus Testamentum 53 (2003): 26–47. Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn. Ezra–Nehemiah. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday (forthcoming). ———. In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra–Nehemiah. Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 36. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. ———. “Out from the Shadows: Biblical Women in the Postexilic Era (Sixth to Fourth Century BCE).” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 54 (1992): 25–43. ———. “The Missions of Ezra and Nehemiah. In Judah and Judaism in the Persian Period,
edited by Oded Lipschitz and Manfred Oeming, 509–30. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006. Frevel, Christian, ed. Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period. New York: T. & T. Clark, 2011. Kraeling, Emil G. H., ed. The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri: New Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. from the Jewish Colony at Elephantine. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953. Meyers, Carol L. Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Perdue, L. G., J. Blenkinsopp, J. J. Collins, and C. Meyers. Families in Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. Porten, Bezalel. Archives from Elephantine: A Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Washington, Harold. “Israel’s Holy Seed and the Foreign Women of Ezra–Nehemiah: A Kristevan Reading.” Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 11, nos. 3–4 (2003): 427–37. Williamson, H. G. M. Ezra, Nehemiah. Word Biblical Commentary 16. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1985. Zlotnick-Sivan, H. “The Silent Women of Yehud: Notes on Ezra 9–10.” Journal of Jewish Studies 51, no. 1 (2000): 3–18.
Esther Sidnie White Crawford
Introduction The book of Esther is part of the section of the Hebrew Bible known as the Writings, and is one of only two books in the Hebrew Bible that takes its name from its leading female character. Esther is an account of the events that led to the inauguration of the Jewish festival of Purim. Its plot is fast-paced and exciting, the story is well told, and all ends happily. The book, however, had difficulty attaining canonical status in both Judaism and Christianity, not least because of the actions and character of its heroine, the Jewish woman Esther. As we shall see, its interpretation, especially within Christian circles, continues to be problematic.
Content The book of Esther tells one story with a single plotline and a short time frame. It begins at a banquet held by the Persian king Ahasuerus for all the inhabitants of his capital, Susa. After a drinking bout, the king summons his queen, Vashti, to appear before the court so that they may admire her great beauty. Vashti refuses, and the king, angry, banishes her. After a time, the king regrets losing his queen, and his nobles suggest that he hold an empirewide search for a new queen. Ahasuerus agrees, and all the eligible virgins in the kingdom are gathered into his harem. At this point the narrative introduces the heroine, Esther, and her guardian, Mordecai. Esther enters the harem of the king and wins the regard of all who know her. When her turn with the king arrives, Esther also gains the admiration of Ahasuerus, who makes her his
queen. After this, Mordecai discovers a plot to assassinate the king and reports it to Esther, saving the king’s life. Some time later, the king promotes Haman the Agagite to the position of vizier. Haman demands that all the people bow down to him. Mordecai, however, refuses. Angered, Haman decides to exact revenge on Mordecai by plotting to slaughter all the Jews in the Persian Empire. Mordecai learns of the plot and turns to Esther to intercede with the king. At the climax of the story, Esther, in peril of her life, appears unsummoned before the king in an attempt to save her people. She gains Ahasuerus’s favor and then, in a series of skillful maneuvers, uncovers Haman’s plot and foils his scheme. Haman is put to death, the enemies of the Jews are destroyed, and Mordecai is elevated to the position of vizier. The book ends with Esther and Mordecai instituting the festival of Purim to commemorate these great events.
Historical Setting, Date of Composition, and Genre The book of Esther is set in the historical context of the Persian Empire, which ruled the ancient Near East from modern Iran to Egypt from 539 to 332 BCE, when it fell to the Greek Alexander the Great. The story takes place in Susa, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, and displays a striking knowledge of the Persian court and its surroundings. Interestingly, the book has a total lack of interest in Judah and in particular its cultic institutions. The audience the book addresses appears to be Jews who live in close 201
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proximity to foreign rulers and must learn to make their own way in a society in which they are a minority and in which there is always danger of persecution and oppression. For these reasons, it is probably the case that Esther was composed in the eastern Jewish Diaspora of the Persian Empire. The book of Esther gives no firm indication of date, and therefore a range of dates, from the fourth century to the second century BCE, has been proposed for it. The earliest possible date depends on the identification of King Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus is normally identified as Xerxes I, who reigned from 486 BCE to 465 BCE; thus the book must have been composed following his reign. The latest possible date is less solid, but can be posited on the lack of Hellenistic elements in the book (including an absence of any Greek vocabulary). In addition, Esther reflects a more sympathetic attitude toward the Persian king and toward Gentiles in general than would be expected in a work from the Hellenistic period. In the Persian period, the Jews for the most part were willing servants of their Gentile rulers (witness Nehemiah). However, the later Hellenistic period witnessed a change in that attitude, brought about by the increasingly harsh policy of the Seleucid rulers toward their Jewish subjects (see 1 and 2 Maccabees). Therefore, the most likely date for the composition of the book lies between the late fifth century and the early third century BCE. Since the book’s portrayal of the events of the reign of Xerxes is not historically accurate (e.g., one Amestris was Xerxes’ queen, not Vashti), a certain distance from that reign is probable. Thus a date in the late fourth or early third century BCE is preferable. The genre of the book of Esther is most easily described as an early Jewish novella. A novella is a fictional piece of writing in prose that is not designed to meet any tests of historical accuracy. It is written by a single author and meant to be read, not recited. Its plot moves from the establishment of a tension through complications to its resolution, depicting only one chain of events over a limited time frame, and concentrating on the development of characters and situations. In its final form, the book of Esther fits the description of a novella; however, as with most biblical books, the author may have used preexisting material in the composition of the book. For example, a similar story concerning Jews in the Persian court was
found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QprotoEsther ar). It does not, however, mention Esther or Mordecai. Esther also has elements of a royal courtier tale, in which a protagonist rises to power in a royal court, encounters opposition, falls, and then is reinstated. This type of tale is also found in Daniel 1–6 and the Joseph cycle in Genesis. The presence of the “royal courtier tale” form in Esther explains the existence in the book of many elements found in Wisdom literature, such as the court setting, the struggle between two royal courtiers, the relationship of Esther to Mordecai as the adopted child of the wise courtier, and the portrayal of Ahasuerus as the type of the foolish king. The author of Esther uses several structuring elements to give the book a sense of balance and symmetry. The most prominent of these is the use of banquets or feasts, which occur in pairs, with each member of the pair opposing or complementing the other. The book contains ten banquets or feasts: 1. Ahasuerus’s banquet for the nobility (1:2–4) 2. Ahasuerus’s banquet for all the men of Susa (1:5–8) 3. Vashti’s banquet for the women (1:9) 4. Esther’s enthronement banquet (2:18) 5. Haman and Ahasuerus’s banquet (3:15) 6. Esther’s first banquet (5:4–8) 7. Esther’s second banquet (7:1–9) 8. The Jews’ feasting (8:17) 9. The first feast of Purim (9:17, 19) 10. The second feast of Purim (9:18) Banquets 1 and 2 go together, as do 3 and 4, 6 and 7, and 9 and 10. Banquet 5, in which Haman and Ahasuerus toast the destruction of the Jews, makes a contrasting pair with banquet 8, where the Jews celebrate the averting of their slaughter. The use of pairs is also evident among the characters, who occur in three pairs of men and women: Ahasuerus and Vashti, Mordecai and Esther, and Haman and Zeresh. The characters are also grouped in complementary or contrasting pairs throughout the book: Vashti/ Esther, Haman/Mordecai, Mordecai/Esther, and Esther/Haman. The main literary characteristic of the book of Esther is the use of irony and humor to explore the darker themes of power and its absence, ethnic tension and the threat of genocide, and the sin of pride and its consequences.
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The use of irony is immediately evident in the author’s choice of heroine: Esther is a female Jewish orphan, the least powerful member (orphan) of the less powerful gender (female) of a powerless people (Jews) in the mighty Persian Empire. Yet she reaches the heights of power, and the powerful man who attempted to slaughter her and her people ends up dead himself. This theme of ironic reversal (peripety) occurs throughout the book.
Hermeneutical Issues Esther did not achieve undisputed canonical status in Judaism until after the third century CE. The Western church accepted the book as canonical in the fourth century CE, while the Eastern church did not accept it until the eighth century. The reason for the difficulty in achieving canonical status is the book’s perceived lack of religiosity. Most glaring is the complete absence of any mention of God. In addition, the concepts of law and covenant are absent, and there are no prayers. In fact, Esther, the heroine of the tale, is married to a non-Jew, does not uphold the dietary laws, and lives in a completely Gentile environment. These facts indicate that, for the audience of the book of Esther, being a Jew was more an ethnic designation than a religious one. To compensate for this lack of religiosity, the Septuagint Additions to Esther (see below) and rabbinic traditions attempt to add religious elements to the book (e.g., Rabbi Johanan states that Esther, like Daniel, ate only vegetables). Nevertheless, the book remains one of the most secular in the Hebrew Bible. A religious element is not entirely absent, however. Esther calls for a fast before going to confront the king. Fasting is a religious practice in Judaism (e.g., the fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement). More important, God’s control of events and the Jews’ status as God’s chosen people seem to be assumed by the book. In 4:14 Mordecai tells Esther, “For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish.” The word “quarter” may be a veiled reference to God, and the hand of God behind the scenes in the events taking place seems to be assumed by the verse. The probable reason for Esther’s final inclusion in the Hebrew canon is its connection with the festival of Purim, an extremely popular festival that began to be celebrated in the
Diaspora and later was accepted in Judah. During the celebration, the merrymaker is told to get so drunk that he can no longer distinguish between “Blessed be Mordecai!” and “Cursed be Haman!” The festival continues in popularity today. The inclusion of the book of Esther in the Jewish canon was probably the result of popular pressure. Some have argued, however, that the connection of the story of Esther and Mordecai to the festival of Purim is very doubtful. The only link between the story and the festival is the word pur, or “lot,” which Haman casts to determine the most propitious day for the slaughter of the Jews (3:7). The addition of the Purim material to the story appears as an afterthought, an association made after the composition of the original work, to legitimate a festival already celebrated by Diaspora Jews. However, as it stands, the book should be considered a coherent whole, since the book contains themes and structures that span all ten chapters. The question of the relationship between the book and the feast of Purim remains unresolved, although the festival of Purim was the original impetus for the inclusion of Esther in the Hebrew canon. Esther’s interpretive problems did not cease upon its acceptance into the canon. The book’s indifference to religious practices, its dubious sexual ethics, and its female heroine continued to baffle commentators, particularly male Protestant commentators, who wished to make the book conform to the expectations of a Western Christian audience. The tendency among scholars was to exalt Mordecai as the true hero of the tale and to downplay or even vilify the role of Esther. As late as 1971 Carey Moore stated, “Between Mordecai and Esther the greater hero in the Hebrew is Mordecai, who supplied the brains while Esther simply followed his directions” (Moore, lii). Esther’s sexual ethics in particular are called into question. “Esther, for the chance of winning wealth and power, takes her place in the herd of maidens who became concubines of the king” (Paton, 96). This attitude indicates a failure to accept the book on its own terms, in its historical setting of the androcentric, male-dominated Persian Empire. Modern women are also made uncomfortable by the actions of Esther—her entry into the king’s harem and her lack of challenge to the status quo. For many women, Vashti is the more palatable female character, since she directly challenges the male power structure.
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However, in order for the character Esther to be fully appreciated as the heroine of the story that bears her name, the book must be accepted in the cultural milieu that produced it. In the world portrayed by the book of Esther, Esther has no choice but to obey the king’s command. Disobedience would mean death for her and for her guardian Mordecai. Once made queen, Esther skillfully manipulates the power structure of the Persian court in order to attain her goal, the salvation of her people. This goal takes precedence over any personal considerations, including her fear for her own life. In fact, Esther, precisely because she was a woman and therefore basically powerless within Persian society, was the paradigm of the Diaspora Jew, who was also powerless in Persian society. Because she was successful in attaining power within the structure of society, she served as a role model for Diaspora Jews seeking to attain a comfortable and successful life in a foreign society, but also as a model of selfsacrifice if circumstances demanded it.
The Additions to the Book of Esther The Septuagint version of Esther, produced in the late second or early first century BCE, contains six passages not found in the Hebrew text of the book of Esther. When the Christian
scholar Jerome revised the Old Latin translation of the Bible, he collected them and placed them at the end of the canonical book. In English translations, Protestant Bibles will place the Additions in the Apocrypha (either alone or integrated with Hebrew Esther), while recent Roman Catholic Bibles (JB, NAB) translate Hebrew Esther but include the Greek Additions in the appropriate places. Tradition assigns the additions the letters A–F. A. Mordecai’s dream; the conspiracy against the king B. The royal edict of Haman C. The prayers of Mordecai and Esther D. Expansion of the account of Esther’s audience with the king E. The royal edict of Mordecai F. Explanation of Mordecai’s dream; conclusion and colophon The purpose of the Additions was to add a specifically religious element, to heighten the dramatic interest, and to lend a note of authenticity to the events of the book. For further information, see the commentary on the Greek Book of Esther in the Apocrypha section of this volume. The comments below address the original Hebrew version.
Comment The Story of Vashti (Esth. 1:1–22) The first female character the book of Esther introduces is Vashti the queen, the wife of Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus summons her to appear before his court in the midst of a wild drinking party, in order that he may show off her beauty. She refuses, and Ahasuerus, on the advice of his nobles, who fear that her example may cause other wives to rebel against their husbands, banishes her from court. The author here introduces a touch of the burlesque; Vashti’s refusal to comply with the king’s demand is perceived by the men as a grave threat to the dominance of every husband in the kingdom. Ahasuerus and his courtiers appear as hapless buffoons before the calm strength of Vashti and, by implication, of all their wives! The motive for her refusal is not given in the text, which has led to much speculation
in the commentaries. For instance, the Targum (the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible) informs the reader that the king wished Vashti to appear naked before the company and that out of modesty she refused. Vashti serves mainly as a foil for Esther, although her character is in some ways more congenial to the modern woman. She is a strong female character who loses her position as a result of her refusal to acquiesce to the greater society’s demands upon her. It is another one of the author’s ironies that her punishment gives her exactly what she wanted: she is no longer to appear before the king!
Esther Becomes Queen (Esth. 2:1–23) This chapter introduces the reader to the main characters, Esther and Mordecai. Esther, the cousin and ward of Mordecai, is described as
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very beautiful, but no hint concerning her character is given. In verse 8 Esther is taken, with all the other virginal women in Susa, into the king’s harem. The text gives no judgment on the matter and seems to take her obedience to the king’s command for granted. To disobey would be suicidal. Verse 9 begins to portray Esther as more than merely beautiful. She earns the regard of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who gives Esther the best of everything in the harem. Esther, in other words, has taken steps to place herself in the best possible position within her situation. Mordecai, the guardian of Esther, is described as “sitting at the king’s gate” (2:19), that is, as a royal courtier. He is portrayed as very concerned for Esther’s welfare. Among other things, Mordecai charges her not to reveal her Jewish identity. The motive for this advice is not given, although it hints at ethnic tensions that will surface later in the book, and it serves as a plot device to heighten tension later in the story. Esther sensibly follows the advice of her more seasoned guardian and mentor. When Esther’s turn with the king arrives (again, it must be emphasized that the text does not give a negative judgment on this process), she wins the love of Ahasuerus and becomes the queen. She wisely follows the advice of Hegai, and by working within the power structure of her environment (the Persian harem system), she moves from a completely powerless position into the relatively more powerful one of queen. Her last act before the main events of chapter 4 is to inform the king of the plot of the eunuchs that Mordecai had uncovered. She is attempting to use her position to enhance the status of her relatives, the action of a wise courtier.
The Downfall of Haman and the Triumph of Esther (Esth. 3:1–8:2) The central section of the book chronicles the rise and fall of the royal favorite, Haman the Agagite, and the actions of Esther that bring about his downfall and save the Jews of the Persian Empire. In this section we witness Esther successfully manipulating the power structures of the Persian Empire, using the tools that are available to her to achieve her goals. Haman is introduced as a descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites, the ancient and bitter enemies of Israel (Exod. 17:14–16; 1 Sam. 15:32–33). Therefore the struggle between
Mordecai and Haman is not merely personal but has national, ethnic implications. Because of this, it is important to investigate the behavior of Esther and Mordecai during the crisis precipitated by Haman and to question the interpretation that casts Mordecai in the role of the wise courtier. Chapter 3 outlines the struggle between Haman and Mordecai. Haman, having been made the king’s vizier, desires that everyone in the kingdom should bow down to him. Mordecai refuses, and an angry Haman plots the destruction of all the Jews in the Persian Empire. The reason for Mordecai’s refusal to bow down to Haman is not given in the text; there is no impediment to paying homage to human rulers in Jewish law. Commentators, beginning with the rabbis, have sought to supply the reason. Midrash Rabbah suggests, for example, that Haman had an idol pinned to his breast, and thus Mordecai could not bow down to him. Among modern commentators, L. B. Paton saw in Mordecai’s action a “spirit of independence.” The text itself, however, is silent. With no reason for it given, Mordecai’s action appears foolish in the extreme, placing his life and the life of his people in jeopardy. In Esther 3:4 the other servants wait to see who will prove stronger, Mordecai the Jew or Haman the Agagite (Amalekite), again implying an ethnic conflict. At this point in the story, Haman seems to be winning. Mordecai’s reaction to Haman’s plot does not seem to help his own cause. He appears to go into a panic, putting on sackcloth and wailing in the king’s gate (4:1). Mordecai’s response to the crisis that he set in motion is to bring the problem to the attention of Esther, who fortuitously now occupies a position of influence with the king. Esther now reappears in the story, responding to the report of Mordecai’s behavior by sending messengers to discover the cause of his actions. Mordecai responds by sending word to Esther of the disaster and charging her to go to the king. This is the turning point of the story. Esther ceases to be the protégée of the male characters surrounding her and becomes instead the chief actor and controller of events. In 4:11 Esther speaks directly for the first time in the narrative: “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if
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the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.” Esther’s reaction to Mordecai’s demand is not cowardice but a statement of fact. If she goes to the king unsummoned, the chances are good that she will die. In addition, what influence would she have with the king if he has not wished to see her in thirty days? Mordecai responds, however, by prodding her to act, emphasizing the importance of human action in accomplishing God’s purpose (4:13; a major underlying theme in Esther) and reminding her that as queen she does have power (4:14). Thus prodded, Esther springs into action; the reactor becomes the actor. Esther orders a fast and then prepares to go to the king. The purpose of the fast is not stated; it remains unclear in the text whether or not the act of fasting is directed to God. This ambiguity seems to be deliberate on the part of the author, who prefers to emphasize the importance of human action. In her decision to confront the king, Esther continues on the same wise course she has taken until now. As a subordinate member of the court, she does not risk direct confrontation without first taking every possible precaution to safeguard herself and to obtain her desire. She uses her knowledge of the king’s character in order to attain her goal by appealing to his emotions. The author has already demonstrated that Ahasuerus reacts emotionally rather than rationally (e.g., his banishment of Vashti). Esther’s best way to appeal to this king is clearly through his emotions. After her fast, Esther appears unsummoned before the king. She has put on her royal robes in order to appear as attractive and queenly as possible. Her strategy works, for she wins his favor (5:2). Ahasuerus offers to grant any request of hers up to half of his kingdom. This might seem like the right time to ask the king to save the Jews; however, that would not neutralize Haman, as Esther appears to realize. Rather than making her request and leaving the results to the discretion of this mercurial king, she sets out to lull Haman into a false sense of complacency and to place the king in a position where a strong emotional response from him is guaranteed. She invites the king and Haman to a private dinner party. This places the king in her territory, the women’s quarters, where she can more easily control the situation. It also puts Haman off his guard (your enemies don’t invite
you to dinner!). Her strategy is again successful: the king is further inclined to do Esther’s will, and “Haman went out that day happy and in good spirits” (5:9). At this point in the narrative, the third female character, Haman’s wife Zeresh, is introduced (5:10). Zeresh has a minor role, but serves as a mirror to Esther. She too is a wise courtier; in her first appearance she gives Haman advice on how to punish Mordecai (have him executed!), which he accepts. In her second appearance, however, she realizes that Haman is about to fall: “If Mordecai, before whom your downfall has begun, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him, but will surely fall before him” (6:13). How Zeresh, a non-Jew, knows this is not made clear, but her wisdom is certainly greater than her husband’s. Chapter 6 contains a short interlude in which Ahasuerus unwittingly humiliates Haman. Haman, brought down by his own arrogance, is forced to give Mordecai (for saving the king’s life in chap. 3) the reward that he constructed for himself, namely, to parade Mordecai through the streets on the king’s horse, loudly proclaiming that Mordecai is favored by the king. The king’s attendance at the second banquet to which Esther invites him is the affirmation that he means to grant Esther’s request. It should be noted that although the reader has the benefit of chapter 6 and knows of Haman’s humiliation before Mordecai, there is no indication in the text that Esther knows anything about it. She views Haman as just as dangerous as before. So when she makes her request, she must convince the king of the rightness of her position. She appeals to Ahasuerus’s emotions by the raw urgency of her plea: “Let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request” (7:3). She then argues, against Haman, that the destruction of the Jews would be a great (financial) loss to the king. Later in the scene, when Haman pleads for his life, the fact that she does not try to save him may appear unattractive. Esther, however, must act on her primary loyalty to her community, which has motivated her throughout this scene. Haman left alive would still constitute a threat to the Jewish community. Esther acknowledges by her silence that Haman must die for the Jews to be safe. By 8:2 Esther has won a complete victory. She has received Haman’s property from Ahasuerus and persuaded the king to make
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Mordecai his vizier in place of Haman. Esther now controls wealth, court appointments, and access to the king. She has risen from her lowly status in chapter 2 to the very pinnacle of power in the Persian Empire.
The Festival of Purim (Esth. 8:3–10:3) The last section of the book describes how Esther and Mordecai overturn the edict of Haman, the subsequent victory of the Jews, and the inauguration of the festival of Purim. Esther and Mordecai act together in the king’s name, assuring the complete triumph of the Jews over their enemies. In fact, so complete is this victory that many Gentiles “profess to be Jews” (8:17). The rather bloodthirsty tone of chapter 9 may be troubling to a contemporary reader; the Jews seem to have turned on their enemies the very violence that threatened them. Two considerations may mitigate this objection. First, the fact that according to the story many people in the empire were willing to carry out Haman’s edict indicates an underlying anti-Jewish sentiment that will continue to threaten the Jewish minority (9:5). Second, it is made clear that the Jews do not plunder their enemies (9:10, 15, 16), suggesting that they were fighting for survival and not for increased wealth. The result is that the oppressed and endangered minority becomes the most powerful group in society. This reversal has been accomplished by human action motivated by ethnic solidarity and an underlying faith in the providence of God, specifically by the action of the
woman Esther, a powerless member of a powerless group. She serves as the role model for all Diaspora Jews, who find themselves in a minority status. This then is the original purpose of the book: to acquaint the Jews in the eastern Diaspora with a mode of conduct that will enable them to attain security and to lead happy and productive lives. Esther the queen, by her deeds and in her character, typifies this mode of life. Bibliography
Crawford, Sidnie White. “The Book of Esther: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible, edited by Leander Keck, 3:853–942. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999. Fox, Michael V. Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther. Studies in Biblical Personalities. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991. Laniak, Timothy S. Shame and Honor in the Book of Esther. SBLDS 165. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. Levenson, Jon D. Esther: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. Moore, Carey A. Esther. Anchor Bible 7B. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1971. Paton, L. B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Esther. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1908.
Job Carol A. Newsom
Introduction A woman reading the Bible for the first time might wonder whether the book of Job would be worth her while. It appears to be another of those books in which men do all the talking. In fact, the only time a woman ventures to make a comment, she is silenced with the criticism that she talks like a fool. It would be a great mistake, however, for women to ignore the book of Job. When one reads it closely, some surprising things appear. What Job and his friends are debating turns out to include some important issues that feminist theology has been raising in recent years: the significance of personal experience as a source of religious insight, the importance and difficulty of solidarity among those who are oppressed, a critique of traditional models of God, and the relationship between human existence and the whole of creation.
Composition and Structure Dates for the composition of Job have ranged from the tenth century BCE to the second century BCE, although most scholars assume that the book was written during the early postexilic period, perhaps during the fifth century. As elusive as the date is the question of what kind of literature Job is. While it is usually associated with the Wisdom books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach, Job is unique within biblical literature. The book of Job has a curious structure. The first two chapters, which introduce the characters and set up the plot, are written in a “once upon a time” style, almost like that of a fairy tale. In these chapters Job appears as the traditional
character of patient endurance, bearing his misfortunes with complete acceptance. In chapter 3, however, both the style and the character of Job change dramatically. The simple prose is replaced with beautiful but highly demanding poetry, and Job, no longer patient, begins to speak bitter, almost blasphemous words. From chapter 4 through chapter 27 Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, argue with one another about the meaning of Job’s misfortunes and what light they shed on the character of Job and of God. A poem on the inaccessibility of wisdom (Job 28) provides an interlude before Job takes up his speech again to challenge God directly (Job 29–31). Although one expects God’s response to follow immediately, instead there occurs the long speech of a fourth friend, Elihu, who has not previously been mentioned (Job 32–37). In all probability these chapters are a later addition to the book, provided by someone who thought he could do a better job of answering Job than the three friends. In the opinion of most subsequent readers, he does not. The climax of the book occurs in the speeches of God from the whirlwind and Job’s response to them (38:1–42:6). What is initially puzzling about the divine speeches is that they do not address Job’s questions directly but are mostly concerned with an elaborate description of the created world. At the end of the speeches, however, Job retracts his accusations against God. The ending of the book (42:7–17) returns to the simple prose of the first chapters as it describes Job’s restoration. Most modern readers are frustrated by the seams and tensions that prevent the book of Job
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from being a seamless whole; but perhaps this frustration can be put to good use. One of feminism’s important insights is that all understanding is partial and depends in significant measure on the perspective from which one views things, an insight sometimes called “standpoint theory.” While we are accustomed to thinking of books as being composed from a single perspective or standpoint, and so conveying the perspective of the author, what if a book were composed from a variety of perspectives that were intentionally not harmonized with one another? This type of writing is called “polyphonic,” with reference to the way in which polyphonic music makes use of different voices singing independent lines of melody, even as the work is experienced as a complex whole. So it is with the book of Job. The prose tale is one perspective on the story of Job. The dialogue between Job and his friends is modeled on a very different ancient genre, one in which two clashing perspectives are allowed to confront each other without receiving resolution. The wisdom poem in chapter 28 belongs to yet another genre with its own way of perceiving what is at stake. The final speeches of Job and God seem intentionally designed to contrast with one another in terms of the perspectives they take—Job from the perspective of his own experience, God from the perspective of creation and cosmos. And, of course, Elihu is a voice from a different time and place entirely. If one does not insist that all of the different voices be merged into a single one, then a new insight emerges. Each voice is able to tell part of the truth about the story of Job, but no one of them is able to tell the whole truth. Indeed, even the entire polyphony of the book can see and say only so much. The truth about Job is inexhaustible and requires readers throughout the centuries, located in new standpoints and seeing from new perspectives, to continue to explore hitherto unrecognized aspects of the truth of Job’s story.
Religious Issues in Job In the opening chapters Job’s perfect character becomes the occasion for a disagreement between God and the satan. Not to be confused with the later Jewish and Christian figure of the devil, the satan in Job is a member of God’s heavenly court, whose functions are rather like those of a prosecuting attorney. The satan raises
questions about the motivation of Job’s piety, suggesting that Job is pious because God has blessed his life abundantly and that if all his blessings were suddenly destroyed, he would curse God. To determine the motivation of Job’s piety, God permits two sets of disasters to befall Job: the loss of his possessions and his children, and the loss of his health. The notion of a wager in heaven at Job’s expense is, of course, quite outrageous, but to dismiss the book as unworthy would be to miss an important experience. The book of Job is rather like a parable, in that it tells its frankly outrageous tale for the purpose of disorienting and reorienting the perspectives of its readers. Perhaps an even closer analogy would be the feminist science fiction of Ursula LeGuin. She described her novels as “thought experiments.” Since one could not actually run an experiment to see what would happen, for instance, if there were no such thing as fixed gender identity, she could write a book (The Left Hand of Darkness) in which that was the situation of life on another planet. Similarly, the prose tale in Job 1–2 and 42 wonders whether, if God blesses people, people are good only in order to get the blessing, or if truly disinterested piety exists. One cannot conduct an experiment, but one can tell a story. Within the prose tale, Job’s behavior and responses in chapters 1–2 seem to affirm that his piety is offered without expectation of reward. But the polyphonic structure of the book interrupts the voice of the prose tale with other voices that see different issues at stake. Once the friends arrive and Job breaks the sympathetic silence of their presence with his harrowing curse on the day of his birth (Job 3), matters quickly become more complicated. Though all of them are ignorant of the events in heaven, Job and his three friends assume that his misfortunes come from God. The friends essentially understand Job’s sufferings as either a punishment from God or a disciplinary warning. In either case they urge him to adopt a penitent and humble attitude, and they assure Job that God will restore him if he turns to God in trust. But Job, who knows that he has not been guilty of any conduct that would warrant such punishment, cannot accept their advice. To do so would be to destroy his own integrity. Because he suffers without being guilty, Job concludes either that some enormous mistake has been made about him or, more disturbingly, that God is not a just god
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but rather a monstrous tyrant. The book had begun as an inquiry into the motives of human piety. Through the compelling speeches of Job it becomes an examination of the character of God. But God’s response to Job once again
reframes the issues, challenging the whole set of assumptions that Job and his friends had made the basis of their argument and offering a radically different model of God, creation, and human existence.
Comment Women Characters in the Book of Job (Job 1–2; 42) Although they have only “bit parts,” Job’s daughters and his wife have long intrigued readers and commentators. Job’s daughters seem to have a status within the family that is more prominent than what is typically assumed about the position of daughters in ancient Israel. Perhaps it is the author’s way of underscoring the exceptional nature of everything that has to do with Job. In describing the cycle of banquets held by the seven sons of Job, the narrator specifically mentions that the sons would invite their three sisters to join the festivities (1:4). More intriguing is the note about the three daughters born to Job after his misfortunes. The narrator gives the names of each: Jemimah (“Dove”), Keziah (“Cinnamon”), and Keren-happuch (“Box of eye shadow”). Not only are they said to be exceptionally beautiful; Job gives them an inheritance among their brothers (42:14–15). That their inheritance is mentioned suggests that it was not a customary practice. Later interpreters were fascinated by the mention of the daughters’ inheritance. The Testament of Job, a Jewish writing from the first century BCE, speculates that Job gave his daughters golden sashes with mystical properties that allowed them to understand and speak the language of the angels. It is Job’s wife, however, who is of most interest as a female character. (See the separate article on Job’s wife.) Her words to Job are radical and provocative: “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die” (2:9). What she says echoes God’s assessment of Job as one who persists in integrity (2:3b), but the course of action she urges would end the wager on the satan’s terms (2:5). There is an ambiguity in her words, however, that is seldom recognized, one that revolves around the thematically crucial word “integrity.” The term “integrity” (tummah) denotes a person whose conduct is in complete accord with moral
and religious norms and whose character is one of utter honesty, without guile. Job’s wife’s disturbing question hints at a tension between these two aspects of the word. Her question could be understood in two different senses. She could be heard as saying: “Do you still persist in your integrity (=righteousness)? Look where it has gotten you. Give it up, as God has given you up. Curse God, and then die.” Or she could be understood as saying: “Do you still persist in your integrity (=honesty)? If so, stand by it and say what is truly in your heart. Curse God before you die.” However Job has understood her words, his reply, criticizing her in the strongest terms (“you speak as any foolish woman would speak,” 2:10) has generally set the tone for her evaluation by commentators from ancient times to the present. There have occasionally been more sympathetic interpretations of her motives among both ancient and modern writers. The Septuagint gives her a longer speech in which she talks movingly of Job’s sufferings and of her own. In The Testament of Job she is clearly a figure of pathos, whose sufferings and humiliations as she tries to provide for her ailing husband are vividly described. Even in these treatments, however, she remains a foil for the morally superior Job, who corrects her understanding. By making Job’s wife a more sympathetic character, both the ancient writers and the modern commentators who follow their lead patronize her. Her words become “excusable,” and consequently it is not necessary to take them seriously. What gets overlooked in this approach is that Job’s wife is the one who recognizes, long before Job himself does, what is at stake theologically in innocent suffering: the conflict between innocence and integrity, on the one hand, and an affirmation of the goodness of God, on the other. It is the issue with which Job will struggle in the following chapters. The honesty and religious radicalism of Job’s wife have not been entirely overlooked, at least
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in modern literary rewritings of the story of Job. Robert Frost, in A Masque of Reason, portrays her as a sharp but rather shrewish protofeminist. He hints at her “heretical” stance by naming her Thyatira, the city from which John’s opponent, “Jezebel,” came (Rev. 2:20–25). In Archibald MacLeish’s well-known play J.B., it is Sarah, J.B.’s wife, who first understands and then expresses the humanistic, postreligious vision of the play: sarah: You wanted justice and there was none—Only love. j.b.: [God] does not love. He Is. sarah: But we do. That’s the wonder. Both in the original Hebrew book of Job and in many of the retellings of the story, Job’s wife is the prototypical woman on the margin, whose iconoclastic words provoke defensive condemnation but whose insight serves as an irritant that undermines old complacencies.
Experience and the Critique of Tradition (Job 3–27; 32–37) It is interesting that Job’s outburst against his wife is the last thing he says for some time. Apparently not acknowledging the presence of the three friends who come to comfort him, Job sits in silence for seven days. When he finally speaks in chapter 3, his words sound distinctly like those of his wife. Though he does not exactly curse God, he curses the day of his birth. Though he does not die, he speaks longingly of death. In the chapters that follow, his persistence in his integrity—both his moral righteousness and his honesty—motivates his angry, iconoclastic words. His wife’s troubling questions have become his own. In an ironic reversal Job’s disturbing words provoke a defensive reaction from his friends, just as he had rebuked his wife. They attempt to recall him to reason, that is, to the received traditions that are accepted as common sense within their community. The friends’ response to Job takes a variety of forms but is largely a variation on a few themes. Their fundamental conviction is that God acts in accordance with justice, treating persons as they deserve. At first they urge Job to steadfastness. Since he is basically a good man, he can rest assured that his misfortunes are but temporary, for God always protects the righteous from utter destruction
(4:6–7; 5:19–22). Indeed, Job should even rejoice at his misfortunes, because they are the reproof and discipline of God (5:17), designed to alert him to hidden faults before they become fatal (33:15–18). In any event Job should not be astonished if God seems to treat him as unrighteous and impure; all creatures, even the angels, are so before God (4:17–21). Of course, as Job persists in what they perceive as his obstinacy, his friends gradually become convinced that Job is in fact a wicked man. Since only a sinner could talk as he does (15:4–6), they are warranted in charging him with serious moral offenses (22:2–11). What is of interest to a feminist reading of Job is to notice the sources of authority upon which the friends ground their confident assurance that they know what is true. They appeal to common sense, what “everybody” knows (“Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?” 4:7), confident that their perceptions are the same as Job’s (“See, we have searched this out; it is true. Hear, and know it for yourself,” 5:27). Sometimes they cite anecdotal evidence (“I have seen . . . ,” 4:8; 5:3). Or they may argue deductively from what they assume are universally agreed principles (“Far be it from God that he should do wickedness. . . . For according to their deeds he will repay them. . . . Of a truth, God will not do wickedly,” 34:10–12). The friends buttress their own arguments with the weight of tradition (“For inquire now of bygone generations . . . for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing. . . . Will they not teach you and tell you?” 8:8–10). Even the transcendent authority of revelation is invoked (“When deep sleep falls on mortals . . . a spirit glided past my face. . . . There was silence, then I heard a voice,” 4:13–16). The friends’ sources of authority are powerful ones, not to be discounted lightly. Where then does Job find the basis to contest their construction of reality? Although his arguments are sophisticated and varied, Job holds his ground for a single fundamental reason: he knows that his friends’ common sense and their traditions, their rationality and their revelations are inconsistent with his own experience. For Job, to hold fast to his integrity means to insist on the validity and authority of his own experience, even when it seems to be contradicted by what all the world knows to be true. What is at stake between Job and his friends should sound familiar to women. The sense of
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what is normative in a society—its highest values, its ideal of human nature, its notions of God—has been constructed largely on the basis of male experience. Women who have found that their experience is inconsistent with or not adequately described by these norms have often tended to discount their own experience. Where women’s lives do not fit the patterns of male experience, women are frequently judged to be defective or inferior. It has been one of the tasks of feminist thought to encourage women to hold fast to the integrity of their own experience. To be sure, Job and his friends are not engaged in a debate about men’s and women’s experience. But what is important for feminist thought is that the issue of different sources of authority is explicitly raised in this book in such a way as to authenticate the crucial role of personal experience in the critique of received tradition. Although Job’s own perceptions are incomplete and in need of correction, it is the friends and not Job who are rebuked for failing to speak truly (42:7).
The Moral World of Biblical Patriarchy and the Problem of Solidarity (Job 29–31) For the author’s purposes it was necessary that the hero of the book be a character at the top of the social order. The hero must be one who quite literally has everything to lose. It is scarcely surprising then that Job is depicted as a patriarch rather like Abraham, the wealthy and respected head of a large household with many dependents. Readers are accustomed to thinking of Job as a universal character, at least as “everyman” if not “everywoman.” Although it is certainly possible to gain insight into the human condition in general from the book, it is important to remember that Job experiences his suffering precisely as a patriarch. Without his really being aware of it, his sense of identity, his expectations about the world and his place in it, and even his image of God have all been shaped by his status in a particular social and moral order. When his world is shaken by the suffering he undergoes, it becomes possible to see something of the dimensions and the limitations of that world. The term “patriarchy” is a problematic one, because it has been used in so many different contexts and for so many different purposes. It
is not only a matter of male-female relationships but a whole set of social and moral arrangements in which authority resides primarily with older males. In Israel the basic social unit was the household, within which the senior male had considerable authority over its members. The social values of biblical patriarchy were what one could call paternalistic. Within the village or larger social area, wealthier men also had responsibilities for those who could not provide for themselves and were subject to exploitation: traveling strangers, the poor of both sexes, but especially women and children who had no male to provide for them. In return for this patronage, the patriarch received their loyalty and respect. Even more important, the patriarch received honor from his peers. Maintaining the social order was also part of the responsibility of the senior males. Not only were they responsible for justice within their own households, but when issues of a broader community nature arose, the senior males would meet at the city gate to take counsel together and to adjudicate disputes (see, e.g., Ruth 4; Jer. 26). The prosperity and the dignity of these men were generally seen as divine approval for the proper fulfillment of their social responsibilities. Indeed, to a significant extent the biblical image of God is drawn from the model of the patriarch. When Job’s three friends come to comfort him, they form a group of society’s most privileged members who are trying to make sense out of a disturbing disruption in their world. As they grope for an explanation, the three friends attempt to account for the way in which prosperity and loss, good and bad fortune, are distributed. It is not surprising that the three friends are convinced that people essentially get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Apparent discrepancies, such as Job’s misfortunes, are merely temporary. Although they are not aware of it, their complacency about the order of their society is rooted in large measure in their own privileged position. They simply cannot see injustice in the world. Job, however, has been shocked out of his own previous complacency by the wholly undeserved suffering he has experienced. Gradually he begins to see things from a different perspective, from the perspective of others who suffer. In a powerful speech in 24:1–17 Job describes the desperate condition of the very poor, who are without food, shelter, or adequate
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clothing, exploited by those who hire them or lend to them, and subject to repeated violence. Job draws particular attention to the plight of the widow and the orphan, for, then as now, women and children make up a disproportionate number of the poorest of the poor. Here Job stands in solidarity with all the wretched of the earth. Readers who find Job’s speech in 24:1–17 so moving are often disconcerted by his next speech in chapters 29–31. As he sums up his experiences and challenges God to confront him, Job no longer orients himself according to the suffering of the poor. Instead, as he speaks, he is very much the proud patriarch. It is a valuable speech, however, for anyone who wishes to understand the moral world of Israelite patriarchy. In chapter 29 Job recalls the days when all was well with him, contrasting them in chapter 30 with the misery of his present existence. In chapter 31 he challenges God through a series of oaths in which he vows to accept terrible curses upon himself if he has committed any of the sins he enumerates. What Job remembers most fondly is the honor and deference he received from his peers. When he went to the city gate, not only would the young men withdraw before him; the elders would rise and stand, as everyone waited silently for Job to speak (29:7–10, 21–25). The reason Job commanded such respect did not have to do with wealth and power as such, but with the fact that he exercised his authority in order to bring relief to the weak: “I delivered the poor who cried, and the orphan who had no helper. . . . I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. . . . I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy” (29:12–16). Even in the nobility of Job’s words, however, it becomes evident why true solidarity with the oppressed is an impossibility for Job. The moral world of ancient patriarchy was an essentially paternalistic and hierarchical one. It placed a high value on alleviating the distress of the poor and weak, but for the most part it could not conceive of the fundamental changes in the organization of society that would prevent the powerlessness and destitution that so often struck the widow and the orphan. This is not to accuse Job individually of moral failure; rather, it is to recognize the limitations of the very moral world that formed him. An even less attractive face of patriarchy’s moral world appears in the following chapter. The paternalism expressed in chapter 29 is
an apparently benevolent form of hierarchical social relations. But social resentment lurks in even benevolent hierarchies, to be unleashed, as Job discovers, when a previously high-ranking member of the social order falls on hard times. “But now they make sport of me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock ” (30:1 RSV). Job’s scathing contempt for these lowerclass people takes the form of mocking their poverty: “Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground. . . . They are driven out from society; people shout after them as after a thief. In the gullies of wadis they must live, in holes in the ground, and in the rocks” (30:3, 5–6). Job’s former solidarity with the poor seems to have evaporated before his perception that his honor—the most precious possession a man could have in his moral world—has been trampled by those without honor. Similarly, Job’s great oath in chapter 31 is a virtual catalogue of the values of ancient Israel’s patriarchal society. Job swears that he has never engaged in deceit for the sake of greed (31:5–8) or overvalued wealth (31:24–25). He has respected the daughters and wives of other men (31:1–4, 9–12). Within his own household he has upheld justice (31:13–15), and never has he taken legal advantage of the powerless (31:21–23). He has been generous to the poor (31:16–20), hospitable to the stranger (31:32), responsible to his land (31:38–40). He has not engaged in idolatry (31:26–28), nor exulted over his enemies’ misfortune (31:29–31), nor hidden his own transgressions (31:33–34). But for all the genuine nobility of this inventory of moral values, a modern woman cannot but feel aghast at the oath Job takes in defense of his sexual integrity: “If my loins were seduced by a woman and I loitered at my neighbor’s door—let any man take my wife and grind in between her thighs!” (31:9–10, trans. Mitchell, 73). Job’s words are in keeping with the patriarchal perspective that saw a woman’s sexuality as the property of her husband and an abuse of it as an injury to the husband, rather than to the woman herself. Although modern readers are critical of the proprietary view of women in Job 29–31 and of the way concern for honor tends to translate into social resentment and contempt, there is little indication that an ancient audience would have so reacted. For them, chapters 29–31 would have presented Job in the noblest possible terms—a model patriarch. He is, as God
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has described him, a man who “fears God and turns away from evil” (1:8).
Models of God (Job 38–41) There is one important respect in which Job’s patriarchal assumptions are put in question by the book. Job’s mounting frustration with God comes from his expectation that God should behave toward him as Job behaves toward his own dependents. Job has envisioned God in his own image, as a sort of divine patriarch. It is a model of God drawn from the highest and best that ancient Near Eastern culture could imagine. Job has expected God to be benevolent and paternal, but above all Job has expected God to be just, intervening directly to vindicate righteous conduct and punish wickedness. Repeatedly, Job’s language has turned to legal metaphors as he imagines coming before God (Job 9–10; 13; 16; 19; 23). Job knows how he has conducted himself in the seat of judgment (29:12–17) and when he heard complaints within his own household (31:13–15). Despite his own recent inexplicable experiences, he clings to the belief that God will yet vindicate him, if he can summon God to judgment. The radicalness of the book of Job lies in this: the rejection of Job’s model of God as inadequate. The God who meets Job in chapters 38–41 is not the great patriarch Job has anticipated. That the book remains a difficult challenge to modern readers is an indication of the extent to which the model of God as patriarch still prevails. Whereas Job’s speeches were oriented to themes of rights and injustices in the human realm and to a God who should see that justice is always done, God speaks of the ordering of creation: the foundation of the earth; the birthing of the sea; the ordering of day and night; and the mysteries of water in its myriad forms of snow, hail, rain, frost, and dew. Already in this section there is a hint of the strategy by which God attempts to reorient Job. Although tradition spoke of the giving and withholding of rain as a response to human conduct (e.g., Amos 4:7–8), here God speaks of the rain that falls in the desert where no human lives (38:25–27). Job’s categories have been too narrow, his conception of God hopelessly anthropocentric. That is to say, both Job and his friends have assumed that God primarily reacts to human conduct, a view of the world that puts
the individual human being at its center. God’s education of Job continues as God turns to speak of the animals for whom God has provided (38:39–39:30). These are not domestic animals but wild ones—the lion, the raven, the mountain goat, the wild ox, the ostrich, and so on. God quite evidently delights in their very wildness and their freedom from human use—another implicit criticism of Job’s exclusively anthropocentric views. Images of birth, nurture, and vitality abound. This is, however, an unsentimental view of the natural world, in which food for the lion’s cubs and the eagle’s nestlings means the shedding of blood, including human blood. Job’s categories of rights and wrongs and his conception of God as a larger version of himself are simply inadequate to encompass the vision God shows him. The egocentricity of Job’s view is underscored in the concluding speeches as God describes the wondrous legendary creatures Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40–41), reminding Job that Behemoth is one of God’s creatures as well as Job and that Leviathan too is a creature proud, fearless, and magnificent (much as Job had presented himself in Job 31). For all the beauty of the divine speeches, many readers are disturbed by the fact that God’s reply does not directly address Job’s questions. Truly, God does not tell Job how to think through the issues of suffering and oppression—that remains a human task. What God has done by ignoring Job’s way of posing the question is to illumine the inadequacy of Job’s starting point, his legal model of rights and faults and his image of God as the great patriarch. From Job’s perspective, innocent suffering had to imply the injustice of God. The divine speeches hint at a different perspective. Moral and theological thinking after Job 38–41 has to begin with a new image of God and a new image of the world that can be glimpsed in these speeches. This new image is one of God as a power for life, balancing the needs of all creatures, not just humans, cherishing freedom, full of fierce love and delight for each thing without regard for its utility, acknowledging the deep interconnectedness of death and life, restraining and nurturing each element in the ecology of all creation. It is a description of God and the world that has strong points of contact with contemporary feminist thought. Yet one should not gloss over the elements of the tragic that God’s
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response implies. Though humans passionately desire to find a way of living that keeps the world whole and children safe, as Job did (1:5), the divine speeches insist that the forces of chaos and moral evil remain a part of the fabric of the world (38:8–15; 39:27–30; 41:1–34 [40:25–41:26]). Job’s verbal response to the divine speeches, though somewhat enigmatic, is certainly a retraction of his earlier accusations and an embrace of this new vision of God (42:1–6). His trust in a new understanding of reality is given concrete expression as this previously isolated and alienated sufferer reestablishes relationships. Not only is he reconciled with God; he also prays to God for his friends, receives his brothers and sisters, and becomes a father to ten more children (42:7–17). Women may regret that nothing is explicitly said about Job’s wife, but her own outspoken integrity, as much as her husband’s, remains a model for those who seek truth. Bibliography
Balentine, Samuel. Job. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2006.
Brenner, Athalya. A Feminist Companion to the Wisdom Literature. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Clines, David J. A. Job 1–20. Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1989. ———. Job 21–37. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006. Gutiérrez, Gustavo. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987. MacLeish, Archibald. J.B.: A Play in Verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1958. Mitchell, Stephen. The Book of Job. Translated with an introduction by Stephen Mitchell. Rev. ed. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987. Newsom, Carol A. The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ———. “Job.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible, 4:317–637. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996. Schifferdecker, Kathryn. Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job. Harvard Theological Studies 61. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. van Wolde, E. J. Job’s God. London: SCM Press, 2004.
Job’s Wife and Her Interpreters Anne W. Stewart
While Job’s wife makes only a fleeting appearance in the book itself, she looms large in the history of interpretation. Commentators, theologians, poets, and artists alike have rendered her both as a compassionate companion and a merciless irritant. In the biblical text, Job’s wife issues a brief and enigmatic retort to her husband, asking “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die” (2:9). In Hebrew, the term usually translated “curse” literally means “bless,” adding further complication to
understanding the import of her words. Rabbinic Jewish commentators disputed the meaning of her speech, suggesting it could connote either care or cynicism. One interpretation views her comments as an act of concern; fearing that Job would not be able to endure his suffering with steadfastness, she advises him to pray for death immediately so that he might die as an upright man, thus preserving his integrity (Ginzberg, 457). Another interpretation suggests that Job’s wife told him to blaspheme God
Job’s Affliction, a woodcut by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), depicts many of his woes: “loathsome sores” (Job 2:7), fire consuming buildings, herds of animals driven away. This illustration is from Die gantze Bibel by Christoph Froschauer (Zurich, 1531).
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so that punishment of death would befall him and relieve his suffering (Ginzberg, 458). On the other hand, the nineteenth-century Russian Jewish commentator Malbim argued that the words of Job’s wife were sarcastic and should be understood as “bless God,” not “curse God.” Job blessed God after the first test (1:21), but it led only to more suffering. In Malbim’s reading, Job’s wife suggests that the only thing that would result from more blessing is death! In any case, Job’s reply in the biblical text indicates disapproval of the sentiment of his wife’s question, as he likens her speech to that of a foolish woman, asking, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” (2:10). The Septuagint translation of the book of Job contains a longer speech by Job’s wife. Here Job’s wife highlights her own pain as a grieving mother who is equally beset by suffering, left without home or comfort: “As for me, I am one that wanders about and a hired servant—from place to place and house to house, waiting for when the sun will set, so I can rest” (LXX 2:9 [see Pietersma and Wright, NETS]). Her final word does not hold quite the ambiguous rhetorical force of the Hebrew text, for in the Greek translation she exclaims, “Say some word to the Lord and die!” (LXX 2:9). While Job’s wife remains morally inferior to the righteous Job in this translation, her character here is also more sympathetic than in the biblical text, for she draws attention to her own suffering and does not speak rashly but only “after a long time had passed.” In The Testament of Job, a Greek text from the first century BCE or CE, Job’s wife holds a more prominent role than in the biblical version. Named Sitis, she works as a maidservant in order to earn bread to feed Job. Job’s attitude toward Sitis is more compassionate in this version of the tale. He laments, “The gall of these city fathers! How can they treat my wife like a female slave?” (T. Job 21:3–4). After a number of years, Sitis earns barely enough bread to feed herself, yet she continues to divide her wages with Job. Eventually these circumstances force her to beg from the bread merchants in the marketplace, and here she encounters Satan, who disguises himself as a merchant in order to trap her. Satan promises Sitis three loaves of bread in exchange for her hair, an arrangement to which Sitis gladly agrees. But after Satan cuts her hair, she returns to Job, sitting on the dung heap, and rebukes him with words quite similar to her speech in the Septuagint. In addition
to describing her own grief and suffering, Sitis laments the loss of her luxurious household and decries her shame in selling her own hair to obtain provisions. Sitis wishes for Job’s death as much to bring her own relief as Job’s, saying, “In the weakness of my heart, my bones are crushed. Rise, take your loaves, be satisfied. And then speak some word against the Lord and die. Then I too shall be freed from weariness that issues from the pain of your body” (T. Job 25:10). Even as The Testament of Job depicts Job’s wife as a compassionate caregiver and herself a victim of Satan’s manipulation, she is also a rather vain character who is unable to endure suffering to the same degree as her husband. Job, in fact, rebukes his wife for selling her hair, asking, “Do you not see the devil standing behind you and unsettling your reasoning so that he might deceive me too? For he seeks to make an exhibit of you as one of the senseless women who misguide their husbands’ sincerity” (T. Job 26:6). Sitis makes another appearance in The Testament of Job while Job is conversing with his friends. Wearing tattered garments, she pleads with Job’s friends and implores them to send their soldiers to dig through the ruins of Job’s house so that her children’s bodies might be recovered. Job, however, forbids this action, explaining that the children’s bodies were already taken up to heaven. As he prays, the children appear in the sky, crowned in splendor with “the heavenly one” (T. Job 40:3). Upon seeing her glorified children, Sitis falls to the ground praising God. She soon dies peacefully in her sleep, and at her death the entire city— even the animals!—mourn. Job’s wife is thus a principal character in The Testament of Job. Although she is an agent through whom Satan tries to mislead Job, she is not a willing accomplice, but one who is deceived in her efforts to be a devoted wife. Augustine (354–430 CE) holds a slightly different understanding of the relationship between Satan and Job’s wife, calling her “the devil’s accomplice.” In his Expositions on the Psalms, Augustine states that Satan left Job’s wife unscathed not as an act of mercy but as his own ally—for just as Eve tempted her husband to disobey God, so too Job’s wife would lead him astray, not comfort him. In her foolishness, Job’s wife, like Satan, was unable to see Job’s inner strength to prevail in spite of his suffering. As he likens Job’s wife to Eve, Augustine
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also compares Job to Adam. However, unlike Adam, who listened to his wife and thus was expelled from paradise, Job did not listen to his wife and so gained entrance, says Augustine. The sentiment of Job’s wife is also negotiated in various artistic renditions. Job’s wife is at times a wretch who covers her nose to stave off the stench of her husband, and at others a faithful and tender companion. Several Byzantine sarcophagi, for example, depict Job’s wife, who holds her garment to her nose to block his vile smell, using a long stick to supply Job with bread. However, other artwork presents a more tender picture. In the Jabach Altarpiece (1504– 10), Albrecht Dürer portrays Job’s wife pouring water over his neck while two musicians look on. Given the primarily negative characterization of Job’s wife in the Christian interpretive tradition, following Augustine and others, some have interpreted this artistic rendition of her in a negative light. However, in Dürer’s work, her facial features appear soft and congenial, her gesture one of comfort (see Seow, 366–67). Job’s wife also plays a part in more modern interpretations of the book. She is a prominent character in Robert Frost’s delightful play A Masque of Reason, which purports to be “chapter 43” of the book of Job and recounts an encounter between Job, his wife, God, and the devil, years after the events recorded in the biblical text. In this tale, Job’s wife is named Thyatira, perhaps a subtle allusion to the biblical Lydia, a prominent and learned woman from the city Thyatira who was a student of Paul (Acts 16:14), or to Jezebel, the opponent of John, from Thyatira (Rev. 2:18ff.). In Frost’s play, Job’s wife is an outspoken interlocutor with God. She defends her treatment of Job, calling it her “wifely duty,” and takes God to task, arguing that while she stood by Job, “All You can seem to do is lose Your temper when reason-hungry mortals ask for reasons” (Frost, 478). Even as she finds unacceptable God’s initial unwillingness to explain himself to Job, she believes that there is no universal reason: “And no one but a man would think there was. You don’t catch women trying to be Plato” (Frost, 478). Frost depicts Thyatira as a protofeminist who inquires of God why women prophets are burned as witches while male prophets receive honor. Job explains to God, “In [Thyatira’s] suspicion You’re no feminist. You have it in for women, she believes. Kipling invokes You as Lord God of Hosts. She’d like to know how You
would take a prayer that started off Lord God of Hostesses” (Frost, 479–80). Job’s wife also holds an important role in Archibald MacLeish’s play J.B. In this adaptation of the biblical text, Job’s wife is figured as the beautiful Sarah, an opinionated companion to her husband J.B. As the play begins, J.B. and Sarah enjoy wealth, a beautiful home, and four happy children, and Sarah upholds God’s justice. She assumes that their happy life requires due diligence in praising God. God will remember those who praise him but will forget those who forget God, she insists. For this reason, she prompts the family to gives thanks to God continually for their blessings. However, once their children die and J.B. loses his fortune, Sarah vehemently questions divine justice. When her husband insists that he has sinned and God is in the right, Sarah replies hysterically, “Does God demand deception of us?—Purchase His innocence by ours? Must we be guilty for Him?” (MacLeish, 109). Sarah threatens to leave if J.B. persists, for “I will not stay here if you lie— [c]onnive in your destruction, cringe to it: [n]ot if you betray my children” (MacLeish, 110). Sarah insists upon her children’s innocence. Divine justice does not account for their untimely deaths, she maintains, and she tells her husband that she refuses to “[l]et you sacrifice their deaths [t]o make injustice justice and God good!” (MacLeish, 110). Yet Sarah returns to him in the final scene of the play. When the two reunite, Sarah affirms that there is no justice in the world. She explains to her husband that she left him because she loved him and could not help him. Though he wanted justice, love is all there is. J.B. replies that God does not love. Sarah quips, “But we do. That’s the wonder” (MacLeish, 152). In MacLeish’s depiction, Job’s wife speaks authentically of pain, suffering, and the lack of reason in the world. Like Sitis in The Testament of Job, she feels suffering acutely as a grieving mother. At the same time, her views are congruent with the biblical Job to the extent that she maintains the innocence of J.B. and their children, though unlike Job, Sarah holds no hope of receiving divine explanation. Job’s wife takes on a life of her own in the history of interpretation. Her character gathers different names, various characterizations, and longer speeches. Despite the diversity among them, each tradition continues to grapple with the serious issues the biblical woman raises as she witnesses both the integrity and the anguish
Job’s wife provides some comfort to her suffering husband in the Jabach Altarpiece (oil on panel, 1504) by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Their burning home is in the background on the left. The painting is owned by Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
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of the one who suffers. The lively interpretive tradition surrounding Job’s wife thus ultimately points us back to the ambiguity of her words in the biblical text. Does she offer the balm of affirming Job’s integrity or the belittlement of his act of blessing? The history of interpretation would have it both ways, and perhaps indeed this is the function of her speech as an authentic response to the experience of suffering. She captures the impulses to console and to be consoled, to defend and to be defensive. Job’s wife and her cadre of interpreters teach that egregious suffering defies straightforward response. Bibliography
Augustine. Expositions of the Psalms, translated by Maria Boulding. In The Works of Saint Augustine, 3:15–20. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000. Frost, Robert. A Masque of Reason. In The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged, ed. Edward Connery Lathem, 471–90. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003.
MacLeish, Archibald. J.B.: A Play in Verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. Pfeffer, Jeremy. Malbim’s Job: The Book of Job Newly Translated and Interpreted according to the Commentary of Rabbi Meir Lebush Malbim. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 2003. Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright. A New English Translation of the Septuagint: and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Seow, C. L. “Job’s Wife—With Due Respect.” In Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen; Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf dem Monte Verita vom 14.–19. August 2005, edited by Thomas Krüger, 351–73. Zurich: TVZ, 2007. Spittler, R. P. “The Testament of Job.” In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, edited by James Charlesworth, 829–68. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1983. Terrien, Samuel. The Iconography of Job through the Centuries: Artists as Biblical Interpreters. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1996.
Psalms Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford
Introduction The book of Psalms is a rich and varied collection of poetry from the life of ancient Israel. The psalmists express a wide range of emotions and feelings: joy, sorrow, fear, relief, oppression, hurt, amazement, yearning, betrayal; and they address a wide variety of topics: interpersonal relationships, enemies, illnesses, national crises, the splendor of creation, the goodness of God, Israel’s history, personal sins. Arguably the most-loved book of the Hebrew Bible, the Psalter testifies to the multifaceted dimensions of humanity’s relationship with God and with one another. From the time of the Enlightenment until the mid-twentieth century, biblical scholars spent the majority of their time undertaking text, source, form, and redaction criticism. Hermann Gunkel and his student Sigmund Mowinckel devoted significant portions of their careers to the critical study of the book of Psalms. Gunkel applied a form-critical method to the psalms, categorizing each by its type, or genre, and its setting in life. Sigmund Mowinckel built on the work of Gunkel and attempted to describe where and how each psalm in the Psalter was used in the cultic worship of ancient Israel. Gunkel and Mowinckel understood the psalms as individual compositions that were compiled to form the book of Psalms of the Hebrew Bible. Gunkel’s form-critical method has had a lasting impact on psalm studies, allowing those studying the psalms to group like types together for comparison. A simplified form of Gunkel’s types follows:
Major Types Four major types of psalms appear in the Psalter, classified according to their form and literary type. Hymns 1. Hymns of the Community (e.g., Pss. 15, 29, 46, 67, 76, 81, 105, 107, 113, 125, 129, 147, 150) represent the collective voice of the community of faith praising God (halelu yah) for all that God does on behalf of the people and praising God for God’s presence among them. In Gunkel’s words, “The predominant mood in all the Hymns is the enthusiastic but reverent adoration of the glorious and awe-inspiring God.” 2. Thanksgiving Hymns of the Individual (e.g., Pss. 23, 34, 66, 87, 91, 111, 121, 139, 146) were sung by individual voices, praising God for goodness to them or on their behalf, usually for deliverance from some trying situation. Gunkel describes the occasion on which these songs would have been offered: “A person is saved out of great distress, and now with grateful heart he brings a thank offering to YHWH.” Laments 1. Community Laments (e.g., Pss. 12, 44, 53, 74, 83, 85, 90, 106, 126, 137) were sung by the assembled people, protesting and grieving the tragedies and injustices
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in and the threats to their communities. Community laments consist of the people’s appeals to God and their confidence that God has responded or will respond to their appeals. 2. Individual Laments (e.g., Pss. 3, 9, 10, 11, 27, 36, 51, 59, 71, 88, 102, 120, 141, 143) were sung by single voices, and like Community Laments, appealed to God for deliverance from life-threatening situations. Gunkel points out the typical characteristics of these psalms: “first, the wailing, almost desperate lament and the passionate prayer; then, suddenly, the certainty of deliverance in a jubilant tone.”
Minor Types In addition to the four major types of psalms there are a number of minor, but significant, types. These psalms are categorized, for the most part, by subject matter rather than by form and literary type. For example, a royal psalm may be a hymn or a lament, but is categorized as a royal psalm because its subject matter is the Israelite king. 1. Royal Psalms (e.g., Pss. 2, 21, 45, 72, 89, 110, 144) spoke of YHWH’s provision for the Israelite kings who reigned in Jerusalem during the period of the monarchy (ca. 1000–587 BCE). 2. Creation Psalms (e.g., Pss. 8, 19, 65, 104) celebrated God’s sovereignty over the created world and the place and role of human beings in the world. 3. Wisdom Psalms (e.g., Pss. 1, 32, 37, 49, 73, 78, 112, 119, 127, 128, 133, 145) provided instruction in right living and right faith in the tradition of the other wisdom writings of the Hebrew Bible— Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. In most of these psalms, the path to wisdom is through adherence to the Torah, the instruction of YHWH. 4. Enthronement Psalms (e.g., Pss. 47, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99) celebrated the enthronement of God as king in the midst of the people of God. The “kingship of God” is an important theme in the book of Psalms. In the mid-twentieth century, Brevard S. Childs championed an approach to the biblical
text called “canonical.” His 1976 essay “Reflections on the Modern Study of the Psalms” and his 1979 book Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture encouraged scholars to move away from dissecting the biblical text into its most minute components and to move toward examining the text in the form in which it was preserved for us, as a whole. Childs maintained, in fact, that it was useless to attempt to understand the underlying layers of traditions that make up the biblical text, because the editors who compiled and transmitted the texts deliberately obscured the layers in a process Childs calls “actualization,” a process whose purpose was to keep the text from “being moored in the past.” Thus the only way to study and interpret texts is in the form in which we have them. The book of Psalms, therefore, should not be read as an artifact of various compiled expressions of the sorrow, fear, relief, oppression, amazement, yearning, and betrayal in the lives of our ancestors in the faith, but as a book that reflects the larger human condition, as a book “for all times.” James A. Sanders shared Brevard Childs’s interest in studying the final form of the text of the Hebrew Bible. But he disagreed with Childs’s assertion that it was useless to try to understand the underlying layers of traditions that make up a text. Sanders maintained that biblical texts are grounded in historical settings, that those settings can be discovered, and that they are important for understanding the shape of the texts. He believed, however, that scholars had been looking in the wrong places for those historical settings. While Hermann Gunkel looked at the individual oral settings of the psalms and Sigmund Mowinckel examined cultic settings, Sanders studied communities of faith. Every psalm in the Hebrew Psalter is a discrete composition; many were used in ancient Israel’s worship experience. All, however, were remembered, valued, repeated, and passed on generation after generation within the ancient Israelite communities of faith. Communities found value in the texts, or they would not have been preserved and incorporated into the book of Psalms. The details of the process by which the Psalter achieved the form in which it appears in the Hebrew Bible are lost to the pages of history. But the book itself contains a few clues. Many of the psalms appear to have been parts of smaller, already-existing collections before they were incorporated into the Psalter. Some of the collections that can be identified are:
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the Davidic Collections Pss. 3–41; 51–72; 108–110; 138–145 the Korahite Collections Pss. 42–49; 84–85; 87–88 the Elohistic Collection Pss. 42–83 the Asaphite Collection Pss. 73–83 the Enthronement Psalms Pss. 93; 95–99 the Songs of Ascents Pss. 120–134 the Hallelujah Psalms Pss. 111–118; 146–150 Some psalms apparently come from early in the life of ancient Israel, such as Psalms 3 and 48, and some seem clearly to be from Israel’s later life, such as Psalms 1 and 137. In addition to the collections of psalms within it, the Psalter itself provides some clues to its “shaping” process. First, it is divided into five books: Pss. 1–41; Pss. 42–72; Pss. 73–89; Pss. 90–106; and Pss. 107–150, each of which concludes with a doxology. Second, there appears to be a “movement” from lament psalms in the first portion of the Psalter to hymnic psalms in the latter portion of the Psalter. Third, the number of psalms with superscriptions is significantly higher in the first three books of the Psalter than in the last two books. The superscriptions of the psalms, while for the most part relatively late additions, may provide some clues about their composition and interpretation. Seventy-four of the psalms in the Hebrew Psalter are ascribed to David; two are ascribed to Solomon; twenty-five to Korah, Asaph, Ethan, and Heman, described in 1 Chronicles 15:16–19 and 2 Chronicles 20:19 as musicians in David’s and Solomon’s courts; and one to Moses. Psalms 120–134 are identified in their superscriptions as “Songs of Ascents,” and thirty-six psalms have no superscriptions. Fourth, psalms attributed in their superscriptions to David are greater in number in Books I, II, and V than in Books III and IV. Each of these phenomena contributes to an understanding of how communities of faith heard, preserved, and handed on the songs of ancient Israel and eventually shaped them into the book of Psalms.
Historical Backgrounds A brief recounting of the time period in which the Hebrew Bible in general and the book of Psalms in particular were most likely shaped into their final forms may be helpful. In 597 BCE, the
army of the Babylonian Empire carried King Jehoiachin of Judah and many of his subjects into exile in Babylon (2 Kgs. 25). A decade later, its army sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. The southern kingdom, ruled for centuries by a succession of Davidic kings, appeared to be at its end. But its story continued, because in 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persian Empire, a new power in the east, led by Cyrus II. The following year, Cyrus issued an edict that allowed the peoples held captive by the Babylonians to return to their homelands. Portions of the edict are recorded in Ezra 1:2–4 and 6:3–5. Sometime after 538 BCE, a number of Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem and began the process of rebuilding the city and the temple. By 515, a temple was standing once again and functioning as the Jewish cultic center (Ezra 6:15–16). The Persian government allowed the Jews to rebuild their temple and resume religious practices, so long as those practices did not conflict with the Persian laws. Temple and cult were restored, but the nation-state of Israel with a king of the Davidic line at its head was not. Except for a brief time of independence during the rule of the Hasmoneans from 141 to 63 BCE, the Jewish people lived continuously as vassals, first to the Persians, then to the Greeks, and then to the Romans. Under the same circumstances, most of the nation-states of the ancient Near East simply disappeared from history. But ancient Israel did not. The postexilic community found an identity and structure for their existence that went beyond traditional concepts of nationhood. King and court could no longer be the focal point of national life; temple and worship took center stage. And YHWH, not a king of the Davidic line, reigned as sovereign over the new “religious nation” of Israel. Postexilic Israel redefined nationhood and found a way to remain a separate and identifiable entity within the vast empires of which it found itself a part during the next five centuries. The major source of identity for the postexilic community was their story—the text of the Hebrew Scriptures. The people looked to their traditional and cultic literature for answers to the existential questions “Who are we?” and “What are we to do?” and then shaped their literature into a document that provided answers to those questions. The Hebrew Bible in general and the Hebrew Psalter in particular are hermeneutical rationales for survival for the postexilic community.
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Listening for the Feminine in the Psalter In the story of the Psalter outlined above, a story that is very “nationalistic,” with continual references to the Davidic dynasty, oppression by foreign powers, and political maneuvering, is it possible to find the “feminine voice” within its poetic offerings? First, the structure and language of the Psalter permit one to hear multiple voices, both female and male, in the psalms. Second, the language used about God in the Psalter evinces feminine as well as masculine images of the God of Israel. Third, the prominent wisdom features in the Psalter (wisdom psalms, along with wisdom language and motifs) suggest the presence of Woman Wisdom, calling humanity to heed the words of the psalmists.
Multiple Voices The psalms are, for the most part, the words of humanity addressed directly to God. They are anonymous compositions, even though a “voice” is assigned to many of them in their superscriptions—in many cases the voice of David. Thus the superscriptions present us with two barriers to “hearing” the voice of all humanity in the psalms: David is a man; and David is royalty. Furthermore, many historical-critical interpreters locate the recitation of the psalms in the temple by the priests and the king, thus effectively removing them from the realm of common humanity. English translations of the Psalter place the superscriptions of the psalms as introductory notes before verse 1 of the psalms, but in the Hebrew text the superscriptions are verse 1 and thus are integral parts of the psalms. Many commentators ignore the superscriptions as late additions with little to offer in terms of interpreting the texts. We still must acknowledge, however, that the superscriptions are an ancient and integral part of the text as it was passed from generation to generation, and we have much to gain in taking into account the “story-world” suggested by the superscriptions. In a 1980 article titled “Canonical Context and Canonical Criticism,” James Sanders states that such editorial additions indicate “the intense interest of redactors in date lines and historical contexts” and that if readers want to understand the full message of a psalm, they must “consider the original historical context in which the
passage scored its point” for the readers/hearers of the psalm. An approach to reading the psalms is to view the superscriptions, such as Psalm 51’s “a psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba,” as initial “hooks” on which to “hang” the psalms, as initial “story-worlds” for their words. But we must not leave the psalms “anchored” in the past. The sentiments expressed in them are not time-, class-, or gender-exclusive; they are the words of every human. Thus we read the heartfelt words of Psalm 13: “How long, O YHWH? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”(13:1); Psalm 81’s glorious “Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob. Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp” (81:1–2); and the wonder of Psalm 139: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (139:13). The words of the psalmists are genderless and timeless, the words of every person in every time and place.
Images of God God as king is perhaps the dominant image of God in the Psalter. Psalm 2 introduces the metaphor and it occurs no less than twentynine times in the book (see e.g., Pss. 5:2; 48:2; 84:3; 145:1; and esp. Pss. 93 and 95–99, the enthronement psalms). But king is not the only metaphor for God in the book of Psalms. William P. Brown, in Seeing the Psalms, reminds us that when a metaphor becomes literalized to the point of excluding other metaphors for the same subject, the metaphor, no matter how profound, becomes absolutized, as though it were itself considered ultimate. The beauty of metaphoric images for God in the Psalter is that they allow for a multiplicity of conceptualizations or, as Luis Alonso Schökel suggests, “a vast collection of interwoven images.” A powerful metaphor for God in the book of Psalms is found in God’s self-revelatory words to Moses in Exodus 34:6–7 (“a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”). The words are woven into many psalms (e.g., 86:15; 103:8; 111:4; 145:8) and include God’s “compassion” or “mercy,” popular translations of the Hebrew verbal root rakham. The more concrete idea (or metaphor) of the verbal root is manifest in
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the noun form rekhem, which means “womb.” God’s compassion or mercy is tied closely to the concept of “womb love,” the love a mother feels for her yet-to-be-born child. Over and over, the psalmists remember and call upon God’s compassion, God’s womb love: “Be mindful of your mercy [rakham], O YHWH, and of your steadfast love” (25:6); “Answer me, O YHWH, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy [rakham], turn to me” (69:16); “YHWH is good to all, and his compassion [rakham] is over all that he has made” (145:9). References to God from the verbal root rakham occur no less than twenty-two times in the Psalter. Psalm 22 connects God’s identification with “womb-love” to the physical referent for the metaphor. In verse 10 the psalmist cries to God, “Upon you I was cast from the rekhem” (NRSV “from my birth”). Here God is intimately tied to the life-giving womb and is further pictured as midwife. Phyllis Trible, in God and Rhetoric of Sexuality, describes the image in this verse as a “semantic movement from a physical organ of the female body to a psychic mode of being.” In Psalm 77 the psalmist asks, “Has God in anger shut up his compassion [rekhem]?” (77:9b). The verb translated “shut up” (qapats) is used most often in the Hebrew text in reference to “shutting the mouth,” but one does not have to travel far metaphorically to connect “mouth” with “womb opening” in this poetic construction. Another prominent metaphor for God in the Psalter is that of “refuge,” and often the refuge is imaged as shelter under the wings (kenapayim) of God: “Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings”(17:8); “Let me abide in your tent forever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings” (61:4); “he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge” (91:4). Images of winged gods and goddesses are found throughout the ancient Near East. The goddess Isis is depicted with wings outstretched to protect her husband Osiris in an Egyptian statue that dates to the twenty-sixth dynasty. In a carved relief of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II from Calakh, the king is flanked by two winged deities. The ark of the covenant is described in 1 Kings as being underneath the wings of the cherubim: “For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark” (1 Kgs. 8:7). Protective wings bring to mind the image of a mother
hen caring for her young, keeping them warm, providing shelter, and warding off predators (Matt. 23:37).
Woman Wisdom The depiction of Woman Wisdom (hokmah) in the Hebrew Bible and the Apocrypha is largely accepted as a postexilic construct that is consistent and yet varied. It is consistent in that, except in Job 28, Wisdom is depicted as a woman, something of a divine consort or feminine counterpart to YHWH (Proverbs, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Baruch). It is varied in that Wisdom is described in various roles and capacities. In Job, Wisdom is hidden and inaccessible to humanity; only God knows where Wisdom dwells (Job 28:23). In the book of Proverbs, in contrast, Woman Wisdom is present in the midst of humanity, crying out in the streets and at the entrance to the city gates, calling on passersby to heed her words, for with her lies the knowledge of God (Prov. 2:5). She claims to have an intimate acquaintance with God; she was there at creation, working beside God and “delighting in the human race” (Prov. 8:31). In the Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom is sought after as the desired spouse of “Solomon”; she has knowledge of “things of old,” gives “good counsel, “and teaches “self-control and prudence, justice and courage” (Wisd. Sol. 7:22–8:9). In Sirach, Wisdom states that she “came forth from the mouth of the Most High” at creation and was destined to dwell in Israel (Sir. 24:1–12; see also 1:1–20). The sexually evocative language of 24:19–34 (see also 51:13– 20) equates the pleasures of knowing Woman Wisdom with the pleasures of knowing the Torah. Sirach 24:23 states, in fact, “all this is the book of the covenant of the Most High God, the law that Moses commanded us.” And Baruch 4:1 says, “She is the book of the commandments of God, the law that endures forever.” Thus we see in postexilic Israel a transformation in the concept of wisdom from “family wisdom” (e.g., Prov.) to “national wisdom” embodied as Torah (e.g., Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch). The Psalter equates wisdom with Torah (e.g., Ps. 1), thereby inviting the reader to hear the voice of Woman Wisdom in the various wisdom elements of the book. David Noel Freedman, in Psalm 119: The Exaltation of Torah (p. 89), maintains that Torah becomes, in general in the Psalter and in particular in Psalm 119, “a
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monolithic presence, consisting of individual laws and teachings to be sure, but described in only the most general terms . . . tora has become for the psalmist much more than the laws by which Israel should live; tora has become a personal way to God. In short, Psalm 119 gives tora virtually the status of a divine hypostasis, like wisdom (hokma) in Proverbs 8”—and, this author would add, like Woman Wisdom in Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Baruch. Thus we are called to hear the wisdom psalms and the wisdom elements of the Hebrew Psalter as the voice of Woman Wisdom, the feminine iteration of YHWH, calling humankind to listen to, heed, and search out the path to a right relationship with YHWH through obedience to the Torah. Psalm 1, classified as a wisdom psalm, states that the “content” or “happy” (’ashre) person is the one who “delights in and meditates on the Torah” (1:2). In addition to those psalms classified as wisdom compositions (Pss. 1, 32, 37, 49, 73, 78, 112, 119, 127, 128, 133, 145), wisdom language and motifs abound in the book. The word ’ashre, widely accepted as a wisdom word, occurs twenty-eight times in the Psalter (only twelve times in the remainder of the Hebrew Bible). The “righteous” (tsadiq) and the “wicked” (rasha‘), appear fifty-two times and eighty-one times, respectively, and are contrasted with one another; “path” (derek) occurs seventy-six times; and the word “wisdom” (hakam) occurs in noun and verbal forms twelve times. The wisdom influence on the Psalter culminates in Book V’s prominent wisdom content, both in wisdom psalms and wisdom language. Psalm 107 ends with the words, “Let the one who is wise heed these words and consider the steadfast love of YHWH” (107:43, my trans.). Half of the wisdom psalms in the Psalter (six of the twelve) occur in Book V, including the massive acrostic Psalm 119. Psalm 119 begins with ’ashre, the same word with which Psalm 1 begins, and echoes Psalm 1’s veneration of Torah as the path to wisdom. Psalm 145, the final psalm in the book before the doxological ending (Pss. 146–150), is a wisdom acrostic that celebrates God as king over all the earth. Let us now explore the content of the Psalter in depth.
Book I (Pss. 1–41) Book I opens, in Psalm 1, with words encouraging faithful meditation upon the Torah. The
book continues in Psalm 2 with words of warning to the nations and their rulers to recognize the God of Israel as king over all. The psalms are framed (1:1 and 2:11) with the wisdom word ’ashre. Readers thus enter the Psalter with two guiding instructions for the path to wisdom: to diligently study and delight in the Torah and to acknowledge God as sovereign. Beginning with Psalm 3, all of the psalms in Book I are attributed, in their superscriptions, to David. Psalms 10 and 33 do not have superscriptions, but they are linguistically and thematically tied to the previous psalms, 9 and 32, and thus are considered to be “of David.” The psalms provide insight into every facet of David’s life: the king, the human being, the warrior, the parent, the servant of the YHWH. As stated above, the reader may view the superscriptions as initial “hooks” on which to “hang” the psalms, as initial “story-worlds” for their words. Psalm 3 opens with, “A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.” The “storyworld” of Psalm 3 is recorded in 2 Samuel 15. Imagine David’s anguish at his son’s betrayal, at having to leave his home, at the taunting of his enemies. Psalm 3’s words are heartfelt. But we must not leave Psalm 3, or any other psalm, “anchored” in the past. The original story-world provides a frame; our own stories provide the picture within the frame. Psalm 3 is classified as an individual lament. Most (54 percent) of the psalms in Book I are individual laments, in which the psalmist calls on God to act against enemies and oppressors. Psalm 6’s cry to God, “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes” (6:6–7), has been compared by Patrick Miller to Hannah’s plight in 1 Samuel 1. A number of linguistic and thematic ties link the two texts. Hannah’s rival wife, Peninnah, provokes (tsarah) her in 1 Samuel 1:6. The verbal root in its masculine form tsar is one of the most common terms for enemies and oppressors in the book of Psalms, occurring some fifty-three times. The word describing Peninnah in relation to Hannah is translated in 1 Samuel 1 as “rival” (ka‘as), and the “wasting away” (NRSV) in Psalm 6:7 is a translation of the same word, ka‘as. The first nonlament psalm in the Davidic portion of Book I is Psalm 8, a creation psalm. Its words evoke the language of Genesis 1, but
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they also incorporate concepts from both the creation story of Genesis 2 and from the salvation history of the entire Torah. The psalmist (in the initial story-world of the psalm, King David) observes the expanse of the heavens and sees the work of the fingers of God (8:3). The only other times the term “finger” of God occurs in the biblical text are in Exodus 31:18 and Deuteronomy 9:10, in reference to God writing the Torah on stone tablets for Moses. In Psalm 8:4 (my trans.), the psalmist muses over the place of humanity in the created order and asks, “How is it that you remember a human being [’enosh]; that you care for a mortal one [ben ’adam]?” The words “humanity” and “mortal one” are singular in the Hebrew and denote humanness without reference to gender. Psalm 22 is connected by the Gospel writers with the crucifixion of Jesus (22:1, 7, 8, and 18). It is a heartfelt composition that moves from words of lament to words of trust to words of praise, employing numerous metaphoric images. The psalmist is a worm, her bones are out of joint, her heart is like wax, and her mouth is dried up like a potsherd. The enemies are bulls, lions, dogs, and wild oxen. God is enthroned on the praises of Israel, God is king, and God is midwife: “you brought me forth [gokhi] from the womb [beten] . . . on you I was cast from the womb [rekhem]” (22:9, 10, my trans.). Book I ends with Psalm 41, an individual hymn of thanksgiving. It begins with the wisdom word “content” (’ashre), the same word with which Psalm 1 (1:1) begins and Psalm 2 (2:11) ends. Book I tells the story of the reign of David, and its ’ashre ending reminds the reader of the dual message of the introduction to the Psalter: delighting in the Torah (Ps. 1) as instructed by Woman Wisdom and acknowledging God as king (Ps. 2).
Book II (Pss. 42–72) Book II of the Psalter, like Book I, contains many lament psalms. But unlike Book I, not all of the psalms are attributed to David. The Korahites, who were, according to the book of Chronicles, temple singers during the reigns of David and Solomon, mix their voices with David’s in Book II (Pss. 42–49). Fifteen psalms of David appear in the middle of Book II (Pss. 51–65). Fourteen are laments, and eight of the fourteen are connected in their superscriptions to particular events in the life of David. Again, the original
story-world of the psalms may be viewed as the frames; the individual reader’s story-world provides the pictures for the frames. The only untitled psalm in Book II is Psalm 71, an individual lament that appears to be an aged person’s supplication to God not to forget or forsake. In its position in the story of Psalter, Psalm 71 may be read as the words of an aged David looking back over his life. Verse 6 (my trans.) echoes the midwife imagery of Psalm 22: “Upon you I have leaned from the womb [beten]; from my mother’s womb [me‘eh] you took me.” And in verses 17 and 18, the psalmist declares: “O God, from my youth you have taught me . . . so even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me.” Psalm 72, a royal psalm, is one of only two psalms in the Psalter ascribed to Solomon (the other is Ps. 127). Its words are wishes and prayers for the well-being of the king, likely used at an enthronement ceremony for a king in Jerusalem. Brevard Childs suggests that the canonical placement of Psalm 72 indicates that the psalm “is ‘for’ Solomon, offered by David,” as David handed the rule of the kingdom over to Solomon (1 Kgs. 2). To affirm this supposition, Book II ends with the words, “The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended” (72:20). With the close of Book II, David moves into the background of the story of the Psalter.
Book III (Pss. 73–89) Book III opens with “A Psalm of Asaph” (Ps. 73). Like the sons of Korah, Asaph was, according to the book of Chronicles, a temple singer during the reigns of David and Solomon. Fifteen of the seventeen psalms in Book III are attributed to Asaph and the sons of Korah. Only one psalm, Psalm 86, is attributed to David. The focus of the story of the Psalter is now on David’s descendants, who will determine the future of ancient Israel during the period of the divided kingdom. Community laments and community hymns dominate Book III of the Psalter. The voice of David, the individual, gives way to the voice of the community of faith as it attempts to make sense of all that is happening. Clustered in the middle of Book III are three psalms that incorporate the compassion, the “womb love” (rekhem), of God in their words. In Psalm 77, an individual lament, the singer asks: “Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut
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up his compassion [rekhem]?” (77:9). In Psalm 78, a wisdom psalm, we read, “Yet he [God], being compassionate [rakhum], forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them” (78:38). In 79:8, the psalmist asks God to “not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors” and to “let your compassion [rekhem] come speedily to meet us.” In addition to the concept of God’s “womb love,” Psalms 77 and 79 evince another prominent theme in the Psalter, that of remembering and forgetting. The verbal root zakar (“remember”) occurs no less than sixty times in the Psalter, while the verbal root shakakh (“forget”) occurs some thirty-five times. The psalmists recount God’s remembrance and call on God to remember (8:4; 25:6, 7; 74:2, 18; 78:39; 89:47; 102:12; 111:4, 5; 135:13); the singers recall their remembrance of God (42:4, 5; 65:3; 77:7, 11; 119:52, 55; 137:6; 143:5); and they recount the people’s remembrance of God (22:28; 78:35, 42; 83:5; 106:7; 112:6; 137:1; 145:7). In like manner, the psalmists recount God forgetting and they call on God not to forget (9:12; 10:12; 42:9; 44:24; 74:19, 23; 77:9); they protest that they have not forgotten, while reminding themselves not to forget (12:1; 31:12; 44:17, 20; 103:2; 119:16, 83; 137:5, 6); and they speak of forgetting God to and about others (9:17, 18; 10:11; 50:22; 78:7, 11; 119:139). Psalm 88, the next to last psalm in Book III, is an individual lament, but a lament like no other in the Psalter. Psalms of lament typically consist of five elements: (1) an invocation, in which the psalmist calls on the name of God; (2) a complaint, in which the psalmist tells God what is wrong; (3) a petition, in which the psalmist tells God what the psalmist wants God to do; (4) words of trust, in which the psalmist outlines the reasons for trusting that God can and will answer the psalmist’s petition; and (5) words of praise, in which the psalmist celebrates the goodness and sovereignty of God. Psalm 88 is almost wholly composed of the element of complaint (88:3–18). Invocation (88:1, 13, 14) and petition (88:1–2) are brief lines within the song; words of trust and words of praise are missing completely. A royal psalm, Psalm 89, follows. As Psalm 88 is a lament like no other in the Psalter, so Psalm 89 is a royal psalm like no other. It begins as do other royal psalms, praising God for the good provisions to the king of God’s choosing. But the psalm takes a sudden turn in verses
38–39: “But now you have spurned and rejected him; you are full of wrath against your anointed. You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust.” As stated above (see Historical Backgrounds), in 587 BCE the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and took a major portion of Judah’s population into captivity in Babylon. The nations of Israel and Judah were no more; Davidic kingship was ended; the people were exiled from their homeland. In the story line of the Psalter, Book III ends with the laments and questions to God: “How long, O YHWH? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? . . . YHWH, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” (89:46, 49). The psalm singers mourn God’s broken covenant with David and bemoan the taunting of their neighbors. Is there any hope of survival for the community of faith?
Book IV (Pss. 90–106) Book IV opens with “A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God.” It is the only psalm in the Hebrew Psalter ascribed to Moses. Its words are a plea to God for mercy: “Turn [shub], O YHWH! How long? Change your mind [nakham] concerning your servants” (90:13, my trans.). Moses had asked God to shub and nakham concerning the Israelites during the golden calf incident (Exod. 32:12), and now in Psalm 90 Moses makes the same request of God. Moses’ request forms the crux, the turning point in the story of the Psalter. The Israelites are in exile in Babylon; their heartfelt desire is to return to Jerusalem. God threatened to destroy the people in the wilderness when they crafted an image of gold to worship in place of God; Moses persuaded God to change God’s mind. Perhaps Moses could persuade God once again. The Targum titles Psalm 90 “A prayer of Moses the prophet, when the people Israel sinned in the desert.” Moses is a prominent figure in Book IV of the Psalter, referred to seven times (90:1; 99:6; 103:7; 105:26; 106:16, 23, 32). The only mention of Moses in the Psalms outside of Book IV is in Psalm 77:20. In Psalm 90 Moses intervenes with God on behalf of the people, as he did in the time of the wilderness wandering. Just as the people did not have a human king while they were in the wilderness, so now, in their present situation,
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they will not have a human king. The Israelites in exile in Babylon cannot return to the days of King David. They can only move forward. Enthronement psalms, psalms that celebrate YHWH as king over the people rather than a king of the Davidic line, lie at the center of Book IV of the Psalter (Pss. 93; 95–99). Psalm 91, an individual hymn of thanksgiving, uses a number of avian metaphors to describe the protective characteristics of God. God delivers from the snare of the fowler and covers the psalmist with pinions; under the wings of God the psalmist finds refuge (91:3– 4). And in verses 11 and 12, the psalmist states that God will “command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” Language in the Hebrew Bible about the protective wings of God bespeaks an image of the God of Israel that transcends cultural and gender boundaries (see the discussion above under Images of God). Two psalms at the end of Book IV recount the history of God’s dealings with the community of faith throughout its history. The first, Psalm 105, is a community hymn; the second, Psalm 106, is a community lament. Psalm 105 recalls for the people how God provided for, protected, and sustained them in various circumstances (105:7–11, 37–45). Psalm 106 reminds the people of their lack of gratitude to the God who provided for, protected, and sustained them (106:7, 24–25, 28–29). The people in exile in Babylon are faced with a choice, one based on history: accept God’s good provisions, and you may be able to return to the land of promise; reject God’s good provisions, and live with the consequences. Book IV ends with a simple petition to God: “save us . . . and gather us from among the nations” (106:47). As stated above (see Historical Backgrounds), in 539 BCE the Persian army, under the leadership of Cyrus II, captured Babylon, the capital city of the Babylonian Empire. In the following year, Cyrus issued a decree allowing captive peoples to return to their homelands, to rebuild, and to resume their religious practices. But the repatriated peoples would remain part of the vast Persian Empire, subject to Persian law. For the Israelites, Cyrus’s decree meant that they could rebuild their temple and continue their religious practices, but they could not restore their nation-state under the leadership of a king of the line of David.
Book V (Pss. 107–150) Book V of the Psalter opens with Psalm 107, a community hymn celebrating God’s graciousness in delivering the community of faith from exile in Babylon. The psalmist says: “Let the redeemed of YHWH say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south” (107:2–3), words that seem to be an answer to the plea of the psalmist in 106:47. The psalm continues with the stories of four groups of people who are rescued by God from life-threatening situations, together representing, perhaps, the “redeemed of YHWH” of verse 2: a group of wanderers, lost in the desert, who finally arrive at their destination (107:4–9); prisoners who are set free (107:10–16); “sick” persons who are healed (107:17–22); and sailors who are saved from shipwreck (107:23–32). Verses 33–42 outline the beneficence that the sovereign God can bestow upon the community of faith: the people may dwell in safety, establish a town, plant a vineyard, reap a harvest, be blessed with children and cattle, be defended against the enemy, and have their future secured. The psalm closes with the words, “Let the one who is wise [hakam] heed these things, and the hesed ones of YHWH will attend” (107:43, my trans.). The psalm ends with wisdom words; and wisdom psalms and wisdom themes and words are an integral part of Book V. Four wisdom words that are introduced to the reader in Psalm 1 occur frequently in Book V: ’ashre, translated variously as “happy, blessed, or content,” occurs eleven times (e.g., 112:1; 119:1, 2; 127:5; 137:9; 144:15); derek, translated most often as “path,” occurs twenty-six times (e.g., 110:7; 119:1, 27, 59; 128:1; 138:5; 139:4; 143:8); rasha‘, “the wicked,” occurs twenty-one times (e.g., 109:2; 112:10; 129:4; 139:19; 141:4, 5, 10; 147:6); and tsadiq/ tsidqah, “righteous/righteousness,” occurs in reference to humanity sixteen times (e.g., 112:3, 6; 140:13; 141:5; 143:2; 146:8). Another wisdom concept, the fear of the Lord, is referenced some fifteen times in the book (e.g., 111:10; 115:11; 118:4; 128:1, 4; 145:10; 147:11). In answer to the chaos and confusion of destruction, exile, and repatriation, (Woman) Wisdom is reintroduced and will remain prominent throughout Book V. Beginning with Psalm 108, David, who has been virtually absent from the Psalter since his final words in Book II (72:20), returns in the
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psalmic superscriptions. Psalms 108–110; 122; 124; 131; 138–145 are “of David,” and they form a frame around a group of psalms that are used in various festivals in Jewish life: • Psalm 113–118, the Egyptian Hallel, is recited during Passover. • Psalm 119, a wisdom acrostic about Torah piety, is read during the Feast of Pentecost. • Psalms 120–134, the Songs of Ascents, are used during the Feast of Booths. David leads and the people join in to praise and give thanks to the God who created, sustained, protected, and guided them throughout their history. Psalms 111 and 112 are two brief acrostic compositions that occur just before the grouping of festival psalms. The first, Psalm 111, is an individual hymn of thanksgiving; the second, Psalm 112, is a wisdom psalm, and speaks of “delighting” (khapets) in the works and commandments of the Lord (111:2; 112:1). Recalling Psalm 1’s admonition to the reader to “delight” (khapets) in the Torah, the words of Psalms 111 and 112 bring that delight full circle and prepare the reader for Psalm 119, the massive wisdom acrostic whose 176 verses celebrate Torah, not as specific rules and regulations (see Freedman, in “Woman Wisdom,” above), but as a way of life that brings contentedness (’ashre, 119:1, 2). The psalmist states in verse 165: “Great peace have those who love your torah; nothing can make them stumble” (my trans.). Those who embrace the Torah, now tangibly present as Woman Wisdom (cf. Sir. 24:23 and Bar. 4:1), will have found a means for maintaining right order in the world and a right relationship with God. Psalms 123 and 131 contain compellingly feminine metaphoric language of God. The singer of Psalm 123 says to God, “To you I lift up my eyes” (123:1), just as the eyes of servants (look) to the hand of their master [’adon], so “the eyes of a maid servant [look] to the hand of her mistress [gebirah]” (123:2). God is likened to a benevolent mistress who cares for those who serve her. While such imagery is refreshing to those who argue against a strictly male concept of God, the imagery may be construed as oppressive to those who find themselves in positions of servitude. An image such as this is best understood in its historical context (that initial frame into which we place our own
reading of a given psalm), where class lines were clear, servitude was the norm, and abuse was common. A mistress (gebirah) who looked after the well-being of her servants, who honored their humanity, was one to whom the servants could look. Psalm 131, one of Book V’s “framing” psalms of David, presents an image of God much like that found in Psalms 22 and 71. The psalmist declares that vainglorious thoughts do not occupy her mind, but that, “I have calmed and quieted my inmost being like a sated child [gamul] upon its mother. Like a sated child [gamul] upon me is my inmost being” (131:2, my trans.). The verbal root gamal is used in other places in the biblical text to describe the completion of the weaning of a child from the mother’s breast, an event that usually took place when the child was about three years old (Gen. 21:8; 1 Sam. 1:22–24). If we understand “weaned” as the meaning of the verb, then the metaphor suggests a child who no longer cries out in hunger for the mother’s breast, but who seeks out the mother for her warm embrace and nurturing care. The verb, however, might also describe a suckling child who is well fed and fully satisfied, resting peacefully in the mother’s embrace. Both metaphors are a powerful image of one who finds calmness and quiet in the embrace of God. The last psalm of David in Book V, Psalm 145, is a masterful alphabetic acrostic that celebrates the kingship of God over the community of faith and over all creation. But how will God be king? The role of the king in the ancient Near East was to provide for those who were less able to provide for themselves (e.g., Pss. 72:2–4, 12–14, 16; 107:35–41). How will God, who is not a human king, provide for the needs of those who “are falling” and are “bent down” (145:14, my trans.)? How will God “give them their food in its time” and “satisfy for every living thing its desire” (145:15–16, my trans.)? How will God be near to “all who cry out to him