Constituting the Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr. 9781575065427

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Constituting the Community

S. Dean McBride Jr.

Constituting the Community Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride Jr.

Edited by

John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell

Winona Lake, Indiana

Eisenbrauns 2005

ç Copyright 2005 by Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Constituting the community : studies on the polity of ancient Israel in honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr. / edited by John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57506-078-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Politics and government—To 70 a.d. 2. Politics in the Bible. 3. Bible. O.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Judaism and politics. I. McBride, S. Dean (Samuel Dean), 1937– II. Strong, John T. III. Tuell, Steven Shawn. DS111.2.C65 2005 221.6—dc22 2005002235

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 Z39.48-1984. †‘

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell

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Part 1. Approaching Polity in Ancient Israel Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy . . . . . . . . . . S. Dean McBride Jr. The Priestly Houses of Early Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frank Moore Cross Justice: Perspectives from the Prophetic Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James L. Mays

17 35 57

Part 2. Polity in the Torah Polities in Genesis 12–36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 David L. Petersen Israel as a Testimony to Yhwh’s Power: The Priests’ Definition of Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 John T. Strong Deuteronomy, Ethnicity, and Reform: Reflections on the Social Setting of the Book of Deuteronomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Robert R. Wilson Constitution or Instruction? The Purpose of Deuteronomy . . . . . . . . . 125 Patrick D. Miller

Part 3. Polity in the Nebiªim Bearers of the Polity: Isaiah of Jerusalem’s View of the Eighth-Century Judean Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 J. J. M. Roberts Hosea and the Ambiguity of Kingship in Ancient Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Peter Machinist

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The Priesthood of the “Foreigner”: Evidence of Competing Polities in Ezekiel 44:1–14 and Isaiah 56:1–8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Steven S. Tuell Covenant and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Paul D. Hanson

Part 4. Polity in the Ketubim The Mortality of the King in Psalm 89 and Israel’s Postexilic Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerome F. D. Creach The Law and the Sages: A Reexamination of Tôrâ in Proverbs . . . . . . William P. Brown The Community of the Book of Proverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard J. Clifford Beyond the Blue Horizon: The Polity of Israel and the Nations Yet to Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W. Sibley Towner

237 251 281

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Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Index of Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Preface Dean McBride once said, “You know you’ve really been bitten by the Bible bug when you get excited about genealogies.” Dean’s own genealogies, both biological and intellectual, provide intriguing insights into his career. As the son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers, Dean grew up with a commitment to the church and a passion for Scripture. These twin commitments continue to energize his work today. In Dean’s words, The Bible’s theocentric vision of life, of human wholeness and reconciliation in a cosmic order created and sanctified by God, remains as vital today as it was in antiquity. But effective commitment to this finally involves a confessional stance; it is in the life of the worshiping community and through its ministry that the vision can still be perceived, renewed, and implemented.1

Though he majored in religion at Pomona College, Dean did not intend to follow his father and grandfather into ordained ministry. He was thinking about law school—an interest that doubtless contributed to Dean’s later work in biblical law and polity—until he was awarded the Rockefeller Brothers Theological Fellowship. Dean earned his S.T.B. at Harvard Divinity School in 1961 and then entered Harvard’s Ph.D. program in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. At Harvard, Dean studied with Frank Moore Cross and G. Ernest Wright. As Dean says, these mentors “opened up a new universe for me, one which was intellectually exciting and theologically attractive at the same time . . . they pointed me toward a career that promised to fulfill the strong commitment I felt to the work of the church while allowing me to explore at length the fascinating world of biblical antiquity.” In Dean’s intellectual genealogy, then, he is a child of Cross and Wright, and a grandchild of William Foxwell Albright. This lineage is clearly reflected in Dean’s interest in Israel in its ancient Near Eastern context. As an archaeologist, Dean took part in two seasons of the Meiron Excavation Project at Nabratain in Galilee, serving 1. All of the following quotations from Dean McBride are taken from interviews in the alumni/ae publications of Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education. We thank the Alumni/ae Office for permission to use this material, and Glen Birch in the Development Office for assistance with research.

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as area supervisor and epigrapher. The influence of Cross, Wright, and Albright is also apparent in Dean’s commitment to the integrity of the biblical text. As a member of the New Revised Standard Version’s translation committee, Dean’s philosophy of biblical translation reflects this fundamental respect for the text of Scripture: “In our judgment, it is not the proper business of critical translators to impose a theological perspective or uniform ideology on the ancient texts of Scripture. They must be allowed to speak their own individual witnesses, limited though we may consider them to be by the particular linguistic, social, and historical circumstances in which they originally appeared.” The lead, and programmatic, article in this volume, “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy” (originally published in Interpretation 41 [1987]: 229–44), is an excellent example of Dean’s scholarship and influence. His long interest in Deuteronomy began at Harvard with his 1969 dissertation, The Deuteronomic Name Theology. Although unpublished, this remains a seminal work, not only in the study of Deuteronomy, but in the broader realms of ancient Near Eastern studies and biblical theology. Dean’s scholarly interests have continued to focus particularly on pentateuchal legislation, and especially on the book of Deuteronomy. His published work includes “Deuteronomium,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 8 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1981): 531–43; “The Yoke of the Kingdom: An Exposition of Deuteronomy 6:4–5,” Interpretation 27 (1973): 273–306; “The Yoke of the Torah,” Ex Auditu 11 (1995): 1–15; “Transcendent Authority: the Role of Moses in Old Testament Traditions,” Interpretation 44 (1990): 229–39; the introduction and footnotes to Deuteronomy in The HarperCollins Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version (ed. Wayne Meeks; New York: HarperCollins, 1993); “Perspective and Content in the Study of Pentateuchal Legislation,” in Old Testament Interpretation: Past, Present, and Future (ed. James Luther Mays, David L. Petersen, and Kent Howard Richards; Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 47–59, a Festschrift in honor of Gene M. Tucker; “Deuteronomy,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. John H. Hayes; Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 273–94; “Divine Protocol: Genesis 1:1–2:3 as Prologue to the Pentateuch,” in God Who Creates (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), a Festschrift for Dean’s longtime friend W. Sibley Towner, which Dean co-edited with William Brown; “Biblical Literature in Its Historical Context: The Old Testament,” in HarperCollins Bible Commentary (2nd ed.; ed. James L. Mays; San Francisco, 2000); and “The God Who Creates and Governs: Pentateuchal Foundations of Biblical Theology, in The Forgotten God: Perspectives in Bib-

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lical Theology (ed. A. Andrew Das and Frank J. Matera; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 11–28, a Festschrift for Dean’s long-time Union colleague Paul Achtemeier. Currently, Dean is working on a commentary on Exodus in the Hermeneia series. It is Dean’s work as editor and teacher, however, that has provided his greatest impact. As an editor of the Hermeneia series at Fortress Press, Dean’s careful scholarship, literary acumen, and meticulous attention to detail have been in no small part responsible for the tremendous success and influence of that series. Dean has also co-edited Festschrifts for Frank Moore Cross (Ancient Israelite Religion, 1987, with Paul Hanson and Patrick Miller) and W. Sibley Towner (God Who Creates), and serves on the editorial board of Interpretation. After graduating from Harvard in 1969, Dean taught at his alma mater, Pomona College, then spent eleven years at Yale. During these years he and his wife, Judith, began to rear their family of three remarkable daughters, Elissa, Sharon, and Doran. He also taught at Brown and GarrettEvangelical before coming to Union Theological Seminary in Virginia in 1985. While at Union, Dean has also taught undergraduates at the College of William and Mary. Of his teaching experience, Dean says, “The main discovery was that my own enthusiasm for the material I studied could be communicated, shared, and in turn enriched by the questions and insights of my students.” Dean’s students, including the editors of this volume and many of its contributors, would certainly affirm that he has succeeded in communicating his own passion for the study of Scripture. As important as his academic influence has been, however, Dean’s faith has proved just as winsome. Many of us have been as influenced by Dean’s prayers at the opening of a class as by the unfailingly challenging and stimulating lecture that followed. Dean is an active, committed layman in the Presbyterian Church. He is active in the Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations, which sets the annual tests that qualify candidates for ordination. He has not only taught and preached in local churches but has worked on mission trips and participated avidly in church governance. With Sibley Towner, Dean has led numerous study trips to the Middle East, which have always involved conversation with Palestinians and Jews alike. In so doing, Dean has brought his students into firsthand contact not only with Israel’s past but with its present and future. Again, Dean’s own words express far better than ours the vital links between faith and scholarship that energize his own work: “In the context of worship the Bible becomes more than a fascinating collection of ancient religious and cultural lore,

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and more than an expression of humanitarian ideals; in the reciprocal movements of prayer and responsible preaching, it may still promote dialogue between the trustworthy God and those who seek in God’s name to continue the ministry of Christ throughout our troubled world.” We who carry Dean’s intellectual genealogy into another generation pray that we might succeed half as well as he has in communicating to a new generation the excitement and challenge of a truly biblical faith.

Abbreviations Please consult The SBL Handbook of Style ([ed. Patrick Alexander et al.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999], 68–152), for standard abbreviations of texts, journals, series, and reference works. Additional abbreviations used in this volume are listed below. AIR

BIS BLS BofEz

CMHE

GCT IBH og PHAI

SBW

TAD

Patrick D. Miller Jr., Paul D. Hanson, S. Dean McBride Jr., eds. Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987 Biblical Interpretation Series Bible and Literature Series Margaret Odell and John Strong, eds. The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 9. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000 Frank Moore Cross. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973 Gender, Culture, Theory Series Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. Thomas O. Lambdin. New York: Schribner’s, 1971 Old Greek text Julius Wellhausen. Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel with a Reprint of the Article “Israel” from the Encyclopaedia Britanica. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1983. Reprint of Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. New York: Meridian, 1957. Trans. of Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 2nd ed. Berlin: Reimer, 1883 Othmar Keel. The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms. Trans. Timothy J. Hallett. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997 B. Porten and A. Yardeni, eds. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt. 4 volumes. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Dept. of the History of the Jewish People, 1986–99

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Introduction John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell

In 1987, on the 200th anniversary of the U.S. constitution, S. Dean McBride wrote an article purporting that ancient Israel also developed a form of government during Josiah’s reign, if not earlier during Hezekiah’s, that emulated a constitutional form of government in that it sought to check the authority of the centralized governmental structures and protect the power of the individual citizens. Boldly, he asserted that Deuteronomy could be considered “arguably, the Constitution’s most ancient antecedent.” 1 This polity represented a particular political ideology and was advocated by a religious community, associated with the Levitical priesthood, scribes, and others generally identified as the Deuteronomists. Obliquely, his work raises the question of other polities, during other times, advocated by other communities, for, with such a rich and varied history, ancient Israel produced many definitions of what kind of a nation it should be. This volume, offered to Dr. McBride and in his honor, provides a collection of studies into some of these ancient definitions of the Hebrew community. Indeed, a multiauthored work, such as a Festschrift, provides an ideal format for a discussion of the various definitions of Israel proffered by different groups within the nation. In this volume, different authors will outline their perspectives on various communities’ and tradents’ definitions of the nation, returning to a constant theme: what kind of a nation should Israel be in order to serve Yhwh? Or, to put it another way: how should the community be constituted? This question provides the framework for this Festschrift and, since it was first raised by McBride’s proposition itself, we begin this volume with his article.

1. S. Dean McBride, “Polity of the Covenant People,” Int 41 ( July, 1987): 231; reproduced in this volume, pp. 17–33.

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Central to McBride’s article is his definition of a constitutional form of government. His working definition of a constitutional form of polity 2 emphasizes the protection of the rights of the individual over the power of the central government. This motivation, he argues, constitutes the core of the Deuteronomic legal material, which, McBride argues, stands in the place of the figure of Moses as authoritative. At the heart of his evidence is his exegesis of the laws limiting the central powers of ancient Judah’s monarchy: the judges (Deut 17:8–13), the king (17:14–20), the priests (18:1– 8), and the prophets (18:9–22)—all were answerable to the written law. The judges were allowed only to interpret the existing law but not to create new law. The law limited the power of the king by preventing him from developing too large an army and bound him particularly to the study of the written Deuteronomic law. Moreover, the king was required to have the law written for him under the guardianship of the Levitical priests. The Levitical priesthood, which sat in a potentially powerful position, was not allowed to accumulate personal wealth. The prophets, who had the authority to deliver “extra-constitutional knowledge of the divine will,” 3 were also limited by checks and tests that challenged and evaluated the veracity of their prophetic utterances. The material found in 19:1–25:19 addresses the “social policies that the covenant community is sworn to protect, above all the sanctity of life and the worth of individual personhood.” 4 This revolutionizing polity constituted the Hebrew community in Judah in the seventh century b.c.e., and indeed, became the authoritative definition of the community to which subsequent thinkers had to respond. Throughout McBride’s work there lies a keen discernment of the various political, ideological, and theological traditions that ran through ancient Israelite society and manifested themselves in the Hebrew Bible. It should be emphasized here that political, ideological, and theological thought in Israel’s ancient theocracy were all blended together; the concept of the separation of church and state, the theological and political, still being millennia away from full and serious development.

2. McBride quotes Carl Joachim Friedrich (Transcendent Justice: The Religious Dimension of Constitutionalism [Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1964], 16– 17), in “Polity,” 25. 3. Ibid., 31. 4. Ibid.

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McBride’s approach is indicative of the Harvard school in general, being honed specifically by his dissertation adviser, Frank Moore Cross. 5 A clear demonstration of this approach is found in Frank Moore Cross’s classic essay from Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. 6 This essay identifies two different priestly schools, the Aaronite and the Mushite, distinguishing them both genealogically and ideologically from one other, and then traces the roles that they played in nascent Israel. A steady premise appears throughout Cross’s article, and in his and McBride’s work as a whole: the importance and power of traditions to define a community. Cross highlights the battles fought between two ancient and great priestly houses, the Aaronite and Mushite, as seen, for example, in the early wilderness traditions, which depict conflict between Aaron and Moses. Through text-critical reconstruction, Cross then identifies Zadok as a member of the Aaronide priests. In naming Zadok, an Aaronide, and Abiathar, a Mushite, to be the two-headed priesthood in Jerusalem, Cross concludes that David made a strategic, diplomatic move, bringing both houses into his central administration. Cross does not just paint the picture of a single event; he is working on a greater canvas than this. Instead, he identifies the traditions in the text in order to place into sharper relief the priestly and royal battles and divisions that complicated and enriched Israel’s later history as they played themselves out in its real-world life. These ideas and priestly traditions continued to matter and, consequently, continued to come into conflict with one another. This is the reason why Cross, followed by McBride, was so interested in detailing the various lines of thought that traversed Israel’s life as a nation and that were embedded into the text of the Hebrew Bible. While Cross’s article provides insight into the lines of tradition and thereby the religiopolitical parties that were in play in ancient Israel’s monarchy, James Luther Mays’s reprinted article outlines the foundation that undergirded Israel’s theocracy: justice. For Mays, this foundation is most clearly seen in the prophets, specifically the eighth-century prophets. At this

5. See Cross’s note of appreciation in this regard added to his article in this volume. 6. F. M. Cross, “The Priestly Houses of Early Israel,” CMHE, 195–215. This essay has close ties to McBride. As Cross notes (n. 1), it is an expansion of lectures that he delivered at Brandeis, December 11, 1968, at the invitation of Nahum Sarna, and at Yale, April 9, 1969, at the invitation of McBride.

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time, the economic status of Israelites was changing, a circumstance that posed a threat to the traditional relationship of the people to the land. Traditionally, the Israelites possessed their land through inheritance. Behind this institution stood the notion that the land originally and ultimately belonged to Yhwh and that it was Yhwh who gave the land to people as caretakers. Each family had its parcel of land to cultivate. In the eighth century, this system centered on the family began to break down through economic development. Through manipulation of the law, the people began to lose their inherited lands, resulting in an increasing distinction between the rich and the poor. Ultimately at stake was the identity of the dispossessed as members of the community. Such disenfranchisement was viewed as a “perversion of [society’s] purpose” (in this vol., p. 64). Mays’s argument uncovers the same fundamental concern that McBride’s work uncovered: limiting the power of the wealthy and highly placed authorities—including the king—in order to empower the individual. If it was the people in positions of authority, such as royal officials, who were abusing the legal system (the “body of rules,” as Mays words it), then something needed to be done to limit their power, which is what the law code of Deuteronomy accomplished. It should not be forgotten, in this regard, that the eighth-century prophets were active at the time of Josiah and at the time when we read of the law code’s being “discovered” in the temple (2 Kgs 22:8). Also notable is the emphasis on possession of family property in both the prophetic texts and Deuteronomy, as Mays and McBride both discuss in their articles. For Mays, the prophets indict their society for allowing the dispossession of land of some for the benefit of others, and the resulting inequality. McBride’s work spotlights the reform that came out of the prophets’ indictment. For example, McBride directly links the prohibition of the Levites from accumulating property to the interest of the law in limiting their power. Mays also singles out the institution of the monarchy as an important cause of the move away from the traditional sense of righteousness toward a legalistic sense. Again, McBride lifts outs the texts in Deuteronomy that limit the power of the king. Deuteronomy and the eighth-century prophets share a similar appreciation for justice for the poor as the foundation upon which the constitution of the community should be built. Naturally enough, many traditions imply many different understandings by the community. David Petersen has highlighted an interesting, yet perhaps often overlooked, understanding in his essay “Polities in Genesis 12–36.” While he eschews the notion of polity per se in the book of Gene-

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sis, he nevertheless argues that at least one community understood Israel as a “family set apart by Yahweh.” The ancient Hebrews knew of other polities but adopted the idea of family over other options available. This selfunderstanding brought with it unique ways of dealing with others inside the patrilineage, such as negotiation to settle disputes and the presentation of gifts. Petersen contrasts the patrilineage of Israel with other polities outside of Israel. According to Petersen’s view of Genesis, the Divine Council and pharaonic Egypt (which present a monarchical polity) stand in stark contrast to the patrilineage found in Gen 12–36. While Petersen is hesitant to date this polity, only cautiously placing it in the Persian period, his suggestion is intriguing. It dovetails well with the study presented by Friedrich Fechter, who argued that in postexilic times ancient Israel moved away from a centralized social organization and more toward a familyoriented, decentralized form of social structure. 7 Both Petersen and Fechter, it seems, are picking up again the theme identified by Mays, that of a sense of justice grounded in the family and its traditional inheritance. Petersen’s approach raises some interesting questions about the interaction of communities with their political and social environment, as well as their traditions. To what extent, for example, did the Israelite community that sought to define Israel as a patrilineage come into conflict with the Deuteronomistic polity, which in the Persian period would have been a part of both their political history and inherited body of literature? In addition to the Deuteronomistic polity, others, such as the royal traditions of Zion, could also be mentioned. Perhaps the patrilineage never meant to stand alone but was intended to organize a smaller subculture within a larger polity. Petersen did state, after all, that Gen 12–36 knew of other polities and depicted the ancestors as interacting with them. Again, if the Persian period is the correct setting, the Hebrews would be looking for ways to live with and under the authority of a dominant, foreign polity. John Strong’s article, which also addresses texts from Genesis, addresses a similar issue to that raised by Petersen: how to organize and define Israel given the fact that a dominant, foreign power controls the Israelite community. The answer given by the Priestly literature, as examined by Strong, portrays a different answer from the one seen in the ancestor stories. Following an approach well established in the early part of the twentieth 7. Friedrich Fechter, Die Familie in der Nachexilszeit: Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung der Verwandtschaft in ausgewahlten Texten des Alten Testaments (BZAW 264; New York: de Gruyter, 1998), 199–217.

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century, Strong interprets the phrase “image of God” in the Priestly creation story through the lens of ancient Near Eastern boundary steles. He argues that the ancient Israelites understood creation in God’s image to mean that humankind was originally intended to be a testimony to Yhwh’s victory over chaos. When humankind failed to fulfill its role as a testimonial stele to Yhwh’s power, the torch was passed to the elected family of Abraham. Strong traces this identification of Abraham’s mission through the creation of the nation of Israel to the final scene of the Tetrateuch: the prophecy of Balaam, when the people were on the brink of stepping into the land. This definition of Israel both explained the community’s view of Israel’s present role in world affairs and promised the reconstructed nation a grand future, which would be led, of course, by the priests who promoted this definition. While not a full-blown polity, this vision did carry with it a definition of the future community and its role in the world, based on the ultimate kingship of Yhwh. In his essay, Robert Wilson both assumes and lends further support to McBride’s thesis regarding Deuteronomy and its role as ancient Israel’s polity. In particular, Wilson emphasizes the historical existence of an ethnic group that defined itself as Israel, as opposed to the supposition that Israel was merely a literary construct of the book intended to create a distinct ethnic group within the ancient Babylonian or Persian Empire. Deuteronomy, Wilson argues, assumed such an ethnic group and sought to redefine it, not create it. This reform, or redefinition of the nation, is categorized under three broad headings: Israel and Yhwh; Israel and worship; and Israel and governance. Briefly, Wilson argues that Deuteronomy sought to focus Israel’s alliance solely on Yhwh and, with that move, to limit its treaties and reliance on foreign governments. Alongside this focusing of Deuteronomy’s definition of Israel was placed the law to centralize worship at Jerusalem, which involved a new role for the Levitical priests and new regulations that defined the slaughter of animals in the outlying towns and regions as secular, not sacred, acts. Finally, Deuteronomy limited the role of the king and extended the governing powers of the local elders. Throughout his study, Wilson considers when these reforms would be best situated, emphasizing the high probability of the time between Hezekiah and Josiah’s reign. With his emphasis on reform, as well as the historical setting he envisions, Wilson demonstrates both that ancient Israel was flexible and that this flexibility was necessary for the survival of the nation. One rigid definition did not define Israel throughout its history. Rather, the question of

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Israel’s identity was continuously in discussion among ancient Judah’s various political-religious tradents, especially in times of uncertainty, such as the period of Assyrian weakness. As McBride has emphasized in his career, the Hebrew Bible, rather than being a monolithic voice, contains a dialogue among opposing groups vying for power and influence, each trying to hone the definition of Israel according to its own perspective. Patrick Miller concludes the section dealing with the Torah by reflecting on the nature of Deuteronomy, building on the work of McBride. Miller describes McBride’s work as a “challenge” to the more traditional view, expressed by such scholars as Gerhard von Rad and G. Ernest Wright, that Deuteronomy should be seen, not as a legal document, but as instruction to the people of faith. Indeed, in this view, Deuteronomy stands in opposition to any legalistic approach to the community. Miller affirms McBride’s challenge, noting that “[Deuteronomy] presents a comprehensive set of fundamental guides for the life of the community.” 8 However, drawing upon the work of Olson and citing much of the rhetorical evidence, Miller argues that an emphasis on teaching still remains. Indeed, not wanting to leave the subject at the impasse indicated by his title, “Constitution or Instruction,” he presses further. For Miller, Deuteronomy not only presents a polity but presses for its acceptance and demands that it be learned by the entire population. Miller, then, affirms an important characteristic of Deuteronomy, which McBride demands that any descriptive term of the book convey: “the normative, prescriptive force of tôrâ.” 9 What is crucial, Miller continues, is not necessarily the minutiae but the story that leads all citizens, not just the officials, to fear Yhwh. Miller highlights some important points by bringing polity and instruction in Deuteronomy together. First, he points toward the normative nature of ancient Israel’s polity. It should have an effect on the nation in regard to the life of the society and the fairness with which it treats its citizens. Indeed, Miller points out, the normative nature of the book applies to all the citizens, not just the royalty and the officials, using the term ja (“brother/sister”) and not h[r (“neighbor”). Deuteronomy democratizes the polity in that all the citizens of the nation are involved in the creation of the healthy life of the state. Thus, they must learn the story of the nation, internalizing the values inherent in their common past. With these 8. See Miller’s article in this volume, “Constitution or Instruction: The Purpose of Deuteronomy,” 135, below. 9. McBride, “Polity,” 21, below.

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emphases drawn from McBride’s work, Miller describes the nature of Deuteronomy and its function in ancient Israel. The essay by J. J. M. Roberts opens the section of the Festschrift dealing with the definition of the ancient Israel found in the Neviªim. Roberts’s piece looks at eighth-century Isaiah and is thus set prior to the Deuteronomic reform of Josiah, though Isaiah’s career apparently did overlap with the career of Hezekiah. Roberts’s contribution presents a picture of a prophet who acts within a polity already in place and within a community already constituted. As he states in the conclusion, “Isaiah’s vision of the ideal future did not involve a radical restructuring of the society of his day.” Instead of revolution, Isaiah sought reform by working directly with the royal court and the central powers of Judean society. To his credit, Isaiah approached his task with a certain amount of savvy and acumen. He did not criticize the king directly but instead diffused his criticisms by directing them to the royal officials and court. Isaiah was less political with his prophesies to the elders and members of the upper class, placing the responsibility for the maintenance of justice squarely on the shoulders of the leader (ˆyxq). Roberts argues that Isaiah sympathized with the lower classes, blaming their leaders for any transgressions on their part. Roberts’s contribution provides an interesting look at the issues facing Israelite society and the reform/revolution brought about by the move toward a constitutional type of rule for ancient Israel, as described by McBride. In the first place, Isaiah saw the problem. The failure of the society to protect its poor is a product of the leaders’ mistakes, insensitivities, or greed (see his remarks regarding the burdensome demands of the women of the upper classes). This is the problem, according to McBride, that a constitutional form of government is best suited to address: the protection of the individual citizen (the sense behind the term ja). Yet, such a move would (and later did) require more than just a reform; measures that, according to Roberts, Isaiah was not willing to embrace. Isaiah supported the monarchy, a “top-down” system of government, with the king at the pinnacle. 10 In contrast, the Deuteronomists, who would a short time

10. Note Robert Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), for his discussion of a central intermediary’s approach to social reform (p. 84) and for his comments on Isaiah particularly (pp. 270–74). Note that Wilson paints a much more radical picture of Isaiah than does Roberts, stating that his support group was not “inside the central establishment” (p. 273). In the context of this Festschrift, it is worth noting Wilson’s comments in the preface of

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later have their “day in the sun,” understood the problems that Isaiah saw to have their basis in the systemic structure of society, not just in the hearts of individual officials. From the Deuteronomistic perspective, Isaiah saw the problem, but not the solution. In their view, the entire system that placed the king at the top of the structure had to be replaced by one that set the law above the king. Roberts’s portrait, then, provides a good opportunity to set two competing approaches to defining Israel in sharp contrast: that of the Deuteronomists and that of Isaiah. The essay by Peter Machinist again takes up the issue of kingship, revealing the mixed feelings that the Hebrews had toward a definition of their community that included a monarch, even in monarchical times. Focusing on Hosea and dating the fundamental concepts found in the work to the latter half of the eighth century b.c.e., Machinist argues that the attitude reflected in the book is one of wary acceptance, all the while showing signs of deep disappointment with the Northern kings. According to Hosea, the kings of the North have sinned in regard to political and military dealings, in regard to the cult, and even in regard to the installation of a king, instead of accepting the kingship of Yhwh. The broader question for Machinist, however, is whether Hosea’s criticism is limited to the kings of the Northern Kingdom or is extended to the institution of kingship as a whole. With great caution not to exceed the evidence, Machinist suggests that Hosea had in his sights the larger institution; certainly he seems to be concerned with more than just a few rogue kings that have wandered off the path. This critique appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible and became a central part of its message. Machinist, however, notes that Hosea envisioned a future kingdom in which both the North and the South were united under one Davidic king (Hos 2:2; 3:5). The total picture drawn from his survey of Hosea, then, has provided Machinist with several interesting observations about ancient Israel’s attitudes toward kingship. Hosea envisioned the future nation’s being run by a king, or by one “head” who would serve in effect as a monarch; Hosea never eliminated the monarchy from his definition of the nation. However, this head would be subject to Yhwh. Kingship was necessary and could be a very enlightened institution, working for the benefit of all the people, but it needed checks and balances to encourage it in this direction. This perspective echoes that of 1 Sam 8–12, as well as other passages in the his book, in which he acknowledges his indebtedness to McBride regarding his understanding of the history of the Deuteronomic History and traditions (p. x).

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Deuteronomistic History, and represents another witness to the concerns that created the polity highlighted in McBride’s work that eventually crystallized during the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah. Much like Cross’s work earlier in this volume, Steven Tuell’s article looks at the Priestly authors of ideologies and polities in ancient Israel. Building upon McBride’s and Hanson’s reconstruction of the Persian period, Tuell argues for a conflict between returning exiles and the people in the land in the postexilic period, manifest in competing priesthoods (Zadokite and Levite, respectively) and polities (Ezek 40–48 and Isa 60– 62). For Tuell, the intertextual dialogue between Ezek 44:1–14 and Isa 56:1–8 reveals the nature of these groups, specifically in regard to the Levites. He posits that the Levites at that time included priests from the Northern Kingdom who had intermarried with the people resettled by Esarhaddon of Assyria in the eighth century: the villains of Ezra 4:1–3. Marginalized by the returning Zadokites, this group had taken what had once been a mantle of shame, rkn ynb (“foreigners”), and put it on as a badge of honor, declaring in Deutero-Isaiah that Yhwh would accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices on his altar. Tuell’s piece brings into sharper relief the nature and concerns of the religious, social, and political parties that constructed postmonarchical Israel. Once again, it is shown that Israel’s self-understanding was never static but was worked out through conflict and controversy. The intentionally biblical perspective taken by Paul Hanson in his piece serves as a fitting final article for the Neviªim section of the Festschrift, not because it ties the prophets up into a neat package, but because it, in prophetic fashion, launches the reader into considering how to constitute our own community. Hanson begins with the realization that Western civilization has lost the notion of “covenant,” which he defines, following Niebuhr, as “unlimited loyalty, under God.” He traces the demise of this notion, highlighting the influences of Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, as Western thought traveled toward the unencumbered self. At this point, the contrast between the goal of individualism in Western culture and the focus on the community by the ancient Israelite thinkers examined in this volume becomes stark. It is also at this point that Hanson turns to Isaiah for a biblical perspective and a reaffirmation of “unlimited loyalty, under God.” While dipping deeply into Isaiah’s well, Hanson’s ultimate goal is not a historical, disinterested examination of the text but a normative call to us and to Hanson’s own community. “Can a reliable foundation be rebuilt that will forestall atomistic disintegration?”

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Like many of the ancient sages, priests, and prophets examined by the authors in this volume, Hanson calls for a reconstitution of Western civilization. The parallels are noteworthy. As ancient Israel struggled to gather itself together after being scattered and diffused by the exile, so too is Western civilization now attempting to regroup and redefine itself after a century marked by wars and the quest for power. With the guiding matrix of ancient Israel’s monarchy destroyed and the consequent loss of a platform for ideology, various traditions in ancient Hebrew society lent their voices to deciding how the community should be constituted and defined. Modern Western civilization today looks for a moral platform beyond the cacophony of multiculturalism. While not disregarding the fact of many different faiths, Hanson still calls for the recognition of the transcendent “elusive presence,” such as the Holy One that Isaiah spoke of, as the basis for a righteous and just society. Hanson’s call to our nation is for it to be constituted on the basis of an unlimited loyalty, under God. Jerome Creach, whose essay opens the final section of the volume, adds to the discussion of ancient Israel’s unease with the monarchy in his essay. He has uncovered this theme in the Psalter, specifically in the latter verses of Psalm 89. Creach focuses his argument on vv. 48–49[47–48], which contains the king’s expression of and lament over his own mortality. The issue for this psalm is that there is no subsequent salvation statement from Yhwh—no assurance of protection or life, countering the king’s complaint. This statement, then, placed in the authoritative voice of the king, provides words for a nation in distress. Emphasizing the mortality of the king brings him down to the level of the people, equal with the others of his community. Psalm 89 therefore represents, Creach states, a move in postmonarchical times away from royal ideology and into accord with other skeptical statements about the monarchy found in the Hebrew Bible. Creach’s discussion of the distrust of the monarchy in this psalm is quite striking in light of 89:30–38[29–37], which scholars point to as a classic expression of the eternal reign of the line of David. 11 In contrast to some earlier scholarship, Creach looks at the psalm in its final form and within the context of the Psalter as a whole. From this perspective, he concludes that the latter verses of Ps 89 are intended to close out Books 1–3 of the Psalter and prepare the way for Book 4, which exalts the kingship of Yhwh. The latter section of Ps 89, then, does not leave the reader with 11. See, for example, Cross, “Ideologies of Kingship in the Era of the Empire: Conditional Covenant and Eternal Decree,” CBHE, 241–73.

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the grand promises of David’s dynasty hoped for in an earlier time but addresses the distress of the nation that has seen the reality of the monarchy, which proved to consist of mere mortals. The only hope, therefore, was to place trust in Yhwh’s kingship, a concept found likewise in Pss 144 and 146. With this analysis, Creach has demonstrated again, alongside other contributors to this Festschrift, the ambivalent and varied perspectives on the monarchy and the way that it strengthened or weakened the nation as a whole. According to Creach, the scribes and tradents that shaped the Psalter had a strong theocracy in mind as the definition of the community and a weak view of the human, mortal king. It is best to treat the next two articles by William Brown and Richard Clifford together, because both deal with the tradents of the book of Proverbs and their ideological relation to the law and polity of Israel. Each, however, places the tradents in a different relationship to Israel’s polity. Brown’s thesis is that the wisdom sayings now collected in Proverbs demonstrate a close, synergistic relationship with the polity of Deuteronomy and the other legal corpora found in the Torah. In Brown’s view, the wisdom of the sages stood within the boundaries of the Torah. The law served as a basis for wisdom, and the sages’ teaching expounded upon the law. He argues through a presentation of numerous texts from Proverbs and Deuteronomy that demonstrate strong linguistic and semantic overlapping that it is too limiting to view wisdom merely as familial and prudential in orientation and thereby outside of the bounds of the Torah. Rather, Brown concludes, “Torah in its full constitutive sense is included within the broad horizons of sapiential Torah,” stating further that “full convergence between lex and sapientia can be found in, rather than beyond, Proverbs.” The sages living in the Second Temple period, which is where Brown places the final stages of the composition of Proverbs, attempted to transform the deuteronomic Torah for the use and benefit of their fellow Hebrews. In this setting, the sages did not reconstitute the community using the ancient, nationalistic authority of Moses, as was done under the reform efforts of Hezekiah and Josiah. Instead, Brown demonstrates that the sages sought to ground the new constitution in the hearts of the people (cf. Jer 31:33), though upon the foundation of Torah polity. Again, as was seen earlier in Petersen’s piece, a strong motivation for a decentralized polity, one resting in the instruction within the family, floats to the surface, this impulse being a response to the Persian political domination. Richard Clifford takes a different line than does Brown. For him, the scribes of Proverbs understood their place to be beside the king and the

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head of the family, and thus, outside of the boundaries of Torah law and polity. These three together guided Israelite society towards orderliness and out of chaos. Clifford focuses most of his essay on the scribes, whose role, he concludes, is to hand on the wisdom that was given to them by Woman Wisdom. “Wisdom is speaking through the scribe’s words!” (p. 292). The picture presented in Proverbs, while modified by the Israelites’ monotheistic world view, is parallel to that of Mesopotamian texts, in which wisdom is a divine revelation transferred to the human world through the scribes. The scribes of Proverbs received divine wisdom through the mediation of Woman Wisdom. They then took their place on equal footing beside the king and the head of the family, for the wisdom transmitted by all three institutions was the same. For Clifford, Proverbs is not a polity, nor did its scribes produce a polity. Instead, Clifford argues that they sought to defend themselves and their role in society as well as the value of their instruction. Whereas Brown argues that the scribes’ instruction stood under the authority of the Torah, the defining law of society, Clifford places their instruction beside it as an equal authority. Both Brown and Clifford, however, argue that the wisdom of the sages was understood by them to complement the law or the king and not to oppose it. For Brown, it echoed what the law proclaimed; for Clifford, wisdom stemmed from the same source. Like Hanson, Sibley Towner moves outward from ancient Israel, tracing the power of its polities and definitions of the community through time and culture, and into the present. Towner notes that Deuteronomy set a certain standard for the ancient Hebrews in the Persian period in regard to a law protecting the individual rights of ordinary citizens, a standard that had already come to serve as an authority and could not be ignored. Still, the bearers of prophetic eschatology moved forward on this base, adding to the constitutional theocracy an imperial hegemony with a worldwide focus. In Isa 56–66, national polity is envisioned as world polity, and Israel is thrust into center stage of the world politics. Daniel, heir to the prophetic eschatology, defines the future worldwide Israel more specifically in the court tales (Dan 1–6) as the saints who are “Torah-true” believers. The Torah to which they are true again has Deuteronomy as its base, as evidenced by the prayer of repentance in Dan 9. The themes of law, theocracy, and hegemony continue through the ages and through the various communities that treasure and protect the Deuteronomic and prophetic traditions. The rabbis envisioned a world at rest, based on the constitution of the Mishnah, but this was not a worldwide rule. The Qumran

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sect was theocratic and constitutionally based on the laws, but their worldwide rule would come one day in the future. The early Christian communities envisioned a new thing breaking out and a future rule, until this was given a practical political expression under Constantine in the fourth century c.e. The pioneers brought to the New World a mixture of these ideas. For the Puritans, says Towner, “visions of eschatological empire danced in their head.” Such visions later appeared in the form of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. But with the U.S. constitution, Towner argues, theocratic ideology and the concept of an elect people have been removed, leaving the Deuteronomic tradition of social justice for individual, ordinary people. Quite simply, Towner concludes by stating that, for the writers of the U.S. Constitution, “Beyond their blue horizon of hope lay no utopia, only a more perfect union and a more just society” (p. 312). As stated at the beginning of this introduction, a multiauthored volume such as a Festschrift is perhaps the appropriate format to discuss the many ideas in the Hebrew Bible concerning the way that Israel should be constituted. The Hebrew Bible does not preserve a monolithic presentation of the topic, nor do its multivalent perspectives represent any one historical or political setting. Add to this uneven playing field a variety of different teams of scholars, scribes, royal officials, priests, and the like, and it is inevitable that the present text will hold differing perspectives. What is constant, however, is the fact that the character and definition of the community was always a live question for the ancient Hebrews. Never was the Hebrews’ election as the nation of Yhwh called into question, at least by the authors now preserved in the canon. But the question of how best to work out that election continued to be open for debate by the many voices of ancient Israel’s intelligentsia and ruling classes throughout its history. This seems to be a fitting topic for a Festschrift honoring Dean McBride, a scholar who was always engaged in the live questions regarding the protection of individuals and the definition of the community.

Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy S. Dean McBride Jr. Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

[[229]] Our ancient predecessors in the work of biblical interpretation still have much to teach us. In his Antiquities of the Jews (4.176–331), written toward the end of the first century a.d. for an enlightened gentile audience, Josephus concluded a review of the pentateuchal narrative with an apologetically motivated but nonetheless insightful paraphrase of Deuteronomy. The book, he averred, preserves the divinely authorized and comprehensive “polity” or national “constitution” that Moses, on the final days of his life, delivered in both oral and written testamentary forms to the tribes of Israel assembled near Abile in the Transjordan. Most noteworthy here is Josephus’ choice of the Greek term politeia, rather than nomos or the like, to describe the juridical substance of Deuteronomy; there is no reason to doubt that he understood politeia to represent Hebrew tôrâ in its characteristically Deuteronomic usage. 1 The [[230]] implications of the Greek term in this context are profound, going well beyond immediate questions of semantic field and translational equivalence. The association of Torah with politeia invokes the heady realm of Hellenistic philosophical debate regarding the origins and evolution of human statecraft and, above all, about whose state had attained the most sublime model of government. 2 By identifying the Mosaic Editors’ note: This essay has been reprinted, with permission of the publisher, from Int 41 ( July, 1987): 229–44. The original page numbers have been provided in double brackets. 1. See especially Antiquities 4.184, 193, 198, 302, 310, 312. It is clear from the latter passage, in conjunction with 4.198, that Josephus differentiated the Mosaic politeia, which treats only the essential order of Israelite society, from other pentateuchal corpora of rules, cultic regulations, and judicial precedents (i.e., he did not confuse a “constitution” with a “lawcode”). 2. The classical locus of this discussion is, of course, Plato’s Laws (esp. Books 3–4) and Aristotle’s Politics. Jewish apologists who preceded Josephus, notably Aristobulus

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Torah of Deuteronomy as the ancient Israelite politeia, Josephus boldly advanced the case for Jewish priority in the history of civilized political thought and practice. Nor would his educated Roman audience have missed the polemical thrust of this. His claim undermined one of the grand, elitist pretensions of Rome, elaborately expounded by Polybius and Cicero, that its vast territorial empire was the logical outcome not simply of the efficient and often brutal use of military power but of its manifest preeminence among the world’s nations in the cultivation of virtue, the exercise of rational governance, and the practical implementation of social justice. 3 The view of Deuteronomy’s central contents and ideological significance which the present essay will sketch is therefore by no means a new one, even though it has received surprisingly little attention from biblical scholars in recent decades. 4 Perhaps in our contemporary zeal to explore and Eupolemus, had claimed preeminence for Moses as legislator, and similarly also Philo (Moses, esp. 2.49–51). Josephus significantly expanded and reshaped the argument through his intentional use of the Platonic and Aristotelian concept of politeia. Cf. also Josephus’ encomium of Moses and the Mosaic legislation in Against Apion, 2.145–86. 3. Cicero, The Republic, 1.70; 2.30, 65–66; and note especially this revealing statement of thesis in Polybius, Histories, 6.2.9–10: “Now the chief cause of success or the reverse in all matters is the form of a state’s constitution; for springing from this, as from a fountain-head, all designs and plans of action not only originate, but reach their consummation” (Polybius: The Histories, trans. W. R. Paton, LCL [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ., 1923], 3.271). Cf. Carl Joachim Friedrich, The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective, 2nd ed. (Chicago/London: Univ. of Chicago, 1963), 13–34; and also his Transcendent Justice: The Religious Dimension of Constitutionalism (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ., 1964), 3–20. 4. Cf. Harold M. Wiener, Studies in Biblical Law (London: David Nutt, 1904), 52– 83 and esp. 109; Kurt Galling, Die israelitische Staatsverfassung in ihrer vorderorientalischen Umwelt (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1929), esp. pp. 56–61; and, most recently, the terse remarks of Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 164, 168–71. It is noteworthy that Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza, one of the ostensible fathers of modern biblical criticism, enthusiastically discussed the social and constitutional significance of the Deuteronomic legislation, in Chap. 17 of his Tractatus theologico-politicus, published anonymously in 1670 (A Theological-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise, trans. R. H. M. Elwes [New York: Dover, 1951; rpt.], 214–36). The extent to which this controversial work of Spinoza may have informed the political thought of his more influential contemporary, John Locke, is moot. However, that the political import of Deuteronomy was recognized or exploited during the formative era of American constitutionalism is amply attested by three extraordinary “election sermons” reprinted in God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny, ed. Conrad Cherry (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 67–105.

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[[231]] and affirm the fascinating literary, tradition-historical, and homiletical dimensions of the Deuteronomic work we have lost sight of its broader social and political import; if so, we have also failed to confront directly its particular theological witness. At all events, the current bicentennial celebration of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution of the United States provides an especially appropriate occasion for us to give renewed consideration to a biblical document that is, arguably, the Constitution’s most ancient antecedent.

The Book of the Torah of Moses Deuteronomy is set off from earlier parts of the Pentateuch by wellknown characteristics of literary style and remarkably coherent structure. While the subject matter may generally be described as the testamentary speeches and acts of Moses, a series of four editorial superscriptions (1:1– 5; 4:44–49; 29:1 [Heb. 28:69]; 33:1) systematically introduces the coordinated segments of the work, describing the particular character and content of each major part. 5 It is important to remember, however, that the book’s most striking mark of distinction is openly and proudly displayed from beginning to virtual end: It claims reportedly to embody as its central segment (4:44–28:68) a written deposition of the authoritative Torah mediated through Moses to Israel. 6 Moreover, by reason of this claim Deuteronomy 5. The first modern scholar to call attention to this editorial frame was Paul Kleinert, Das Deuteronomium und der Deuteronomiker: Untersuchungen zur alttestamentlichen Rechts und Literaturgeschichte (Bielefeld/Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1872), 1:166–67; although Kleinert’s case (pp. 136–58) for identifying Samuel as the Deuteronomist, who succeeded to the prophetical office of Moses and represented Mosaic law in a new social context (cf. Deut 18:15–19 and 1 Sam 8:4–22; 12) lacks literary and historical cogency, his insight into the character of the Deuteronomic legislation exceeded that of most of his more celebrated scholarly contemporaries and successors. In recent scholarship, Kleinert’s perception of the editorial structure of Deuteronomy has been developed by Norbert Lohfink, “Der Bundesschluss im Land Moab: Redaktionsgeschichtliches zu Dt 28,69–32,47,” BZ n.f. 6 (1962): 32–34; and Gottfried Seitz, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Deuteronomium, BWANT 93 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1971), 24–30. Unfortunately without acknowledgement of this earlier “critical” work, comparable insights are explored by Robert Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History (New York: Seabury, 1980). 6. Compare especially the rubric in 4:44 (“This is the Torah that Moses promulgated for the Israelites”) with reference to “this Torah” (1:5; 4:8; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8, 26; 28:58, 61; 29:29 [Heb. 28]; 31:9, 11, 12, 24; 32:46) and “this book of the Torah” (29:21 [Heb. 20]; 30:10; 31:26; cf. also “this book” in 29:20 [Heb. 19], 27 [Heb. 26]).

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stands apart as the only individual book of Scripture whose text is expressly referred to elsewhere [[232]] within the Hebrew Bible itself. 7 Especially in view of these external witnesses, the book’s self-consciousness regarding its own peculiar form, function, and singular importance is quite extraordinary. Before we examine the major juristic contents of the central document, several observations may provide initial support for Josephus’ identification of “this Torah” as a politeia, and Israelite “polity” or political “constitution.” Although modern commentators often remark that the typical rendering of tôrâ as “law” in English translations is misleading, the alternatives usually proposed on the basis of etymological considerations, “teaching” and “instruction,” are scarcely an improvement as far as the Deuteronomic usage is concerned. 8 Conception of tôrâ as “teaching” or “instruction” has promoted a much too facile understanding of Deuteronomy itself as essentially a didactic, moralizing, or homiletical work. 9 More importantly, neither 7. To be sure, most of these references are found within the larger “Deuteronomic/Deuteronomistic” literary corpus, or otherwise reflect the Deuteronomic usage (though not necessarily with the same degree of specificity). I take the following to be unambiguous references to the Mosaic polity as represented in Deuteronomy: Josh 1:7, 8; 8:31, 32, 34; 22:5; 23:6; 1 Kgs 2:3; 2 Kgs 14:6 (cf. 2 Chr 25:4); 22:8, 11; 23:24, 25 (cf. also 23:2, 3); Mal 4:4 [Heb. 3:22]. Correlation is less exclusively certain or immediate in many additional cases, such as the following (most of which designate the Torah as Yahweh’s own): 2 Kgs 10:31; 17:34, 37; 2 Chr 14:4 [Heb. 3]; 31:21; Ps 89:30 [Heb. 31]; Ezra 7:6; Neh 8:1–3; 13:1, 3; Isa 42:4, 21, 24; 51:4, 7; Jer 9:13 [Heb. 12]; 16:11; 18:18; 26:4; 31:33; 32:23; 44:10, 23; Lam 2:9; Amos 2:4; Hab 1:4; Zech 7:12. I consider the following to be among the important pre- or protoDeuteronomic occurrences of tôrâ with a comprehensive (covenantal) sense: Deut 33:4, 10; Hos 4:6; 8:1; Ps 78:5, 10. 8. Recently, e.g., A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/ London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979), 116–17. Cf. also Barnabas Lindars, “Torah in Deuteronomy,” Words and Meanings: Essays Presented to David Winton Thomas, ed. Peter R. Ackroyd and Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1968), 117–36. 9. E.g., Calum M. Carmichael, The Laws of Deuteronomy (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1974), 17–52, as well as his recent study Law and Narrative in the Bible: The Evidence of the Deuteronomic Laws and the Decalogue (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1985). Cf. also Dale Patrick, Old Testament Law (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 257–59. This continuing trend in the discussion of Deuteronomic traditions received impetus a generation ago from the brilliantly complementary studies of Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad. According to Noth, the legal corpora of the Pentateuch lack jurisprudential efficacy, because they presuppose a sacral community “Israel” that survived the period of the judges only as a ghostly ideal (“The Laws in the Pentateuch: Their Assumptions and Meaning,” The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies, trans. D. R. spread is 3 points long

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term conveys the normative, prescriptive force of tôrâ in [[233]] Deuteronomy. The “words” or stipulations of “this Torah” are not simply admonitions and sage advice offered in the name of Moses to guide the faithful along a divinely charted path of life; they are set forth as sanctioned political policies, to be “diligently observed” by Israelite king and common citizen alike (17:19; 31:12; 32:45), and on their strict observance hangs the fate of the entire nation (e.g., 28:58–68). What speaks against the rendering “law” is not some inchoate threat of legalism that might diminish the theological vitality of the Hebrew term, for while tôrâ in Deuteronomy is theologically cogent, it remains no less decidedly a jurisprudential concept. 10 Rather, the problem is that neither our English word “law” nor its Greek counterpart, nomos, is sufficiently discrete to express at once the distinctiveness and the scope which tôrâ exhibits, especially in Deuteronomic usage but also elsewhere. On the one hand, tôrâ in this usage is not an abstraction or umbrella term covering every rule, decision, and act that Israelite social authority might choose to acknowledge and enforce; on the other hand, it does connote the totality of particular categories of legislation and judicial practice appropriate to it. It is the type of law connoted by tôrâ that is at issue. We can name it most easily with reference to its self-declared function: “This Torah” is covenantal law, the divinely authorized social order that Israel must implement to secure its collective political existence as the people of God. 11 Ap-Thomas [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966], 1–107). Von Rad’s extraordinarily influential work went much further, virtually denying the character of these corpora as genuine “law” (Old Testament Theology; trans. D. M. G. Stalker [New York: Harper, 1962], vol. 1, esp. pp. 195–203, 219–31); in this view for example, Deutetonomy becomes “. . . simply and solely an artistic mosaic made up of many sermons on a great variety of subjects—here is gathered the total expression of an obviously extensive preaching activity” (p. 221). In rejecting such reductionism, we need not deny the strong features of paraeneses in the Deuteronomic polity as well as its framework. 10. Particularly revealing is this remark of von Rad (Theology, 1.222): “. . . it is obvious from what has been said that this term ‘torah’ cannot be rendered by our word ‘law,’ for its theological meaning would then be curtailed.” While I do not wish to impugn von Rad’s immense contributions, much of his discussion of Deuteronomy in particular seems bent on finding hermeneutical solution to a problem that only exists to the extent that “law” and “gospel,” social order and religious faith, theology and political practice are understood a priori to be mutually incompatible categories. They were clearly not so for ancient Israel, as the prophetical literature attests at least as vigorously as the pentateuchal traditions. 11. A distinction between legal “policy” and juridical “technique,” similar to that originally suggested by George Mendenhall (“Ancient Oriental and Biblical Law,”

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In its received form, the whole Book of Deuteronomy is both about “this Torah” and literally constructed around it. Thus while the initial editorial superscription in 1:1–5 introduces the Mosaic memoirs that immediately follow in 1:6–4:40 (with a brief editorial supplement in 4:41–43), it does so already with a clear view toward the promulgation of “this Torah” (1:3, 5). The polity proper is separately introduced by the second superscription in 4:44–49. Here tôrâ is the regnant concept (4:44), but it is epexegetically defined by 4:45 as comprised of “the treaty-stipulations (haºedôt [rsv “the testimonies”]) and “the statutory rulings” (ha˙uqqîm wéhammispa†îm [[234]] [rsv “the statutes, and the ordinances”]). 12 Elsewhere in Deuteronomy, the term edôt reappears only twice (6:17, 20); in all three instances its most obvious referent is the decalogue of 5:6–21, whose fundamental demand that Israel give undivided allegiance to Yahweh is illustrated, elaborated, and eloquently motivated throughout the Mosaic speech of the following five chapters (6–11). 13 On the other hand, the compound term ha˙uqqîm wéhammispa†îm (hendiadys) is a standard Deuteronomic designation for the constitutional matters which, though fully sanctioned by divine authority, are promulgated only through the legislative agency of Moses. 14 These are the matters set forth in the ordered whole of 12:2–26:15, to which we will return below. Their presentation is immediately followed by report of a mutual swearing of oaths; this is the constitutive act per se, the ratification BA 17 [1954], 26–31) remains cogent in my judgment. But I agree strongly that we should not consider “law and covenant ideal types in polar opposition, as Mendenhall has recently done” ( Jon D. Levenson, “The Theologies of Commandment in Biblical Israel,” HTR 73 [1980], 23). 12. On these and related terms, see esp. Georg Braulik, “Die Ausdrücke für ‘Gesetz’ im Buch Deuteronomium,” Biblica 51 (1970): 39–66. Regarding the ºedôt, however, identification with the decalogue articles reviewed in Deut 5 appears certain. Cf. Pss 25:10; 99:7; and, reading ºedôt for ºedût, the appellations “the ark of the treaty-stipulations” (Exod 25:22; Josh 4:16, etc.) and “the two tablets of the treatystipulations” (Exod 31:18, etc.); cf. also Deut 10:1–5 and 1 Kgs 8:9. 13. See esp. Norbert Lohfink, Das Hauptgebot: Eine Untersuchung literarischer Einleitungsfragen zu Dtn 5–11, AnBib 20 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963); and The Christian Meaning of the Old Testament, trans. R. A. Wilson (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1968), 87–102. Cf. also Felix García López, Analyse litteraire de Deuteronome ( Jerusalem: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum de Urbe, 1978), vols. 5–11. 14. More specifically, the “statutory rulings” can be considerd constitutional articles completing “the mandate” (hammißwâ) which Moses was commissioned by both Israel and God to receive at Horeb, after the decalogue itself had been promulgated (5:22–6:3). The most important references supporting this interpretation are: 5:1, 31; 6:1, 20; 11:32; 12:1; 26:16, 17. spread is 6 points long

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ceremony, formally inaugurating, or reinaugurating, the covenantal bond between Yahweh and Israel (26:16–19). 15 Then the polity proper receives a two-part conclusion: first, with Moses’ charge to the tribes regarding ceremonial reaffirmation of the polity once they have entered their homeland (v. 27); and second, with an elaborate listing of sanctions, the blessings and the curses which pertain not only to the covenantal bond in a narrow sense but to the whole constitutional legacy of Torah that must continue to define Israel’s national life (v. 28, and especially vv. 58–61). Yet there is more. A third editorial superscription in 29:1 [Heb. 28:69] informs us that what follows, apparently through 32:52, is another “covenant” altogether, initiated not at Horeb but in the land of Moab. [[235]] Although aspects of this second covenant are strikingly similar to the first, there are some obvious differences. The main emphasis here falls on Moses’ imminent departure and how Israel can survive without his unifying leadership. What the assembled Israelites now accept on solemn oath—on their own behalf and that of their descendants, as individuals, as separate tribes, and as a federated nation—is full accountability for the maintenance of their common life (29:2 [Heb. 1]–30:20). Furthermore, Moses does not leave them leaderless: Joshua will oversee the conquest of their homeland (31:7–8, 14–15, 23); and Moses’ own guidance will remain forever with them in the form of the written constitutional tôrâ (31:9–13, 24–26) together with his prophetic witness to its efficacy (31:16–22, 27–30; 32:1–47). The rest is epilogue, including the report of Moses’ valedictory blessings on the tribes (chap. 33), the brief account of his death and Joshua’s succession (34:1– 9; cf. 32:48–52), and the final editorial epitaph extolling Moses’ peerless career (34:10–12). It should be apparent that whatever earlier or independent function the book’s outer frame may once have had, it now serves admirably to highlight the character of the central document as a constitution. 16 Thus, the Mosaic

15. I.e., 26:16–19 seals the Horeb covenant for the generation to whom Moses speaks (cf. 5:2–3) and embraces the statutory rulings as legislation authorized by this covenant; the “Moab Covenant” of chaps. 29–32 has another albeit related purpose. On the formulas of ratification, see esp. Norbert Lohfink, “Dt 26,17–19 und die ‘Bundesformel,’ ” ZKT 91 (1969): 517–53; and his remarks in Great Themes from the Old Testament, trans. Ronald Walls (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982), 24–27. 16. The outer frame of chaps. 1–4 and 29–32 exhibits at least two major stages of literary formation, the last of which (see esp. chaps. 4 and 29–30) can be identified as the work of an exilic Deuteronomist. Yet there remains considerable scholarly disagreement regarding both the extent and character of this exilic edition and the

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memoirs of 1:6–4:40 commence neither with a review of Moses’ call nor, most significantly, with any mention whatsoever of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Reference to such events would be expected in the “historical prologue” of a treaty or formal covenant-document, but that is manifestly not the intention of these memoirs. Rather, the initial recollections are of the abrupt divine command to depart Horeb and to take possession through conquest of the land that God had consigned on oath to Israel’s forebears (1:6–8) and of the civil administration quickly put into place by Moses and the federated tribes so that these marching orders could be carried out (1:9–18). What follows seems exquisitely designed to etch into popular memory the message that national failure and success are alike predictable: the former, when God’s [[236]] decrees issued through Moses are rejected by the body politic (1:19–46); and the latter, when they are effectively implemented (2:1–4:40). In the “Moab covenant” of 29:1 [Heb. 28:69]–32:47, the same lesson is underscored, though now with a crucial difference. Because Moses has promulgated the constitutional law in its entirety, fulfilling the role of legislative mediator to which he had been elected at Horeb (5:27–31), knowledge of God’s providential governance is accessible to every Israelite (30:11–14; 31:9–13); authoritative decision making and the responsibilities which go with it have been democratized (30:15–20). The written Torah and the institutional order it defines have become a surrogate for Moses himself. In short, the contents of the outer frame bridge formidable distances: the geographical distance between Horeb, where in wilderness isolation Israel first became God’s people, and Moab, where its history as a territorial state, surrounded by other nations, is about to begin; the temporal distance, between ancestral generations to whom divine promises were made and the present generation for whom those promises could become actuality; and, perhaps greatest of all, the political distance between a fledgling community of liberated slaves and an inhistory of composition that preceded it; cf. Josef G. Plöger, Literarkritische, formgeschichtliche und stilkritische Untersuchungen zum Deuteronomium, BBB 26 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1967); Jon D. Levenson, “Who Inserted the Book of the Torah?” HTR 68 (1975): 203–33; Brian Peckham, The Composition of the Deuteronomistic History, HSM 35 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985), esp. 30–33. I am not persuaded by recent critical efforts to distinguish multiple layers of redaction in both outer frame and polity, e.g., Siegfried Mittmann, Deuteronomium 1,1–6,3 literarkritisch und traditionsgeschichtlich untersucht, BZAW 139 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975); and Rosario Pius Merendino, Das Deuteronomische Gesetz: Eine literarkritische, gattungsund überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, BBB 31 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1969).

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stitutionally structured society, responsible for maintenance of civil order, economic well-being, and human rights for all of its citizens.

Deuteronomic Constitutionalism As we examine the design and chief concerns of the polity itself, it will be useful to keep in mind the following definition: The true nature of a constitution and of constitutionalism, its differentia specifica by which it contrasts with all non-constitutional regimes, is discovered by asking: What is the political function of a constitution? For its function is to realize specific political objectives. Among these the core objective is that of safeguarding each member of the political community as a political person, possessing a sphere of genuine autonomy. The constitution is meant to protect the self in its dignity and worth; for the self is believed to be primary and of penultimate value. 17

The Deuteronomic “Book of the Torah” is a new literary genre. It has no true peer or parallel among the legal corpora preserved in the preceding books of the Pentateuch, 18 nor has there yet been discovered an ancient Near Eastern document equivalent to it. We can recognize, to be sure, important resemblances between “this Torah” and various genres of [[237]] Near Eastern literature: the “codes” of cuneiform law, the mesarum acts of Mesopotamian rulers, the loyalty oaths they imposed upon their subjects and vassals, the apologies and protocols of Egyptian kings, and especially the international treaties about which so much has been written in recent decades. 19 While the Deuteronomic Torah may be deeply indebted to such 17. Friedrich, Transcendent Justice, 16–17. 18. The so-called Holiness Code of Lev 17–26 is the closest pentateuchal parallel (and roughly contemporary with Deuteronomy in date). 19. For a brief overview of most of these genres and bibliography, see Samuel Greengus, “Law in the Old Testament,” IDBSup, 229–32. Cf. also Weinfeld, Deuteronomy, 146–57. While comparative study of the international treaties and ade agreements has shed abundant light on particular aspects of Deuteronomic language and tradition, failure to observe the conspicuous differences between these Near Eastern documents and Deuteronomy, especially as regards overall structure and specific juridical contents, accounts for two extreme positions. Thus there are scholars, on the one hand, who have supposed that Deuteronomy preserves the actual text of a “suzerainty treaty” made between Yahweh and Israel through the mediation of Moses (e.g., Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, NICOT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976], 20–32, 79–83; cf. also J. G. McConville, Law and Theology in Deuteronomy, JSOTSup 33 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984], 3–7, 159). On the other

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traditions, however, it is identical in form, content, and purpose to none of them. With it, something quite distinctive seems to have been created, a comprehensive social charter, perhaps uniquely appropriate to the peculiar covenantal identity that Israel claimed for itself and which was the product of mature reflection on this identity. In comparison with other biblical and ancient Near Eastern traditions of law, the differentia specifica of the Deuteronomic legislation is most conspicuous in its concern to empower a broad constituency of the community whose integrity and political independence it seeks to protect. Couched in the form of first-person Mosaic speech, the polity is directly addressed to “all Israel,” which is conceived throughout to be both a corporate entity and a collectivity of the individual selves who comprise its membership. 20 Pertinent here too are the “motive clauses” and other paranetic elements [[238]] that accompany key enactments. 21 Thus most of the unifying religious and civil institutions deemed inviolable by the polity are not simply presented as impositions of theocratic will; instead of selfauthenticating oracular pronouncements or stark apodictic decrees bearing the stamp of royal office, we find this legislation making liberal appeal to the experiences and interests of an Israelite public. 22 Similarly, while rehand, there are scholars who cite “parallels” between Deuteronomy and treaty documents of the Assyrian period to argue that the whole concept of a political covenant between Israel and Yahweh must be a Deuteronomic innovation of the eighth or seventh century (Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant, AnBib 21/21A [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963, 1978]; cf. Ernest W. Nicholson, God and His People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament [Oxford: Clarendon, 1986], 56–117). In my judgment, the peculiar character of Deuteronomy refutes both of these extremes: The covenant idea is ancient in Israel, underlying the centuries-long development of tradition that culminated in the reflective, comprehensive promulgation of a constitutional Torah during the later Judaean monarchy. 20. Cf. esp. “all Israel” in 5:1 and 27:9 with 13:12; 18:6; and 21:21. On the rhetorical (rather than exclusively redactional) significance of second-person singular and plural references to Israel, see Lohfink, Hauptgebot, 244–51. Even within the juridical corpus of the polity, traditional third-person casuistic formulations are few and confined to chaps. 21–25; on the forms and import of the second-person style of legislative address, see Seitz, Studien, 142–83; Dale Patrick, “Casuistic Law Governing Primary Rights and Duties,” JBL 92 (1973): 180–84; and Harry W. Gilmer, The If-You Form in Israelite Law, SBLDS 15 (Missoula: Scholars, 1975). 21. See now esp. Rifat Sonsino, Motive Clauses in Hebrew Law: Biblical Forms and Near Eastern Parallels, SBLDS 45 (Chico: Scholars, 1980). 22. Contrast, e.g., the juridical formulations in Lev 17 and Ezek 44–47. Interestingly, Plato (Laws, 4.722–24) castigated the typical legislative style of his day, which

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straints and severe penalties are prescribed against individuals whose actions violate basic rights to life and livelihood of other members of society, or whose words and deeds are considered threatening to the community at large, the emphasis falls less on legitimating mechanisms of social control than on assuring due process for those accused of serious crimes. Yet if these features of style and content distinguish the polity from international treaties, royal decrees, codifications of judicial precedents, and the like, they do not support characterization of the work as an anthology of covenantal preaching; it is something else and genuinely new, the charter for a constitutional theocracy. 23 Following the editorial superscription in 4:44–49 and a terse narrative introduction (5:1aa), the polity opens with an extensive prolegomenon in three parts, each beginning with the appeal “Hear, Israel!” (5:1ab; 6:4; 9:1; cf. 10:12). Although the chief concern throughout the prolegomenon is Israel’s allegiance to Yahweh alone, attendant principles of Deuteronomic constitutionalism are rhetorically highlighted as well, clearly in anticipation of the legislation promulgated in 12:2–26:15. Thus the first part (5:1– 6:3) not only reviews the fundamental demands of the decalogue, which articulate Yahweh’s sovereignty, but legitimates Moses in his role as spokesman for Yahweh. This means that Israel must accept the Mosaic legislation as covenantal policy, comparable in authority to the decalogue stipulations themselves. The second part (6:4–8:20) offers the fullest and most forceful presentation of Israel’s covenant ideology to be found in the whole of Hebrew Scripture. The reciprocals of fidelity to [[239]] Yahweh’s commands, imparted through Moses, and Israel’s special status as the sanctified people of God are dramatized with particular reference to the military, cultural, and spiritual challenges which conquest of a national homeland will pose. In the third part (9:1–10:11+10:12–12:1) the basic requirements of personal and communal obedience, upon which a national future depends, are juxtaposed to Israel’s prior history of recalcitrance. he called “despotic prescription,” and suggested that promulgations of law should preferably be introduced with explanatory prefaces and also include statements of persuasion with the individual prescriptions themselves. Thus the Deuteronomic polity already exhibits what Plato proposed as an ideal. 23. Once again, the terminology originated with Josephus: “Our lawgiver . . . gave to his constitution the form of what—if a forced expression be permitted—may be termed a ‘theocracy,’ placing all sovereignty and authority in the hands of God” (Against Apion, 2.165, Josephus, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ., 1926], 9.359.

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Particularly noteworthy here is the affirmation that egalitarian justice is the crux of theocratic government (10:17–19); the single most important contribution of Deuteronomic constitutionalism to our political heritage is the concerted effort to implement this theme. In describing the Israelite politeia, even Josephus felt a need to question the organization of articles in 12:2–26:15. 24 Modern scholars, generally working on the assumption that this material originated as a lawcode or, even more narrowly, as a program for cultic reform, have resorted to a wide variety of literary, tradition-historical, and redaction-critical arguments to account both for the scope of the laws included and their present order. 25 While it is probably beyond the reach of critical analysis to demonstrate convincingly a detailed logic to the received arrangement or, otherwise, to recover the compositional history of the corpus, formulaic signals as well as subject matter suggest a remarkably coherent five-part structure. 26 Our immediate attention is drawn to what the contents of these five divisions reveal about the political objectives of Deuteronomic constitutionalism. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the brief initial division, 12:2–28, has served as the cornerstone for critical reconstructions of the histories of Israelite cult and literature. What lends such unusual importance to this legislation is, of course, the ostensible connection between its restriction of sacrificial rites and related ceremonies to a single sanctuary and the program to repristinate and unify the official Yahwistic cultus of greater Judah which, according to 2 Kgs 22–23, was enforced by King Josiah [[240]] in the late seventh century b.c. Whether the rigorous measures attributed to Josiah were directly inspired by the Deuteronomic text contin24. Antiquities 4.197. The comment, however, seems primarily offered as warrant for treating selected laws from earlier pentateuchal corpora alongside those in the Deuteronomic polity. 25. For representative critical views, see Seitz, Studien, 92–95, and his own extensive treatment thereafter. Cf. also Stephen A. Kaufman, “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” Maarav 1 (1978–79): 105–58; and Georg Braulik, “Die Abfolge der Gesetze in Deuteronomium 12–26 und der Dekalog,” Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft, ed. Norbert Lohfink, BETL 68 (Leuven: Leuven Univ., 1985), 252–72. 26. This structure is indicated by the alternation of two temporal clauses: “When Yahweh your God has extirpated the nations . . .” (12:29; 19:1); “When you have invaded the Land . . .” (17:14; 26:1). If one finds it helpful to do so, the resulting fivepart design may be identified as chiastic or palistrophic. The discussion which follows parallels my brief treatment in “Deuteronomium,” TRE 8: 533–35.

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ues to be debated, but there can be little doubt that they share a patriotic zeal for Yahwism, which identified cultic diversity and theological pluralism as prime threats to national cohesiveness. Thus the keynote prescriptions in 12:2–12 make a categorical distinction between the manifold installations of worship that Israel must destroy when it conquers its homeland and the singular sanctuary, “the place Yahweh your God will choose,” where Israel’s social solidarity under the rule of God is to be celebrated. 27 To be sure, this legislation attests important theological nuances and, by suppressing provincial religious practices, may have encouraged spiritualization of Yahwistic worship; but we should not overlook the fact that its overt purpose is to identify the unique institutional locus of Israel’s communal life. The second division, 12:29–17:13, is likewise but more comprehensively concerned with national integrity, defining corporate institutions, rites, and judicial procedures that are to sustain all Israel as the discrete people of Yahweh. Although prominent attention is given herein to such matters as dietary restrictions (14:3–21), sacral dues (14:22–29; 15:19– 23), and national religious festivals (16:1–17), the focus is not cultic in a narrow sense. For example, the division opens with legislation empowering the community to initiate preemptive action against any individuals or groups in its own midst who promote sedition (chap. 13). Again, in 15:1– 18 issues of broad social and economic import are addressed, with particular concern to institutionalize restrictions on the practice of debtslavery. Most important of all for the preservation of political stability is the judicial system legislated in 16:18–17:13. It needs to be stressed that this system is expressly grounded in the responsibility of the whole society to maintain justice; hence officers of the city courts in each tribal jurisdiction are both chosen by and act on behalf of the population at large (16:18–20). 28 Judicial procedures and restraints are treated in 17:2–13. 27. The antiquity of the appellation for the single sanctuary cannot be demonstrated; it is most easily understood as a Deuteronomic designation for Zion and the Jerusalem Temple, based upon Judaean royal ideology: cf. Pss 79:67–69; 132:13–14; 1 Kgs 8:15–21; 2 Kgs 23:27. For suggestions regarding earlier roots, see Moshe Weinfeld, “The Emergence of the Deuteronomic Movement: The Historical Antecedents,” Das Deuteronomium, 76–98. 28. It is possible that the Deuteronomic scheme represents a democratization of the judicial system which, according to 2 Chr 19:4–11, was introduced into Judah by King Jehoshaphat in the ninth century b.c. Cf. Georg Christian Macholz, “Zur Geschichte der Justizorganisation in Juda,” ZAW 84: 314–40; and Moshe Weinfeld, “Judge and Officer in Ancient Israel in the Ancient Near East,” IOS 7 (1977): 65–88.

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[[241]] Of special importance here is the role of the judicial council, which is attached to the single sanctuary and comprised of levitical priests and a national “judge.” Their function is not to serve as an appellate court per se but, like the Roman juris consultus, to issue authoritative directives regarding cases that local magistrates are unable to decide and bring before them (cf. 1:17). Moreover, 17:11 may be understood to include an extraordinary reference to the Deuteronomic polity itself: “You must act in strict accord with the tôrâ, which they shall interpret for you, and according to the precedent they cite for you; you shall not waiver right or left from the decision they announce to you.” The constitutional significance of the matters treated in the central division, 17:14–18:22, has long been recognized though perhaps not sufficiently appreciated. 29 We learn first that monarchy is a permissible institution of the Yahwistic theocracy, but only so long as the election and prerogatives of the king are strictly delimited (17:14–17). While it is remarkable enough to find in an ancient document such restraints imposed on the powers of a nation’s chief executive officer (and these restraints are by no means insubstantial in comparison with those of the celebrated Magna Carta of medieval England), what follow articulates a principle of constitutional government that we usually think to have been an innovation of the American political experience: The only positively specified task of the Israelite monarch is to study the written Deuteronomic polity throughout his reign and to serve as a national model of faithful obedience to its stipulations (17:18–20). Therefore the executive neither makes the law of the land nor stands above it. But he may be involved implicitly in its official interpretation as well as enforcement, for it is not unlikely that the king was supposed to function as the national “judge” who, according to 17:9–12, convened or otherwise sat with the judicial council of levitical priests. The latter are treated in the legislation that immediately follows (18:1–8). Because of their traditional claim to hold office by virtue of divine election alone and the broad authority given them in judicial as well as cultic affairs, the levitical priests potentially exercise more power than the king over the Israelite nation. 30 It is thus a

29. Cf. Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, 226; and esp. Lohfink, Great Themes, 58–72. 30. Cf. 10:8–9; 21:5; 31:9; 33:8–10. It may be pertinent to the likely role of “levitical priests” in the transmission and crystallization of the Deuteronomic legislation that 18:1–8 (see esp. v. 5) stands at the center point of the polity’s literary design.

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constitutionally significant restriction that levitical guilds are granted no “territorial apportionment” (˙eleq wéna˙ålâ) with the rest of Israel. As the designated bureaucracy of the covenant people, however, levitical officials [[242]] are assured support through sacral taxes which must be contributed by those who do have holdings of land (18:1–4; cf. 14:27–29; 26:12–13). The central division concludes with paragraphs that place formidable restrictions on any other persons who might claim political authority by virtue of extra-constitutional knowledge of the divine will. Those who practice various forms of magic and divination are categorically dismissed (18:9– 14); and while Israelite prophecy is indeed recognized, on the precedent of Moses’ own role at Horeb, to be an authoritative mode of divine communication to the covenant people, the claims of individual prophets must be measured against stringent theological and pragmatic standards (18:15–22; cf. 13:2–6). The constitutional reasoning of the first three divisions has moved a significant distance: from provision for the single sanctuary, which focuses Israel’s corporate identity as one people under God (in sharp contrast to the cultic and national factionalisms of the land’s previous inhabitants); through delineation of the political structures and common obligations that bind the Israelite nation together; and to delimitation of the social authority that can be exercised legitimately even by divinely “chosen” officers. This reasoning is completed in the final two divisions, where rights and responsibilities of individual citizens are brilliantly illuminated. The fourth division, 19:1–25:19, is the longest in the polity; its varied contents are typically described by commentators as “miscellaneous,” which indeed may have to be the case if one presupposes that the Torah document is a code of laws. Yet the logic of what is included and excluded herein becomes much clearer when we recognize the broader constitutional character of the polity. Matters treated in this division bring into relief the social policies that the covenant community is sworn to protect, above all the sanctity of life and the worth of individual personhood. 31 If 31. Insightful perspectives on the social, ideological, and cultural significance of this legislation may be gained from the following three, quite different studies: Anton Causse, “L’idéal politique et social du Deutéronome. La fraternité d’Israel,” RHPR 13 (1933): 289–323; Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 1–57; and Jacob J. Finkelstein, “The Goring Ox: Some Historical Perspectives on Deodands, Forfeitures, Wrongful Death and the Western Notion of Sovereignty,” Temple Law Quarterly 46 (1973): 169–290, esp. pp. 253–55, 269–72.

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these statutes seem more wide-ranging, formally diverse, and discretely focused than legislation in the preceding divisions, so much the better to show that it is not enough for society to affirm humanitarian ideals in the abstract. The quality of justice is measured by responsible procedures and specific results. Egalitarian justice, like political life itself, can only be [[243]] practiced in a social arena where basic values collide and concrete decisions must be made between divergent human interests. So it is that most of the statutes in this division deal with issues of conflict in which individual lives, livelihoods, and personal liberties are directly at stake. The consistent witness throughout is that each member of the larger community—whether male or female, child or adult, native born or sojourner, culprit or law-abiding citizen, land owner, laborer, or refugee slave—must be treated with the dignity due someone whose life is infinitely precious. Whenever society acts, as it must, to prosecute and punish those guilty of grievous offenses or even to pursue its well-being through warfare, the worth of all living things has to be respected. In short, this division more than any other segment of the constitution shows us in sensitive detail just what it means for the covenant community to claim identity as “a people holy to Yahweh your God” (7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:19); for if holiness involves corporate apotheosis, setting Israel apart from all other nations, it does so by making sanctification of life at once the prime objective of the whole social order and the political prerogative of everyone who resides in Israel’s midst. 32 The final division, 26:1–15, is elegantly brief, prescribing two liturgical acts which identify personal well-being and shared prosperity as reciprocal objectives of covenantal politics. Thus, after the land granted by God has been conquered and settled, those who harvest its bounties must regularly bring some of the produce to “the place Yahweh your God will choose” and there both individually acknowledge and communally celebrate the continuing providence of Israel’s divine sovereign (26:1–11). Every third year, when the entire tithe of the annual harvests has been set aside by landholders to provide for the levitical bureaucracy and others who are wards of the state, confession of personal fidelity to God is followed by petition for God’s renewed blessing on the nation as a whole (26:12–15). So the concluding section of the polity brings us full circle, 32. Cf. Num 16:3, where the revolutionary import of the Deuteronomic ideology of sacral personhood and democratized political authority apparently finds expression as the watchword of Korah’s “levitical” rebellion.

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back to the institutional center of Israel’s identity, where its public theology is celebrated (12:2–28; cf. 6:20–25). The modest aim of the foregoing discussion has been to support Josephus’ identification of the Deuteronomic “Book of the Torah” as a social charter of extraordinary literary coherence and political sophistication, thereby also recognizing the work to be the archetype of modern western constitutionalism. But a confessional word may be offered in conclusion: [[244]] For Jews and Christians committed to the continuing struggle for social justice and human rights, the Deuteronomic model of theocentric humanism remains an eminently practicable legacy.

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S. Dean McBride Jr.

The Priestly Houses of Early Israel Frank Moore Cross Harvard University

The Classical View of Israel’s Early Priesthood [[195]] One of the pillars of Julius Wellhausen’s great synthesis of the history of Israelite religion was his reconstruction of the history of the priestood. 1 He sought to establish a threefold development of the priestly office to match the threefold patterns of the history of the place of worship, the evolution of the sacrifices, and the growth of the sacral feasts. There was (1) an early age when there was no fixed, hereditary priesthood, (2) the age of the kings when a Levitic priesthood began to emerge dominant in Jerusalem, and (3) the postexilic theocracy in which the Aaronids ruled supreme, and Levites in general became hierodules. 2 The power of Wellhausen’s construction may be perceived in recent histories of the priesthood. For example, in Father Roland de Vaux’s monumental study of the institutions of Israel, his history of priestly institutions still preserves the Wellhausenist rubrics intact: (1) Non-Levitic Priests, (2) Levite Priests, and (3) Priests and Levites. 3 Details of Wellhausen’s beguilingly simple Editors’ note: Reprinted by permission of the President and Fellows of Harvard College from F. M. Cross Jr., “The Priestly Houses of Israel,” Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religions of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973) 195–215. Original page numbers are presented here in double brackets. Cross-references to the original publication are cited as CMHE. 1. [[This essay]] is an expansion of lectures given at Brandeis University on December 11, 1968, and at Yale University, April 9, 1969. I am in special debt to my hosts, Professor Nahum Sarna and Professor Dean McBride, for their courtesies and kindness. 2. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, trans. J. S. Black and A. Menzies (Edinburgh, 1885), 151–61. 3. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, trans. J. McHugh (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1961), 361–66. Cf. Aelred Cody, A History of Old Testament Priesthood (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), whose positions stand close to those of Father de Vaux.

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hypothesis have been under reexamination in recent years. Kurt Möhlenbrink in 1934 published a thoroughgoing review of the Levitical traditions, no doubt the most important monograph on the history of the priesthood since Wellhausen. 4 Since Möhlenbrink, the literature has burgeoned, but it is fair to say that the overall view of the early history of priesthood has changed very little if at all. 5 [[196]] Wellhausen argued strenuously that neither Zadok nor Abiathar, the high priests of David, stemmed from the house of Aaron. Zadok was without genealogy, a homo novus. As for the genealogical notice in 2 Sam 8:17 which calls Zadok the son of Ahitub, the text is evidently corrupt. Ahitub was the grandfather of Abiathar in the Elid line of Shiloh; that Zadok was not an Elid is apparent from 2 Sam 2:30–36 where the end of the Elid line is prophesied unequivocally, and the faithful prophet to come, that is, Zadok, juxtaposed to the Elid house. The genealogies of the Chronicler are late and contrived in Wellhausen’s view, and cannot be used to support an Aaronid origin of Zadok. 6 A caveat is necessary here, however; it is Wellhausen, not the Chronicler, who equates ªA˙i†ub the putative father of Zadok with ªA˙i†ub the grandfather of Abiathar. 7 The Chronicler traces Zadok to the Aaronid Eleazar, Abiathar to the Aaronid Ithamar. 8 At all events, Wellhausen concludes, “obviously [Zadok] does not figure as an intermediate link in the line of Aaron, but as the beginning of an entirely new genealogy.” 9 4. Kurt Möhlenbrink, “Die levitischen Überlieferungen des Alten Testaments,” ZAW, n.s. 11 (1934): 184–231. My student Professor Merlin Rehm has developed the views of Möhlenbrink in his Harvard dissertation, “Studies in the History of the Preexilic Levites” (1968). 5. See the bibliography of Aelred Cody, A History of Old Testament Priesthood, xvi–xxvii. The best of recent studies is the monograph of A. H. J. Gunneweg, Leviten und Priester (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965). 6. 1 Chronicles 5:27–41; 6:35–38 (cf. 1 Chr 9:10–11; Neh 11:10–11). The problems of these genealogies are manifold and need not be examined here. We note, however, that the sequence Meraioth, Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok is followed later by the sequence Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok in 1 Chr 5:27–41, producing a haplography (Amariah to Amariah II) in Ezra 7:1–5. That the lists are highly confused with doublets and omissions is evident in the omission of known pre-Exilic high priests, and in the secondary intrusion of Meraioth in the document underlying 1 Chr 9:11 = Neh 11:11. 7. 1 Samuel 22:9, 20. 8. Cf. 1 Chr 24:3, 6, 31. 9. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 126.

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David’s other high priest, Abiathar, has a genealogy in the older sources linking him to the house of Eli. 10 While Wellhausen assumed that the house of Eli was originally non-Levitic, he recognized that it laid claim to Levitic descent, not through Aaron, however, but through Moses. In 1 Sam 2:27 an anonymous prophet declared to Eli, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘Did I not wholly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt, slaves 11 of Pharaoh’s house? . . . and did I not choose him from all the tribes of Israel to become my priest . . . ?’ ” Wellhausen asserts that in the passages, “it is clearly Moses who is thought of as the recipient of the revelation.” 12 To some Wellhausen’s exegesis will appear excessively [[197]] subtle. To be sure, the prime recipient of the Sinaitic revelation was Moses, and the earlier the source the greater Moses’ predominance over Aaron. However, Wellhausen’s case rests on a much wider base than 1 Sam 2:27. In Exod 33:7–11 Moses and Joshua act as priests in the Tent of Meeting in violation of all the Priestly law (compare Num 11:16, 17a, 24b–25, 30; 14:14; and Deut 31:1a, b, 15). Here Moses is seen as founder of the priestly order. In the archaic hymn in Deut 33:8 he finds a reference to Moses: Give to Levi your Thumim Your Urim to your faithful one, Whom you tested at Massah, Whom you tried at Meribah.

˚ymt ywll wbh 13 ˚dsj çyal ˚yrwa[ ] hsm 14 wmb wtysn rça 15 hbyrm ymAl[ whbyrt

1 (8) 1 (8) 1 (9) 1 (9)

That Moses is the faithful one of Levi, tried at Massah and Meribah, appears clearly in Epic tradition, Exod 17:2–7. 16 In the blessing, Levi the

10. 1 Samuel 22:9, 11, 20; cf. 1 Sam 14:3; 1 Kgs 2:27. 11. This is the reading of G with doulon, ºbdym which has dropped out owing to homoioteleuton (-rym/-dym). Cf. Lev 26:13; Deut 6:21 (Driver). 12. Prolegomena, 142. 13. The reading hbw llwy has dropped out in an unusual haplography after llwy ªmr. The full reading is found in 4QDth (unpublished) and in G. 14. In old orthography bms < bmms. 15. The relative particle is suspect in early poetry, and perhaps we should substitute zu or sa. Verse 9 is a prosaic gloss alluding to Exod 32:26–29. Cf. Cross and Freedman, “The Blessing of Moses,” JBL 67 (1948): 203–4 n. 28. 16. In the J material in Num 20:1–13, Aaron is not associated with Moses: only in Priestly sections does Aaron appear, and even here in a secondary role. Cf. Num 27:14; Deut 6:16; 9:22; 32:51; Pss 81:8; 95:8; 106:32. Cf. Gunneweg, Leviten und Priester, 37–44; and E. Nielsen, “The Levites in Ancient Israel,” ASTI 3 (1964): 17–20.

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tribe and Moses, Yahweh’s faithful man, are placed in parallelism, and, as Wellhausen observed, each stands for the other. 17 Further, he contended, Aaron originally played little or no role in Yahwistic tradition. Moses is the dominant priestly figure of the oldest traditions. In this view Wellhausen is probably correct. Wellhausen recognized wider claims to Mosaic (better Mushite) ancestry among the priestly families of early Israel. He observed that in addition to the Mushite house of Eli at Shiloh, there was a Mushite priesthood at the royal shrine of Dan, appointed by Jeroboam. The origin of the priesthood of the temple of Dan is traced in Judg 18:30 to “Jonathan son of Gershom, son of Moses. 18 The patronymic of [[198]] Gershom is probably to be understood as the clan name, suggesting that Gershom—in traditional genealogies the first son of Levi, as well as the name of Moses’ son—was a Mushite clan. The arguments of Wellhausen for the Mushite origin of the priesthoods of Shiloh and Dan are not all of equal weight, and certain of his presuppositions must be jettisoned. Nevertheless, his conclusion, we believe, remains sound, and additional arguments are now available, based on new data.

The Function of the Stories of Conflict There is evidence in Israel’s earliest traditions that has never been sufficiently utilized which bears upon the history of the early priestly houses of Israel, namely, the stories of conflict in the wilderness. (1) The most dramatic story of conflict in the wilderness era is the account of the rebellion of Aaron in Exod 32. 19 Although Aaron is virtually missing in the Yahwistic tradition, here he appears as a cult founder, albeit of a paganizing cult, in northern, Elohistic tradition. He also stands in opposition to Moses in the northern material (Exod 32:1–6, 15–24, 35). 20 In 17. Wellhausen bases his remarks on the received text, not the critical text as we have reconstructed it: Prolegomena, 135. 18. The reading msh is that of G L V (cf. M), and evidently original. 19. See our discussion above at the end of [[CMHE]] chapter 3. 20. M. Noth (Exodus [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962], 243–52) followed by G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Desert (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968), 184–91, attempts to attribute the narrative to J. This stands against the style of the section and its date in view of evident reminiscences of the cult of Jeroboam. Certainly the polemic against Aaron did not derive from the Zadokite circles of Jerusalem. Cf. W. Beyerlin’s analysis in Origins and History of the Oldest Sinaitic Traditions (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 126–33.

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its present form the account has a tendency to shift blame from Aaron to the people; in its pristine Elohistic form Aaron was, no doubt, more the central figure. 21 The pericope attributes to Aaron the unthinkable sin of fashioning the young bull, the prototype of the iconography of the Bethel temple. We have seen here a polemic against the Aaronids since the tradition must rest upon Bethelite claims to an iconography stemming from Aaron himself. The polemic itself cannot have arisen in a sanctuary claiming Aaronite origins; thus the polemic was not devised in the late Jerusalemite priesthood. Rather, the polemical form of the tradition of Aaron’s bull must have originated in an old northern priesthood, a rival priesthood of non-Aaronite lineage, defenders of [[199]] an alternate iconographic tradition. The Mushite priesthood of Shiloh, later of Nob, is the natural candidate, and the iconography they supported was obviously the cherubim throne associated with Shiloh. 22 The priestly family attacked must be the Aaronidae of Bethel. This conclusion would appear to be contradicted by 1 Kgs 12:31ff. which states: “And he made the temples of the high places, and he made priests from all and any of the people who were not of the sons of Levi . . . and he placed in office in Bethel priests of the high places he had built.” These words belong to the Deuteronomistic polemic against Jeroboam I in which he is accused of making anyone a priest of the high places and mingling high-place priests with those of the Bethel sanctuary. That the polemic is imprecise is clear from the traditions establishing the priesthood of Dan as Mushite. It may very well be that the Mushite sources of the Deuteronomist did not reckon the Bethel Aaronites as of Levitic descent. It appears highly probable in any case that Bethel’s priesthood claimed Aaronic descent. Certainly the iconography of Bethel, its bull, had connections with the house of Aaron. Also we find in Judg 20:26–28 an archaic tradition placing Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron at the sanctuary of Bethel in the early era when the ark was in Bethel. Thus Bethel possessed Aaronic associations. We must conclude that Jeroboam carefully appointed two priesthoods for his two national shrines, one of Mushite stock, one of Aaronite ancestry.

21. Contrast the harsh treatment of Aaron in Deut 9:20. It is wholly unsatisfactory in our view to suppose that priestly circles in Jerusalem would have accented Aaron’s part in the account! Aaron’s role thus must go back at least to Epic tradition. 22. See [[CMHE]], chapter 3, and O. Eissfeldt, “Yahwe Zebaoth,” in [[Eissfeldt, Kleine Schriften (ed. R. Sellheim and F. Maass; Tübingen: Mohr, 1962); abbrev. by Cross as KS]], III, 103–23; “Silo und Jerusalem,” in KS (Eissfeldt), III, 417–25.

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As we have seen, Jeroboam was in fact no innovator. In his establishment of his cult and cult places he attempted to “out-archaize” David. In the choice of priesthood he also proposed to alienate neither of the rival priestly houses, choosing two national shrines (a procedure in itself demanding explanation!) and two priestly houses to serve him. Withal he attempted to strengthen his kingship, as a usurper must, against the house of David and the great sanctuary of the Ark in Jerusalem. (2) In Exod 32:26–29 we find, in the present form of the traditioncomplex, a sequel to the episode of Aaron’s infidelity. At this stage, in any case, the Levites rally to Moses’ side and slay, we are told, about three thousand apostates, neighbor and kindred alike. For their single-minded fidelity they are consecrated priests. Probably we must [[200]] separate 32:26–29 from the Elohistic account of Aaron’s bull; it appears to be secondary in its present position. In any case, the consecration to the priesthood of the Levites is as unexpected a tradition in the Priestly edition of the Tetrateuch as is the story of the apostasy of Aaron. It fits precisely, however, with the blessing of Levi in Deut 33:8, 10–11 in which Moses and the Levites are given the full priestly office and in which there is an allusion to strife: “Smite the loins of his foes, His enemies, whoever attacks him.” 23 Deuteronomy 33:9, an intrusive (or retouched) verse, overtly connects the blessing with the tradition of Exod 32:27. In these traditions we note that Moses’ allies are Levitical priests, confronting the idolaters, at whose head stands Aaron! (3) In a series of episodes during the wilderness interlude, Moses is closely associated with Midian, the ancient southern league in which the Kenites were an important element. 24 The priest of Midian provided Moses with a wife, apparently a priestess in her own right, 25 and he also offered sacrifices to Yahweh and instituted a judicial system according to Epic tradition (Exod 18). Hobab, a kinsman by marriage to Moses, 26 designated 23. On the text of this verse, see Cross and Freedman, “The Blessing of Moses,” JBL 67 (1948): 204 nn. 33–35. 24. See the Harvard dissertation of William J. Dumbrell, “The Midianites and Their Transjordanian Successors” (1970). Dumbrell develops the thesis, first suggested by Paul Haupt, that Midian included a shifting group of tribes and, like the later Arab tribes of the seventh century b.c., was organized as an amphictyony inhabiting the Edomite-Sinaitic southland. 25. Cf. Exod 4:24–26. One may compare also Miriam and Jael. 26. We do not propose to decide whether Hobab was ˙oten or ˙atan Mose. See W. F. Albright, “Jethro, Hobab, and Reuel in Early Hebrew Tradition,” CBQ 25 (1963):

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both as a Midianite (Num 10:29) and a Kenite ( Judg 1:16; 4:11), served as guide to Moses in the wilderness (Num 10:29–32). The survival of such traditions in the face of rival traditions of utter hostility to the Midianites is remarkable and suggests that Moses’ interconnections with the priestly house of Midian were too old and well established to be suppressed quietly or forgotten. The recovery of the Yahwistic shrine at ºArad in the Negeb in the excavations of Yohanan Aharoni has added a new dimension to the traditions of the Midianite priesthood allied with the Mushite [[201]] priesthood. 27 Benyamin Mazar in a brilliant paper 28 recognized that the children of Hobab, Moses’ kinsman, constitutes a priestly family which migrated to the desert of Judah, settling among the Judahites in Negeb-Arad 29 and serving as the priests of the sanctuary of ºArad. 30 In Judg 4:11 we read of the migration of one branch of the family northward to Kadesh-Naphtali establishing itself at a sacred terebinth, Elon-bezaanannim. Mazar is no doubt correct in seeing Heber and his wife Jael as persisting in their priestly functions at a temenos related to the terebinth. The preeminence of Jael is clear from Judg 5:6 where she is paired with the judge Shamgar. Mazar further makes a plausible case for his conclusion “that Sisera fled from the battle to the tent of Jael not only to seek the peace which reigned between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber and Kenite, but also 1–11. Albright makes a good case for distinguishing an older priest of Midian and a younger, vigorous Hobab, Moses’ guide. On the meaning of ˙tn, see now T. C. Mitchell, “The Meaning of the Noun ˙tn in the Old Testament,” VT 17 (1969): 93–112. 27. Y. Aharoni and R. Amiran, “Arad: A Biblical City in Southern Palestine,” Archaeology 17 (1964): 43–53; “Excavations at Tel Arad: Preliminary Report of the First Season,” IEJ 14 (1964): 131–47; Y. Aharoni, “Excavations at Tel Arad: Preliminary Report of the Second Season,” IEJ 17 (1967): 233–49; “Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple,” BA 31 (1968): 2–32. 28. Benyamin Mazar, “The Sanctuary of Arad and the Family of Hobab the Kenite,” JNES 24 (1965): 297–303. 29. Judges 1:16, “And the children of Hobab the Kenite, the in-law of Moses went up from the City of the Palms with the children of Judah to the Judaean desert which is in Negeb-Arad. . . .” The reading “Hobab” is no doubt original; the G manuscripts are split between ioqor and iwbab. The manuscript tradition behind M probably read ytr(w), left blank as an apparent error (in light of the parallel in Judg 4:11). Precisely the same phenomenon appears in 2 Sam 4:l–2; see our discussion in [[Cross, Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (2nd ed.; Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1961); abbrev. here by Cross as ALQ 2]], 191 n. 45. 30. The foundations of the ºArad temple are later than the events we are describing: before the temple, we presume, was a temenos or high place with altar.

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because of the special exalted position of Jael, and because her dwelling place, Elon-bezaanannim, was recognized as a sanctified spot and a place of refuge where protection was given even to an enemy.” There is evidence here that there was an early alliance between the priestly descendants of Moses and the descendants of the priest of Midian and that this priesthood preserved traditions at several sanctuaries, Shiloh, Dan, Arad, and Kadesh-Naphtali. These traditions functioned to support their legitimacy and to denigrate rival priestly families. (4) In Num 25:6–15 the Priestly tradent has attached an account of sacrilege to the Epic story ( JE) of Baºl-peºor, the most infamous occasion of idolatry subsequent to the affair of Aaron’s bull. [[202]] The attachment of the P account at this point to the orgiastic rites of Baºl-peºor with the daughters of Moab in the plains of Moab is certainly secondary. 31 While in Epic tradition Israel’s intimate relationships with Midian have been recorded favorably or with disinterest, in Priestly tradition, in Num 25:6– 15, the Midianites are portrayed as archenemies of Israel, and even worse, as those who have led Israel into apostasy and unspeakable sacrilege. There are archaic elements in the account, including rare words of nonPriestly usage, and, as has been generally recognized, the original form of the tradition must be quite early. The narrative tells of an Israelite bringing a Midianite maiden into the Israelite congregation, and notably “before the eyes of Moses,” at the door of the Tent of Meeting. Phineas, the Aaronid, spied the couple, entered into the “domed tent,” 32 that is, the Tent of Meeting itself, and slew the two with a single thrust of his spear. Evidently the two were engaged in the rites of ritual prostitution, an appalling sacrilege in orthodox Israelite eyes. For extirpating the sinners and the cleansing of the Israelite cultus from Midianite religious practice, Phinehas was given Yahweh’s covenant to be “for him and his seed after him a covenant of eternal priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel.” 33 That is to say, the priesthood passed to the Aaronites precisely for their service in cleansing Israel

31. See the discussion of Martin Noth, Numbers, trans. J. D. Martin (Philadelphia, 1968), 195–99. On the related Priestly narrative in Num 31:1–12, see pp. 228ff. Psalm 106:28–31 is dependent on the combined sources. See also Dumbrell, The Midianites, chapter 4. 32. On the term qubba, “domed tent-shrine,” see F. M. Cross, “The Priestly Tabernacle,” in BARead 1: 218–19; ªl-hqbh and ªl-qbth (with locative enclitic) are ancient variants. 33. Numbers 25:13.

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from the taint of Midianite rites! The polemical tone could not be stronger or more obvious. It is quite impossible to separate this account from the story leading up to the rejection of the Elid (Mushite) priestly house in 1 Sam 2:22–25. The two sons of Eli “lay with the women who did service at the door of the Tent of Meeting.” 34 In the sequel, 1 Sam 2:27–36, [[203]] we find the prophecy of “the faithful priest” for whom Yahweh would build a secure dynasty to “walk before my anointed always,” that is, the house of Zadok. The story in Num 25 stops short of condemning Moses in its present form, just as some of the anti-Aaronic traditions tend to spare Aaron. In its received form, the Priestly account presumes the Epic context (Num 25:1– 5) and Moses’ positive action against “those who yoked themselves to Baºlpeºor.” Verse 5, however, suggests a form of the story in which Moses viewed the sacrilege but failed to act, at least until Phinehas took initiative. The Priestly editor in verses 14–15 gives names and titles (the principals are children of nobles of Israel and Midian) after telling the story first without such detail. Evidently he drew on more than a single strand of tradition in composing his story. This suggests, as does the gloss in 1 Sam 2:22, a polemical literature reflecting conflicting claims of the great priestly families much wider than has survived in our sources. (5) Numbers 12 is a complex story vindicating the unique relation of Moses to Yahweh as opposed to the rivals Miriam and Aaron. Two issues are combined in the Epic tale, no doubt stemming from originally distinct stories of conflict, but now combined in a single narrative too unified to dissect. Moses is attacked by Miriam and Aaron “because of the Cushite woman whom he married.” The issue then becomes, “Has Yahweh indeed spoken only with Moses? Has he not also spoken by us [Aaron and Miriam]?” Yahweh called the three to the door of the Tent of Meeting, appeared in his cloud, and addressed Aaron and Miriam: 35 34. 1 Samuel 2:22bb is missing in 4QSama and in GBL. Its language sounds Priestly (cf. Exod 38:8), and it has been observed that the sanctuary at Shiloh was a hêkal, not a tent. However, the latter argument is very precarious (see [[CMHE]] chapter 3 n. 114 and M. Haran, “Shiloh and Jerusalem: The Origin of the Priestly Tradition in the Pentateuch,” JBL 81 [1962]: 22), and it is difficult to see just how and why such a notice came into the Deuteronomistic history from Priestly sources in the post-Exilic period when the Mushite-Aaronite controversy no longer raged. I am inclined to think that the verse is part of a job of retouching by a priestly hand, but one drawing on an earlier tradition relating to the Mushites and Zadok. 35. Numbers 12:6–8. Note the poetic form pointing to the relative antiquity of the tradition.

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Frank Moore Cross 36µkb 37aybn hyhy µa If there be a prophet among you, I make myself known to him in a vision; [dwta wl 38 harmb In a dream I speak with him. [[204]] wb rbda µwljb Not so (with) my servant Moses; hçm ydb[ ˆk al In all my household he (alone) is faithful. awh ˆman ytyb lkb

1 (7) 1 (7) 1 (7) 1 (6) 1 (7)

Mouth to mouth I speak with him. In clarity and not riddles; The form of Yahweh he beholds.

1 (7) 1 (7) 1 (7)

wb rbda hp la hp tdyj alw harmb 39 fyby hwhy tnmt 40

Moses thus is set over priest or prophet as the peerless mediator of divine revelation in these verses. Aaron and Miriam stand rebuffed and humiliated. The story ends with Miriam’s punishment. She is made snow-white with leprosy. It is perhaps easiest to tie this punishment to the objection made to Moses’ Cushite priestess-wife. The term Kus originally applied to an element in the Midianite league, a name elsewhere used of a south Transjordanian district alongside the byform Kusan. 41 There is thus no reason to suppose that the Cushite wife is not also the Zipporah of Yahwistic tradition. The term “Cushite” may also have had connotations of blackness derived from its homonym, “Ethiopian,” rendering the whitened skin of Miriam a singularly fit punishment for her objections to the Cushite wife. The two themes in Num 12 appear to be (1) Moses’ superiority to the house of Aaron as mediator of the divine command, and (2) the affirmation of the legitimacy of the Mushite priesthood despite its “mixed” blood.

36. Yhwh is a correction inserted at the wrong point; it belongs in v. 6a after wyªmr. Cf. GL. 37. The traditional text nbyªkm has suffered haplography owing to the similarity (in many periods) of kaf and bêt. 38. Normally the indirect (personal) object of the niphal and hiphil of ydº is construed with l rather than with ªl. Further, the ªalef can be taken as a dittography in the early orthography: bmrª{ª}lh > bmrªh ªlyw. 39. This is the reading in 4QNuma, 4QNumb, G and Syr (cf. Sam.), and is best metrically, enough evidence to counter the argument lectio difficilior praeferenda est. 40. Omit the conjunction here and at the beginning of the preceding colon, metri causa. 41. The data have been collected by W. F. Albright, [[Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (5th ed.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968); Cross here abbreviates as ARI]], 205 n. 49.

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Some such function must be asserted for the formation and preservation of the traditions. 42 (6) In Lev 10:1–7 the Priestly source records a tale of two clans of Aaronic priests. Nadab and Abihu, in tradition the elder sons of Aaron, offered “strange fire,” whatever that may be, before Yahweh. Fire streamed forth “from before Yahweh” and consumed them. Moses then pointedly said to Aaron, “That is what Yahweh spoke about, ‘I shall be treated as holy by those who draw near to me (in priestly service), so that I shall be glorified before all people,’ and Aaron was silent.” 43 The verse is highly elliptical, even mysterious. We do not [[205]] know the antecedent of the demonstrative “that” (huª ). It is obvious that Aaron does understand that he has been rebuked for sufficient cause and is without words to reply. In any case, two Aaronite clans were repudiated and, though senior to Eleazar and Ithamar, disappear from history. 44 (7) Numbers 16 consists of two accounts, an Epic story of the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram the Reubenites (verses 12–15, 25–32a, 33–34), and Priestly narrative (1a, 2b–11, 16–24, 32b, and 35–40) attached to it and partially integrated with it by the Priestly editor. 45 That the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram was once independent of the traditions of Korah is confirmed by Deut 11:6 which gives only the Epic story of Dathan and Abiram. The narrative of Lev 10:1–7 and the Priestly strata of Num 16:1–40 show interesting parallels and contrasts. Both reflect old rivalries between priestly families. In Lev 10, two Aaronic clans are repudiated, in Num 16, a Levitic clan. The ritual of bringing incense burners to the sanctuary appears in both; in both, fire from Yahweh consumes the sinners. In Lev 10, Aaron appears to be rebuked; in Num 16 it is the Levites who are rebuked, Aaron who is upheld, and both from the mouth of Moses! In short, a similar theme is used in two contexts, one anti-Aaronite, the other proAaronite in bias. 46 42. Cf. G. W. Coats, Rebellion in the Desert, 261–64. The treatment leans heavily on the views of Noth. 43. Leviticus 12:3. 44. Nadab and Abihu appear elsewhere (save in genealogies) only in Exod 24:1, 9, where they are associated with Aaron and Moses in the covenant making at Sinai. 45. Cf. Jacob Liver, “Korah, Dathan and Abiram,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 8 ( Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1961), 180–217. On the labors of the Priestly editors of the Tetrateuch, see chapter 12 [[of CMHE]]. 46. Cf. Coats, Rebellion in the Desert, 257–60.

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In Num 16–17, however, the tradition of ancient conflicts between Levitic or Mushite priests and the priestly house of Aaron stands far in the background. In the present form of the Priestly polemic the hierodule status of the Levite is assumed by the Priestly tradent though he still takes pains to point out the significance of the copper-covered altar (Num 17:5). In our sketch of the stories of conflict we have asked the following questions: (1) How were the traditions of the priest of Midian and Moses’ Midianite connections preserved? Where did they have a cultic or social function? (2) Why is it that Moses is portrayed as in perpetual conflict with Aaron and related clans? What is the primitive function of these tales? (3) How is it that Moses dominates the earliest traditions [[206]] heroically, Aaron playing at most a negative role, but in later levels of tradition Aaron takes an increasingly important part, ending up as Moses’ alter ego in Priestly tradition? All these questions receive answers if we posit an ancient and prolonged strife between priestly houses: the Mushite priesthood which flourished at the sanctuaries of Shiloh and Dan and an allied Mushite-Kenite priesthood of the local shrines at ºArad and Kadesh opposed to the Aaronite priesthood of Bethel and Jerusalem.

The Priestly Genealogies Despite the repetition of priestly genealogies with small variations in Priestly sources in the Tetrateuch and in the Chronicler’s work, there is only one standard genealogy preserved. This genealogy goes back only to the Priestly school in Exile. In it, Levi is divided into three clans: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. From the eldest, Gershon, stem two clans, Libni and Shimei (both gentilics); from the youngest, Merari, stem Mahli and Mushi (both also clan names). Kohath gives rise to four sons: Amram, father of Aaron; Izhar, father of Korah; Hebron; and Uziel. Fortunately, the fragment of a second genealogy has survived in Num 26:58a. Its importance and antiquity were recognized by Wellhausen and strongly emphasized by Möhlenbrink. 47 The original form of the list seems to have read: “These are the clans of Levi: the clan of the Libnites, the clan of the Hebronites, 48 the clan of the Mushites, and the clan of the Korahites 47. Möhlenbrink, “Die levitischen Überlieferungen,” 191–97; Liver, “Korah, Dathan and Abiram,” 212–13. 48. G omits msp˙t hm˙ly. One can argue that it was added in view of the regular association of m˙ly and mwsy; on the other hand, G may have suffered a haplography. We have chosen the lectio brevior.

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(Qor˙i).” In this list the names which figure in the official genealogy also appear, but the old list records, in parallel, names belonging to the second generation after Levi, and in the case of Korah, to the third. The first two names are obviously called after the Levitic cities Hebron and Libnah. No name from the official Aaronite line is mentioned. Only Hebron and Korah from the traditional Kohathite line are found here. Most curious is the failure to mention the clan of the descendants of Aaron. The natural explanation is that the Aaronids originally were reckoned as Hebronites, but that this datum was suppressed in favor of the official genealogy. [[207]] Confirmation of the Aaronid tie to Hebron is implicit in Josh 21:10, 13 and 1 Chr 6:42, “And to the sons of Aaron they gave the city of refuge Hebron. . . .” Professor Mazar has emphasized the importance of the Hebronite clan in the crowning of David in Hebron and later in the administration of David’s kingdom, functioning in all parts of Israel. 49

The Priests of David’s National Shrine In light of these data we return to the problem of the two priests of David serving the national sanctuary in Jerusalem. It has been argued that the priesthood of Shiloh was Mushite. The evidence is not all we should desire. 50 Such a conclusion, however, explains many of the peculiarities of Epic ( JE) tradition. There is also evidence that the polemic against Bethel stemmed not only from Jerusalem but also from Shilonite circles. Indeed, the conception of Jerusalem as the successor of Shiloh had deep roots in northern tradition, preserved no doubt in the priestly circles of Nob and Anathoth and taking definitive form in the traditional lore of Deuteronomy. Old Deuteronomic tradition, originating in the north looked upon Jerusalem as the sanctuary chosen by Yahweh “to place his name there.” If the Yahwist gives short shrift to Aaron, the Deuteronomic source mentions Aaron only to condemn him: “And Yahweh was furious with Aaron to the point of destroying him, but I [Moses] interceded for Aaron in that time.” No other mention of Aaron is to be found in Deuteronomy. 51

49. B. Mazar, “The Cities of the Priests and the Levites,” VTSup 7 (1959), 197 and references. Cf. W. F. Albright, “The List of Levitic Cities,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945), 59 n. 24. 50. The Chronicler’s attachment of Eli to Ithamar (1 Chr 24:3) was based on a reordering of the genealogies and cannot be taken at face value. 51. Deuteronomy 9:20. Deuteronomy 10:6 and 32:50 both belong, of course, to Epic tradition.

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In the era of the Empire, David then wisely chose a scion of the Shilonite house, establishing for his national cult place the nimbus of the old Mushite sanctuary, its ark and its priesthood, and not least, its cherubim iconography of Yahweh ßébaªot. 52 A peculiarity of David’s religious establishment was that it boasted two high priests. Such is without precedent or parallel in Israel. Jeroboam had a high priest at each of his two sanctuaries, but this is not precisely parallel. In some remote sense Moses and Aaron formed a [[208]] diarchy, but only in late tradition. David’s policy requires more direct explanation. Close to hand is the explanation that the two priests were appointed to represent two great priestly houses, presumably two rival houses. In view of the evidence mustered above we must posit two major contending factions in the League and also in Northern Israel in the time of Jeroboam I: a Mushite house and an Aaronite house. It is natural to conclude, therefore, that David appointed the head of each house to minister in the national cultus. He appointed Abiathar, scion of the Mushite house of Eli of the old northern sanctuary at Shiloh, and Zadok, scion of the Aaronid house of Hebron. No one can doubt that in the years of the Divided Monarchy, after Abiathar was ousted from office by Solomon, Aaronic traditions steadily grew stronger until the Jerusalem priests at the end of the kingdom stood alone with all memory of rival houses and families repressed, Aaron mounting in importance in the Priestly edition of the Tetrateuch. By the Chronicler’s time even the house of Eli could be integrated into the line of Ithamar, Aaron’s youngest son. Evidently, the Aaronids had come into sole power. The official genealogy reflects this state of the priestly history. In large degree, the victory of the sons of Aaron—the Priestly designation of the legitimate priesthood in the history of the Mosaic times (that is in the P Work)—meant, in the language of the late monarchy and the Exile, the victory of the Zadokites. At least the Zadokites became the dominant Aaronite family. But if this be the case, we must assign Zadok to the Aaronid family. How else can the evolution of priestly tradition be explained, ending as it does in the overwhelming dominance of pro-Aaronite tradition. Since we have argued for Abiathar’s Mushite lineage, Zadok and his descendants must be recognized as the bearers and promoters of the Aaronite tradition. In light of these arguments, it is difficult to understand why Zadok has been denied Aaronid ancestry. Such a denial made some sense in Well52. See [[CMHE]], chapter 3, n. 119.

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hausen’s reconstruction with its animus against any fixed, hereditary institutions in early Israel and its assumption that much of the priestly lore both in the Priestly work and Chronicles was pious fraud. In view of our present knowledge of hereditary institutions in early Israel and contemporary Canaan, priestly families, hereditary craft, military guilds, and the like, Wellhausen’s reconstruction becomes less plausible. Even Wellhausen reckoned that the claim of the house of Eli to Mushite origins was not without basis in view of the recurrence [[209]] of the name Phinehas. 53 We should add that the expansion of Aaron’s role in biblical tradition, and the pro- and anti-Aaronic propaganda can be dated no later than the ninth century in view of its place in the Elohistic strand of the Epic. There is no question of the Priestly tradent inventing the stories of conflict between the Aaronite and Mushite houses. He does present the Aaronid or Zadokite claims with fanatical zeal 54 and assumes a subordinate position of the Levites, including the Mushites, which distorts the history of the priestly families and their relationships in the old time. The theory of Zadok’s origin which finds broadest adherence today may be termed the “Jebusite hypothesis.” 55 Zadok is made the priest of the old Canaanite shrine in Jerusalem, the temple of ªEl ºElyon. Many of the arguments for the hypothesis are painfully weak. The combination of the name Zadok with older Melchizedek of Patriarchal times, or Adonizedek of Jerusalem in the age of the Conquest is without significance. The element ßdq is extremely common in Amorite, Ugaritic, Canaanite, and Hebrew names. Extant names generally follow three patterns: (1) ßidqi-DN, “the god N is my righteousness (vindicator),” (2) DN-ßaduq, “the god N is (has shown himself to be) righteous,” 56 and (3) names in which the element ßidqu is a

53. We can add that the recurrence of Egyptian names, Phinehas and Hophni, especially the latter which is relatively rare, suggests not merely a line back to the Phinehas at the beginning of the League but back into the Mosaic age. See Aelred Cody, A History of Old Testament Priesthood, 70–71. 54. Compare the explicitly Zadokite claims in the Book of Ezekiel. 55. See especially H. H. Rowley, “Zadok and Nehushtan,” JBL 58 (1939): 113– 41; A. Bentzen, “Zur Geschichte der Íadokiden,” ZAW n.s. 10 (1933): 173–76. For a summary of other views of Zadok’s origin, see Aelred Cody, A History of the Old Testament Priesthood, 88–93; de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 372– 76. E. Auerbach has returned to the defense of his views in his paper, “Das AharonProblem,” SVT 17 (1969): 37–63. 56. Cf. Ugaritic ªilßdq, bºlßdq; names in ßadaq (yahu-ßadaq) are byforms of older ßaduq.

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divine name, bitta-ßidqi, “the daughter of ßidqu, malki-ßidqu, ªadoni-ßidqu [Ugaritic ªadnßdq] “my king/lord is Íidqu.” The name of the kings of Jerusalem contain the divine element Íidqu, a familiar Canaanite god (not to be identified with ªEl ºElyon!). The element ßaduq > Hebrew ßadoq is a hypocoristicon of type (2) DN-ßaduq and hence without any connection whatever with names in which DN is Íidqu. 57Another argument is that [[210]] David may have utilized the site of the Canaanite temple of ªEl ºElyon for his sanctuary. But there is no suggestion of evidence in our sources that David pitched his sacred tent on the locus of the Canaanite shrine. 58 A better argument for Zadok’s Jebusite origin is the observation that in the era of the Empire, especially in Solomonic times, strong Canaanite influences shaped the national rites and royal ideology; these influences may have come from Zadok’s Jebusite heritage. Certainly it is true that under Solomon new Canaanite influences affected the cultic establishment and the concept of kingship. Much of this can be attributed to Solomon’s

57. The name ßadoq in Greek transcription, and perhaps in some Jewish traditions, was assimilated to the hypocoristic pattern qattul, ßadduq. It has been suggested that the internal pattern qatul also may be a hypocoristic form (M. Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semitsche Epigraphik [Giessen: Töpelmann, 1908], 2.22). If this were the case, the name ßadoq > Íaduq could derive from any of the three patterns listed above. The names in qatul, however, are more easily described as stative verbs or adjectives in the Canaanite onomasticon. 58. Cf. R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 374, and apud Cody, A History of the Israelite Priesthood, 92 n. 17. G. W. Ahlström has argued that Araunah was king of Jerusalem and owner of a sanctuary, the “threshing floor” of Araunah. His evidence rests unhappily on the corrupt text of 2 Sam 24:23. Both 2 Sam 24:18–25 and 1 Chr 21:18– 26 have suffered badly in transmission. We can isolate one of the haplographies in 2 Sam 24:20 = 1 Chr 21:20–21ba. Between wysb ªrnn wyrª ªt hmlªk (1 Chr 21:20aa) and wysqp (var. wyb†) ªrwnh (var. ªrnn) wyrª ªt hmlk, the text of Samuel in the Massoretic tradition has suffered a routine haplography by homoioarkton (ªrwnh wyrª ªt hmlk). The omitted lines include reference to Araunah’s threshing, wªrwnª ds ˙†ym, a reading preserved in 4QSama (as well as Josephus and 1 Chr 21:21). Evidently the king of Jerusalem was not threshing in his sanctuary. In verse 23, 1 Chronicles has suffered haplography also. However, the reading hkl ntty is superior to 1 Sam 24:23a which has suffered dittography. It may be remarked in passing that the Massoretic “fundamentalism” which has marked the work of Nyberg, Engnell, and their students as well as Dahood and his students, must be repudiated in view of the different text-types extant in Cave 4, Qumrân, and the advances they support in the text-critical analysis of certain parts of the Hebrew Bible, including especially the historical books (Former Prophets). On the above reading wªrwnª ds ˙†ym, see Wellhausen’s acute remarks, Der Text der Bücher Samuelis (Göttingen, 1871), 221.

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intimate relations with Tyre, but why not some influence from a Jebusite Zadok? Zadok’s appointment, however, was by David, a primitive Yahwist of well-documented piety. Why would David who obviously attempted to draw all the old League traditions to his new religious establishment, turn and invite a pagan priest as one of the high priests of the national cultus? As a matter of fact, David bowed to Nathan’s oracle and refused even to build a temple in Zion lest ancient League forms be violated. 59 How is it, too, [[211]] that the Zadokites claimed an Aaronid pedigree? Why did they not exploit their proud lineage reaching back to Melchizedek? 60 Supporters of the Jebusite hypothesis attempt to explain Zadok’s appointment as a sop to the Jebusites, but, if this is so, why is Zadok’s ancestry suppressed in contemporary tradition and fabricated shortly thereafter? 61 Again, can we suppose (in the interests of this theory) that David spurned the Aaronids, the priesthood of old Judah, and the shrine of Hebron, his first capital city? If the choice of Abiathar won the north, the seat of the central sanctuary in the era of the League, so we should expect the choice of an Aaronid to maintain the primary base of David’s power in Judah. In our view, David’s choice of two priests was motivated by the same diplomatic interests that led Jeroboam I to appoint an Aaronid shrine in Bethel and a Mushite shrine in Dan as dual national shrines in Israel. Indeed we should rather say that Jeroboam imitated David’s device to avoid alienating either of the great priestly families. As far as the Canaanite influence on Israel’s royal cult is concerned, we need not multiply further the manifold sources of such lore by adding the priest of a Jebusite ªEl shrine to transmit myths of ªEl. Yahwism was conceived in the matrix of the Patriarchal ªEl cults, and ªEl shrines dotted the land in the era of the League. The new Canaanite influences which informed the temple cult on Zion in the late Empire and which shaped the ideology of kingship which developed especially in the Solomonic era and later, stemmed not from ªEl myths but in large part from the Baºl cult, as 59. See [[CMHE]] chapter 9 for a discussion of Nathan’s oracle in 2 Sam 7:4–6 and its significance, and for a contrast of the cultic forms and royal ideology which characterized David’s regime on the one hand and Solomon’s on the other. 60. Both Gen 14 and Ps 110 are rooted in the royal ideology not in the priestly. 61. The contemporary tradition we have in mind is, of course, the “Court History of David,” a source of unusual objectivity as well as antiquity, found in 2 Sam 9–20; 1 Kgs 1. We give only its minimal limits; the source almost certainly began earlier, including at least the primitive portion of Nathan’s prophecy in 2 Sam 7:1– 11a; most scholars add 1 Kgs 2.

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might be expected in view of the Tyrian design of the temple and its appurtenances and the dominant patterns of Canaanite kingship. The linchpin of all constructions which deny to Zadok Aaronid ancestry is the claim that Zadok is without genealogy. To be sure, the Chronicler records straightforward genealogies of Zadok tracing him through Ahitub, Amariah, Meraioth, and others, back to Eleazar and [[212]] Aaron. 62 Unhappily, the frequent repetition of names in the Zadokite genealogy 63 has led to both haplography and dittography. For example, three Azariahs (ºAzaryah/ºAzaryahu) are found in the list in 1 Chr 5:27–41, and it omits two other Azariahs known from the reigns of Uzziah and Hezekiah. 64 For the historian of Israel’s priesthood this popularity of a restricted group of names is most frustrating. In any case, the Chronicler’s genealogies have been ignored as without historical value. It is to be readily admitted that his genealogies are often secondary constructions and may be here. At the same time, the Deuteronomistic history also lists Zadok as a son of Ahitub. The passage in question is 2 Sam 8:17. 65 It has been thrown out of evidence, however, since the time of Wellhausen in favor of Wellhausen’s emendation. The passage reads in the Massoretic text of Samuel, “Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were [David’s] priests.” The parallel text in 1 Chronicles reads “and Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar. . . .” The reading Abimelech for Ahimelech (ªbymlk for ª˙ymlk) is found in only a few minuscules in 2 Sam 8:17, but Abimelech often stands as the old Greek reading in place of Ahimelech, and evidently 62. 1 Chronicles 5:27–41; cf. 6:35–38; 9:11; Ezra 7:1–5; and Neh 11:10. All these genealogies exhibit textual disarray; doublets (5:27–41) and/or haplography (6:35–38; Ezra 7:1–5); 1 Chr 9:11 (= Neh 11:10) is particularly bizarre. Cf. Möhlenbrink, “Die levitischen Überlieferungen,” 203ff., 210. 63. We do not speak here of the practice of papponymy which obtained in the Zadokite dynasty in the Persian and Hellenistic ages. On the late practice, see F. M. Cross, “Papyri of the Fourth Century b.c. from Dâliyeh,” in New Directions in Biblical Archaeology, ed. D. N. Freedman and J. C. Greenfield (New York: Doubleday, 1969), 55–56. 64. 2 Chronicles 26:20; 31:10. Cf. the high priests Jehoiada of Jehoash’s reign (2 Kgs 12:8) and Uriah of Ahaz’s reign (2 Kgs 16:10) also omitted from the Zadokite lineage. Josephus preserved a longer form of the genealogy with some corrupt names, but also with some names which appear authentic: Ourias [ªuriyah], Neria [Neriyah], Odaias [Hôdawyah]. See Josephus, Antiquities, X.152–53. 65. 1 Chronicles 18:16 is the parallel passage. Cf. also 2 Sam 20:23–26; and 1 Kgs 4:2–6.

spread is 8 points short

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was the Old Palestinian reading. 66 Wellhausen made no attempt to make a text-critical reconstruction of the corrupt text of 2 Sam 8:17. He [[213]] assumed that the Ahitub mentioned had to be the Elid despite the opposition in 1 Sam 2:30–36 between the Elidae and the house of Zadok. This merely meant that Ahitub was a mistake, not that the Ahitub in question was other than the grandson of Eli. 67 Further, since Ahimelech (or Abimelech) was the father of Abiathar and not the son (here Wellhausen is on solid ground), he proposes that the order (1) Zadok, (2) Ahitub, (3) Ahimelech, (4) Abiathar was reversed from the original order (1) Abiathar, (2) Ahimelech, (3) Ahitub, (4) Zadok. The reversal of order was due to the parti pris of an ancient Zadokite who wished Zadok to be in the first position. Wellhausen’s proposal has a beguiling symmetry but no sense. If a scribe wished to alter the sequence ªbytr bn ª˙ymlk bn ª˙y†wb wßdwq, he would have written ßdwq wªbytr bn ª˙ymlk bn ª˙y†wb (presuming he knew the meaning of the word bn, “son”). Furthermore, Wellhausen’s reconstructed text, giving no patronymic for Zadok but two generations of Abiathar’s ancestry, violates the form of this list in 2 Sam 8:16–17 and its parallels. 68 We expect a single patronymic in each case to judge from the remainder of the list of David’s cabinet (or perhaps none). If possible, the corruption of the text of 2 Sam 8:17 should be explained on the basis of ordinary text-critical principles. As recent text-critical study of the Qumrân manuscripts has shown once again, the overwhelming majority of textual differences in Hebrew and Greek manuscripts are the result of inadvertent or unconscious errors—as should have been expected. Our first approach to the crucial text then should look for an ordinary text-critical explanation of its several text forms. By text-critical means we can reach no further back than the following two ancient variants: ßdwq bn ª˙y†wb wªbytr bn ª˙ymlk ßdwq bn ª˙y†wb wªbytr bn ªbymlk 66. See 1 Sam 21:1; 22:20; 23:6; etc., etc. On the text of Chronicles as an Old Palestinian witness to the text of Samuel–Kings, see F. M. Cross, “The Contribution of the Qumran Discoveries to the Study of the Biblical Texts,” IEJ 16 (1966): 88 and references, and 93–94. Josephus also uses the form Abimelech, as is expected since his text reflected the late Palestinian tradition (the so-called Proto-Lucianic recension); cf. Josephus, Antiquities, VI.242, etc. 67. Cf. 1 Sam 14:3; 22:11, 20; 1 Kgs 2:27. 68. Cf. 2 Sam 20:23–26; and 1 Kgs 4:2–6.

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The first reading is that of the Syriac (though the Syriac text may have been revised back to this reading). 69 The second reading, better than the first perhaps, lends itself to haplography: [[214]] ßdwq bn ª˙†wb w[ªbytr bn]ªbymlk

giving rise to a text: ßdwq bn ª˙†wb wªbymlk

which in turn was further corrupted from a marginal note reading ªbytr, 70 inserted in the wrong place and filled out with bn. Wrongly placed restorations of haplographies are among the common scribal errors which can be documented, for example, by a comparison of the Qumrân manuscripts, including the three manuscripts of Samuel, with the traditional text and the Old Greek. At all events, our concern is with the reading ßadoq ben ªa˙i†ub, and this reading shows no variations in any of our texts, Hebrew or Greek. It follows the structure of the cabinet list which regularly gives name and patronymic only. Must we indeed follow Wellhausen’s lead and insist that the Ahitub here is necessarily identical with Ahitub, the grandfather of Abiathar? We have noted the fashion in which names repeat in the priestly onomasticon. It would be a small coincidence indeed for the name to belong genuinely to each genealogy, to two different priests. Certainly neither the Zadokites nor the Chronicler proposed to trace Zadok’s line through Eli in listing his father as Ahitub. There is much to commend the attachment of Zadok to the house of Aaron in Hebron and to the well-known shrine there where both David and Absalom were anointed king. 71 In 1 Chr 12:27–29 in a notice purporting to list the members of the house of Aaron who rallied to David in Hebron, a certain Jehoiada (bearing a name later popular among the Zadokites) is 69. If so, the passage in 1 Chr 18:16 (Sy) was missed for it reads ßdwk br ª˙y†wb wª˙ymlk br ªbytr. 70. The variation between ª˙ymlk and ªbymlk need give no concern. Manuscripts of different traditions tended to have one form or the other leveled through, subsequent to the corruption as the parallel texts of 2 Sam 8:17 and 1 Chr 18:16 show. The readings of 1 Chr 24:6, 31 which take Ahimelech to be the son of Abiathar are, of course, based on the corrupted text. 71. Mena˙em Haran has commented, “It seems likely that the family of Zadok originated in Hebron—the most prominent priestly city in Judah” (“Studies in the Account of the Levitical Cities, II,” JBL 80 [1961]: 161).

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listed as commander (nagid) of the Aaronid forces and with him an aide 72 named Zadok. Such a connection between David and Zadok is precisely what we should expect, [[215]] tying Zadok to David before the transfer of the capital to Jerusalem. 73 To sum up. David’s unusual choice of two chief priests, like many of his decisions relating to Israel’s new central sanctuary in Jerusalem, was based on sure diplomatic grounds; he chose a priest from each of the great, rival priestly families: Abiathar of the Shilonite house of Eli which claimed descent from Moses, Zadok from the Hebronite clan which traced its line to Aaron. 74

72. The Hebrew is naºr which often designates a subordinate official as in the expression naºr ham-melek. 73. If indeed it could be shown that the Aaronid Zadok from Hebron alluded to here were not the later high priest Zadok (although their ages appear to match) it still would indicate that Zadok was a good Aaronid name. On the list in 1 Chr 12, see G. E. Mendenhall, “The Census Lists of Numbers 1 and 26,” JBL 77 (1958): 61– 63, who dates the list to the early United Monarchy and discusses its numbers. Contrast the remarks of C. E. Hauer, “Who Was Zadok?” JBL 82 (1963): 89–94. 74. David’s “choice,” as we have termed it, was not an arbitrary decision taken in Jerusalem without preparation or prehistory. David cultivated the friendship and loyalty of Abiathar, and apparently Zadok as well, from the beginning of his rise to power.

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Justice: Perspectives from the Prophetic Tradition James L. Mays Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

[[5]] One way in which the Old Testament can be useful as Scripture is to inform our consciousness and conscience about the importance and meaning of justice for faith and life. It is urgent business for the church to be sensitized and instructed about justice. Today, and in the coming years, we are going to do our believing and deciding in the midst of a new phase in the continuing struggle over economic rights in the nation and the world. The struggle may shape our society more decisively than the struggle over civil rights. One place in the Bible where justice is very much the subject of the texts is the message of the prophets. When the theme of justice in their sayings is described and clarified it takes on resonance with the actualities of our society. [[6]] The following study attempts to uncover the relation between some features of the prophetic stance and the kinds of issues inherent in thinking about justice. Certainly, the question of what the Editors’ note: This essay is a reprint of an article first published in Int 20 (1983): 5–17. Original page numbers are provided in double brackets. Author’s note: The works that were of particular value in the preparation of this article are: K. Baltzer, “Naboth’s Weinberg (1 Kön. 21): Der Konflikt zwischen israelitischen und kanaanäischen Bodenrecht,” Wort und Dienst n.s. 8 (1965): 73ff.; H. Donner, “Die soziale Botschaft der Propheten im Lichte der Gesellschafftsordnung in Israel,” OrAnt 2 (1963): 229–45; M. Fendler, “Zur Sozialkritik des Amos,” EvT 33 (1973): 32ff.; F. Horst, “Das Eigentum nach dem Alten Testament,” in Gottes Recht (TB 12; Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1961), 203–21; H. J. Kraus, “Die prophetische Botschaft gegen das soziale Unrecht Israels,” EvT 15 (1955): 295ff.; R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw Hill / London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961). The inclusion of this essay in this volume in his honor records my pleasure and satisfaction in having had Dean McBride, a colleague of such profound learning and authentic integrity, as successor in the Cyrus W. McCormick Chair of Hebrew and Old Testament.

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prophetic view of justice implies for those who take such issues seriously is controversial. For instance, there are theologians of liberation who are reading the Bible with a Marxian hermeneutic and claiming the prophets as authority for the abolition of private property, capital, profit, inherited wealth, and for the creation of a socialist society. Whatever reservations one must have about the method and reasoning in a work like José Miranda’s Marx and the Bible, it is an interpretation of the prophets for the Latin American context of such authentic passion and involvement that to ignore its challenge is to involve oneself in a kind of betrayal of the prophetic tradition. Surely, it raises the question for all who attribute some authority to the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament: “How do we understand the prophets in our social context,” a question which is hardly without its own grave and threatening problems. In concentrating on the theme of justice, one is being quite selective within the materials. However important the theme is, it does not nearly exhaust the agenda of the prophetic vocation. Their persistent attack on apostasy and idolatry, to name only one other item, is thus set aside when its relevance to idolatrous faith in economic and political ideologies, both in the territories of communism and free enterprise, is crucial. For the sake of concentration, the source material is limited to the eighth-century prophets of Judah. It is in their sayings that the prophetic stance on justice receives its classic expression. They share a background of assumptions and circumstances which make a kind of overview possible, where Hosea, for instance, would have to be treated as a special case.

Justice in the Prophetic Vocabulary Justice is a term used in three different spheres of discourse. It appears in the language of the public speaker, the one who proclaims, exhorts, criticizes. In such speaking its meaning and value are assumed. Justice is also the subject of analysis by the philosopher who seeks to uncover its coherence within itself as an idea and also with social reality. The term also belongs to the activity of the legislator in formulating particular rules for the social order and to the jurist who is responsible for their administration. The prophets belong to the first order of discourse, and that is why their use of the word “justice” is so compelling in its immediacy and often so tantalizing in its assumptions. They hurl the word out in their messages, as though it were self-evident what it means, never lingering to analyze, justify, or explain. For them, the term seems to effect its own communica-

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tions. Of course, the word has a basic currency in all language systems of the Western culture—mispa†, dike, justitia, justice, Recht. [[7]] Whatever the verbal shape, it connotes a complex of meanings like equal, fair, right, good, which, however modulated, constitute a focus of value that is understood to be essential to social well-being. Something portentous is happening when someone in a society insists on placing justice at the top of the value scale and persists in making it the primary agenda of concern. That activity alone calls in question all the other priorities and sets a criterion against every form of social process. It raises a question whether goals and practices dominant in the crucial places where a society’s life is ordered do correspond in any sense to the broad intentional connotation of the word. Imagine someone rising at the conclusion of morning worship in the First Presbyterian Church and beginning to cry, “Justice! Justice!”; or as a candidate for the presidency completed a speech and was about to leave the podium; or in a courtroom immediately after the judge had delivered his decision. The word can have a variety of definitions and imply different principles, but it has an inner core of meaning that is specific. Where someone cries out for justice, all hear in that word a claim that something has gone wrong in the relation between a society and its members. The eighth-century prophets spoke at times in such a way and the best known of their sayings belong to such occasions. Amos spoke to a festival assembly at the royal sanctuary at Bethel, using the divine first person style: I hate, I despise your feasts. I find no satisfaction in your solemn assemblies. . . . Offer me your animals and grain as sacrifice, but I will not accept them. To peace offerings of your fatted bullocks I will not respond. Take the noise of your songs away from me. I will not listen to the music from your harps. Let justice roll down like waters, righteousness like an unfailing stream. (Amos 5:21–24, author’s trans.)

Righteousness expressed in justice is the indispensable qualification for worship—no justice, no acceptable public religion. Isaiah, in the public square of Jerusalem, sang a song about a vineyard that belonged to his friend. The friend spared no effort, the song says, to make the vineyard fruitful—and indeed it did bear fruit—but the grapes were

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bitter and useless. The song was, in fact, a parable of God’s relation to his people. The concluding lines interpret the parable and make its point: [[8]] For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant planting, He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; righteousness, but behold, a cry for help! (Isa 5:7)

The entire history of Israel under God is subordinated to one purpose— righteousness expressed in justice. Micah, provoked by prophets who tailored their oracles to the wealth of their clientele, speaks of his own vocation: As for me, I am filled with power, and justice, and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. (Mic 3:8, author’s trans.)

To cry “justice” was to disclose the condition of the society in which he lived. These three sayings exhibit the priority of justice for the prophets. They also point to several basic aspects of the way the notion is understood. First, justice is, in their vocabulary, a theological term. Its priority is rooted in their knowledge of Israel’s God, who is himself just and requires justice of people. They would not have been satisfied with any theory of its significance which lacked a confessional dimension and did not reckon it to be inherent in divine reality. They were ready to lay their lives on the line and to live with the expectation that the end of their nation’s existence was in prospect because of their confidence that justice is rooted in God himself. Second, justice was, in their language, a moral value. It frequently appears in synonymous relation with “righteousness.” Righteousness is a quality of intention and act, a characteristic of persons. It is present when a person tries to fulfill the possibilities of given or assumed relationships in a way that is fair and favorable to others. To do justice, they said, is to love good, to prefer that which makes for life. It is to hate evil, to avoid that which diminishes life. Because it was for them such a moral value, its absence would disclose a radical flaw in the whole character of a person or institution of people. It was not a separable item that could be isolated from total existence. And third, justice, in their view, could be done. It was possible to act justly in the courts and in the economy. If they had not believed this, their

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criticism of their contemporaries and the judgment they announced upon them would have made no sense. Without a hint of utopian fanaticism, they assumed that concrete acts and decisions and policies which expressed justice were attainable.

The Social Context These general features are constant dimensions of the way the prophets spoke about justice. But the notion will remain abstract and nebulous unless [[9]] we learn the answers to further and more particular questions. What was it in their society that provoked them to cry “justice”? What was the nature of the social crisis which they addressed? What can be said about the content and structure of their notion of justice? What criteria mark the good society for them? Do they deal with questions like the relation between law and value? Do they have definable positions on matters like property and wealth? Do they differentiate between members of their society and take up an advocacy role for some? Did they favor some process of social change? To gain some purchase on answers to questions like these, one must examine the sayings in which the prophets confront circumstances in Israel’s society which they identify as the contradiction of the justice they have in mind. There is a consistency in their sayings, a singleness of focus which makes it possible to sketch a general and summarizing description of what they indict. Their primary point of attack was clearly an economic development. The problem was the ownership of land and the benefits and rights that went with it in Israelite society. Land was being accumulated in estates and used as a basis for status and to generate surplus wealth. Those who lost their land were deprived of status and material support. They had to become slaves or wage laborers to live. The leverage employed was the administrative apparatus of the monarchy and of the courts, where all social conflict in Israel was settled. The rights of the widow, the fatherless, and the weak to protection against the economic process were widely ignored. The result was a growing differentiation between rich and poor. In some studies of the social history of Israel, this development has been called “early capitalism.” Using that rubric can introduce ideological argument, but there are reasons for using it: the shift of the primary social good, land, from the function of support to that of capital; the reorientation of social goals from personal values to economic profit; the subordination

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of judicial process to the interests of the entrepreneur. The development had a long history, but there is a respectable amount of evidence to indicate its real bases were laid—one might say institutionalized—with the introduction of monarchy into Israel as a system of government. When the prophets spoke of justice, they frequently addressed specific groups whom they called “officials,” “chiefs or heads,” “leaders,” “elders,” all titles for persons who had roles of authority and power in the social and administrative structure of Judah and Israel. Some of the titles referred to offices that were present in Israel’s premonarchical society but had been integrated into the governing apparatus of the monarchy. Others were created to extend the competence of the crown. Kings had appropriated land for the partial support of this administrative class, but they were left to some degree to manage their own support. They needed a basic capital to allow them to serve the crown. As officials, they also had the [[10]] opportunity to gain from international trade. Their emergence created a group who had a vested interest in the accumulation of land and goods as capital. They were not originally an economic class, but they soon became one. From the viewpoint of social and economic history, what happened would seem expected and explicable, the expression of forces which belonged to Israel’s national development in the land they had settled. Certainly from the viewpoint of the addressees of many of the prophetic oracles (we hear echoes of their opinions in the tradition itself), the development was legal and desirable, indeed essential to Israel’s emergence as an efficient and competent state. But to Amos, Isaiah, and Micah, it was a crisis. It was the specific social and economic actuality against which they cried out “Justice”!

Land as Inheritance and Possession The central material issue of the crisis was land and its ownership. The traditional economy of Israel was one based on small farms held by nuclear kinship groups living in towns around which agricultural plots were spread. The families had access also to certain common public territory for grazing and water. The life-support system of most of the population depended on these two foundations. Security and freedom were derived from a relatively inclusive distribution of the two. An unfavorable redistribution of the land was the primary target of the prophetic indictment. At times it is plainly stated:

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Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, Until there is no more space and you alone dwell as full citizens in the midst of the land (Isa 5:8–10; cf. Mic 2:1–2)

Many of their sayings which do not mention land are dealing with ways in which this redistribution was brought about and with its results. In this context the prophets appear to be advocates of the private ownership of property as the right of all Israelites and as unyielding opponents of any restriction of that right. The claim that the prophets authorize the abolition of private property is simply mistaken. On the other hand, property did not have in their world the meaning or function it assumes in much contemporary argument for unqualified capitalism. For them, an Israelite’s ownership of land was not to be founded and managed on purely economic bases. They shared a theological tradition which saw the land as constitutive of the integrity of a citizen’s existence. The tradition was expressed in two terms used for individually held land. The first was inheritance. This notion belongs to the theological interpretation of the settlement and its memory of the way in which each family had come by its land. [[11]] They had received it in a sacral ceremony of dividing and assigning portions, a cultic way of recognizing that the land was not theirs as a people but came to them as the gift of their God. God was the real Lord and owner of the land, and they were his tenants. Their portion was the sacrament of their place and right in his territory. It was their inheritance from God. To lose their inheritance was tantamount to losing their identity as a member of the people and the privileges that went with that identity. The right and obligation to participate in the legal assemblies, to act in common ventures such as defense, to be present representatively at the festivals, were all grounded in the inheritance. The significance of the inheritance was the crux of the matter in the famous case of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kgs 21). The king, Ahab, wanted it, offered generous terms for its purchase only to be met by Naboth’s protest that the vineyard was his “inheritance” and should not be sold. It was only by the strategy of legal assassination engineered by Queen Jezebel, a Canaanite who knew how to manage such things, that Ahab secured the vineyard. The deed was denounced by Elijah with a sentence from God that was fulfilled with gruesome precision. The other term was possession, another word laden with the memory of faith. The Israelites remembered that the land had come into their posses-

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sion as the climax and outcome of the history of deliverance. They had begun as slaves to a tyranny whose oppression had brutally reduced their lives to the level of an economic resource. By the exodus and the possession of the land, they were delivered, transferred from the service of Pharaoh to the service of God. Their possession of the land was the sign of salvation. By it the will of God to have free people on free land bound only to loyalty and obedience to his sole majesty was made possible. Every year at the harvest festival, the landowning Israelite took the first fruit of his ground to the shrine, announced to the priest, “I declare this day to the Lord your God that I have come into the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us” (Deut 26:3). Then he would recite the creed of the history of deliverance and conclude: “And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground which thou, O Lord, hast given me” (Deut 26:10). When a family lost their land, all that was lost. The land was not only the basic economic good in society, essential to well-being, but it also bestowed identity; it was the instrument of participation in the society as an equal, the foundation of freedom. For the prophets, then, the right to acquire land was qualified and limited by its social role and theological significance. A share in ownership of the basic economic good was a corollary to membership in the society. A free participation in economic power by all citizens was to be maintained and protected. For the ownership of land to become the basis of power for one citizen over another was a perversion of its purpose.

The Conflict of Legality and Righteousness [[12]] The central political issue of the crisis was the administration of justice. The courts, the local assembly in the gate of each town and the legal apparatus created by the monarchy, were crucial social institutions because, through them, the conflicts of all kinds in Israel’s society were settled. The eighth-century prophets turned repeatedly to the problem of what was happening in the courts. Amos, on the court in the gate: Woe to those who change justice into bitter poison and discard righteousness. Who hate the advocate of the right, and despise him who speaks with integrity. (Amos 5:7, 10)

Isaiah, on the royal administration of justice in Jerusalem:

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How the faithful city has become a harlot, she that was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. . . . Your officials are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s case is not heard. (Isa 1:21–26)

Micah spoke to the same audience in chapter 3, verses one through three. These bitter indictments were provoked by two problems in the judicial sphere. The first was conflict about the administration of justice in Israel’s normative tradition itself. There were two distinct types of guidelines which bore on the process of deliberating and deciding in the courts. The first was a body of rules for deciding cases. These rules defined a case, stipulated how the court should rule, and often listed qualifications. They were law in the technical sense. Though they were transmitted largely as oral customary law, they represented for that culture what institutionalized law does for us—the accepted, established rules of order to give social process a consistent and regulated complex of norms. Israel shared such legal customs with the general culture to which it belonged and probably assimilated them in their absorption of Canaanite cultural tradition during the first centuries of its life in Palestine. These legal customs dealt with criminal and civil affairs and covered such matters as property, liability, debt. During the early years of the monarchy, this body of customary law would have been overlaid and expanded by powers to tax, impress for work, and appropriate land for the needs of the state and its officialdom. The law was secular and neutral, free of terms of value or [[13]] appeal to faith, simply statements of what had been established as the accepted way to settle cases. Alongside this customary law there was another body of normative tradition which was value-laden and intensely theological. Its typical forms were the command and the exhortation, and it was usually expressed as the words of God himself. It was interwoven with appeals to Israel’s history of salvation, couched as arguments from the way God had dealt with Israel as analogies for the way in which Israelites had to deal with all who lived in their society. To this second tradition belong such sentences as “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him for you were strangers in

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Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan; if you do . . . I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall flame up. . . . If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be to him as a creditor. . . . You shall not pervert the justice due to the poor in his suit. . . .” Every collection of normative material preserved in the Old Testament as what have been called codes of law (which they are not) is interwoven with this second kind of material. We must be clear that these collections do not represent official codifications of the state. They were the work of those who were attempting to bring the first type under interpretative control of the second. The best name for the commandments is “rules of righteousness.” Their function explains why the prophets usually speak of justice and righteousness. So, the problem the prophets saw in the judicial practices of their time was not a failure of law. What was happening—the extraction of taxes and fines, enforcement of creditors’ rights, foreclosure on land and crops, commitment of persons to bond servitude and slavery—was permitted and ordered under the customary laws that applied. It was “legal” in the sense of that word appropriate to their culture. But, by the criterion of the values they held and the social goals to which they believed Israel was committed, it was unrighteous and, therefore, a travesty of justice. Justice was a notion that was defined by values of personal intention and social consequences. Here a sentence of Paul Lehmann applies: “Justice is the foundation and the criterion of law; law is not the foundation and criterion of justice.” The prophets were a classic case of the conflict of law and value, of institutional order and justice. The second problem in the judicial sphere can be described simply. Justice was being commercialized. The courts were not immune to the circumstances they were being used to create. As wealth grew and the difference between the rich and the rest became more pronounced, it happened that those who were rich could afford more justice than the others. Micah spoke of the corruption of judges by the love of money. Amos spoke of bribes. Isaiah said all officials run after fees. The correlation between the degree of justice available and the economic resources at one’s disposal is a phenomenon which did not vanish [[14]] with the end of the ancient Near East. The rules of righteousness called for a justice of equity that went beyond an evenhanded fairness to uphold and protect precisely those who could not afford justice. But such a practice of law requires righteous people for whom the social well-being of others is a higher priority than gain.

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Wealth and Wickedness It is against this background of what was occurring in the distribution of the basic economic good and in access to rights to protection and redress that the prophetic stance on other social problems is to be understood. Consider the question of wealth, for instance. Wealth, the pursuit of it and the possession of it, is a subject that appears repeatedly in prophetic indictments. Amos painted a verbal picture of a group who built houses of hewn stone and owned large vineyards, kept summer and winter places, collected furniture inlaid with ivory, were gourmets who fancied the best meat and wine. Both he and Isaiah satirized perfumed and bejeweled women who pestered their husbands for more and more and a leisure class who were heroes at drinking wine and famous for lavish entertainment. Micah accused the leaders and professionals, including priests and prophets, of the complete prostitution of their vocations to the lust for wealth. The prophets were not primitivists or puritans. They were not members of one economic class at war against another. In all their diatribes there is not the slightest hint of an ideological rejection of prosperity in one’s livelihood or of the pleasure that comes with well-being and well-doing. They saw no virtue in the poor or in being poor; quite the contrary. In fact, Amos seems to have been a successful sheep-breeder; Isaiah belonged to the upper circles of Jerusalem’s urban society. But there was a kind and degree of wealth which they held to be incompatible with justice, and the nature of its incompatibility can be inferred from the way in which they describe it. If its acquisition and possession cost the economic freedom and welfare of others, they called it violence and oppression. If it fostered conspicuous consumption at a level of luxury that was enjoyed in heedless unconcern for the needs of others, it was wrong. If it was gained by violation of the rules of righteousness which set the values of personal relations above profit, it was iniquitous. If wealth became the dominant motivation of those responsible for social well-being because they held power, that was sin.

The Weak and the Poor The motif in the social sayings of the prophets that is probably best known is their concern for the weak and the poor. The specific topic “the fatherless and widow,” a specialty of Isaiah, belongs to this motif. The vocabulary of [[15]] words and expressions with which the prophets spoke of

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this concern were traditional locutions rooted in an older phase of cultural history when basic social units were kinship groups like the clan. In such groups there would always be some who, by reason of misfortune or handicap, were unable to maintain their own support and status in the group. The situation of a nuclear family that had lost its husband and father was particularly desperate. The narrative of Ruth is a famous illustration. In the ethos of the kinship society, a high value and obligation were set on protection and help for the weak and poor; and a variety of provisions for them was customary and honored. When Israel’s society changed in the course of its history, the poor and the weak were the most vulnerable. Because the social organism in which they had a place was vanishing, they were in danger of neglect and oppression. Their cause was taken up and stated in the rules of righteousness which, in effect, attempted to make this dimension of a largely personal culture normative for one that was increasingly commercial. It was a valiant effort to transfer family values to the larger society. Perhaps all that needs to be said of the prophets in this matter is that they made the treatment of the poor and the weak the functional criterion of a just society. Let Isaiah speak for all the rest in this saying: The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and officials of his people: “It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?” says the Lord God of hosts. (Isa 3:14–15)

In the prophetic oracles which broach this issue, it is apparent that principles of justice like “To each according to his merit” or “To each according to his societal contribution” or “Similar treatment for similar cases” are not adequate. The justice they advocated must be capable of exception, of responsiveness to the individual’s needs, of an estimate of worth based on the simple existence of a person.

Justice, Repentance, and Judgment These are the primary dimensions of prophetic speech about justice. It is important to remember the actual circumstance to which their sayings were addressed so that they can be heard in the context which shaped their language. That is necessary because, otherwise, their words may

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seem to be generalities. It is important for us to perceive that they struggled with concrete and difficult problems. That lends their stance greater power as an example. Their faith in justice was a value rooted in the ultimate reality behind all social [[16]] history and their calling to make it the highest priority in a people’s understanding of its common life is an example which no subsequent era has rendered irrelevant. It is true that anchoring the discussion in their environment highlights the distance between the crisis of early capitalism in Israel and the vastly more complex national and international economy whose problems confront us. There are in their sayings no solutions, no programs, no detailed approaches which can be directly appropriated and applied to our problems. In fact, of course, they themselves advocated no program of new laws or administrative correction. Nor do we hear from them any call for revolution, for the overthrow of the existing order in favor of something else, no summons to one class to seize power. What we do hear in their proclamation is the articulation of a notion of justice whose essential structure and content have a cogency beyond their time and place. Put in a general and concise way, it says: All citizens should have a share in the control of the society’s basic economic good as the instrument of their status, access to rights, and freedom. The administration of order should protect and support this distribution against economic and political processes that erode it. Institutional law should be subject to interpretation and correction by the worth of persons and moral values. Wealth which prejudices the welfare and rights of others is unjust. Treatment of the least favored in the society is the fundamental criterion of the achievement of justice. The significance of such a notion as norm and goal for every society in contemporary world history would be difficult to deny. In the matter of what should and would happen because of the violation of justice, they made two appeals. The first was to the faith and conscience of their audience. They saw little evidence of such faith and conscience in their audience, but they, nonetheless, demand: “Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isa 1:16–17). Each of these little imperative sentences is a call to righteousness. They assume it is possible for people to change when they are confronted with a contrast between what they do and the way of righteousness. The powerful could use power in concern for the welfare and rights of others. The courts could uphold justice. The cause of the poor could be recognized and met. The social instruments at

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hand could serve the love of good. It would not be a perfect society, but no society escapes the character of the people who shape and control it. However it may be organized, in the long last its quality would depend on people who knew what was required: to do justice, to love mercy, and to live in awareness of one’s limitations and dependence. There is a certain naïvité in that position. But where that naïvité is lost, the only alternative is a society based on the self-justification of whoever can seize and hold power. So the naïvité is a kind of realism. [[17]] The other appeal of the prophets was to history. They believed in and announced the judgment of God. There is no question that this second appeal was more central to their mission than the first. They looked for a tangible and terrible intervention from outside, a corrective catastrophe which bore the wrath and purpose of God. It would displace those who misused power, dissolve wealth and luxury gained from oppression, interrupt the continuity and institutionalization of injustice, and clear the ground for a fresh beginning. Amos looked for an end of the northern state as an expression of Israel’s existence. Isaiah foresaw a purging and cleansing of Jerusalem. Micah expected the elimination of the entire cadre of officials and leaders along with their estates and power. It is in their absolute certainty of a divine judgment which would break through and break up the dominance of injustice in Israel society that the true radicalism of the prophets lies. It is just this concentration on the two alternative words, these two not exclusive but interdependent words about the future of the unjust society, the appeal to conviction and conscience, and the appeal to divine judgment, that leaves one in embarrassment before the prophets. For those who intend to recognize some authority in them in a purely moral sense or to recognize the authority behind them in a religious sense, they create a predicament. They do not fit any of the roles we usually play. The prophets were not ethicists or theologians or interpreters and did not go about their task in the way we pursue ours, no matter how we may share their concern for justice. Their certainty about the meaning and measure of justice in their society, about the possibility that power and justice can be united, about the intervention of God to maintain his sovereignty—these certainties are not often features of our role, nor do they offer us models congruent with the options for public action which we credit as viable. They were not social reformers or political activists or revolutionaries, certainly not conservatives or reactionaries. Their concentration on the demand for change in the lives of people and their trust in the work of God

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in overturning the old impossibilities to make way for the new was too unrelieved. Perhaps it is just this embarrassment and predicament which bears their authority and meaning to us as we play our own roles and create or choose our own models. The embarrassment can take the form of a word that addresses our conscience and summons us to find the roles which take the word in ultimate seriousness in our time. That the prophetic tradition should work as such a word would vindicate the faith of those who created and preserved it. “For it has been shown you, O human, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8, author’s trans.).

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Polities in Genesis 12–36 David L. Petersen Emory University

When one thinks of polity—and by that I mean political/communal organization—and the Hebrew Bible, the book of Genesis does not normally come immediately to mind. All the other pentateuchal books offer very overt prescriptions about what it meant for the people of Yahweh to function in a corporate manner. The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy seem to reflect a view of the people as being grounded in covenant and founded with a constitution, which is preeminently present in the book of Deuteronomy. 1 Genesis is bereft of such language. To be sure, covenants are present in Genesis—most notably those associated with Noah (Gen 9) and Abraham (Gen 15; 17). 2 The former involves all humankind; the latter is a promissory note regarding progeny and land. And though each covenant contains strictures (each of which involves blood—the prohibition of the consumption of blood [Gen 9:4]; the requirement of circumcision [17:10]), these covenants do not create the organization of a community, as do the Sinai covenant and the covenant on the plains of Moab. So, at the outset, one must be clear about whether speaking of polity in Genesis involves a search for a chimera. In this essay, I will argue that the authors of Genesis are firmly aware of several polities, but these writers describe such polities rather than prescribe them. Moreover, they insist that one form of political organization is characteristic of nascent Israel, that of the family.

Author’s note: This essay is dedicated with deep gratitude to Dean McBride, teacher and friend. 1. On which see S. Dean McBride, “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy,” Int 41 (1987): 229–44, which is reprinted in this volume, pp. 17–33. 2. See now idem, “Divine Protocol: Genesis 1:1–2:3 as Prologue to the Pentateuch,” in God Who Creates: Essays in Honor of W. Sibley Towner (ed. William P. Brown, S. Dean McBride, Jr.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 3–41.

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The Notion of an Israel In the book of Genesis, the family of Terah (Gen 11:27) is rarely, if ever, viewed as a polity like other people. Even collective language about this patrilineage is rare. One searches in vain for terms such as “people” (µ[). The only direct claim occurs at the very end of the book: “God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (Gen 50:20). The noun µ[ does, of course, appear in the mortuary formulas, “x was gathered to his people” (Gen 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:33). Similarly, the phrase “sons of Israel” (larcy ynb) is relatively unimportant. Apart from the etiological formula in Gen 32:32, in no other case does the phrase “sons of Israel” unambiguously signify Israel as a collectivity instead of, literally, Jacob’s sons. The closest one comes to such a collective notion appears, again, at the end of the book, “So Joseph made the sons of Israel/Israelites swear . . .” (Gen 50:25). And here again, the phrase might simply refer to Jacob’s own sons. There is, of course, a “narrative” reason for the absence of such a phrase. “Israel” does not come onto the scene until Jacob, as Israel, appears in the narrative (Gen 32:28). But even thereafter, even when the phrase “sons of Israel” occurs, it almost certainly refers rather literally to the sons of Jacob and not to a collectivity that might be termed Israel. After “Israel” appears as a character, and apart from the aforementioned etiological formula, the phrase “sons of Israel” occurs three more times in Genesis (42:5; 45:21; 46:8). The first two texts patently refer literally to the sons of Jacob who are traveling to Egypt. The third text is more ambiguous, due to its formulaic character. Genesis 46:8 reads, “These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt. . . .” One might construe this as a statement referring to the agglomeration of all those who came from Canaan to Egypt. However, the analogous formulas (in Gen 25:8, “these are the names of the sons of Ishmael”; in Gen 36:10, “these are the names of the sons of Esau,” with the sons then being named individually) clearly suggest that Gen 46:8 also refers to the sons sired by Jacob, not to the entire family. One might claim that, apart from the etiological formula in Gen 32:32, the only instance in which the phrase larcy ynb occurs and means Israel generally, not simply the sons of Jacob, is Gen 36:31, which stands virtually at the boundary of the family stories. And this is a telling reference: “These are the kings who reigned in Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.” The language of larcy ynb is really the language of a collec-

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tive as it emerges in the book of Exodus and continues throughout the period of the monarchy. But that vocabulary is not at home in the book of Genesis, which prefers the language of lineage and genealogy. When one moves beyond the boundary of the family stories and into the Joseph narrative, something new appears. The noun larcy serves a dual purpose. It can, of course, refer to the patriarch Jacob. This is its most frequent usage. However, it can also, for the first time, refer to the collectivity of the people: “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; and they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied exceedingly” (47:27); “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel” (Gen 49:16); “all these are the twelve tribes of Israel. . . .” (Gen 49:28). Near the end of the book of Genesis, new political diction has emerged: “Israel” as a name for a people. The filial phrase “sons of Israel” has given way to more abstract language. Hence it becomes appropriate to ask: are there other ways in which this family or people might be described rather than by familial language? And there is an answer, of course: the term “Hebrew” (yrb[). Yet here again, we find that this term appears prominently only in the story of Joseph, and primarily in the speech of Egyptians about these Hebrews (39:14, 17; 40:15; 41:12; 43:32). The only other time that the term “Hebrew” occurs is in the “red herring” of the family stories, Gen 14 (14:13). There, we hear about “Abram the Hebrew.” 3 It is striking that the authors of Genesis do not have members of the Terah patrilineage use this term to describe themselves. The term yrb[ refers less to an ethnic or political identity than to a social class at the fringes of a given society. Hence, the term may not have borne particularly favorable connotations, a situation that would have discouraged its use by some Israelite writers. Finally, one should take account of ways in which the term “nation” (ywg) is used. Abraham (12:2; 17:4) and Jacob (46:3) and two of Joseph’s sons—Ephraim and Manasseh (48:19) are promised that they will become a nation. And other men receive this promise as well: Ishmael (17:20);

3. Genesis 14 presents a political world very different from the one depicted elsewhere in the familial stories. In addition, the chapter bears minimal literary affinities with the other narratives in Gen 12–36. Many scholars date Gen 14 to the postexilic era, for example, Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36: A Commentary (Continental Commentaries; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985), 192–93; E. Theodore Mullen, Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations: A New Approach to the Formation of the Pentateuch (SemeiaSt; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 133.

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Jacob and Esau (25:23). Here the authors of Genesis recognize that Israel will indeed exist in a national polity, as do other nations. However, that existence remains for the future. Israel is not yet a nation from the perspective of the book of Genesis. This brief overview of the language and concepts that might permit one to construe Israel as a collectivity in Genesis is revealing. None of the terms—µ[, larcy ynb, ywg, yrb[—is prominent in this literature. Instead, the vocabulary tends toward the familial, for example, “sons of Jacob” (Gen 49:2). In Genesis, Israel is preeminently the lineage of Terah, through the families of Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebekah; and Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. 4

Other Peoples Genesis 12–36 is acutely aware of people other than Israel. There are many reasons for this situation. According to Gen 12:1–3, God’s directive to Abraham involves not only his own fate but also the fate of his descendants along with the fate of “all the families of the earth.” These descendants are to comprise a “company of peoples” (Gen 28:3; 48:4), some of which, one may presume, are other than what may be labeled Israel. Yet, despite the overt consanguinity between Israel and these other peoples, the self-referential language about Israel distinguishes it from other polities. Whereas other entities may be construed as collectivities in Genesis—Hittites (tj ynb, 23:2, 5), Ammonites (ˆwµ[ ynb, 19:38), or easterners (µdq ynb, 29:1)—language about Israelites (larcy ynb) is, as we have seen, inconsequential in Genesis. Even though Israel is not described as a national polity, other entities certainly are. The list is remarkable when compared with the absence of such language about Israel. The world of the family stories knows peoples described in various ways. There are the so-called “gentilic” formulations: Amorite (Gen 14:13), Canaanite (24:3), Perizzite (13:7), Horite (36:10), Amalekite (14:7), Hittite (21:10), Aramean (31:20), Hivite (34:2), Kenite (15:19), Kenizite (15:19), Kadmonite (15:19), Girgashite (15:21), and Jebusite (15:21). There are nations: Egypt (16:1) and Philistia (21:33). Citystates are attested: Sodom, Gomorrah, and Shechem. Groups that derive from the Terah lineage but then leave it abound: Moab (19:37), Ammon 4. On the importance of construing this family as the patrilineage of Terah, see Naomi A. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage: A Household Economics Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

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(19:38), Edom (36:8), and the Ishmaelites (25:13). In poetic texts (e.g., Gen 27:9), we find references to both “people” (µ[) and “nation” (ywg). The book of Genesis clearly is aware of the existence of imperial, national, urban, and ethnic collectivities apart from the family of Terah. Moreover, the just-cited rhetoric seems designed to distinguish this family from these groups. 5 The authors of these stories know that this family will develop a polity comparable to other entities, namely, as a nation, but this does not occur in the world within which Terah’s patrilineage is called and works out its early history (Gen 12–36).

Multiple Polities: Divine and Human The book of Genesis does evidence the discourse of polity, even as it distinguishes Israel from other political structures. In fact, the first book of the Hebrew Bible depicts several different polities. There are at least three such communal orders. First, there is the heavenly polity, the divine council, which functions prominently in the primeval history. It is a royal polity. The deity functions as king amid his many courtiers, the minor deities. The deity speaks and acts out of the context of the divine court on several noteworthy occasions. The “let us” language (1:26; 3:22; 11:7) reflects the discourse of the divine council, as we know it in other contexts (1 Kgs 22; Job 1–2). Moreover, the very notion of the divine image (Gen 1:26–27) itself reflects royal, though democratized, rhetoric. 6 The divine polity is even, on one occasion, out of control (Gen 6:1–4). Nonetheless, this polity remains distinctly royal, subject to the edict (Gen 6:3) of the deity as sovereign. Second, there are foreign polities. The most overt description of a polity other than Israel—that of pharaonic Egypt—appears in the Joseph short story. But the awareness that Egypt has a pharaoh and Israel does not marks the very beginning of the family stories (Gen 12:10–20). Still, the biblical authors make clear that the patrilineage of Terah can interact successfully with this polity, even function within it à la Joseph. But the 5. See the recent interpretation of S. Dean McBride, “Israel’s corporate identity takes shape interactively, through its ancestral connections with and differentiation from other ethnic and political entities that occupy the wider world over which the creator remains sovereign” (“Divine Protocol,” 23). 6. On which, see Phyllis Bird, “Male and Female He Created Them: Gen 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation,” HTR 74 (1981): 129–59; McBride, “Divine Protocol,” 16–17.

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ways of this polity remain different from the patterns of power of the Israelites as they are conveyed in the Genesis narratives. Some scholars have suggested that, through its depiction of pharaonic Egypt, Israel is exploring its own identity as a monarchy. Claus Westermann contended: The listener in the early period of the monarchy can recognize at once that the narrative of Joseph and his brothers is embedded in the patriarchal stories, and that the story of the patriarch Jacob continues there. But this continuation is no longer part of the patriarchal story. With Joseph’s transition to the Pharaoh’s court, the narrator indicates two paths which the history of Israel has followed, the period of the patriarchs and the period of the kings. He wants to say something in them about this transition, and the listener finds it at the end of the narrative, confirmed in the key sentence which brings the family history and the events at the court of Pharaoh together under the action of God. 7

To this assessment, one should respond in several ways. First, it is certainly true that whoever wrote the Joseph short story knew that Israel had existed as a monarchy. Second, it is not at all clear that the narrative transition from familial stories to the Joseph short story offers reflection about the transition from a premonarchic political order to monarchic rule in Israel. The narrative simply does not address this issue explicitly. 8 Third, Israel’s own story depicts a period—that of the so-called judges—that came immediately before the inception of monarchy. This is the critical point of transition: the chaotic state of affairs at the end of the book of Judges, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” ( Judg 21:25). The Joseph story does not reflect this transitional moment. So, the Egyptian political order remains just that—an utterly different system from the system in ancient Israel. Israelites knew about and may have admired Egypt’s polity, but, when describing it in the book of Genesis, the Israelite authors were not reflecting about their own experience with or judgments about their own monarchies, whether in Israel or Judah. 7. Claus Westermann, Genesis 37–50: A Commentary (Continental Commentaries; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 246. 8. One might claim that implicitly Israel knew that it had been saved from starvation due to the royal system in Egypt. However, in the section of the Joseph narrative that describes the manner in which lives were saved by Joseph’s machinations, the author focuses on the saving of the Egyptians (47:25), not of Israel. Israel, in contrast, seems to have flourished in the region of Goshen (47:27).

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Egypt is not the only other foreign polity of which Israel is aware. As we have just seen, Israel knows about the existence of many different peoples. They are depicted using different language than Israel uses about itself. Further, Israel knows these entities act out of different polities. They are often construed as monarchies or chiefdoms, rarely if ever as lineages, which is the primary way in which Israel construes itself. Third, and especially important for our purposes, are the polities described in the so-called family stories. There is a familial polity in Gen 12– 36. Perhaps most striking, Israel functions in one way within itself and another when dealing with other polities. On the one hand, Gen 12–36 conveys a world in which the patrilineage of Terah orders its own life. This is a world of Abraham and Lot, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Esau, Jacob and Laban—and the difficult and complex situations that these individuals confront. It is a world as full of disagreement and strife as the world that exists beyond these genealogical boundaries. However, the texts that depict this world offer processes of decision-making and economic transaction that differ from those outside that world. There is a political order in this world—a polity—that is specific to this family universe. Several behaviors occur in these stories that do not exist outside it. First, negotiation is a hallmark of behavior inside the patrilineage. Abraham and Lot confront a situation in which there is “strife” (byr) between their herders. One could imagine a situation that involved the use of force. However, Abraham and Lot negotiate a settlement to their respective claims on land (Gen 13). In another case, Abraham is confronted with a difficult situation when Hagar is pregnant. His conversation with Sarah, in which he gives her the power to resolve the situation, should also be viewed as a negotiated settlement. Jacob, too, is presented as one who undertakes negotiation. When he returns from exile and is confronted by Esau, he is faced with a dangerous confrontation. Esau had a major contingent, Jacob a far smaller band. However, in the dialogue between these two brothers, Jacob manages yet again to outwit the more powerful party. Esau had wanted to keep a contingent of his party with Jacob, whereas Jacob (“Why should my lord be so kind?”) poses a question that Esau cannot answer successfully. As a result, he is able “safely” to move on to Shechem, having surmounted the potentially murderous assault of his aggrieved brother. This narrative between Jacob and Esau includes a second element featured in the polity of these family interactions: the presentation of a gift. There are at least three instances of gift-giving in the family stories, possibly

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four. The most obvious examples occur as part of the mission of Abraham’s servant and the confrontation between Jacob and Esau. As for the first, Abraham’s servant departs for the ancestral land with “choice gifts from his master” (Gen 24:10). During the course of the story, we learn that he presents a portion of these gifts directly to the woman (Rebekah), whom he encounters at the well. Then, after the servant had presented his case, he “brought out jewelry of silver and of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; and also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments” (24:53). (N.B., these gifts do not constitute a “bride-price” paid to the family, since many of the gifts remained with Rebekah and, presumably, became part of the estate held by Isaac and Rebekah.) The gift clearly establishes specific relations within the patrilineage of Terah—between the households of Abraham and Bethuel—such that a marriage between Isaac and Rebekah may be achieved. 9 The familial setting of the gifting that takes place in Gen 32 is equally clear. The text bears citation: So he spent that night there, and from what he had with him, he took a present (hjnm) for his brother Esau, two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. These he delivered into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me, and put a space between drove and drove.” He instructed the foremost, “When Esau my brother meets you, and asks you ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob; they are a present sent to my lord Esau; and moreover he is behind us.’ ” He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you meet him, and you shall say, ‘Moreover your servant Jacob is behind us.’ ” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me.” So the present (hjnm) passed on ahead of him; and he himself spent that night in the camp. (Gen 32:13–21)

9. Westermann (Genesis 12–36) states, “he gives the girl costly presents. This is nothing other than his joyful reaction to the girl’s obliging readiness to refresh him and the animals (not some sort of bride price!)” (p. 387), and again, “Rebekah receives the fine presents because it is a real present and not a bride price” (p. 389). Westermann is correct that these gifts do not constitute a bride price, but he does not take seriously enough the function of gifts within the familial order.

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With the inclusio of “present” (hjnm) surrounding this set of speeches, we know that Jacob’s primary premeditated strategy involved the tactic of giftgiving. The text states the obvious: the gift was designed to “appease” Esau. And it was a premeditated strategy that was complemented by the impromptu negotiation when the brothers actually met. Genesis 25:6 offers a vignette of gifting on the border of the patrilineage but still within the family. Abraham sired children with Keturah, one of whom included Midian. To that eponymous individual, along with the sons born to Abraham’s other “concubines” (µyvglyp), Abraham gave gifts (tntm). One senses that these gifts are a form of symbolic inheritance, different in kind from the totality of the inheritance that Isaac receives (“Abraham gave all he had to Isaac,” Gen 25:5). The giving of gifts here resolves the question of what, if anything, these sons of Abraham might inherit. And it resolves the potential for conflict between the son who inherits and the sons whose claim on the patrilineage is ambiguous. I am less clear about whether to construe Abraham’s act of largesse toward Lot as one that involves the giving of a gift, when Abraham says to Lot, “Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left” (Gen 13:9). It is at least the gift of first choice. What I do find particularly interesting in both the cases of Abraham/Lot and Jacob/Esau is that gift-giving and receiving is coupled with negotiation as these members of the Terah patrilineage attempt to work out their differences. In a recently published foreword to Mauss’s classic work, Mary Douglas has noted the importance of gifts in providing social solidarity and trust. 10 Such is surely the case with the presentation of gifts to each other by members of the patrilineage of Terah. This world in which the authors of Genesis describe the patrilineage of Terah as making decisions and exercising power is not entirely different from the world in which it is embedded. The more formal language of oath and covenant does appear. Abraham’s servant takes an oath regarding the mission upon which he is sent (Gen 24:2–9). Moreover, Jacob and Laban make a covenant when they part ways (Gen 31:43–54). Such actions are, however, unusual within this family; those actions more typically occur between the family and other entities, as we shall see. Within the patrilineage 10. Mary Douglas, “Foreword: No Free Gifts,” in Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (trans. W. D. Halls; New York: Norton, 1990), vii–xviii.

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of Terah, then, the polity of family manifests itself in distinctive ways: negotiation and the presentation of gifts. On the other hand, the book of Genesis depicts the Terah patrilineage interacting with groups beyond it. This family encounters representatives of other polities. The family members interact with kings, even Pharaoh himself. In these exchanges, we see the patriarch, especially, subject to the decision-making power of an emperor. Pharaoh removes Abraham and Sarah from his court with a curt edict (˚lw jq “take [her] and go!” Gen 12:19). In another version of this story, Abimelech initially addresses not the patriarch but his own (Abimelech’s) subjects. But soon thereafter, Abimelech deals directly with Abraham, again with imperative verbs (bwfb bv ˚yny[b, “settle where you please!” Gen 20:15). Similar rhetoric appears in the third “wife-sister” story, though this time the king speaks to the people, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death” (Gen 26:11). In all three of these stories, the reader finds evidence of the imperial polity at work, a polity that manifests itself in a manner distinct from the discourse evident in the family stories. Instead of the “negotiation” evident there, we find the rhetoric of “edict,” the unilateral command of a monarch, which is atypical for the resolution of conflict within the Terah patrilineage. A second arena foreign to activity within the paternal line, yet important outside of it, is that of war. On two different occasions, Gen 12–36 refers to organized military activity: the military coalitions attested in Gen 14—one of which was Abraham’s army—and the attack by Simeon and Levi against the recently circumcised males in Shechem (Gen 34). In both instances, members of the patrilineage engage in battle but only against members outside the patrilineage. Organized and collective violence within the patrilineage simply does not occur. That form of behavior belongs outside the family, not within it. Third, the family stories attest economic transactions, namely, the sale of land, as something that occurs only outside the patrilineage. Such mercantile activity does not belong inside the family polity. Abraham buys a burial ground from the Hittites for 400 shekels of silver (Gen 23). 11 No such transactions occur within the family. And, if one moves into the 11. On the importance of construing this transaction within the world of economic activity, see Gene M. Tucker, “The Legal Background of Genesis 23,” JBL 85 (1966): 77–87.

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Joseph novella, one finds the family again selling—this time, quite improperly, one of their own—Joseph to the Ishmaelites/Midianites (Gen 37:28, 36). According to these stories, trade by the exchange of silver is something that the patrilineage does with others, not within itself. (The point of view of these stories regarding the patrilineage as traders is clear; so Gen 34:21, “let them live in the land and trade in it.”) Fourth, Gen 12–36 includes references to negotiations between the patriarch and a king. In both Gen 21 and 26, Abraham and Isaac, respectively, encounter Abimelech, the king of Gerar. And in both cases, the two parties resolve a problem by the two-pronged use of an oath and a covenant. In fact, Gen 21 reports two oaths: the first a loyalty oath that Abraham swears concerning the behavior of the patrilineage toward Abimelech’s heirs (vv. 22–24) and then a second oath and accompanying covenant regarding a dispute over water rights (vv. 25–34). Subsequently, in Gen 26, Abimelech and Abraham swear reciprocal oaths and make a covenant in order to ensure an amicable relationship (vv. 26–33). This conjunction of oath and covenant transpires with such clarity only when the patrilineage of Terah negotiates with groups beyond its boundaries. The sole potential exception (Gen 31:43–54) reverses the order—covenant before oath—and is far less clear about the importance of the oath in that negotiation. In sum, then, the patrilineage of Terah encounters polities of a sort different from itself. These other polities are described in nonfamilial terms. Consistent with this terminological distinction is the difference between the activities that take place within the patrilineage and activities that take place when members of the patrilineage interact with representatives of other polities. As for the latter, we have observed that edict, war, economic exchange using “money,” and oath/covenant are forms of behavior that occur when the family of Terah engages people of a nonfamilial, often monarchic, polity.

What Sort of Family? Having argued that Gen 12–36 presents a familial polity, I now ask: what sort of family do these chapters present? This is a very difficult question, since definitions of “family” vary significantly. In Hebrew Bible studies, the term is often used to refer to the household; thus the classic article by Stager. 12 Carol Meyers speaks of the family “as a small, kinship-structured 12. Lawrence E. Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985): 1–35.

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domestic unit.” 13 Here the definition hinges on joint occupation of a site. Other definitions focus on entities related to clan (hjpvm), which are understood to be made up of a series of households, and tribe (fbv), which are understood to be made up of a series of clans. 14 Moreover, some recent studies have focused on certain features of kinship behavior. For example, Cross has argued on behalf of what he terms “kinship-in-law.” He maintains that the tribal society of early Israel included a mechanism for introducing outsiders, non-kin, into the family. He writes, “In Israel, contrary to many primitive band or tribal societies, the legal compact of marriage introduced the bride into the kinship group or family.” 15 Now, such a claim may be relevant for the marriage of Ruth, the Moabite, to Boaz, the Israelite. But the narratives of Gen 12–37, which depict three marriages, in no case involve the introduction of a bride from non-kin. In all three cases, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob with Rachel and Leah, the marital partners derive from the patrilineage of Terah. Moreover, the narratives betray far less interest in including non-kin than they do in removing kin (e.g., Lot, Ishmael, Esau) from the status of potential heir within the patrilineage. The picture is one of patrilineal endogamy in which matrilateral crosscousin marriage is the norm. 16

Conclusion The book of Genesis conveys a complex picture of polity. The book attests the royal polity out of which the deity acts. Moreover, it recognizes that people other than Israel were organized politically; this is true both in the family stories and in the Joseph narrative. However, from the perspective of the authors of the book of Genesis, Israel is different from those nations. The book makes this point in at least two ways. First, the book describes Israel using familial language rather than descriptions typical of

13. Carol L. Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” Families in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997), 7. 14. On which, see Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979). 15. Frank Moore Cross, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 7–8. 16. See Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage, for the argument on behalf of patrilineal endogamy. M. Donaldson (“Kinship Theory in the Patriarchal Narratives: The Case of the Barren Wife,” JAAR 49 [1981]: 77–87) makes the case for matrilateral cross-cousin marriage.

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an empire or state. Second, the patterns of political and economic activity within Israel—namely, negotiation and the presentation of gifts—are different from the activities depicted in other communities—namely, edicts, war, monetary exchange, and oath/covenant. Israel is, from this perspective, a people qua family set apart. One could, of course, view all this in an “evolutionary” vein, arguing that the authors of Genesis wanted to depict an Israel chronologically prior to the time it became some other form of political entity—whether chiefdom or monarchy—in familial terms. Then one begins to ask historical questions. Can one argue for the existence of a familial polity such as the one depicted in Gen 12–36 prior to the inception of a monarchy in ancient Israel? In a recent discussion of family religion, Patrick Miller wrote, “The dating of the Genesis material is difficult and debated, but it is reasonable to suppose that its narratives represent relatively early practices, many of which would have continued on.” 17 Robert Oden offers a different version of this judgment. After assessing the kinship structure in Gen 12– 36, he maintains that one might attribute such familial pattern to “an era when the inhabitants of the land which would become Israel first abandoned a wandering existence and adopted a settled, agricultural style.” However, he immediately qualifies this contention by saying, “Attractive as this conclusion might be, it is not one which can be sustained, at least at the present stage of our knowledge.” 18 In his analysis of kinship structures in Gen 12–36, Terry Prewitt also points cautiously toward a relatively early period, “the final oral stages of the patriarchal traditions and perhaps some of the early written versions of the traditions appear to relate solidly to Judah and Davidic legitimation.” 19 There are, of course, other potential historical contexts. Mullen, among others, maintains that the narratives reflect familial practices and perspectives of the Persian period. 20 If Genesis and the discourse about family 17. Patrick D. Miller, The Religion of Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2000), 242 n. 86. 18. Robert A. Oden, “Jacob as Father, Husband, and Nephew: Kinship Studies and the Patriarchal Narratives,” JBL 102 (1983): 204. 19. Terry J. Prewitt, “Kinship Structures and the Genesis Genealogies,” JNES 40 (1981): 98. 20. Mullen, Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Formation. Cf. Friedrich Fechter, Die Familie in der Nachexilszeit: Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung der Verwandtschaft in ausgewaehlten Texten des Alten Testaments (BZAW 264; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998), who focuses on Josh 7; Lev 18; Ruth; and Mic 7:1–7 as sources for the structure of the

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within it reflect the period of the formation of the Pentateuch, then this understanding of Israel using familial discourse may well constitute an attempt to view the identity of the people in a post-state environ. The Persian period was, Mullen contends, a time when the identity of Israel was being forged decisively. It is no accident that the language of family, for example, the ancestral house (twba tyb), is particularly prominent in Ezra– Nehemiah. 21 Unfortunately, the narratives that clearly stem from the Persian period—Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther—do not present a universe readily comparable to that of Gen 12–36. Hence it is difficult to discern the role of negotiation and gifts, on the one hand, and that of edict, war, economic transactions, and oath/covenant, on the other, in Persian period biblical texts. Still, for the purposes of this paper it is probably best not to try to root this depiction of the Terah patrilineage in a particular period of time. Rather, one may well attend to Max Weber’s theories of political organization, in which he argued on behalf of three ideal types: the traditional, the charismatic, and the bureaucratic forms of polity. Such categories have heuristic value in enabling the reader of Genesis to observe that, generally, Israel’s polity is traditional, whereas all others—even the deity’s—tend toward the bureaucratic. This picture is at some odds with the depictions of Israel elsewhere in the Pentateuch, for example, in the book of Deuteronomy. Nonetheless, the political and ideological claim in Genesis remains an important one throughout the Hebrew Bible: that Yahweh’s people are a family truly set apart. In the family stories, their political and economic behavior—their polity—distinguishes them from all with whom they come in contact. 22

family in the postexilic period; and R. Christopher Heard, Dynamics of Diselection: Ambiguity in Genesis 12–36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah (SemeiaSt 39; Atlanta: SBL, 2001). 21. Unfortunately, the term ba tyb/twba tyb is inherently ambiguous. K. van der Toorn rightly notes, “the term can designate the nuclear family, the extended family, or the lineage,” Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 7; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 195. 22. This essay was completed in 2001.

Israel as a Testimony to Yhwh’s Power: The Priests’ Definition of Israel John T. Strong Southwest Missouri State University

The Hebrew Bible insists that ancient Israel was forged on the anvil of history for a singular purpose: to be an enduring witness among the world’s nations to the beneficent sovereignty and providence of the God who had fashioned it. This sublime consciousness of corporate vocation is expressed most fully in the books of the Pentateuch and Prophets. 1

This thesis begins Dean McBride’s article, “Biblical Literature in Its Historical Context: The Old Testament,” which was one of the feature articles in the 1988 Harper’s Bible Commentary. Later in this same article, McBride ties his thesis more closely to the Pentateuch. 2 Because it was a survey article, describing the Hebrew Bible in broad strokes to a general audience, McBride did not present the argument for his thesis in great detail. Nevertheless, I concur wholeheartedly with McBride’s thesis, and in this essay I will argue that, indeed, it correctly identifies the way that the postexilic Priestly circle defined the nation of Israel. This study will focus on the

Author’s note: As my advisor, Dean influenced the quality of scholarship in my dissertation and doctoral work while I was in the program. Yet even more, his guidance and advice has influenced my subsequent career as a teacher and a scholar. It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I present this article to him. 1. S. D. McBride, “Biblical Literature in Its Historical Context: The Old Testament,” in Harper’s Bible Commentary (ed. James L. Mays; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 14. McBride has recently written again on this thesis as it relates directly to the Pentateuch in “Divine Protocol: Genesis 1:1–2:3 as Prologue to the Pentateuch,” in God Who Creates: Essays in Honor of W. Sibley Towner (ed. William P. Brown and S. Dean McBride; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 3–41. While his work and my essay here share fundamentally the same thesis, his work traces the controlling effect of the notion of covenant on the Pentateuch, whereas my study focuses more specifically on the notion of the image of God. 2. “Biblical Literature,” 23, and see now his more focused treatment in “Divine Protocol.”

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notion of the image of God in Gen 1–11. I will review the functional definition of the image of God with the aid of ancient Near Eastern parallels and then trace this concept through the final form of the Pentateuch. It will become clear that McBride was absolutely correct: the priests defined Israel as the testimony to the nations around them of Yhwh’s beneficent sovereignty over creation. As is already apparent in my introductory paragraph, I am approaching the Pentateuch as a completed whole, yet still within a historical context. Specifically, I intend to locate a particular group’s definition of the community in an identifiable place and within a general time frame. Despite some assertions that P is early 3 or that J is late, 4 it still seems most prudent to view the report in Ezra 7 of Ezra’s bringing the law from Babylon to Jerusalem as the time when the Pentateuch was established in substantially its present form by the Priestly circles. The Pentateuch was formed at that time by attaching the already authoritative Deuteronomic law of Josiah’s era to the Priestly history of the birth of Israel consisting of Genesis through Numbers. Though still often referred to as a document, “P” is better understood to be a framework 5 that nevertheless asserts an overarching ideology in regard to the nature and purpose of Israel. As McBride puts it, this Priestly product is every bit a constitution 6 that took shape in Judah at this time. It is the priests’ definition of the temple state of Judah in the middle part of the fifth century b.c.e., the capital of which was Jerusalem, and which sat under the political and military control of Persia. While defining the Pentateuch in this manner, and the role of P as a framework, I contend that the image of God forms a significant part of the ideology of the Pentateuch, for it played a central role in the priests’ definition of their temple state.

3. See Avi Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel: A New Approach to an Old Problem (CahRB 20; Paris: Gabalda, 1982). 4. For a recent example, see John Van Seters, The Pentateuch: A Social Science Commentary (Trajectories 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 112–59. 5. See Frank Moore Cross, “The Priestly Work,” Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 293–95 and 304–5. 6. McBride, “Biblical Literature,” 23. In “Divine Protocol,” he states: “the Pentateuch is a theopolitical charter, designed to establish not only how but why descendants of the patriarch Jacob were incorporated, . . . to be a uniquely sanctified people among the world’s nations” (emphasis mine).

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The Ideology behind the “Image of God” As Phyllis Bird has stated, the study of the image of God 7 has been an atomizing one, focusing on a single phrase or clause. 8 This has led to a great deal of speculation and frustration, because the specific phrase µyhla µlx (“image of God”) occurs only four times in the Hebrew Bible, all in Gen 1–11. 9 Still, despite the uniqueness of the phrase µyhla µlx, the fundamental notion behind this expression can be seen elsewhere, notably in Ps 8 and the book of Ezekiel. 10 Genesis 1:26–28 states something 7. Though there are many effective reviews of the literature on the image of God worthy of citation, I direct the reader’s attention in particular to four helpful studies and the literature cited there. Claus Westermann (Genesis 1–11 [trans. John J. Scullion; Continental Commentaries; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984], 147–61) provides a neat, seven-point summary of positions, with a helpful emphasis, not only on biblical studies, but also on systematic theology. To summarize, Westermann argues that the question has been wrongly stated. The concept of the image of God is not intended by the text to define the nature of humankind but to define the nature of God’s creative act in regard to humans. Specifically, according to Gen 1:26–28, God wanted to create a being with whom God could relate. Phyllis A. Bird (“ ‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Gen 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation,” HTR 74 [1981]: 129–59) also provides an excellent survey of the literature. Bird first and foremost explains the correct relationship between the notion of image and the statement regarding God’s creation of humanity as male and female. The latter statement of Gen 1:27b merely provides for the reproduction and sustainability of humanity, as with the rest of Gen 1. This qualification is needed, since it is not contained in the notion of being created in the image of God. Edward M. Curtis (Man as the Image of God in Genesis in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Parallels [Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1984], 4–50), whose approach is generally followed here, and with whom I am in fundamental agreement, includes an extensive discussion of ancient opinions as well. Finally, Gunnlaugur Jónsson (The Image of God: Genesis 1:26–28 in a Century of Old Testament Research [ConBOT 26; Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1988]) provides the most thorough survey of the important trends and issues that have guided image-of-God research in the twentieth century. 8. Bird, “Male and Female,” 130. 9. The four occurrences are Gen 1:26, 27 (twice); 5:2; 9:6. Werner H. Schmidt (Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift [2nd ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967], 136) comments that the difficulty with defining the term (µlx µyhla) lies with the fact that the text does not define this term (this citation is taken from Curtis’s dissertation, Man as the Image of God, 2). 10. See, e.g., von Rad (Genesis, 58–59) and Bird (“Male and Female,” 154), in regard to Ps 8. In contrast, see J. Maxwell Miller’s comments (“In the ‘Image’ and ‘Likeness’ of God,” JBL 91 [1972]: 296–97), who distances Genesis’s “image of God”

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fundamental about the ancient Israelite’s notion of the nature of humankind. 11 In contrast to some scholars, I will argue that the notion behind the image of God played an important role, at least in Priestly circles of the ancient Israelite community. 12 Further, since the ancient Hebrews and the ancient Near East as a whole did not have a dualistic understanding of humankind, I agree with Westermann that any attempt to explain the image of God as a spiritual connection between God and humankind moves in the wrong direction. 13 The term µlx indicates a physical likeness elsewhere in the Hebrew literature, and it would be improper suddenly to ascribe a new connotation to it in Genesis. 14 Thus, studies that look to ancient Near Eastern parallels and the way they use the term µlx hold the most promise. As will be discussed below, in the ancient Near East the king, as the image of the god, represented the god on earth. The king would himself set passages and Ps 8. In regard to the book of Ezekiel, John F. Kutsko (“Ezekiel’s Anthropology and Its Ethical Implications,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives [ed. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature: 2000], 125) and Dexter E. Callender (“The Primal Human in Ezekiel and the Image of God,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, 175–93) have independently found the fundamental notion contained in the image of God in the theology of Ezekiel. 11. Contra Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 155–58. 12. It lies beyond the scope of this paper to take up directly the question of the place of the doctrine of creation in ancient Israelite thought, though certainly this essay has ramifications for this debate. Briefly, I would argue that creation was a central aspect of ancient Israel’s theology and inextricably tied to its view of its own election. In contrast, see von Rad (“The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays [trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken; London: SCM, 1966], 131–43; trans. of Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament [Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1958]); similarly and more recently, Ludwig Schmidt, “Schöpfung: Natur und Geschichte,” in Altes Testament (ed. Hans Jochen Boecker et al.; Neukirchener Arbeitsbuch; 5th rev. ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996), 267–89. 13. Westermann, Genesis, 150. Cf. also von Rad, Genesis, 58. 14. The word µlx appears 17 times in the Hebrew text: Gen 1:26 and 27 (twice); 5:3; 9:6 (all the Genesis passages refer to the image of God); Num 33:52 (in reference to foreign cult images); 1 Sam 6:5 (twice) and 11 (in reference to images of mice and tumors); 2 Kgs 11:18 (= 2 Chr 23:17; referring to images of Baal); Pss 39:7 and 73:20 (translated as “shadow” or “phantoms” in the nrsv); Ezek 7:20, 16:17, 23:14; and Amos 5:26 (in Ezekiel and Amos, always in reference to cult images). See now the recent discussions and literature cited in the articles of Kutsko, “Ezekiel’s Anthropology,” 126–27; and Callender, “The Primal Human in Ezekiel,” 184–86.

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up steles containing his own image as testimonies to his power. With this in mind, the priests understood humankind as Yhwh’s representative on earth. One must not mitigate the opposition found in the ancient text between humankind and the earth. The ancient priests were not ecologically minded. Untamed nature was chaotic (cf. Lev 26) and, therefore, in need of Order (= Life). 15 Recognizing that there is not an overt battle between Yhwh and Tiamat in Genesis 1, I nevertheless agree with Batto and others 16 who note that a conflict with Chaos (Chaoskampf ) is fundamental to a proper view of ancient Israel’s understanding of Yhwh. According to the priests, humankind as the image of God should have played an important role in this conflict. The fact that the expression µyhla µlx appears only in Gen 1–11, where its meaning seems to be assumed more than defined, leads us to believe that the authors knew that this was a common expression, one well understood by the audience of their day. 17 In light of this, it seems best to turn to extrabiblical uses of this expression for guidance. This approach, as Jónsson has pointed out, was prominent in Hebrew Bible studies until about 1930, when Karl Barth’s approach to the image of God from the discipline of Christian dogma took command of scholars’ attention. 18 Since the 1960s, however scholarship has largely returned to Israel’s ancient Near Eastern context in order to understand this phrase. I agree with a number of German scholars such as Wildberger, von Rad, and Hehn, who 15. Bird (“Male and Female,” 153, and n. 63) correctly defines vbk in the sense of bringing into bondage so as to render it productive. She states: “For P, . . . the presupposition of history and culture is the subjugation of earth, rendering it productive and responsive to a master, adam.” 16. Bernard F. Batto, “The Sleeping God: An Ancient Near Eastern Motif of Divine Sovereignty,” Bib 68 (1987): 65; Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, “Fighting the Powers of Chaos and Hell: Towards the Biblical Portrait of God,” ST 39 (1985): 23–36. Much has been written on this topic. Prominent works include John Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 35; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Frank Moore Cross, CMHE, 91–111; Loren R. Fisher, “From Chaos to Cosmos,” Encounter 26 (1975): 183–97; idem, “Creation at Ugarit and in the Old Testament,” VT 15 (1965): 313–24; and Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (HSM 5; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973). 17. See Curtis (“Man as the Image of God,” 52–59), who includes a description and defense of using a comparative approach to the problem of defining the image of God. 18. Jónsson, Image of God, 201–4.

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look to ancient Near Eastern parallels to define how the priests understood the expression “image of God.” 19 Specifically, the Egyptian and Mesopotamian kings were understood to be the image of god on earth. 20 They would create images of themselves and set them up in a foreign city or at the boundary as a means of declaring their sovereignty. These parallels provide the content of the image of God in Gen 1–11 and the starting point for our discussion. By way of review and illustration, we should note a few of the inscriptions that identify the king as the image of the god. 21 For example, a building inscription from the reign of Amen-hotep III (1402–1363 b.c.e.) states: My son, of my body, my beloved, Neb-maat-Re, My living image, whom my body created. 22

This declaration was made by Amon-Re, “King of the Gods” after Amenhotep III narrated his building projects on behalf of the god. Two interesting features stand out in conjunction with this declaration. First, Amon-Re, alongside his declaration of the Pharaoh as being in his image, describes

19. I have selected here a few prominent German scholars rather than providing an exhaustive list. See, by way of example, the works of Hans Wildberger, “Das Abbild Gotttes,” TZ 21 (1965): 245–59; 481–501; Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (OTL; rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 60; Wilhelm Caspari, “Imago divina Gen I,” in Reinhold Seeberg Festschrift, 1: Zur Theorie des Christentums (ed. Wilhelm Koepp; Leipzig: Scholl, 1929), 197–208; and J. Hehn, “Zum Terminus ‘Bild Gottes’,” in Festschrift Eduard Sachau zum siebzigsten Geburtstage (ed. Gotthold Weil; Berlin: Reimer, 1915), 36–52. As noted by Jónsson (Image of God, 219–20), only a few major commentators (e.g., Westermann) dispute this position. 20. Westermann’s (Genesis 1–11, 153) criticizes this theory because the notion of the image in Genesis focuses on humanity as a whole versus an individual king, as in the ANE literature. I think his criticism is wrongly directed because the working principle in the ancient Near Eastern context was that a special item, for example, a king or a stele, stood apart from and, therefore, was a testimony to the broader setting, for example, the citizens or the stele’s audience. There is no reason why, however, this item could not take on any number of forms, including collectives such as all of humanity, within the context of all of creation, or one nation, within the context of all the other nations and creation. As will be noted (cf. n. 23 below), already in Egyptian wisdom sources, which date to the second millennium, the people as a whole are referred as the image of the gods. 21. For a more complete discussion of ANE parallels, I refer readers to the articles by Bird, Wildberger, Hehn, and especially, to Curtis’s dissertation (pp. 80–188). 22. John A. Wilson, trans., ANET 3, 376. See Wildberger’s discussion of this text, “Das Abbild Gottes,” 484.

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how he created him; as in Gen 1, we find image-of-God language associated with creation. Second, the Pharaoh was created in Amon-Re’s image to dominate the nations around him. Thus, the god turns his head in all four directions, placing all the other nations under the domination of Amenhotep III. The same connection between image and domination is also found in Thutmose III’s (1490–1436 b.c.e.) inscription from the Karnak Temple dedication, celebrating Pharaoh’s victories. It ties the notion of image very closely to the notion of dominion. I cause thy victories to circulate in all lands. . . . I have made the aggressors who come near thee grow weak, for their hearts are burned up and their bodies are trembling. I have come, that I may cause thee to trample down the great ones of Djahi; I spread them out under thy feet throughout their countries. I cause them to see thy majesty as the lord of radiance, So that thou shinest into their faces as my likeness. 23

The notion of the god’s placing the nations under the feet of the Egyptian Pharaoh forms an especially striking parallel between this text and Ps 8:7[8:6], which is often viewed in connection with Gen 1:26–28. An ideology similar to that exemplified in the Egyptian texts held true also for Mesopotamian kings. 24 On Mesopotamian steles, the idea of God’s image parallels images that the kings made of themselves. This can be illustrated by examples from Assur-nasir-pal’s (883–859 b.c.e.) annals. On the pavement slabs to the entrance of the Temple in Calah, Assur-nasir-pal boasts of his conquests over the surrounding territories and, thus, the order that he brought to his nation. During his first year as king, he describes his battles in the lands east of the Tigris. He concludes his description of the defeat of the lands of Kirhi and his gruesome treatment of their kings, by stating: At that time I fashioned an image of my own likeness, the glory of my power I inscribed thereon, and in the mountain of Edi, in the city of Assur-nasir-pal, at the (river) source, I set it up. 25

Similarly, after subduing the king, Haiani, he writes: 23. Wilson, ANET 3, 374. In a footnote, Wilson identifies “Djahi” as “approximately the Phoenician coast.” 24. Bird, “Male and Female,” 141–43. 25. Luckenbill, ARAB, 143, §441.

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Perhaps it is worth noting one last example regarding his victory over a certain governor named Sûru. The city I destroyed, I devastated. Power and might I established over the land of Suhi. The fear of my dominion extended to the land of Karduniash, and the chilling fear of my arms overwhelmed the land of Kaldu. Over the mountains, on the banks of the Euphrates, I poured out terror. A statue in my (own) image I fashioned. (The record of) my power and might I inscribed (thereon). In the city of Sûru I set it up. (The inscription reads:) “Assur-nâsir-pal, the king whose glory and might are enduring, whose countenance is set toward the desert, whose heart desires to make broad his protection(?).” 27

The evidence from Mesopotamian boundary steles bears striking results. The steles were established, according to Assur-nasir-pal’s narrative, in the foreign lands. They were more than just memorial stones; they represented the presence of the king himself. Moreover, they were specifically intended to convey the sense of the king’s glory and power—that is, the steles highlighted his power over a particular land and its people. He had defeated their king once, and he could do it again; so, they should not attempt another rebellion. From Assur-nasir-pal’s perspective, however, he had brought order to these otherwise chaotic regions—albeit, order as defined by Assyria. This explains the location of the steles. They were not testimonials to the Assyrians but to the foreign, “chaotic” peoples. So, Assur-nasir-pal set his image up in foreign territory, at the city gates, announcing his strength and control to those who might question his power. Such a background guides our understanding of Gen 1:26–28. According to the priests, when Yhwh established humankind in his own image, 28 he was establishing a stele in an erstwhile chaotic land. Humankind was to be a testimony to Chaos that Yhwh defeated it and that it was Yhwh who

26. Ibid., 145, §443. 27. Ibid., 160–61, §470. 28. Wildberger (“Das Abbild Gottes,” 489) points out that the “democratization” of the image is early and can be found in Egyptian wisdom sources. There is no need, he argues, to link this specifically with the priests. See also the discussion of Curtis, “Man as the Image of God,” 90–92.

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brought order to the world. Humankind must dominate the animals and subdue the earth, because Yhwh dominated and subdued Chaos in the process of creation. This definition of humankind, then, echoes what McBride stated, in the quotation that we cited earlier. Humanity was to be “an enduring witness . . . to the beneficent sovereignty and providence of the God who had fashioned it.” This thesis, however, is not where the priests left the matter. To their development of this theme we must now turn.

The Image of God in Genesis 1–11 According to the priests, while humankind may have started out as the image of God, it did not end up that way. At the end of primordial times, as reported in Gen 1–11, the point when reality was established and time moved into the historical era, the image of God had been shattered. Chaos had at that time assaulted Yhwh’s memorial stele, thus challenging his victory. For the priests, then, a fundamental issue of the historical era was Yhwh’s control of Chaos, and with this, the erection of a new memorial stele. It is worth recalling Cross’s observation that P did not form an independent narrative but, rather, only created a framework around the Epic traditions ( JE). 29 More pointedly, Cross describes P as being dependent upon Epic traditions in order to support its own theological claims. For example, P knows of the rebellion of humankind, as demonstrated by Gen 6:13. This is the first hint of rebellion within the P stratum. Yet in the present form of Genesis, the reader is well aware of the evil brought to the earth by human rebellion, because it has been portrayed by the Epic narratives of the Man and Woman in Eden, as well as the story about Cain and Abel. 30 In order to trace P’s understanding of the image of God, all of the sources now found in Gen 1–11 are fruitful for investigation, and our discussion will take a broad view of the material, incorporating all the various strata. In general, Gen 1–11 is dominated by three major events: creation, the flood, and the building of the tower of Babel. In one sense, one can read Gen 1–11 as the story of the creation and demise of the image of God. Since my primary focus in this section is the demise of the image, I will focus attention on the flood and Babel stories. Both of these stories provide 29. Cross, CMHE, 304–7. 30. Ibid., 306.

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a solution to a problem regarding the image of God. In the flood story, the image has been corrupted; it testifies to death, not life, in that people are murdering each other and full of evil (Gen 6:5, [r). In the tower of Babel story, shame is brought to the image of God. In both instances, humankind behaves in a manner that fails to testify to Yhwh’s beneficent sovereignty. For this reason, Gen 1–11 tells of the activities that Yhwh took to correct this misleading memorial stele. The flood narrative addresses the problem of corruption (tjv and smj) in the earth brought about by humankind (Gen 6:11). “Corruption,” however, is pregnant with meaning. It carries with it more than a general sense of evil or wickedness; it involves rebellion against Yhwh’s sovereign will. This sense is conveyed initially by Yhwh’s statement that no longer did he look upon the world and see that it was good (bwf), as in Gen 1, but as evil ([r, 6:5, 11). In addition, several passages set smj (“violence”) and tjv (“to be corrupt”) in opposition to qydx (“righteous”) and µymt (“blameless”) in order to express a sense of opposition to Yhwh. Note, for example, Deut 32 and Ezek 28:11–19, where these terms also appear together. In these instances, the nature and will of God are set opposite to what might be labeled “anti-God.” The Rock, his work is perfect (µymt), and all his ways are just A faithful God, without deceit, just (qydx) and upright is he; yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely (tjv) with him, a perverse and crooked generation. (Deut 32:4–5)

God’s nature is described as being just (qydx) and his works, perfect (µymt). In contrast, Yhwh’s people have dealt falsely (tjv) with him. 31 A similar clustering occurs in Ezek 28:15–18, a text that applies many of the themes and motifs found in Gen 2–3 to the king of Tyre. You were blameless (µymt) in your ways, from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence (smj), and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out 31. The mt is difficult here, prompting a number of textual emendations. No matter how one decides these matters, the verb tjv apparently should remain, representing the opposition of the people’s actions to the works of Yahweh.

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from among the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted (÷ tjv) your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.

The point to be highlighted here is that these terms cluster around the notion of rebellion against God. Those corrupting the world and practicing violence stand in opposition to Yhwh, his paths, 32 and his nature. The stories that precede Yhwh’s negative evaluation of humankind fill out the picture of how the priests understood the “corruption” of the earth. Since P wrote a framework, not a narrative, we must look to the broader context, which indicates that this corruption has to do with death and the killing of other human beings. One must remember that at this time, at least according to certain strains within the text, humans were not permitted to kill animals, much less other humans. 33 Yet, following the expulsion from paradise, P presents the reader with the story of Cain’s murder of his brother, Abel (4:1–26), and the short, strange story of the “Sons of God” (6:1–4). God punished Cain for murdering Abel but tried to hold the line on further killing by not permitting others to harm Cain (4:14– 15). Opportunistically, Cain’s descendent Lamech took Yhwh’s protection of Cain as a license to kill (4:23–24). Genesis 6:1–4 presents an interesting case. In its earliest form, it is an etiology for the Nephilim (µylpn). But in the present context, the note “warriors of old” (µlw[m rva µyrbg) brings to the fore their role as men trained quite effectively to kill other humans. Humankind had corrupted the earth, because they brought to it a lust not just for animal, but even for human blood. Hence, the stories and genealogies that were placed after the creation of humankind and before the flood deal with the issue of the taking of life. 34 God’s image was testifying to death and chaos, not to life and Yhwh’s victory.

32. Note that the term ˚rd (“way”), used in the context of the righteous ways of Yahweh (and human’s adherence or lack thereof), also appears as a part of this clustering of words in Gen 6:12; Deut 32:4; and Ezek 28:15. 33. Compare Yhwh’s statements in Gen 1:29–30 and 9:2–5, and see the comments by William W. Hallo, “The Origins of the Sacrificial Cult: New Evidence from Mesopotamia and Israel,” in AIR, 5; and Kutsko, “Ezekiel’s Anthropology,” 135–39. 34. For other discussions of the connection between the image of God and violence against humanity, see Jacob Milgrom, “Priestly (“P”) Source,” ABD 5:456–57; and the much more detailed discussion of Kutsko, “Ezekiel’s Anthropology,” 119–41.

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As a solution, then, Yhwh delivered the earth over to Chaos, exemplified by the flood waters. The preservation of the righteous man, Noah, is the exception that reiterates the rule: the purpose of the flood is to rid the world of the wickedness that is equated with humankind (6:5). After the flood, Yhwh makes a new start with humankind by signing a contract with Noah. This contract restarts creation, putting everything back into its proper order, as demonstrated by the repetition of the blessing in Gen 9:1–2 (cf. 1:28). Yhwh, however, allowed one new thing, namely, the restricted shedding of blood. 35 Humankind is now permitted to kill the animals, which apparently was not permissible before this time. Hopefully, it seems, this will satisfy humankind’s lust for blood so that humans themselves will not kill one another. As expressed in the double imperatives of Gen 9:7, 36 the killing of other humans would go against the idea inherent to the image—that of being fruitful and multiplying. With this emendation, the image of God should once again testify to God’s creative, life-giving acts, announcing to Chaos that Yhwh controls its destructive, killing power. Yhwh’s image has been reestablished, with the promise never again to be removed from the earth. The story of the tower of Babel closes out the primeval history by explaining why there are so many ethnic groups and nationalities spread out across the face of the earth. The fact that this story brings the primordial times to a close is emphasized by the cohortatives found first in 11:4, uttered by the humans, and second, in 11:7, by God. This is the first time that cohortatives have appeared in the text since Gen 1:26, where God said “Let us make humankind in our image.” In light of this, it appears that the cohortatives in this section of the text are reserved for language dealing with God’s image and form bookends around the primeval history. Such a construction signals that the Babel account serves as God’s final act of creation in this period, and that again he is dealing with his image, the culmination of creation in Gen 1. The events found in the tower of Babel story take on equal significance with God’s original establishment of his image. In this third act, Yhwh once more reverses his creation, though not to the extent that he did with the flood (cf. 9:11). Rather, he reconfigures his image, humankind. God decides to break and shatter his 35. Ibid., 5. 36. The presence of the pronoun µta seems to serve to emphasize the imperatives in this instance. See the discussion of the various uses of independent pronouns in Waltke and O’Connor, IBHS, 293–96 (§16.3.2).

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failed image. This act does not mean, however, that God is abandoning his intention of having a testimony to Chaos but, rather, that he is solving a problem created by the shame brought to his image; he is now preparing to elect one section of the broken stele to be his image. The issue at this juncture is honor and shame. A memorial or boundary stele was supposed to be intimidating, communicating the glory and might of the king to outsiders. Humankind has failed to do this for Yhwh. The first problem comes when Ham sees his father’s nakedness (Gen 9:20–28). The issue here is not Noah’s drunkenness but his nakedness, and the problem lies not with Noah but with Ham. 37 Since humans traded their innocence for knowledge in the garden, nakedness has become a source of shame (cf. 2:25 and 3:10–11), prompting God to grant clothing to the man and the woman (3:20). So, Noah’s being naked in his tent did not bring shame, but Ham’s looking upon his father’s nakedness and revealing it to others did; moreover, in the view of P, Ham’s actions brought shame to the image of God (cf. Lev 18:7). The tower of Babel story addresses another aspect of honor and shame as it relates to God’s image. In this instance, however, the problem is not the defamation of the image, but rather the image’s pointing to its own glory and not to Yhwh’s. Genesis 11:4 states clearly the purpose of the tower: “let us make a name for ourselves.” A name on a stele was intended to direct a person’s attention to the owner of the name. In actuality, the name was the most important part of the stele, and indeed, the identification between the name and stele was so close that the two can be seen to be almost synonymous. 38 Thus, there were various curses and threats made against anyone who would remove a person’s name from a stele. 39 Within 37. Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 487–89. 38. See S. Dean McBride, The Deuteronomic Name Theology (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1969), 76–77, 101–2. 39. Many examples could be cited at this point, but perhaps the closing paragraph of the Karatepe Inscription (probably dating to the late eighth century b.c.e.) serves as an adequate illustration. If there be a king among kings and a prince among princes or a man who is ( just) called a man who shall wipe out the name of Azitawadda from his gate and put down his own name, even if he has good intentions toward this city but removes this gate which was made by Azitawadda and makes for the (new) gate a (new) frame and puts his name upon it, whether he removes this gate with good intentions or out of hatred and evil, let Baºlshamem and El-the-Creator-of-the-Earth and the Eternal-Sun and the whole Group of the Children of the gods (El) wipe out that ruler and that king and that man who is ( just) called a man! However, the

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the context of ancient Near Eastern thought, then, for humans to make a name for themselves meant that they were no longer functioning as a name or a stele for God. Rather, they had assumed the position of Yhwh himself, since there was nothing that humans could not do (Gen 11:6). Yet such hubris was tantamount to the defacing of the stele. Since the testimonial to God was endangered, God destroyed God’s stele. This time, however, he accomplished his goal not by destroying humankind (cf. 9:8–17) but by dividing humankind into ethnic groups (11:7–8). Note how similar the concept here is to Ashur-nasir-pal’s description of an enemy’s breaking up and scattering a memorial stele. But whosoever shall not act according to the word of this my memorial stele, and shall alter the words of my inscription or shall destroy this image, or shall remove it, or shall smear it with grease, or shall bury it in the ground, or shall burn it in the fire, or shall cast it into the water, or shall place it so that beasts may tread upon it or cattle pass over it, or shall prevent people from beholding and reading the words of my inscription, or shall do violence unto my memorial stele, so that none may behold it nor read it, or, because of these curses, shall send a hostile foe, or an evil enemy, or a prisoner, or any living human creature, and shall cause him to take it, and he shall deface it, or scrape it, or shall change its meaning to something else, or shall set his mind, take counsel with his heart, to destroy this my image, and to alter the words. . . . 40

The fact that Ashur-nasir-pal had to utter this threat indicates that these things did happen to memorial steles. The state of the recently discovered Tel Dan Inscription, which was once a part of a stele declaring a victory over the house of David but was found as a paving stone, supports Ashurnasir-pal’s fear. Both were once memorial steles celebrating great victories, but, since today’s victor is always tomorrow’s fallen champion, both were found broken and defaced. Likewise, so it now goes with God’s stele. It has been defaced or has pointed to itself, with the result that God himself decides it is best to break it up into pieces. Although this solution solves the immediate problem of humankind’s pride, it does not alter God’s intention of establishing a stele. With the name of Azitawadda shall endure forever like the name of sun and moon! (trans. Franz Rosenthal, ANET 3, 654)

For a discussion of this inscription, see François Bron, “Karatepe Phoenecian Inscription” (trans. Monique Fectean), OEANE 3:268–69. 40. Luckenbill, ARAB, 176, §495.

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genealogies in Gen 10 and 11, it is clear that, according to the priests, God has developed another plan. At this point, the focus moves away from humanity as the image of God and onto the family of Terah, a descendent of Shem and the father of Abram.

Israel as Yhwh’s New Testimonial The stories of the Exodus played a theologically central role for the ancient Hebrew communities, including the priests in the middle fifth century b.c.e. 41 The same issues so fundamental to a proper understanding of the image of God in Gen 1–11 appear also here in the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Ultimately the focus falls not upon Israel or its freedom but upon the power of Yhwh to deliver the people in the face of Chaos’s opposition. As evinced by the mixing of creation and exodus imagery (cf. Isa 51:9–16), Israel’s trek through the Red Sea was understood by postexilic Israel as a further creative act on the part of God. 42 The central question that sets up and then drives the plague narratives is delivered by Pharaoh in Exod 5:2, “Who is Yhwh that I should heed him and let Israel go?” As Childs points out, the plague narratives describe how Pharaoh comes to know Yhwh, as he demonstrates his power over Pharaoh, as well as his officials and war machine. 43 In regard to our concerns, several points must be emphasized. First, Pharaoh and the Egyptians represent Chaos in this story. Since they are not on the side of the elect, they are on the side of Chaos. 44 So, when Pharaoh says, “Who is Yhwh?” he states that, since he is a part of the chaotic order of the world, he does not know Yhwh. Second, the specific thing that he does not know 41. Note Nahum Sarna’s comments in “Exodus, Book of,” ABD 2:689–700: “The Exodus theme is referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures in one form or another approximately one hundred and twenty times, apart from the primary narrative. This remarkable statistic bears unequivocal testimony to its centrality in the religion of Israel. From this preeminence flow certain consequential conceptions of God, of the relationship between God and Israel, of history, and of the proper ordering of human associations.” 42. Childs, Exodus, 238. See also Batto, “The Reed Sea: Requiescat in Pace,” JBL 102 (1983): 27–35. 43. Childs, Exodus, 105. 44. Such an understanding of the foreign nations is true of the ANE world in general. See Othmar Keel’s discussion in The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (trans. Timothy J. Hallett; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 37–39; trans. of Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament (Cologne: Benziger, 1972).

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about Yhwh is his power, as evidenced by his questioning of why he should obey ([mv) Yhwh. Third, Moses and Israel are going to explain Yhwh’s power to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. In this role, they will stand as a boundary stele, facing outward toward the chaotic world, testifying before Chaos and the foreign nations of Yhwh’s beneficent sovereignty. A clear image of this role is seen in Yhwh and Moses’ discussion in Exod 6:28–7:7. In the course of rebutting Moses’ demurrals, Yhwh states that he has made Moses “like God to Pharaoh” (7:1). This is precisely how a stele functioned in relation to its king in the ancient world. Any insult or defacement made to a stele was viewed as an insult or attack upon the king represented by the statue (cf. Ashur-nasir-pal’s statements above). Just as a stele symbolized the king, so also did Israel, embodied by Moses, represent Yhwh, specifically Yhwh’s power. So, in 7:3–5, Yhwh explains precisely what he plans to do with Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Yhwh will have to harden Pharaoh’s heart in order to “lay his hand upon Egypt.” Since it is as the powerful controller of Chaos that Yhwh wants to be recognized by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, it is apparently in fear that Pharaoh and Chaos should come to know him. The culmination of the story comes in Exod 14, where, in another act of creation, Yhwh splits the sea in half (cf. Gen 1:6) and allows Israel to walk on dry ground (cf. Gen 1:9). By being brought out of both Egypt and the sea, Yhwh separates Israel from Chaos, thus creating it in the same fashion as in Gen 1. In this creative act, Yhwh once again establishes his image or testimonial stele—this time, in the form of Israel. In Exod 14:4, and again in 14:15–18, the text reiterates the essential content of 7:3–5. Yhwh will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that 45 he, Yhwh, can gain glory. In this process, Egypt will come to know Yhwh as sovereign, as expressed in the recognition formula. 46 Note that there is no direct mention of Israel’s 45. The verse moves through a pair of perfects (ytqzjw, πdrw) to a cohortative (hdbkaw) and then to two preterite forms (w[dyw, wc[yw). The cohortative-imperfect sequence expresses a result or purpose in Biblical Hebrew. See Lambdin, IBH, §107. 46. For the recognition formula, see Walther Zimmerli, “Knowledge of God according to the Book of Ezekiel,” I Am Yahweh (trans. Douglas R. Stott; Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 29–99; trans. of “Erkenntnis Gottes nach dem Buch Ezechiel,” Gottes Offenbarung: Gesammelte Aufsätze I (TB 19; Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1969), 41–119. Elsewhere (“Ezekiel’s Use of the Recognition Formula in His Oracles against the Nations,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 22 [1995]: 115–34), I have argued that the knowledge conveyed to foreign nations is not confessional in nature but deals with Yahweh’s reputation as the deity who has power over the cosmos.

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well-being; the exodus is ultimately all about Yhwh. The action is motivated entirely by the lack of respect that Chaos’s forces have for Yhwh as a powerful deity who controls and defeats them. At this point, Israel takes on humankind’s role as Yhwh’s image. The priests do not leave their definition of Israel alone at this point but continue to describe and define Israel as the testimony to Yhwh’s sovereignty over the cosmos throughout the Tetrateuch. It must suffice to note only one significant example. After the stories of Israel’s purifying journey through the wilderness, the priests pass on the tales of Balak and Balaam in Num 22–24. There, Balaam utters four separate oracles, all blessing Israel, quite to the consternation of the Moabite king, Balak. Note especially the audience of these blessings: Balak, a foreign king who, like Egypt, represents Chaos. Most interesting, Num 24:1 states that when uttering his third oracle Balaam set his face toward the wilderness, in the same way that a boundary stele would face out toward the foreign territory. 47 To Chaos, then, Balaam declares Yhwh’s victories over his foes (24:7–9). Meanwhile, Israel dwells in a paradise that resembles Eden (24:5–6). Balaam, whose eyes are uncovered (24:4, 15–16), sees this vision of Yhwh’s beneficent sovereignty by looking at Israel, no matter what angle Balak presents Israel to him (23:13, 27). In short, the text presents in the form of a foreign king and prophet a picture of Chaos, which, upon viewing Israel, beholds the power of Yhwh.

Conclusion The priests in the middle part of the fifth century b.c.e. occupied a difficult but important time in Israelite history. The question of the day was: “As a province under Persian rule, who are we?” Their answer was: “The image of God.” As discussed here, they defined the nation as a testimonial to Persia and the other foreign peoples with whom they were now forced to live of Yhwh’s power and sovereignty over Chaos. He was the creator of the orderly universe, the one who brings prosperity and fertility. By looking at Israel, the nations would see this. Von Rad’s marginalization of creation fails to see the important, central role that creation theology played in the priests’ understanding of Israel’s salvation history. Undoubtedly this definition of Israel served as a source of strength and pride for the nation, for it gave them a universally important role in the scheme of things. It 47. For the wilderness as a representation of Chaos, see Keel, Symbolism, 76–77.

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supplied them further with hope of eventual victory, despite the events of the last 150 years and their present loss of autonomy. Surely this motif helped to sustain the nation through this time. The priests’ success in defining Israel as a testimony to Yhwh as the God of the heavens and earth, moreover, can be seen in the fact that this definition continued long past the fifth century, as seen in many of the court tales of Daniel (e.g., Dan 2:47; 3:28–29; 4:37; 6:25–27). It should not be lost on the reader, however, that this definition also gave the priests themselves, as the mediators of the God of the heavens and the earth, a very powerful and important position among their peers. It is perhaps too cynical to believe that this was their only motivation or that there were none who sought to serve Yhwh with a purity of heart. Still, as seen in the tower of Babel story in Gen 11, human hubris makes it very difficult to be the image of God, to resist the temptation of the serpent of Gen 3, and not to make a name for oneself.

Deuteronomy, Ethnicity, and Reform: Reflections on the Social Setting of the Book of Deuteronomy Robert R. Wilson Yale University

S. Dean McBride Jr.’s article “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy” has had a major influence on subsequent scholarly discussion of Deuteronomy. 1 His convincing exposition of Deuteronomy’s literary structure has provided readers with a fresh way of understanding the book’s compositional history, while his lucid exposition of Deuteronomic thought remains one of the best available. However, even more important than these contributions has been his insistence that Deuteronomy is best viewed as a “polity” or as the “constitution” of the Deuteronomic state. By viewing the book in this way, McBride moves beyond the usual descriptions of Deuteronomy as theology, law, or literature—although it is certainly all of these things—and he emphasizes the book’s role in the creation and regulation of an actual living community. From his perspective, the Israel addressed in Deuteronomy was not a theological ideal, a theoretical abstraction, or a literary construct, but was envisioned by the author(s) as an actual social group living in a particular time and place. McBride’s article thus underscores the importance of reading Deuteronomy against the historical and social background in which it was created and to which it was intended to speak. Although he is certainly aware of the numerous ways in which Deuteronomy was interpreted by later communities and individuals and in fact draws his characterization of the book as a “polity”

Author’s note: For many years Dean McBride has been an esteemed teacher, colleague, and friend. I remember with great pleasure the stimulating conversations that we have had over the years, and I offer the following essay as the latest installment of an ongoing dialogue that I look forward to continuing for many more years. 1. S. Dean McBride Jr., “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy,” Int 41 (1987): 229–44; reprinted in this volume, pp. 17–33.

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from Josephus’s understanding of it, McBride nevertheless insists that the question of the original setting of the literature should not be omitted from the scholarly discussion. McBride’s treatment of Deuteronomy as the polity of an actual Israelite community has demonstrated the potential fruitfulness of continuing to include questions of historical and social setting within the ongoing scholarly discussion of the book. In the spirit of his contextualized approach to Deuteronomy, which pervades much of his other scholarly research as well, the following discussion will explore the ways in which Deuteronomy’s distinctive views on Israel’s polity might shed light on the setting in which those views were first articulated. A thorough treatment of this topic would, of course, far exceed the space available for it here, but the remarks that follow are offered as a contribution to the discussion that McBride has begun and as a tribute to his work as a whole, which is always both creative and stimulating.

Deuteronomy and Ethnicity McBride’s stress on the historical and social concreteness of Deuteronomic Israel has not always been fully appreciated by scholars working on the book, but it has been noticed by those studying the ways in which ancient Israel’s ethnic identity was created and nurtured. The scholarly discussion of Israelite ethnicity is a relatively recent phenomenon in biblical studies and seems to have begun under the influence of sociological research done in the 1960s on the creation and persistence of ethnic identity in modern social groups. 2 Although the term ethnicity is not a particularly appropriate term to use in connection with ancient societies because of the overtones of racial distinctiveness associated with the word in the modern mind, the fact remains that ancient social groups seem to have had many of the features that modern sociologists associate with ethnic groups. 3 2. For early collections of general studies on the topic, see Fredrik Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969); and Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975). The discussions from this period were based in many cases on earlier sociological treatments of the concept of ethnicity. A useful collection of this earlier research may be found in Werner Sollors, ed., Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1996). 3. For a standard definition of the word ethnicity and a survey of the overtones that it has in modern literary usage, see “ ‘Ethnic, Ethnical, Ethnicity, Ethnie, Ethnique’:

spread is 6 points long

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Such groups define themselves as distinct social entities and recognize themselves as different from other groups. Ethnic groups are thus marked by clear boundaries, even though those boundaries can be crossed under certain circumstances. Following a standard description of ethnic groups provided by Fredrik Barth early on in the modern discussion, one may say that these groups are “largely biologically self-perpetuating,” share “fundamental cultural values, realized in overt unity in cultural forms,” make up “a field of communication and interaction,” and constitute “a membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others as constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order.” 4 Under the influence of the modern sociological discussion, biblical scholars soon began to explore various aspects of ethnicity that were thought to be reflected in the biblical texts. 5 However, given McBride’s observation that Deuteronomy is best understood as a constitution for an Israelite state, a constitution that stresses group unity and the features that distinguish Israel from the surrounding nations, it is not surprising that the first major monographic treatment of Israelite ethnicity focused on Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History. 6 In 1993, E. Theodore Mullen Jr. published a major study in which he suggested that the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy through Kings) was created during the crisis of the exile (probably between 560 and 550 b.c.e.) in order to provide the Entries from Oxford English Dictionary (1961) and Supplement (1972), and Grand Robert (1985),” in Theories of Ethnicity (ed. W. Sollors; New York: New York University Press, 1996), 2–12. Modern notions of racial identity do not seem to appear until the second millennium c.e., and they seem to have been unknown in antiquity. For a discussion of the difficulties involved in applying the concept of ethnicity to ancient societies, see Kenton L. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and Their Expression in the Hebrew Bible (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 1–6. 4. Fredrik Barth, “Introduction,” Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 10–11 (reprinted in Sollors, ed., Theories of Ethnicity, 296). 5. See, for example, the essays collected in Mark G. Brett, ed., Ethnicity and the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1996). 6. E. Theodore Mullen Jr., Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries: The Deuteronomistic Historian and the Creation of Israelite National Identity (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993). Even earlier, Deuteronomy had been used as the focus of a study on Israel and the “other” in biblical thought, although this study does not seem to have been directly influenced by the sociological discussion of ethnicity. See Paul-Eugène Dion, “Israël et l’étranger dans le Deutéronome,” in L’Altérité, vivre ensemble différents: Approches pluridisciplinaires (ed. Michel Gourgues and Gilles-D. Mailhiot; Montreal: Bellarmin / Paris: Cerf, 1984), 211–33.

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landless Israelites with a shared history that might be the basis of a new ethnic identity. Although the History was probably composed of fragments of earlier traditions, the new work was crafted as a written document specifically to speak to a fragmented people that had suffered the loss of its territory and the destruction of its government and that was in grave danger of being assimilated into the society of its enemies. The unified history that was created at this time provided a common past for all of the various groups that made up the exilic community and was a crucial first step in creating a new sense of ethnic identity for the Israelite people. As the introduction to this historical work, the writers created the book of Deuteronomy, again perhaps on the basis of earlier traditions. The book was designed as a statement of Israel’s new ethnic identity and was intended to supply an ideological base for the Deuteronomistic History as a whole. According to Deuteronomy, the characteristic that most sharply separated Israel from the surrounding nations was to be Israel’s singleminded devotion to Yhwh, the people’s only God. Israel was to be bound to Yhwh through a covenant that conferred on Israel the status of Yhwh’s chosen, holy people and that in return demanded from Israel love for the deity and obedience to the covenantal stipulations. It is the election of Israel that constitutes it as a distinct ethnic group, and it is Israel’s obedience to the stipulations of the covenant that supplies the visible markers of the group’s distinctiveness. However, while Deuteronomy’s expression of Israel’s ethnic identity is addressed to the exilic community and is designed to begin the process of creating a new unity for the people, the reality of Deuteronomic Israel still lies in the future. Just as in Deuteronomy Moses provides a polity that is to govern Israel once it crosses the Jordan and enters the land that God had long ago promised to the ancestors, so also exilic Israel will become a new and distinct nation only when it returns to its land and enters into the covenant demanded by the book. Then it will have to set up the type of government that marks Israel as God’s people. 7 Although Mullen builds a powerful and original case for seeing issues of ethnicity as motivating factors in the creation of Deuteronomistic literature in general and the book of Deuteronomy in particular, his treatment is also 7. Mullen, Narrative History, 1–18, 55–85. Mullen later expanded his thesis to include the Tetrateuch as well as the Deuteronomistic History. See E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations (SemeiaSt; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997).

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clearly in conversation with the main lines of the scholarly discussion. On the question of date and historical setting, for example, he agrees with a number of recent studies that date Deuteronomistic literature to the exile, or even later, to the Persian period. 8 Similarly, along with many scholars, he sees the Deuteronomistic History as essentially a single, unified work in which all of the components are joined together to serve a common purpose, in this case the creation of an ethnic identity. 9 However, both of these issues continue to be debated, with some scholars still trying to make a case for a preexilic date for at least part of the Deuteronomistic History and other scholars questioning the unity of the History itself. 10 It is not surprising, then, that the other recent major monographic treatment of Israelite ethnicity has reached different conclusions from those of Mullen. In 1998, Kenton L. Sparks published a wide-ranging study of ethnicity in ancient Israel that is both more detailed and broader in scope than the earlier work of Mullen. 11 Recognizing the likelihood that ideas about Israelite identity changed over time and also varied from group to group, Sparks treats early statements of ethnicity in Judges 5 and in the Merneptah Stele, as well as in later prophetic books such as Hosea, Amos, and First Isaiah. Then he discusses ethnic identity in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History, and finally in the exilic prophetic books of Ezekiel and Deutero-

8. The notion that Deuteronomistic literature was primarily the creation of the exilic period probably enters the modern scholarly discussion with Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. Bernhard W. Anderson; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), trans. of Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1943). More recently a date in the Josianic period or later has been proposed by Lothar Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969), and this trend toward an exilic or postexilic date can be seen in the work of a number of scholars. See, for example, David Noel Freedman, “The Earliest Bible,” in Backgrounds for the Bible (ed. Michael P. O’Connor and David Noel Freedman; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 29–37; and John Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983; repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997). 9. The notion that the Deuteronomic History is a unified composition was popularized by Noth in his Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. 10. Major benchmarks in the discussion of the date and unity of the Deuteronomistic History have been collected in Gary N. Knoppers and J. Gordon McConville, Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History (SBTS 8; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000). 11. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel.

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Isaiah. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to consider all of his proposals, but it will be fruitful to outline his treatment of Deuteronomy. According to Sparks, the core of the book is chaps. 12–26, which is a law code of Northern origin to be dated no later than the eighth century b.c.e. The text reached its present form under the influence of Josiah’s reforms in the late seventh century, when chaps. 5–11 were added as the introduction to the code. Finally (following the proposal of Noth and the earlier scholarly consensus), chaps. 1–4 were added as an introduction to the whole Deuteronomistic History. In contrast to Mullen, Sparks holds that interest in supporting Israel’s ethnic identity first arose in the wake of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom in 722 b.c.e., when large numbers of refugees migrated south into Judah, thus creating a mixed population that needed to be unified in order for the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem to gain firm control over the population. According to the accounts in Kings, the two rulers who were most interested in this task were Hezekiah and Josiah, and Sparks believes that Deuteronomy came into existence sometime in the period between the reigns of these two kings. Following this general discussion, Sparks provides a thorough treatment of many of the characteristic features of Deuteronomy that in his view functioned to provide Israel with a distinct ethnic identity. Among the most important of these features are the creation of a common history through numerous references to Israel’s ancestors and their relationship to Yhwh, even though those ancestors were not originally specified in the text by name; the insistence that Yhwh is Israel’s only God; the gift to Israel of a specific land; the frequent reference to all Israelites as “brothers,” implying membership in a common family; and finally the distinctions drawn between Israel and the nations and between Israelites on the one hand and foreigners and sojourners on the other. 12 Like Mullen, Sparks has made a strong case that Deuteronomy is interested in the creation of ethnic identity, and he has provided a stimulating discussion of many of the characteristic features of the book. However, Sparks differs greatly from Mullen on the question of the historical and social setting that Deuteronomy sought to address. Both scholars agree that Deuteronomy is designed to create an ethnic identity for Israel, but the identification of the particular historical incarnation of Israel that is the original intended audience of the book is still a matter of dispute. To put the matter another way, Mullen and Sparks both take seriously McBride’s 12. Ibid., 222–84.

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suggestion that Deuteronomy is best viewed as a polity of an actual historical group living in a particular time and place, but they do not agree on the identity and social location of that group.

Deuteronomy and Reform As a contribution toward the resolution of the debate between Sparks and Mullen, the remainder of this discussion will focus on a dimension of Deuteronomy that has not been thoroughly treated by either scholar, namely the character of Deuteronomy as an agenda for reform. One of the most obvious literary characteristics of the book is its exhortatory style, which is particularly marked in the introductory chapters (chaps. 5–11) but that appears elsewhere as well. Throughout the book the audience is addressed directly in the second person singular or plural and warned against engaging in certain types of behavior, as well as enjoined repeatedly to act in a different way. 13 These exhortations are sometimes preceded by temporal clauses such as, “when the Lord your God brings you into the land . . .” (Deut 7:1) or “when you come into the land . . .” (Deut 18:9), which imply a clear distinction between Israel’s behavior at the moment the people are being addressed and the behavior they are to exhibit in the future. Sometimes the contrast between present behavior and future behavior is made explicit, as it is in Deut 12:8, where Moses warns the people, “you shall not act as we are acting here today.” In short, Deuteronomy does not simply provide new guidelines and prohibitions but enjoins changes or reforms in present behavior, even though the book does not always identify clearly the behavior that is to be reformed. Previous discussions of the historical and social setting of Deuteronomy have usually focused on the distinctive injunctions and prohibitions in the book and then tried to determine the most appropriate matrix for this material. Both Mullen and Sparks use a version of this approach when they describe Deuteronomy’s distinctive markers of ethnic identity and then try to assign them a plausible social setting. Such an approach might yield more precision if it were to be combined with an effort to identify or reconstruct the behavior that Deuteronomy seeks to reform. If the

13. The shift between singular and plural forms of address has been the subject of much scholarly debate, and there is still no scholarly consensus on the problem. For a recent discussion of the issue, see J. G. McConville, “Singular Address in the Deuteronomic Law and the Politics of Legal Administration,” JSOT 97 (2002): 19–36.

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book is to be located accurately in a particular time and place, then both the present behavior that is to be reformed and the new Deuteronomic behavior being advocated must be capable of being plausibly located in the proposed setting. In order to test the potential value of this approach to determining the original social setting of the book, we would need to study in detail all of Deuteronomy’s characteristic views and the views that the biblical writers seek to reform, a task that far exceeds the space available here. However, some preliminary conclusions can be drawn by looking at several important aspects of the Deuteronomic polity. Israel and Yhwh Certainly one of the most prominent features of the Deuteronomic polity is the notion that Israel is distinctive because it alone among all the nations is bound to its God, Yhwh, by means of a treaty or covenant. Treaty language pervades the book (see, for example, Deut 4:13, 23, 25–31; 5:2; 7:12; 8:1, 6, 11; 11:8, 13, 22) and has been subjected to exhaustive study by biblical scholars. 14 In the ancient world, treaties were developed as an instrument of international relations and are best attested in secondmillennium b.c.e. Hittite texts and later in first-millennium Neo-Assyrian texts. Because of the proximity in time, most scholars agree, the Assyrian treaties are most likely to have influenced the biblical writers, particularly since Assyria was an active presence in Israelite politics from the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722/21 through at least the reign of Hezekiah in Judah. 15 It is not certain whether the idea of a treaty or covenant between Israel and its God was a Deuteronomic innovation or whether the idea can be found in other groups inside or outside of Israel. However, there is no doubt that Deuteronomy makes heavy use of the concept, as does biblical literature that seems to depend on Deuteronomy. In this case it is rela14. The classic work on this topic is Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972; repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 59–157. 15. It is always possible that ancient Israel knew of and used treaties before the Assyrian period, since their use is also attested in Syrian contexts. For a discussion of the differences between Hittite and Assyrian treaties and the problems associated with determining influence, see Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant (2nd ed.; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1978), especially pp. 122–53. On the treaty as an instrument of international relations, see Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook, eds., Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

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tively clear what sort of behavior is being reformed when Deuteronomy advocates an exclusive covenant between Israel and Yhwh. As instruments regulating international relations, treaties were always between nations and more particularly between the rulers of those nations. It would be reasonable to suppose, then, that Deuteronomy is interested in reforming this diplomatic practice and substituting for it a covenant between people and deity. This supposition is supported by the fact that the same biblical texts that urge fidelity to the covenant with Yhwh also prohibit treaties with the nations, often symbolized by the seven nations thought to be the original inhabitants of Israel’s land (Deut 7:1–6, 16–26). Deuteronomy, then, is interested in reforming the standard practice of using treaties to regulate international relations, and the Deuteronomistic accounts of Judean reigns in the books of Kings evaluate positively the rulers who do not make formal political arrangements with the Assyrians (or later with the Babylonians). 16 Such a political perspective would have given Deuteronomic Israel an isolationist stance in foreign policy and would have made it difficult for the people to survive in the context of hostile or aggressive neighbors. 17 It may also be worth noting that Deuteronomy allows the king no role in the making or the enforcement of the covenant between Israel and Yhwh, and the reader gets the clear impression that the king is like every other Israelite in being subject to the covenant (Deut 17:14–20). Rather, the covenant is made by each new generation of Israelites and ratified as part of a ritual event (Deut 27–28). As part of the ritual, curses are prescribed for those who violate the covenant, and these curses are presumably fulfilled automatically when an individual or group transgresses the 16. For a discussion of this feature of Kings, see my “Former Prophets: Reading the Books of Kings,” in Old Testament Interpretation Past, Present, and Future: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker (ed. James Luther Mays, David L. Petersen, and Kent Harold Richards; Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 91–96. 17. This understanding of the covenant material in Deuteronomy is of course not new. Almost 50 years ago, Frank Moore Cross Jr. and David Noel Freedman suggested that the substitution of a covenant with Yhwh for a treaty with the Assyrians should be viewed as a tactic used by Josiah in his drive to establish an independent Israelite state during what he thought was a time of political weakness on the part of Assyria. See Frank Moore Cross Jr. and David Noel Freedman, “Josiah’s Revolt against Assyria,” JNES 12 (1953): 56–58. Cross and Freedman already recognized that the Deuteronomic rejection of treaties with foreign nations would have made sense only in a time when Israel was in no danger of being under foreign political control.

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agreement. Exactly how this arrangement worked in practice will be considered below, but the fact remains that the exclusion of the ruler from a special role in the making and administration of the covenant is a major departure from standard ancient Near Eastern practice. It may also be significant that Deuteronomy does not speak of a special agreement between Yhwh and the king, an agreement of the sort that is elaborated in 2 Sam 7 and that seems to lie behind the notion of an eternal Davidic dynasty in the Deuteronomistic History. The reasons for this omission are unclear, but possible explanations will be considered below. 18 In attempting to situate Deuteronomy’s thinking about covenant within a particular social context, many scholars follow Mullen’s proposal that the period of the exile is the most likely candidate. The argument in favor of this position usually runs as follows: exilic Israel found itself in the chaotic condition of living among foreigners without its own land and without its own king; it therefore emphasized its special relationship with Yhwh in order to restore stability to the nation. Deuteronomy was crafted in order to create hope for the exiles by pointing to a day when Israel would return to its land and institute a new government that would be a theocracy, with political power arising from the covenantal relationship between the people and God. Such an understanding of the setting of Deuteronomy is plausible only for a very brief period of time during the exile, and only if it is accepted that the book was interpreted as a projection of a future Israelite state. If the proposal that Israel reject international treaties had been floated while the Babylonians were still in firm control of their Empire, it is likely that they would have viewed Deuteronomy as a call for internal revolt and would have dealt with it accordingly. As an exilic document, then, Deuteronomy’s position on treaties is most plausible at a time of Babylonian weakness, perhaps just before Cyrus’s conquest of the city of Babylon, when internal political conditions were presumably chaotic. Similarly, once the Persians were in firm control of the Empire, it is also likely that Deuteronomy’s agenda would have been viewed as a direct challenge to a state that expected civil obedience. 19 18. For a recent consideration of the purpose of 2 Sam 7 and ways in which it was later interpreted, see William M. Schniedewind, Society and the Promise to David: The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1–17 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 19. For a discussion of governance of the Persian Empire under Cyrus, see Pierre Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 31–61.

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More likely is Sparks’s suggestion that the notion of a covenant with Yhwh arose during the period of Assyrian weakness around the time of Josiah. This is a time when the concept of a treaty would have been fresh in people’s minds because of its recent use by the Assyrians, and the notion of an independent Israelite state might have been plausible, although in the end the assumption of Assyrian weakness turned out to be misguided. More difficult to understand in this period is the way in which the king is excluded from playing a major role in the covenant, although it may be that royal power in this period was nowhere as great as the books of Kings suggest. Israel and Worship Certainly the clearest example of reform in Deuteronomy has to do with Israel’s worship life. In this connection three issues must be considered: the centralization of worship, the role of the Levites, and the reform of the major festivals. Of these three, the first, the centralization of worship, clearly influences the other two. One of the central features of Deuteronomy is its call for legitimate worship of Yhwh only in the one “place which the Lord your God shall choose.” The regulations governing the central sanctuary are given a preeminent position at the beginning of the polity section of the book (chap. 12), and it is absolutely clear that centralization involves the reform of an earlier system. Previously worship could take place at local sanctuaries, which are recognized as remaining in existence after centralization has taken place. While Deuteronomy calls for the destruction of Canaanite worship sites (Deut 12:2–3), there is no suggestion that local Israelite sanctuaries are to be destroyed. Rather, Deuteronomy apparently regards them as “desacralized.” Animals may still be slaughtered there as before, but since the slaughter is not a ritual event, people do not need to be in a state of ritual purity to eat the meat (Deut 12:15–25). All burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, donations, and votive gifts, however, must be brought to the central sanctuary (Deut 12:8–12, 26–27). The reform of the older system of local worship required in turn a reform in the treatment of the clergy who formerly presided at the local shrines and raised other problems with the cultic calendar. Deuteronomy addresses both of these issues in separate laws. In the first case, Levites, who may have been functioning as priests in the local sanctuaries, could no longer count on receiving the priest’s portion of offerings made locally. For them Deuteronomy makes two provisions: if the Levites choose to do so, they may leave their towns and go to the central sanctuary, where they must be given full access to the altar and must be allowed to share fully in

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the priest’s portion (Deut 18:6–8). The way in which this law is phrased suggests that the Levites in question had not previously had the right to officiate at the central shrine, which is presumed to be operated by other priests, whether Levites or not. The situation envisioned by Deuteronomy would thus be a reform of the priestly structure prior to centralization. However, if the Levites in the towns decide not to go to the central sanctuary, then they must be provided for in another way, since they have no inherited land with which to support themselves (Deut 18:1–2; 14:27). In this case the people are to store their tithes in their towns every third year, and from this stock of food are to provide for all people who have no inherited property: the Levites, the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow. The centralization of worship also caused a second set of problems, involving the cultic calendar and the making of offerings. The requirement of a centralized Passover seems to be a reform of an earlier practice of celebrating the festival in the home, while the requirement of the participation of the whole family in the harvest offerings at the central sanctuary might have led to difficulties in completing the harvest. It is perhaps to address this problem that Deuteronomy specifies that only males must appear at the festivals (Deut 16:17–18), although this formulation of the law may simply reflect an older practice. More pressing was the problem of transporting offerings to the central shrine, if it happened to be at a great distance from a family’s lands. To address this issue, Deuteronomy provides that tithes can be converted into silver and exchanged for agricultural and animal offerings at the central shrine (Deut 14:24–26). Deuteronomy’s view of appropriate worship thus clearly involves a reform of earlier practice, and in some cases the reforms themselves seem to have created problems that then had to be addressed. When scholars attempt to situate these reforms in a particular social setting, some of them again follow Mullen and suggest that the exile is the appropriate choice. In this case the argument is that the exile caused a break in Israel’s worship practices, so various groups attempted to advocate for a new set of regulations that would govern worship life once the people returned to the land. Seen from this perspective, Deuteronomy would have to be understood as advocating the reform of a system that had developed in the land during the exile. That system would have had to have involved local sanctuaries, lack of centralization, and an active priesthood, among other features. It is, of course, difficult to know with any certainty the details of life in the land during the exile. However, recent archaeological research suggests that, while most of Jerusalem remained a ruin, some other parts of the

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land seem to have survived the Babylonian destruction and continued agricultural village life as usual. 20 Although there is no direct evidence on this point, it is possible to imagine that local worship could have survived in the remaining villages and that local shrines could have been presided over by local priests of some sort, although why Deuteronomy would care about their welfare remains a question. More difficult to imagine is a lack of some sort of centralized worship in the land during the preexilic period and even during the exile, especially when there is some evidence to the contrary. Jeremiah reports, for example, that after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, people from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria came to visit the Temple to mourn and to present offerings there, an action that suggests that they viewed the Temple either as the one legitimate place to worship or at least as a location superior to other sanctuaries ( Jer 41:4–5). At about the same time, Ezekiel, who certainly does not represent a Deuteronomistic point of view, treats Jerusalem as the only legitimate sanctuary in the land and accepts the proposition that the city is the only legitimate dwelling place for Yhwh (Ezek 40:1–44:3; 47:1–12; 48:8–14). All of this suggests that, if worship life in the land were to be viewed by an exilic Deuteronomist, the picture would not resemble the scene that Deuteronomy seeks to revise. However, there is another period when Israelite worship life seems to resemble more closely the situation presumed by Deuteronomy, and that is the period between Hezekiah and Josiah, as suggested by Sparks. Hezekiah came to power not long after the Assyrians had destroyed Samaria. The fall of the Northern Kingdom seems to have caused a number of Northern refugees to flee to the South for safety, requiring the expansion of the city of Jerusalem. Some local sanctuaries in the North would have become inaccessible if they lay in areas directly controlled by the Assyrians, while the populations that the Assyrians settled in the North would have brought along their own forms of worship. Later on, during the Assyrian crisis of 701 b.c.e., Sennacherib invaded Judah, causing widespread destruction and displacing a portion of the population. This might have encouraged Hezekiah to try to build a government that focused on Jerusalem, which had been spared during the invasion. Centralization of worship during this period might have been a way of trying to undergird 20. For a brief summary of the archaeological evidence, see Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (New York: Free Press, 2001), 296– 313.

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an increase in royal political control (as is said to have been the case in the Davidic period), or at the very least centralization could have been a response to the fact that Southern sanctuaries had been destroyed by the Assyrians and were therefore not available for worship. Among the refugees may have been displaced priests, who along with their Northern counterparts would have needed to be integrated into a national priesthood centered in Jerusalem. In short, centralization in this period or in the later period of Josiah can be seen as a combination of response to a national crisis and religious support for royal political ambitions. 21 Israel and Governance A final collection of material in Deuteronomy that bears on the issue of the setting of the book relates to the question of governing Deuteronomic Israel. However, in contrast to the issues of covenant and worship discussed above, the Deuteronomic polity dealing with governance seems more interested in preserving a system already in place than in reforming it. Again, there are three dimensions to this material: regulations concerning the king, the nature of the judicial system, and the nature of local governance. The Deuteronomic laws dealing with the king (Deut 17:14–20) are unusual in that they limit the ruler’s power to an extreme degree. Kingship is not prohibited, but it is severely restricted. The king must be chosen by God, a requirement that would seem to restrict a hereditary kingship, and the ruler must be an Israelite native, a requirement that would prevent Israel from giving the title “king” to a foreign monarch. The king is not to acquire horses, a prohibition that would prevent him from establishing a standing army containing a chariot force, and the king is not to make foreign alliances or acquire (foreign?) wives for the purpose of obtaining military aid. He must also not accumulate wealth and therefore cannot afford to support a royal court or a standing army. No mention is made in the text of judicial or legislative functions for the king. In the end, his only function is to study “this law” (presumably the book of Deuteronomy), and this activity will prolong his reign. The king thus seems to have no more power than an ordinary Israelite, since both are subject to Deuteronomic regulation to the same degree. This strange law is best seen as an attempt to reform or to prevent the emergence of the traditional ancient Near Eastern ideal of kingship, which sees the ruler as lawmaker, judge, warrior, and diplomat. 21. For a brief summary of the archaeological evidence of the period from Hezekiah to Josiah, see ibid., 229–95.

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If the king does not govern the Deuteronomic state, then who takes on that job? The answer to this question is supplied in the laws governing the administration. Rather than the king’s being the agent of justice, Israel is to appoint local judges in every town. This local system of justice seems to have no overarching supervisory system, so the justness of the legal process must be the responsibility of the local inhabitants, who are exhorted to be just in all their dealings (Deut 16:18–20). The law that the judges are to administer is Deuteronomy itself, which is not the creation of the monarch but is of divine origin. God delivers the book to the people through the mediation of Moses, and later revelation is to come through a prophet, who is said to be “like Moses” (Deut 18:9–22). Cases that fall outside the boundaries of a local town are handled in different ways, and accidental homicide is dealt with by providing cities of refuge throughout the land (Deut 19:1– 13), a provision made necessary by the removal of local sanctuaries. In cases where the local courts cannot make a decision, Deuteronomy provides for a consultation at the central sanctuary, although the case is then returned to the local court for a final disposition (Deut 17:8–13). 22 The Deuteronomic treatment of the administration of justice thus makes clear that in the end the governance of the state rests in the hands of local elders (see particularly Deut 19–25) and ultimately in the hands of the Israelite community itself. 23 This approach to the matter does not seem to be an innovation, however, but an older system still in existence when Deuteronomy was written and one that Deuteronomy seeks to maintain. Just as scholars such as Mullen have tried to find in the exilic period the context for Deuteronomy’s views on covenant and worship, so too there has been an attempt to place Deuteronomy’s views on governance in the exilic period. In this case, the restrictions on the king are said to reflect the fact that Israel no longer had a king during most of the exile, and the local administration of justice is said to reflect the system that had developed while the people were away from their land. Such a reading of the material is, however, highly unlikely. It is difficult to imagine that the 22. For a different and more thorough approach to the Deuteronomic judicial system, see Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). See also my “Israel’s Judicial System in the Preexilic Period,” JQR 74 (1983): 229–48. 23. McBride has already noted the role that the people themselves play in the administration of the state. See McBride, “Polity,” 240–41. On the role of the elders, see the thorough treatment of Timothy M. Willis, The Elders of the City: A Study of the Elders-Laws in Deuteronomy (SBLMS 55; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001).

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Babylonians would have tolerated the advocacy of reinstating an Israelite king, no matter how much his power was restricted, and it is doubtful that they would have looked favorably on a ruler that they themselves had not chosen. Similarly, the exiles living in Babylon would surely have been expected to obey Babylonian law and not a law generated and administered by the exiles themselves. In the Persian period, the proposals of Deuteronomy would have had an even more difficult time. The Persians expected to appoint their own administrators, even when they were non-Persians, and, while the Persians seem to have been willing to tolerate subject peoples’ following their own religious practices, everyone in the Empire was expected to obey the Persian civil law. 24 A document such as Deuteronomy, which does not distinguish religious and civil law, is likely to have immediately drawn Persian fire. The setting proposed by Sparks, however, the period between Hezekiah and Josiah, has more to recommend it. With the destruction of the North, Judah was in a position to be able to flourish as it had been unable to do while its larger Northern neighbor still existed. This opportunity seems to have encouraged both Hezekiah and Josiah to attempt to expand and to strengthen the kingdom of Judah, and as part of this process they may have sought to build a traditional monarchical state. At the same time, however, there may well have been groups in the land that were opposed to such a state. Groups from the North that had seen the disaster that occurred when their own state became involved in international politics might not have been willing to live through the creation of another such state in the South. Southern landowners (“the people of the land”?) may not have been interested in seeing their local power limited by the monarchy. In short, a number of groups might have been interested in preventing the rise of a strong monarchy in Judah and might have preferred an older system of local rule. Such groups would have been attracted by the program of Deuteronomy and might have even been responsible for writing it. As an alternative, one might see the book as an effort by Hezekiah or Josiah to convince the non-Jerusalem population that the new state that was in the making would not be like other monarchical states they had

24. For a discussion of law in the Persian period, see my “Israel’s Judicial System,” 246–48; and the essays collected in James W. Watts, ed., Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (SBLSymS 17; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001).

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known. In any case, it is easy to imagine that Judah after the fall of Samaria could have been fertile ground for Deuteronomic ideas.

Conclusion It is clear, then, that a case can be made for at least two historical and social settings as the point of origin for Deuteronomy, and several more might be considered. In the end, a resolution to the problem cannot be certain without more evidence. However, at the moment, a setting in Judah in the period between Hezekiah and Josiah seems to be more plausible than a later setting, in the exile. Yet no matter which way the issue is resolved, it is important not to lose sight of the point that McBride originally scored. Deuteronomy is intended to be a polity, a constitution for an actual state, and scholars are not free to ignore the implications of that observation.

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Constitution or Instruction? The Purpose of Deuteronomy Patrick D. Miller Princeton Theological Seminary

Few studies of the book of Deuteronomy in the last 25 years have been as significant for or as influential on the study of the book as Dean McBride’s sharply honed analysis of Deuteronomy as a kind of constitution or polity for ancient Israel. 1 His essay differs sharply with the more common reading of Deuteronomy as having a primarily instructive function, as being a form of proclamation and/or teaching. Indeed McBride’s intention was to challenge that reading (or misreading) of the book in favor of its being a formal and precise presentation of a divinely authorized social, political, and religious order that was meant to be operative in Israel. This careful and forceful presentation has raised afresh the question of what it is that we have in Deuteronomy, and McBride’s analysis has not been without its respondents; his work has caused others to revisit the issue. It is appropriate in this context to ask whether there is a way through this conflict—or possibly a way of viewing the character of the book that does not set these understandings simply in opposition to each other. Some review of the options is necessary on the way to seeing how they can profitably engage each other. In this context, those options will be reduced to two, although any student of Deuteronomy knows immediately that there are variations and nuances and indeed other ways of describing the character of the work than will be described here. The fundamental debate, however, centers, in my judgment, in the options posed in the title, a point that seems to be recognized clearly by McBride as well as by others. 2 Author’s note: It is a great pleasure to offer this essay to Dean McBride, whose friendship and scholarly acumen have been a great gift for many years. In all matters Deuteronomic he is my constant guide. 1. McBride, “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy,” Int 41 (1987): 229–44 (reprinted in this volume). 2. “Is Deuteronomy constitutional law, more or less closely related to the everyday life of Israel, or is it teaching?” (A. D. H. Mayes, “On Describing the Purpose of Deuteronomy,” JSOT 58 [1993]: 15).

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The view of Deuteronomy as essentially a homiletical or sermonic presentation of the law, whose aim is primarily to encourage obedience to the divine will, is especially associated with Gerhard von Rad but has been picked up or recognized by many others. 3 Von Rad also focused attention on the character of the book as a covenant document and saw in it a liturgical sequence as well as a collection of sermons. 4 Indeed the book presents itself as sequence of three speeches or addresses by Moses (chaps. 1–4, 5–28, and 29–32) together with a conclusion (chaps. 33–34), which is also primarily a speech by Moses. The highly hortatory character of all of this material leads to viewing the speeches as serving a sermonic function, a kind of preaching as much or more than promulgation of law. It has become common to hear Deuteronomy referred to as “preached law.” Such a reading of the character of Deuteronomy has had two concomitant features. One is an implicit and sometimes explicit resistance to seeing the book as in any way a legal or sociopolitical code. That is reflected in von Rad’s Old Testament Theology when he says: Indeed, in reducing all the profusion of the commandments to the one fundamental commandment, to love God (Deut 4:4), and in concerning itself so earnestly with the inner, the spiritual, meaning of the commandments, Deuteronomy rather looks like a last stand against the beginning of a legislation. (italics mine) 5

Further on, von Rad writes: “Deuteronomy does not set out to be civil law—none of the legal codes in the Old Testament is to be understood in this way.” 6 Noth also argued against seeing Deuteronomy as a reflection of state law. Rather, it is the basis for the covenantal relationship. 7 An even 3. See also the work of Martin Noth on Deuteronomy in his monograph “The Laws in the Pentateuch: Their Assumptions and Meaning,” The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965), 1–107. I have focused attention on the homiletical character of Deuteronomy in my commentary (Deuteronomy [Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990]). 4. The discussion of von Rad rests on several of his works, including his commentary (Deuteronomy [trans. Dorothea Barton; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966]), his Old Testament theology (Old Testament Theology [trans. D. G. M. Stalker; 2 vols.; New York: Harper, 1962]), his early collection of essays (Studies in Deuteronomy [SBT 9; London: SCM, 1953]), and his extended dictionary presentation of the book in IDB (New York: Abingdon, 1962), 1:831–38. 5. Idem, Old Testament Theology, 1:201. 6. Ibid., 1:228. 7. Idem, “The Laws in the Pentateuch.”

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more explicit rejection of the notion of Deuteronomy as a judicial work in favor of understanding the book as preaching and teaching is found in the comment of G. Ernest Wright: Deuteronomy is not a juridical book prepared for the use of the judges, kings, and priests of Israel, whose task it was to administer law. It was written for the community, for the “church” of Israel, as a whole. It is a preaching, a proclamation and exposition of the faith of the nation, which includes the law as the expression of the will of God which must be obeyed, but which in itself is not primarily a law. It is a gospel of the redeeming God who has saved a people from slavery and has bound them to himself in a covenant. . . . There can be no doubt . . . that the original purpose of Deuteronomy was not to impose a legalistic system upon the Israelite community, but rather to convey the Mosaic “teaching” or “doctrine.” 8

This is not all that Wright had to say about the purpose of Deuteronomy (see below), but the accent is the same as von Rad’s. The other and even more significant feature of the homiletical way of viewing Deuteronomy, as McBride recognizes at the outset of his study, is an understanding of Torah as it appears in Deuteronomy as “instruction” or “teaching.” The term tôrâ is quite important for understanding the purpose of Deuteronomy. “This Torah” or “this book of the Torah” appears at several key places (e.g., 1:5; 4:8, 44; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8, 26; 28:58, 61; 29:21, 29; 30:10; 31:9, 11, 12, 26) as a way of referring to the Decalogue, the Shema, the exposition of the Decalogue and the Shema in chaps. 6–11, the code in chaps. 12–26 (together with the curses and blessings that are sanctions to secure obedience to the Torah and identify the consequences of disobedience), and to the book of Deuteronomy as a whole. Much has been made of the possibility of understanding this term as it appears in Deuteronomy as not simply referring either to a Priestly decision or to law as it is customarily understood, but as having to do generally with teaching. 9 This seems to be especially the case with Deuteronomy, where a strong emphasis on teaching and learning is present, and where Moses functions very much as a teacher of the divine will.

8. G. E. Wright, “Deuteronomy,” IB (Nashville: Abingdon, 1953), 312, 313. It is apparent in Wright’s comment that one of his concerns, as seems regularly to be the case with treatments of Old Testament law and particularly Deuteronomy, is a legalistic reading of the book. The notion of preached law and of teaching is a way of combating this tendency.

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It is just this issue, the proper meaning of tôrâ in the book of Deuteronomy, that is the jumping-off point for Dean McBride in his challenge to the reading of the book as teaching and proclamation. 10 His point, however, is not to return to the more customary understanding of tôrâ as “law.” He takes his cue from one of the oldest interpreters of Deuteronomy, Josephus, who speaks of Deuteronomy as containing the divine polity (Greek politeia) delivered by Moses at the end of his life. McBride argues that the use of politeia rather than nomos is a self-conscious, indeed polemical, choice of terms. Such language indicates that Josephus understood the purpose of Deuteronomy as setting forth the sociopolitical order for Israel’s life, an order that had priority over Greek and Roman claims to have the most sublime forms of polity of any nation state. The book of Deuteronomy thus provides a kind of constitution for the nation of Israel, “the divinely authorized social order that Israel must implement to secure its collective political existence as the people of God.” 11 Because McBride’s programmatic essay is included in this volume, there is no need to describe his argument in detail. Some summary, however, is necessary in order to build on his work. He notes the frequent reference to the written character of the book and the fact that it is the one book that is referred to and cited elsewhere in the Old Testament. 12 The words of the Deuteronomic Torah are not simply admonitions and guide9. Here the work of Gunnar Östborn, Tora in the Old Testament: A Semantic Study (Lund: Hakan Ohlssons, 1945), has been formative, as well as Barnabas Lindars’s study of the word in Deuteronomy, “Torah in Deuteronomy,” in Words and Meanings: Essays Presented to David Winton Thomas (ed. P. R. Ackroyd and B. Lindars; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 117–36. Lindars summarizes the results of his study in these words: hrwt, then, is the word employed by the Deuteronomic editors to convey their concept of the code as a complete expression of the will of God, having the same binding force as the Decalogue, recorded especially for the welfare of the people, to be learnt and pondered by them. The term retains its didactic overtones, and to say “the book of the divine instruction” might represent the real meaning better than the usual translation “the book of the law.” (p. 131)

10. See “Polity of the Covenant People,” nn. 9 and 10, in which McBride critiques some of the scholarly interpretations of tôrâ. 11. Ibid., “Polity of the Covenant People,” 233. 12. For a recent focus on the significance of the written character of Deuteronomy and of writing within Deuteronomy, see the monograph by Jean-Pierre Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy (Biblical Interpretation Series 14; Leiden: Brill, 1997).

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lines for the faithful but “sanctioned political policies” 13 to be obeyed as one would expect to obey any constitutional provisions. Those provisions, promulgated by “the legislative agency of Moses” 14 are set forth in the “decrees” (Decalogue) and the “statutes and ordinances” (the Deuteronomic Code of chaps. 12–26, called “constitutional articles” by McBride 15), and they are formally adopted in a ratification ceremony involving a mutual swearing of oaths (26:16–19). Provision is made for formal deposit and rereading of the constitution, and an elaborate list of sanctions (blessings and curses) is included (chap. 28). McBride argues that Deuteronomy is something totally new at this point in the character of its polity. It is “a comprehensive social charter” 16 for a “constitutional theocracy” 17 that is highly democratic in its substance. The radical developments of this constitution include its insistence on an egalitarian justice that is rooted in its view of the God who is the authority behind the constitution (10:17–19), the responsibility of the people for choosing their political (17:15) and judicial leaders (16:18), and the role of the king, whose election is democratic (17:15), whose prerogatives are limited (17:16–17), and whose only responsibility is to insure that the constitution is carefully attended to and followed (17:18– 20). In its specific provisions, the Deuteronomic polity seeks to protect “above all the sanctity of life and the worth of individual personhood.” 18 This interpretation of Deuteronomy as a polity or constitution setting forth a sociopolitical order in the context of a religious community, effecting in this case a kind of constitutional theocracy, is of no small moment. The book of Deuteronomy is not simply instruction for faith and ethics. Rather, McBride argues, it is “the archetype of modern western constitutionalism.” 19 Indeed, “the Deuteronomic model of theocentric humanism” 20 remains a model in the continuing struggle for social justice and human rights. The political character of the book is as important as its religious character.

13. McBride, “Polity of the Covenant People,” 233. 14. Ibid., 234. 15. Ibid., 234 n. 14. 16. Ibid., 237. 17. Ibid., 238. 18. Ibid., 242. 19. Ibid., 243. 20. Ibid., 244.

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The canonical position of the book of Deuteronomy at the conclusion of the Pentateuch further underscores its purpose as a constitution. Deuteronomy rounds off the Mosaic era with comprehensive Mosaic legislation for the future life of the community in the land. Whatever the historical locus for this constitution—and McBride does not really address this question 21—it is presented now as the polity for the community throughout its life in the land. The fact that sanctions do not appear elsewhere in the Pentateuch undergirds the claim of this polity to control the social order of the community. The new era under Joshua begins with the Lord’s commissioning of Joshua to lead the people into the land and conquer it. But to this is added a very specific word with reference to the Mosaic Torah: Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the Torah shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. ( Josh 1:7–8)

The way in which the Deuteronomic polity was to shape the life and order of the whole community is further underscored when Joshua erects an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal, specifically citing the Mosaic instruction in the “book of the Torah.” The whole of the Torah is written on the stones of the altar and then read to “all Israel” ( Josh 8:30–35). Emphasis is placed on the whole assembly’s being present for this writing and reading of the Torah, including women, children, and resident aliens (µbrqb ˚lhh rg), an implicit indication of the authority of the polity for each member of the community. Finally, the evident correlations between the provisions of the Deuteronomic Code and the Josianic reform evidence a signal moment when the book actually functioned as a political and religious charter for ordering the life of the community. Although, in this instance, the reading and writing of the Torah was especially important for the religious life, it was no 21. One should note, however, his brief comments on these matters in his introduction to Deuteronomy in The Harper Collins Study Bible annotated edition of the nrsv, where he says: “Many of the characteristic provisions of the book find a close correspondence in the reforms instituted by [Josiah]. Yet in its received form the editing of the traditions points to an exilic setting—when the older Mosaic constitution may have been set within an expanded frame of Moses’ valedictory addresses to Israel.”

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doubt a highly political matter for ancient Israel, as evidenced by the way in which the Deuteronomic Code begins with attention to the “unique institutional locus of Israel’s communal life.” 22 McBride’s reading of Deuteronomy as a constitution is not new, as he himself argues vigorously, with reference to Josephus. Other scholars have so understood the book. S. R. Driver suggested viewing Deuteronomy as a kind of “manual” for life in the land. 23 But such a descriptive term does not really point to the sociopolitical character of the book and suggests more a handbook or how-to guide—an analogy that, while not inappropriate, lacks the precision of the notion of polity. Like McBride, Moshe Weinfeld has suggested that Deuteronomy “has the character of an ideal constitution representing all the official institutions of the state.” 24 Similarly, Jacob Milgrom says that Deuteronomy “fashions a national constitution under statecontrolled officials.” 25 Even G. Ernest Wright, who championed a view of the book as proclamation and exposition also saw in it “a revealed order of society,” suggesting that these counterviews are not inherently incompatible. 26 But while McBride’s masterful development of the constitutional character of Deuteronomy and its significance has persuaded many, it has not won the day. 27 One of the most vigorous and articulate counter-voices to 22. McBride, “Polity of the Covenant People,” 240. 23. S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC; New York: Scribner’s, 1895), xxvi. 24. Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972; repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 168. 25. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22 (AB 3A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1356. See also his argument with regard to the Pentateuch, that “the Torah’s laws, far from being a guide for behavior, were, at least in part, the living code of Israel” (p. 1348). 26. Wright, “Deuteronomy,” 313. 27. A. D. H. Mayes’s essay (“On Describing the Purpose of Deuteronomy”) seems to have been inspired by McBride’s work, though Mayes himself takes another approach, drawing on Habermas. According to Mayes, Deuteronomy arose out of the stresses and strains of the monarchy and out of a growing relation to the larger world of nations, specifically Assyria, with its world view and culture. His analysis is helpful and makes some sense. However, his conclusion, that Deuteronomy “is to be understood as a resource not in itself a constitution or piece of state legislation, but rather a resource to give objective grounding to such a constitution or legislation” (p. 30), is a rather weak outcome and not really a derivative of the employment of the Habermas’s categories. The distinction between resource and constitutional outcome of resource is not clear, nor is it clear why the former takes priority over the latter in describing the purpose of Deuteronomy. For further discussion of the recent literature on this issue, see Mark A. O’Brien, “The Book of Deuteronomy,” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 3 (1995): 105–8.

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McBride’s interpretation has been that of Dennis Olson in his study of Deuteronomy titled Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses. 28 Olson agrees that tôrâ is indeed the key term for describing the book but argues that it refers to a program of “catechesis” rather than polity. Further, he believes that McBride’s interpretation of Deuteronomy as a constitution comes closer to understanding the book as a whole than such interpretations as covenant, sermon, or law code. Indeed, Olson says: The proposal that Deuteronomy is a constitution comes closest among all the preceding proposals in laying out its form and function. Deuteronomy is intended to be the basis for a community’s identity and life. The book does provide a succinct and condensed summation of what the community is to be. Some interest in the structures of governance is evident as would be expected in a constitution. 29

But Olson claims that the instructional and teaching character of the term tôrâ as well as of the book as a whole is much more prominent and not really reflected in the constitutional interpretation. As Olson puts it: [T]he identification of torah with “constitution” misses the connotations of “teaching” and “instruction” that are part of the semantic range of torah and part of the central didactic concern of the present form of Deuteronomy. A constitution is not so much taught as it is legislated and enforced. The present book of Deuteronomy does not legislate as much as it teaches. 30

Olson properly picks up the book’s large interest in passing on the story, law, and covenant from one generation to the next. He notes the frequent presence of terms meaning “teach” and “learn” and suggests that in the Deuteronomic mode catechesis implies some corollaries beyond interest in educating or socializing a new generation in the community’s tradition. These include the fact that Deuteronomy is a kind of systematic theology, forged out of the community’s experience; it is an ongoing and adaptive process, with a core in the Decalogue, of which the rest of the book is a secondary interpretation. Mechanisms are set up in the book for ongoing teaching and interpretation. As catechesis, Deuteronomy is able to incorporate various genres and thus use a variety of methods and forms to achieve its goals. Further, unlike a law code, the Deuteronomic catechesis 28. D. Olson, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994). 29. Ibid., 10. 30. Ibid.

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attains its power not by enforcement but by persuasion and conviction. Finally, Deuteronomy is oriented toward the community, concerned with the way that individuals relate to others within the community and also shaping the structural and institutional forms of life for the community. While there are many interpreters who have commented on these matters, the relatively recent seminal and thorough studies by McBride and Olson serve as well as any to illustrate and dramatize the issue. What is Deuteronomy about? What does it seek to do, whether one is speaking about that in relation to the earliest forms of the book or to its continuing function as a scripture for a community of faith over many centuries? Who is right in this argument? Is one to read the book as a charter for a political form of communal life or is one to read it to be instructed in the ways that God would have the community to live its life? If these are related, how is that so? Does one of these understandings represent the dominant intention of the book, while the other one is a recognizable, but not a dominant, strain? A simple response to these questions would be to acknowledge the possibility of multiple purposes to Deuteronomy. This is certainly plausible. To some degree I have argued elsewhere for this sort of flexibility as being built into the very nature of Deuteronomy. 31 A case can be made, however, for a greater integration of these two perspectives. The degree to which both McBride and Olson have identified major shaping and determinative dimensions of the book suggests that these are to be seen as deeply involved with one another. McBride and Olson have each acknowledged that there is some truth to the other way of perceiving Deuteronomy but have claimed that the other way does not really arrive at the main character and purpose of the book. Choosing between constitution and instruction may be a false option, however. Deuteronomy’s significance and purpose lies precisely in the joining of the two. It is not possible to ignore the character of the book as setting forth a large and comprehensive social order, a polity for the people of God, and indeed one that has profound influence on Western constitutionalism, as McBride argues. All of McBride’s arguments are cogent, and his point is to be recognized. Indeed, the point may be pressed even further. The distinction between the Decalogue and the Deuteronomic Code is universally recognized. It is Deuteronomy that makes the most of this difference: first in its narrative account of the people’s asking Moses to go and listen to the rest of what God has to say after giving the people the ten words, because 31. See the introduction to my commentary on Deuteronomy.

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they are afraid they will not live if they encounter God face to face again; then in its reiterated distinction between the commandments given directly to the assembly at Sinai and the later Mosaic teaching of the rest of the divine instruction—that is, the statutes and ordinances—on the plains of Moab (e.g., 4:12–14; 5:1; 6:1; 12:1). What many have recognized is that, if Deuteronomy is to be understood as the polity for the people of Israel, specifically as this centers in the Decalogue and the Deuteronomic Code, in a sense one can argue that the constitution per se is the Decalogue. The Deuteronomic Code specifies and illustrates the force and meaning of these constitutional guidelines in all spheres of Israel’s life, much as contemporary law in the United States is developed out of the guidelines in the U.S. Constitution. 32 The fundamental decrees or principles represented by the Commandments continue throughout and are presented twice, in Exodus and Deuteronomy. In each case, they are followed by a body of case and apodictic law that often reflects or specifies the force of the Commandments in particular instances. But this latter material differs significantly between the Book of the Covenant in Exodus and the Deuteronomic Code. The specifying goes on in different ways in different times and places, but the basic decrees perdure in every time and place. Deuteronomy represents a formulation of the polity in a particular time and moment but one that has been preserved and shaped in a way that is meant to be a guide for the social order for the community throughout the generations. 33 32. For an argument that the Deuteronomic Code in 12–26 is set up in a sequence of statutes reflecting the sequence of the Decalogue in chap. 5, see Stephen A. Kaufman, “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” MAARAV 1 (1978–79): 105– 58; and Georg Braulik, “Die Abfolge der Gesetze in Deuteronomium 12–26 und der Dekalog,” in Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft (ed. Norbert Lohfink; BETL 68; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1985), 252–72 (translated as “The Sequence of the Laws in Deuteronomy in 12–26 and in the Decalogue,” in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy [ed. Duane L. Christensen; SBTS 3; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993], 313–35). Braulik has offered a more extended study in his monograph Die deuteronomischen Gesetze und der Dekalog: Studien zum Aufbau von Deuteronomium 12–26 (SBS 145; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991). This kind of connection between the Decalogue and the Deuteronomic Code, even if not always precisely as Kaufman and Braulik argue it, has been recognized from very early stages in the history of interpretation. Cf. my “Place of the Decalogue in Old Testament Law,” Int 43 (1989): 229–42 and the next note. 33. Dennis Olson has argued this point in an even more extensive way. He sees in the present form of Deut 5, the primary substance of which is the Decalogue, a

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The polity and constitutional character of the book are thus evident in the way in which it presents a comprehensive set of fundamental guides for the life of the community—its authority relations and its internal relations, its religious life and its moral life—and then in a systematic way works out the various aspects of the community’s life in various specifics. The subject matter of these specifications further underscores the constitutional character of “this Torah.” It deals with basic institutions and centers of the community’s life (the temple), relation to authorities—beginning with the deity but including the various political, judicial, and religious authorities—the practices of war, relationships to other states, economic regulations, and matters of legal asylum and sanctuary. 34 Even the issue of amending the constitution is taken up. The requirement that nothing be added to or taken away from the Mosaic teaching (4:2; 12:32[13:1]) may be seen as a canonical formula, but before that it is a constitutional formula. So also the Deuteronomic characteristic of referring to the members of the community regularly as ja (“brother/sister”) rather than the more customary h[r (“neighbor”) is a more formal and technical reference to the citizens of the commonweal. This term assumes a formal, familial relationship, not simply one of proximity. So the constitutional character of the book as a charter for the divinely appointed sociopolitical order of Israel seems very clear. It is also the case, however, that the constant and unique references to teaching and learning that fill this book together with its rhetorical forms and style are a major part of what the reader confronts in the book. There are 17 uses of the verb dml, having to do with teaching and learning, in Deuteronomy (4:1, 5, 10 [2x], 14; 5:1, 28; 6:1; 11:19; 14:23; 17:19; 18:9; 20:18; 31:12, 13, 19, 22). This verb does not appear elsewhere in the Pentateuch. These facts are a remarkable and inescapable pointer to a deep concern for instruction and teaching. But alongside the explicit references to teaching and learning, various and obvious dimensions of rhetoric and form confirm a preaching or hortatory dimension to this book that is fundamental to its character, “miniature version of the structure of the whole book . . . the torah of Deuteronomy en nuce” (The Death of Moses, 15). He thus follows the line of Kaufman and Braulik, arguing that “the rest of Deuteronomy is visualized as extended and secondary commentary or exposition of the primal Decalogue” (pp. 16–17). Olson has a valuable presentation of some of the discussion of this issue in the contemporary literature on pp. 63–64 n. 3. 34. See Article IV of the United States Constitution, which deals with people fleeing from one state to another to avoid prosecution.

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however one translates the key word tôrâ. Some of these are: (1) frequent reference to “this day” or “today,” (2) the use of “we” in the credos and elsewhere, (3) frequent emphatic use of second-person pronouns (“you”), (4) repeated summons to hear, (5) numerous vocatives, (6) appeal to memory as a way of actualizing the past in the present, (7) use of threat and promise to motivate hearers to respond, (8) appeal to heart and mind, and (9) use of illustrations (cf. Deut 19:5 and Exod 21:12–14). 35 To these may be added the frequent use of the expression “observe diligently” (emphatic constructions of rmv, “keep,” or “observe,” or rmv + hc[, “carry out,” e.g., 6:3, 17, 25; 7:11, 12; 8:1; 11:22, 32; 12:32[13:1]; 26:16). 36 That there are more motivational clauses attached to Deuteronomic statutes than there are in any other body of legal material in the Pentateuch serves further to underscore the intent to reason, urge, encourage, and instruct in a way that enhances learning and obedience. All these rhetorical elements and the concern for teaching and learning are not, however, to be separated from or set in opposition to the constitutional function of the book. Against Olson’s assumption that a constitution is not so much taught as it is legislated and enforced, this constitution or polity is indeed to be taught and learned and pressed upon the people. In an important essay on Deuteronomy, Georg Braulik argues for the character of the book as theology, as “theoretic-systematic expression of Israel’s symbolic universe.” 37 But this is clearly a “political theology.” 38 In his presentation, he makes the cogent comment: The rediscovered Torah-document presented itself as a textbook. If it were to be implemented as constitution of the state on account of God’s covenant, it would require a system of theoretical schooling (my italics). In order to bring about the transformation of society towards favouring the faith in Yahweh, people now for the first time in the history of Israel actually started to “learn” in a technocratic sense. Within the advanced civilizations of the antique world, Deuteronomy therefore became a “paradigm for cultural mnemonics.” [italics are from Assmann] 39 35. Miller, Deuteronomy, 12. 36. There are variations on these expressions that express the same kind of urgent demand for keeping the constitutional order, for example, 12:28. 37. Georg Braulik, “ ‘Conservative Reform’: Deuteronomy from the Perspective of the Sociology of Knowledge,” Old Testament Essays 12/1 (1999): 15. 38. Ibid., 17. 39. Ibid., 20. The reference to Assmann is to Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich:

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The paranesis of Deuteronomy and its emphasis on teaching and learning, Braulik argues, are not aimed at raising an elite. Addressed to “all Israel,” its aim is “the formation of a culture of conversation and remembrance for all generations, both men and women.” The process is one of internalization and meditation, speaking and remembering and passing on in order to bring about “the complete internalisation of the Deuteronomic model of society.” 40 This joining of a strong hortatory and instructional dimension to the presentation of a model sociopolitical order, indeed a constitution, is a particular contribution of the Deuteronomic polity, but not peculiar to it. 41 This is something that McBride has clearly recognized, though not with much emphasis, perhaps in order to make his point about the constitutionality of the book as strongly as possible. 42 There were in ancient times, and are still today, differences of opinion about the degree to which judicial and political formulations are simply to be presented and promulgated or to be inculcated, urged, and taught. Seneca did not want reasons for obedience but simply to be told what to do. 43 Plato, however, argued that the laws will accomplish their purpose and thus render the state prosperous and happy, Beck, 1992). Assmann includes an important chapter on Deuteronomy in his study of cultural memory. 40. Braulik, “Conservative Reform,” 20. 41. With its proliferation of motive clauses, Deuteronomy separates itself from most other ancient Near Eastern legal and political documents. While B. Gemser may have overdone it in his categorical claim that Near Eastern law had no motive clauses, in a more extended comparison of biblical and Near Eastern law, R. Sonsino, while acknowledging that there are some motive clauses in the latter, speaks of “the relative scarcity of motive clauses in cuneiform laws and their greater frequency in biblical legislation” and concludes that “motivation is not characteristic of the ancient Near Eastern law corpora.” See B. Gemser, “The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law,” in Adhuc loquitur: Collected Essays by Dr. B. Gemser (ed. A. van Selms and A. S. van der Woude; Pretoria Oriental Series, 7; Leiden: Brill, 1968), 96–115; and R. Sonsino, Motive Clauses in Hebrew Law (SBLDS 45; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980). 42. See “Polity,” his last sentence of n. 9, and especially n. 22, where he sees Deuteronomy already setting forth Plato’s ideal of a law or constitution preceded by explanatory prefaces and statements of persuasion with the sentences themselves. 43. In his criticism of Plato, Seneca says: “I censor Plato, because he added justifications to the laws. Let the law be like the voice that reaches us from heaven. Command and do not argue. Tell me what I have to do. I do not want to learn. I want to obey” (quoted by D. Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986], 5).

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partly by persuasion and partly by chastising. Deuteronomy understands both positions. On the one hand, it uses significant rhetorical features and motivational clauses to persuade; on the other, it sets up sanctions that are aimed primarily at chastisement for disobedience. At one point in his laws, Plato says: “I would wish that the people would be as persuadable as possible with regard to virtue; and it’s clear that the lawgiver will also strive to achieve this, in every facet of his legislation.” 44 In other words, persuading the community to keep the social order in all its details as set forth in the laws and statutes is as much the aim of the legislator as setting forth the laws and statutes themselves. For Plato, the legislator had two instruments to use in legislation: persuasion and force. 45 The former was to be manifest especially in preludes or preambles, which would serve to prepare the soul to receive the law. 46 But he saw that each law itself might have a preamble to encourage obedience. 47 Learning the polity of a community’s life is a necessity for those who are responsible for leading the community. So it is that those who govern in a religious denomination are required to learn (and often be examined on) the polity of the denomination, so that they will know it and act according to it in all matters having to do with the governance of the different branches and institutions set forth in the polity. Many will keep a copy of the denomination’s polity close at hand for reference when needed. In Deuteronomy, the whole assembly learns the polity, because one of the features of the social order is its highly democratic character and its concern for the well-being of each individual in the community. 44. The Laws of Plato (trans. Thomas L. Pangle; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 4.718. 45. Laws, 4.722. 46. Plato compared these preludes to musical preludes: “What I wish to say is this: all speeches, and whatever pertains to the voice, are preceded by preludes—almost like warming-up exercises—which artfully attempt to promote what is to come. It is the case, I suppose, that of the songs sung to the kithara, the so-called ‘laws’ or nomoi, like all music, are preceded by preludes composed with amazing seriousness” (Laws, 4.722). 47. “[T]he lawgiver must always provide that all the laws, and each of them, will not lack preludes” (Laws, 4.723). See also his earlier comment: “So then, is the one who is to have charge of our laws going to pronounce no such preface at the beginning of the laws? Is he just going to explain straightaway what must and must not be done, add the threat of a penalty, and turn to another law, without adding a single encouragement or bit of persuasion to his legislative edicts?” (Laws, 4.719–20). It is in this context that Plato makes his comparison between rough and gentle doctors, those who brusquely prescribe and go on, and those who talk to their patients.

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But there is another kind of learning also, and it is learning the story and the basic tenets of the political order of the community’s life. This is certainly a significant reason that the teaching of the nation’s history is an important part of the curriculum for children in American public schools, so that they learn the form of government of the country and are encouraged to abide by it. They may not learn all the details of the U.S. Constitution, but they will learn its main points, and they will also be taught the story that evokes it and tells them what it means. They are taught that the nation’s future well-being depends on its citizens’ knowing and living by the polity it sets forth. It is thus not surprising to see such high interest in the education of the children in the Deuteronomic polity. This is the way in which the ideals and the particulars of the constitutional order are maintained and carried forward into the future. A community of remembrance is continually being formed and maintained, one that meditates on and internalizes the basics of the nation’s polity. 48 Finally, one may note that all of the constitutional order and all of the learning has an ultimate goal that is articulated again and again in Deuteronomy. In five of the seven instances of the verb dml, “to learn”—that is, on most of the occasions when Moses tells the people that they are to learn something—what they are to learn is not “the statutes and ordinances” (as is the case in 5:1). 49 They are to “learn to fear the Lord your God” (4:10; 14:23; 17:19; 31:12, 13). Such learning, however, is clearly connected to the polity, its formal promulgation, and its reiteration. Deuteronomy 4:9– 14 is critical in this regard. The first reference to “learning” is a recall of the Sinai moment when the people were assembled expressly to “hear . . . and learn to fear me.” The reference here is explicitly to the giving of the Decalogue. Hearing these words is understood as being in order to learn to fear the Lord. 50 So the constitution has this large goal, the inculcation, the training in the fear of the Lord. It is not only the promulgation of a socialreligious-political order, which indeed it is, starting with the Decalogue.

48. Braulik, “Conservative Reform.” 49. Deuteronomy 18:9 is the one other use of dml as “learn,” and there the point is that the people are not to learn the abhorrent practices of the Canaanites. This is the negative version of learning to fear the Lord your God. The people are not to “learn to do according to the abhorrent practices of those nations.” Cf. Deut 20:18. 50. In 6:13, as widely recognized, the fear of the Lord is a positive formulation of the First Commandment. Thus, one of the ways in which the community demonstrates its obedience to the First Commandment is in its learning and keeping (see 5:1) of the polity set forth in Deuteronomy.

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That order, however, is put before the people to help them learn how to fear and serve and worship and live properly under the rule of God. The ultimate goal of this order is not in itself, but in its being a vehicle for the community’s life in fear of the Lord. The point is underscored by the further word that the people are to “teach their children so” (4:10). This requirement, which has already been anticipated in the preceding verse and so is emphasized by its being repeated here, further confronts us with the importance of the teaching of the constitution to the community and to future generations. Then at the conclusion of this section, we are told that Moses has a divine commission to “teach” the statutes and ordinances to be observed in the land. They are not simply promulgated but from the start are taught to the people. The Mosaic instruction, beginning with Deuteronomy 6, makes explicit that the Mosaic teaching of the statutes and ordinances and the Lord’s giving of the Ten Words have the same ultimate goal: that the people learn to fear the Lord. Echoing the point that has been made vis-à-vis the commandments when given at Sinai, Moses says with regard to all that now follows: Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. (6:1–2)

One may presume that as the community is taught the commandments by Moses and as the community is instructed in emphatic terms to “make them known to your children and your children’s children” (4:9–10), we are given a large clue about the purpose of Deuteronomy itself, to be the vehicle for the teaching of the social order, of the polity that governs and orders the life of the people of God, a teaching whose ultimate goal is to instill in each member of the community, as they live in this way, by this specific order of existence and communal life, a proper fear and worship of the Lord their God. The remaining uses of “learn to fear the Lord your God” confirm this emphasis on learning the polity as a learning of the proper fear of the Lord. The king’s only responsibility is to have a copy of “this Torah” at all times, reading in it constantly (and so learning it), “so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of this Torah and these statutes” (17:19). In just this way, the king becomes the model

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Israelite. Then at the conclusion of the book, Moses orders the writing down of “this Torah” and calls for a regular reading of it in the future. This is to be an assembly of the people, as was the case at Sinai, and a reading of “this Torah” “so that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God and to observe diligently all the words of this law” (31:12). Again, careful observance and implementation of the constitutional charter is the vehicle for instilling the fear of God. Hearing the polity set forth teaches how one may fear the Lord. And, as was the case at Sinai, the polity is to be taught to the children, who otherwise will not know it, so that they may “hear and learn to fear the Lord your God.” One may suggest, therefore, that it is precisely in the conjoining of the constitutional and catechetical aspects of the book of Deuteronomy that one may find its distinctive intention. Deuteronomy gives to the community a concrete form for its life, setting forth and teaching a model of social existence that is not only spelled out in broad principles but also illustrated and specified. Its character has been well described in Dean McBride’s careful analysis of the Deuteronomic polity. If the community embodied in this book is a neighborhood, it is also a commonwealth. For the community to live in fact by this pattern, by these institutional forms, and by these prescriptions for neighborly life among the citizens of the commonwealth, the polity must be preserved, read, remembered, and taught to future generations. Its desirability is underscored as modes of persuasion and reason are incorporated into the constitution. The appeal of living this way is evident throughout the book. The exhortation and the learning, however, are not simply to make good citizens. It is to bring about a community of those faithful to the Lord, who demonstrate in the totality of personal, communal, and institutional life their devotion and their proper reverence.

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Bearers of the Polity: Isaiah of Jerusalem’s View of the Eighth-Century Judean Society J. J. M. Roberts Princeton Theological Seminary

One would look in vain for a systematic portrayal of Judean polity or community in Isaiah. Neither Isaiah nor any other Israelite prophet was inclined to present systematic portrayals of anything. On the other hand, Isaiah makes many references to his culture that provide clues about the structure of society in his day. Many of these are negative critiques of the society, but others are idealized visions of a transformed culture of the future or equally idealized portraits of an earlier golden age. Taken together, they give some hint both to the structure of society in Isaiah’s day and to his view of how it should be transformed in the future.

The King: God’s Primary Human Agent At the head of Judean polity in Isaiah’s day was the king, a scion of David. 1 Isaiah is clearly critical of the Judean kings of his time, but this criticism is muted, directed more to the royal court as a whole rather than focused on the king in person. When he approached Ahaz, who had just recently become king, 2 at the time of the Syro-Ephraimitic crisis, Isaiah Author’s note: Dean McBride was a classmate at Harvard and has been a colleague in two scholarly colloquia in which we have been members for many years. His profound knowledge of the field makes him a stimulating colleague and a formidable critic, but he is also a loyal friend. It is with great appreciation for Dean’s work as a scholar and for his support as a friend that I offer this small contribution in honor of his career. 1. Isaiah actually uses the term var (“head”) to designate the kings of Aram and Ephraim (Isa 7:8–9), and presumably he would have applied the same term to the king of Judah. 2. According to 2 Kgs 15:37–38, the Syro-Ephraimitic crisis began in the reign of Jotham, Ahaz’s father, but Jotham died, leaving Ahaz to deal with the crisis. Thus Ahaz

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addressed him directly in the second-person singular with an oracle of reassurance (7:4–5), and he repeats this singular direct address in a later oracle, when he offers Ahaz a sign of his choice (7:10–11). But when Ahaz’s response to Isaiah’s first oracle and Ahaz’s refusal of his later offer of a sign disappointed Isaiah, his warning (wnymat al µa, “If you do not stand firm,” 7:9b) and rebuke is no longer addressed to Ahaz as an individual but is placed in the plural (dwd tyb anAw[mv, “Hear, O House of David,” 7:13–14). The expression dwd tyb (“house of David”) appears to encompass the king, his royal advisers, and other members of the royal household. Isaiah does return to the singular address to Ahaz at the end of the second oracle (7:16), but even here he lumps Ahaz with his people and the house of his father (7:17). This shift to the plural deflects some of the harshness of his judgment away from Ahaz and is striking when compared with the report of Amos’s explicit judgment on King Jeroboam II of Israel (Amos 7:11) or Jeremiah’s explicit judgments on Shallum ( Jer 22:11), Jehoiakim ( Jer 22:18), Jehoiachin ( Jer 22:24), and Zedekiah ( Jer 37:17). One reason for Isaiah’s approach to Ahaz may have been the recognition that, as a relatively young, 3 newly crowned king, Ahaz was still under the strong influence of the more experienced courtiers and members of the royal household. If one may date Isa 3:4 and 12 to the early reign of Ahaz, this might also explain why Isaiah disparages the Judean ruler as a child, unduly influenced by women: “And I will make children their officers, and babies shall rule over them” (v. 4); “my people’s taskmaster is a child, and women rule over him” (v. 12a). With Hezekiah the criticism is even more muted. The narrative in Isa 39:5–7 does contain the report of a direct rebuke of Isaiah to Hezekiah, but apart from this account, Isaiah’s fierce criticism of Hezekiah’s foreign policy is always framed as addressed to the larger ruling class, not to the king as an individual. To cite only one example, note Isa 28:14: “Therehad hardly come to the throne before the crisis deepened with the news that the Aramean army was already in Israel and as such a looming threat to Jerusalem (Isa 7:1–2). 3. According to 2 Kgs 16:2, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he ruled for 16 years, but the synchronisms with Assyrian material show that he became king in 735 b.c.e. and was succeeded by Hezekiah in 715 b.c.e. Thus it has been plausibly suggested that the numbers in 2 Kgs 16:2 have been reversed; that Ahaz was 16 years old when he became king, and that he ruled for 20 years ( Jesús María Asurmendi, La guerra siro-efraimita: Historia y profetas [Valencia: Institución San Jerónimo para la Investigación Biblica 13; Jerusalén: Instituto Español Biblico y Arqueológico, 1982], 44–46).

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fore, hear the word of Yhwh, you men of scoffing, you rulers of this people who are in Jerusalem.” Contrasted to this reticence to single out the king for censure is Isaiah’s lack of compunction about singling out particular royal advisers. Thus the oracle in Isa 22:15–23 condemns Shebna, a royal official, and its expansion in vv. 24–25 extends this judgment to Eliakim, his replacement. This hesitancy to attack the king personally may have been a tactical decision on the part of the prophet, an attempt to remain in the king’s good graces while being critical of his policies, by shifting the blame for these policies from the king to his counselors. Nonetheless, it is clear from Isaiah’s visions of the future that he held the king responsible as God’s primary human agent for upholding justice and righteousness in the state. Both Isa 8:23b–9:6 and Isa 11:1–10 focus exclusively on the king as the agent of God for maintaining justice and righteousness. Isaiah 32:1–8 includes the royal officers (µyrc) as responsible for this task, but the king is still mentioned in first place, and the responsibility for the perversion of justice within the society is ultimately traceable back to the king. If the king rules as king in righteousness, and the royal officials discharge their tasks with justice, then there will be no moral confusion in the society between what is honorable and just and what is corrupt and foolish knavery. Moreover, if one may judge from the royal theology reflected in the Psalms, a theology in which Isaiah seems very much at home, a king who ruled in righteousness would not long tolerate royal officials who subverted that righteous rule. It was the duty of the king to see that corrupt, high-handed, and devious officials were weeded out of his administration (see Ps 101).

Second Tier: The Royal Officials The royal officials occupied the second tier in Judah’s hierarchical structure, but it is difficult to be more precise in delineating the various levels within the ranks of the royal officials. These often included male members of the royal family, princes as we might call them, but the term is certainly not restricted to such individuals. The term rc is a very general term for an officer; it could be used for a relatively minor official as well as for royal officials at the highest ranks. It was used for officials of cabinet rank (1 Kgs 4:1–6), including the commander-in-chief of the army (1 Sam 14:50; 2 Sam 24:2), but it was also used for leaders of much smaller units, units of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and even down to a unit of ten (Exod 18:25). To judge from the usage of Isaiah, who specifically mentions the µyvmjArc (“commander of fifty,” 3:3), these royal officials, apparently from

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the highest to the lowest levels, were abusing their authority for their own gain (1:23; 3:14). Isaiah’s condemnation of these royal officials was not just a blanket denunciation of politicians as politicians but was rooted in specific issues. This is shown in the prophet’s critique of the arrogance of Shebna, who as the tybhAl[ (“the one over the palace”) held perhaps the highest rank next to the king early in Hezekiah’s administration (Isa 22:15–22). In Isa 36:3 Eliakim the tybhAl[ is mentioned first, 4 followed by the scribe (rpsh) and the herald (rykzmh), as the three high royal officials sent to negotiate with the Assyrian general at the siege of Jerusalem. It is probably these higher royal officials that Isaiah has in mind when he criticizes those who were encouraging an anti-Assyrian alliance with Egypt (Isa 28:14–15; 29:15–16; 30:1–5; 31:1–3) and when he castigates those who were overseeing the fortification of Jerusalem in preparation for the inevitable Assyrian response (Isa 22:8–11). These top royal advisers, however, must have had a much broader base of support among the military leaders and leading citizens, including religious support from both priests and prophets (Isa 28:7). In Isa 3:2–3, when Isaiah speaks of the supports or structures of Judean society that were about to be removed, he mentions the strong man (rwbg), the warrior (hmjlm vya), the judge (fpwv), the prophet (aybn), the diviner (µsq), the elder (ˆqz), the commander of fifty (µyvmjArc), the prominent person (awvn µynp), the counselor (≈[wy), the expert charmer or craftsman (µyvrj µkj), and the incantation specialist (vjl ˆwbn). The first two terms refer to military personnel with no clear indication of their rank, while the seventh term, µyvmjArc, appears to refer to a military officer of rather modest rank. The judge and the elder held significant civilian posts that touched on the administration of justice in the kingdom. The prominent person and the counselor are probably to be understood as wealthy, influential persons and advisers who had the ear of the king. The other four terms, prophet, diviner, expert charmer, and incantation specialist, were all religious or semireligious personnel. While some of them may have been very influential in the royal courts of Judah and Israel, Isaiah appears to have a very low opinion of them in general. His comment on the Israelite prophets is quite telling: “Yhwh cut off from Israel head and tail, palm-frond and rush in a single day. The elder and the prominent person are the head, and 4. Since Eliakim holds that office here, while Shebna is only the scribe, it is likely that this incident dates after Isaiah’s rebuke of Shebna in Isa 22:15–22 and probably reflects the demotion of Shebna and elevation of Eliakim threatened by Isaiah in that oracle.

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the prophet who teaches a lie is the tail” (Isa 9:13–14). His opinion of the Judean priests and prophets does not appear to have been much higher (Isa 28:7). The people did not want to hear a genuine word from Yhwh; they urged the prophetic seers (µyar and µyzj) to proclaim only what they wanted to hear (Isa 30:8–11). Thus Yhwh responded by placing the prophets and seers (µyaybn and µyzj) in a nonalcoholic stupor that left them blind and obtuse to what Yhwh was doing (Isa 29:9–12). If Isaiah’s criticism of the royal court and the king’s chief advisers was concentrated on the state’s foreign policy, his criticism of the second and lower levels of royal administration was directed more to the perversion of justice. He complains that all the royal officials (µyrc), which apparently include the judges, love bribes and pursue “gifts,” with the result that the poor, the orphans, and widows cannot even get their cases heard in court (Isa 1:23; cf. 5:20–21, 23). He accuses the elders (µynqz) of his people and their officials (µyrc) of possessing in their houses the property stolen from the poor (Isa 3:14). Part of what appears to be involved in this charge has to do with the wealthy and powerful’s seizure of property from the poorer landowners (Isa 1:8–10; Mic 2:1–2), a process that was apparently aided by the passage of laws that benefited the wealthy and further penalized the poor (Isa 10:1–2). Behind this move to buy up, steal, or appropriate as much land as possible lay a radical shift in the socioeconomic situation in Judah. The aftermath of the Syro-Ephraimitic War led to a vast influx of landless refugees from the North, so that there was a large surplus of agricultural day laborers. Cheap labor meant that one could afford to cultivate much larger plots of land at considerable profit, if one could get control of the land at a reasonable price. With the connivance of the royal officials, judges, and elders, the wealthy found a way to do just that.

The Upper Class The elders (µynqz) do not appear to be officials appointed by the crown but leaders who arose among the people because of their status and influence within a clan or a community. 5 Their prominence in Isaiah is an indication of the continued importance of the substratum of family and community structures even after being overlaid by royal administrative 5. See the discussion in Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, Social World of Ancient Israel, 1250–587 b.c.e. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 121–24. One can also speak of the leaders of the priests as “the elders of the priests” (µynhkh ynqz, Isa 37:2).

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structures during almost three centuries of monarchical rule. Isaiah 3:6–7 explicitly refers to the continued functioning of clan and family structures in the governmental organization of late-eighth-century Judah. Describing the breakdown of Judean society, Isaiah prophesies: Surely a man will seize his brother (in) the house of his father (wyba tyb), saying, “You have a cloak. You will be our leader (wnl . . . ˆyxq), and this ruin will be under your hand.” But he will raise (his voice) on that day, saying, “I will not be the one who binds up. In my house there is neither food nor a cloak. You will not appoint me (ynmyct) leader of the people (µ[ ˆyxq).”

Note that the choice of the leader is being done within the context of the ba tyb, the extended family or clan. Moreover, the choice is done for the group (wnl, “for us”) and by the group; the subject of the verb, ynmyct (“all of you will appoint me”) is second-person plural. What is being described here is not a royal appointment but the choice of a leader for the clan by the clan itself. The prophecy is describing an unusual situation due to the breakdown of Judean society, but what is unusual about the situation does not appear to be the clan choosing its own leader. What is unusual is the lack of any interest in obtaining such a position and the bare-bones criteria for picking a leader; if a member of the clan just owns a cloak, he is better off than the other members and is thus qualified to be their leader. The title given to such a clan leader is ˆyxq, but the function and relative rank of this leader is not entirely clear. The other two occurrences of the term in Isaiah provide little help for further defining the role of the ˆyxq. In 1:10 Isaiah sarcastically refers to the Judean leaders as µds ynyxq, “leaders of Sodom,” and in Isa 22:3 he speaks of the leaders of a city who flee from a battle, but it is not clear that this city is Jerusalem or that the leaders are Judeans. The city may well be Babylon and the leaders Babylonian. 6 From the prospective clan leader’s response in Isa 3:7, “I will not be the one who binds up (vbj),” it is clear that such a leader was expected to heal wounds within the clan, but how this metaphor is to be understood is not spelled out. Micah, Isaiah’s contemporary, may provide some light on the subject. He uses the term twice in very similar contexts: “Hear now, you heads (yvar) of Jacob and leaders (ynyxq) of the house of Israel: is it not your business to know justice?” (Mic 3:1); “Hear now this, you heads of the house of Jacob and leaders of the house of Israel who make an abomina6. See William R. Gallagher, Sennacherib’s Campaign to Judah: New Studies (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 18; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 60–72.

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tion of justice and pervert all that is right” (Mic 3:9). Taken together with Isa 3:7, these passages suggest that the ˆyxq was responsible for the administration of justice within the clan, and that the healing metaphor was used for the leader’s role in settling legal disputes that threatened the wellbeing of the clan. If this is so, it implies that alongside the royal administration of justice through royal appointees there also existed a communal administration of justice resting in the hands of officials chosen by the clans, or at least by the clan leaders. 7 Before leaving the Judean upper class in Isaiah’s day, I need to say a word about the upper-class women. Isaiah has two oracles addressed to these women. Isaiah 3:16–24 castigates them for their haughtiness, flirtatiousness, and the extravagant frivolity of their dress. In Isa 32:9–11, the prophet attacks these women for their life of ease (twnnav µyvn, “O women of ease”) and their self-confidence (twjfb twnb, “O self-confident daughters”) in their own security. Though Isaiah is not as explicit in identifying the women’s sin, one should probably interpret these oracles of judgment in the light of Amos’s parallel condemnation of the society women of Israel who contributed to their husbands’ oppression of the poor by their constant demand for more (Amos 4:1). Isaiah’s women certainly reflected the same lifestyle as the luxury-loving men, who in their partying failed to recognize what God was doing (Isa 5:11–12), and it appears to have been just such a lifestyle that Amos characterized as “being at ease in Zion” (ˆwyxb µynnavh, Amos 6:1–6).

Isaiah’s Sympathies for the Poor Isaiah has far too little to say about the lower classes to say much about the social structures or stratification that may have characterized them. The prophet says nothing, for instance, about male or female slaves, though we know from other sources that they existed in eighth-century Judean society. His terminology for the lower classes, apart from the standard pair µwty (“orphan”) and hnmla (“widow,” 1:17, 23; 9:16; 10:2), is limited to the relatively vague terms µyld (“poor,” 10:2; 11:4; 14:30), yn[ or wn[ (“humble, lowly,” 3:14–15; 10:2; 11:4; 14:32; 29:19), and ˆwyba (“needy,” 29:19–21; 32:7). Nonetheless, despite the vagueness of this terminology, the references make clear that Isaiah’s sympathies were with this element of the 7. According to the older use of the word in Judg 11:6–11, the elders of Gilead appointed Jepthah as ˆyxq over Gilead. That suggests that the ˆyxq had a higher status, at least as an administrative governing authority, than the elders.

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population rather than with the rich and powerful. If they suffered the same blindness and deafness that affected the upper classes, it was because the upper classes, their leaders, had misled them. 8 Once the king, royal officials, and other members of the upper classes fulfilled their leadership roles with justice and integrity, sight and understanding would return to the people as a whole (32:1–8).

Conclusion As this last comment indicates, Isaiah’s vision of the ideal future did not involve a radical restructuring of the society of his day. Despite the glaring disparities in wealth and power and the rampant corruption that arose from those disparities, Isaiah did not envision a radical redistribution of either wealth or power. His vision of the future preserved the traditional structures of the monarchical society of his day, transforming not the structure itself but only the behavior of those occupying the various slots within that structure. Thus, the ideal king of the future would rule with the wisdom, justice, and righteousness that the royal theology had long idealized. The ideal royal officials would also fulfill their functions with the righteousness and justice that the royal theology expected of such functionaries. Isaiah 1:26 does speak of God’s restoring Jerusalem’s judges (µyfpç) and counselors (µyx[y) as at the first (hljtbk), but this does not imply any restructuring of the society. The implication is that God will restore the righteous judges and the just and wise counselors that characterized Jerusalem’s ruling class in the golden age at the beginning of David’s reign. This view of the initial years of David’s reign is no doubt just as idealized as Isaiah’s vision of the future. It takes no account of the less-savory aspects of David’s reign or of the complaints about the exercise of justice during David’s reign that led to multiple revolts (2 Sam 15:1–6). Nonetheless, the vision underscores an ideal of social righteousness that operates from the top down. With the king and his officials modeling righteousness and justice, their behavior would be emulated by the lesser nobility and the lower classes. Such a radical change in behavior would not come easily, however. It would only be learned through the fiery judgment that Jerusalem and Judah must go through (Isa 1:21–28), a judgment that would teach king and commoner alike that only the righteous could live in the presence of Yhwh (33:14–16), who not only had a fire in Jerusalem (31:9), but was himself a devouring fire (33:14). 8. Isaiah was fond of referring to the leaders of the people as misleaders (µy[tm, 3:12; 9:15).

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Hosea and the Ambiguity of Kingship in Ancient Israel Peter Machinist Harvard University

I. What kind of society, for the biblical authors, should Israel be? Or, put more abstractly, how does the Hebrew Bible conceive of the good society? There is no easy or uniform answer to this question. But whatever answer is given must reckon with the institution of kingship. That kingship was not an ephemeral or marginal phenomenon in the history of ancient Israel is obvious from the biblical record, amply corroborated by the findings of archaeology for Iron Age Israel. Despite that, not a few modern critics have declared kingship an aberration. Perhaps the most vehement is the American biblical scholar George Mendenhall, who protested in 1975: The reversion to the old Bronze Age paganism of the United Monarchy [viz., of David and Solomon] is thus a process of rapid erosion of the basic principles of the new religious ethic that stems from Moses. . . . [T]he Jerusalem regime . . . became a most Syro-Hittite pagan kingdom. As one result that pagan kingdom and its religious ideology, preserved in what we now call The Holy Bible, has been the justification for many similar pagan ideologies for the past two millennia until the present day. This is a cultural luxury we can no longer afford. 1

Author’s note: This essay originally appeared in the volume Signs of Democracy in the Bible: The Resnick Lectures (ed. Chaim Stern and S. David Sperling), which was a limited, private publication, in 1995, of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, Chappaqua, New York. The essay is here revised and enlarged, and I take special pleasure in presenting it to Dean McBride, whose broad and varied erudition, original and incisive intelligence, and deep humanity have made him an especially valued mentor to me, now for more than 30 years. 1. George E. Mendenhall, “The Monarchy,” Int 29 (1975): 158, 166.

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The stridency of Mendenhall notwithstanding, there is some biblical precedent for what he says. Kingship was not, after all, aboriginal in Israel, or at least in Israel’s memory. Unlike the claims advanced within the neighboring culture of Mesopotamia, 2 the Bible makes it quite clear that kingship was taken up by the Israelites later in their history, following earlier polities, and then as an import that they deliberately brought in from the practice of the “nations” around them. 3 Indeed, the Deuteronomistic writers within the biblical corpus are at pains to emphasize that this import was initiated by Israel against the wishes of their God, and that it carried grave dangers for Israel in terms of the arrogation of powers, secular and religious, by one human individual (e.g., Deut 17:14–17; 1 Sam 8, 12, 13, 15). Both in theory, then, and in the description of the behavior of the actual kings, the Deuteronomists, echoed in various ways by other biblical writers (so in the prophets, e.g., Isa 7; Ezek 34; Jer 23:1–6), are quite forthright about the problems and tensions posed by kingship in Israel. Yet the biblical picture, unlike the impression Mendenhall may have left, is not one-sided. Once kingship was taken up in Israel, it continued, only to fall with the collapse of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians, respectively. Yet even then, it did not disappear, returning at certain points in the Second Temple era, and more important, remaining alive in the potent symbol of the Messiah, son of David, who will bring in the future age that will end Israel’s present status of marginality and tribulation in the world. To be sure, other figures came to be put forward as harbingers of this future age who were not of royal character, but the royal messiah, it is fair to say, was and remains principal among them; 4 and it is hard to imagine how that could have happened if all in ancient Israel had felt about kingship as Mendenhall. The biblical view of kingship and of the rulers who embodied it was thus a mixed one, affirming the centrality of this institution in Israelite history, yet not without ambiguity and ambivalence over its place and achievements. A single essay is hardly sufficient to discuss the issues in compre2. See, e.g., “The Sumerian King List,” translated by A. Leo Oppenheim (ANET, 265), and Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles (SBLWAW 19; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 118–19. 3. See, e.g., Deut 17:14; 1 Sam 8:5, 20. The Bible, however, recognizes an earlier, more limited kingship among the Israelites in Abimelech of Shechem ( Judg 9). 4. On the range of messianic figures, see James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), especially chaps. 2, 4, 5, and 9 for biblical Israel and Second Temple Judaism.

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hensive detail. What I propose, rather, is to look at them through one biblical text and personality, the prophet Hosea, who reflects the tensions and possibilities in a particularly pronounced way.

II. The date and setting of Hosea make it clear why kingship was so pressing to him. As most commentators would agree, he fits best, in terms of the prophetic activity described in his book, in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, somewhere in the third quarter of the eighth century b.c.e., thus in the 740s, 730s, and perhaps 720s. 5 Internationally, as is well known, this period marked a revitalized Assyria, initiated by the king, Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 b.c.e.), 6 who, having consolidated power at home, struck out in a series of campaigns and especially at the western lands of the Levant. Building on some earlier, but more limited foundations, Tiglath-pileser aimed at permanent conquest, in which the captured states were organized into an imperial system. Among these states were Israel and Judah, which were both able to retain local rule under their native kings by becoming vassals of Assyria. The situation in Israel was particularly unstable, as 2 Kgs 15 and 17 records, with local rule seesawing violently between kings who wanted to cooperate with their Assyrian master and those who were opposed and determined to rebel. The reaction of Tiglathpileser was not only to encourage the pro-Assyrian forces, but to attempt to weaken and so stabilize Israel by removing portions of its territory from its own rule to direct Assyrian provincial control. The attempt was only temporarily successful, but it did initiate a strategy that culminated a decade later (727–720 b.c.e.), under the Assyrians’ two successors, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II, in the destruction of Israel and its complete conversion to Assyrian provincial status. 7 5. E.g., James L. Mays, Hosea (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 3–5; Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea (trans. Gary Stansell; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), xxi; Francis Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea (AB 24; Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 31–39; G. I. Davies, Hosea (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 24–29. 6. The dates follow J. A. Brinkman, in A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (rev. ed. E. Reiner; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 346. 7. On the shape and development of the Neo-Assyrian imperial system, see, e.g., Paul Garelli, in Paul Garelli and André Lemaire, Le Proche-Orient asiatique (3rd ed.; Nouvelle Clio; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997) 2, 126–45, 217–29;

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The campaigns of Tiglath-pileser III and his successors, therefore, offered a frontal challenge to Israel, as well as Judah, that called into question the efficacy of their kingships and of other fundamental institutions and traditions: in short, their very survival as communities. For the most part, the book of Hosea does not reflect this period explicitly. That is, it does not mention Tiglath-pileser or any of the other individuals apart from an introductory rubric (1:1) that dates the prophet to the reigns of a series of Judean kings, from Uzziah/Azariah through Hezekiah (783–698 b.c.e.), and of one of the Israelite contemporaries, Jeroboam II (784–744 b.c.e.). 8 Why the rubric does not go on to mention the successors of Jeroboam who would have overlapped with the Judeans—Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea—is an unresolved problem. It may be that these successors, who are the ones talked about in 2 Kgs 15 and 17 as the competing pro- and anti-Assyrian forces, were the Israelite kings condemned by Hosea elsewhere in his book (see below), and so were regarded by him and the editor of his book as in some sense illegitimate rulers. 9 In any case, even if the text of Hosea is largely implicit in its historical references, its content echoes very well what we otherwise know about the period of Tiglath-pileser and his successors. Its preoccupation with Northern Israel (variously denominated as [house of ] Israel, Ephraim, or by its prin-

Roland Lamprichs, Die Westexpansion des neuassyrischen Reiches (AOAT 239; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1995); Bradley J. Parker, The Mechanics of Empire: The Northern Frontier of Assyria as a Case Study in Imperial Dynamics (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2001), especially chaps. 1 and 6. For a reconsideration of Tiglath-pileser III’s imperial policies in particular, see Paul Garelli, “The Achievement of Tiglath-pileser III: Novelty or Continuity?” in Mordechai Cogan and Israel Ephºal, eds., Ah, Assyria . . . : Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (ScrHier 33; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991), 46–51. On the fall of Northern Israel to Assyria, the most recent study, with bibliography of earlier work, is M. Christine Tetley, “The Date of Samaria’s Fall as a Reason for Rejecting the Hypothesis of Two Conquests,” CBQ 64 (2002): 59–77. 8. The Israelite/Judean dates here are those of William H. Barnes, Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (HSM 48; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 152–58. 9. For a review and other considerations, see, e.g., Wolff, Hosea, 3–4; Davies, Hosea, 45; and A. A. Macintosh, Hosea (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997), 1–4. That the rubric lists the Judean kings before the Israelite, even though Hosea’s focus is on Israel, has been rightly seen by these and other commentators as a mark of a later Judean redaction of the book.

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cipal cities and shrines, particularly Samaria), its several references to the shifting alliances of Israel with Assyria and Egypt (5:13; 7:11; 8:9; 9:3; 12:1), and its condemnation of Israel’s ruling elites as bent on internecine destruction (especially 6:11–7:7)—all are part of the upheaval in Israel that Tiglath-pileser and his immediate successors brought into the open, though it must be admitted that the precise events to which Hosea’s remarks allude cannot often be agreed upon. 10 All this is not to say that the book of Hosea is simply a record of the 740s– 720s b.c.e. As with the other biblical prophets, the very survival of a Hoseanic corpus of traditions was due to the groups attached to him directly and indirectly, who responded to, preserved, transmitted, and adapted his words for their own generations. What, then, in the book really belongs to Hosea and what was added or altered by the disciples remain, as for the rest of the prophetic books, a perennial scholarly issue. Particular attention has centered on the passages in Hosea concerned with Judah. 11 The argument has normally been that, if Hosea was really concerned with Israel, the Judah 10. The classic essay here is by Albrecht Alt, “Hosea 5,8–6,6: Ein Krieg und seine Folgen in prophetischer Beleuchtung” (1919), reprinted in his Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Munich: Beck, 1953), 2:163–87, in which he sought to understand these verses in the context of the Syro-Ephraimite War and its aftermath (latter 730s b.c.e.). The essay has spawned a large scholarly response, both approving (sometimes with modifications) and critical: see the brief review in Michael E. W. Thompson, Situation and Theology: Old Testament Interpretations of the Syro-Ephraimite War (Sheffield: Almond, 1982), 19–20, 127–28 nn. 39–47. While Alt’s essay can be challenged (see the main text below), it remains nonetheless a substantial and incisive analysis. 11. For a full study, see Grace I. Emmerson, Hosea: An Israelite Prophet in Judean Perspective ( JSOTSup 28; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), especially chap. 2. As to the broader compositional history of the book, far and away the majority view, exemplified in Emmerson and with which I agree, sees it as encompassing a base in Northern Israel, from the eighth-century prophet himself, and concluding much later with a redaction in Judah. But the details of this history—its stages, what parts of Hosea belong to which stages, the date of the final Judean redaction—remain disputed. Emmerson touches on these issues. More comprehensive reviews, covering the scholarship through the 1980s, are Gale A. Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea: A Redaction Critical Investigation (SBLDS 102; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), especially chap. 1; and Martti Nissinen, Prophetie, Redaktion und Fortschreibung im Hoseabuch (AOAT 231; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), focusing especially on Hos 4 and 11. Both of these volumes assign the later, Judean redactions a great deal of responsibility for the shape and even content of the book of Hosea.

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passages should be the work of a later Judean editor(s), through whom the book was, in fact, ultimately preserved, “updating” the prophet’s remarks to Judah. On the other hand, Judah was a factor in the world of Hosea, being affected also by the Assyrian imperialism of the latter eighth century b.c.e., and colliding with Israel, as a result of the Assyrian campaigns, especially in the so-called Syro-Ephraimite War of the latter 730s. A priori, therefore, at least some of the Judah passages may be genuine to the prophet. A full treatment of this question of genuineness, let alone of the compositional history of the book of Hosea, is out of place here. And in the nature of the evidence, no treatment can be definitive anyway. Yet there can be no avoiding at least some of the issues if we want to understand historically what kingship meant to Hosea. A useful start, therefore, would be to look at the book, not the prophet, on kingship, only then taking account of redactional/chronological distinctions in the text, where these can be given a reasonable defense.

III. Let us begin the task by collecting the relevant passages in Hosea, mindful of the often difficult state of their received Hebrew text. 12 12. All translations mine. Excluded from this list of kingship texts is 8:10b, even though the mention there of µyrç ˚lm appears to qualify it for inclusion. The basic reason is textual. The mt as it stands does not seem to make sense; indeed it suggests some corruption. But what text to reconstruct is, in my judgment, not clear. Three major options have emerged from scholarly discussions of the verse (see, e.g., Wolff, Hosea, 133 and note q., 143–44; Davies, Hosea, 206; Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 501, 506–8; Macintosh, Hosea, 319–21; and A. Gelston, “Kingship in the Book of Hosea,” OtSt 19 [1974]: 74). The first is to follow the Septuagint, in its dominant witnesses, and the putative Hebrew text that underlies it: “And they (= Northern Israel) shall cease/rest (kopavsousin) in/for a little while (mikro;n) anointing a king and rulers/princes (touÅ crÇein basileva kaµ aßrcontaÍ).” But depending on how mikro;n is here translated, the verse could refer either to the imminent end, “in a little while,” of kingship in Northern Israel, or to a future time, after the destruction of the North, when “for a little while” Israel will be without a king and associated officials, implying that eventually the latter will be restored. A second major option is to emend the mt directly as follows: “And they will writhe in pain (WlyjIy;w] instead of mt WLjEY;w', “and they began”), king (and) officials (= of Israel), from the burden” (reading aC…M"h"mE instead of mt aC…M"mI, “from a burden,” though this may not be needed). On this option, the verse appears to be describing the straits in which the Israelite king (or, by extension, kings) and his officials find themselves,

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1:3–5. And he went and married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Then Yhwh said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will visit the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and bring the kingdom of the house of Israel to an end. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” 2:2. And the people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together. And they will make for themselves one head (dja çar), and go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. 3:4–5. For the people of Israel will live for many days without king (˚lm), without official (rç), without sacrifice, without pillar, without ephod and teraphim. Afterward, the people of Israel will again seek Yhwh their God and David their king (µklm), and (again) acknowledge with reverence Yhwh and His goodness in the latter days. 5:1–2. Hear this, O priests! Give heed, O house of Israel! O house of the king (˚lmh), pay attention! For the judgment applies to you. For you have have been a trap at Mizpah and a net spread over Tabor. And the pit of Shittim they have made deep. 13 So I will be a chastisement to them all.

implicitly from the Assyrian pressure on the state, wherein “burden” could indicate the tribute the Assyrians had placed on Israel. Finally, there is a third major option for reconstructing 8:10b, which is related to, yet varies from, the second: “And they (= Israel) will writhe in pain (again WlyjIy;w] instead of mt WLjEY;w') from the burden of the king of princes.” On this third option, as in the second, “burden” would refer to the Assyrian tribute pressure on Israel, but µyrç ˚lm here would be treated, not as an asyndetic pair of nouns applying to the Israelite monarchy, but as a construct phrase indicating the Assyrian king. The phrase, in this reading, is taken to be the Hebrew equivalent of the Akkadian sar sarrani, “king of kings,” used, among others, by the Neo-Assyrian kings, and would constitute a kind of interdialectal play on ¶ar in its West Semitic meaning of “official” and in the meaning of its Akkadian cognate, sarru, “king”; cf. Isa 10:8 (see W. Rudolph, in Gelston, “Kingship,” loc. cit., as against, e.g., Davies, Hosea, loc. cit.). In this third option, therefore, Hos 8:10b would have nothing directly to do with Israelite kingship. 13. For a discussion, see Davies, Hosea, 137–39. In 5:2, mt hf:j“væw] is emended, with most commentators, to tj"væw], “and the pit.” Some, however, have retained mt µyfIc´ and understood it as the abstract “deceit,” with reference to its occurrence in Ps 101:3. Others, however, emend this word to µyFIV¥h", “Shittim”—the final h of the preceding hfjçw being transferred here. This yields a phrase with the name of a sanctuary, so confirming the parallel to the previous line 5:1, which mentions Mizpah and Tabor. The reading “Shittim” would also correlate with the reference elsewhere in Hosea to the worship of Baºal-peor (9:10), which took place at Shittim according to Num 25:1–15 (where it is likewise written with the definite article); cf. Mic 6:5. All these reasons make me more inclined to the reading µyFIV¥h" than to µyfIc´.

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5:10. For the officials of Judah (hdwhy yrç) have become like those who remove boundaries. Upon them I will pour out, like water, my wrath. 6:11–7:7. When I decided to restore the fortunes of my people, to give healing to Israel, the wickedness of Ephraim was revealed, the evil of Samaria. For they perpetrated falsehood. (As) a thief he would enter, and (as) a group of bandits he made a quick raid outside. They would not consider that I was mindful of their evil. Now their deeds surround them; they confront my face. In their evil they would make king(s) (˚lm) exult, 14 and in their deceptions, officials (µyrç). All of them commit adultery; they are like a burning oven, 15 (whose) baker ceases to stir (the fire) and knead the dough before it (becomes) leaven. On the day of our king (wnklm), the officials (µyrç) became very sick with the wrath (brought on) from the wine. He mixed his wine 16 with scoffers. For they came near with their hearts (heated) like the oven, (planning) on ambush. All night long their anger 17 sleeps/smoulders; 18 in the morning it burns like a blazing fire. All of them are hot like the oven and devour their rulers (µhyfpç). All of their kings (µhyklm) have fallen; no one of them calls on me. 7:16. They return to (a god) who cannot avail, 19 and have become like a treacherous bow. Their officials (µhyrç) shall fall by the sword because of their indignant tongue.

14. Some emend mt WjM}cæy], “they would make exult” to Wjv‘m}yi, “they would anoint”: see the discussion, e.g., in Wolff, Hosea, 106:e, 124. The emendation is not inappropriate, considering 8:4 and 13:10. On the other hand, the mt does make its own sense in its reference to the exaggerated pomp and ceremony shown to the royal court, all the more reprehensible if, as it appears, it is being perpetrated by conspirators bent on violent removal of this very royalty. Tentatively, therefore, I retain the mt here. 15. Emending (see BHS ad loc.) mt hp