“Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?”: Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives (Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement) [1 ed.] 9781575064291, 9781575064307, 1575064294

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“Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?”

Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplements Editor Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary Associate Editor Craig L. Blomberg, Denver Seminary

Advisory Board Leslie C. Allen Fuller Theological Seminary Donald A. Carson Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Donald A. Hagner Fuller Theological Seminary Karen H. Jobes Wheaton College

I. Howard Marshall University of Aberdeen Elmer A. Martens Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary Bruce K. Waltke Knox Theological Seminary Edwin M. Yamauchi Miami University

 1. Bridging the Gap: Ritual and Ritual Texts in the Bible, by Gerald A. Klingbeil  2. War in the Bible and Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Richard S. Hess and Elmer A. Martens  3. Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, edited by Richard S. Hess, Gerald A. Klingbeil, and Paul J. Ray Jr.  4. Poetic Imagination in Proverbs: Variant Repetitions and the Nature of Poetry, by Knut Martin Heim  5. Divine Sabbath Work, by Michael H. Burer  6. The Iron Age I Structure on Mt. Ebal: Excavation and Interpretation, by Ralph K. Hawkins  7. Toward a Poetics of Genesis 1–11: Reading Genesis 4:17–22 in Its Near Eastern Context, by Daniel DeWitt Lowery  8. Melchizedek’s Alternative Priestly Order: A Compositional Analysis of Genesis 14:18–20 and Its Echoes throughout the Tanak, by Joshua G. Mathews  9. Sacred Ritual: A Study of the West Semitic Ritual Calendars in Leviticus 23 and the Akkadian Text Emar 446, by Bryan C. Babcock 10. Wrestling with the Violence of God: Soundings in the Old Testament, edited by M. Daniel Carroll R. and J. Blair Wilgus 11. Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy: Fresh Insights from Ephesiaca by Xenophon of Ephesus, by Gary G. Hoag 12. Paul and His Mortality: Imitating Christ in the Face of Death, by R. Gregory Jenks 13. “Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?” Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives, edited by James K. Hoffmeier, Alan R. Millard, and Gary A. Rendsburg 14. Honor, Shame, and Guilt: Social Scientific Approaches to the Book of Ezekiel, by Daniel Y. Wu

“Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?” Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives

Edited by

James K. Hoffmeier, Alan R. Millard, and Gary A. Rendsburg

Winona Lake, Indiana Eisenbrauns 2016

Copyright © 2016 Eisenbrauns All rights reserved. Printed in the Uni ted States of America.

www.eisenbrauns.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hoffmeier, James Karl, 1951– editor. | Hoffmeier, James Karl, 1951– Egyptian religious influences on the early Hebrews. Container of (work): Title: Did I not bring Israel out of Egypt? : biblical, archaeological, and egyptological perspectives on the Exodus narratives / edited by James K. Hoffmeier, Alan R. Millard, and Gary A. Rendsburg. Description: Winona Lake, Indiana : Eisenbrauns, 2016. | Series: Bulletin for biblical research supplements ; 13 | “Most of the papers herein were presented at a symposium organized by James K. Hoffmeier at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas, January 17–18, 2014”— Preface. | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Identifiers: LCCN 2016001901 (print) | LCCN 2016002610 (ebook) | ISBN 9781575064291 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781575064307 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Exodus, The—Congresses. | Jews—History—To 1200 B.C.—Congresses. Classification: LCC BS1199.E93 D53 2016 (print) | LCC BS1199.E93 (ebook) | DDC 222/.12095--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001901

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. ♾™

Dedicated to

Mark Lanier, Charles Mickey, and the staff and volunteers of the Lanier Theological Library with many thanks

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Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Part 1 Egyptology and Linguistic Matters  1. Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews . . . . . . . . .   3 James K. Hoffmeier  2. Onomastics of the Exodus Generation in the Book of Exodus . . . 37 Richard S. Hess  3. Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus and Wilderness Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Benjamin J. Noonan  4. The Significance of the Horns (‫)קרֶן‬ ֶ of Exodus 27:2: The Egyptian ( ṯst ) and Levantine Four-Horned Altars . . . . . . 69 David Falk

Part 2 Exodus in the Pentateuch/Torah  5. The Practices of the Land of Egypt (Leviticus 18:3): Incest, ʿAnat, and Israel in the Egypt of Ramesses the Great . . . . . . . 79 Richard C. Steiner  6. The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II and the Exodus Sea Account (Exodus 13:17–15:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Joshua Berman  7. The Literary Unity of the Exodus Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Gary A. Rendsburg  8. Moses, the Tongue-Tied Singer! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Alan Millard vii

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 9. The Egyptian Sojourn and Deliverance from Slavery in the Framing and Shaping of the Mosaic Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Richard E. Averbeck 10.  “Tell Your Children and Grandchildren!” The Exodus as Cultural Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   177 Jens Bruun Kofoed

Part 3 Exodus, the Wilderness Period, and Archaeology 11.  Recent Developments in Understanding the Origins of the Arameans: Possible Contributions and Implications for Understanding Israelite Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 K. Lawson Younger Jr. 12.  Exodus on the Ground: The Elusive Signature of Nomads in Sinai . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Thomas W. Davis

Part 4 Exodus in the Hebrew Prophets 13.  “I Am Yahweh Your God from the Land of Egypt”: Hosea’s Use of the Exodus Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Jerry Hwang 14.  Some Observations on the Exodus and Wilderness Wandering Traditions in the Books of Amos and Micah . . . . . . . . . . .   255 J. Andrew Dearman Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   313 Index of Modern and Premodern Authors  313 Index of Scripture  319 Index of Other Ancient Sources  329

Preface As Jewish families share the Passover meal year after year, is it an event of long ago that they celebrate, or is it a religious myth? Today, many individuals vigorously proclaim that the exodus never happened. An Israeli archaeologist and a journalist assert, “The saga of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt is neither historical truth nor literary fiction. It is a powerful expression of memory and hope in a world in the midst of change” (i.e., the 7th century BC, the reign of King Josiah). 1 Having read such recent studies, Uri Avneri, a founder of the State of Israel, concluded, “[T]he fact is that not even a tiny mention of the exodus, the conquest of Canaan, or King David had been found. They just did not happen.” 2 Through these and similar comments, the affirmations of earlier generations of scholars concerning the historicity of these foundational events of early Israelites are being turned upside down—not by new archaeological discoveries but by the absence of corroborating data. When this factor is coupled with the dominant paradigm for reading the Hebrew Bible— namely, the hermeneutic of suspicion—the Bible is jettisoned as a source to understand the origins of the Hebrews. Despite this current skeptical attitude toward the Bible by many influential biblical scholars, it is undeniable that the Hebrew Scriptures consider the exodus from Egypt as Israel’s formative and foundational event. Indeed Yair Hoffman affirms, “The exodus from Egypt is the most frequently mentioned event in the O.T. Apart from the story itself in Ex. i–xv, it is mentioned about 120 times in stories, laws, poems, psalms, historiographical writings and prophecies.” 3 In seeking to answer the question “Was there an Exodus?” Graham Davies cogently observed that, “while it would be an exaggeration to say that the Exodus story is mentioned in every part of the Old Testament, the exceptions are fairly few.” 4 These observations require the fair-minded historian to read the Hebrew Bible carefully and contextually in order to access Israel’s origins and earliest history. While it is true that no contemporary record concerning Moses or the Israelites living in or leaving Egypt has been found, this is not adequate 1. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 72–73. 2. Consortiumnews.com (3rd January 2015). 3. Yair Hoffman, “A North Israelite Typological Myth and a Judaean Historical Tradition: The Exodus in Hosea and Amos,” VT 39 (1989): 170. 4. Graham Davies, “Was There an Exodus?” in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel (ed. John Day; London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 26.

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Preface

grounds for discounting the exodus narrative. The contents of the Bible, the book of Exodus especially, deserve to be examined judiciously in order to determine whether or not the accounts conform to the historical period implied in the Bible—to wit, the latter part of the second millennium BC. This task can be accomplished irrespective of the date of composition for the book of Exodus, for it is wrong to assume, as is widely done, that ancient writers could not record accurately or comment knowledgeably about events that occurred long before their times. If such were the case, much of what is accepted as ancient history would have to be discarded. The authors of the essays in this volume are convinced that there is an alternative approach—namely, that the books of the Pentateuch that treat the sojourn, exodus, and wilderness narratives merit a positive assessment. Indeed, the reports in the Hebrew Bible should not be cavalierly dismissed for ideological reasons and hence prima facie be rejected as containing authentic memories. Most of the papers herein were presented at a symposium organized by James K. Hoffmeier at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas, January 17–18, 2014. Several of the essays were contributed by scholars who were unable to attend, including those of Benjamin Noonan, Richard Steiner, and David Falk. All of us who did participate were graciously hosted by Mark Lanier Esq., the founder of the Lanier Theological Library. We are indeed grateful to him for his generosity and vision in support of positive biblical scholarship. Charles Mickey, Director of the library, and his staff worked tirelessly to arrange the logistics for the weekend, and they did a wonderful job. It is only fitting to say “thanks” to those who made this symposium possible, which includes the staff and volunteers of the library, by dedicating this book to them. Finally, thanks are due to Oliver Hersey, a Ph.D. student at Trinity International University, who worked tirelessly to prepare this manuscript for publication, and to Charles Loder, an M.A. student at Rutgers University, who created the index of ancient sources and who reviewed the final proofs one last time to ensure accuracy.

Abbreviations General A. Louvre Museum siglum AMS Accelerator Mass Spectrometry ANE ancient Near East BM British Museum text chap(s). chapter(s) D Deuteronomist source Dtr Deuteronomistic (history; writer) E Elohist source EA El Amarna tablets Eg. Egyptian Eng. English esv English Standard Version of the Bible fem. feminine H Holiness Code Heb. Hebrew J Yahwist source jps Jewish Publication Society version of the Bible KV Valley of the Kings LXX Septuagint masc. masculine MT Masoretic Text n(n). note(s) ND field numbers of tablets excavated at Nimrud (Kalhu) net New English Translation of the Bible niv New International Version of the Bible njb New Jerusalem Bible njps New Jewish Publication Society version of the Bible nkjv New King James Version of the Bible no(s). number(s) nrsv New Revised Standard Version of the Bible NSAP North Sinai Archaeological Project OT Old Testament P Priestly source P./pap. papyrus pl(s). plate(s) PT Pyramid Texts Str strata TelSheHa Tell Šēḫ Ḥamad TT Theban Tomb v(v). verse(s)

xi

xii

Abbreviations

Reference Works AB ABD

Anchor Bible Freedman, D. N., et al., eds. Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992 AECT Fales, F. M. Aramaic Epigraphs on Clay Tablets of the Neo-Assyrian Period. Rome: Università degli studi “La sapienza,” 1986 AECT-L Aramaic Epigraphs on Clay Tablets of the Neo-Assyrian Period. In A. Lemaire. Nouvelles tablettes araméennes. Geneva: Droz, 2001 AEL Lichteim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973–80 AeuL Bietak, Manfred, ed. Ägypten und Levante: Zeitschrift für ägyptische Archäologie und deren Nachbargebiete. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1990– AHw Soden, W. von, ed. Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965–81 AJA American Journal of Archaeology AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature AJSR Association of Jewish Studies Review ANES Ancient Near Eastern Studies ANESSup Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series AnOr Analecta Orientalia AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament ARAI Schwiderski, Dirk. Die alt- und reichsaramäischen Inschriften / The Old and Imperial Aramaic Inscriptions. 2 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004–8 Aram Aram Periodical ASAE Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte ASAESup Supplement aux Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte ASOR American School of Oriental Research AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies BaM Baghdader Mitteilungen BAR Biblical Archaeology Review BAR Int. Series  British Archaeological Reports, International Series BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research BBRSup Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplements BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium  BHS Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia Bib Biblica BN Biblische Notizen BR Bible Review BSac Bibliotheca Sacra BZ Biblische Zeitschrift BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft CAD Oppenheim, A. L., et al., eds. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 21 vols. (A–Z). Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1956–2011 CAH Cambridge Ancient History. 3rd ed. London: Cambridge University Press, 1970–

Abbreviations CAI

xiii

Aufrecht, Walter E. A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1989 CANE Sasson, J. M., ed. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. 4 vols. New York: Scribner, 1995. [Reprinted in 2 vols. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006] CAT Dietrich, M.; Loretz, O.; and Sanmartín, J. The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani, and Other Places. 2nd ed. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995 [see also KTU] CBR Currents in Biblical Research COS Hallo, W. W., and Younger, K. L., eds. The Context of Scripture. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997–2003 CT Cuneiform Texts of the British Museum DULAT Olmo Lete, Gregorio del, and Sanmartín, Joaquín. Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. Translated by Wilfred G. E. Watson. Leiden: Brill, 2003 ErIsr Eretz-Israel EstBib Estudios bíblicos ETL Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses ExpTim The Expository Times FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament FB Forschung zur Bibel HÄB Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge HALOT Koehler, L.; Baumgartner, W.; and Stamm, J. J. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 5 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–2000 HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology HdO Handbuch der Orientalistik HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs HTR Harvard Theological Review ICC International Critical Commentary IEJ Israel Exploration Journal IFAO l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JJS Journal of Jewish Studies JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies JNSL Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement JSQ Jewish Studies Quarterly JSSEA Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities KAI Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften KB Koehler, L., and Baumgartner, W. Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros. Leiden: Brill, 1958 KRI Kitchen, K. A. Ramesside Inscriptions, Historical and Biographical. 8 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1969–90

xiv KTU

Abbreviations

Dietrich, M.; Loretz, O.; and Sanmartín, J., eds. Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. AOAT 24. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976– [see also CAT] LÄ Helck, W.; Otto, E.; and Westendorf, W., eds. Lexikon der Ägyptologie. 7 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1972–92 LAPO Littératures anciennes du Proche-Orient LEM Late-Egyptian Miscellanies LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies MDAIK Mitteilungen des Deutschen archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo NABU Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires NAC The New American Commentary NBD Douglas, J. D., ed. New Bible Dictionary. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1982 NCamBC New Cambridge Bible Commentary NCBC New Century Bible Commentary NEA Near Eastern Archaeology NIBCOT New International Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament NIDOTTE  VanGemeren, W. A., ed. New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. 5 vols, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997 NIVAC New International Version Application Commentary OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis OEAE Redford, D. B., ed. Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 OEANE Meyers, E. M., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997 OEC Oxford Edition of Cuneiform Texts OIP Oriental Institute Publications OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta Or Orientalia OrAnt Oriens Antiquus OTE Old Testament Essays PEFQS Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly PTR Princeton Theological Review RAI Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale RB Revue Biblique RBL Review of Biblical Literature ResQ Restoration Quarterly RHPR Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses RIMA The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods RIMB The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods RINAP The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period RITA Kitchen, K. A., ed. Ramesside Inscriptions Translated and Annotated. 6 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996–2014 RlA Reallexikon der Assyriologie SAA State Archives of Assyria SAAS State Archives of Assyria Studies SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

Abbreviations SCCNH Segal

xv

Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians Segal, J. B. Aramaic Texts from North Saqqâra, with Some Fragments in Phoenician. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1983 SEPOA Société pour l’étude du Proche-orient ancien SHANE Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East Simons Simons, J. J. Handbook for the Study of Egyptian Topographical Lists Relating to Western Asia. Leiden: Brill, 1937 SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament STAR Studies in Theology and Religion TAD Porten, Bezalel, and Yardeni, Ada, eds. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt. 4 vols. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Dept. of the History of the Jewish People, 1986–99 TDOT Botterweck, G. J., and Ringgren, H., eds. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 14 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974–2004 TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentary TynBul Tyndale Bulletin TZ Theologische Zeitschrift UF Ugarit-Forschungen VT Vetus Testamentum VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements WÄS Erman, A., and Grapow, H., eds. Wörterbuch der ägyptische Sprache. 5 vols. Leipzig: Hinrichs / Berlin: Academie, 1926–31. [Reprinted, 1963] WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament ZÄS Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde

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Part 1 Egyptology and Linguistic Matters

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Chapter 1

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews James K. Hoffmeier Trinity International University

Introduction Forty years ago, Ronald J. Williams wrote his seminal article “‘A People Come Out of Egypt’: An Egyptologist Looks at the Old Testament.” 1 Taking his title from the words of Balak, king of Moab, at the approach of the Israelites into the Transjordan (Num 22:5, 11), Williams quite passionately and persuasively argued that when it comes to study and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible Egyptological data need to be considered. They were, however, and still are often overlooked by biblical scholars who lack training in Egyptian history, culture, and language. As Williams reminds us, “Israel was always conscious of her ties with Egypt, and the traditions of her sojourn there were indelibly impressed on her religious literature.” 2 After citing numerous examples of Egyptian influence on Hebrew language and institutions in Israel, Williams concluded his essay by declaring: “Due caution must always be observed in assessing claims of direct influence, but the evidence is overwhelming that Israel drank deeply at the wells of Egypt. In a very real sense the Hebrews were ‘a people come out of Egypt’ (Num 22:5, 11).” 3 I stand in the academic tradition of Professor Williams, my esteemed Doktorvater, who was an Egyptologist who had expertise in Old Testament studies and Semitic languages, and I concur with his sentiment, which is reflected in my own research over nearly four decades. 4 It is my contention that, due to the Hebrew sojourn in the Nile Valley, certain Egyptian elements, linguistic, cultural, social, and religious “were indelibly impressed 1. R. J. Williams, “‘A People Come Out of Egypt’: An Egyptologist Looks at the Old Testament,” in Congress Volume: Edinburgh 1974 (VTSup 28; Leiden: Brill, 1975): 231–52. 2. Ibid., 231–32. 3. Ibid., 352 4. James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996/99); idem, Ancient Israel in Sinai (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005/11).

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on her religious literature.” With this assumption in mind, I want to investigate Egyptian elements of Israelite religion, focusing on the Levites, the significant number of Egyptian names among the exodus-wilderness generations, and terms associated with priestly regalia. Last, I will examine the Korah rebellion narrative in Num 16 which may shed some light on Israelite religion during the sojourn in Egypt. Prior to this, however, let us consider some theoretical matters.

Sociological Factors Genesis describes how the extended family or clan of Jacob/Israel, who were pastoralists, migrated to Egypt during a time of protracted drought in Canaan (Gen 41:53–42:5; 45–46). The practice of south Levantine pastoralists migrating to the Nile Valley in times of draught follows a well-attested pattern after the Old and Middle Kingdoms, especially in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC 5 The duration of the Hebrew sojourn according to the MT of Exod 12:40 was 430 years. Although the textual tradition in the LXX also reads 430 years, it includes the years Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived in Canaan prior to the move in Egypt—that is, 215. The implication is that 215 years were spent in Egypt. 6 On the other hand, Gen 15:14–16 offers seemingly conflicting data. Four hundred years are offered as the length of the sojourn (a rounding off of 430?), but v. 16 states, “but they (Abraham’s descendents) shall come back here (Canaan) in the fourth generation (‫דֹור‬ ‫יעי‬ ִ ‫ ְר ִב‬dôr rĕbîʿî ).” The standard meaning of the word dôr, cognate with Akkadian dāru and Ugaritic dr is “generation.” 7 It has been shown, however, that dôr in the Hebrew and cuneiform sources has a rather fluid meaning and does not necessarily represent a fixed figure. 8 There is a reference to 7 dāru during the reign of Shamshi-Adad I (ca. 1800 BC) that turns out to represent a period of 350–500 years or even 530 to 730 years, suggesting to Kenneth Kitchen that the 4 dôr in Gen 15:16 could correspond to the 400-year figure cited in v. 14. 9 Regardless of whether the Hebrews were in Egypt 4 generations (80–120 years) or 400 years, there was ample time for them to wrestle with questions of cultural and religious adaptation and assimilation. 5. For a review of the Egyptian literature and archaeological evidence, see my Israel in Egypt, 52–76. 6. For treatments of the 430 years in Exod 12:40, see J. P. Hyatt, Exodus: Based on the Revised Standard Versions (NCBC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971), 140. Nahum Sarna, Genesis: The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 62–63. Cornelis Houtman, Exodus [7:14–19:25] (Kampen: Kok, 1996), 2.203–4. William Propp, Exodus 1–18 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1999), 415–16. 7. HALOT 217–18. 8. Sarna, Genesis, 116. 9. Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 356.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

5

Determining ethnicity through archaeological data has been one of the challenging problems with which archaeologists have grappled in recent years. The impetus behind this debate has been how to recognize or distinguish the Israelites from Philistines, Canaanites, or other people groups. 10 To be sure, much relevant material is lost when only working with ancient remains. Language, hairstyles and dress, clear ethnic markers, do not leave an archaeological footprint, unless texts and iconography preserve such information. In Egypt and during certain periods in Mesopotamia, such material has survived in abundance. When it comes to early Israel (i.e., the period from the exodus until settlement in Canaan), 11 direct archaeological evidence is lacking to illustrate Williams’s view that “Israel was always conscious of her ties with Egypt, and the traditions of her sojourn there were indelibly impressed on her religious literature.” 12 While this observation is true, the biblical data supporting the Egypt sojourn and exodus traditions are overwhelming, 13 and as we shall see in this study, the indirect evidence from Egypt does indeed support his contention. The scope of this paper is limited to some possible influence of Egyptian religion on early Israel. The biblical narratives that cover the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt (Gen 46–Exod 14) offer insight into the religious beliefs and practices of the early Israelites. On leaving Canaan for Egypt, Jacob made an offering at Beer-sheba “to the God of his father Isaac” (Gen 46:1) and a theophany followed, “I am God, the God of your father” (Gen 46:3). In the famous burning bush revelation to Moses, the deity introduces himself in like manner: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exod 3:6). 14 To what extent did Egyptian religion influence the religion of the Hebrews during the sojourn? Religion indeed can serve as a marker of ethnicity 10. Israel Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988); Kenton 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); William Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), especially chap. 11; Ann E. Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). 11. For evidence for Israelites in Canaan, see references in previous note. 12. Williams, “‘A People Come Out of Egypt,’” 231–32. 13. For a thorough review of the OT’s memory of the sojourn in Egypt, see my “‘These Things Happened’: Why a Historical Exodus Is Essential for Theology,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? (ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 99–134. 14. On the God of the fathers, see Albrecht Alt, Der Gott der Väter: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der israelitischen Religion (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1929). For a translation of this study, see “The God of the Fathers: A Contribution to the Prehistory of Israelite Religion,” in Essays on Old Testament History and Religion (trans. R. A. Wilson; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 3–86.

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and assimilation and can also be a valuable tool to resist assimilation. 15 Studies by sociologists of immigrants to the U.S.A. have shown this to be the case, as Prema Kurien has observed: “Religion has been the most legitimate form of ethnic expression in this country (USA).” 16 In fact, in some instances Muslims and Hindus who migrate to America who, in their homelands had not been particularly observant become more serious practitioners when taking up residence in a predominantly Christian culture, while at the same time making some adjustments. Kurein has documented how Indians “adapt Hinduism to fit the American context.” 17 So while embracing their traditional religion more fervently than before coming to a new land, they modify and adapt to “create new identities in the face of changing conditions that make old ones irrelevant or unsuitable.” 18 Studies of Chinese immigrants in the U.S.A. tell a different story. Especially among Hong Kong and Taiwan Chinese, there are significant numbers of conversions to Christianity in American. Somewhere between 25 and 30% are Christian, whereas in Taiwan the number is a paltry 3.9%. 19 While there is a significant conversion rate to Christianity among Chinese immigrants, they largely tend to worship in Chinese churches where other aspects of their culture and language are preserved. 20 Thus while embracing the majority religion in the U.S.A., ethnic Chinese in America have taken intentional steps to maintain various Chinese traditions through Chinese churches. These sociological studies illustrate that, among ethnic minorities who relocate to another culture, even while resisting total assimilation and seeking to maintain cultural boundaries, they undergo a certain amount of adaptation in the area of religion. This process of adapting and transforming an immigrant culture in a new land resulting in “multi-stranded social relations” is called “transnationalism” by sociologists. 21 The Hebrews in Egypt, as the Genesis narratives portray them, were pastoralists and as such did not have a homeland or associate with a nation per se. Therefore, they might be regarded as having an “imagined community,” as Benedict AnderFor a recent investigation of “the God of the fathers,” see Jerry Hwang, The Rhetoric of Remembrance: An Investigation of the “Fathers” in Deuteronomy (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012). 15. Here, the story of Daniel and his friends in Babylon comes to mind (Dan 1 and 3). 16. Prema Kurien, “Becoming American by Becoming Hindu: Indian Americans Take Their Place at the Multicultural Table,” in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (ed. R. Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner; Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 59. 17. Ibid., 37. 18. Ibid., 59. 19. Fenggang Yang, Chinese Christians in American: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1999), vii–viii. Carolyn Chen, Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 1–3. 20. Yang, Chinese Christians in American, 5–16. 21. Ibid., 26.

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son understands this phenomenon. 22 Anne Porter has argued that this idea of “imagined community” is applicable to pastoralists in the ancient Near East. 23  While it is clear that differences persist between the socioreligious contexts of modern immigrant groups (e.g., Chinese in the U.S.A.) and ancient immigrant groups in an alien land (e.g., the Hebrews in Egypt), the influence of the religion of the host nation appears to affect the minority immigrant group. The following article aims to articulate how this phenomenon is observable in the exodus and wilderness narratives.

Two Case Studies of Egyptianization Before turning to the question of evidence for an Egyptian imprint on early Israelite religion, let us consider the case studies of two different ethnic groups and their interactions with Egypt. During the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2000–1760 BC), Egypt had colonized Nubia (Wawat and Kush), ruling this area through a system of forts and Egyptian administered centers. 24 Stuart Tyson Smith, an anthropologist and Egyptologist, refers to Egypt’s dominance of northern Sudan as “acculturation colonialism” because “Nubia was brought completely within the Egyptian social, economic, religious and administrative systems.” 25 In the New Kingdom (ca. 1525–1200 BC), after the hiatus of the Second Intermediate Period, Egyptian hegemony returned to Nubia. 26 Smith has convincingly argued that Egypt ruled Nubia with a colonial model, whereas during the same period an imperial model was used in the Levant. 27 The chief difference is that the colonial system was completely administered by Egyptian officials and, led by the “Overseer of Southern Foreign Lands, the King’s son of Kush,” 28 often simply referred to as “the Viceroy of Kush” by Egyptologists. In Canaan where the imperial model was employed, loyal local rulers were appointed to administer the city-state system under the 22. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 2006). 23. Anne Porter, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 57. 24. Barry Kemp, “Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period c. 2686–1552 bc,” in Ancient Egypt: A Social History (ed. B. Trigger et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 130–36. 25. Stuart T. Smith, Askut in Nubia: The Economics and Ideology of Egyptian Imperialism in the Second Millennium BC (London: Kegan Paul, 1995), 9–10. 26. James K. Hoffmeier, “Aspect of Egyptian Foreign Policy in the 18th Dynasty,” in Egypt, Israel and the Ancient Mediterranean World: Studies in Honor of Donald B. Redford (ed. G. Knoppers and A. Hirsch; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 121–41. 27. Stuart T. Smith, “Askut and the Role of the Second Cataract Forts,” JARCE 28 (1991): 107–32; idem, Askut in Nubia. 28. David O’Connor, “New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period, 1552–664 bc,” in Ancient Egypt: A Social History (ed. B. Trigger et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 208.

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authority of the “Overseer of Northern Lands.” 29 There was no “Viceroy of Canaan.” In the Second Intermediate Period, when Egyptian control of Nubia was lost, the C-Group culture (the dominant Nubian culture of the period 2300–1500 BC) “co-opted” the Egyptian administrative system, and their elites depicted themselves in Egyptian-style tombs “with all the markers of Egyptian ethnicity.” 30 Lázló Török further describes the “Egyptianization” of the Nubian elites “who received Egyptian education, their members frequently adopted Egyptian names, and were buried in Egyptian-type tombs which attest to the adoption of Egyptian mortuary religion.” 31 Along with Egyptian administration and exploitation of Nubia in the New Kingdom came Egyptian temples to Amun-Re and other prominent deities that were built throughout the area controlled by Egypt. While the full extent of Egyptian religious influence on Nubians may not be evident during the New Kingdom, 32 when Egyptian dominance ended in the 11th century, Egyptian influence did not wane; rather, it blossomed. In two centuries, a Nubian state emerged that gave rise to the rulers who eventually controlled Egypt. 33 The Nubian name of King Piankhy (or Piye), is coupled with an Egyptian one, User-Maʿat-Re, which happens to be the first part of Ramesses II’s throne name (User-Maʿat-Re Setep-en-Rʿ). 34 In his famous victory stela (written in Egyptian hieroglyphs and using archaizing language and grammatical forms) 35 in the Cairo Museum, Piankhy documents his northern campaign from Napata all the way into the Delta in 727 BC. The Theban Amun-Re becomes Lord of Gebel Barkal, the holy mountain of Napata, and is Nubia’s chief deity. 36 Pharaonic ideology is found throughout this stela. As city after city fell, Piankhy visited the temples and made offerings to the local gods. At Thebes he presided over the Opet Festival of Amun (as a pharaoh would), 37 at Memphis “Ptah and the gods of Mem-

29. S. T. Smith, Askut in Nubia, 9–10. 30. Idem, Wretched Kush: Ethnic Identities and Boundaries in Egypt’s Nubian Empire (New York: Routledge: 2003), 84–85. 31. Lázló Török, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Merotic Civilization (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 97. 32. For the purposes of this article, I am concentrating on Egypt’s influence on the Nubians. At the same time, cultural influence goes in both directions, as S. T. Smith has shown (Smith, Wretched Kush, 2). 33. David O’Connor, Ancient Nubia: Egypt’s Rival in Africa (Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1993), 58. 34. Jürgen von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Köningsnamen (Mainz: von Zabern, 1999), 207. 35. N. C. Grimal, La stèle triomphale de Pi(ʿank)y au Musée du Caire (Cairo: IFAO, 1981), 270–72 36. Ibid., §1. 37. Ibid., 17.2–3.

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phis” received offerings, 38 and at Heliopolis the king received purification rites and stood before the sacred solar image, the benben-stone to honor Atum-Khepri. 39 The picture presented throughout this stela is of a legitimate pharaoh. Piankhy and his successors were Egyptian in death. “More than eight hundred years after the last royal Pyramid had been constructed in Egypt,” I. E. S. Edwards notes, “pyramidal tombs suddenly made their appearance in the Sudan.” 40 Indeed, Nubian rulers were buried with all the pomp of the great pharaohs of Egypt yet in much humbler pyramids, complete with the Egyptian-style shawabtis (funerary figurines), with funerary texts written on them in Egyptian hieroglyphs 41—in some cases 400–500 years after Egypt’s hegemony had ended in northern Sudan. Some anthropologists consider such “complex adaptations” as those witnessed in Nubia, due to Egyptian cultural influence, to be an example of “transculturation.” 42 A second example that illustrates such transculturation of a foreign people who actually lived in Egypt is the Semitic-speaking people who came to Egypt during the 12th–15th Dynasties (1900–1600 BC). First, we will examine the textual evidence, followed by the archaeological data. During the 12th Dynasty, especially during the 45-year reign of Ame­ nemhet III (1843–1789 BC), numerous Egyptian mining expeditions were sent to Serabit el-Khadim in south-central Sinai for turquoise and copper. Included in these expeditions were ʿꜢmw. The term ʿꜢmw is a generic term used by the Egyptians for Semitic-speaking people from Western Asia. 43 Stela 110 from Serabit el-Khadim mentions 20 ʿꜢmw from Ḥomi, 44 an unknown location, possibly in Sinai or the southern Negev. Another stela, no. 120, speaks of 20 men of Retenu (Syria–Canaan), and no. 114 refers to 10 “foreigners” ( ḫꜢstyw) on the respective expeditions. 45 It is uncertain whether these non-Egyptian participants resided in Sinai or the Negev or in Egypt. Some clearly lived in Egypt. On stela no. 110, a house domestic (e.g., ḥry-pr) is identified as an ʿꜢm while having an Egyptian name, Sinefer. 46 38. Ibid., 30–34. 39. Ibid., 36–38. 40. I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt (Baltimore: Penguin, 1961), 247–48. 41. For pictures of some, see O’Connor, Ancient Nubia, 142. 42. S. T. Smith, Wretched Kush, 2. 43. Raymond Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 38; ʿꜢm is singular; ʿꜢmw is plural. See discussion in my Israel in Egypt, 53–56. Further on ʿꜢm , see Gary Rendsburg’s review of Robert M. Good, The Sheep of His Pasture (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983) in JAOS 107 (1987): 558–59. 44. Alan H. Gardiner and T. Eric Peet, The Inscriptions of Sinai (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 2.113. 45. Ibid., 2.118, 123. 46. Ibid., 2.115.

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On stelae 93, 95, and 98, we encounter a “chief steward” named Ameny (short for Amenemhet) whose mother’s name was Ituneferu (an Egyptian name), and yet she was identified as “the Asiatic” whose mother’s name was Sit-Urteḥu. 47 Sit-Urteḥu appears to be a Mischname, or mixed name, the first element being Egyptian and the second being Semitic. Interestingly, Ameny was a Semite or possibly of mixed race (Egyptian-Semite?). In one instance (stela 95), Ameny is portrayed offering a loaf of bread, standing behind his pharaoh. 48 He is presented as a Canaanite (beard and hairstyle), and he is making offerings to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, patron of the region. 49 The verso of Brooklyn Pap. 35.1446, dated by W. C. Hayes to the first half of the 13th Dynasty (ca. 1786–1700 BC), 50 contains the names and occupations of 79 household servants attached to an estate in Thebes. 51 Of these, 33 were apparently native Egyptians, 45 are identified as ʿꜢm or ʿꜢmt (fem.), and one has an ethnicity that is uncertain. 52 The Brooklyn Papyrus is laid out like a ledger, an ancient spreadsheet. Column A contained the names of the individuals, their ethnicity (if an ʿꜢm/t), and their personal names. The ʿ Ꜣmw all have Semitic names. Column B contains Egyptian names either taken by the servant or given to him or her by a master or mistress. 53 The formulas used for the entries are X (Semitic name), who is called (ddw n.f [masc.] or ddt n.s [fem.]) 54 Y (Egyptian name). The Egyptian names, Hayes observed, seem to be an attempt to “reproduce in the names assigned to these people either the meaning or the sound of their original names.” 55 Column C includes the title of or trade in which the individual worked. 56 The foregoing texts demonstrate that Semites were entering Egypt in the Middle Kingdom. Hayes thought that some of the servants named in the Brooklyn Papyrus may have reached Egypt as POWs from military campaigns, although none were known when he made this proposal. 57 He there47. Ibid. 2.101–5. 48. Alan H. Gardiner and T. Eric Peet, The Inscriptions of Sinai (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), vol. 1, pl. 30. 49. Ibid., vol. 1, pl. 30, front panel. 50. The recto contains regnal year dates from years 10 to 36, but the royal name is missing (William C. Hayes, A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum [Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446] [New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1955], 15–16). It is probably Amenemhet III, who reigned 45 years. The only other pharaoh who surpassed 36 years in the 12th Dynasty was Senusert I, who also had a 45-year reign. On the verso are two dates (years 1 and 2) of Sobek-hotep III. 51. Hayes, ibid., 87–99. 52. Ibid., 90. 53. Ibid., 99–102. 54. The passive participle is used. 55. Hayes, A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum, 101 56. Ibid., 103–9. 57. Ibid., 99.

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fore concluded that there must have been “a brisk trade in Asiatic slaves carried on by the Asiatics themselves, with Egypt.” 58 Not much is known of such activities in the early centuries of the 2nd millennium BC, but the recent discovery of a historical inscription of Amenemhet II (1901–1866 BC) sheds some light on the question. It reports that the king brought back 1,554 POWs from a campaign in the Levant. 59 Such foreigners may well be the source for the Semitic household servants encountered in the Brooklyn Papyrus, who were given or voluntarily took Egyptian names. Whether they came to Egypt as the spoils of war, from slave trade, or by voluntary migration, the process of assimilation followed. Indeed, the archaeological evidence reviewed below shows that periodic immigration was probably the major factor to explain the presence of Levantine peoples of the Middle Bronze Age culture in the Delta. The emerging archaeological data from the northeastern Delta, and particularly at Tell el-Dabʿa, are helping to clarify the nature of the foreign presence there. Starting in 1966, Manfred Bietak began his systematic excavation of Tell el-Dabʿa in Sharqiya (eastern) Province. 60 The work of the Austrian Institute in Egypt over more than 40 years has produced mountains of data about the history of the site t­ hat is, Avaris, the Hyksos capital. 61 The earliest evidence for the occupation of Tell el-Dabʿa comes from an inscription bearing the name Khety in the toponym (Ḥwt rꜢ-wꜢty ̱Htıʾ ), suggesting it may have started during the Herakleopolitan period—that is, the 10th Dynasty (ca. 2160–2140 BC). 62 It may be recalled that in the “Wisdom for King Merikare” the ruler’s father, Meryibre Khety (perhaps the same Khety of the toponym) 63 tells his son of the measures he had taken to secure the northeastern Delta from the presence of troublesome Levantine 58. Ibid. 59. Jaromír Málek and Stephen Quirke, “Memphis, 1991: Epigraphy,” JEA 78 (1992): 13–18. 60. For a survey of the work preceding 1966 and the ongoing work there, see Manfred Bietak, “Tell ed-Dabʿa,” OEANE 2.99–101. 61. Several notable monographs and articles by Manfred Bietak offer synthetic analyses of his decades of work; see idem, Avaris and Piramesse: Archaeological Exploration in the Eastern Nile Delta (London: Proceedings of the British Academy, London, 1986); idem, Avaris the Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell el-Dabʿa (London: British Museum, 1996); idem, “The Center of Hyksos Rule: Avaris (Tell el-Dabʿa),” in The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives (ed. E. D. Oren; Philadelphia: University Museum, 1997), 87–139. 62. Shehata Adam, “Report on the Excavations of the Department of Antiquities at Ezbet Rushdi,” ASAE 56 (1959): 216, pl. 9. 63. There were at least four 10th-Dynasty kings named Khety (von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Köningsnamen, 73–75). Only Meryibere Khety, the wisdom teacher in the “Wisdom for Merikare,” seems to have been active in trying to neutralize the growth of the ʿꜢmw in the Delta.

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immigrants, calledʿꜢmw, including locating Egyptians “to repulse barbarians among them.” 64 King Khety urges his son also to control the eastern Delta by taking various defensive measures. 65 It may be that the text mentioning Khety discovered at Tell el-Dabʿa points to Egyptian efforts to get a handle on this rich but vulnerable area. No architecture associated with the 10th Dynasty has yet been identified, however. With the founding of the 12th Dynasty by Amenemhet I (1963–1934 BC), 66 occupation of the site began and grew continuously through the coming centuries. It is now evident that, in the waning years of the 12th and into the 13th dynasties (ca. 1800–1630 BC), “settlers of the Syro-Palestinian MBA culture,” as Bietak notes, began to occupy this area; this is revealed by the high volume of Levantine ceramics (90%) in burials of this period, while only 20% of the ceramics in the domestic areas are foreign. 67 Donkey burials are also found, along with bronze Canaanite-type weapons. 68 A Canaanitestyle temple was uncovered in this “Pre-Hyksos” period that used other Levantine architectural patterns, such as the plan of the Syrian “middle hall house.” 69 These settlers (urban) from the West Semitic world were not the only newcomers to appear at this early date. Bietak has observed that, “rather than argue that the population of Tell el-Dabʿa consisted purely of settlers from the northern Levantine coast, I no longer believe that its population was homogeneous.” 70 He points to “crudely fashioned MB IIA cooking pots” that are strikingly different from those of the residents of a more urban context. The pots likely indicate that these settlers were “of Bedouin origin,” 71 that is, pastoralists, the ʿꜢmw in Egyptian literature. 72 Nomadic shepherds are also attested later at Tell el-Dabʿa, after the abandonment of the palatial area in the mid-18th Dynasty (ca. 1450–1425 BC), their signature being sheep interments, where the sheep were carefully buried. 73 It is noteworthy that pastoralists, who are not always present in the archaeological record (but see the essay by Thomas Davis in this 64. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, 55. 65. For a translation of the pertinent passages of “Merikare” and commentary, see ibid., 55–58. 66. For some of the inscribed materials, see Labib Habachi, “Khataʿna-Qantir or Avaris-Piramesse,” in Tell el-Dabʿa I: Tell el-Daba and Qantir—The Site and Its Connections with Avaris and Piramesse (ed. M. Bietak and E. Czerny; Vienna: Austrian Academy of Science, 2001), pls. 1a–b, 5–9. 67. Bietak, “The Center of Hyksos Rule,” 87, 90. 68. Idem, Avaris: Capital of the Hyksos, 23–27. 69. Idem, “The Center of Hyksos Rule,” 99; idem, Avaris: Capital of the Hyksos, 9–12. 70. Idem, “The Center of Hyksos Rule,” 98. 71. Ibid., 99. 72. For a useful collection of these texts and commentary, see my book Israel in Egypt, chap. 3. 73. Manfred Bietak, “Nomads or mnmn.t-Shepherds in the Eastern Nile Delta in the New Kingdom,” in “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”: Archaeological and Historical

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volume), are attested at Tell el-Dabʿa. “This region,” Bietak held, “received an irregular but nonetheless continuous flow of Asiatic immigrants, who contributed distinctly Asiatic elements to the life and customs of the local population.” 74 The recent evidence shows that, prior to the period of Hyksos rule, there was a variety of classes of people ranging from urban settlers to pastoralists. It is not inconceivable to think that one such pastoral group was the proto-Hebrews. The archaeological data uncovered by Bietak have shown that the Levantine presence at Avaris continued in the 13th Dynasty, because the percentage of Middle Bronze Age ceramics increased from 20% to 40% in this level. 75 A seal impression portraying the Syrian weather-god BaalṢaphon was discovered that points to the principal deity of these foreigners. 76 Indeed the Baal Sanctuary, the main Temple of Avaris, continued to be refurbished and used from this period onward throughout the Hyksos era and New Kingdom. 77 Baal was quickly associated with the Egyptian storm-god Seth, and so was “Egyptianized.” Equating Syro-Canaanite Baal with the Egyptian deity Seth is an indication that these Asiatics were accommodating their religion to a degree. Interestingly, at Tell el-Dabʿa in the 18th century BC, a Canaanite/ Near Eastern–style temple “existed simultaneously alongside” an Egyptian temple. 78 The latter, Temple V, Bietak explains, “is that of a memorial chapel, based on the same type of plan as the Royal ka-chapel at (nearby) ʿEzbet Rushdi dating to the Twelfth Dynasty.” 79 This Baal-Seth fusion apparently was acceptable to the Egyptians. The 400-year stela of Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC) discovered at Tanis, 80 but almost certainly originating at Tell el-Dabʿa, depicts the deity “Seth, Great of Might” with his name written in a cartouche. 81 Rather than being presented with the bizarre Seth animal, possibly a wild pig, he is depicted in human form with a gown of Canaanite style and looks like Baal in Late-Bronzeera iconography. 82 Other examples of this “Asiatic” presentation of Seth are known from the Ramesside era and presently, none from earlier times are known. Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. Aren Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 1.123–26. 74. Bietak, Avaris and Piramesse, 226. 75. Idem, Avaris: Capital of the Hyksos, 31. 76. Edith Porada, “The Cylinder Seal from Tell el-Dabʿa,” AJA 88 (1984): 485–88. 77. Manfred Bietak, “Zur Herkunft des Seth von Avaris,” AeuL 1 (1990): 9–16. 78. Idem, “The Center of Hyksos Rule,” 105–6. 79. Ibid. 80. Pierre Montet, “La Stèle de l’an 400 Retrouvée,” Kêmi 4 (1933): 191–215. 81. Ibid., pl. 15, line 7. 82. Izak Cornelius, The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Baʿal: Late Bronze and Iron Age I Periods (c 1500–1000 bce) (OBO 140; Fribourg: Fribourg University Press, 1994), pls. 29–44.

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Beginning with Pharaoh Seti I (1295–1279 BC), the first pharaoh to embrace the name of the god Seth, a royal residence was built in the vicinity of Tell el-Dabʿa. In Labib Habachi’s opinion, Seti was “living at the place for part of the year, since he built a palace there.” 83 An inscribed block from the Seth Temple at Avaris has the name of Horemheb on it, possibly over that of Tutankhamun. 84 The names of the successors of Akhenaten probably reflect the reestablishment of the Baal/Seth cult and the restoration of that temple after the neglect and abuse of temples by the monotheistic Amarna king. 85 The 400-year stela seems to celebrate the origin of the Baal/Seth cult at Avaris by Horemheb or Seti (ca. 1300 BC), perhaps around 1700 BC. It is noteworthy that King Nehsy (ca. 1700 BC) of Avaris is the first ruler on record who is called “beloved of Seth, Lord of Avaris.” 86 From this general period, we find that some men buried at Tell el-Dabʿa are of Asian origin, based on the tomb-type, donkey burials, Canaanite ceramics, and bronze weapons, but they were also interred with glyptic objects of Egyptian style. One such tomb yielded a scarab with the hieroglyphic inscription ı͗ dnw n ı͗ my-r sḏꜢwt, “the Deputy treasurer (or Seal-bearer) named ‘the Asiatic’ (ʿꜢm).” 87 The use of hieroglyphs by a Semite bearing a high-ranking Egyptian title, demonstrates that in this pre-Hyksos period, foreigners were serving in the still Egyptian administration and that they were adapting to Egyptian ways in some areas, but not in burial practices. Another Asiatic type tomb (Tomb 28: Str. [G]–F), with Levantine ceramics, from the early Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1710–1680 BC), yielded a highly significant scarab. While the tombs in this field remain unpublished, the area is presently being studied by Miriam Müller. 88 The pertinent scarab is included in a general study of the scarabs from Tell el-Dabʿa by Christine Mlinar. 89 The text reads ḥm kꜢ yk wḥm ʿnḫ, “The Ka-priest, Yak, repeating life.” This priestly title is an ancient one that goes back to the 83. Labib Habachi, “Khataʿna-Qantir or Avaris-Piramesse” in Tell el-Dabʿa I: Tell elDaba and Qantir the Site and its Connections with Avaris and Piramesse (ed. Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften, 2001), 108. 84. Bietak, “Zur Herkunft des Seth von Avaris,” 11–13; idem, “The Center of Hyksos Rule,” 125. 85. Ibid. 86. Idem, Avaris: Capital of the Hyksos, 41. 87. Ibid. 88. Miriam Müller presented a preliminary report of her work at the 64th annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt in Cincinnati, OH, April 2013. Subsequently, I have had personal communication via email with Dr. Müller on her work, for which I am grateful. 89. Christine Mlinar, “The Scarab Workshops of Tell el-Dabʿa,” in Scarabs of the Second Millennium bc from Egypt, Nubia, Crete and the Levant: Chronological and Historical Implications—Papers of a Symposium, Vienna, 10th–13th of January 2002 (ed. M. Bietak and E. Czerny; Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004), 112, fig. 3.2.

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Old Kingdom and is associated with the funerary cult. 90 Specifically, the Ka-priest was responsible for offering food and libations for the dead. This service was rendered by Ka-priests, Serge Sauneron affirmed, “on a daily basis or periodically on the occasions of the festival of the necropolis.” 91 The name of the Ka-priest is otherwise not attested, 92 but since the tomb and those surrounding it “show clear links with the material culture of the Levant,” 93 a Semitic name might be expected. As it appears, this name could be a shortened form of an “Amorite Imperfective” type personal name. 94 There are, in fact, several examples of this name type among the Hyksos rulers. The name Yak could be shortened form of the names like Yakbimu and Yakbim, 95 the names of two 14th Dynasty rulers. Other imperfective forms occur in the Hyksos names Yaḳob-her, Yaʿmu and Ya­ kebmu. 96 The last example is a near match linguistically for the name of the Ka-priest’s name in the scarab under study. Perhaps the diminutive form was written that could accommodate the limited space on the scarab more easily. What this Tell el-Dabʿa scarab, owned by a Semite and buried in a Levantine-type grave, demonstrates is that the foreign population of the northeastern Delta, in at least a small way, had begun to adopt some elements of Egyptian funerary practices. In this instance the Egyptian title of Ka-priest is used along with the common wish formula, wḥ ʿnḫ, “repeating life” or “live again.” Further signs of religious adaptation are found in the Delta with the Hyksos rulers during the 15th and 16th Dynasties, ca. 1650–1525 BC. Royal names and titles are salient in this regard. The presently attested Hyksos royal names—presumably not all are attested—are found in the Turin Canon of Kings from the Ramesside era, on scarabs and some inscribed blocks discovered at Tell el-Dabʿa and other sites. Khayan, thought to be a Semitic name, is mentioned on scarabs along with his prenomen (throne name) nfr nṯr swsr.n Rʿ ḫyꜢn, “The good god whom Re makes powerful, Khayan.” 97 A 90. WÄS 3.90. 91. Serge Sauneron, The Priests of Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000 [based on 1988 French ed.]), 109. 92. Mlinar, “The Scarab Workshops of Tell el-Dabʿa,” 109. 93. Personal communication via email with Miriam Müller. 94. Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, 341–43. See also M. P. Streck, Das amurriti­ sche Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit, vol. 1: Die Amurriter: Die onomastische Forschung, Orthographie und Phonologie, Nominalmorphologie (AOAT 271/1; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000). 95. K. S. B. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800–1550 BC (Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute, 1997), 251. These two slightly different spellings, Ryholt suggests, point to two different individuals, father and son. 96. Von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, 115–21. 97. Ibid., 115. Interestingly, Khayan seals have recently been discovered in Upper Egypt at Edfu; see Nadine Mueller and Gregory Marouard, “Discussion of the Late

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partial hieroglyphic inscription with the double cartouche of Khayan was discovered at Tell el-Dabʿa. 98 Although only the bottom of the royal names survive, the reading Khayan is certain. Beneath the vertical cartouches is a single horizontal line of text that reads: sꜢ nsw smsw ynss, “the eldest royal son, Yanass.” Clearly Egyptian titles associated with kingship were used by Khayan, as they were for the prince and heir to the throne, whose name also was Semitic. Kim Ryholt has noticed that royal seals of this period use exclusively the royal epithet nfr nṯr, “the good god,” 99 a royal epithet that rose to prominence in the Middle Kingdom. This epithet stands before the prenomen, while the title “Son of Re” precedes the nomen (birth name). Another 15th-Dynasty ruler was Apophis (named after the Egyptian deity ʿApep). His throne name was ʿꜢ ḳnn Rʿ, “Great is the bravery of Re.” The title sḥtp tꜢ.wy, “he who pacifies the Two Lands” also appears. 100 The “Two Lands,” of course, was the standard term for “Egypt”—Upper and Lower Egypt. A later Hyksos king likewise named Apophis had the throne name nb ḫpš Rʿ, “Re is the possessor of a powerful arm.” 101 The epithet nb ḫpš has a long history and was associated with the pharaoh as a military champion and defender of Egypt. 102 Apophis II’s successor, Sheshi (Egyptian name), 103 used the prenomen mꜢʿ ı͗ b Rʿ, “True is the heart of Re,” 104 and Yakob-har (Semitic name) of the 16th Dynasty had the Egyptian throne name SꜢ Rʿ mrı͗ wsr Rʿ, “Son of Re, beloved is the strength of Re.” 105 One could go on and cite additional royal names associated with the Hyksos kings. They also employed various Egyptian names and epithets, even while some continued to have Semitic birth names. Repeatedly, the name of the sun-god Re was employed in royal titles and in throne names. The use of Egyptian pharaonic titles and epithets demonstrates that the foreign rulers of Avaris sought to emulate Egyptian royal ideology. These kings embraced Re in their Egyptian names, a long cherished feature of royal ideology in Egypt. The first king to incorporate Re in his name was the 2nd-Dynasty pharaoh Neb-Re (ca. 2800 BC), 106 and in the 4th Dynasty Middle Kingdom and Early Second Intermediate Period History and Chronology in Relation to the Khayan Sealings from Tell Edfu,” AeuL 21 (2011): 87–122. 98. Manfred Bietak, “Eine Stele des ältesten Königssohnes des Hyksos Chajan,” MDAIK 37 (1981): 63–71. 99. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, 45. 100. Von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, 115. 101. Ibid., 117. 102. James K. Hoffmeier, “The Arm of God versus the Arm of Pharaoh in the Exodus Narratives,” Bib 67/3 (1986): 378–87. 103. Hermann Ranke, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen (Glückstadt: Augustin, 1935), 1.330. 104. Von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen 117. 105. Ibid. 106. Ibid., 43.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

17

(ca. 2600–2500 BC) royal names with Re increased (i.e., Khaʿfre, Menkaure, Djedefre). The epithet “Son of Re” made its appearance at this time and, from the 5th Dynasty (ca. 2500–2350 BC) on, the inclusion of Re in the prenomen was the norm for pharaohs. 107 These religioregal practices had a millennium of history in Egypt by the time the Hyksos rulers claimed the kingship of northern Egypt, and it seems that they embraced these traditions fully. Over a century after the explusion of the Hyksos by the Theban ruler Ahmose, Hatshepsut claimed that she restored the Temple of the Lady of Cusae (i.e., Hathor) in middle Egypt. It had fallen into ruin due to neglect, she asserts, when “the Asiatics (ʿꜢmw) were in Avaris,” claiming that “they ruled without Re.” 108 The textual evidence from Tell el-Dabʿa and elsewhere, on the contrary, suggests that the Hyksos attributed their kingship to the sun-god, whose bodily son ruled as the “Son of Re.” The material reviewed in this section demonstrates that both the Nubians south of Egypt and the Levantine Semites in the Delta were indeed influenced by many aspects of Egyptian culture and language, and religious matters as well. With these data in mind and the sociological evidence reviewed in the previous section that demonstrate how immigrant minorities are indeed impacted by the majority religion of their new homeland, let us turn to the biblical text to see what indications there might be that Israel experienced some of the same phenomena as did other Semites who came to Egypt in the 2nd millennium BC.

Egyptian Elements in Israelite Religion Theophile J. Meek delivered the 1933–34 Haskell Lectures at Oberlin College, which two years later were published in his classic book Hebrew Origins. 109 Meek considered the significant number of personal names of Egyptian etymology among the Levites as evidence for the Egyptian sojourn, 110 an observation made a few years before by Martin Noth. 111 Meek’s list of Levites included “Moses, Phineas, Hophni, Hur, Pashur, Assir, Putiel, Merari, and perhaps also Aaron.” 112 He acknowledged that not all of these were from the exodus-wilderness generations. Based on the onomastic evidence, Meek concluded, “This would indicate that the Levites at least were once resident in Egypt, so long in fact that they must have 107. Ibid., 56–61. 108. Alan Gardiner, “Davies’s Copy of the Great Speos Artemidos Inscription,” JEA 32 (1946): 47–48. 109. Theophile J. Meek, Hebrew Origins (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936). 110. Ibid., 31–32. 111. Martin Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung (Hildesheim: Olms, 1928), 63. 112. Meek, Hebrew Origins, 31.

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intermarried to some degree with the Egyptians and so have given Egyptian names to their children.” 113 Meek’s common sense treatment of the data was immediately challenged by Leroy Waterman. He assumed a “nomadic southern origin” for the Levites from outside Canaan (but not from Egypt). 114 He dismissed the presence of Egyptian names as evidence of the Levites’ sojourn in Egypt. Waterman’s critique in turn prompted a rejoinder from Meek, who maintained his position while refining his arguments. 115 In the intervening 75 years since Meek and Waterman debated over the possible Egyptian roots of the names cited above, further Egypto-Semitic work has been done, and there is wider recognition of the authenticity of some of the names while acknowledging that some linguistic challenges remain (see also the essay by Richard Hess in this volume). I have dealt with these and other names previously 116 and so will discuss those relevant to the present subject: Egyptian names among the Levites and Egyptian theophoric names among the exodus-wilderness generations.

Egyptian Personal Names Meek was quite right in recognizing Egyptian names among the Levites. Not only are such names found among the exodus-wilderness generations, but they also appear in later generations. Consider the following: Merari (‫)מ ָר ִרי‬ ְ is the name of the son of Levi who immigrated to Egypt (Gen 46:11) 117 and became the name of the division of priests—that is, the sons of Merari (Num 3:33–36). This name is only attested in Israel in the Semitic world, but it was a common name in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 1963–1700 BC). 118 The root name is mrı͗ , meaning “love” or “beloved.” 119 The doubling of the rr as it occurs in this name indicates that the imperfective active participle is the form. 120 113. Ibid., 32. 114. Leroy Waterman, “Some Determining Factors in the Northward Progress of Levi,” JAOS 57 (1937): 375–80. 115. Theophile J. Meek, “Moses and the Levites,” AJSL 56 (1939): 113–20. 116. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 223–28. 117. It could be that this genealogical list simply includes the names of the sons of the tribal chiefs and not all were born in Canaan. Yoshiyuki Muchiki suggests that Merari may have been born in Egypt, hence the Egyptian name (Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-west Semitic [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999], 216). 118. Ranke, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.162:22. Dating the arrival of the migrating Hebrews to Egypt is the subject of some debate, but a date during the 13th Dynasty when numbers of Asiatics begin to appear at Tell el-Dabʿa (and elsewhere in the NE Delta and Wadi Tumilat) is not inconceivable; see Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, 347–48. 119. WÄS 2.98–99. 120. Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), §357.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

19

Miriam (‫)מ ְריָם‬ ִ was the name of Moses’ and Aaron’s sister, who was known as a prophetess (Exod 15:20). One proposal is that the root mrı͗ mentioned in the previous entry is found in this name. In Hebrew Origins, Meek proposed an Egyptian name behind Miriam. Also, in 1936, Sir Alan Gardiner penned an article on “The Egyptian Origin of Some English Personal Names.” 121 Gardiner argued that behind the Hebrew name was the root mrı͗ (as in the name Merari), although he acknowledged that, for the feminine form, one would expect the writing to be mrı͗ t. As early as the Old Kingdom, the final t in words was not vocalized (yet was written); 122 hence mrı͗ t would have been vocalized mrı͗ /y. Gardiner was nevertheless quite confident that “a good case can be made out for an Egyptian derivation of Miriam.” 123 Yoshiyuki Muchiki has recently reexamined this name and proposed another Egyptian possibility, namely, mr-ı͗ b, meaning “heart desires,” with the bilabial b shifting to another bilabial, m. 124 This name is attested in most periods of pharaonic Egypt. 125 Another possibility is that the name Miriam represents the verb mrı͗ + divine name, another popular name type, 126 such as for example mrı͗ + mwt, Beloved of Mut (the Theban goddess and consort of Amun). Theophoric names with Mut were popular in the New Kingdom (see the names Ahimoth, Meremoth, and Jerimoth below). 127 Thus, there are several possible Egyptian name-types behind Miriam. Moses (‫ׁשה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ )מ‬is certainly the best known of the Levitical family in the Pentateuch. The etymology of the name Moses is disputed. There is a wide range of scholars who accept its Egyptian origin. Philip Hyatt 45 years ago proclaimed that: “Most scholars now favour the view that the name mōšeh is to be associated with the Egyptian verb ms.” 128 John Van Seters allows the Egyptian root behind this name while rejecting any historical implications. 129 The suggested root msı͗ means “bear, bore, give birth, and child.” 130 Kitchen, however, has cautioned against this explanation since in Hebrew Moses is written with a š not an s. 131 He takes seriously the popular 121. Idem, “The Egyptian Origin of Some English Personal Names,” JAOS 56 (1936): 189–97. 122. Idem, Egyptian Grammar, 34 n. 1a and 432 n. 4. I am grateful to Dr. Edmund Meltzer for providing me with this reference. 123. Idem, “The Egyptian Origin of Some English Personal Names,” 194. 124. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 215. 125. Ranke, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen 1.155:17. 126. Ibid., 155–62. 127. Ibid., 147–49; but Mery-Mut is only documented in the late period (159.26). Given the popularity of the mrı͗ + divine-name formula, and Mut’s high status in the New Kingdom, it is hard to believe that the name Mery-Mut did not exist in this period. 128. J. Philip Hyatt, Exodus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971), 64. 129. John Van Seters, “Moses,” Encyclopedia of Religion (ed. M. Eliade; New York: Macmillan, 1987), 10.115–16. 130. WÄS 2.137–39. 131. Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, 296–97.

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etymology in the naming of Moses in Exod 2:10 as the explanation for the Hebrew name mōšeh: “She named him Moses, ‘because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out (‫יתהּו‬ ִ ‫ׁש‬ ִ ‫)מ‬ ְ of the water.’” There are, therefore, problems with ascribing an Egyptian name to Moses. I wonder if there could be some sort of bilingual wordplay at work; what was drawn out (mšh—Heb.) of the water was a child (mose—Eg.). Aaron (‫ ) ַאהֲרֹן‬is the name of the Levitical priest whose descendants alone could serve as priests of Yahweh. Meek and others posited that Aaron might be an Egyptian name, and some have followed this suggestion, 132 even though a convincing etymology eludes us. Certainly no Hebrew or Semitic root has been identified for this name. Michael Homan has recently made an ingenious suggestion to explain this elusive name. His theory is that ʾahărōn derives from an “Egyptianized form of the Semitic word for tent (‫)אֹהֶל‬, meaning something like ‘tent man’ because of his priestly role in the tabernacle.” 133 Because Egyptian lacked a lamed, a reš was used in Egyptian to accommodate the Semitic el sound (e.g., consider the writing of Israel in the Merenptah stela, where r is used in place of l ). The problem with Homan’s explanation, and he acknowledges it, is that there is no other example of a Semitic word in the Bible that has been altered under the influence of another language and then “reentered the original language as a borrowing.” 134 There is, however, a name similar to Aaron in Egyptian during the New Kingdom, namely, ʿaharaya. 135 Phinehas (‫)ּפי ְנחָס‬ ִ is most assuredly an Egyptian name—that is, pꜢ nḥsy, meaning “the Nubian.” 136 The aforementioned 14th Dynasty king Nehsy has the same name, less the definite article ( pꜢ). In the New Kingdom, this personal name is consistently written with pꜢ. One notable Egyptian who bore this name was a priest of the Aten cult of Akhenaten at Amarna. 137 Phinehas, Exod 6:25 reports, was the grandson of Eleazer, while his fatherin-law’s name was Putiel, and he was also a Levite (see next entry). Phinehas turned out to be a popular name in Israelite priestly circles. It is encountered twice more after Eleazer’s son. It is the name of the son of Eli the priest, Phinehas II (cf. 1 Sam 1:3, 2:34, 4:4) and it is the name of a priest in postexilic Judah, Phinehas III (Ezra 8:33). In the Persian Period, there are several cases of the high priests of Judea being named after earlier priests, 132. Meek, Hebrew Origins, 31. John Spencer, “Aaron,” ABD 1.1. 133. Michael Homan, “A Tensile Etymology for Aaron,” BN 95 (1998): 21–22 134. Ibid. 135. Thomas Schneider, Äsiatische Personennamen in ägyptischen Quellen des Neuen Reiches (OBO 114; Freiburg: Freiburg University Press, 1992), 105–6. 136. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.113, 13; Gardiner, “The Egyptian Origin of Some English Personal Names,” 191–92; Kenneth Kitchen, “Phinehas,” NBD 934; Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 222. 137. Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of El-Amarna (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1903), 1.9–11 and pls. 3–23.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

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especially after their grandfathers (paponymy). 138 The reuse of names of earlier priests is well attested among with Coptic Orthodox patriarchs (e.g., 19 named John, 8 named Mark and Gabriel) and Roman pontiffs (e.g., 23 named John, 16 named Benedict, 16 named Gregory). The reuse of earlier priestly names is usually tied to esteem and respect for the original individual who bore the name. Putiel (‫)ּפּוטיאֵל‬ ִ was the father-in-law of Eleazer, mentioned only in Exod 6:25. As this verse suggests, Putiel was a Levite. This name is challenging for Hebraists to analyze. 139 The final element (‫)אֵל‬, is clearly the Semitic word for god/God. The initial element ‫ּפּוטי‬ ִ is the same as the name of the Egyptian officer Potiphar (‫)ּפֹוטיפַר‬ ִ of Gen 37:36 and 39:1. Putiel, thus, appears to be a Mischname or hybrid name that combines Egyptian and Semitic (Hebrew) elements. This was the view of Noth and others. 140 Putiel couples Egyptian pꜢ-dı͗ with the Hebrew ʾēl, “god,” and would mean “He whom god has given.” 141 A Yahwistic variation on this name is now attested from Israel that dates to ca. 600 BC, namely, ptyhw. 142 The pꜢ-dı͗ type names first appear in Egypt in the New Kingdom. 143 A striking New Kingdom example of this name type is pꜢ dı͗ bʿl, Pa-di-Baal, 144 “He whom Baal has given,” clearly an Egyptian-Semitic Mischname. In the absence of a Hebrew verb ‫ּפּוט‬, the Egyptian pꜢ-dı͗ makes best linguistic sense for the initial element of this name. Assir (‫ )א ִַּסיר‬was a son of Korah (Exod 6:24), who was the nemesis of Moses and Aaron in the Sinai Wilderness (Num 16). Koehler and Baumgartner followed a suggestion by Noth that the name derives from the Egyptian deity Osiris (wsı͗ r). 145 Muchiki agrees with this possibility, pointing out that Osiris is found as a personal name in the New Kingdom 146 but suggests another linguistically acceptable option, namely, Egyptian ı͗ sr, for the Tamarisk tree, which appears as a loanword in Hebrew (‫ֶׁשל‬ ֶ ‫ )א‬147 and also occurs as  148 a personal name in Egypt. He also observes that the Assir of Exod 6:24, 138. See Benjamin E. Scolnic, Chronology and Papponomy: A List of the Judean High Priests of the Persian Periods (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999). 139. HALOT 908. 140. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen, 63; Meek, Hebrew Origins, 32. 141. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 220. 142. Robert Deutsch, Biblical Period Bullae: The Josef Chaim Kauffman Collection (Tel Aviv: Archaeological Center, 2003), 423. 143. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen 1.122:9, 123:8, 124:16, and 125:21. 144. Ibid., 123:8. 145. HALOT 73; Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen, 63. See also Meek, Hebrew Origins, 32. 146. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen; for examples of Osiris + verb or adjective, see 1.84:22, 23, 24, 25, 26; and 1.85:1, 2, 3. For Osiris alone as a personal name, see 1.85:4–5. 147. HALOT 95. 148. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 208. For the Egyptian use of both of these possibilities, see Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.46:24–25. Muchiki also

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as the text presents it, was “probably born in Egypt,” 149 and so an Egyptian name seems likely. My inclination is to concur with the association with the funerary god Osiris. There are clearly Egyptian names among the Levites. Ironically, the names of Moses and his siblings are the most uncertain, although various scholars have seen Egyptian names associated with all three.

Egyptian Names among Later Levites Phinehas was not the only Egyptian name associated with later priests (see above). Others include the following: Hophni (‫ָפנִי‬ ְ ‫ )ח‬was the brother of Phinehas II, son of Eli the priest of Shiloh at the end of the Judges era (mid–late 11th century BC). The Egyptian origin of this name has long been recognized. 150 It is the Egyptian word for “tadpole” (ḥfn[r]), 151 perhaps an indication of his small stature. Ḥfn(r) is documented in Egypt as a personal name as early as the Middle Kingdom. 152 The use of this name in Egypt might suggest the diminutive size of the individual. The Hebrew vocalization of ‫ָפנִי‬ ְ ‫ ח‬accords well with the Egyptian sound of ḥfn(r). It is well known that final r’s in Egyptian words were not vocalized as early as Middle Egyptian, due to apocope. 153 The lack of vocalization of the final r is evident in the writing of Egyptian personal names in the Amarna letters—for example, Merit-Aten > Maiyati 154 (EA 10.44, 11.26′), Mery-Re > Mai-Reya (EA 367.7). 155 The Hebrew writing ‫—נֹף‬Memphis—for Egyptian mn-nf(r) also reflects this linguistic phenomenon. It is intriguing to think that both sons of Eli the priest had Egyptian names. Ahimoth (‫ֲחימֹות‬ ִ ‫ )א‬occurs just once in the Hebrew Bible. It is found in a genealogical list of Levites through Kohath (1 Chr 6:10[25]). Ahimoth could be a Semitic theophore, “Brother of Mot (death, or the Canaanite deity Mot)” 156 or “My brother is Mot.” Christopher Hays has recently considered

points out that a Hebrew root that means “prisoner” is possible, but a name with such a negative connotation seems out of place. 149. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 208. 150. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen, 63; Meek, Hebrew Origins, 32; idem, “Moses and the Levites,” 118. 151. WÄS 3.74. 152. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.239. 153. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 430. 154. This writing of the name of Akhenaten’s daughter illustrates that the final t was not pronounced, leaving a final r that was quiescent. 155. For these references, see Richard S. Hess, Amarna Personal Names (ASOR Dissertation Series 9; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 106–7. 156. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen, 40 n. 1.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

23

this and opted for ‫’מֹות‬s being the writing for the Egyptian goddess, Mut. 157 Mut was very important in the New Kingdom as the consort of Amun and a member of the Theban triad. 158 Thus, Ahimoth could be “My brother is Mut,” which one might not consider suitable as a man’s name. There is, however, an Egyptian man’s name Senenmut, 159 which means “Brother of Mut,” the name famously borne by Queen Hathsepsut’s high official. More likely, the Hebrew Ahimoth means “My glory is Mut.” 160 This reading understands the initial element to be ʿḫ, meaning “glory or beneficial.” 161 Akhmut is found in New Kingdom Egypt as a personal name. 162 Undoubtedly the best-known Akh-type name in Egypt is Akh-en-aten (“Beneficial to Aten”). Dating the period of Ahimoth to the Chronicler is problematic; however, Muchiki does place him in the generation of the exodus. 163 It is worth noting that two different near relatives are named Assir (1 Chr 6:22– 23), which as we have seen above was the Egyptian name given to the son of Korah (Exod 6:24). The name of the deity Mut (or Mot) possibly occurs in the names Jerimoth (‫ )יְִרימֹות‬and Jeremoth (‫ )יְרֵמֹות‬in 1 Chr 7:7–8. Based on his place in the genealogy, Muchiki posits that Jerimoth was born in Egypt before the exodus. 164 If indeed this is an Egyptian theophoric name, I suggest that the Hebrew writing of ‫ ירי‬might correspond to the Egyptian verb ı͗ rı͗ , which means “begat.” 165 In other words, the name would mean “Begotten of Mut.” The name Mut means “mother,” and as consort of Amun and mother of the gods, she may have been a mother goddess 166 and hence associated with fertility. Strengthening the possibility that these Hebrew theophoric names allude to the goddess Mut is the occurrence of the name Merimoth (e.g., mrı͗ -mwt) which is found among the Arad ostraca, 167 and the Meri/mrı͗ type name is certainly Egyptian. A nearly identical name is Meremoth (‫)מרֵמֹות‬, ְ 157. Christopher B. Hays, “The Covenant with Mut: A New Interpretation of Isaiah 28:1–22,” VT 60 (2010): 212–40. This matter is further treated in idem, Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah (FAT 79; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); and most recently and most significantly, idem, “The Egyptian Goddess Mut in Iron Age Palestine: Further Data from Amulets and Onomastics,” JNES 71 (2012): 299–314. 158. Herman te Velde, “Mut,” OEAE 2.454–55; Richard Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003), 153–56. 159. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 2.309. 160. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 215. 161. WÄS 1.73–74. 162. Ranke, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.2:24. 163. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 207. 164. Ibid., 213. 165. WÄS 1.108–9 166. Te Velde, “Mut,” 454–55; Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, 153. 167. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 207.

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who was a priest and contemporary of Ezra in the mid-5th century BC (Ezra 8:33; 10:36). The occurrence of Mut in personal names in Judah in the latter part of the Iron Age combined with the presence of amulets of Mut lead Hays to believe that there was a thriving Mut cult in Judah during the late monarchy. 168 A final note is in order regarding the vocalization (or quiescence) of the final t. It was noted above that final t’s in Egyptian were not regularly vocalized from the Middle Kingdom on (see above discussion of Miriam). If indeed these Hebrew names use the name of the Egyptian goddess, then why are these names written with ‫ת‬/ṯ? As it turns out, in the case of the names of deities with final t, this dental sound is preserved. The name pꜢ-dı͗ mwt, “He whom Mut has given,” survives into Greek as πετωμουτς, 169 which demonstrates that, in the case of Mut, the final t was vocalized even in the late period in Egypt. Another example of the preservation of the vocalization of the final t is the name of the goddess Hathor (e.g., ḥ[w]t ḥr), which is vocalized as Ἀθυρ. 170 In the theta, the final t of ḥ(w)t is preserved. What these examples mean is that the goddess Mut may be intended in Hebrew ‫מֹות‬. Perhaps the reason that final t’s were vocalized in the names of deities while they were quiescent in other words was due to the fact that more-archaic vocalizations of deities continued into later periods, even when regular words with final t’s were not pronounced in common words. Pashhur (‫ַׁשחּור‬ ְ ‫ )ּפ‬is the name of the priest in Jerusalem who arrested Jeremiah the prophet ( Jer 20). Because there is no possible Hebrew etymology, the name has been widely recognized to be Egyptian, but there are two possible etymologies. P(s)š-ḥr means “Share (or division) of Horus.” 171 P(s)š-ḥr is an especially significant expression in Egypt, for it refers to the territory allotted to Horus by Geb, who adjudicated the territorial disputes between Horus and Seth. Geb initially decided that Horus should receive the Delta area; it was P(s)š-ḥr. 172 P(s)š-ḥr is not attested in Egypt as a personal name, but this theophoric name type does occur in the name psš-mw.t (“Share of Mut”) and psš-mn (“Share of Min”). 173 The name Pashhur was popular in the later period in Judah (e.g., 1 Chr 9:12; Ezra 2:38; 10:22; Neh 7:41), and it is attested numerous times in epi168. Hays, “The Egyptian Goddess Mut in Iron Age Palestine,” 299–324. 169. I am grateful to Dr. Edmund Meltzer for directing me to this example. Cf. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.123:17. 170. Claas J. Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth: Two Key Figures of the Ancient Egyptian Religion (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 25. 171. On the meaning of psš, see WÄS 1.554. 172. See the Memphite Theology, line 10, in James Henry Breasted, “The Philosophy of a Memphite Priest,” ZÄS 39 (1901): table 2, line 10. 173. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen , 1.137:5–6.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

25

graphic sources from the Iron II period in Israel. 174 The god Horus also appears with some frequency among exodus-generation Hebrews (see below). In fact, Horus is the most frequently occurring foreign deity found in preexilic Hebrew personal names in the current epigraphic corpus from Israel. 175

Egyptian Theophoric Names among the Non-Levites in the Exodus Generation Ahira (‫ֲחירַ ע‬ ִ ‫ )א‬is the name of a leader from the tribe of Naphtali who would assist with the military census in Num 1:15. Later he is a tribal chief or leader (‫ָׂשיא‬ ִ ‫ )נ‬who brings offerings for consecrating the tabernacle (Num 7:78, 83). Noth thought it unlikely that the second element was for [‫]רעע‬, “evil,” but posited that the first part was the writing for the Egyptian sungod, Re of Heliopolis (Heb. ‫ > אֹן‬ʾōn). 176 Muchiki takes this name to be a Hebrew + Egyptian hybrid, “Brother of Re.” 177 Alternatively, as was suggested above in the case of Ahimoth, the first part of the name could represent Egyptian Ꜣḫ—glory or glorious—“Re is Glorious.” The element Ꜣḫ + divine name was known in the Middle and New Kingdoms. 178 Hur (‫ )חּור‬is the name of a leader who, along with Aaron, stood with Moses during Israel’s battle with Amalek (Exod 17:10, 12), and one of the leaders who went up Mount Sinai with Joshua (Exod 24:14). He may be the grandfather of the chief artisan of the tabernacle, Bezalel (Exod 31:2; 35:30; 38:22) 179 and is reported to be from the tribe of Judah (Exod 31:2). If the grandfather of Bezalel was a different man, then there were two contemporaries named Hur. Both would have been born in Egypt. It is quite likely that this name represents a transliteration of the Egyptian sky-god Horus (e.g., ḥr). 180 Horus served as a personal name in all periods of Egyptian history. 181 Hori (‫)חֹורי‬ ִ occurs but once in the Bible—namely, in Num 13:5; he was the father of Shapat, a Simeonite, who was one of the 12 spies sent by Moses from Kadesh-Barnea to reconnoiter Canaan. Ernst Axel Knauf believes that this name originally came from Gen 36:20 and 22. There, one ‫( חִֹרי‬ḥôrî) appears who is of Edomite stock. 182 This leads Knauf to believe that the 174. Jeffrey Tigay, You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 66. 175. Ibid., 13. 176. Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen, 236. 177. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 207. 178. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.2:22, 24; 3:3. 179. Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus (ed. Nahum M. Sarna; JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 95. 180. HALOT 348; Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 211. 181. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.245:18. 182. Ernst Axel Knauf, “Hori,” ABD 3.211.

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Hori of the spy list of Num 13 is speculative, and thus it is “doubtful whether a biblical personal name ‘Hori’ ever existed.” 183 Knauf ’s conjecture is unnecessarily nihilistic. A simpler explanation is to consider a popular Egyptian name derived from the name of the deity Horus (see previous entry), which means “He of Horus.” 184 This name is widely used from the Middle Kingdom onward. Since Hori is considered to be one of the 12 spies, he would have been born in Egypt. Consequently, an Egyptian name for this intelligence officer is probable. Harnepher (‫ ) ַח ְרנֶפֶר‬is found only in 1 Chr 7:36, in a genealogical list. This name falls sixth after the tribal ancestor Asher. Asher, Beriah, and Heber represent a sequence found in a genealogical list in Gen 46:17 and may be a clan name. 185 They appear again in the military census of Num 26:44–47. It is thus difficult to determine precisely when Harnepher would have lived but during the generation of the exodus-wilderness period is possible. A clear Egyptian etymology stands behind this name, ḥr nfr, “Horus is Good” 186 or “Beautiful,” and it is attested as a personal name in Egypt in the Middle and New Kingdoms and into the later periods. 187 This etymology is also recognized by Diana Edelman, who explains that this Egyptian name may have entered Judean archives during the period of Egyptian influence on Judah in the Saite period (late 7th and early 6th century BC). 188 It is difficult, however, to believe that the Judeans would adopt this Egyptian name during the very period when Necho II killed King Josiah, deported his successor to Egypt, and set up Jehoiakim as his puppet (2 Chr 35:20–22; 36:4). The frequency of Horus names among the exodus generation and later in Israelite and Judean history should not be altogether surprising. Ranke lists over 130 entries of Horus theophores. Horus names were especially popular in the Middle and New Kingdoms. 189 A second consideration for the frequency of Horus names among the early Hebrews is that this sky god figured prominently in the northeastern Delta and eastern frontier. 190 This area is rich with various features that incorporate the name of Horus. There is the well-known “Ways of Horus,” the road that led from Avaris and 183. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.251:8. 184. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 211, Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.251. 185. Martin Selman, 1 Chronicles: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994), 117. 186. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 212. 187. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.249. 188. Diana Edelman, “Harnepher,” ABD 3.62. 189. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.345–51. 190. James K. Hoffmeier, “Deities of the Eastern Frontier,” in Scribe of Justice: Egyptological Studies in Honour of Shafik Allam (ed. Z. A. Hawass, K. A. Daoud, and R. B. Hussein; ASAESup, Cahier 42; Cairo: Ministry of State for Antiquities, 2011), 197–216.

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Pi-Ramesses and crossed north Sinai. 191 Dominique Valbelle has advanced the theory that the “Ways of Horus” was not the name of the route or road (even though that is what wꜢt means) 192 but was the name of the region of the northeastern frontier. 193 Either way, this area or route that runs through the northeastern Delta included Horus in its name. Horus’s name occurs in the toponym pꜢ š-ḥr, “the waters or lake of Horus.” 194 Forty years ago, Bietak proposed that this ancient lake should be associated with a desiccated depression east of the Suez Canal. 195 More recent study of this feature seems to support Bietak’s contention. 196 Horus the sky god was known in this area as “Horus of Mesen,” based on inscriptions from the New Kingdom and later. 197 The point of this discussion is to show that Horus was a major deity in the northeastern Delta, the very area where the Hebrews sojourned, known in Genesis (47:11) as the land of Rameses and also called the land of Goshen (e.g., Gen 45:10; 46:28–29; Exod 8:22; 9:26). It is therefore no surprise that Horus theophores are found among the Hebrew personal names, a sure sign of some religious symbiosis. As seen above, in addition to the Horus names, other Egyptian deities are found among the personal names of the early Hebrews in the books of the exodus and wilderness generations: Re, Osiris, and possibly Mut.

The Korah Rebellion Narrative Korah was the instigator of the cabal that challenged Aaron’s role as priest in Num 16–17. This narrative is thought by source critics to be a composite ( J or JE and P of rebellion traditions) that the Priestly writer used to legitimize the Aaronic priesthood, coupled with the unrelated Dathan and 191. James K. Hoffmeier and Stephen Moshier, “‘A Highway out of Egypt’: The Main Road from Egypt to Canaan,” in Desert Road Archaeology in Ancient Egypt and Beyond (ed. F. Förester and H. Reimer; Africa Praehistorica 26; Cologne: Heinrich-Barth-Institut, 2013), 485–510. 192. WÄS 1.246–47. 193. Dominique Valbelle, “La (les) route(s)-d'horus,” in Hommages à Jean Leclant (Cairo: IFAO, 1994), 379–86. 194. For references, see my “Deities of the Eastern Frontier,” 198; and for recent geological analysis of this area, see James K. Hoffmeier and Stephen O. Moshier, “New Paleo-Environmental Evidence from North Sinai to Complement Manfred Bietak’s Map of the Eastern Delta and Some Historical Implications,” in Timelines: Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak (ed. Ernst Czerny et al., Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 2.167–74. 195. Manfred Bietak, Tell el-Dabʿa (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie de Wissenschaften, 1975), 2.137, pls. 10 and 23 196. Hoffmeier and Moshier, “New Paleo-Environmental Evidence from North Sinai,” 167–69. Stephen O. Moshier and Ali El-Kalani, “Late Bronze Age Paleogeography along the Ancient Ways of Horus in Northwest Sinai, Egypt,” Geoarchaeology 23 (2008): 450–73 197. Hoffmeier, “Deities of the Eastern Frontier,” 198–99.

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Abiram rebellion against Moses’ political leadership. 198 For the purposes of the present study, we need not occupy ourselves with the contentious issue of the composite nature of the text, although it is worth noting that Robert Alter proposed that the narrative represents a “fusing (of ) the two rebellions” and was not necessarily derived from different sources. 199 More recently, Robert Gordon has argued similarly that these narratives should be viewed as a conflation of stories of rebellions rather than a composite of different sources. 200 The question that has not been adequately addressed is Why Korah? Why should he be a ring-leader? The text reports that he is a Levite through the priestly family of Kohath (Num 16:1), like Aaron’s family, but he was not an Aaronide. While one might get the impression from his statement in 16:3—that all Israel is holy—that he was advocating the abolition of a particular priesthood and promoting everyone to be priests, it seems unlikely that as a Levite he would want to diminish his own status. We are informed in 16:17–18 that Korah and his associates had censers and incense. Why would he have an incense brazier unless he had exercised some priestly service in Egypt prior to the exodus? The question I am trying to raise is whether there was some sort of Hebrew priesthood already established in Egypt, in which case, might Korah have been one such cleric? With the ascendancy of Aaron and his sons to serve as priests, the role of the Levites was diminished (cf. Num 3:5–10; 4:1– 48). Their duties would be carried out “under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest” (Num 4:28 and 33). If indeed Korah and his cohorts were demoted by the new order and were now forbidden to make offerings and burn incense in the sanctuary, one can see why the uprising described in Num 16 occurred. Other than having censers, is there other evidence that Korah and his company had been priests in Egypt? Korah (‫ )קֹרַ ח‬means “bald head” or “shaved head.” 201 This name could be a descriptive name that points to a trait especially of Egyptian wʿb-priests. The Egyptian word wʿb means “pure.” 202 Ritual and ceremonial purification was achieved by ablutions or incense fumigation. A text in the tomb of the 18th-Dynasty vizier Ramose 198. Martin Noth, Numbers: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 120–22; Philip Budd, Numbers (Waco, TX: Word, 1984), 181–86; Baruch Levine, Numbers 1–20 (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 405–6; Eryl Davies, Numbers: Based on the Revised Standard Version (NCBC; London: Marshall Pickering, 1995), 162–68; Jacob Milgrom, Numbers: The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 129. 199. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 133–36. 200. Robert Gordon, “Compositeness, Conflation and the Pentateuch,” JSOT 51 (1991): 57–69. 201. HALOT 1140. 202. WÄS 1.280–81.

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states: “Using incense, pouring libations, purifying the way (swʿb) 203 to the necropolis.” 204 This passage occurs in the context of the funerary procession of the deceased’s mummified remains to the necropolis. Wʿb-priests, Denise Doxey notes, were “a lower-ranked class of priests” that assisted the ḥm ntr or priest “in the maintenance of the temple” and assisted in the care for the cult image in the sanctuary, but the wʿb-priest could not enter the “innermost sanctuary or come face to face with the god’s image.” 205 However, she observes that they did “handle sacred objects and cult instruments. They were therefore required to observe strict rules of purity, and they can be identified in some representations by their shaved heads.” 206 In his classic study of priests in ancient Egypt, Serge Sauneron mentions the most visible characteristic of wʿb-priests as “their perfectly smooth heads.” 207 Significantly, circumcision was also a custom practiced by the priests. 208 These are the priests who are shown carrying shrines of deities in New Kingdom scenes, and typically they are depicted with cleanshaven heads. In the Egyptian priestly system, one could work one’s way up the pecking order. The biography of Bakenkhons, who served during the reign of Ra­ messes II, well illustrates how a priest could be promoted. His cultic service began after 11 years of working as a groom in the stables of Seti I. 209 Ba­ kenkhons entered the priestly ranks as a wʿb-priest, where he spent 4 years before being promoted to the position of “god’s father of Amun” (ı͗ t ntr n[y] ı͗ mn) for 12 years. He was then promoted to be third priest (ḥm nṯr) of Amun for 15 years, followed by being advanced to the second priest of Amun, a position he held for 12 years. Finally, he was elevated to be the first priest of Amun or high priest, a royal appointment. This appointment lasted 27 years, when he died in his early eighties. His son Roma or Roy followed the same steps as his father, eventually becoming high priest. 210 Bakenkhons’s resumé illustrates that a priest could advance through the ranks to the upper echelons. Could it be that Korah had been a priest in the tradition of the wʿb-priest and was pressing Aaron for a promotion that would give him the status of a ḥm ntr-priest (Heb. kōhēn) and direct access to the holy place, rather than playing a secondary role? 203. Swʿb is the causative form of the verb, “to make pure.” 204. James Hoffmeier, Sacred in the Vocabulary of Ancient Egypt (OBO 59; Freiburg: Freiburg University Press, 1985), 25–26. 205. Denise Doxey, “Priesthood,” in OEAE 3.69. 206. Ibid. 207. Serge Sauneron, The Priests of Ancient Egypt (trans. David Lorton; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 36–37. 208. Ibid., 37. 209. For the text, see KRI 3.298. For a recent translations, see Elizabeth Frood, Biographical Texts from Ramessid Egypt (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 40–43 210. Ibid., 46–59.

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My proposal is that Korah had held some sort of priestly function prior to the establishment of the new Yahweh cult in the wilderness, because of the references to his shaved head and his possessing an incense brazier, as did his Levite associates (Num 16:6, 17–18, 38). The word used here for censer is ‫ מ ְַח ָּתה‬maḥtâ, which is sometimes rendered “censer” (Lev 10:1, 12; Num 16:6, 17, 18), and sometimes “fire pan” or “tray” (Exod 25:38; 37:23; Num 4:9), usually made of bronze (Exod 38:3; Num 16:39) but sometimes of gold (Exod 37:23; 1 Kgs 7:50; 2 Kgs 25:15). Since no Semitic cognates for this word are offered in Koehler and Baumgartner, 211 I previously suggested 212 a possible Egyptian word, ḫt, that might stand behind Hebrew maḥtāh. Egyptian ḫt means “fire,” and with a different determinative it is a word for “offering.” 213 The initial mem is the preformative, which occurs regularly in Egyptian and Semitic languages with nominal forms. 214 Another point in favor of my hypothesis that Korah had been a priest in Egypt is the fact that one of Korah’s coconspirators in Num 16:1 is a man named On. He is a rather mysterious figure, whose name only occurs here, and follows the Reubenite leaders Dathan and Abiram. Gordon has suggested that these Reubenites were challenging Moses’ secular leadership rather than Aaron’s cultic role. 215 They felt slighted that the civil leadership normally went to the firstborn, which Reuben was (Gen 29:32; 49:3), but Moses, a Levite, was taking charge. 216 Subsequent references to the Reubenite rebels only mention Dathan and Abiram (e.g., Num 16:12, 24, 27). Philip Budd proposes omitting On from the text “as a piece of dittography,” which explains his absence in subsequent references to the other two men. 217 This seems unlikely to me because On’s patronymy is recorded (“son of Peleth”), meaning one would have to delete “On, the son of Peleth.” It is hard to explain how ‫ ְואֹון ּבֶן־ ֶּפלֶת‬is a dittography (from where?). The Septuagint shows no sign of such an omission. A better accounting of On’s presence in this narrative is therefore required. The name On (‫ אֹון‬ʾôn) is the same as the Egyptian city located toward the base of the Delta. The cult center of the sun-god Re/Atum was located there; hence, from Hellenistic times it was called Heliopolis as it is in the Septuagint (Gen 41:45, 50; 46:20). It might be recalled that Joseph’s wife

211. HALOT 572. 212. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 216. 213. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 182. 214. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, §290. 215. Gordon, “Compositeness, Conflation and the Pentateuch,” 65. 216. Jacob Milgrom, Numbers: The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 130; Timothy Ashley, The Book of Numbers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 303. 217. Budd, Numbers, 180.

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Asenath was the daughter of Potiphera, 218 the priest of On. Thus a direct connection between the Hebrews and the cult center at On is evident. Participation in Egyptian solar worship may explain why a man named On, who was not a Levite, would join a conspiracy against Aaron the priest. Could it be that On had served as a priest among the Reubenites? This might hint that his interests were more in line with Korah’s than with Dathan’s and Abiram’s.

Egyptian Terms Associated with Priestly Regalia The garments worn by Aaronide priests were to be made of linen (e.g., Exod 39:27, 28, 29). Egyptian linen was of especially fine quality, was bright white, and was the material worn by Egyptian priests. 219 The word ‫ ׁשֵׁש‬šēš occurs just over 30 times in the Hebrew Bible. All but 2 occurrences are found in the Torah. Its Egyptian etymology has long been accepted. It derives from the Egyptian word šs for linen. 220 Avi Hurvitz has pointed out that the use of šēš clearly reflects a preexilic usage, because in postexilic sources, bûṣ is the word for “linen.” 221 For instance, 2 Chr 3:14, which is a quotation of Exod 36:35, replaces šēš with bûṣ. Bûṣ, on the other hand, does not occur in the Torah. It is found in Aramaic and Akkadian sources. These factors lead Hurvitz to conclude that “the distribution of šēš and bûṣ in the Bible should be explained in both chronological (pre-exilic/post exilic) and geographical (Egypt/Mesopotamia–Syria) terms.” 222 The use of this Egyptian word in the context of the tabernacle and the priestly garments suggests to Hurvitz that these narratives are of an “early origin.” 223 A piece of priestly regalia in Exod 28:4, 39, 40; 29:9; and Lev 8:7, 13; 16:4 is a sash worn around the waist. 224 It is called ‫ א ְַבנֵט‬ʾabnet, and this word 218. Appropriately, the priest of the sun-god of On has a theophoric name, which uses the name of the patron deity, Re. Potiphera follows the same name type as Putiel discussed above. The name PꜢ-dı͗ -pꜢ-rʿ, which is thought to stand behind the Hebrew writing Potiphera, is an attested name in Egypt (Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen, 1.102:11; Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 221. 219. A. Rosilie David, The Ancient Egyptians: Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982), 136. 220. WÄS 4.539, HALOT 1663; Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 257–58. 221. Avi Hurvitz, “The Usage of Šēš and Bûṣ in the Bible and Its Implication for the Date of P,” HTR 60 (1967): 117–21 222. Ibid., 120. 223. Ibid., 121. 224. In the only place that this word occurs, it refers to a nonpriestly figure in Isaiah’s denunciation of the steward Shebna for making himself a marvelous tomb (Isa 22:15–20). The prophet then announces that he will be replaced by Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who will wear Shebna’s robe and sash (Isa 22:21). This suggests that the sash was worn by individuals of special status.

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derives from the Egyptian verb bnd, which means “wrap up.” 225 In Egypt, this word is first attested in Egyptian texts of the New Kingdom. 226 A piece of colorful linen apparel worn by Aaron mentioned in Exod 39:28 is the ‫ּפאֵר‬. ְ It has been translated “sash” (cf. niv, nrsv) and “turban” (cf. jps, esv) and is thought by the Wörterbuch to be a loanword from Egyptian pry/ pyr, 227 a point with which Koehler and Baumgartner concurred. 228 In Egyptian it applies to various kinds of bands, including a headband. 229 Thus it could be a sash on the turban or the turban itself. Exodus 28:32; 39:23 describes the robe worn with the ephod, and reports that it had an opening for the head “like the opening in a coat of mail (‫)תַ ְחרָא‬, so that it may not be torn.” 230 Taḥrāʾ—a rather obscure word—occurs only one other time in the Bible, in Exod 39:23, where it is used in the same way. Koehler and Baumgartner declared the word to be of uncertain origin, 231 but the meaning “coat of mail” is accepted by some more-recent translations (cf. nrsv, njps, nkjv, njb). Some have suggested that the Egyptian word dḥr, which means “leather” or “animal hide,” 232 stands behind this obscure Hebrew word. It is written with the leather sign ( or ), as is the word for mail armor (mśś ). 233 Lambdin has pointed to some linguistic problems with equating dḥr and taḥrāʾ. 234 The relationship between leather and mail armor, however, is not insignificant. If taḥrāʾ means leather, it could refer to the leather jacket for the mail armor. The point of its use in this text is that the opening of the linen robe probably had a leather collar similar to a coat of armor. Alternatively, the Egyptian word tḫr may better correspond linguistically to taḥrāʾ. 235 It occurs only twice in Egyptian texts (dating to the 13th century BC), and relates to the side panel of a chariot body. 236 New Kingdom 225. HALOT 8–9; T. O. Lambdin, “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament,” JAOS 73 (1953): 146; Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 237. 226. WÄS 1.465. This particular word survives in Greek as Βυνητος and refers to “an Egyptian garment”; see H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 333b. 227. WÄS 1.531. A Semitic alternative not considered by Koehler and Baumgartner is the Old Akkadian term barru/parru I (CAD B 113), which in one instance is a “fabric for (covering) the head.” I am grateful to Alan Millard for pointing out this term to me. 228. HALOT 908. 229. WÄS 1.531. 230. nrsv translation. 231. HALOT 1720. 232. WÄS 5.481. 233. WÄS 2.149. 234. Lambdin, “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament,” 155. 235. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 258. 236. Alan Schulman, “The So-Called Poem on the King’s Chariot Revisited: Part II,” JSSEA 16 (1986): 43–44.

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chariots typically had a large opening in the side panels, 237 and this may be similar to the opening in the priest’s gown that is mentioned in Exod 28:32; 39:23. Another item of priestly attire is the undergarments (‫ ִמ ְכנָ ַסיִם‬miknāsayim) also made of linen (šēš). Miknāsayim occurs just four times in the Torah (Exod 28:42; 39:28; Lev 6:3; 16:4), and once in Ezek 44:18, where it is also priestly garb. It is commonly thought that this word derives from the Hebrew root ‫כנס‬, which means “gather.” 238 A good description of this garment is found in Exod 28:42: “You shall make for them linen undergarments to cover their naked flesh; they shall reach from the hips to the thighs.” S. D. Sperling has argued that pants or trousers are only attested beginning in the Persian Period, which supports the 5th-century date of P. 239 The absence of earlier examples in representations is because one would not expect to see undergarments on statues or in a relief at any period! Linen undergarments, however, were discovered in the tombs of Tutankhamun 240 and Khaʿ in Deir el-Medineh. 241 Furthermore, Zevit has pointed out that Sperling failed to consider the pictorial representations of Judean officials wearing pedal-pusher-like pants on the Lachish reliefs of Sennacherib (701 BC), 242 and Gary Rendsburg has also drawn attention to the possible connection to Egyptian loincloths. 243 So clearly linen undergarments were known in the biblical world centuries before the supposed 5th-century date of the P source. 244 Exodus 28:42 suggests that the purpose of this garment was to cover the sexual organs. Zevit suggests that the miknāsayim functioned like a jockstrap. 245 Cassuto rightly connects the undergarments of Exod 28:42 with 237. For examples in reliefs, see Epigraphic Survey, The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I, vol. 4: Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1986), pls. 3–6. See also the actual chariot bodies of Tutankhamun: M. A. Littauer and J. H. Crouwel, Chariots and Related Equipment from the Tomb of Tutʿankhamun (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1985), pls. 7–11, 15–18. 238. HALOT 581. 239. S. D. Sperling, “Pants, Persians, and the Priestly Source,” in Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine (ed. W. Hallo, L. Schiffman, and R. Chazan; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 373–85. 240. N. Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun (London: Thames & Hudson, 1995), 154. 241. These are on display in the Egyptian Museum, Turin. 242. Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001), 47. 243. I am grateful to Gary Rendsburg’s advising me of his review of Sperling’s book, The Original Torah (New York: New York University Press, 1998) in AJSR 24 (1999): 359– 62. Rendsburg does not, however, associate the Hebrew term with the Egyptian root kns. 244. For challenges to the traditional academic 5th-century date of P in favor of postexilic dating, see the discussion in Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 3–34. 245. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 47.

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the reference in 20:26, 246 which says: “You [the priest] shall not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.” He maintains that modesty among the Israelite priests was valued. 247 This being the case, an alternative root behind miknāsayim is worth considering. In Egyptian, kns refers to the sexual area 248 or pubic region. 249 Since we do not know the Egyptian word for a man’s underpants, one wonders if miknāsayim was a word that was borrowed along with other Egyptian terms related to priestly attire.

Conclusion Meek’s nearly 80-year-old theory that the presence of Egyptian names among the Levites was sure evidence of their sojourn in Egypt has now been substantiated further. More-careful analysis of additional names of some Levites and other Egyptian theophoric names among the Hebrews further supports this view. I have also argued that the theophoric names along with Egyptian terms among the priest’s regalia and the word for “censer” in Num 16 all point to the influences of Egyptian religion on the Hebrews. Space prevents me from laying out the Egyptian background to the tabernacle and Egyptian words associated with various utensils of the tent-shrine. 250 The sociological data regarding the ways in which a minority group of immigrants is influenced by the religion of its host country are consistent with what the biblical data indicate happened to the Hebrews in Egypt. If the Hyksos and the Semitic-speaking immigrants who preceded them to Egypt’s Delta in time adapted to Egyptian culture and became transnational, as reflected in employing Egyptian names, Egyptian administrative offices, and priestly titles and in associating with Egyptian deities, it should not be surprising for the Hebrews to have had a similar experience with Egyptian culture and religion. The materials offered in this essay along with the arguments made certainly buttress Ronald Williams’s affirmation that “Israel was always conscious of her ties with Egypt, and the traditions of her sojourn there were

246. U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983), 257. 247. Ibid., 387. 248. WÄS 5.134. 249. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 286. 250. The following studies are helpful in this regard: Kenneth Kitchen, “The Tabernacle: A Bronze Age Artifact,” ErIsr 24 (Abraham Malamat Volume; 1993): 119–29; Michael Homan, “The Divine Warrior in His Tent: A Military Model for Yahweh’s Tabernacle,” BR 16 (2000): 22–33, 55; idem, To Your Tents, O Israel! The Terminology, Function, Form, and Symbolism of Tents in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 193–222.

Egyptian Religious Influences on the Early Hebrews

35

indelibly impressed on her religious literature.” 251 I therefore maintain that the evidence and proposals presented here are best understood as reflecting the fact that, indeed, the Israelites were “a people come out of Egypt.” 251. Williams, “A People Come out of Egypt,” 231–32.

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Chapter 2

Onomastics of the Exodus Generation in the Book of Exodus Richard S. Hess Denver Seminary

This essay considers the personal names found in the book of Exodus and claimed by name-bearers in the generation of the exodus. I will study each of these more-than 40 names to determine where and when they may be found in the West Semitic and Egyptian onomastic profile, given their structure and elements. As may be expected, many of these names will be found to recur in both second- and first-millennia BC sources. However, a few will find attestation of their elements only in specific times. I will argue that the study of the personal names lends credibility to the antiquity of the claims of the narratives of the book of Exodus.  

Background and Method One way in which to examine the origins of the exodus story is to consider the date of the historical context in which the book of Exodus positions its materials. An important element of this discussion is a consideration of the personal names. Because names change over periods of time and in different cultures, it becomes possible to identify the onomastic environment of a narrative context by examining the personal names in a text. Further, personal names are abundant in written records of all times and places in the ancient Near East. Thousands and tens of thousands of such names provide a useful background for the study of individual names in a book such as Exodus. 1 This is true due to two important factors. First, most of the personal names in a book such as Exodus have incidental roles, mentioned only a few times. They therefore would not have received the attention of major characters, such as Moses, where a later author might incorporate a legendary figure into a fabricated narrative of postexilic dating. This could happen 1. See my article “The Name Game: Dating the Book of Judges,” BAR 30/6 (2004): 38–41.

37

38

Richard S. Hess

with Moses or Aaron, for example, but it is less likely in the case of Shiphrah, Putiel, Jochebed, or Nepheg, who appear only once in Exodus and rarely or not at all elsewhere. Thus, such names would have formed part of the narrative itself and have been taken from the period in which the author composed it. A second reason for the use of names in determining the origins of a narrative such as the exodus has to do with the quantity of names that can be assessed. If a narrative only contains one or two personal names (e.g., Judg 17–21), this method remains suspect. With more names, the likelihood of their usefulness in locating the historical context of the written material rises. Not only does the book of Exodus contain a fair number of names, they are clustered around and within the actual narratives. A methodological implication relates to this second point. I will consider only names that the author identifies as contemporary to the period in which the story takes place. Figures whom the narrator describes as long past serve no value in this method. Thus, Israel and his 12 sons receive mention in the opening verses and again later. However, they do not belong to the generation of the exodus, and so their names will not be considered. The same is true of a number of names that appear in the clans of Exod 6:14–25. These clans appear to represent earlier generations. Thus the clan of Levi’s son, Kohath (Exod 6:16), numbers 8,600 in the wilderness generation, according to Num 3:28. Even if ʾelep here means “military group” rather than “thousand,” it implies a larger number than was likely to have emerged in the second generation, that of the exodus, as suggested by the line of Kohath – Amram – Aaron and Moses. Therefore, only the name-bearers who are presented as probably alive at the time of the events depicted in the book of Exodus will be considered. In the book of Exodus, some 42 personal names (counting 2 name-bearers with the same name, Eliezer, as 1 name) appear as contemporary with the generation of the exodus. One additional consideration of method deserves mention. The namebearers described here are entirely West Semitic in the narrative context of Exodus. Whether as descendants of Israel or as Midianites, they all speak and live within a West Semitic culture. This is even true of a figure such as Moses, who was raised in an Egyptian court. In terms of the culture of the Ramesside period, the site of Tell el-Dabʿa and the presence of West Semitic personal names in Egyptian texts of the New Kingdom witness to a West Semitic culture and onomastic presence. 2 Thus the first option considered in the etymology of any of the names in Exodus will be West 2. Cf. Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, eds., Tell el-Dabʿa I: Tell El-Daba and Qan­tir: The Site and Its Connections with Avaris and Piramesses (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001); Thomas Schneider, Asiatische Personennamen in äbyptischen Quellen des Neuen Reiches (OBO 114; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992).

Onomastics of the Exodus Generation

39

Semitic. Only if this does not yield likely roots or other elements that form part of the West Semitic onomastic profile will we consider Egyptian etymologies or other options. All the personal names will receive consideration: both those well known and those otherwise unknown. Although etymologies will be studied, of greater interest for this essay is the appearance of the name or its root or basic element elsewhere in names of the ancient Near East.

Better-Known Names No personal name is better known than that of Moses ‫ׁשה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫מ‬. 3 The etymology of this name has been the subject of much controversy. 4 Some have related this to the Egyptian form used to create Egyptian names such as Mose and Amen-mose—that is, mośe “(is) born; child.” 5 However, Kitchen points out the difficulty of the sibilant. 6 A Hebrew šin should transliterate an Egyptian “sh,” but that is not what we find here. Instead, Kitchen suggests an original mašû, as a passive-participle form of the Hebrew root mšh, “to draw from.” While this interpretation agrees with the explanation given in Exod 2:10, it does not comport well with the form of the name that one would expect, māšûy. However, D. N. Freedman suggested a Qal passive participle form (as with ʾukkāl in Exod 3:2). 7 This would preserve the consonants as we have them. Less likely is the possibility of the Ugaritic mt, “infant, baby boy.” 8 However, it does not appear to be productive of personal names. If Moses is an Egyptian name, it would fit well into the Ramesside period. If, as seems more likely, we have a West Semitic etymology, there is no evidence of use of the root in Hebrew names before the Hellenistic period. Nearly as well known is the name held by the figure of Aaron ‫ ַאהֲרֹן‬. 9 This has often been identified as an Egyptian name. However, many who suggest this either do not propose an etymology or propose one that involves otherwise unattested borrowing between West Semitic and Egyptian. 10 3. Exodus 2:10, 11, 14, 15 [2×], 17, et passim. 4. See the review by William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 2; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 152–53. 5. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 152; Ran Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponymy and Prosopography (OLA 28; Leuven: Peeters, 1988), 175. 6. Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 297. 7. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 152–53. 8. DULAT 2.596. 9. Exodus 4:14, 27, 28, 29, 30; 5:1; et passim. 10. See the review of proposals in James K. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 223–24. Cf. Ran Zadok, “Die nichhebräischen Namen der Israeliten vor dem hellenistischen Zeitalter,” UF 17 (1986): 392–93, who does not identify any of the betterknown personal exodus names as Egyptian other than Phineas.

40

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Analyzed as West Semitic, the root ʾwr, “to give light,” is followed by the -ōn onomastic suffix. 11 This ʾwr root is productive of West Semitic personal names throughout the Bible and elsewhere. Other well-known names that recur here and throughout the Bible include Miriam, Joshua, and those in the priestly line: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar, Phinehas. Miriam  12‫ ִמ ְריָם‬has a disputed etymology with options such as Egyptian mrı͗ , “to love; loved one,” and the Akkadian root râmu B, “to give a gift.” 13 This root also appears in West Semitic personal names, such as Yarim-Lim of Mari. However, it is productive of West Semitic names throughout cultures of the first millennium BC, as well as the second. Israel’s military leader, Joshua ‫ׁש ַע‬ ֻ ‫יְהֹו‬, makes his first appearance in the narratives of Exodus. 14 This name forms a sentence composed of a shortened form of Yahweh followed by the yšʿ root, “to help, rescue; salvation.” This root occurs in personal names of the second and first millennia BC. Alternatively, šwʿ, “salvation,” could be the root here, as in the biblical names Abishua and Elishua. 15 If authentic, this would be one of the first personal names with a Yahwistic element in a period of time that reflects virtually no Yahwistic names. 16 Thus it is not surprising that Num 13:16 ascribes this name as a second one, specifically assigned by Moses to Joshua—a name that adds a Yahwistic element to his birth name, Hoshea. 17 Further, the presence of the divine name Yahweh, likely found in a place-name in the desert region south of Israel, is attested as early as the Late Bronze Age. 18 Nadab  19‫ָדב‬ ָ ‫ נ‬has as its etymology the root ndb, which occurs in personal names throughout the second and first millennia BC. 20 The two elements 11. Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 102, 134, and 160; Propp, Exodus 1–18, 213. 12. Exodus 15:20, 21; also Num 12:1, 4, 5, 10, 15; 20:1; 26:59; Deut 24:9; Mic 6:4; 1 Chr 5:29[6:3]; also a Judahite in 1 Chr 4:17. 13. Wolfram von Soden, “Mirjām–Maria ‘(Gottes-) Geschenk,’” UF 2 (1970): 269–72. 14. Exodus 17:9, 10, 13, 14; 24:13; 32:17; 33:11; also Num 11:28; 13:16; 14:6, 30, 38; 26:65; 27:18, 22; 32:12, 28; 34:17; Deut 1:38; et passim; also a citizen of Beth-Shemesh in the time of Samuel in 1 Sam 6:14, 18; a city leader remembered in Josiah’s time in 2 Kgs 23:8; and a postexilic high priest in the time of Haggai in Hag 1:1, 12, 14; 2:2, 4; Zech 3:1, 3, 6, 8, 9; 6:11. 15. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 617. For Abishua, see 1 Chr 5:30, 31[6:4, 5]; 6:35[50]; 8:4; Ezra 7:5. For Elishua, see 2 Sam 5:15; 1 Chr 3:6; 14:5. 16. Johannes C. de Moor, The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism (BETL 91; Leuven: Peeters, 1990), 13–34. 17. R. S. Hess, Joshua (TOTC; Nottingham: Inter-Varsity; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008), 17–18. 18. R. S. Hess, “The Divine Name Yahweh in Late Bronze Age Sources?” UF 23 (1991): 181–88. 19. Exodus 6:23; 24:1, 9; 28:1; also Lev 10:1; Num 3:2, 4; 26:60, 61; 1 Chr 5:29[6:3]; 24:1, 2; also a son of Jeroboam in 1 Kgs 14:20; 15:25, 27, 31; a descendant of Judah in 1 Chr 2:28, 30; a Benjaminite in 1 Chr 8:30; a Levite from the time of David in 1 Chr 9:36. 20. For early examples, see I. J. Gelb, Computer-Aided Analysis of Amorite (Assyriological Studies 21; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1980), 332; Frauke Gröndahl, Die Personennamen der Texte aus Ugarit (Studia Pohl 1; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967), 164.

Onomastics of the Exodus Generation

41

ִ ‫ א‬occur widely in West Semitic personal names from the of Abihu  21‫ֲביהּוא‬ Late Bronze Age through the first millennium BC. 22 Eleazar  23‫ֶל ָעזָר‬ ְ ‫ א‬is a common West Semitic name whose elements, ʾēl and ʿzr, occur in many names from both the second and first millennia BC. Ithamar  24‫יתמָר‬ ָ ‫ ִא‬is best analyzed as a Gt stem of the ʾmr root, common to personal names in various Semitic languages. 25 However, the Gt stem is not found in first-millennium BC Hebrew personal names or other West Semitic names. 26 Examples of West Semitic Gt verbs in personal names do occur in the second millennium BC in texts from Mari and Ugarit. 27 Although the root of the name is broadly attested, the Gt form of the name would suggest a second-millennium BC date. While the Gt form is attested in first-millennium West Semitic texts, it is not found in personal names in this period. Phinehas  28‫ ִּפי ְנחָס‬is an Egyptian name found in the New Kingdom period but also held by a postexilic person in Ezra 8:33. 29 Therefore, among the nine better-known personal names in Exodus, there is little that confirms a particular time or place. Virtually all of them could originate in either the second or the first millennia BC. Only Ithamar, 21. Exodus 6:23; 24:1, 9; 28:1; also Lev 10:1; Num 3:2, 4; 26:60, 61; 1 Chr 5:29[6:3]; 24:1, 2. 22. While the first element, ʾab, is common in all West Semitic cuiltures, the second element, hûʾ, appears in personal names from Ugarit as well as Israel. See Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 134; Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 49. 23. Exodus 6:23, 25; 28:1; also Lev 10:6, 12, 16; Num 3:2, 4, 32; 4:16; 17:2[16:37], 4[16:39]; 19:3, 4; 20:25, 26, 28; 25:7, 11; 26:1, 60; et passim; and also a keeper of the ark after the Philistines return it in 1 Sam 7:1; a warrior of David in 2 Sam 23:9; 1 Chr 11:12; a priestly figure in the postexilic period in Ezra 8:33; and other postexilic figures in Ezra 10:25; Neh 12:42; a son of Mahli in 1 Chr 23:21, 22; 24:28; and a son of Moses who appears as ‫ֱלי ֶעזֶר‬ ִ ‫ א‬in Exod 18:4. 24. Exodus 6:23; 28:1; 38:21; also Lev 10:6, 12, 16; Num 3:2, 4; 4:28, 33; 7:8; 26:60; Ezra 8:2; 1 Chr 28:1, 2, 3, 4 [2×], 5, 6. 25. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 280. For the yod as a mater lectionis in personal names with Gt forms, see Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 59–60. Alternatively, see examples of Ugaritic Gt ʾmr with and without initial ʾalep, but regularly with initial yod, in Josef Tropper, Ugariti­sche Grammatik: Zweite stark überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage (AOAT 273; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2012), 519–20. 26. Hans Rechenmacher, Althebräische Personennamen (Lerhbücher orientalischer Sprachen, Section 2: Canaanite 1; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2012), 89. Rechenmacher (p. 122 n. 107) does not address the Gt option for Ithamar, regarding its etymology as “unklar.” 27. Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 59–60; Daniel Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary of the Northwest Semitic Vocables in Akkadian Texts of the 15th–13th BC from Canaan and Syria (AOAT 214; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 172–73; Herbert B. Huffmon, Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts: A Structural and Lexical Study (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965), 81–82. 28. Exodus 6:25; also Num 25:7, 11; 31:6; Josh 22:13, 30, 31, 32; 24:33; Judg 20:28; 1 Chr 5:30[6:4]; 6:35[50]; 9:20); and also a son of Eli in 1 Sam 1:3; 2:34; 4:4, 11, 17, 19; 14:3; Ps 106:30; Ezra 7:5; 8:2; and father of Eleazar in the time of Ezra in Ezra 8:33. 29. Hoffmeier (Ancient Israel in Sinai, 226) identifies it as the Egyptian pꜢ nḥsy, “the Nubian.”

42

Richard S. Hess

with what appears to be a Gt form, might be specific to a date. In this case, it would best fit the onomastic profile of West Semitic names from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

Lesser-Known Names The remaining names will be considered in three groups. First are those that, like the more familiar names studied above, have roots and elements that all occur within both the first and second millennia BC. Second, we include personal names that have no attestation elsewhere before the Hellenistic period. These may include special nicknames, names connected with the narrative context, or names that are rare in their occurrence. The third group includes those names with elements that do occur elsewhere in personal names but only in certain times and places. The first group is by far the largest. It includes all but four of the remaining names. One of the two midwives’ names, Shiphrah ‫ׁש ְפרָה‬ ִ (Exod 1:15), occurs only here. Shiphrah has a West Semitic root, špr, “fairness, beauty.” This root occurs in Amorite at Mari and Middle Bronze Age Alalakh, as well. 30 It is also attested among first-millennium BC. West Semites from Babylonia. 31 The Midianite wife of Moses, Zipporah ‫צּפֹרָה‬, ִ  32 bears a single-element name, “bird,” a common Semitic element in feminine names. 33 Her father, Jethro ‫ִתרֹו‬ ְ ‫י‬, 34 bears a single-element name from the root ytr (“excellent,” “abundant”), which is formed with the omission of the divine name. It is common in West Semitic personal names. 35 Gershom ‫ ּג ְֵרׁשֹם‬consists of West Semitic gereš, “yield, produce,” followed by the compound suffix -ōm. 36 Libni ‫ ִל ְבנִי‬is most likely a gentilic for some30. Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 68. 31. Idem, On West Semites in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian Periods: An Onomastic Study ( Jerusalem: Wanaarta and Tel-Aviv University Press, 1977), 51. 32. Exodus 2:21, 22; 4:25; 18:2. 33. Schneider, Asiatische Personennamen, 262 and bibliography there. 34. Exodus 3:1; 4:18 [2×; first time as ‫ֶתר‬ ֶ ‫ ;]י‬18:1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 27. Jethro’s other name in Exodus is Reuel. See below. 35. Gelb, Computer-Aided, 22, 279–80; Huffmon, Amorite Personal Names, 217–18; Michael P. Streck, Das amurritische Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit, vol. 1: Die Amurriter: Die onomastische Forschung—Orthographie und Phonologie: Nominalmorphologie (AOAT 271/1; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000), 161; Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 147–48; Rechenmacher, Althebräische Personennamen, 126; Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 29; idem, On West Semites in Babylonia, 118; Jeaneane D. Fowler, Theophoric Personal Names in Ancient Hebrew: A Comparative Study ( JSOTSup 49; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988), 73–74. 36. Gershom: Exod 2:22; 18:3; also Judg 18:30; 1 Chr 6:1[16], 28[43]; 23:15; and also the postexilic descendant of Phinehas in Ezra 8:2. See also Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 88, 159. For early and late occurrences, see Gelb, Computer-Aided, 300; Frank L. Benz, Personal Names in the Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions (Studia Pohl 8; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1972), 299; Zadok, On West Semites in Babylonia, 140. Gary Rendsburg (private communication) suggests that the vocalization with the ṣere may have been contaminated by the folk etymology based on gēr, “stranger.”

Onomastics of the Exodus Generation

43

one from the town of Libnah, a place-name attested inside and outside ִ derives from Israelite territory (Num 33:20–21; Josh 10:29). 37 Shimei  38‫ׁש ְמ ִעי‬ a common Semitic root used in many personal names. Amram  39‫ ע ְַמ ָרם‬is a two-element name: ʿam, “paternal uncle, divine uncle”; and rwm, “to be high, exalted,” or the deity Ram(a). 40 Uzziel  41‫עּזִיאֵל‬ ֻ is also a two-element name, where both parts are very common; “El/my God is strong.” Mahli ‫ מ ְַח ִלי‬is best derived from ḥlh III, “to adorn.” 42 Mushi  43‫מּושׁי‬ ִ is derived from the same root as Moses. Jochebed  44‫ יֹו ֶכבֶד‬has the common kbd root prefixed by a shortened form of the divine name Yahweh, similar to Joshua. Korah ‫ ק ֹרַ ח‬carries the sense of “baldness.” Zikri ‫ִכִרי‬ ְ ‫ז‬, contains the common zkr, “remember,” root. 45 The interrogative-sentence name, Mishael 37. Libni: Exod 6:17; also Num 3:18, 21, 26:58; 1 Chr 6:2[17], 5[20], 14[29]. For examples of this name at Ugarit and in first-millennium texts, see Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 154; Muhammed Maraqten, Die semitischen Personennamen in den alt- und reichsaramäischen Inschriften aus Vorderasien (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 5; Hildesheim: Olms, 1988), 176. 38. Exodus 6:17; also Num 3:18, 21; 1 Chr 6:2[17], 14[29], 27[42]; also a Benjaminite from the time of David in 2 Sam 16:5, 7, 13; 19:17[16], 19[18], 22[21], 24[23]; 1 Kgs 2:8, 36, 38, 39 [2×], 40 [2×], 41, 42, 44; and also others from the time of David in 2 Sam 21:21; 1 Kgs 1:8; and many others in later biblical texts. 39. Exodus 6:18, 20; also Num 3:19, 27; 26:58, 59; 1 Chr 5:28[6:2], 29[6:3]; 6:3[18]; 2 Chr 23:12, 13; 24:20; 26:23; and also a postexilic person in Ezra 10:34. 40. Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 24–25, 181; R. S. Hess, Amarna Personal Names (ASOR Dissertation Series 9; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 15, 211, 239. 41. Exodus 6:18, 22; also Lev 10:4; Num 3:19, 27, 30; 1 Chr 5:28[6:2]; 6:3[18], 15:10; 23:12, 20, 24; 26:23); also an early Benjaminite in 1 Chr 7:7; a musician from David’s time in 1 Chr 15:20; 25:4; 2 Chr 29:14; one from Hezekiah’s time in 1 Chr 4:42; and a postexilic person from Nehemiah’s time in Neh 3:8. 42. Mahli: Exod 6:19; also Num 3:20, 33; 26:58; Ezra 8:18; 1 Chr 6:4[19], 14[29]; 23:21; 24:26, 28); and also a nephew in 1 Chr 6:14[19], 32[47]; 23:23; 24:30. David J. A. Clines et al., eds., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 3: ‫( ט–ז‬Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 229. For discussion and attestations in New Kingdom Egypt and early Arabic sources, see Schneider, Asiatische Personennamen, 168–69; Scott C. Layton, Archaic Features of Canaanite Personal Names in the Hebrew Bible (HSM 47; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 215–17. 43. Exodus 6:19; also Num 3:20, 33; 26:58; 1 Chr 6:4[19], 32[47]; 23:21, 23; 24:26, 30. 44. Jochebed: Exod 6:20; also Num 26:59. 45. Korah: Exod 6:21, 24; also Num 16:1, 5, 8, 16, 19, 24, 27, 32, 40, 49; 26:9, 10, 11; 27:3; 1 Chr 6:7[22], 22[37]); and also a son of Esau in Gen 36:5, 14, 16, 18; 1 Chr 1:35; in the titles of Pss 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 84, 85, 87, 88; cf. 1 Chr 9:19; a son of Hebron in 1 Chr 2:43; and a postexilic person in 1 Chr 9:19. See also DULAT 2.702; Benz, Personal Names, 406; Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 177; Maraqten, Die semitischen Personennamen, 210, 228; John Huehnergard, “Northwest Semitic Vocabulary in Akkadian Texts,” JAOS 107 (1987): 724. Hoffmeier (Ancient Israel in Sinai, 229–30) suggests that the name implies a relationship with the Egyptian priesthood, especially the wʿb priests. Zikri: Exod 6:21; also people who are postexilic in Neh 11:9; 12:17; Benjaminites in 1 Chr 8:19, 23, 27; a son of Asaph in 1 Chr 9:15; from the time of David in 1 Chr 26:25; 27:16;

44

Richard S. Hess

ִ “who?” and ‫ׁשאֵל‬, ָ “(god name and place-name) ‫יׁשאֵל‬ ָ ‫מ‬, ִ is obscure. 46 Both ‫מי‬, Sheol,” occur in various names from third-millennium BC Ebla until the time of the account of Dan 1; but how to interpret this sentence name is not clear. 47 Sithri ‫( ִס ְתִרי‬Exod 6:22), “hidden one,” occurs only here, but the root, str, is productive of related West Semitic names. 48 Nahshon  49‫ נ ְַחׁשֹון‬is from the root nḥš, “snake; to predict, divine.” 50 Assir  51‫ א ִַּסיר‬could either be West Semitic “captive” or a form of the Egyptian deity Osiris. Both possibilities occur as personal names in New Kingdom Egypt and later. 52 Amminadab ‫ָדב‬ ָ ‫ע ִַּמינ‬, “(my paternal) uncle has impelled/freely given,” provides an example of a two-element name especially well known in Ammonite contexts. 53 Elisheba ‫יׁשבַע‬ ֶ ‫ֱל‬ ִ ‫( א‬Exod 6:23) also occurs only here, where the second element may be “seven” or “oath.” 54 The first element is composed of the common Semitic ʾēl (“god”; “El”); “El/(my) God is seven/has completed.” Elkanah  55‫ֶל ָקנָה‬ ְ ‫ א‬is a name with the same first element, fola warrior of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chr 17:16; 23:1; and a warrior of Ahaz in 2 Chr 28:7. See also, e.g., Hess, Amarna Personal Names, 168–69. 46. Mishael: Exod 6:22; also Lev 10:4; also a companion of Daniel in Dan 1:6, 7, 11, 19; 2:17; and someone who stood with Ezra when he read the Law in Neh 8:4. See also John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 140. 47. Layton, Archaic Features, 66–72; R. S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1–11 (AOAT 234; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1993; reprinted, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 45. For the additional evidence from the divine name, Shuwala in the Emar texts, see idem, “Going Down to Sheol: A Place Name and Its West Semitic Background,” in Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham (ed. J. G. McConville and K. Möller; LHBOTS 461; New York: T. & T. Clark, 2007), 245–53. 48. Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 89. 49. Exodus 6:23; also Num 1:7; 2:3; 7:12, 17; 10:14; Ruth 4:20; 1 Chr 2:10, 11. 50. Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 81; Schneider, Asiatische Personennamen, 143–44; Albertz and Schmitt, Family and Household Religion, 586. 51. Exodus 6:24; also 1 Chr 6:7[22], and also a greatgrandson of Assir in 1 Chr 6:8[23], 22[37]. 52. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 224; Sivan, Grammatical Analysis, 198; Schneider, Asiatische Personennamen, 41–42; Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 261; idem, On West Semites in Babylonia, 335, 340. 53. Amminadab: Exod 6:23; also Num 1:7; 2:3; 7:12, 17; 10:14; Ruth 4:19, 20; 1 Chr 2:10; also a Levite in 1 Chr 6:7[22]; and a Levite in David’s time in 1 Chr 15:10, 11. For ndb, see Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 24; Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 164; Streck, Das amurritische Onomastikon, 327 n. 2 summarizes the evidence. 54. Regine Pruzsinszky, Die Personennamen der Texte aus Emar (SCCNH 13; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2003), 172; V. Golinets, “Der Name ‘Elischeba’, die Zahl Sieben und semitische Onomastik,” in Die Zahl Sieben im Alten Orient: Studien zur Zahlensymbolik in der Bibel und ihrer altorientalischen Umwelt (ed. C. G. Reinhold; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008), 145–51; Rainer Albertz and Rüdiger Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 603–4. 55. Exodus 6:24; also 1 Chr 6:8[23], 10[25], 21[36]; and also a great-grandson of Elkanah in 1 Chr 6:11[26], 20[35]; Samuel’s father in 1 Sam 1:1, 4, 8, 19, 21, 23; 2:11, 20; 1 Chr

Onomastics of the Exodus Generation

45

lowed by the verbal root qny, “create”; it is also attested widely in West Seְ ‫א‬, which may mean “God/El has hidden.” 58 mitic. 56 See also Elzaphan  57‫ֶל ָצפָן‬  59 The Midianite name Reuel ‫ ְרעּואֵל‬positions the ʾēl element as the second of the two elements. Although there is discussion about which of several homonymic roots rʿh represents (“friend,” “shepherd,” “desired [by]”), there are many attestations of the elements in this name. 60 Similarly, Abiasaph ‫ֲבי ָאסָף‬ ִ ‫( א‬only in Exod 6:24) is a two-element name composed of the common Semitic ʾāb (“[divine] father”) followed by the verbal root ʾsp (“to gather” in first-millennium BC sources), also found in ְ ‫ֲחי ָסמ‬ West Semitic personal names. 61 Ahisamak ‫ָך‬ ִ ‫ א‬is another two-element name in which the first element is the common theophoric term “(my) (divine) brother,” followed by the smk/śmk, “to support,” root that occurs in many West Semitic personal names. 62 Putiel ‫ּפּוטיאֵל‬ ִ (wife of Eleazar; occurs only in Exod 6:25) and Hur  63‫חּור‬ both contain Egyptian elements found in personal names in New Kingdom Egypt and in the first millennium BC. The first element of Puti-el contains the Egyptian for “given.” 64 6:12[27], 19[34]; a Levite in 1 Chr 9:16; a Benjaminite in David’s time in 1 Chr 12:7[6]; a Levite doorkeeper in David’s time in 1 Chr 15:23; and second in command to Ahaz in 2 Chr 28:7. 56. Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 176; Sivan, Grammatical Analysis, 262; Albertz and Schmitt, Family and Household Religion, 589. 57. Exod 6:22; also Lev 10:4. Propp (Exodus 1–18, 64) follows the versions and reads Elizaphan, where the additional yod serves either as a connecting vowel or as the first common-singular pronominal suffix, i.e., “my god hid.” 58. Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 189; Albertz and Schmitt, Family and Household Religion, 553. 59. Exodus 2:18; also Num 10:29; and also a son of Esau in Gen 36:4, 10, 13, 17; 1 Chr 1:35, 37; a miswriting for Deuel in Num 2:14; and a Benjaminite in 1 Chr 9:8. 60. Layton, Archaic Features, 91–94; Rechenmacher, Althebräische Personennamen, 56, 113; Gröndahl, Die Personennamen, 178; Zadok, On West Semites in Babylonia, 87, 94, 96, 109, 290. Layton, Archaic Features, 93, discusses the gamma rendering of the ʿayin in LXX B. If this is originally a ġ phoneme, then the resultant root would have no attestation in the West Semitic onomasticon. Layton sees in the LXX rendering a popular etymology, rather than the original. 61. E.g., Ran Zadok, “A Prosopography and Ethno-Linguistic Characterization of Southern Canaan in the Second Millennium bce,” in Mutual Influences of Peoples and Cultures in the Ancient Near East (Michmanim 9; Haifa: University of Haifa, Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum, 1996), 101–2 (yá-ś-a-p-a; ʾa-ś-ʾa-p-a); Albertz and Schmitt, Family and Household Religion, 270, 582. 62. Ahisamak: Exod 31:6; 35:34; 38:23. For smk, see, e.g., Gelb, Computer-Aided, 32, 357; Rechenmacher, Althebräische Personennamen, 144; 547–48. 63. Exodus 17:10, 12; 24:14; 31:2; 35:30; 38:22; also 1 Chr 2:19, 20, 50; 4:1, 4; 2 Chr 1:5; and also a king of Midian in Num 31:8; Josh 13:21; a Ben Hur who was a Solomonic governor in 1 Kgs 4:8; and a Ben Hur who was a wall repairer in Neh 3:9. 64. Hur is a Hebrew form of the Egyptian god Horus. Cf. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 280, 618; Zadok, “Die nichthebräischen,” 393; Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 225–26; Graham I. Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge

46

Richard S. Hess

The two divinely inspired builders of the tabernacle were Bezalel  65‫ְּבצ ְַלאֵל‬ and Oholiab ‫ֳליאָב‬ ִ ‫ ָאה‬. 66 Both names contain two elements common throughout the West Semitic world. 67 For the personal name Uri ‫אּורי‬, ִ  68 “(my) (Divine Name is) light,” see the discussion of the ʾwr root with Aaron, above. The second group, names with clear attestations nowhere else, includes Izhar and Nepheg. The name Izhar  69‫ִצהָר‬ ְ ‫ י‬literally means “oil” and is without parallel in personal names. However, the name could be a prefixed form of ṣhr, “(Divine Name) gleams, shines.” If so, there are example of divine and human names in Canaanite (Ramesside sources), Phoenician, and Qatabanian. 70 Nepheg  71‫ נֶפֶג‬has been identified as related to an Arabic root with the sense of “leaping” and as an Amorite root, nbg/npg, “spring of water.” 72 However, the former is not clearly related to personal names while the latter seems to be attested almost entirely as place-names in West Semitic contexts. Any etymology and related occurrences remain uncertain. 73 The third group of personal names, those limited to a single time or place in terms of attestation, includes Puah and Hebron. The second midwife’s name is Puah ‫( ּפּועָה‬Exod 1:15), which occurs only here in the Bible. Puah is best analyzed as West Semitic, from pġy, “boy (feminine form, “girl”).” This name occurs at Ugarit as a personal name in the story of Aqhat. 74 It does not appear among later West Semitic personal names. University Press, 1991), 120, 358; idem, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, vol. 2: Corpus and Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 75, 160. 65. “In the shadow of [Divine Name]”; Exod 31:2; 35:30; 36:1, 2; 37:1; 38:22; also 1 Chr 2:20; 2 Chr 1:5; and also a postexilic person during Ezra’s administration in Ezra 10:30 66. “The tent/protection of the (divine) father” or “the (divine) father is (my) tent/ protection”; Exod 31:6; 35:34; 36:1, 2; 38:23. 67. R. S. Hess, “Bezalel and Oholiab: Spirit and Creativity,” in Presence, Power, and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament (ed. D. G. Firth and P. D. Wegner; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 165–67; idem, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1–11, 48–49. 68. Exod 31:2; 35:30; 38:22; also 1 Chr 2:20; 2 Chr 1:5; and also a gatekeeper in the time of Ezra in Ezra 10:24. 69. Exodus 6:18, 21; also Num 3:19, 27; 16:1; 1 Chr 5:28[6:2]; 6:3[18], 23[38]; 23:12, 18; 24:22; 26:23, 29. 70. HALOT 1008; TDOT 4.41. 71. Exodus 6:21 and a son of David in 2 Sam 5:15; 1 Chr 3:7; 14:6. 72. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 279; Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 82. 73. Rechenmacher, Althebräische Personennamen, 210. 74. Puah: Ugaritic pġt. Cf. DULAT 2.658. For the name in Aqhat, see Propp, Exodus 1–18, 139. The objection of Zadok (The Pre-Hellenistic, 142) that the LXX spelling does not reflect this ġ assumes a similar evolution of this name over more than one millennium of oral tradition, a name that was not used otherwise in Israel during that period. An Egyptian derivation, as proposed by Yoshiyuki Muchiki (Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic [SBLDS 173; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999], 221), is unnecessary.

Onomastics of the Exodus Generation

47

Hebron ‫ֶברֹון‬ ְ ‫ח‬, 75 a familiar place-name, does not appear as a personal name in first-millennium BC name-bearers in the Bible or outside the Bible. 76 This also seems to be true of names formed from the ḥbr, “clan,” root. 77 However, a close parallel appears in the Amorite ḫi-ib-ra-an. 78 The ḥbr root is productive of personal names in second-millennium BC Alalakh, Mari, and Taanach. 79 If Puah and Hebron have West Semitic personal names containing elements that occur only in the second millennium BC, Ithamar has a Gt form that occurs in such second-millennium names but not in Israelite and other West Semitic names of the first millennium BC.

Summary and Conclusion It may seem that we have performed a great deal of work to locate two or three names distinctive to the second millennium BC. However, this survey of all the contemporary personal names in the book of Exodus has produced an important result. All of the well-known names and those names found in category 1 have attestations of their roots or elements in West Semitic or Egyptian personal names of the second and first millennia BC. None is attested only in the first millennium BC. Rather, all occur before or during the assumed time of the exodus, as well as after it. There is no personal name that appears only in the first millennium BC, and thus there is none that can be used to support the argument for the narrative’s being a fictional account written by scribes in the middle of the first millennium BC. Regarding the two personal names from category 2, the lesser-known names: Izhar may have attestations in names of both millennia, if it is understood as a verbal root. As for Nepheg, there are too many questions about its etymology to draw any clear conclusions. Such a limited set of names that occur nowhere else betrays an absence of fiction and fantasy in the creation of the narrative. By itself, this is a significant finding, for it affirms the names as appropriate to the time when the events of the exodus and the surrounding narrative took place. It would be remarkable if scribes writing much later had not placed among 40 names some that were unique to their later period and not attested in the second millennium BC. 75. Exodus 6:18; also Num 3:19; 1 Chr 5:28[6:2]; 6:3[18], 40[55], 42[57]; 15:9; 23:12; 23:19, and also a son of Caleb in 1 Chr 2:42, 43. 76. Zadok (On West Semites in Babylonia, 118, 300) cites one example where the -basign may be better read as -ma-, suggesting a different root. Nor can ḫa-am-bar-ru be analyzed as from this root. 77. Clines et al., eds., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 3: ‫ט–ז‬, 155–57. 78. Gelb, Computer-Aided, 587; Zadok, The Pre-Hellenistic, 67. 79. Sivan, Grammatical Analysis, 224; Michael P. Streck, Das amurritische Onomastikon der altbabylonischen Zeit, 324.

48

Richard S. Hess

However, the two names in the third category, Puah and Hebron, are attested only among West Semitic personal names that occur in the second millennium BC. Thus, it remains to be explained how roots that have no clear attestation in West Semitic personal names of the first millennium BC would have been used to invent early Israelite personal names. Add to this the Gt form of Ithamar, whose verbal stem is not attested in Israelite personal names in the first millennium BC but is present in the second millennium BC. The cumulative evidence points to authentic personal names from the Late Bronze Age of the West Semitic world.

Chapter 3

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus and Wilderness Traditions Benjamin J. Noonan Columbia International University

Introduction Over 80 years ago, R. D. Wilson published an article arguing that foreign loanwords in the Old Testament—in other words, lexical items that have been borrowed into Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic from nonSemitic languages—provide evidence for the authenticity of biblical texts. 1 He contended that said terminology appeared “at the time when we would have expected them to come, provided that the original historical documents of the Old Testament from Abraham to Ezra were contemporaneous with the events recorded.” 2 In his study, Wilson argued that the number of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions supports their authenticity. 3 Since Wilson’s time, however, our understanding of Biblical Hebrew and Egyptian has vastly improved, and several works have been published on Egyptian loanwords in the Hebrew Bible. 4 Reanalysis of this topic is therefore overdue. In this essay, I will reexamine the Egyptian loanwords that appear in the exodus and wilderness narratives vis-à-vis the question of these narratives’ authenticity. 1. Robert Dick Wilson, “Foreign Words in the Old Testament as an Evidence of Historicity,” PTR 26 (1928): 177–247. 2. Ibid., 244–45. 3. Ibid., 218–23. 4. E.g., Thomas O. Lambdin, “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament,” JAOS 73 (1953): 145–55; Yoshiyuki Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic (SBLDS 173; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999); cf. Aaron D. Rubin, “Egyptian Loanwords,” in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (ed. Geoffrey Khan; 4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 1.793–94.

49

50

Benjamin J. Noonan

Terminology and the Significance of Loanwords Before proceeding further, let us define some important terms and explore some key concepts. A loanword may be defined as a word that has been borrowed from another language. Thus, a loanword is a lexical item that has been adopted from one language (the donor language) and made part of the vocabulary of another language (the recipient language). Words can be borrowed for a number of reasons, most often due to necessity (i.e., lack of a native term for a particular item) or prestige (i.e., because the foreign term is highly esteemed for some reason). 5 What value is there in identifying loanwords in a given language? Linguists find value in loanwords because they shed light on phonological correspondences between the donor and recipient languages, illuminating understanding of both languages’ phonological systems. More importantly for our purposes, by definition loanwords provide evidence of contact between people groups. Loanwords can therefore reveal a great deal about past historical, cultural, and social relationships as well as the kinds of contacts that have taken place among different people. 6 At this point, it may be helpful to consider a concrete example. Between ca. AD 1050 and 1400 and peaking in relative terms during the 13th century, thousands of French loanwords entered the English language. 7 Clearly, something must have happened during this time period for English speakers to have adopted such a large quantity of French vocabulary. Based on this evidence alone, we could conclude that significant contact took place between English speakers and French speakers. In this particular case, it is known from history that something did indeed happen, something that well explains the significant increase of French loanwords: Duke William II of Normandy conquered England in 1066. 8 A peak in French linguistic influence during the 13th century AD, moreover, fits precisely with the historical circumstances of the Norman Conquest and its aftermath. When the Normans first conquered England, they consciously avoided French in 5. Martin Haspelmath, “Lexical Borrowing: Concepts and Issues,” in Loanwords in the World’s Languages: A Comparative Handbook (ed. Martin Haspelmath and Uri Tadmor; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009), 36–37; Hans Henrich Hock and Brian D. Joseph, Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics (2nd ed.; Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 218; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009), 241; Lyle Campbell, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd ed.; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013), 56–57. 6. Ibid., 432–33. 7. Julie Coleman, “The Chronology of French and Latin Loan Words in English,” Transactions of the Philological Society 93 (1995): 95–124. 8. Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002), 108–26, 167–78; Dieter Kastovsky, “Vocabulary,” in A History of the English Language (ed. Richard M. Hogg and David Denison; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 249–50.

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

51

order to maintain an air of legitimacy, and French was not formally taught or used. It was not until two centuries later, which corresponds precisely to the highest relative rate of French borrowings into English, that French was declared the official language of the government, and law and instruction in French began. 9 The significance of loanwords for the exodus and wilderness traditions’ authenticity thus becomes clear. If the ancient Israelites really did spend time in Egypt akin to the events described in the exodus and wilderness traditions, one might expect the Egyptian language to have had an impact on the text of these narratives. In particular, we should find significant proportions of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives. These proportions should be significantly higher than elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere in Northwest Semitic, unless of course we have similar situations of intense Egyptian contact reflected in these other texts. Furthermore, if the exodus and wilderness traditions represent authentic history, there may be some indications that the Egyptian loanwords in these traditions were borrowed during the Late Bronze Age because this is when the events of these traditions purportedly took place. After establishing what the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives are, I turn to examination of the above-mentioned issues. First, are the proportions of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions greater than those of the remainder of the Hebrew Bible? Second, are the proportions of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions greater than those of Northwest Semitic texts in general? Third, is there any evidence that the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives were borrowed during the Late Bronze Age?

Egyptian Loanwords in the Exodus and Wilderness Narratives The exodus and wilderness narratives (i.e., Exodus–Numbers) contain 27 different Egyptian loanwords, primarily comprising terminology for realia and material culture (see table 1). 10 Altogether there are 381 total 9. Douglas A. Kibbee, For to Speke Frenche Trewely: The French Language in England, 1000–1600: Its Status, Description, and Instruction (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series 3: Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 60; Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1991), 186–88. 10. For these identifications, see my Foreign Words in the Hebrew Bible: Linguistic Evidence for Foreign Contact in Ancient Israel (LSAWS; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, forthcoming); cf. James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 138–40; idem, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 209–20. Unfortunately, space does not permit the justification of each and every loanword in this list or the refutation of other terms alleged to be Egyptian that are not in fact Egyptian. Although some may disagree with these identifications, minor

52

Benjamin J. Noonan

Table 1.  Egyptian Loanwords in the Exodus and Wilderness Narratives Loanword

Egyptian Donor Term

Occurrences

‫ א ְַבנֵט‬sash, wrap

bndw

8×

‫ א ְַח ָל ָמה‬red jasper

ḫnm.t

2×

‫ אֵיפָה‬ephah­-measure

ı͗ p.t

6×



‫ ּבַד‬pole

bdꜢ

32×



‫ ּבַד‬linen

bdꜢ

10×

‫ָבי ַע‬ ִ ‫ ּג‬cup, candleholder

qbḥw

8×

‫ ּגֹמֶא‬reed plant

qmꜢ (cf. gmy)

1×

hnw

17×

‫ זֶפֶת‬pitch

sft (cf. sfṯ)

1×

‫ זֶרֶת‬hand-span

ḏr.t

4×

‫ ח ְַרטֹם‬magician

ḥr-tp (cf. ḥry-tp)

7×

‫ חֹותם‬ ָ seal, signet ring

ḫtm

6×

‫ ַט ַּבעַת‬seal, ring

ḏbʿ.t

42×

‫ יְאֹר‬Nile river, river

ı͗ rw (cf. ı͗ trw)

25×

‫ֶׁשם‬ ֶ ‫ ל‬feldspar, amazonite ְ ‫ נֹפֶך‬turquoise

nšm.t

2×

mfk.t (cf. mfkꜢ.t, mf Ꜣk.t)

2×

‫ סּוף‬reed plant

ṯwf (cf. ṯwfy)

11×

‫ ּפאֵר‬ ְ headwrap

pyr (cf. pry)

1×

pḫꜢ

2×

‫ ּפ ְט ָדה‬ ִ peridot

*pꜢ-ḏd

2×

‫ ּפ ְַרעֹה‬Pharaoh

pr-ʿꜢ

115×

ḏꜢy

1×

‫ ׁש ָּטה‬ ִ acacia wood

šnd.t (cf. šnḏ.t, šnt.t)

26×

‫ ׁשֵׁש‬Egyptian linen

šs

33×

‫ ּתֵ בָה‬box

db.t, tb.t (cf. ḏbꜢ.t, tbı͗ )

2×

‫ ּתַ ְחרָא‬leather vest

dḥr

2×

‫ ּתַ חַׁש‬Egyptian leather

tḥs (cf. ṯḥs)

13×







‫ הין‬hin-measure ִ

‫ ּפַח‬metal plating

‫ צי‬ ִ river-boat

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

53

occurrences of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions, making up 1.172% of the distinct lexemes and 0.591% of the total words in this corpus. Significantly, the book of Exodus alone contains 26 Egyptian loanwords that occur a total of 333 times, or 1.864% of the book’s distinct lexemes and 1.391% of the book’s total word count.

Egyptian Loanwords in the Remainder of the Hebrew Bible Outside the exodus and wilderness narratives (i.e., outside Exodus– Numbers), the Hebrew Bible contains 51 different Egyptian loanwords (see table 2). 11 Altogether, there are 450 total occurrences of Egyptian loanwords in the Hebrew Bible outside the exodus and wilderness traditions, making up 0.635% of the distinct lexemes and 0.122% of the total words in this corpus. Several of the occurrences of the Egyptian loanwords outside Exodus–Numbers clearly allude to the exodus and wilderness traditions, however. 12 When these occurrences are excluded, there are 51 Egyptian loanwords outside the exodus and wilderness traditions 13 that occur a total of 421 times, or 0.635% of the distinct lexemes and 0.115% of the total words in this corpus. When one compares the above data, it becomes evident that the exodus and wilderness traditions contain a significantly higher proportion of Egyptian loanwords than the rest of the Hebrew Bible, both in terms of the ratio of Egyptian loanwords to total lexemes (i.e., the relative number of Egyptian loans) and in terms of the ratio of occurrences of Egyptian loanwords to total word counts (i.e., the relative frequency of Egyptian loans). 14 When one compares the Egyptian loanwords in the book of Exodus with additions to or minor omissions from the list will not significantly change the statistics presented here. 11. For these identifications, see my Foreign Words in the Hebrew Bible; cf. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 236–58; Lambdin, “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament,” 145–55. As above, space does not permit the justification of each and every loanword in this list or the refutation of other terms alleged to be Egyptian that are not in fact Egyptian. Although some may disagree with these identifications, minor additions to or minor omissions from the list will not significantly change the statistics presented here. ְ ‫( נֹפ‬Ezek 28:13), ‫( סּוף‬Deut 1:40; 2:1; 11:4; 12. These occurrences are: ‫( יְאֹר‬Ps 78:44), ‫ֶך‬ Josh 2:10; 4:23; 24:6; Judg 11:16; Ps 106:7, 9, 22; 136:13, 15; Neh 9:9), ‫( ִּפ ְט ָדה‬Ezek 28:13), ‫ּפ ְַרעֹה‬ (Deut 6:21–22; 7:8; 11:3; 29:1[2]; 34:11; 1 Sam 2:27; 6:6; 2 Kgs 17:7; Ps 135:9; 136:15; Neh 9:10), and ‫ׁש ָּטה‬ ִ (Deut 10:3). ְ ‫א ְַב‬, 13. Not surprisingly, the Joseph Cycle contains a number of Egyptian loans (‫רֵך‬ ‫אָחּו‬, ‫ָבי ַע‬ ִ ‫ּג‬, ‫חֹותם‬, ָ ‫ח ְַרטֹם‬, ‫ ַט ַּבעַת‬, ‫יְאֹר‬, ‫ּפ ְַרעֹה‬, ‫)ׁשֵׁש‬. Of its 10 loans, only 2 are unique to the Cycle ְ ‫ א ְַב‬and ‫)חִֹרי‬. itself (‫רֵך‬ 14. A chi-square test demonstrates that the difference is statistically significant: for the relative number of Egyptian loans, χ2 (df = 1, n = 78) = 6.990, p < .05; for the relative frequency of Egyptian loans, χ2 (df = 1, n = 831) = 626.613, p < .05.

54

Benjamin J. Noonan

Table 2.  Egyptian Loanwords in the Remainder of the Hebrew Bible Loanword

Egyptian Donor Term

Occurrences

‫ א ְַבנֵט‬sash, wrap ְ ‫ א ְַב‬pay attention! ‫רֵך‬

bndw

1×

ı͗ b-r.k

1×

‫ אַח‬brazier

ʿḫ

3×

‫ אָחּו‬reed plants

Ꜣḫw

3×

‫ אֵטּון‬fine linen

ı͗ dmı͗

1×

‫ אֵיפָה‬ephah-measure

ı͗ p.t

34×



‫ ּבַד‬pole

bdꜢ

7×



‫ ּבַד‬linen

bdꜢ

13×

‫ ַּבהַט‬Nubian stone

bht (cf. ı͗ bhty)

1×

‫ ַּבחַן‬tower, watchtower

bḫn

2×

‫ ּבֹחַן‬greywacke

bḫn

1×

‫ָבי ַע‬ ִ ‫ ּג‬cup, candleholder

qbḥw

6×

‫ ּגֹמֶא‬reed plant

qmꜢ (cf. gmy)

3×

‫ ְ ּדיֹו‬ink

ry.t

1×

‫ָבנִים‬ ְ ‫ ה‬African blackwood

hbn (cf. hbny)

1×

‫ הין‬hin-measure ִ

hnw

6×

‫ זֶפֶת‬pitch

sft (cf. sfṯ)

2×

‫ זֶרֶת‬hand-span

ḏr.t

3×

‫ ח ְַרטֹם‬magician (Hebrew)

ḥr-tp (cf. ḥry-tp)

4×

‫ ח ְַרטֹם‬magician (Aramaic)

ḥr-tp (cf. ḥry-tp)

5×

‫ חִֹרי‬cake

ḥr.t

1×

‫ חֹותם‬ ָ seal, signet ring

ḫtm

8×

‫ ַט ַּב ַעת‬seal, ring

ḏbʿ.t

8×

‫ ֶטנֶא‬produce basket

dnı͗ .t

4×

‫ יְאֹר‬Nile River, river

ı͗ rw (cf. ı͗ trw)

39×

qr, qwr, kr, kwr (cf. krr)

1×

‫ֶׁשי‬ ִ ‫ מ‬fine garment

msy

2×

‫ נַחַת‬power, strength ְ ‫ נֹפ‬turquoise ‫ֶך‬

nḫt

1×

mfk.t (cf. mfkꜢ.t, mf Ꜣk.t)

2×

‫ֶתר‬ ֶ ‫ נ‬natron

ntrı͗ (cf. nṯrı͗ )

2×

‫ ּכ ִלי‬ ְ ship

a

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

55

Table 2.  Egyptian Loanwords in the Remainder of the Hebrew Bible (cont.) Loanword

Egyptian Donor Term

Occurrences

‫ סּוף‬reed plant

ṯwf (cf. ṯwfy)

17×

‫ָרה‬ ָ ‫ ע‬reed plant

ʿr

1×

‫ ּפאֵר‬ ְ headwrap

pry, pyr

6×

pḫꜢ

24×

‫ ּפ ְט ָדה‬ ִ peridot

*pꜢ-ḏd

2×

‫ ּפ ְַרעֹה‬Pharaoh

pr-ʿꜢ

159×



‫ ּפַח‬trap



‫ צי‬ ִ river-boat

ḏꜢy

3×



‫ קַ ב‬qab-measure

qb (cf. qby)

1×

‫יקיֹון‬ ָ ‫ ק‬ ִ castor-oil plant

kꜢkꜢ, kyky

5×

‫ קַ ַּלחַת‬cooking pot

qrḥ.t

2×

‫ קסֶת‬ ֶ scribal palette

gstı͗

3×

gwf, gı͗ f, gf, gꜢf

2×

skty

1×

‫ ׁשֹוׁשַ ן‬Egyptian lotus

ššn, sšn (cf. sššn)

17×

‫ ׁש ָּטה‬ ִ acacia wood

šnd.t (cf. šnḏ.t, šnt.t)

2×

‫ ׁש ְנה ִַּבים‬ ֶ ivory

Ꜣbw

2×

‫ׁ ׁשֵש‬Egyptian alabaster

šs

4×

‫ ׁשֵׁש‬Egyptian linen

šs

4×

‫ ּתֵ בָה‬box

db.t, tb.t (cf. ḏbꜢ.t, tbı͗  )

26×

‫ ּתַ חַׁש‬Egyptian leather

tḥs (cf. ṯḥs)

1×

‫ֻּכי‬ ִ ‫ ּת‬African ape

tꜢ-ky.t

2×



‫ ק ֹף‬African monkey

‫ ׂש ִכית‬ ְ ship

b

a.  The spelling of the absolute form of ‫ ְּכ ִלי‬, which occurs only in Isa 18:2, is unclear because the Masoretes seem to have incorrectly pointed it as the construct plural of ‫ּכ ִלי‬, ְ “vessel.” ׂ ְ which occurs only in Isa 2:16, may be b.  The spelling of the absolute form of ‫ש ִכּיֹות‬, ׂ ְ in light of its Egyptian donor term. However, the Masoretes may have pointed ‫ש ִכית‬ ׂ ְ incorrectly, so it is impossible to be certain. ‫ש ִכּיֹות‬

56

Benjamin J. Noonan

those of the rest of the Hebrew Bible (excluding Leviticus–Numbers), the difference in proportions becomes even more significant. 15 From the standpoint of contact linguistics, this observation indicates that the exodus and wilderness narratives—especially the narratives of the book of Exodus— exhibit greater Egyptian influence than the remainder of the Hebrew Bible. It is instructive to compare the proportions of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives with the proportions of Old Iranian loanwords in the Hebrew Bible, particularly the books of Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah, because few would deny that the Old Iranian loanwords in these books reflect Old Iranian influence and the historical circumstances in which these texts were written. These books contain 26 different Old Iranian loanwords, occurring a total of 82 times and making up 1.455% of the distinct lexemes and 0.448% of the total words in this corpus. 16 The relative number of Old Iranian loans in Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah is comparable to the relative number of Egyptian loans in the exodus and wilderness traditions, but the relative frequency of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions is significantly higher than the relative frequency of Old Iranian loans in Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah. 17 The same is true when we limit the exodus and wilderness traditions to the book of Exodus. 18 If we acknowledge Old Iranian linguistic influence on the books of Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah and the implications it has for these books’ dates of composition, we should similarly acknowledge Egyptian linguistic influence on the exodus and wilderness traditions and the implications it has for their date of composition. 15. A chi-square test demonstrates that the difference is statistically significant: for the relative number of Egyptian loans, χ2 (df = 1, n = 77) = 22.246, p < .05; for the relative frequency of Egyptian loans, χ2 (df = 1, n = 783) = 1,811.697, p < .05. 16. The Old Iranian loanwords found in Esther are ‫ַׁשּדַ ְרּפָן‬ ְ ‫אח‬ ֲ (3×), ‫ַׁש ְּת ָרן‬ ְ ‫אח‬ ֲ (2×), ‫( ֶּגּנֶז‬2×), ‫( ָּדת‬20×), ‫( ּפ ְַר ָּתם‬2×), ‫( ִּפ ְתגָם‬1×), ‫ׁשגֶן‬ ֶ ‫( ּפ ְַת‬3×), ‫( רַ ָּמכָה‬1×); the Old Iranian loanwords found in Ezra–Nehemiah are ‫ְּדא‬ ָ‫( א ְַדרַ ז‬1×), ‫ַׁשּדַ ְרּפָן‬ ְ ‫אח‬ ֲ (1×), ‫ָסּפ ְַרנָא‬ ְ ‫( א‬7×), ָ‫אפ ְַר ְסך‬ ֲ (2×), ָ‫אפ ְַרס ְַתך‬ ֲ (1×), ‫א ְַּפתֹם‬ ְ (1×), ‫ֲריך‬ ִ‫( א‬1×), ‫( אֻּׁשַ ְרנָא‬2×), ‫( ִּג ְזּבָר‬1×), ‫( ִּג ְזּבַר‬1×), ‫( ְּגנַז‬3×), ‫( ָּדת‬1× in Hebrew and 6× in Aramaic), ‫( ְזמָן‬1×), ‫ִׁש ְּתוָן‬ ְ ‫( נ‬1×), ‫( ּפ ְַרּדֵ ס‬1×), ‫ׁשגֶן‬ ֶ ‫( ּפ ְַר‬3×), ‫( ִּפ ְתגָם‬4×), ‫ׁשי‬ ִ ֹ ‫ׁשר‬ ְ (1×), ‫ׁש ָתא‬ ָ ‫( ִּת ְר‬5×). As is evident from this list, some of the Old Iranian loanwords occur in both Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah, and some occur in both Hebrew and Aramaic. For these identifications, see my Foreign Words in the Hebrew Bible; although some may disagree with these identifications, minor additions to or minor omissions from the list will not significantly change the statistics presented here. 17. A chi-square test demonstrates that the difference between the relative number of loans is statistically insignificant: χ2 (df = 1, n = 53) = 0.620, p > .05. The difference between the relative frequency of loans, on the other hand, is statistically significant: χ2 (df = 1, n = 463) = 5.207, p < .05. 18. A chi-square test demonstrates that the difference between the relative number of loans is statistically insignificant: χ2 (df = 1, n = 52) = 0.801, p > .05. The difference between the relative frequency of loans, on the other hand, is statistically significant: χ2 (df = 1, n = 415) = 94.044, p < .05.

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

57

Summary The exodus and wilderness narratives contain a significantly higher proportion of Egyptian loanwords than does the rest of the Hebrew Bible. The proportions of Egyptian loanwords in these narratives, moreover, are comparable to the high proportions of Old Iranian loanwords in the books of Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah, thought to exhibit Old Iranian influence. Consistency requires that we acknowledge Egyptian influence on the exodus and wilderness traditions just as we acknowledge Old Iranian influence on the books of Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah.

Egyptian Loanwords Elsewhere in Northwest Semitic To examine further whether the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions represent significant Egyptian influence, we must also investigate the proportions of Egyptian loanwords elsewhere in Northwest Semitic. Northwest Semitic texts should not contain high proportions of Egyptian loanwords like the exodus and wilderness traditions unless they reflect similar situations of intense Egyptian contact. The relevant Northwest Semitic languages of the second and first millennia BC are Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite. The Egyptian loans in these languages are as in table 3. The Egyptian loans in Ugaritic are ʾirp (KTU 4.123:20), hbn (KTU 4.402:6), qlḫt (KTU 5.22:16), and ṯkt (KTU 4.81:4–5, 8–9; 4.366:1–14 19). 20 Compared with the vast and continually expanding corpus of Ugaritic, these occurrences of Egyptian loanwords are negligible. The only clear Egyptian loanword in Phoenician is ‫חתם‬, which appears twice in a 4th- or 3rd-century BC Phoenician papyrus from Egypt (KAI 5.9–10) and once in an unprovenanced Phoenician inscription (probably from southern Anatolia). 21 Although the Phoenician corpus is not as vast as that of Ugaritic, these occurrences of Egyptian loanwords are also negligible. 19. The sole appearance of ṯkt in the Baʿal Cycle (KTU 1.4 V 7) is an error for ṯrt (Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, vol. 2: Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3–1.4 [3 vols.; VTSup 114; Leiden: Brill, 2009], 532, 558–60). 20. Cf. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 280–83. An additional possible Egyptian loan is Ugaritic kw (KTU 2.47:17; 4.691:6), perhaps from Egyptian kb. Muchiki lists several improbable Egyptian loans: Ugaritic ʾaḫ (probably “shore” and not “grass, vegetation”); ʾap, “chamber, court”; ʾary, “fellow, kin”; ḥtp, “offering, sacrifice”; and mk (a deictic particle). Practically none of the alleged Egyptian loans mentioned in Wilfred G. E. Watson, Lexical Studies in Ugaritic (Aula orientalis: Supplementa 19; Sabadell: Editorial AUSA, 2007), 135–45 is a genuine loanword. Watson seems to pay little attention to issues of phonology, morphology, and semantics in his identifications. 21. Cf. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 45.

58

Benjamin J. Noonan

Table 3.  Egyptian Loanwords Elsewhere in Northwest Semitic Loanword

Egyptian Donor Term

Occurrences

Ugaritic ʾirp wine vessel

ı͗ rp

1×

hbn African blackwood

hbn (cf. hbny)

1×

qlḫt cooking pot

qrḥ.t

1×

ṯkt ship

skty

18×

Phoenician

‫ חתם‬seal, signet ring

ḫtm

3×

Old Aramaic

‫ אחו‬reed plants

Ꜣḫw

2×



‫ חתם‬seal, signet ring

ḫtm

18×

Imperial Aramaic ‫ איטשרי‬agricultural produce

*ı͗ dr-šrı͗

2×

ı͗ ps

1×



‫ אפסי‬beam, plank



‫ גמא‬reed plant

qmꜢ (cf. gmy)

3×



‫ דרי‬room

ḏry.t

1×



‫ זרת‬hand-span

ḏr.t

1×



‫ חל‬ship deck

ḥry.t

4×



‫ חסי‬pious one

ḥsy

1×



‫ חתם‬seal, signet ring

ḫtm

24×



‫ חתפי‬offering table

ḥtp.t

1×

dpw

2×



‫ טף‬part of a ship’s mast



‫ מלות‬beam, plank

*mrt

5×



‫ מנחה‬excellent one

mnḫ.t

8×



‫ מסטי‬a garment

msd.t

1×

sꜢw

5×

sʿꜢ-bl

2×

‫ פחטמוני‬mooring post

pꜢ-ḫt-mnı͗ .t

1×

‫  פסחמצנותי‬scribe of the divine book

pꜢ-sẖ-mḏꜢ.t-nṯr

1×

‫ פעקס‬leather belt

pꜢ-ʿgs

1×

‫ פערער‬prow of a ship

pꜢ-ʿrʿr

1×

pgꜢ

5×



‫ סי‬beam, plank



‫ סעבל‬beam, plank



‫ פק‬beam, plank

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

59

Table 3.  Egyptian Loanwords Elsewhere in Northwest Semitic (cont.) Loanword ‫ פיק‬,‫ פק‬tray

Egyptian Donor Term

Occurrences

pꜢ-wg

3×



‫ פרעה‬pharaoh

pr-ʿꜢ

17×



‫ צפעה‬a bowl

ḏp-ʿꜢ

2×



‫ קב‬qab-measure



‫ קלבי‬Egyptian wine

qlby

13×



‫ קלול‬a vessel for liquids

krr

10×

‫ קנחנתי‬divine shrine

qb (cf. qby)

294×

qnḥ.t-nṯr

2×

a

*qnd.t-ʿꜢ

5×

b

*qnd.t-šrı͗

6×

‫ קנרתעא‬a large ship

‫ קנרתשירי‬a small ship

‫ רסי‬southern

rsy, rsw

1×



‫ שים‬pole

šmy.t

2×

‫ שנבי נחו‬poor harvest due to ‫ת‬ negligence

‫( שנטא‬a garment)

šw-nby-n-ʿḥw.tı͗

1×

šnḏw.t, šnḏy.t

1×

šs

3×

tꜢ-ḫꜢ.ty

6×

‫ תמואנתי‬way of a god

tꜢ-mı͗ .t-nṯr

1×

‫ תמא‬,‫ תמי‬precinct, quarter

dmı͗

2×

‫ שש‬Egyptian alabaster



‫ תחית‬courtyard





‫ תמיס‬boat paneling

tms

2×



‫ תמנח‬excellent one

tꜢ-mnḫ.t

1×



‫ תסהר‬a boat

tꜢ-shr.t

1×



‫ תקבה‬a vessel

tꜢ-qb.t

2×



‫ תקם‬castor oil

tgm

11×



‫ תרי‬room

tꜢ-rı͗ .t

8×



‫ תשי‬customs duty

t-šꜢy.t

19×

Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite N/A

N/A

—

a. Because ‫ ד‬and ‫ ר‬were commonly confused, ‫( קנרתעא‬TAD C3.7 Ev1:2, 16; Ev2:19; Gr1:12; Gr3:16) could instead be read as ‫ ;קנדתעא‬if so, the Egyptian donor term would be *qnd.t-ʿꜢ. b. Because ‫ ד‬and ‫ ר‬were commonly confused, ‫( קנרתשירי‬TAD C3.7 Ev1:14; Ev2:5; Fr1:7; Fr2:4; Gr2:22; Jv2:7) could instead be read as ‫ ;קנדתשירי‬if so, the Egyptian donor term would be *qnd.t-šrı͗ .

60

Benjamin J. Noonan

The Aramaic language of the first millennium BC can be divided into two periods: Old Aramaic, attested ca. 850–600 BC, and Imperial Aramaic (“Official Aramaic”), attested ca. 600–200 BC. 22 Old Aramaic contains only 2 Egyptian loanwords, namely, ‫( אחו‬KAI 222A:29, 32) and ‫( חתם‬AECT 49.1:1; AECT-L.12:1; L.13:1; L.15:1; L.16:1; L.18:1; L.*2:1; Seals 69:1; 74:1; 75:1; 76:1; 80:1; 83:1; 375:1; 425:1; TelSheHa 3:1; 4:1; 5:1), and thus Egyptian influence on Old Aramaic is negligible. Imperial Aramaic texts, on the other hand, exhibit much greater Egyptian influence and contain 44 different Egyptian loanwords. 23 Altogether there are 483 total occurrences of Egyptian loanwords in Imperial Aramaic, making up 2.230% of the distinct lexemes and 0.203% of the total words in this corpus. 24 Many of Imperial Aramaic’s Egyptian loanwords are found in Egyptian Aramaic, the most commonly attested dialect of Imperial Aramaic, which includes the Elephantine Papyri and texts from various other locales in Egypt (e.g., Saqqara, Memphis, and Carpentras). Of Imperial Aramaic’s Egyptian loanwords, all 44 are attested at least once in Egyptian Aramaic texts, occurring a total of 186 times. 25 Naturally, the Egyptian loanwords attested in Egyptian Aramaic texts reflect local Egyptian influence because the texts themselves come from Egypt. 26 The remaining 297 occurrences of Egyptian loanwords in Imperial Aramaic are the words ‫( חתם‬22×), an early loan from Egyptian into West Semitic that 22. Stephen A. Kaufman, “Aramaic,” in The Semitic Languages (ed. Robert Hetzron; New York: Routledge, 1997), 114–17. 23. Cf. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 165–76; Takamitsu Muraoka and Bezalel Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (HdO 32; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 373–75. Muchiki as well as Muraoka and Porten list several dubious loans: ‫( אר‬a type of wood), ‫הן‬ (allegedly a liquid volume measure but probably to be read as ‫ ין‬in TAD C3.1:2–5 [contra RES 1791:2–5]), ‫( היר‬of unknown meaning), ‫( חותם‬allegedly “seal” but probably part of a personal name in TAD A5.4:1), ‫( נמעתי‬allegedly an Egyptian divine epithet but probably an error for ‫נעמית‬, “pleasant,” in TAD D20.5:4), ‫( פלשני‬a proper name rather than a title in NSaqPap 70:3), ‫( קף‬allegedly “ape” but of uncertain meaning in TAD C1.1:165), ‫שושן‬ (allegedly “Egyptian lotus” but probably denoting a functionary or personal name in TAD A3.11:3–4; C3.26:15), ‫( שף‬allegedly “palm” but more likely an abbreviation for ‫שערם פרסם‬ “peras of barley,” in TAD C3.16:3–5), and ‫( שש‬allegedly “Egyptian linen” but based on an incorrect reading of TAD A3.11:3). 24. I am grateful to Professor Stephen Kaufman for providing the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon’s total lexeme and word counts. The total lexeme (1,973) and total word (237,970) counts of the Imperial Aramaic corpus used here do not include the Uruk Incantation, an Aramaic text written in syllabic cuneiform, or the Persepolis Fortification Tablets and the Amherst Papyrus, both of which are not yet adequately published and translated. 25. Almost half (≈ 40%) of the Egyptian loanwords in Egyptian Aramaic are nautical terms, and a significant number occur in a single text, TAD A6.2, which is a letter by Arsames (a late-fifth-century BC satrap of Egypt) ordering the rebuilding of an Egyptian boat (Muraoka and Porten, Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic, 379–80). 26. Cf. ibid., 378.

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

61

occurs in Imperial Aramaic texts from Mesopotamia, the Levant, Iran, and Anatolia in addition to Egypt; and ‫( קב‬275×), a volume measure that appears frequently in Second Temple Period ostraca (especially the 4th-century BC Idumean ostraca). The remaining Northwest Semitic languages of the first millennium BC—Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite—contain no certain examples of Egyptian loanwords. 27 The extant texts we have for these languages, however, are admittedly limited. Thus, Egyptian loanwords do not constitute a significant proportion of Northwest Semitic texts with the exception of Imperial Aramaic. However, the Egyptian loanwords in Imperial Aramaic are found almost exclusively in Egyptian Aramaic, a dialect of Imperial Aramaic attested in texts from Egypt. The relatively large number of Egyptian loanwords in texts local to Egypt is not surprising; because Egyptian Aramaic makes up the majority of Imperial Aramaic, it is also not surprising that the ratio of Egyptian loanwords to total lexemes (i.e., the relative number of Egyptian loans) is higher in Imperial Aramaic than it is in the exodus and wilderness traditions. 28 Conversely, however, it is noteworthy that the ratio of occurrences of Egyptian loanwords to total word counts (i.e., the relative frequency of Egyptian loans) is significantly higher in the exodus and wilderness narratives than it is in Imperial Aramaic. 29 The most significant observation that emerges from this portion of the discussion is that Northwest Semitic texts do not exhibit significant Egyptian lexical influence except in the case of Imperial Aramaic, which is undoubtedly due to the intense local Egyptian influence on this particular dialect of Aramaic. The large proportions of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives are atypical of Northwest Semitic, and we should explain them via a situation of intense Egyptian contact, just as we explain the high proportions of Egyptian loanwords in Imperial Aramaic, especially given the observation that the Hebrew Bible nowhere else contains such high proportions of Egyptian loanwords.

Summary Other Northwest Semitic texts generally lack Egyptian terminology, demonstrating that the high proportions of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives are atypical of Northwest Semitic and almost certainly due to a particular historical circumstance that gave rise to the 27. The term ‫ חתם‬does appear in several Ammonite seals, but these may be forgeries (CAI 55.1; 57.1; 61.1). 28. A chi-square test demonstrates that the difference is statistically significant: χ2 (df = 1, n = 71) =7.160, p < .05. 29. A chi-square test demonstrates that the difference is statistically significant: χ2 (df = 1, n = 864) = 266.911, p < .05.

62

Benjamin J. Noonan

borrowing of so many Egyptian words. The sole exception is Imperial Aramaic, which not surprisingly contains a high proportion of Egyptian loanwords due to the fact that many of its texts were from Egypt. Consistency requires that we acknowledge Egyptian influence on the exodus and wilderness traditions just as we acknowledge Egyptian influence on Egyptian Aramaic texts.

Date of Borrowing To support further the authenticity of the exodus and wilderness narratives, we can investigate when their Egyptian loanwords were borrowed by Hebrew speakers. If the exodus and wilderness narratives represent authentic historical traditions, and if the Egyptian loanwords in these narratives were borrowed during the time of the exodus and wilderness wanderings, then these loanwords should have entered Hebrew during the Late Bronze Age. Many of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives cannot be dated conclusively, but some clues do exist. A good number exhibit phonological and morphological indicators characteristic of Late Egyptian, indicating that they could have been borrowed any time beginning in the New Kingdom. 30 More helpful than a terminus post quem, however, are the indicators that establish a terminus ante quem for the time of borrowing. At least two indicators establish an earlier rather than later date of borrowing for some words, supporting the authenticity of the exodus and wilderness traditions: representation of the Egyptian feminine ending and reborrowings. 31

Representation of the Egyptian Feminine Ending The exodus and wilderness traditions contain several loans from Egypְ ‫נֹפ‬, ‫ׁש ָּטה‬, tian feminine nouns, namely: ‫א ְַח ָלמָה‬, ‫אֵיפָה‬, ‫זֶרֶת‬, ‫ ַט ַּבעַת‬, ‫ ֶטנֶא‬, ‫ֶׁשם‬ ֶ ‫ל‬, ‫ֶך‬ ִ and ‫ּתֵ בָה‬. Representation of the feminine ending in Egyptian changed over 30. The changes include lenition of ı͗ , Ꜣ, w, and y (evident in ‫א ְַבנֵט‬, ‫“ ּבַד‬pole,” ‫ּבַד‬ “linen,” ‫ָביע‬ ִ ‫ּג‬, ‫הין‬, ִ ‫ח ְַרטֹם‬, ‫יְאֹר‬, ‫נֹפֶך‬, ‫סּוף‬, ‫“ ּפַח‬metal plating,” ‫)צי‬ ִ and depalatalization of ṯ to t and ḏ to d (evident in ‫“ ּבַד‬pole,” ‫“ ּבַד‬linen,” ‫זֶפֶת‬, ‫ ַט ַּבעַת‬, ‫ּתֵ בָה‬, ‫)ּתַ חַׁש‬. On these phonological changes in Egyptian, see James P. Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 37–43, 48–50; Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 32–35, 38; Friedrich Junge, Late Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction (trans. David A. Warburton; 2nd ed.; Oxford: Griffith Institute, 2005), 35–37. 31. Unfortunately, other indicators—namely, important developments in Egyptian’s vocalic system between the second and first millennia BC—are largely inconclusive for the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions. An important exception is ‫חֹותם‬, ָ which seems to reflect an earlier rather than later vocalization and is otherwise thought to be an early borrowing, given its widespread attestation in Central Semitic.

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

63

time, and the way that it is represented in Egyptian loanwords can have important implications for determining the time of borrowing. 32 The loss of Egyptian feminine -t begins already during the Old Kingdom, primarily with the adjective nb (“all, every”) in place of nb.t after feminine nouns. This phenomenon had extended to feminine nouns by the end of the Middle Kingdom, and by Late Egyptian it was dropped altogether. 33 Akkadian texts containing Egyptian words and proper nouns demonstrate this same change. By the Amarna period (ca. 1300 BC), the final -t appears as -a rather than -at, and by ca. 700 BC it appears as -i in Neo-Assyrian texts. A final -i rather than -a, lastly, is also evident in Egyptian loans into Imperial Aramaic, in which final ‫ י‬represents an i-vowel. 34 Although not explicitly attested until the Neo-Assyrian Period, it is likely that the shift from final -a to -i took place by ca. 1200–1000 BC, just like many other important changes in Late Egyptian. The preservation of the Egyptian feminine -t in the words ‫ זֶרֶת‬and ‫ַט ַּבעַת‬ indicates that they were borrowed relatively early, probably sometime between the Middle Kingdom and the Ramesside Period (ca. 2000–1300 BC). 35 The Hebrew forms that end with final ‫א ְַח ָלמָה( ה‬, ‫אֵיפָה‬, ‫ׁש ָּטה‬, ִ ‫)ּתֵ בָה‬, on the other hand, reflect a form from the later part of the second millennium BC, after the t was dropped but before the -a shifted to -i. The segolate nouns ְ ‫ נֹפ‬must have been borrowed sometime after final -at was lost, but ‫ֶׁשם‬ ֶ ‫ ל‬and ‫ֶך‬ it is unclear when they entered Hebrew because the vowel that had marked the feminine was lost when anaptyxis later occurred (*lašma/ *lašmi > léšem and *nufka/*nufki > nṓfek). Thus, of the 8 loanwords from Egyptian feminine nouns, at least half were most likely borrowed during the latter part of the second millennium BC. Most notably, none of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives clearly preserve the Egyptian feminine ending as -i as they should if they had been borrowed during the first millennium BC. This is in contrast to the Egyptian loanwords found in Imperial Aramaic, which preserve the Egyptian feminine ending -i as indicated by the final ‫י‬. 36 32. Cf. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 271. 33. Allen, Ancient Egyptian Language, 49, 61; Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, 57, 60–63; Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), 34; Junge, Late Egyptian Grammar, 35. The feminine -t was only lost in absolute nouns during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Nouns with pronominal suffixes, on the other hand, preserved the -t, often by means of a second -t (or -ṯ) added before a suffix pronoun. I am grateful to James P. Allen for his assistance with this topic. 34. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 181, 270–71. 35. See ibid., 243, 247; Lambdin, “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament,” 149– 50, 151. 36. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 181, 270–71.

64

Benjamin J. Noonan

Reborrowings Just as the inhabitants of ancient Canaan borrowed many words from Egypt, so Egypt borrowed a number of Northwest Semitic words, especially during the New Kingdom. 37 Occasionally, Northwest Semitic peoples borrowed a word from Egyptian and then subsequently lent it back into Egyptian in a slightly different form. In cases such as this, one can determine the terminus ante quem of a word’s entering Northwest Semitic by noting the reborrowed form’s earliest attestation in Egyptian. Unfortunately, of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions, only one Egyptian term fits this category. This word is Hebrew ‫ּתַ ְחרָא‬, which occurs twice within the description of the high priest’s ephod (Exod 28:32; 39:23). In both instances, it appears in the expression ‫ּכ ִפי תַ ְחרָא‬, ְ “like the opening of a ‫ּתַ ְח ָרא‬,” which compares the well-stitched opening of the item ‫ ּתַ ְחרָא‬to the head opening for the high priest’s garment. Hebrew ‫ ּתַ ְחרָא‬is a loan from Egyptian dḥr, “leather, animal hide,” but the Egyptians subsequently borrowed this word back as tḫr, applying it to the leather panel­ing of a carriage. 38 This establishes a terminus ante quem of ca. 1200 BC for the borrowing of Egyptian dḥr by Biblical Hebrew, since Egyptian tḫr first appears in the late Nineteenth-Dynasty Anastasi Papyrus IV (16.9). 39 Of course, this word could have entered Northwest Semitic quite early and not necessarily during the time of the Late Bronze Age, because the original Egyptian form dḥr appears as early as the Old Kingdom. However, given the existence of other Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives that date to the Late Bronze Age as well as the likelihood that most of the other Egyptian loanwords in these narratives were not borrowed prior to the New Kingdom, it is quite likely that Hebrew ‫ ּתַ ְחרָא‬was borrowed during the Late Bronze Age.

Summary Based on the very limited clues we have, at least some of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions seem to have been borrowed during the Late Bronze Age. 40 This is precisely when the events of these traditions would have occurred if they represent authentic history. This does not prove conclusively that these traditions originated during the Late Bronze Age because Hebrew speakers could have adopted Egyptian 37. See James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 38. WÄS 5.328, 481–82; Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts, 363. 39. LEM 7.53. 40. It may very well be the case that more of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives entered Hebrew during the Late Bronze Age, but unfortunately there are no other clues than the ones discussed above that can help determine when they were borrowed.

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

65

terminology during the Late Bronze Age and continued to use it into the Iron Age or even the Persian Period. Nevertheless, the Late Bronze Age origin of these Egyptian loanwords nicely supports a Late Bronze Age origin for the exodus and wilderness traditions. When considered in conjunction with the other Late Bronze Age Egyptian elements in the exodus and wilderness traditions, 41 this greatly enhances the case for the antiquity of these traditions and thereby their authenticity.

Conclusion Three salient points emerge from the above discussion. First, the exodus and wilderness traditions contain significantly higher proportions of Egyptian terminology than the rest of the Hebrew Bible, proportions comparable to the high proportions of Old Iranian terminology of the books of Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah that reflect foreign influence. Second, the exodus and wilderness traditions contain significantly higher proportions of Egyptian terminology than other Northwest Semitic texts, with the exception of Imperial Aramaic texts that exhibit intense Egyptian contact. Third, at least some of the Egyptian loanwords found in the exodus and wilderness narratives were borrowed during the Late Bronze Age, and it is likely that many of the other loanwords also were borrowed then. What are we to make of these observations? Perhaps the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives were borrowed during the Late Bronze Age but were borrowed into Late Bronze Age Canaanite and subsequently passed into Hebrew without any historical contact such as described in the narratives. 42 This is possible, especially for the few Egyptian loans in the exodus and wilderness narratives that are attested in multiple Northwest Semitic languages besides Hebrew. Nevertheless, while this explains the existence of these loanwords in Hebrew, ultimately it does not adequately explain the high concentration of Egyptian terminology in the exodus and wilderness narratives. The writers of the exodus and wilderness traditions must have had a reason to use such a high concentration of Egyptian terminology and would have to know that the transmitted Egyptian loans borrowed via Canaanite were indeed of Egyptian origin. Both prerequisites are unlikely. 41. Cf. Hoffmeier’s Israel in Egypt and Ancient Israel in Sinai, as well as the other contributions to this volume. 42. The Amarna correspondence of the 14th century BC contains a number of Egyptian loanwords, attesting to Egyptian influence upon the language of the inhabitants of Canaan (Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords, 298–303). However, many of the Egyptian loanwords in the Amarna correspondence are attested in only two letters, EA 14 and EA 368, both lists of Egyptian items almost certainly written in Egypt. Thus, they provide no evidence for native inhabitants of Canaan having adopted Egyptian vocabulary, especially because the native, Semitic equivalent is provided along with the Egyptian term.

66

Benjamin J. Noonan

Alternatively, one could try to explain the high proportions of Egyptian loans in the exodus and wilderness traditions as a late literary creation. Whoever wrote these texts presumably used Egyptian loanwords to give the narratives an Egyptian coloring, making it look like they came from a particular time period when they really do not. In this view, the exodus and wilderness narratives do not recount part of Israel’s early history but instead function etiologically. Perhaps the exodus narrative has been invented to explain the celebration of the Passover and justify the so-called “credo” found in Deuteronomy, “Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (Deut 26:8; cf. Deut 6:21–23; Josh 24:6–7); 43 perhaps the narratives concerning the tabernacle were invented by a later Priestly writer, because it was unthinkable to an ancient Israelite that no sanctuary existed in Israel’s early history. 44 We must consider whether someone writing after the fact would be capable of inventing such a literary creation. Modern authors, after all, do write historical fiction. As any author who has ever done so knows, however, writing historical fiction takes extensive historical research. One must carefully research the society and culture of the era in which the narrative was set, which takes not only time and effort but access to resources that describe that era. 45 It seems unlikely that the ancient Israelites would have been able to research the level of detail that the exodus and wilderness narratives display, particularly with respect to its loanwords. The vast majority of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives relate to particular aspects of material culture, including terms for specific pieces ְ ‫נֹפ‬, ‫)ּפ ְט ָדה‬, of clothing (‫א ְַבנֵט‬, ‫ּפאֵר‬, ְ ‫ׁשֵׁש‬, ‫ )ּתַ ְחרָא‬minerals (‫א ְַח ָלמָה‬, ‫ֶׁשם‬ ֶ ‫ל‬, ‫ֶך‬ ִ and plants (‫ּגֹמֶא‬, ‫סּוף‬, ‫)ׁש ָּטה‬. ִ Such technical vocabulary presumably would be hard to come by without research, assuming that resources for such research was even available. In any case, why would a late writer go through the effort of researching such mundane details, trying to make his account look authentic, especially when his audience probably would not even know the difference? 46 Such authenticity seems both tangential and unnecessary if the exodus and wilderness traditions were really composed for the alleged reasons mentioned above, especially because historical verisimilitude is not the goal of biblical or other ancient Near Eastern narrative. There is a simpler, more logical explanation of the data. Just as one concludes that the sudden increase of French loanwords in the English language ca. AD 1050–1400 reflects some particular circumstance in history, 43. Cf. Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. Bernhard W. Anderson; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 47–51, 65–71. 44. Cf. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies; Edinburgh: Black, 1885), 36–37. 45. See James Alexander Thom, The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction (Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 2010), 53–80. 46. Cf. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 248–49.

Egyptian Loanwords as Evidence

67

so one should conclude that a high concentration of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions reflects some particular historical circumstance. Given the observation that at least some of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives were borrowed during the Late Bronze Age, it is likely that the events of these narratives took place during the Late Bronze Age, just as one would expect if they represent authentic history. This is the simple and logical conclusion we should come to, given what we know from contact linguistics. The burden of proof remains on those who would offer any alternate explanation, to demonstrate exactly why their hypothesis is superior to this conclusion. Since Wilson’s study, no one has adequately shown that the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions provide evidence for the authenticity of the same. In this essay, I have compared the distribution of Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions with that of the remainder of the Hebrew Bible and other Northwest Semitic texts, demonstrating that the former’s proportions are significantly greater than that of the latter except in cases of intense Egyptian contact. I also have argued that at least some of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness narratives entered Hebrew during the Late Bronze Age, precisely when we would expect them to have been borrowed if the events of these narratives really occurred. Consideration of the Egyptian loanwords in the exodus and wilderness traditions greatly supports our understanding of these narratives’ authenticity and more broadly demonstrates how loanwords can contribute to our understanding of the biblical text.

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Chapter 4

The Significance of the Horns (‫ )קרֶן‬of ֶ Exodus 27:2: The Egyptian (ṯst) and Levantine Four-Horned Altars David Falk University of Liverpool

Altars seem to be ubiquitous in ancient religious experience. Virtually every culture that practiced offerings made toward divinity has done so on an elevated table, which we call an altar. The earliest explicit mention of an altar in the Bible is the altar that Noah used to make an offering to God after the flood (Gen 8:20). The altar that Noah is mentioned having built is a ‫ִמ ְז ֵּב ַח‬ which is the sort of altar used for sacrifice and burnt offerings. This word appears in several Semitic languages, including Ugaritic and Phoenician, and thus dates back to no later than the 13th century BC. 1 While without doubt the altar is an ancient cultic furnishing, the horned altar appears to be more recent. The earliest reference in the Bible to an altar that has horns comes from Exod 27:2, where instruction is given on the construction of the altar of acacia wood that is used for burnt offerings. And although often assumed to have great antiquity, perhaps because of their seemingly primitive iconic form, most of the horned altars found in the Levant date to no earlier than the 10th century. 2 The earliest examples from Emar and Tell Faqʾous with a secure context date to the 13th to 12th centuries BC. 3 Like their ancient Near Eastern counterparts, the Egyptians had a tradition of altars in religious practice. Stone altars appear in sites that range from Saqqara to Aswan dating from Dynasty 3 until the Roman period. 4 1. HALOT 564. 2. Richard S. Hess, Israelite Religion: An Archaeological and Biblical Survey (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007), 239, 299–302. 3. Seymour Gitin, “The Four-Horned Altar and Sacred Space: An Archaeological Perspective,” in Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (ed. Barry M. Gittlen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 96. 4. Jean-Philippe Lauer, “Saqqara, Pyramids of the 3rd Dynasty,” Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (ed. Kathryn Bard; New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005), 861; Stephan Seidlmayer, “Aswan,” ibid., 175.

69

70

David Falk

The use of altars in Egypt dates at least as far back as the Old Kingdom. A great travertine altar was found in the sun temple at Abu Gurob dating to the reign of Nyuserra of Dynasty 5 (late 25th century BC). 5 A large horned altar with steps leading up to it is part of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak, which dates to Dynasty 18 and is part of the complex built by Thutmosis III (15th century BC). 6 Even though this altar is sometimes described as an “Asiatic type,” 7 it predates the known examples found in the Levant. Perhaps the use of horns on altars has its roots in an Egyptian religious innovation. For the purposes of this essay, we will examine one particular kind of altar, which the Egyptians called the ṯst, which could help to suggest the origin and meaning of the “horns” of Exod 27:2. Horns as a design element on altars could have multiple sources—for example, both Egyptian and Syrian. So, even though the oldest examples appear to be Egyptian, older Syrian examples could emerge from the archaeological record. Cooperative influence cannot be ruled out and may have played a role in the development of this altar feature, with the Egyptian influence providing a symbolic justification for it. As such, the current state of the evidence from the archaeological record seems to support best an Egyptian origin for the design element. The symbolic meaning of ‫קרֶן‬, ֶ “horn,” in Exod 27:2 is contested. While there is no doubt that etymologically the word means an “animal horn” or “protuberance” like its Akkadian cognate, qarnu, 8 what the horn means in the context of the altar is what is at issue. Obbink, arguing against Galling’s suggestion that the horns were ‫ ַמּצֶבֹות‬, “pillars,” contended that the horns are the horns of an animal, and the symbolic emblems of godhood in the ancient Near East connect them with the images of horns found on Babylonian shrines. 9 It is likely that the horned altar of Exod 27:2 had no relation to the “bull-decorated” altars found in North Syria. 10 Süring remarks that the Pentateuch portrays Yahweh without the use of animate emblems; thus, it is unlikely that the horns of the altar of offering represent the horns of a bull. 11 Dunnam by no means uniquely suggests that the horns “were to hold the sacrificial animal in place,” 12 a practical reading tied to a particular and by no means clear-cut interpretive translation of Ps 118:27, which makes no 5. Steven Snape, Egyptian Temples (Buckinghamshire: Shire, 1996), 20–21. 6. Bertha Porter and Rosalind L. B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 2.103. 7. Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000), 69. 8. CAD Q 134–40. 9. H. T. Obbink, “The Horns of the Altar in the Semitic World, especially in Jahwism,” JBL 56 (1937): 45, 49. 10. Margit L. Süring, “The Horn-Motifs of the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” AUSS 22 (1984): 328. 11. Ibid., 332. 12. Maxie Dunnam, Exodus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), 302.

The Egyptian (ṯst) and Levantine Four-Horned Altars

71

sense whatsoever, because the animals were not slaughtered upon the altar (Exod 29:11). This hypothesis is also hindered by the fact that the horns of these altars were incapable of effectively tying an animal in place, because a low-profile cone is the worst shape for grabbing or securing a rope. The altar of burnt offerings described in Exod 27:1–2 follows a particular Egyptian design pattern of metal foil laminated over wood. This pattern is used consistently in Egyptian ritual furniture. The pr-n-sṯꜢ, “house of delivery,” which is a kind of barque bier, is described in the Tomb Robbery Papyri as being made of wood that was covered in copper foil. 13 This construction method of metal foil over wood is extant in Dynasty 18, being found among the grave goods of Tutankhamun—for example, the Anubis Shrine (Carter no. 261). Also following this design pattern would have been the ṯst; unfortunately, no extant examples have survived into modern times. Nonetheless, we have textual and iconographic examples that are helpful. The ṯst appears in the furniture list of Hathor-Nefer-Hetep (late 3rd/ early 4th Dynasty) and is identified as a “bundle(?)” or “cushion(?)” by Murray. 14 The item appears between hnw and ʿfḏt in a list of sꜢḏ-wood items. The list of furniture on the Stela of Seker-Kha-Bau mentions a ṯst, 15 where the pictographic determinative in the register below the phonetic complement lacks any distinguishing features. This form of ritual furniture appears in PT 219 in a sequence where the king as Osiris is said to be the one who dwells in the god’s booth, who is in the censing, and who is in the dbn, “coffer”; the ṯstı͗ , “chest,” ; and the ı͗ nqtı͗ , “sack.” 16 Variants of the word in the Pyramid Texts include determinatives drawn as a box with a handle and legs and as a tall container with legs and cloth strip tie-downs. 17 Wörterbuch identifies the ṯst as a “Kasten aus Holz” 18 and suggests a connection with the verb ṯs, meaning “to raise/lift up.” The determinatives associated with ṯst could refer to a variety of different kinds of chests that share a common feature of having legs. The idea of “lifting up” could be a reference to the fact that this particular kind of furniture has legs used to keep the contents off the ground. In the scribal parody of the professions in P. Sallier I, ṯs has the association of “going up,” that is, traveling. 19 The same connotation is used with 13. P. BM 10403.2, 3 (Thomas Eric Peet, The Great Tomb-Robberies of the Twentieth Dynasty [Oxford: Clarendon, 1930], pl. 36). 14. Margaret A. Murray, Saqqara Mastabas, part 1 (London: Quartich, 1905), 35. 15. Ibid., pl. 2. 16. Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), 49. 17. Kurt Sethe, Die altaegyptischen Pyramidentexte, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908), line 184. 18. WÄS 5.404:14, i.e., “wooden box.” 19. P. Sallier I 7.4 (LEM 84.13).

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Figure 1.  Boundary Stela N with a relief of an altar with a corniced top and eight legs (N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, part 5 [London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1908], pl. 33). regard to horses in P. Lansing that are said to “go up” and down on errands. 20 In another parody of the professions from P. Lansing, a scribe is extolled because “everyone seeks to exalt (ṯst.tw.f ) him.” 21 The idea of “exaltation” as a possible translation for ṯs raises the potential for a different interpretation for the ṯs from the Biography of Washptah especially when considered in a ritual context. The ṯswt mentioned in the Biography of Washptah (Dynasty 11) was said to concern dbḥw [n ḥmt ẖryḥbt], “necessities [for the craft of the lector priest],” 22 implying that this is furniture that had a ritual purpose. The determinative used with ṯswt 20. P. Lansing 2.7 (LEM 101.8–9). 21. P. Lansing 10.9–10 (LEM 109.10). 22. Bernhard Grdseloff, “Nouvelles données concernant la tente de purification,” ASAE 51 (1950): pl. 1.129–31.

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73

in the biography is written three times and appears to have a corniced top with four legs. Brovarski maintained that the determinative shows a chest with a corniced lid and with the four legs of the chest being displayed in a flattened profile. 23 This use of a flattened profile showing the back legs would be quite unusual and occurs with no other portrayal of chests. It is not intuitive that the determinative used in the Biography of Wash­ ptah is a chest. The religious idea of exaltation in the ancient Near East is commonly associated with the presentation of offerings upon an altar. This opens up a question regarding whether the interpretive gloss should be rendered “to lift” or “to exalt.” On the “Nefertity Colonnade” at Amarna that was reconstructed by Donald Redford, altars with eight legs (if we assume that legs are in matched pairs) and corniced tops appear in the reliefs. 24 The fact that this altar has relatively tall legs implies that this furnishing is not made of stone but of wood. In ancient Egyptian, legs are a consistent feature of wood furnishings, which are only practical insofar as the materials used remain structurally sound when carved with negative space. While there is one example of a small stone chest with squat legs (KV 62, Carter no. 40), the height of some of these legs on the boundary stelae implies that they cannot be anything but wood. 25 Moreover, we have many examples of stone offering tables and altars, and they are consistently constructed with bases flush with the ground. Furthermore, given how the Egyptians manipulated scale, the Washptah Biography determinatives are not sufficiently different from the Amarna Boundary Stelae to declare that they are materially different items. The current evidence strongly suggests that the determinatives in the Washptah Biography are wood and not stone. The portrayal of the ṯst from Amarna Boundary Stela N exhibits a set of features that is relevant to the discussion of four-horned altars—that is, the presence of two kinds of horns that appear to be of one piece with the altar (Exod 27:2b). 26 At the right is a “horn” that is flat on the outside and has a curving slope inward. This horn is the same shape as is found on Levantine horned altars but is taller and more narrow. At the left is a different kind of “horn”—a straight-sided cone being held between the hands of a kneeling votive figure. Both these horns symbolize bread loaves using different Egyptian hieroglyphs. The right horn is the same as the “half-loaf ” 23. Edward Brovarski, “Inventory Offering Lists and the Nomenclature for Boxes and Chests in the Old Kingdom,” Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente. (ed. Emily Teeter and John A. Larson; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 41. 24. Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten: The Heretic King (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), fig. 7. 25. See ibid., pl. 4.15. 26. N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, part 5 (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1908), pl. 33.

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sign from the Old Kingdom (Gardiner Sign X7), while the left horn is the “cone-shaped loaf ” sign (Gardiner Sign X8). In both cases, the meaning is clear that the horns are models of bread offerings. It can be observed that there is a “knob” on the top of the right horn. This is not a knob but an additional item applied to the top of the horn, possibly incense. There are droplets falling from the knob indicating that it is some kind of unguent. This observation is confirmed by the fact that we find another example of an Amarna horned altar in which the “half-loaf ”shaped horn lacks the “knob” and over which a cloth is draped. 27 This also demonstrates that the horns are a feature attached to the altar itself.  One can also observe that there is a bowl under the “cone-shaped-loaf ” horn, which is sometimes flattened. The statuette makes it clear that it is an offering being presented. The only question concerns what kind of proxy offering it is. The only plausible choices here are incense or bread. If incense was being presented, iconographically round-bottomed vessels are more typical representations—for example, Gardiner W24—and particularly in scenes where incense is being presented 28 and in lexemes involving incense and resins—for example, qmı͗ . When incense is presented in a flat bowl, it is shown burning with a plume of smoke—for example, Gardiner R7 as is used in the lexeme sntr. The use of bread in a pan or bowl is also found with other bread-related determinatives—for example, Gardiner X2. Therefore, the presence of the bowl is consistent with loaf offerings. While it is clear that the Egyptians viewed the horns as offering models for loaves, it is fair to ask whether this meaning commuted into the Israelite or Levantine context. Evidence for this comes from the Canaanite settlement Tel Reḥov, which is an Iron Age IIA context (10th–9th centuries BC), where a ceramic horned altar was discovered. 29 The base is decorated with two goddess figures standing on either side of an incised tree figure. However, on the horns of the altar there appear to be not trees but crudely incised plants, possibly heads of emmer. Even though the altar may have been used for burning honey, grain would have been mixed with honey so that it could be burned as cakes (Lev 2:11). So a grain-offering model could have acted as a “stand-in” perpetual offering. Thus, the horns on the corners of the altar appear to act as offering models. Theologically, these models are symbolic to show that offerings are perpetually in the presence of the divinity, even when nothing edible is on the table. In function, the horns could operate exactly like the ‫לֶחֶם‬ 27. Redford, Akhenaten: The Heretic King, pl. 4.15. 28. See William Kelly Simpson, The Mastabas of Kawab, Khafkhufu I and II: G7110–20, 7130–40, and 7150 and Subsidiary Mastabas of Street G 7100 (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1978), fig. 30. 29. Amihai Mazar et al., “Iron Age Beehives at Tel Reḥov in the Jordan valley,” Antiquity 82 (2008): 636; Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen, “It is the Land of Honey: Beekeeping at Tel Reḥov,” NEA 70 (2007): 209.

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75

‫פָּנִים‬, “bread of the Presence,” of Exod 25:30, which was to act as a perpetual offering before the Lord (Num 4:16). Of the three tabernacle furnishings that related to offerings, the offering table required a perpetual offering of presence, while the bronze altar of burnt offering and the golden altar of incense (Exod 30:1–2), which both had horns, did not have such a requirement. It is clear that grain was among the burnt offerings that were associated with the use of the bronze altar (Lev 2:9), so the horns could act as models for a perpetual offering consistent with the use of this furnishing. Having then the meaning of a perpetual offering, this symbol could be used with the Yahweh cult without the affront of pagan imagery. And when the horns from the altars were cut off (Amos 3:14), this act could serve as ritual starvation of the pagan deity (Zeph 2:11). In conclusion, the innovation of the horned altar may be found in Egyptian culture as early as Dynasty 11, and it appears no later than mid-Dynasty 18. Overall, the Egyptians appear to have had a preference for flat offering tables over horned altars. While much remains unknown about Egyptian horned altars and how they were used because of their paucity, horned altars continue to be depicted in the funerary reliefs of Dynasty 19 (for example, TT 16, 30 including depictions of the altars with more than the typical four horns in TT 74 dating to the reign of Ramesses IX), 31 and semihorned altars (i.e., altars with only two horns) seem to have been in common use until at least the end of Dynasty 20. The horns appear to have begun as perhaps a decorative embellishment to wood offering tables but later became part of its overall form. The Egyptian data suggest that the horns served a more than functional purpose and served symbolically as bread-loaf models acting as perpetual offerings. 30. Porter and Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic, 1.28; Schott photo 4214. 31. Porter and Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic, 1.144; Schott photo 3882.

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Part 2 Exodus in the Pentateuch/ Torah

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Chapter 5

The Practices of the Land of Egypt (Leviticus 18:3): Incest, ʿAnat, and Israel in the Egypt of Ramesses the Great Richard C. Steiner Yeshiva University

Even the most cursory survey of the scholarly literature on the Exodus from the early days of Egyptology down to the present reveals a striking change of focus. During the 19th century and a good part of the 20th, the major controversy surrounding the Exodus was its date. 1 Today, of course, it is the very historicity of the Exodus that is in question, since many Bible Author’s note: I would like to thank James Hoffmeier for inviting me to contribute to this volume, even though I was unable to attend the meeting from which the volume is derived. I am grateful to him and his fellow-editors, Alan Millard and Gary Rendsburg, for comments that led to a number of improvements in this article. I made further revisions based on comments from David Berger, S. Z. Leiman, Joseph Crystal, Hillel Novetsky, Shaul Seidler-Feller, and Sara Steiner. Last but not least, I am indebted, as always, to Mary Ann Linahan and Zvi Erenyi of the Pollack and Gottesman Libraries at Yeshiva University for their exceptionally kind assistance. 1. Older studies of this question (up to 1960) include: A. E. Haynes, “The Date of the Exodus I,” PEFQS 28 (1896): 245–55; Claude Reignier Conder, “The Date of the Exodus II,” PEFQS 28 (1896): 255–58; A. H. Sayce, “Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?” The Homiletic Review 38 (1899): 483–87; Harold M. Wiener, “The Date of the Exodus,” BSac 73 (1916): 454–80; J. W. Jack, The Date of the Exodus in the Light of External Evidence (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1925); A. Lucas, “The Date of the Exodus,” PEQ 73 (1941): 110–21; H. H. Rowley, “The Date of the Exodus,” PEQ 73 (1941): 152–57; Etienne Drioton, “La date de l’Exode,” in La Bible et l’Orient: Travaux du premier Congrès d’archéologie et d’orientalisme bibliques (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955), 36–50; C. de Wit, The Date and Route of the Exodus (Tyndale Biblical Archaeology Lecture, 1959; London: Tyndale, 1960). For more recent discussion, see Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Date of the Exodus and the Conquest/Settlement: The Case for the 1100s,” VT 42 (1992): 510–27; James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 122–26, 132–34; Carol A. Redmount, “Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World (ed. Michael D. Coogan; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 104–6; and Lawrence T. Geraty, “Exodus Dates and Theories,” in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text,

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scholars deny that the Israelites were in Egypt at all during the second millennium BCE. A prooftext that has been central to both controversies is Exod 1:11b: ‫ֶת־פּתֹם ְואֶת־רַ ע ְַמסֵס‬ ִ ‫ ַו ִיּבֶן עָרֵי ִמ ְס ְכּנוֹת ְלפ ְַרעֹה א‬, “and they built store cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.” Already in the middle of the 16th century, Gerardus Mercator, the great Flemish cartographer, wrote: Armesesmiamum [Ramesses Miamun], king of Egypt 66 years and 2 months. This is, without a doubt, the one who was zealous in oppressing the Children of Israel (Exod 1:8–11), because he is said to have died a long time after Moses’s flight from this same persecutor (Exod 2:23), which agrees with the great number of years in his reign; and also because the Children of Israel were forced to build Pithom and Ramesses (Exod 1:11), one of which takes the name of the king, the founder, the other (of which), perhaps, (the name) of the queen. 2

Having identified Ramesses Miamun as the Pharaoh of the Oppression, Mercator naturally identified his successor, called Amenophis in one version of Manetho, as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. 3 In the middle of the 19th century, Richard Lepsius pointed out that the Hebrew name of the city of Raamses is “exactly the same as that of King Ramses in hieroglyphics,” adding that “it is difficult to believe that this king’s name was given to a town before any King Ramses had reigned.” 4 Like Mercator, he concluded that Ramesses Miamun (Rʿ-mss-mry-ı͗ mn  = Ramesses II) was the Pharaoh of the Oppression and that his successor, called Merenptah in Egyptian, was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. 5 This conclusion was accepted by many other early Egyptologists as well as Bible scholars––especially after the discovery of Merenptah’s stela, which was often interpreted at the time as presenting some event of the Exodus from the Egyptian perspective. 6 Indeed, according to the most recent survey, the Archaeology, Culture and Geoscience (ed. Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider, and William H. C. Propp; Cham: Springer 2015), 55–64. 2. Gerardus Mercator, Chronologia: Hoc est, temporvm demonstratio exactissima, ab initio mvndi, vsqve ad annvm Domini M. D. LXVIII (Cologne: Birckmann, 1569), 23. Credit for the identification of the Pharaoh of the Oppression with Ramesses Miamun is sometimes given to James Ussher (e.g., most recently, in Geraty, “Exodus Dates,” 62, no. 5) or to Richard Lepsius (e.g., in Drioton, “La date,” 39), but see the reference to Mercator (without further details) in Ussher’s Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (London: Flesher, 1650), 17–18; and in Walter Raleigh, The History of the World (London: Bvrre, 1614), 206. 3. Mercator, Chronologia, 25–26. 4. Richard Lepsius, Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of Sinai: With Extracts from His Chronology of the Egyptians, with Reference to the Exodus of the Israelites (trans. Leonora Horner and Joanna B. Horner; London: Bohn, 1853), 426. 5. Ibid., 449–50. 6. See, for example, W. M. Flinders Petrie, “Egypt and Israel,” Contemporary Review 69 (1896): 625, view (e); Gaston Maspero, “Sur un monument égyptien portant le nom

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81

view that the Exodus took place in the time of Ramesses II or Merenptah is the consensus view today as well, at least among those who accept its historicity. 7 At the beginning of the twentieth century, Alan H. Gardiner looked into the possibility of a connection between the biblical city of Raamses and Pi-Ramesses (“House of Ramesses”), the new residential capital built by Ramesses II in the Delta. 8 He concluded that, “whether or no the Bible narrative be strict history, . . . the Biblical Raamses-Rameses is identical with the Residence-city of Pi-Raʿmesse.” 9 Moreover, “the Biblical town of Raamses-Rameses keeps alive a dim recollection of the very city where the Pharaohs of the Oppression and of the Exodus actually resided.” 10 These conclusions agree with those of Lepsius. Despite the agreement between these two giants, Donald B. Redford has challenged the identification of Raamses with Pi-Ramesses, in an attempt to show that Exod 1:11 tells a tale devoid of any historical basis––a tale fabricated by Jewish exiles in Egypt during the Saite or Persian Period. 11 Redford’s arguments against the identification have been rejected time and again by other Egyptologists, 12 but his dismissal of the biblical account des Israélites,” Journal des débats politiques et littéraires (14 Juin, 1896): 1 (bot.); A. H. Sayce, “Light on the Pentateuch from Egyptology,” The Homiletic Review 32 (1896): 197–98, 199; Fritz Hommel, “Merenptah and the Israelites I,” ExpTim 8 (1896–97): 17; Édouard Naville, “Les dernières lignes de la stèle mentionnant les Israélites,” Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes n.s. 4 (1898): 37; Sayce, “Who Was the Pharaoh?” 483–87; Philippe Virey, “Note sur le pharaon Ménephtah et les temps de l’Exode,” RB 9 (1900): 585; W. M. Flinders Petrie, A History of Egypt: From the XIXth to the XXXth Dynasties (London: Methuen, 1905), 115; S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), xxx; Hanbury Brown, “The Exodus Recorded on the Stele of Menephtah,” JEA 4 (1917): 19–20; C. F. Burney, The Book of Judges: With Introduction and Notes (London: Rivingtons, 1918), civ. See also Rowley, “Date,” 157; and Drioton, “La date,” 39–40, with the bibliographical references cited there. 7. Geraty, “Exodus Dates,” 58–59, 62, no. 9. See also after n. 14 below. 8. Alan H. Gardiner, “The Delta Residence of the Ramessides,” JEA 5 (1918): 127– 38, 242–71. 9. Ibid., 266. 10. Ibid. 11. Donald B. Redford, “Exodus I 11,” VT 13 (1963): 408–13, 415–18; idem, “An Egyptological Perspective on the Exodus Narrative,” in Egypt, Israel, Sinai: Archaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period (ed. Anson F. Rainey; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1987), 138–39, 152; idem, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 260 n. 11; idem, “The Land of Ramesses,” in Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane, 1–3, http://cassian.memphis.edu/history/murnane/Redford.pdf. 12. Indeed, some of them had been preemptively refuted already by Gardiner, “Delta Residence,” 137–38, 261–70. See also Wolfgang Helck, “Ṯkw und die Ramses-Stadt,” VT 15 (1965): 40–47; Eric P. Uphill, The Temples of Per Ramesses (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1984), 3; Manfred Bietak, “Comments on the ‘Exodus’,” in Egypt, Israel, Sinai:

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continues to resonate with many Bible scholars 13––in large part, I suspect, because of current skepticism about the Bible as a whole. It is difficult to argue with a Zeitgeist! Be that as it may, it is undeniable that Redford’s campaign has had unexpected consequences. It is surprisingly easy to find major scholars who accept Redford’s conclusion concerning the Exodus but not his central arguArchaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period (ed. Anson F. Rainey; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1987), 167–68; Kenneth A. Kitchen, “Egyptians and Hebrews, from Raʿamses to Jericho,” in The Origin of Early Israel––Current Debate: Biblical, Historical and Archaeological Perspectives (ed. Shmuel Aḥituv and Eliezer D. Oren; BeerSheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 1998), 67–72, 79–84, and passim; Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, 117–19; Frank J. Yurco, “Merenptah’s Canaanite Campaign and Israel’s Origins,” in Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence (ed. Ernest S. Frerichs and Leonard H. Lesko; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 27–55; Sarah I. Groll, “The Egyptian Background of the Exodus and the Crossing of the Reed Sea: A New Reading of Papyrus Anastasi VIII,” Jerusalem Studies in Egyptology (ed. Irene Shirun-Grumach; Ägypten und Altes Testament 40; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 189–90; and Manfred Bietak, “On the Historicity of the Exodus: What Egyptology Today Can Contribute to Assessing the Biblical Account of the Sojourn in Egypt,” in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture and Geoscience (ed. Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider, and William H. C. Propp; Cham: Springer, 2015), 24–26, 28–30 (including n. 53). 13. See, most recently, Lester L. Grabbe, “Exodus and History,” in The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation (ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Craig A. Evans, and Joel N. Lohr; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 61–87; and Bernd U. Schipper, “Raamses, Pithom, and the Exodus: A Critical Evaluation of Ex 1:11,” VT 65 (2015): 265–88. Schipper attempts to prove that “a historical background for Ex 1:11 in the late 7th century Southern Levant seems to be likely” (ibid., 281). His argument rests on the appearance in that verse of the term ‫מס‬. His assumption that this term (like another term in Exod 1:11) is an Akkadian loanword leads him to believe that it is out of place in the Ramessid period (ibid., 278, 281). He concludes––based, in part, on the appearance of the word ‫ מס‬in a Hebrew seal inscription dated on paleographic and iconographic grounds to the 7th century (Nahman Avigad, “The Chief of the Corvée,” IEJ 30 [1980]: 170–73)––that ‫ מס‬is derived from an unattested Neo-Assyrian administrative term (Schipper, “Raamses,” 278–79, 281–82). It appears that Schipper overlooked Avigad’s discussion of Hebrew ‫ מס‬and Akkadian massu: “The term mas was probably inherited from the Canaanites. . . . The term massu for corvée is found in the Alalakh texts of the Old Babylonian period and in the el-Amarna texts from the early fourteenth century B.C.E.” (Avigad, “Chief,” 172). In other words, the limited geographical and chronological distribution of the Akkadian term, immediately evident to anyone who looks it up in CAD or AHw, is hardly compatible with the assumption that Hebrew ‫ מס‬is a Neo-Assyrian loanword. Moreover, it is well known that Neo-Assyrian s is rendered by ‫ ש‬in Northwest Semitic loanwords; see, for example, Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 140–41 including n. 13. Thus, even if Akkadian massu was still in use during the Neo-Assyrian Period, despite being unattested then, Hebrew ‫ מס‬cannot have been derived from it. Grabbe (“Exodus and History,” 74) attempts to prove on phonetic grounds that “the Egyptian name Ramesses entered the Hebrew text no earlier than the eighth century BCE.” In a future publication, I hope to show that his linguistic analysis of the toponym is just as flawed as that of Redford.

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ment––scholars who consider the Exodus story to be completely fictitious but do not hesitate to equate biblical Raamses with Pi-Ramesses. 14 Given the intimate connection between that equation and the consensus date of the Exodus discussed above, it appears that even these scholars accept that date in some sense. In other words, these scholars seem to agree that the historicity of the biblical account should ideally be evaluated using evidence from the Nineteenth Dynasty––especially evidence from the reign of Ramesses II or his son––if at all possible. One of the scholars in question, Lester L. Grabbe, has advocated a stricter standard, asserting that the Exodus narrative cannot be corroborated merely by showing that some––or even all––of its details fit what we know of the reign of Ramesses II from Egyptian sources: Egyptological elements in the exodus narrative. Some have argued that elements within the text fit the period of Rameses II (Hoffmeier 1997), but this is not sufficient; one must show that they do not fit any other period in history. 15

Grabbe has set the bar of proof very high––perhaps unreasonably high. Even so, there is evidence that meets his standard. One example that comes to mind is from Sarah I. Groll’s discussion of the toponyms associated with the Exodus: One should note . . . that although such toponyms also appear in later texts, it is to the best of my knowledge only in texts from the time of Ramesses II and Merenptah that several appear together in the same context. In particular, papyrus Anastasi III mentions Pr-Rʿ-mss-mry-Imn (1.12), p3-ṯwf (2.11) and p3-ḥ-r3 (3.4, Hebrew pi-haḥîrōt . . .) in the same model letter. It would indeed be a coincidence that a post-Exilic Judaean scribe, in a story purported to have taken place in Ramesside Egypt, independently associated these same toponyms. 16

Manfred Bietak cites Groll’s observation approvingly and expands on it: Groll (1998: 189) has . . . pointed out that it is the combination of the toponyms Pi-Ramesse, Pi-Atum, Tjeku, and Pa-Tjuf that occurs in Ramesside texts alone and not later. And it is important to stress that it is this very medley of toponyms that also appears in the Pentateuch. Moreover, Pi-Ramesse is absent from texts after the 20th Dynasty and resurfaces only after a lengthy 14. See, for example, William G. Dever, “Is There Any Archaeological Evidence for the Exodus?” in Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence (ed. Ernest S. Frerichs and Leonard H. Lesko; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 70–71; Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2001), 57­– 64; and Lester L. Grabbe, “From Merneptah to Shoshenq: If We Had Only the Bible . . . ,” in Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze Age II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.) (ed. Lester L. Grabbe; New York: T. & T. Clark, 2008–10), 2.92. 15. Ibid., 92. This is item no. 5 on Grabbe’s list of issues involved with “the general question of the exodus.” I have italicized the heading for clarity. 16. Groll, “Egyptian Background,” 189.

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Richard C. Steiner absence, not until the third century bc. . . . This shows that the presence of the toponym Raamses in the Books of Genesis and Exodus must have been adopted from a tradition older than the Third Intermediate and Saïte Periods. The . . . changes in the physical and political landscape of the Eastern Delta, including new major centers and toponyms, were incorporated only later into the Bible (e.g., Psalm 78:12, 43), while the start of the itinerary in Exodus (13:17–18, 14:2) reflects the topographical conditions of the Ramesside Period. 17

In this essay, I would like to point out another piece of evidence, previously overlooked, that satisfies Grabbe’s requirement. It differs from other such evidence in that it is found in a legal context rather than a narrative one. The passage I have in mind is Lev 18:3: ‫ֲשׁר יְשַׁ ְב ֶתּם־‬ ֶ ‫ֶץ־מ ְצרַ יִם א‬ ִ ‫ְכּ ַמעֲשֵׂ ה ֶאר‬ ‫שׁמָּה לֹא תַ עֲשׂוּ‬ ָ ‫ֶתכֶם‬ ְ ‫אנִי מ ִֵביא א‬ ֲ ‫ֲשׁר‬ ֶ ‫ֶץ־כּנַעַן א‬ ְ ‫וּכ ַמעֲשֵׂ ה ֶאר‬ ְ ‫“ בָּהּ לֹא תַ עֲשׂוּ‬You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt, and you shall not copy the practices of the land of Canaan, to which I am taking you.” 18 This verse occurs in the introduction to a series of prohibitions against various sexual unions, especially incestuous ones. It characterizes these unions as “the practices of the land of Egypt” (as well as “the practices of the land of Canaan”). I shall argue below that this characterization should be understood as a description of the practices of Ramesses II and his children.

1.  Incest in Egypt We may begin with a problem raised by Baruch A. Levine in his commentary to Lev 18:3: You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt . . . or of the land of Canaan. This statement is puzzling in a code dealing primarily with incest, since there is no explicit evidence that incest was widespread in Canaan or Egypt. At certain periods in the history of ancient Egypt, it was the custom among the royal class to encourage brother-sister marriages. This was not likely to be imitated by the common people of another culture. Some of the tangential prohibitions of chapter 18, however, such as homosexuality and bestiality, were apparently quite common in Canaanite culture. 19

Levine does not cite his source, but he may have been relying on a classic article by Jaroslav Černý, which concluded that, during the Pharaonic Pe17. Bietak, “Historicity,” 29–30. 18. The rendering “copy the practices of ” is from the njps version. Others have “do as they do in.” To capture the grammatical structure of the Hebrew, one might use “behave in accordance with the behavior of.” 19. Baruch A. Levine, The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 118. In 1981, upon my arrival at the University of Chicago as a visiting professor, the brilliant and unforgettable Klaus Baer invited me into his office for a chat, and I took the opportunity to ask him about Lev 18:3. According to my recollection, he told me that incest was no more common in Egypt than anywhere else. The problem has gnawed at me ever since.

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riod, “consanguineous marriages were possible, but could hardly be termed common” outside the Egyptian royal families. 20 More recent studies of consanguineous marriage in Egypt have done nothing to alleviate the problem noted by Levine. Indeed, if anything, they have exacerbated it. Paul John Frandsen, for example, stresses the rarity of brother-sister and fatherdaughter marriage before the Ptolemaic Period: The sparse evidence adduced shows that during the Pharaonic Period consanguineous marriages were possible. Within the royal family the practice may have been more common than it was among commoners, but incestuous associations appear on the whole to have been rare until the Ptolemaic Period. When practised it was almost always a marriage between a half-brother and a half-sister. In the literature on the so-called Amarna Period (14th century bc) some scholars are of the opinion that there existed an incestuous relationship between king Akhenaten (Amenophis IV) and three of his daughters, even resulting in the birth of several small girls. Also Ramses II is believed to have married one of his daughters. Other interpretations of the evidence for such relationships have reached the conclusion that the union between the king and his daughters was a ritual one that did not imply any sexual relationship – or that the grandchildren of Akhenaten did not exist at all! 21

Jaana Toivari-Viitala follows Frandsen in this area:   Marriage between close kin was no taboo in ancient Egypt, but the evidence for such couplings outside the royal family is meager (Frandsen 2009). . . .   Unions between fathers and daughters are occasionally mentioned within the royal family, but they appear not to have occurred among commoners. As sexual intercourse between parent and child is presented as a deterrent in the threat-formulae . . . , such unions were probably considered inappropriate, at least among non-royal persons (Frandsen 2009: 39–40, 43–44). 22

I suggest that there is a perfectly reasonable and simple solution to the problem raised by Levine. It will be noted that Ramesses II is one of only two pharaohs mentioned in Frandsen’s discussion. Ramesses II stands out in Russell Middleton’s survey of consanguineous royal marriages in prePtolemaic Egypt as well. 23 Middleton connects Ramesses II––and only 20. Jaroslav Černý, “Consanguineous Marriages in Pharaonic Egypt,” JEA 40 (1954): 29. 21. Paul John Frandsen, Incestuous and Close-Kin Marriage in Ancient Egypt and Persia: An Examination of the Evidence (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2009), 39. Cf. Johnson M. Kimuhu, Leviticus: The Priestly Laws and Prohibitions from the Perspective of Ancient Near East and Africa (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 122: “In conclusion, brother-sister marriages were rare in ancient Egypt until the Roman period, and even those rare cases are found in the royal families.” 22. Jaana Toivari-Viitala, “Marriage and Divorce,” in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (Los Angeles: UCLA, 2013), 6–7, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/68f6w5gw. 23. Russell Middleton, “Brother-Sister and Father-Daughter Marriage in Ancient Egypt,” American Sociological Review 27 (1962): 604–5. This survey has been criticized on methodological grounds, but, when used with caution, it is still useful because morerecent surveys have concentrated on commoners in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods.

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Ramesses II––to two types of consanguineous marriage, but even he does not do full justice to that king’s incestual prowess. It is instructive to compare the list of Ramesses’s marriages with the list of forbidden unions in Leviticus 18. Ramesses II married his sister, Ḥenut-mi-rēʿ (Lev 18:9), 24 and at least three of his daughters, Bint-ʿAnat, Meryet-Amūn, and Nebt-tawy (Lev 18:6 and/or 18:10). 25 According to Kitchen, at least one of these father-daughter marriages was consummated, for Bint-ʿAnat’s tomb bears a depiction of the daughter born of her union with Ramesses. 26 Moreover, the king married Bint-ʿAnat while he was married to Istnofret, her mother (Lev 18:17). 27 After the death of Ramesses, Bint-ʿAnat was involved in another incestuous union––this time with Ramesses’s successor, her brother, Merenptah. 28 In other words, Merenptah (identified as the Pharaoh of the Exodus by many early scholars) 29 married a woman who was both his sister (Lev 18:9) and the wife of his father (Lev 18:8). All in all, Ramesses II and his children set a record for royal incest that probably stands to this day. 30 This is hardly the only record set by the king known today as Ramesses the Great. “Certainly in his building-works for 24. Kenneth A. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1982), 98; Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 170. 25. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 110–11; Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families, 169, 170, 172. The father-daughter prohibition is not explicit in Leviticus; for possible explanations, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1527–30. 26. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 110, 253; idem, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translations (7 vols.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1994–), 2.603 (bot.). (I am indebted to Kitchen and Alan Millard for the latter reference.) Dodson and Hilton (Complete Royal Families, 169) are less certain about this. 27. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 100. 28. Ibid., 110. Two Egyptian stelae prove that Bint-ʿAnat and Merenptah were full siblings, children of Ramesses II and Istnofret (ibid., 100; Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families, 168–69). Thus, there is no need to wonder––as some have done––whether Egyptian kings ever married full sisters before the Ptolemaic Period. This evidence is not mentioned in Kimuhu’s recent survey of the literature on this question (Leviticus, 114, 119–20). 29. See nn. 3, 5–6 above. 30. Contrast Michael E. Habicht et al., “Body Height of Mummified Pharaohs Supports Historical Suggestions of Sibling Marriages,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 157 (2015): 521: “During the New Kingdom, consanguineous royal marriages, as reflected in their progeny, show a decreasing trend.” The authors found little evidence for such marriages in the Nineteenth Dynasty (ibid., 523), but that is because the only progeny of pharaohs whose height they were able to measure were themselves pharaohs. This is far from a random sample! In any event, if we wish to know whether the consanguineous marriages of Ramesses II were consummated, we cannot do so by examining the mummy of Merenptah. The latter, unlike many of his half-siblings, is not portrayed in the Egyptian monuments as the product of such a marriage.

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the gods the entire length of Egypt and Nubia,” writes Kitchen, “Ramesses II surpassed not only the Eighteenth Dynasty but every other period in Egyptian history.” 31 The builder of what was “probably the vastest and most costly royal residence ever erected by the hand of man” with a “palace and official centre cover[ing] an area of at least four square miles” and a “colossal assemblage” of temples “forming perhaps the largest collection of chapels built in the pre-classical world by a single ruler at one time” 32 was clearly not one to be satisfied with half-measures.

2.  ʿAnat in Egypt How are we to explain the spike in royal incest during––and immediately after––the time of Ramesses II? An answer to this question, while not strictly necessary for the purposes of the article, would reinforce the evidence adduced in §1. In this section, I would like to explore the possibility that the surge in pharaonic incest is related in some way to the simultaneous rise to prominence in Egypt of a foreign deity: the Cananite goddess ʿAnat. It has been claimed that “Anat . . . did not appear [in the Egyptian pantheon], according to the documents at our disposal, before the reign of Ramesses II.” 33 This claim is perhaps debatable, but it is certainly true that the fortunes of ʿAnat in Egypt improved dramatically during the time of Ramesses II. Although sporadic mentions of this goddess can be found during the reigns of earlier kings (e.g., Horemheb and Seti I) 34 and later ones (e.g., Merenptah, Ramesses III and IV), 35 the evidence suggests that Ramesses II went far beyond other pharaohs in his devotion to her. 36 He made her “the mistress of the gods of Ramesses,” 37 and he took the 31. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 225. 32. Uphill, Temples, 1. This is a description of Pi-Ramesses, the city that the Bible calls Raamses (Exod 1:11b). 33. Christiane Zivie-Coche, “Foreign Deities in Egypt,” UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (Los Angeles: UCLA, 2011), 2, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7tr1814c. 34. Donald B. Redford, “New Light on the Asiatic Campaigning of Ḥoremheb,” BASOR 211 (October, 1973): 37, 44 (Horemheb); Rainer Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten in Ägypten (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 94 (Seti I); Wolfgang Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (2nd ed.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1971), 460 (Seti I). 35. Sakkie Cornelius, “The Egyptian Iconography of the Goddesses Anat and Astarte,” in Les civilisations du bassin méditerranéen: Hommages à Joachim Śliwa (ed. Krzysztof M. Ciałowicz and Janusz A. Ostrowski; Cracow: Université Jagellonne, 2000), 72 (Merenptah); Jean Leclant, “Anat,” Lexikon der Ägyptologie (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1975), 1.254 (Ramesses III and IV). 36. Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten, 91; cf. Leclant, “Anat,” 254; and Peggy L. Day, “Anat ‫ענת‬,” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 40. 37. Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten, 92; Leclant, “Anat,” 254.

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unprecedented step of giving his oldest daughter a Canaanite name meaning “daughter of ʿAnat” (Bint-ʿAnat). 38 When ʿAnat addresses the king in his inscriptions, she refers to herself as his mother, and to him as her beloved son. 39 There is no need to belabor the point. It suffices to quote Izak Cornelius’s characterization of Ramesses as an “Anatophile,” who was “obsessed” with the goddess. 40 ʿAnat’s rise to prominence appears to have come at the expense of Neph­ thys, the original sister and consort of Seth (himself identified with the Canaanite god Baʿl) in Egyptian mythology. Not surprisingly, it is during the Ramesside Period that we find ʿAnat (sometimes together with Astarte) seeming to usurp Nephthys’s traditional mythical roles. 41 According to Jessica Lévai, there is a good reason for this: It makes sense that the Ramessides would choose new wives for Seth, a god they held in high esteem. That this dynasty sought to honor Seth is evident from the names of a few of its kings: Sety, Sethnakht. The Hyksos brought in their foreign gods, and the Ramessides, who claimed descent from the 38. Richard C. Steiner, “Bittĕ-Yâ, Daughter of Pharaoh (1 Chr 4,18), and Bint(i)ʿAnat, Daughter of Ramesses II,” Bib 79 (1998): 394–408; 80 (1999): 152. See n. 50 below. In addition, Ramesses II allowed one of his sons to marry the daughter of a Syrian man who just happened to be called Bin-ʿAnat, i.e., “son of ʿAnat” (Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 111–12). This detail is never mentioned in discussions of Ramesses’s love affair with ʿAnat, but I find it difficult to believe that it is a mere coincidence. Another piece of evidence that may be relevant here is orthographic. Raphael Giveon (The Impact of Egypt on Canaan [OBO 20; Fribourg: Academic Press, 1978], 18) has called attention to the rearingcobra sign (Gardiner I 12) used as a goddess determinative for the Canaanite (and biblical) toponym Byt-ʿnt (i.e., “House/Temple of ʿAnat”) in an Egyptian topographical list. He does not mention, however, that this writing of the toponym is far from usual. According to J. Simons (Handbook for the Study of Egyptian Topographical Lists Relating to Western Asia [Leiden: Brill, 1937], 204), this toponym (usually appearing as Bt-ʿnt) occurs in nine lists, of which four belong to Seti I (XIII 59; XIV 61; XV 23; XVI a, 3), four to Ramesses II (XIX 5 [note]; XX 16; XXI 8; XXIV 39), and one to Shoshenq I (XXXIV 124). The only list that uses the rearing-cobra sign with our toponym belongs to Ramesses II (XIX 5 [note]); most of the others use the three-hills sign (Gardiner N 25), the determinative for foreign territory that is ubiquitous in these lists. This striking usage may be a reflection of the increased visibility of the goddess ʿAnat during Ramesses’s reign. 39. Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten, 91–93; cf. Leclant, “Anat,” 254; and Day, “Anat,” 40. One such inscription is found on a touching sculpture of ʿAnat seated at Ramesses’s side with her hand on his shoulder (Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gott­ heiten, 92; Zivie-Coche, “Foreign Deities,” 4, fig. 2). 40. Izak Cornelius, The Many Faces of the Goddess: The Iconography of the Syro-Palestinian Goddesses Anat, Astart, Qedeshet, and Asherah c. 1500–1000 bce (OBO 204; Fribourg: Academic Press, 2004), 85. 41. Jessica Lévai, “Anat for Nephthys: A Possible Substitution in the Documents of the Ramesside Period,” in From the Banks of the Euphrates: Studies in Honor of Alice Louise Slotsky (ed. Micah Ross; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 135–43.

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Hyksos, would have wanted to incorporate their gods into the Egyptian pantheon. 42

The Hyksos, of course, were Asiatics, and ʿAnat appears in the names of some of their princes. 43 This brings us back to our question: was there some connection between ʿAnat and incest in the time of Ramesses? There are, in fact, a few hints in the historical record that may point to an affirmative answer. Some scholars believe that ʿAnat was the sister and consort of Baʿl in Canaanite mythology, 44 and, as we have seen, there is evidence that ʿAnat supplanted Nephthys as the sister and consort of Seth/Baʿl in Egyptian mythology. From the discussion of Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, it is clear that the best evidence for ʿAnat’s being Baʿl’s consort comes from Egypt. 45 This fact is quite important for our discussion. It should be obvious that, when it comes to explaining the behavior of an Egyptian monarch/god 46 who was obsessed with a Canaanite goddess, Egyptian beliefs about the goddess may well be more relevant than Ugaritic beliefs. Even more relevant is the evidence from the inscriptions of Ramesses II himself. In one such inscription, ʿAnat says to the king, “I gave birth to you as Seth, . . . ,” leading Rainer Stadelmann to ask whether her words imply that the king is her son and consort. 47 Ramesses’s choice of the name Bint-ʿAnat 42. Ibid., 141. 43. W. F. Albright, “The Evolution of the West-Semitic Divinity ʿAn-ʿAnat-ʿAttâ,” AJSL 41 (1925): 83; Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten, 20; Arvid S. Kapelrud, The Violent Goddess: Anat in the Ras Shamra Texts (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969), 15–16; Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion (trans. Ann E. Keep; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973), 238, 342 n. 33; Leclant, “Anat,” 253, 255 n. 3. It is usually asserted that many if not all of the Hyksos were West Semites. In support of this assertion, we may note that whoever wrote ʿnt(i) in the names of the Hyksos princes pronounced/heard a pharyngeal ʿayin in those names. 44. See, for example, the scholars mentioned in Kimuhu, Leviticus, 169–70. Others, however, believe that ʿAnat was only the sister of Baʿl or only his consort. For a sample of the discussion, see Kapelrud, Violent Goddess, 40–44; J. van Dijk, “ʿAnat, Seth and the Seed of Prēʿ,” in Scripta Signa Vocis: Studies about Scripts, Scriptures, Scribes and Languages in the Near East, Presented to J. H. Hospers by His Pupils, Colleagues and Friends (ed. H. L. J. Vanstiphout et al.; Groningen: Forsten, 1986), 41; Neal H. Walls, The Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 89–94, 116–52, 154–56; and Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (VTSup 55, 114; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1994–2009), 1.xxiii n. 6; 2.302–3. 45. Ibid., 2.303. 46. See n. 48 below. 47. Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten, 93. Stadelmann (ibid., 94) raises and rejects the possibility that Ramesses served as ʿAnat’s consort in a hieros gamos ceremony in the temple that he built for her. Such a ceremony is now known to have been instituted for the goddess Nanai by an Aramaic-speaking community in Upper Egypt; see my article “The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script: The Liturgy of a New Year’s Festival

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(“daughter of ʿAnat”) for his oldest daughter may point in the same direction. It could be viewed as hinting that the king’s divine mother, ʿAnat, was also the mother of his child. 48 If so, we might consider adding mother-son marriage (Lev 18:7) to our list of Ramesses’s consanguineous unions. Is it mere coincidence that a princess named after the Canaanite goddess ʿAnat was cast as the queen of incest in this pharaonic family drama? If it turns out that the incestuous embraces of Ramesses and his daughter Bint-ʿAnat are somehow connected to his embrace of the Canaanite goddess ʿAnat, the juxtaposition of Egypt and Canaan in Lev 18:3 will take on a new and deeper meaning.

3.  Israel in Egypt In §1, we saw that the evidence for incest in pharaonic Egypt is––with one important exception––rather limited. What, then, does Lev 18:3 mean when it characterizes incestuous sexual unions as “the practices of the land of Egypt”? In my view, the answer is that this characterization does not refer to the practices of all strata of Egyptian society in every period. It refers, rather, to the consanguineous couplings of Ramesses II and his children. It is true that similar unions––usually brother-sister marriages and often assumed to involve half-siblings 49––occurred occasionally in other pharaonic families, but Ramesses went far beyond his predecessors and successors in his pursuit of them. No other pharaoh engaged in so many of the incestuous practices that Leviticus 18 prohibits. His prodigious attainments in this area, I would argue, left a lasting imprint on the collective psyche of the Israelites––an imprint second only to the one left by the trauma of being forced into a life of hard labor. Even the name of Bint-ʿAnat, the leading lady in this Ramesside sexual saga, was preserved by the Israelites––albeit in a Judaized form and attached to a later Ramesside princess (1 Chr 4:18). 50

Imported from Bethel to Syene by Exiles from Rash,” JAOS 111 (1991): 362–63; and idem, “The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script,” in The Context of Scripture (ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr.; 3 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1997–2002), 1.309–27 (esp. pp. 310, 322, and––for a mention of ʿAnat in the text––314). However, that was much later, probably in the 4th century BCE. 48. Names of the form “daughter/son of DN” were fairly common among Semites (Steiner, “Bittĕ-Yâ,” 396–99), and ordinarily it would be unwise to read too much into them. But Ramesses was already a nominal king of Egypt when Bint-ʿAnat was born (Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 27, 39–40). He was (or was about to become) “ex officio, as it were, one of the gods of Egypt” (ibid., 174). As such, his choice of a Canaanite name meaning “daughter of ʿAnat” can hardly be viewed as routine. 49. See at n. 21 above. 50. Steiner, “Bittĕ-Yâ.” See already Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus (New York: Behrman House, 1969), 27 n. 3: “[‘Bitya daughter of Pharaoh’:] A Hebraized analogue of the Canaanite name Bint-Anat, one of Ramses II’s daughters.”

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It must be emphasized that Lev 18:3–18 does not assert that the land of Egypt was a hotbed of incest––it presupposes it. 51 In other words, it presents it as something that Israelites would be expected to know. But why would the incestuous unions in the family of Ramesses II be a matter of common knowledge among the Israelites? Why would the Israelites be expected to know so much about the marriages of this particular pharaoh and his oldest daughter? To my mind, the simplest, most straightforward answer is that the Israelites were in Egypt during Ramesses’s reign. Many of them––especially if they worked in Ramesses’s new residential capital––would have heard the title “King’s Daughter and Royal Wife” used with reference to at least three of Ramesses’s daughters: Bint-ʿAnat, Meryet-Amūn, and Nebt-tawy. 52 This is particularly true of Bint-ʿAnat, who would have appeared alongside the king on public occasions during her reign as Chief Queen. 53 As for the king’s special relationship with the Canaanite goddess ʿAnat, anyone working in Pi-Ramesses would have been aware of that as well, since ʿAnat “evidently even possessed in Piramses a remarkable temple complex, in which two groups of statues, of ʿAnat and Ramses, were found.” 54 One of the groups is thought to have been displayed outside the temple, in front of a pylon. 55 In short, the impression made on the Israelites by the sexual practices of this monarch, even more than the impression made on them by his labor practices, testifies to their presence in Egypt in his time. 51. That is to say, the implication that Egypt outdid other lands in the area of incest remains even if we delete all occurrences of the negator ‫ לא‬in Lev 18:3–18. 52. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translations, 2.602 (bot.). Cf. also “King’s Daughter, Great Royal Wife” used with reference to Bint-ʿAnat (ibid., 603) and Meryet-Amūn (ibid., 604). 53. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 98, 100. 54. Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten, 91. See further n. 39 above. 55. Ibid.

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Chapter 6

The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II and the Exodus Sea Account (Exodus 13:17–15:19) Joshua Berman Bar-Ilan University

Many consider the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:1b–21) to be one of the earliest expressions of Israelite religion, standing in continuity with the mythopoeic patterns of Canaanite myth. Specific lexical terms within the Song emerge as precise parallels to terms found in the Ugaritic Baal cycle. For example, Yhwh’s Temple is to be built ‫( בהר נחלתך‬15:17), a phrase parallel to bģr.nḥlty in CAT 1.3 III 30; IV 20, referring to the site of Baal’s palace. Yhwh’s enthronement is described as ‫( מכון לשבתך‬15:16), the equivalent of ksu ṯbt in KTU 1.1 III 1; CAT 1.4 VII 13–14; 1.8 VI 15. Within this line of scholarship, the Song preserves a historicized form of an old mythic pattern whereby the divine warrior builds his sanctuary following his victory at sea upon the “mount of possession” won in battle, resulting in the divinity’s attaining eternal kingship. 1 While this West Semitic literary context is essential for understanding the Song, I argue here that the Song of the Sea can only be fully appreciated by taking account of an additional ancient literary context—the Egyptian context. Consider the question of genre. Many view the Song of the Sea as a hymn of triumph. 2 In Egypt, triumph literature such as Merenptah’s Israel stela is widespread, but is unattested in the literature of Ugarit. Historicized narrative in prose or verse is completely unattested at Ugarit. 3 The Song of the Sea is a poem inset within a narrative frame. To find compositions 1. See, for example, F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 112–44; M. S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 41–79. 2. See, for example, U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (trans. I. Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), 173; C. L. Meyers, Exodus (NCamBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 110. 3. M. S. Smith, “Recent Study of Israelite Religion in Light of the Ugaritic Texts,” in Ugarit at Seventy-Five (ed. K. L. Younger; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 1–26;

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mixing prose and poetry we must turn to Egypt, where we find examples in Sinuhe, and particularly in New Kingdom compositions such as the Building Inscription of Amenhotep III, the Kadesh Poem of Ramesses II and the poetic stela of Merenptah. 4 Moreover, the Song of the Sea is a voiced hymn, which the text ascribes to Moses and the children of Israel (15:1). Hymns ascribed to a particular voice are much more common in Egyptian literature. 5 I maintain that the Exodus Sea account (13:17–15:19) exhibits strong affinities with the Kadesh inscriptions of Ramesses II. I present my argument in four parts. In §1, I demonstrate that the line of inquiry tracing reverberations of royal Egyptian propaganda from the New Kingdom within the narrative of Exodus has an established pedigree within scholarship. In §2, the major section of this essay, I showcase the sequential and highly particular parallels of motif that structure both compositions. However, even highly specific parallels are insufficient to demonstrate literary dependence between two texts. In §3, I employ a series of controls to establish the claim that these parallels are the product of literary dependence and that the Exodus account, particularly the Song of the Sea, deliberately appropriates royal Egyptian propaganda in what it trumpets as Yhwh’s victory over Pharaoh himself. In the 4th and final section of this study, I consider how the Kadesh inscriptions may have reached Israelite composers and offer a hypothesis for the dating of this transmission.

1.  Resonances of New Kingom Royal Propaganda in the Book of Exodus My proposition that the Song of the Sea resonates with the Kadesh inscriptions of Ramesses II builds upon a number of scholarly observations that the book of Exodus echoes language and images familiar to us only from the royal inscriptions of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Egyptian dynasties. I cite the following observations with no reference at this point to the way that these influences may have reached Israel or to the question of when they may have been incorporated into the text of Exodus before us. One term in the Exodus account that seems to be rooted in New Kingdom royal terminology is a phrase describing Yhwh’s “strong” or “mighty hand.” This includes the phrases ‫יד חזקה‬, “mighty hand” (Exod 3:19; 13:3, 14, 16; 32:11; cf. Deut 3:14; 6:21; 9:26), and ‫זרוע נטויה‬, “outstretched arm” (Exod R. Abbott, Triumphal Accounts in Hebrew and Egyptian (e-book; Matteh Publications, 2012) loc. 4401. 4. See James W. Watts, Psalm and Story: Inset Hymns in Hebrew Narrative ( JSOTSup 139; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 206–12; R. D. Patterson, “Victory at Sea: Prose and Poetry in Exodus 14–15,” BSac 161 (2004): 42–54. 5. See James W. Watts, “‘This Song’: Conspicuous Poetry in Hebrew Prose,” in Verse in Ancient Near Eastern Prose (ed. J. C. de Moor and W. G. E. Watson; AOAT 42; Ke­ velaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1993), 345–50.

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6:6; cf. Deut 9:29; and in parallelism in Deut 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 26:8). Critically for our purposes, it also includes phrases found in the Sea account of Exod 14–15: Yhwh’s ‫יד הגדלה‬, “great hand” (14:31), ‫ימינך‬, “your right/powerful hand” (Exod 15:6 [2×], 12), and ‫בגדל זרועך‬, “with your great arm” (Exod 15:16). Expressions relating to the conquering arm of Pharaoh first appear in the Middle Kingdom (1970–1800 BCE), through the term ḫpš, which means “arm” or “power.” 6 Sinuhe describes Senusret I as “a mighty man who achieves with his strong arm ḫpš a champion pr-ʿ without equal.” The expression pr-ʿ literally means “the arm goes forth or is extended.” 7 Use of ḫpš on royal titles reaches its peak during the era of the military conquests of the Thutmoside and Ramesside kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (16th–12th centuries BCE). 8 Epithets abound during this period for the phrases nb ḫpš (possessor of mighty arm), and wsr ḫpš “mighty of arm.” 9 Ramesside kings use nb ḫpš as an epithet before the cartouche bearing the king’s prenomen and before his nomen. 10 At least four of Ramesses II’s sons included it within their theophoric names. 11 By contrast, we find a discernible decline in the use of the terminology of the king’s conquering arm during the Third Intermediate Period. 12 In the Amarna letters, three from Abdu-Heba of Jerusalem (EA 286:12; 287:27; 288:14) state that “the arm of the mighty king” installed him, where zu-ru-uḫ is the word for “arm,” cognate with Hebrew ‫זרוע‬. 13 This is attested only in the Amarna tablets and not other Mesopotamian cuneiform texts. 14 Although ‫ זרוע‬is related to Ugaritic ḏrʿ, this term is not employed in military descriptions of either Baal or of Keret. 15 In Mesopotamia, one finds occasional references to a king’s conquering hand but not as a central literary trope and incorporated into royal names and epithets. 16 Within the Bible, phrases describing not only Yhwh’s “hand” but his “mighty hand” are found nearly exclusively in relation to the exodus from Egypt. There is no similar mention of Yhwh’s conquering arm in Joshua or in Judg 1. 17 6. J. K. Hoffmeier, “The Arm of God versus the Arm of Pharaoh in the Exodus Narratives,” Bib 67 (1986): 380. See also Manfred Görg, “‘Der starke Arm Pharaos’: Beobachtungen zum Belegspektrum—Einer Metaphor in Palastin und Ägypten,” in Hommages à François Daumas (ed. C. Berger et al.; Montpellier: Université de Montpellier, 1986), 323–330. 7. R. O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1962), 91; Hoffmeier, “The Arm of God,” 380. 8. Ibid., 380. 9. Ibid., 382. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 383. 12. Ibid. 13. “Zuruḫ,” CAD Z 167. 14. Hoffmeier, “The Arm of God,” 385. 15. On Ugaritic ḏrʿ, see DULAT 288. 16. Hoffmeier, “The Arm of God,” 385. 17. Ibid., 379.

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Figure 1.  The Military tent of Ramesses II (adapted from the Abu Simbel temple) and the tabernacle plan of Exodus 25–27. A second element of Egyptian royal propaganda scholars have identified within the book of Exodus is a graphic one: distinct similarities between the military camp of Ramesses II as depicted in the Kadesh inscriptions and the Exodus depiction of the tabernacle and camp of Israel. The battle of Kadesh, in the 5th year of the reign of Ramesses II, pitted Egypt against the Hittite Empire for control of the states of the northern Levant. While the results of the battle are disputed, my interest here is not with what actually happened on the plain of Kadesh in 1274 BCE but in how its results were projected post facto in Egypt. 18 Accounts of the battle of Kadesh are displayed in public buildings located at Abydos, Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, and the king’s mortuary temple, the Ramesseum. In the words of Hans Goedicke, “Over the centuries Egyptian kings fought numerous battles, but none has received the details and frequency of reporting that Kadesh did. The battle of Kadesh is without question the most extensively advertised event of ancient Near Eastern history.”  19 At most sites, the accounts are also accompanied by bas reliefs depicting the different stages of the battle—an innovation of Ramesside art—complete with captions, and these include four depictions of Ramesses’s military camp. 20 18. For bibliography on the Kadesh inscriptions, see K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated / Notes and Comments (6 vols.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1993– 2008), 2.3–5; A. Kuschke, “Qadesh-Schlacht,” LÄ vol. 5, cols. 31–37. 19. H. Goedicke, “The Battle of Kadesh: A Reassessment,” in Perspectives on the Battle of Qadesh (ed. H. Goedicke; Baltimore: Halgo, 1985), 111. 20. See discussion and bibliography in Michael M. Homan, To Your Tents, O Israel!: The Terminology, Function, Form, and Symbolism of Tents in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 66.

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Figure 2.  The throne tent of Ramesses II with winged falcons flanking his cartouche (W. Wreszinski, Atlas zur altägyptischen Kulturgeschichte [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1935], vol. 2, pl. 169)

These portray a 2 : 1 rectangular military camp, with the entrance in the middle of the eastern wall. At the center of the camp lies the entrance to a 3 : 1 rectangular tent, containing two sections: a 2 : 1 reception tent that leads to the throne tent of Pharaoh. The height of the throne tent matches its width. These proportions are all reflected in the prescriptions for the tabernacle and its surrounding camp in Exod 25–27 (fig. 1). Further, in the depiction at Abu Simbel, the cartouche of the pharaoh, symbolizing his throne, is flanked by falcons with their wings spread in protection (fig. 2). The ark of the tabernacle is similarly flanked by two winged cherubim (Exod 25:20). Egypt’s four army divisions at Kadesh would have camped on the four sides of Ramesses’s tent compound. The book of Numbers states that the tribes of Israel camped on the four sides of the tabernacle compound (Num 2). 21 By contrast, Neo-Assyrian camps are routinely depicted as oval in shape and feature no throne tent of any kind. 22 The military camp at Kadesh 21. K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 278. 22. Michael M. Homan, “The Divine Warrior in His Tent: A Military Model for Yahweh’s Tabernacle,” BR 16/6 (2000): 55 n. 12.

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constitutes the closest parallel to the tabernacle—including the temple of Solomon—known to date. The tent of Yhwh the divine warrior parallels the tent of the pharaoh, the living Egyptian god, poised for battle. 23

2.  The Structural Similarity of the Kadesh Poem and the Sea Account of Exodus 14–15 The texts we call “the Kadesh inscriptions” are actually two accounts of that battle: a longer account of some 350 lines, usually known as “the Poem,” and a briefer account, about a third as long, known as “the Bulletin.” 24 These two compositions vary widely in theology and in the details of the battle, and yet all Egyptologists agree that Ramesses II promulgated the inscription of both versions at the various sites at which they appear. 25 My focus is upon the longer of these two compositions, “the Poem.” The similarities I identify in plot and motif between Exod 14–15 and the inscriptions are nearly exclusively with regard to the Poem and not the Bulletin. 26 In both the Kadesh Poem and the Sea account of Exod 14–15, the action begins in like fashion: the protagonist army is on the march and unprepared for battle when it is attacked by a large force of chariots causing the protagonist army to break ranks in fear. The Poem relates that Ramesses’s troops were on the march when they were surprised by the Hittites and that his troops and chariotry entirely collapsed before them (P72–74). The Exodus Sea account opens in similar fashion. As they depart Egypt, the Israelites are described as “armed” (‫ ;חמשים‬Exod 13:18) and as marching with a raised arm (‫ ;ביד רמה‬14:8). Stunned by the sudden charge of Pharaoh’s chariots, they become completely dispirited (14:10–12). Each story continues by describing how the king confronts the enemy on his own, absent his fearful troops. Entirely abandoned, Ramesses engages the Hittites single-handedly without his army, a theme underscored throughout the Poem. In Exod 14:14, Yhwh declares that the Israelites need only remain passive and that He will fight on their behalf, “Yhwh will fight for you, and you will be still.” 23. Homan, To Your Tents, 115; see further, Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 275–82. On the affinity between the literary structure of the biblical tabernacle accounts and accounts of temple building in the ancient Near East, see Victor (Avigdor) Hurowitz, “The Priestly Account of Building the Tabernacle,” JAOS 105 (1985): 21–30. 24. The two compositions are inscribed on the walls of temples of Abydos, Luxor, Karnak, Abu Simbel, and the Ramesseum. For an overview, see Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, 2.5–13. 25. A. H. Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 46; AEL 2.59. 26. Epigraphic evidence demonstrates that the Poem had a life independent of the Bulletin within the literary culture of the Nineteenth Dynasty. See discussion further on in §4.

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In each story, the protagonist now appeals to a divine agent for help. The divine agent exhorts the protagonist to move forward and offers assistance. In the Poem, Ramesses declares (P123), “The moment I called to him, I found Amun came . . . , (P125) As (close as) face to face he spoke out (from) behind me: ‘Forward! (P126) I am with you, I am your father, my hand is with you!’” 27 In like fashion, Moses cries out to the Lord, who responds in Exod 14:15, “Tell the Israelites to go forward!” promising victory over Pharaoh (vv. 16–17). From this point in the Poem, Ramesses assumes divine powers and proportions, and I thus examine his actions against the Hittites at the Orontes in tandem with Yhwh’s actions against the Egyptians at the Sea. Yhwh engages the Egyptians in Exod 14:24: “At the morning watch, the Lord looked down upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and cloud, and threw the Egyptian army into panic.” While it is possible to read that the Egyptians were confounded merely by the sight of the cloud and fire, several ancient traditions understood, variously, that Yhwh attacked them with fire. 28 The Poem describes a similar daybreak encounter: (P277) “When dawn came, I marshaled the battle-line in the fight. . . . (P279) I appeared against them. . . . (P280) I entered into the battle lines, fighting like the pounce of a falcon. (P281) My Uraeus serpent [worn by the pharaohs as a head ornament—J.B.] overthrowing my enemies for me. (P282) She spat her fiery flame in the face(s) of my foes.” In each text, the dawn attack with fire on the enemy chariots is followed by the same trope: the enemy gives voice to the futility of fighting against a divine force and seeks to escape. In each work, statements made earlier about the potency of the god are now confirmed by the enemy himself. As we saw, Ramesses attests that the Uraeus serpent spat fire at the enemy. In the Poem, the Hittites respond: (P285) “One of them called out to his fellows: (P286) Look out. Beware; don’t approach him! (P287) See, Sekhmet the Mighty is she who is with him!” Sekhmet is the warrior goddess, routinely depicted as wearing a crown with the Uraeus serpent. In this passage, the Hittites not only acknowledge that they are fighting a divine force but articulate precisely which divine force that is. We find the same trope in the Exodus narrative as well. In Exod 14:14, Yhwh had promised Israel, “Yhwh will fight for you” (‫)יהוה ילחם לכם‬. Following the dawn attack with fire, in 27. All translations of the Poem are taken from Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated (6 vols.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1996–2014; hereafter referred to as RITA), 2.2–14. 28. Artapanus apud Eusebius, Praep. evangelica 9.27.37; Mekilta Beshallaḥ 6, to Exod 14:25; Tg. Neofiti 14:24. Cf. Isa 43:17. See discussion in W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18 (AB 2; New York: Doubleday, 1999), 499.

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Figure 3.  The corpses of the Hittite troops in the Orontes River ( James Henry Breasted, The Battle of Kadesh: A Study in the Earliest Known Military Strategy [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1903], pl. 3) 14:25 the narrative states, “And the Egyptians said, ‘Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them (‫ )כי יהוה נלחם להם‬against Egypt.’” 29 An element common to the battle depictions of both compositions is that the enemy submerges into the water and perishes. This, of course, is central to the Sea account of Exod 14–15. The sinking or submerging of the enemy is emphasized in the Song at Exod 15:4, 5 and 10. To be sure, the Kadesh Poem does not tell of wind-swept seas overpowering the Hittites. But they do submerge into a body of water—the Orontes River—and many perish there. Ramesses claims (P138–140) that, in their haste to escape his onslaught, the Hittites “plunged” into the river seeking refuge, “like crocodiles.” Ramesses says that he slaughtered them there in the water. The reliefs draw attention to the drowning of the Hittites in vivid fashion, none more so than those on the second pylon at the Ramesseum (see fig. 3). Both texts underscore that there were no survivors in the water. The Poem states (P141), “None looked behind him, no other turned around. (P142) Whoever of them fell, he did not rise again.” Exod 14:28 states, “The waters turned back and covered the chariots and the horsemen . . . not one of them remained.” 29. See the similar scene elsewhere in the Poem: (P157), “One cried out to another amongst them, (saying): (P158) He is no mere man, he that is among us! (It’s) Seth great of power, (very) Baal in person!” (P161) Let’s come away quickly; let’s flee before him!”

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We come now to the most striking of the parallels between the Poem and the Exodus Sea account. In lines 224–49 of the Poem, Ramesses’s troops offer the king a paean of praise for the might and salvation that he provided them. Conceptually, this is parallel to the Israelites’ Song to Yhwh in Exod 15 for the salvation provided them. The correspondence of elements here is particularly tight. In each composition, the timid troops see evidence of the king’s “mighty arm”; they review the enemy corpses and are amazed by the king’s achievement. In the Poem, we read: (P224) Then when my troops and chariotry saw me, (P225) that I was like Montu, (P226) my arm strong . . . , (P229) then they presented themselves one by one, (P230) to approach the camp at evening time. (P231) They found all the foreign lands, amongst which I had gone, lying overthrown in their blood. . . . (234) I had made white the countryside of the land of Qadesh. 30 (P235) Then my army came to praise me, their faces [amazed/averted] at seeing what I had done.

We see very similar elements in Exod 14:30–31: “Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. And when Israel saw the great hand which the Lord had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord.” As noted earlier, phrases such as “the great hand” here in 14:30 or “your great arm” in 15:16 are used in exclusive fashion in the Hebrew Bible with regard to the exodus and represent a trope that within cognate literature is found only in royal Egyptian propaganda, especially during the New Kingdom. From here, in both accounts, the troops offer a paean to the king. In each “song” or hymn, the opening stanza is comprised of three elements: (a) boasting of the king’s name as a warrior; (b) crediting him with heartening their morale; and (c) lauding him for the salvation he has granted them. In the Poem, we read: (P236) “My officers came to extol my strong arm. (P237) And likewise my chariotry, (P238) boasting of my name thus: (P239) ‘What a fine warrior, who strengthens the heart. 31 (P240) That you should rescue your troops and chariotry!’” These same motifs, of the king’s name, the strength he gives them, and the salvation he brings appear in the opening verses of the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:1–3): “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. . . . The Lord is my strength and might; He is become my salvation . . . the Lord, the Warrior—Lord is His Name!” 32 30. That is, it was strewn with blanched corpses. 31. I have preferred the more literal translation of Davies here (B. G. Davies, Egyptian Historical Inscriptions of the Nineteenth Dynasty [ Jonsered: Astroms, 1997], 75). Kitchen reads “who stiffens morale.” 32. Note also that the Song describes Yhwh in the opening verses as ‫ ירה בים‬and ‫רמה‬ ‫בים‬, both of which have been understood by some as depictions of Yhwh as an archer (cf. Hab 3:9, 11; Zech 9:14; Ps 144:6; and discussion in Propp, Exodus 1–18, 511). Ramesses is depicted throughout the Poem as downing his enemy through his prowess as an archer (e.g., P12, P130), a trope that receives vivid representation in the reliefs.

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Figure 4.  Relief of Seti I with raised right hand, shattering the heads of his enemies, Hypostyle Hall at Karnak (The Epigraphic Survey, The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986], pl. 15a. Reproduced courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago).

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In both the Poem and in Exodus, the troops continue their praise of the victorious king with a double strophe extolling the achievement of the king’s powerful hand or arm. In the Poem we read, (P241) “You are the son of Amun, achieving with his arms; (P242) you devastate the land of Hatti by your valiant arm.” The Song continues in similar fashion (Exod 15:6): “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the foe!” It is worth noting here the distinctly Egyptian portrayal of the right hand. Hebrew ymn (15:6, 12) is cognate with Egyptian ı͗ mn, wnmy, as it is with many Semitic terms, such as Akkadian imnu, and Ugaritic ymn. 33 Yet in Akkadian and in Ugaritic, we find that the right hand is portrayed exclusively with regard to holding or grasping. 34 In Egyptian literature, however, we find depictions of the right hand that match those found here in the Song. Perhaps the most enduring motif of Egyptian narrative art is that of the pharaoh raising his right hand to shatter the heads of enemy captives (fig. 4). 35 The image is ubiquitous from the third millennium down into the Christian era. Neither in iconography nor in the written compositions of cuneiform cultures do we encounter such portrayals of the right hand. The clause (15:6) “Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy,” therefore, exhibits high resonance with Egyptian royal imagery. 36 In a prophylactic charm from the reign of Ramesses II, a demon is warned that, should he attack, “the gods [shall have?] the right arm extended against an arm of yours (?);—your name shall be rejected, and your corpse be banished.” 37 Exodus 15:12 likewise describes that Yhwh extended his right hand, causing the earth to swallow the Egyptians (‫נטית ימינך תבלעמו‬ ‫)ארץ‬. The trope of the threatening extended right hand without weapon is found in the literature of no other surrounding culture. The next image of the Song of the Sea compares the enemy to chaff consumed by Yhwh’s wrath (Exod 15:7): “You send forth your fury, it consumes them like chaff.” Within the Poem, the enemy is likened to chaff just a few lines prior, as the troops review the Hittite corpses: (P227) “Amun my father being with me instantly, (P228) Turning all the foreign lands into straw (dḥꜢ; Lichtheim, 38 “chaff ”) before me.” 39 Note that the use of “chaff ” 33. HALOT 2.415. 34. CAD I/J 136; DULAT 967. 35. See Emma S. Hall, The Pharaoh Smites His Enemies: A Comparative Study (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1986). 36. See discussion of the image with regard to other biblical passages in J. Hoffmeier, “Some Egyptian Motifs Related to Warfare and Enemies and Their Old-Testament Counterparts,” Ancient World 6 (1983): 54–55. 37. BM 10731, line 2, translated in RITA 4.133. 38. AEL 2.69. 39. In the Kadesh Bulletin, we find an image that is even closer to the chaff image in the Song of the Sea, where the enemy is likewise consumed by fire, as chaff: (B91) “All

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as a simile for the enemy in a military inscription is unattested in cuneiform writings. 40 In each hymn, the troops declare the king to be without peer in battle. In the Poem we read: (P243) “You are the fine(st) warrior, without your peer,” and as we move on in the Song we find a similar note about Yhwh: “Who is like You, O Lord, among the mighty?” Further, in each song, the king is praised as the victorious leader of his troops, intimidating neighboring lands. In the Poem we read: (P247) “You are great in victory in front of your army . . . (P249) O Protector of Egypt, who curbs foreign lands.” These two ideas appear at this point in the Song. Following the victory over the Egyptians, the Israelites declare (15:13–15): “In your lovingkindness, You lead the people you redeemed; In Your strength, You guide them to Your holy abode. The peoples hear, they tremble.” The penultimate lines of the Song of the Sea contain the main elements that comprise the penultimate lines of the Poem: The king leads his troops safely on a long journey home from the defeat of the enemy, intimidating neighboring lands along the way. In the Poem, we read: (P332) “[He] turned peacefully southwards. (P333) His Majesty set off back to Egypt peacefully, with his troops and chariotry, (P334) all life, stability and dominion being with him, the gods and goddesses being the talismanic protection for his body, and (P335) subduing all lands, through fear of him. (P336) It was the might of His Majesty that protected his army.” These same motifs are found in the continuation of the Song (Exod 15:16–17): “Terror and dread descend upon them; through the might of Your arm they are still as stone—till your people pass, O Lord, the people pass whom you have ransomed. You will bring them and plant them in your own mountain.” The final motif of the Poem is also the final element of the Song: peaceful arrival at the palace of the king, and blessings to him for eternal rule. In the Poem we read: (P338) Arrival peacefully in Egypt, at Pi-Ramesse Great in Victories, (P339) and resting in his Palace of life and dominion. . . . (P340) The gods of the land ⟨come⟩ to him in greeting . . . (P342) according as they have granted him a million jubilees and eternity upon the throne of Re, (P343) all lands and all foreign lands being overthrown and slain beneath his sandals eternally and forever.

The Song of the Sea concludes on a similar note, with Yhwh inhabiting his “palace” or temple, and a declaration of his eternal sovereignty (Exod his patch blazed with fire, He burnt up every foreign land with his hot breath. (B92) His eyes became savage when he saw them. His might flared like fire against them. (B93) He paid no heed to even a million aliens. He looked upon them as on chaff ” (RITA 2.17). See references to enemies as chaff in Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty inscriptions in Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical (8 vols.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1975–90; hereafter referred to as KRI) 2.173:12 (RITA 2.46); KRI 5.63:15 (RITA 5.50); KRI 5.71:13 (RITA 5.54). 40. For “chaff ” in Assyrian similes, see CAD P 471–72, s.v. pû B.

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15:17–18): “You will bring them and plant them in Your own mountain, the place You made Your abode, O Lord, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands established. The Lord will reign for ever and ever!” Many scholars have compared vv. 17–18 here, with the conclusion of the Baal cycle, where the triumphant Baal returns from the battlefield, builds his palace, and is granted eternal rule. 41 Yet to see the motif as Canaanite as opposed to Egyptian is to set up a false dichotomy. The deity Seth was widely identified with the West Semitic Baal. 42 In fact, between the Kadesh Poem and Bulletin, Ramesses himself is compared to Baal no less than four times. 43 The plot common to both compositions may be summarized as follows: The protagonist army breaks ranks at the sight of the enemy chariot force. A plea for divine help is answered with encouragement to move forward, and victory is assured. On the battlefield itself, the protagonist king encounters the enemy chariots with fire. The enemy chariotry seeks to flee and recognizes, by name, the divine force that attacks it. Many meet their death in water, and there are no survivors. The king’s troops return to survey the enemy corpses and are amazed at the king’s accomplishment. They offer the king a victory hymn. It includes praise of his name, references to his strong arms, and the ideas that he is their source of strength and the source of their salvation. The enemy is compared to chaff, while the king is deemed to be without peer in battle. He leads his troops peacefully home, intimidating foreign lands along the way. The king arrives at his palace and is granted eternal rule. This is the story of Ramesses II in the Kadesh Poem, and this is the story of Yhwh in the account of the Sea in Exod 14–15.

3.  Characterizing the Relationship between the Kadesh Poem and the Sea Account of Exodus 14–15 Does the common narrative sequence found in these two works appear independently in each culture from a common milieu of stock forms, or may we propose that the Song of the Sea was composed with an awareness of the Kadesh Poem? The bar for establishing literary dependence is a high one. In this section, I offer a series of observations that I submit warrant such a conclusion. How distinct are the parallels between the Kadesh Poem and the Song of the Sea? Battle inscriptions are found all over the ancient Near East. 44 Some of the motifs identified here are ubiquitous across this literature, such as the king instilling dread and awe within the enemy. Other elements, 41. See sources in n. 1. 42. For discussion of the relationship between Seth and Baal, see H. te Velde, “Seth,” OEAE 3.269–71. 43. P78, P222, P298. Cf. Bulletin line 87 in the versions at the Ramasseum and at Abu Simbel. 44. For a survey, see K. L. Younger, Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990).

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such as the king’s building or residing in his palace and gaining eternal rule are recognizable typological mythological tropes known to us from Enuma Elish and from the Baal cycle. 45 Neo-Assyrian sources record the mass drowning of enemy soldiers. 46 Other motifs here are truly distinct but can be seen as reflecting the needs of each author, with no connection between them. For example, few if any ancient battle accounts record that an army was on the march when it was suddenly attacked by a massive chariot force and broke ranks as a result. Nevertheless, it could be that, coincidentally, the authors of the Kadesh Poem and the Sea account employed this trope independently. What suggests a relation between the two texts is the totality of the parallels and the large number of highly distinct motifs that appear in these two works only, and largely in common sequence. 47 Perhaps paramount among these is the trope of the timorous troops who survey the corpses slain by the heroic “king” and who then offer him a hymn of praise with several common elements. 48 The Exodus account does not seem to be drawing inspiration from a stock Egyptian form but from a highly distinct and unique composition. The eminent Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner remarks about the Kadesh inscriptions, “There is nothing in Egyptian literature really comparable to this narrative of Ramesses II. I maintain, therefore, that Ramesses II’s account of his Hittite war is a unique phenomenon in Egyptian literature.” 49 By the same token, this array of motifs found in the Song of the Sea has no parallel in any other biblical battle report. It is fair to say that no other battle account known to us from the Hebrew Bible or the epigraphic re45. See discussion in Propp, Exodus 1–18, 557. 46. See, e.g., concerning the foes of Shalmanesar III in A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium bc II (858–745 bc) (RIMA 3; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), text nos. 102.28:44 and 102.2 ii 100. See discussion in Seth Richardson, “Death and Dismemberment in Mesopotamia: Discorporation between the Body and Body Politic,” in Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (ed. Nicola Laneri; Oriental Institute Seminars 3; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 200; John R. Huddlestun, “Redactors, Rationalists and (Bloodied) Rivers: Some Comments on the First Biblical Plague,” in Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature: Essays on the Ancient Neat East in Honor of Peter Machinist (ed. D. S. Vanderhooft and A. Winitzer; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 218–21. My thanks to John Huddlestun for bringing this material to my attention. 47. On the importance of shared sequence as a marker of literary dependence, see Benjamin Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 41–42, 71, and 106. 48. Compare the large number of sequential and distinct parallels adduced here between Exod 14–15 and the Kadesh Poem with the parallels adduced by Weitzman between Exod 14–15 and the 8th-century Piye Stela, in Steven Weitzman, Song and Story in Biblical Narrative: The History of a Literary Convention in Ancient Israel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 17–32. 49. Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II, 53.

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mains of the ancient Near East has even close to half the shared narrative motifs exhibited here. Shared narrative sequence, however, is not a sufficient basis for determining literary dependence. We need to determine whether the purportedly later, borrowing text—in our case the Sea account of Exod 14–15— exhibits wide lines of commonality with the literature of the culture of the earlier, Egyptian text. At the outset of this essay, I noted that the mixing of prose and inset poetry, and the victory hymn were common Egyptian rhetorical devices and that they are absent in Canaanite literature. I noted also that the depiction of the “mighty arm” of the hero king was a distinctly Egyptian motif, especially in New Kingdom writings. To provide a deeper context, however, I note two aspects of the Song of the Sea that resonate with New Kingdom inscriptions more generally. A common topos of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Dynasty military inscriptions is the claim that the pharaoh causes the enemy troops to cease all of their boasting. Thus, in a typical line, the Seti I Karnak War Scene reads, “He causes the princes of Syria to cease all of the boasting of their mouths.” 50 The concern with silencing the enemy’s boasting is distinctly Egyptian and is not found in any other cognate military literature. Note that the Song does not depict the movements or actions of the Egyptians. It records only their boasting (Exod 15:8–9): “The enemy said, ‘I will pursue! I will overtake! I will divide the spoil! My desire shall have its fill of them. I will bare my sword, My hand shall subdue them!’” The sea then covers them, effectively silencing their boasting. 51 As noted earlier, the Song’s depiction of the right arm of Yhwh as “shattering” and “extending” in destructive ways has a highly distinct resonance within Egyptian writings. Finally, to substantiate literary dependence, we would want to see specific elements of convergence between the two texts in addition to the narrative sequence that they share. I noted above the diminution of the enemy through the simile of chaff. We may see affinity between the Song of the Sea and the Kadesh Poem through an additional rhetorical device. Throughout the Poem, an apposition is established between the strong arm/hand of Ramesses (P8, 155, 197, 225, 236, 241–42,276, 302, 305) and the failing and weak hands/arms of the Hittites (P136, 163, 290). The Song likewise sets

50. KRI 1.7:12: d ἰ.f ḳn wrw nw Ḫr ʿbʿ nb rʿ(w).sn, translated in A. J. Spalinger, Aspects of the Military Documents of the Ancient Egyptians (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983), 56. See discussion of the trope, ibid., 55–56. 51. Note that the boasts here are a series of simple clauses, expressed in the first person, focusing upon what the boasting force seeks to achieve. This resonates with the only voiced boast that we find in the Egyptian record. An inscription of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu describes the boasting of the Libyan enemies in similar terms: “Their warriors relied upon their plan, coming with confident hearts: ‘We will advance ourselves!’ The counsels within their bodies were: ‘We will achieve!’” (KRI 5.22:12–13 [RITA 5.20]).

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up an apposition between Yhwh’s mighty arm (14:31, 15:6 [2×], 16) and the failed Egyptian “hand” of the boast of 15:9. Many scholars see within the Song of the Sea a transformation of Semitic mythic motifs. 52 And, as I noted at the outset, many terms from the mythic lexicon appear in the Song. Yet, on many other levels, we may see how the Kadesh Poem is much closer to the Song than is the Baal Epic. The Baal epic is poetry. The Exodus Sea account, like the Kadesh Poem, is a narrative with inset poetry. The Baal cycle is set in primordial time. It is timeless and cyclical. The Sea account, like the Kadesh Poem, claims to tell of a specific historical event, recorded in human time. The Baal epic addresses the salvation of the world. The Sea account, like the Kadesh Poem, speaks of the salvation of a specific group of people by its king. Within the Sea account, the Sea is no longer the cosmic ocean but a specific body of water. It is Yhwh’s tool, not a personalized adversary. 53 In these respects, the Kadesh Poem more closely resembles the Exodus Sea account than does the West Semitic Baal cycle. Finally, to determine literary dependence we need to understand the later writer’s literary strategy in working with the earlier composition. Whenever a writer borrows from another text, there is, perforce, a process both of adoption and of adaptation. There is material that the later author borrows or adapts but also material that the author rejects or ignores. Having highlighted what is common between the Sea account of Exod 14–15 and the Kadesh Poem, I would like now to survey the Poem as a whole to determine what parts or aspects of it the author of Exod 14–15 has left out, with an eye toward identifying his strategy of adoption and adaptation (see table 1). Note that in the Poem battle scenes are described across three separate days, here listed as elements e-f, h, and l. The Exodus account has no need of three separate days of battle and has condensed and conflated the three scenes into a single battle episode in Exod 14. The Exodus account incorporates and adapts the valorous deeds of Ramesses alone. The aim of the account, it seems, is to depict Yhwh as the equal of or even greater than the great Ramesses himself. Material that does not accord with this agenda is omitted. The Exodus account, therefore, incorporates no material from the extensive rebukes that Ramesses issued his troops (elements g and k). The Exodus account has little interest in Ramesses’s extensive petition to Amun (element c) or in the petition of the Hittite king for peaceful surrender (element m). The Exodus account, however, displays intense interest 52. Peter C. Craigie, Ugarit and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 66; Thomas B. Dozeman, “The Song of the Sea and Salvation History,” in On the Way to Nineveh: Studies in Honor of George M. Landes (ed. Stephen L. Cook and S. C. Winter; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 94; M. S. Smith, The Early History of God, 41–79; Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 112–44. 53. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 560.

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Table 1.  Schematic Comparison of the Kadesh Poem and the Exodus Sea Account The Kadesh Poem Lines

Event

The Exodus Sea Account Verses

Event

a

1–24

List of king’s attributes

Exodus

—

b

25–91

March to Kadesh and attack of the Hittites

13:17– 14:10

March through desert and attack of the Egyptians

c

92–124

Petition to Amun

14:10

Petition to Yhwh

d

125–127 Amun promises salvation

14:15–17

Yhwh promises salvation

e

128–142 Ramesses’s first attack; Hittites drown

14:23–28

Yhwh attacks, Egyptians drown

f

143–165 Hittites recognize power of Seth and Baal and try to flee

14:25–27

Egyptians recognize Yhwh and try to flee

g

166– 203

Ramesses rebukes his troops

—

h

205– 223

Ramesses’s second attack

—

i

224– 237

Troops survey corpses and revere king

14:30–31

Israelites survey corpses and revere Yhwh

j

238– 250

Troops sing praise

15:1–19

Israelites sing Song of the Sea

k

251–276 Ramesses rebukes his troops

l

277– 294

m

295–331 Hittite king sues for peaceful surrender

n

332–343 March to homeland, residence in palace, eternal rule

Ramesses’s third attack— with fire at dawn; Hittites recognize Sekhmet, try to flee

— 14:24–27

Yhwh attacks at dawn with fire; Egyptians recognize Yhwh, try to flee —

15:13–18

Yhwh leads Israel to homeland, builds temple, is granted eternal rule

in the reverence expressed by the pharaoh’s troops for his act of salvation, and in the hymn they sing to him in praise (elements i and j). These are the sections most closely paralleled in the Exodus Sea account. 54 54. The invocation of the Poem within Exodus, by my reading, is exhibited not only in the Song of the Sea but in much of Exod 14 as well. This literary “brace” bridging Exod 14 and Exod 15 bears implications for the compositional history of these chapters. The issue, however, extends beyond the scope of the current study.

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4.  The Transmission of the Kadesh Poem: A Hypothesis If indeed, the Exodus Sea account was composed with an awareness of the Kadesh Poem, when could the Poem have been introduced into Israelite culture? It is tempting to suggest that this could have happened during periods of amicable relations between Judah and Egypt, perhaps during the reign of Solomon or of Hezekiah. However, the likelihood of this is slim. The latest copies of the Kadesh Poem in our possession are from the Nineteenth Dynasty. There are no explicit references to the Poem in later Egyptian literature nor any clear attempts to imitate it. To posit that Egyptian scribes brought the Poem to Judah some three or five centuries later seems improbable. There is much speculation that the wisdom composition of Amenemope reached Judah at some point. 55 However, there is no epigraphic evidence that any historical inscriptions known to us from Iron Age Egypt ever reached Judah—not even in hieratic, let alone in translation. Moreover, had the Poem somehow reached Judah during a period of amicable relations, it is difficult to comprehend why an Israelite scribe would pen an explicitly anti-Egyptian composition during a period of strong bonds between the two states. Let us, instead, examine the epigraphic evidence at hand concerning the diffusion of the Kadesh Poem. As we noted earlier, following Hans Goedicke, “The battle of Kadesh is without question the most extensively advertised event of ancient Near Eastern history.” 56 In addition to the eight copies found carved on the monumental structures at Thebes, two hieratic versions survive: P. Sallier III and P. Chester Beatty III. The latter was found in the workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina, located in the Valley of the Kings. Several scholars have surmised that the existence of these hieratic copies suggests that they were published widely and were probably used for public celebration and cult of the king—for the sort of adoration of the king demanded by the Loyalist Instruction. They encapsulated an ideological statement of the relationship between king and god and a political statement of the king’s superior fitness for authority over his army and advisers. 57 Anthony Spalinger notes that the hieratic texts of the stories of 55. Nili Shupak, “The Instruction of Amenemope and Proverbs 22:17–24:22 from the Perspective of Contemporary Research,” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients : Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. R. L. Troxel et al; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 203–20. 56. See n. 19. 57. Christopher Eyre, “Is Historical Literature ‘Political’ or ‘Literary?’” in Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms (ed. Antonio Loprieno; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 427; Thomas von der Way, Die Textüberlieferung Ramses’ II. zur Qadeš-Schlacht, Analyse und Struktur (HÄB 22; Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1984), 39–43; I. Shirun-Grumach, “Kadesh Inscriptions and Königsnovelle,” in Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists: Cambridge, 3–9 September 1995 (ed. C. J. Eyre; Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 1067; Anthony J. Spalinger, The Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative: P. Sallier III and

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the taking of Joppa and the fragment of Thutmose III in Asia suggest an interest in war deeds at this time and thus “outside of wall-texts and stelae, the military deeds of the Pharaohs appear to have been staples of the belleslettres of the day.” 58 The Kadesh Poem, he suggests, belongs to the literary corpus that includes love poems, stories, miscellanies, and other classical pieces that were appreciated in the Ramesside period. 59 The fragment of the Poem preserved in P. Chester Beatty III was found in the family archive of Ḳenḥikhopshef, the scribe of the necropolis at Deir el-Medina, which includes miscellanies, the myth of Horus and Seth, love poems, and fragments from the Satire on the Trades. This suggests that this was the type of material that might have been read in the Nineteenth Dynasty by intelligent and well-educated villagers. 60 Boyo Ockinga surmises that, in addition to the temples that have inscriptions, there is little doubt that other great temples in the land would also have been decorated with the same subject, in particular those in Memphis and in the administrative capital of the country at the time, Pi-Ramesses in the eastern Delta. The fact that P. Sallier III was found at a northern site supports this hypothesis. 61 The monumental inscriptions all appear on the outer walls of their respective temples and in five cases include bas-reliefs. Some scholars maintain that the combining of text and visual image offers a wide range of accessibility, from those who could only enjoy the reliefs to those who would recognize cartouches, divine images, or epithets through to those able to read the complete text. 62 It is unclear, however, what range of individuals may have had access to these hallowed precincts. Finally, I note that during the Nineteenth Dynasty we find a vast increase in the remains of Egyptian buildings, civil and military, within Canaan. We have found more inscriptions and statuary surviving from this era than from all previous Egyptian dynasties combined. 63 In light of the survey above, we the Battle of Kadesh (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002), 329; Donald B. Redford, Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals and Day-Books (SSEA Publication 4; Mississuaga, ON: Benben, 1986), 51–54 58. Spalinger, The Transformation of an Ancient Egyptian Narrative, 348. 59. Ibid., 353. 60. Andrea McDowell, “Awareness of the Past in Deir El-Medina,” in Village Voices: Proceedings of the Symposium “Texts from Deir El-Medîna and Their Interpretation,” Leiden, May 31–June 1, 1991 (ed. R. Johannes Demarée and Arno Egberts; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 96. 61. Boyo Ockinga, “On the Interpretation of the Kadesh Record,” Chronique d’Egypte 62 (1987): 38. 62. Peter der Manuelian, “Semi-Literacy in Egypt: Some Erasures from the Amarna Period,” in Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente (ed. Emily Teeter and John Larson; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 285–94; Lynn Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 9, 129. 63. See Alan Millard, “Ramesses Was Here . . . and Others, Too!” in Ramesside Studies in Honour of K. A. Kitchen (ed. M. Collier and S. Snape; Bolton: Rutherford, 2011), 305–12.

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should not dismiss the possibility that the Poem may have reached Israelite or proto-Israelite scribes who were living under the rule of the Egyptian pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Such a hypothesis would accord with the well-accepted claims that the language and poetic style of the Song strongly resemble those of Canaanite poetry from the Late Bronze Age as well. 64 As is so often the case, however, the archaeological and epigraphic record at our disposal is highly incomplete, and hence, speculation about cultural transmission perforce must remain contingent. 64. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 112–44; C. L. Meyers, Exodus, 110.

Chapter 7

The Literary Unity of the Exodus Narrative Gary A. Rendsburg Rutgers University

Most modern biblical scholars remain wedded to the classic Documentary Hypothesis, which seeks to explain the so-called duplications and contradictions in the Torah by assigning different portions to different authors or schools. There is no doubt that this approach works well regarding the legal-cultic material, for quite obviously the Priestly material spanning Exod 25–Num 10 (P) stands in stark contradistinction to the presentation in the book of Deuteronomy (D). 1 When we turn our eye to narrative prose within the Pentateuch, however, we must acknowledge that the literary approach to the Bible, which began in the 1970s and continues to the present day, offers a major challenge to those who would divide the narratives into three separate sources: Yahwist ( J), Elohist (E), and Priestly (P). Robert Alter has written about this most eloquently, 2 and I have contributed to the topic as well with my monograph on the book of Genesis. 3 The present essay is devoted to the Exodus narrative, comprising chaps. 1–14, though with most of our attention dedicated to the plagues narrative in chaps. 7–12. In line with earlier studies, I plan to demonstrate that the 1. However, I reject the regnant view, which dates D to the late 7th century BCE (reign of Josiah, to be more specific) and P to the 6th or 5th century BCE (the Exile or beyond). I prefer to see both sources as coeval approaches during the First Temple Period (without pinning a particular century to either), in much the same way that the Pharisee and Sadducee approaches coexisted at the end of the Second Temple period. 2. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 131–54 (the chapter entitled “Composite Artistry”) = idem, The Art of Biblical Narrative (updated and rev. ed.; New York: Basic Books, 2011), 163–92. At a distance of three-plus decades, Alter has qualified his earlier position (see p. xi of the 2011 edition), though the argument remains basically the same. At least some of the impetus for this shift derives from conversations with his colleague Ronald Hendel (oral communication), who remains committed to the JEDP Theory. 3. Gary A. Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1986; reprint, with a new foreword, 2014).

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literary reading of this material yields a narrative unity for this section of the Torah. I will present different approaches that, to my mind, converge to prove the point. In arguing against the division of Exod 1–14 into J, E, and P sources, I will use as my interlocutors two majors devotees of the Documentary Hypothesis: one classic commentator and leading Hebraist of his day, S. R. Driver; and one contemporary scholar who has addressed both scholarly and general audiences on the matter, Richard Elliott Friedman. As we shall see, these two scholars differ in their assignment of selected passages to the individual sources—in particular the non-P material within the plagues narrative. This is true of source critics generally, though to keep the argumentation simple, I will cite only Driver and Friedman below, without incorporating into the picture the opinions of others either past or present. 4

The Plagues as Pairs As others have noted previously, 5 the ten plagues may be seen as five pairs of plagues, with each member of the pair corresponding to its mate. In chart form: 1. Blood 2. Frogs

3. Lice 4. Insect Swarms

5. Pestilence 6. Boils

7. Hail   9. Darkness 8. Locusts 10. Firstborn

The first two plagues are connected to the Nile River; the third and fourth plagues are both insects; 6 the third pair comprises different diseases; each member of the fourth pair is a calamity that originates in the sky and that devours crops; and finally, the last two plagues are connected by darkness, with number nine being darkness itself during the daytime and number ten occurring at midnight. If the arrangement of the plagues were due to the haphazard compilation of three different sources, one would not expect this pattern to obtain. As intimated above, devotees of the J-E-P division do not agree on the assignment of the individual plagues. In Driver’s view, the ten plagues are mainly J and P, with some E; while Friedman opines that the plagues are chiefly E and P, with some R (that is, the Redactor). 7 And while this point 4. Though one other contemporary scholar who deserves mention here is Joel Baden, with two books on the subject: J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch (FAT, 68; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009); and The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). We will have occasion to cite the former work on several occasions below. In addition, see below, n. 9 for reference to Martin Noth, as channeled through Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien. 5. See Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967), 93. 6. On the identity of the fourth plague, see Gary A. Rendsburg, “Beasts or Bugs? Solving the Problem of the Fourth Plague,” BR 19 (April 2003): 18–23. 7. S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1913), 24–28. See also the convenient chart based on Driver’s analysis in Moshe

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115

by itself does not represent sufficient cause to upset the entire J-E-P apple cart, it nevertheless raises an eyebrow: if the source critics themselves cannot agree on the basic elements, then perhaps an entirely new approach is worth consideration. In this particular case, it is worth considering how the source division would work with the design noted above. Driver’s analysis yields the following: 1. Blood ( J) 3. Lice (P) 5. Pestilence ( J) 7. Hail ( J)   9. Darkness (E) 2. Frogs ( J) 4. Insect Swarm ( J) 6. Boils (P) 8. Locusts ( J) 10. Firstborn ( J) 8

Note that only the first and fourth pairs of plagues stem from the same voice, with the other pairs crossing the traditional source boundaries. Friedman’s analysis looks like this: 1. Blood (E) 3. Lice (P) 5. Pestilence (E) 7. Hail (E)   9. Darkness (E) 2. Frogs (E) 4. Insect Swarm (E) 6. Boils (P) 8. Locusts (E) 10. Firstborn (E)

In this scenario, three pairs of plagues (first, fourth, and fifth) derive from the same source, though the other two pairs divide. In addition, these two charts allow one to see the point made above: Driver assigned most of the non-P material to J (the exception is the plague of darkness, attributed to E); while Friedman assigns all of the non-P material to E. 9

The Plagues as Triads A second pattern is visible in the plagues narrative, one that divides the first nine plagues into three sets of three each, 10 with the tenth plague Greenberg and S. David Sperling, “Exodus, Book of,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.; Detroit: Macmillan, 2007), 6.619. Richard E. Friedman, The Bible with Sources Revealed (San Francisco: Harper, 2003), 130–40, with extensive discussion in two notes on preceding pages, 125 n. ** (to be quoted below), and 126 n. *. As pointed out by Baden (J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, 273–74), there has been a general trend among J-E-P theorists in recent years to see only two sources in the plagues narrative, in contrast to earlier scholars, such as Driver, who identified three sources. 8. Both here and below, when I refer to the tenth plague, concerning the death of the firstborn, I intend both the prediction of the plague in 11:1–8 and the event itself in 12:29–30. 9. Note that a standard work on the subject, Antony F. Campbell and Mark  A. O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), presents the source division according to Martin Noth, which in turn is quite close to that of S. R. Driver, except for the fact that Driver countenanced E material in the plagues narrative, which Noth denied. The reader can access Noth’s system in one of two ways: (a) in chart form in Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. Bernhard W. Anderson; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 268–69 (within the section entitled “Translator’s Supplement: Analytical Outline of the Pentateuch,” not included in the German original); and (b)  in narrative form in Campbell and O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch, 38–39 (for P), 136–42 (for J). 10. This arrangement was noted already by both Rashbam (1085–1158) and Abarbanel (1437–1508). See also Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 93; and Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus (New York: Schocken, 1986), 76–77.

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standing outside this configuration as the climactic event. The defining feature in this design is whether or not Pharaoh is forewarned of each impending plague, and if he is forewarned, when, where, and how is the warning expressed. In the first member of each triad, Moses is to position himself before Pharaoh in the morning; in the second member of each triad, the warning is a general one, without a specific time and position indicated; and in the third member of each triad, no warning is given. Hence, we read as follows: 11 1.  Exod 7:15 ‫ַּטה‬ ֶ ‫ל ְֵך אֶל־ּפ ְַרעֹה ּבַּבֹקֶר ִהּנֵה יֹצֵא ַה ַּמ ְימָה ְו ִנּצ ְַב ָּת ִל ְקרָאתֹו עַל־ׂשפַת ַהיְאֹר ְו ַהּמ‬ ‫ֶהּפ ְַך ְלנָחָׁש ִּתּקַ ח ְּביָדֶךָ׃‬ ְ ‫ֲׁשר־נ‬ ֶ‫א‬ Go to Pharaoh in the morning—behold, he (will be) coming out to the water—and you shall position (yourself ) to greet him at the edge of the Nile; and the staff that turned into a snake, you shall take in your hand. 2.  Exod 7:26 ‫ׁשה ּבֹא אֶל־ּפ ְַרעֹה ְו ָאמ ְַר ָּת ֵאלָיו ּכֹה ָאמַר יְהוָה ׁשַ ּלַח אֶת־ע ִַּמי‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ ‫דנִי׃‬ ֻ ‫ְויַע ְַב‬ And Yhwh said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh, and you shall say to him, ‘Thus says Yhwh: Send-forth my people, so that they may worship me.’” 3. [no warning] 4.  Exod 8:16 ‫ַׁשּכֵם ּבַּבֹקֶר ְו ִה ְתיַּצֵב ִל ְפנֵי פ ְַרעֹה ִהּנֵה יֹוצֵא ַה ָּמ ְימָה ְו ָאמ ְַר ָּת‬ ְ ‫ׁשה ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ ‫דנִי׃‬ ֻ ‫ֵאלָיו ּכֹה ָאמַר יְהוָה ׁשַ ּלַח ע ִַּמי ְויַע ְַב‬ And Yhwh said to Moses, “Arise-early in the morning and position yourself before Pharaoh—behold he (will be) coming out to the water—and you shall say to him, ‘Thus says Yhwh: Send-forth my people, so that they may worship me.’” 5.  Exod 9:1 ‫ָע ְבִרים‬ ִ ‫ׁשה ּבֹא אֶל־ּפ ְַרעֹה ְו ִדּב ְַר ָּת ֵאלָיו ּכֹה־ ָאמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ ‫דנִי׃‬ ֻ ‫ׁשַ ּלַח אֶת־ע ִַּמי ְויַע ְַב‬ And Yhwh said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh, and you shall speak 11. Verse numbers here and throughout the article follow the Hebrew tradition. English verse numbers differ in chaps. 7–8 especially. Note that MT 7:26–29 = Eng. 8:1–4, so that MT 8:1–28 = Eng. 8:5–32.

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to him, ‘Thus says Yhwh the God of the Hebrews: Send-forth my people, so that they may worship me.’” 6. [no warning] 7.  Exod 9:13 ‫ַׁשּכֵם ּבַּבֹקֶר ְו ִה ְתיַּצֵב ִל ְפנֵי פ ְַרעֹה ְו ָאמ ְַר ָּת ֵאלָיו ּכֹה־ ָאמַר‬ ְ ‫ׁשה ה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ ‫דנִי׃‬ ֻ ‫ָע ְבִרים ׁשַ ּלַח אֶת־ע ִַּמי ְויַע ְַב‬ ִ ‫יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי ה‬ And Yhwh said to Moses, “Arise-early in the morning and position yourself before Pharaoh; and you shall say to him, ‘Thus says Yhwh the God of the Hebrews: Send-forth my people, so that they may worship me.’” 8.  Exod 10:1 ‫ָדיו‬ ָ ‫ֶת־לּבֹו ְואֶת־לֵב עֲב‬ ִ ‫אנִי ִה ְכּב ְַד ִּתי א‬ ֲ ‫ׁשה ּבֹא אֶל־ּפ ְַרעֹה ִּכי־‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ ‫ׁש ִתי אֹתֹתַ י ֵאּלֶה ְּב ִק ְרּבֹו׃‬ ִ ‫ְל ַמעַן‬ And Yhwh said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh, for I have made-heavy his heart, and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these my signs in their midst.” 9. [no warning] Now, it is true that, according to the classic source division, plagues 1–2 / 4–5 / 7–8 (that is, those with warnings) are assigned to the same source ( J by Driver; E by Friedman), which means that the pattern just noted could be dovetailed with the Documentary Hypothesis. But the design breaks down when we consider plagues 3 / 6 / 9—that is, plagues without warning. For, according to the source critics, while the third and sixth plagues are assigned to P (so far, so good), the ninth plague is allocated by Driver mainly to E, with some J verses, and by Friedman to E wholly (oops).

Number of Verses for Each Plague Scott Noegel observed yet another pattern among the ten plagues 12— namely, the manner in which the number of verses devoted to each plague, especially when divided into the three triads, increases, with particular attention to the seventh plague: 1. 11 4. 13 7. 23 2. 16 5. 7 8. 20 10.  10+(28)+14 3. 4 6. 5 9. 9 31 25 52

12. Scott Noegel, “The Significance of the Seventh Plague,” Bib 76 (1995): 532–39.

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One must admit that the pattern is not perfect, for the first triad comprises 31 verses, the second one 25 verses, and third one 52 verses. If the pattern were perfect, one would expect fewer verses accorded to plague two than to plague five, but such is not the case, as the chart indicates. The reason for this is that the second plague includes two factors: (a) the ability of the Egyptian magicians to produce frogs as well (see also plague one); and (b) the give-and-take between Pharaoh and Moses as the former bids the latter to remove the pesky amphibians from his realm. That aside, however, we note the growth in narrative bulk from plague one to plague four to plague seven (each at the head of the triad), and from plague three to plague six to plague nine (each at the end of the triad). In addition, among the three corresponding pericopes at the center of each triad, clearly more space is devoted to plague eight than is dedicated to plagues two and five. The result is that the plagues build in narrative size as one progresses through the long account. This, in turn, follows the growth in the nature of the plagues, which commence with nuisances (blood, frogs, lice, insects), then shift to diseases (boils, cattle pestilence), and finally progress to major calamities (crop-destroying locusts and hail, severe sandstorm, 13 death of the firstborn). As such, we may consider the plagues narrative as an instance of “form following content.” 14 Noegel’s more specific contribution to the picture is the especial nature accorded to the seventh plague. Note the following points, summarized here in succinct fashion: • 9:13–19—the longest divine speech in the plagues account. • 9:14—upgrade in the warning: ‫אנִי ׁשֹל ֵַח אֶת־ּכָל־ ַמּגֵפֹתַ י אֶל־‬ ֲ ‫ִּכי ׀ ַּב ַּפעַם הַּזֹאת‬ ָ‫ל ְּבך‬, ִ “for this time I am sending all my plagues unto your heart.” • 9:14—new declaration: ‫ ַּבעֲבּור ּתֵ דַ ע ִּכי אֵין ּכָמֹנִי ְּבכָל־ ָה ָארֶץ׃‬, “so that you will know that there is none like me in all the earth.” 15 • 9:16—explanation given: ‫ְואּולָם ַּבעֲבּור זֹאת ֶהעֱמ ְַד ִּתיךָ ַּבעֲבּור ה ְַרא ְֹתךָ אֶת־‬ ‫ׁש ִמי ְּבכָל־ ָה ָארֶץ׃‬ ְ ‫ּול ַמעַן ַסּפֵר‬ ְ ‫ּכ ִֹחי‬, “Indeed, it is for this (reason) that I have caused you to stand, to show you my power, and in order that my name shall resound in all the land.” • 9:27—first time Pharaoh repents: ‫אנִי ְוע ִַּמי‬ ֲ ‫ָאתי ַה ָּפעַם יְהוָה ַהּצ ִַּדיק ַו‬ ִ ‫ָחט‬ ‫ׁש ִעים׃‬ ָ ‫ָר‬ ְ ‫ה‬, “I have sinned this time; Yhwh is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.”

13. This is the prime candidate for the plague of “darkness.” One may recall the very vivid portrayal of an Egyptian sandstorm in the film The English Patient (1986), though the novel by Michael Ondaatje places less emphasis on this scene. 14. For further instances, see my article “How Could a Torah Scroll Have Included the Word ‫ ”?זעטוטי‬Textus: Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project (forthcoming). 15. See earlier Exod 8:6: ‫ל ַמעַן ּתֵ דַ ע ִּכי־אֵין ּכַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינּו‬, ְ “so that you will know that there is none like Yhwh our God.”

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119

• 9:28—Pharaoh allows the people to leave: ‫ֶתכֶם ְולֹא ת ִֹספּון‬ ְ ‫ַואֲׁשַ ְּלחָה א‬ ‫ ַלעֲמֹד׃‬, “so that I may send you forth, and you need not stand any longer.” • 9:34—upgrade: ‫ָדיו׃‬ ָ ‫ ַוּי ְַכּבֵד ִלּבֹו הּוא ַועֲב‬, “and he hardened his heart, his and that of his servants.” As seen in other instances in the Bible, in a list of ten items, a special role is conferred upon the items in positions seven and ten. Note the following: 16 • • • •

Gen 5 Ruth 4 Gen 15 Exod 7–12

Enoch (7)—Noah (10) Boaz (7)—David (10) Amorites (7)—Jebusites (10) hail (7)—death of the firstborn (10)

This will explain the special quality to the narration of plague seven (9:13– 35), both in size (the longest at 23 verses) and in content (see the seven bullet points above). Now, once more, if one were to follow the Documentary Hypothesis, in any of its varieties, none of what we have stated in this section would apply. As noted above, Driver assigned most of the plagues to J but plagues three and six to P; while Friedman allots most of the plagues to E, but once more, numbers three and six to P, which means that the non-P tradition, in either case, would comprise only eight plagues (with no lice and no boils), so that the scheme with pride of place given to numbers seven and ten would play no role whatsoever in the original sources. Now, it is of course possible that the three patterns presented here— the plagues as pairs, the plagues as triads, and the use of the 7/10 scheme to highlight two specific catastrophes—are the work of a redactor who combined the hypothetical sources into a unitary whole. But if this were the case, would it not be easier simply to speak of the grand narrative as the product of a single author with planned literary design? Why go to the trouble to subdivide the narrative into theoretical component parts? The Exodus narrative, after all, is an actual literary artifice; the hypothesized sources are only that: hypothetical, with no proven reality.

The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart We next turn to the different verbs used to express the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart within the Exodus narrative (including three instances from before the start of the plagues segment). The three verbs are as follows: 16. The first example was identified by both Benno Jacob and Umberto Cassuto; the second one by both Bezalel Porten and Jack Sasson; and the third one by me, “Notes of Genesis XV,” VT 42 (1992): 268–70. For the references to Jacob, Cassuto, Porten, and Sasson, see my article, pp. 271–72 nn. 20–21. The fourth item on this list, of course, is at the center of Noegel’s “Significance of the Seventh Plague.”

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‫ חזק‬ḥzq, “strong / strengthen” ‫ קשׁה‬qšh, “harden” ‫ כבד‬kbd, “heavy, make-heavy” occurring in the following litany of verses: Exod 4:21 (en route from Midian to Egypt) ‫ׂשּלַח אֶת־ ָהעָם׃‬ ַׁ ‫ֶת־לּבֹו ְולֹא ְי‬ ִ ‫א ַחּזֵק א‬ ֲ ‫אנִי‬ ֲ ‫ַו‬ And I will strengthen his heart, and he will not send-forth the people. Exod 7:3 (before staff-to-crocodile trick) And I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.

‫ׁשה אֶת־לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה‬ ֶ ‫אנִי א ְַק‬ ֲ ‫ַו‬

Exod 7:13 (after staff-to-crocodile trick) ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה׃‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫ׁשמַע‬ ָ ‫חז ַק לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְולֹא‬ ֱ ֶ‫ַוּי‬ And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken. Exod 7:14 (introduction to plague no. 1) ‫ׁשה ָּכבֵד לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ֵמאֵן ְלׁשַ ּלַח ָהעָם׃‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ And Yhwh said to Moses, “The heart of Pharaoh is heavy; he refuses to send-forth the people.” Exod 7:22 (after plague no. 1) ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה׃‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫א־ׁשמַע‬ ָ ֹ ‫ַוּיֶחֱז ַק לֵב־ּפ ְַרעֹה ְול‬ And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken. Exod 8:11 (after plague no. 2) ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה׃‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫ׁשמַע‬ ָ ‫ֶת־לּבֹו ְולֹא‬ ִ ‫ְוה ְַכּבֵד א‬ And he made-heavy his heart / and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken. Exod 8:15 (after plague no. 3) ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה׃‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫א־ׁשמַע‬ ָ ֹ ‫ַוּיֶחֱז ַק לֵב־ּפ ְַרעֹה ְול‬ And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken. Exod 8:28 (after plague no. 4) ‫ׁשּלַח אֶת־ ָהעָם׃‬ ִ ‫ֶת־לּבֹו ּגַם ַּב ַּפעַם הַּזֹאת ְולֹא‬ ִ ‫‑ ַוּי ְַכּבֵד ּפ ְַרעֹה א‬ And Pharaoh made-heavy his heart also this time, and he did not send-forth the people. Exod 9:7 (after plague no. 5) ‫ׁשּלַח אֶת־ ָהעָם׃‬ ִ ‫ִכּבַד לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְולֹא‬ ְ ‫ַוּי‬

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121

And the heart of Pharaoh was heavy, and he did not send-forth the people. Exod 9:12 (after plague no. 6) ‫ׁשה׃‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מ‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫ׁשמַע‬ ָ ‫ַו ְי ַחּזֵק יְהוָה אֶת־לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְולֹא‬ And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken to Moses. Exod 9:34 (after plague no. 7) ‫ָדיו׃‬ ָ ‫ַוּי ְַכּבֵד ִלּבֹו הּוא ַועֲב‬ And he made-heavy his heart, he and his servants. Exod 9:35 (after plague no. 7) ‫ׁשה׃‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה ְּבי ַד־מ‬ ֶ ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ַּכא‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי י‬ ְ ‫ׁשּלַח א‬ ִ ‫חז ַק לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְולֹא‬ ֱ ֶ‫ַוּי‬ And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not send-forth the children of Israel, as Yhwh had spoken via the hand of Moses. Exod 10:1 (introduction to plague no. 8) ‫ׁש ִתי אֹתֹתַ י ֵאּלֶה ְּב ִק ְרּבֹו׃‬ ִ ‫ָדיו ְל ַמעַן‬ ָ ‫ֶת־לּבֹו ְואֶת־לֵב עֲב‬ ִ ‫אנִי ִה ְכּב ְַד ִּתי א‬ ֲ ‫ִּכי־‬ For I have made-heavy his heart, and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these my signs in their midst. Exod 10:20 (after plague no. 8) ‫ִׂש ָראֵל׃‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי י‬ ְ ‫ׁשּלַח א‬ ִ ‫ַו ְי ַחּזֵק יְהוָה אֶת־לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְולֹא‬ And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not sendforth the children of Israel. Exod 10:27 (after plague no. 9) ‫ַו ְי ַחּזֵק יְהוָה אֶת־לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְולֹא ָאבָה ְלׁשַ ְּלחָם׃‬ And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not consent to send-forth them. Exod 11:10 (after warning to plague no. 10) ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ֵמא ְַרצֹו׃‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי־י‬ ְ ‫א־ׁשּלַח א‬ ִ ֹ ‫ַו ְי ַחּזֵק יְהוָה אֶת־לֵב ּפ ְַרעֹה ְול‬ And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not sendforth the children of Israel from his land. According to the source-critical approach, the different verbs serve to distinguish the hypothesized sources. In his day, Driver assigned the different verbs to different sources, as follows: 17 ‫ חזק‬ḥzq, “strong / strengthen”—P and E ‫ קשׁה‬qšh, “harden”—P (only 7:3) ‫ כבד‬kbd, “heavy, make-heavy”—J 17. Driver, Introduction to the Old Testament, 25, 26, 28 (for the individual comments re P, J, and E, respectively).

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In general, this pattern holds up, though not without some difficulties. For example, why does P elect to use ‫ חזק‬ḥzq, “strong/strengthen,” throughout (Exod 7:13, 22; 8:15; 9:12; 11:10) but ‫ קשׁה‬qšh, “harden,” in the one passage, at 7:3? Then there is the fact that both P and E use the verb ‫ חזק‬ḥzq, “strong/ strengthen,” which thus requires a second set of criteria to disentangle these two presumed sources. This is accomplished by observing that P “usually” 18 includes the statement ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫ׁשמַע‬ ָ ‫ולֹא‬,ְ “and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken” (7:13, 22; 8:15; 9:12—in the last of these, the phrase ‫ׁשה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫אֶל־מ‬, “to Moses,” is appended), whereas E uses a different formula, to wit, 9:35, ‫ׁשה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ֲׁשר ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה ְּבי ַד־מ‬ ֶ ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ַּכא‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי י‬ ְ ‫ׁשּלַח א‬ ִ ‫ולֹא‬,ְ “and he did not send-forth the children of Israel, as Yhwh had spoken via the hand of Moses”; 10:20, ‫ִׂש ָראֵל‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי י‬ ְ ‫ׁשּלַח א‬ ִ ‫ולֹא‬,ְ “and he did not send-forth the children of Israel.” 19 But then this pattern breaks down in the last two statements of the plagues narrative, for in 10:27, presumed-E writes ‫ולֹא ָאבָה ְלׁשַ ְּלחָם‬,ְ “and he did not consent to send-forth them,” thereby introducing a variant to his formula, even if the verb šlḥ, “send-forth” (Piel), is retained; and then much more seriously, in 11:10, presumed-P uses the phrase typically employed by presumed-E, to wit, ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ֵמא ְַרצֹו‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי־י‬ ְ ‫א־ׁשּלַח א‬ ִ ֹ ‫ול‬,ְ “and he did not send-forth the children of Israel from his land,” as opposed to his own formula, “and he did not listen to them.” For my own approach to these variant phrases, see below; for now, one need only comment that the problems presented in this paragraph speak for themselves. Friedman no doubt senses some of these issues, because he seeks to resolve them, though in doing so he must tread a tortuous path. He writes at length: [4:21b] is the first occurrence of a formula used by R to organize the E and P accounts of the plagues into a united narrative, thus: The E accounts of the plagues of the insect swarm and the livestock epidemic conclude, “And Pharaoh’s heart was heavy, and he did not let the people go” (8:28, 9:7). The P accounts of the plagues of lice and boils and also the P accounts of the staffs becoming serpents conclude, “And Pharaoh’s heart was strong, and he did not listen to them—as Yhwh had spoken” (7:13, 8:15, 9:12). The plague of blood is both E and P, and it concludes with the P formulation: “And Pharaoh’s heart was heavy, and he did not let the people go.” The plague of frogs is also combined E and P, and it ends in 8:11 both with part of the E conclusion (“he made his heart heavy”) and with part of the P conclusion (“he did not listen to them—as Yhwh had spoken”). It is not surprising that P accounts have the P conclusion, E accounts have the E conclusion, and combined accounts have either a P or a combined conclu18. Ibid., 28. 19. Ibid., 28.

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123

sion. But then the E plague of hail has what has been the P conclusion, “And Pharaoh’s heart was strong, and he did not let the children of Israel go—as Yhwh had spoken” (9:35). Then the E plagues of locusts and darkness also conclude with a P formula (10:20, 27), and the final meeting between Moses and Pharaoh that ensues is likewise an E text followed by a P conclusion. It appears that the Redactor has combined the P and the E accounts of the plagues and has united them by drawing on the P formula and distributing it through the combined version. This is confirmed by the fact that the formula also appears here in 4:21b. It is awkward in this context, and again it is a formula derived from P in the middle of an E text. To help us better understand Friedman’s approach, it may be helpful to chart the afore-cited Exodus passages (this time in English translation only), with Friedman’s source-assignment noted in each instance. 4:21 (en route from Midian to Egypt), “And I will strengthen his heart, and he will not send-forth the people.” (R, as single verse in the midst of E) 20 7:3 (before staff-to-crocodile trick), “And I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.” (P at start of P account) 7:13 (after staff-to-crocodile trick), “And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken.” (P at end of P account) 7:14 (introduction to plague no. 1), “And Yhwh said to Moses, ‘The heart of Pharaoh is heavy, he refuses to send-forth the people.’” (E at start of E account) 7:22 (after plague no. 1), “And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken.” (P within interwoven E and P accounts) 8:11 (after plague no. 2), “And he made-heavy his heart / and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken.” (E at end of E account / R in second half of verse) 8:15 (after plague no. 3), “And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken.” (P at end of P account) 8:28 (after plague no. 4), “And Pharaoh made-heavy his heart also this time, and he did not send-forth the people.” (E at end of E account) 9:7 (after plague no. 5), “And the heart of Pharaoh was heavy, and he did not send-forth the people.” (E at end of E account) 20. On the issues surrounding this verse, see also Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, 273–75.

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9:12 (after plague no. 6), “And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken to Moses.” (P at end of P account) 9:34 (after plague no. 7), “And he made-heavy his heart, he and his servants.” (E at end of E account) 9:35 (after plague no. 7), “And the heart of Pharaoh was strong, and he did not send-forth the children of Israel, as Yhwh had spoken via the hand of Moses.” (R at end of E account) 10:1 (introduction to plague no. 8), “For I have made-heavy his heart, and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these my signs in their midst.’” (E at start of E account) 10:20 (after plague no. 8), “And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not send-forth the children of Israel.” (R at end of E account) 10:27 (after plague no. 9), “And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not consent to send-forth them.” (R at end of E account) 11:10 (after warning to plague no. 10), “And Yhwh strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not send-forth the children of Israel from his land.” (R at end of E account) Which is to say, inconsistency in the employment of the key verbs and key conclusions is explained by the hand of the redactor (R). Thus, for example, the difficulties inherent in Driver’s analysis regarding 10:27 and 11:10, noted above, disappear in Friedman’s analysis, since he assumes that the redactor has leveled all apparent inconsistencies. 21 With all due respect to an important contributor to biblical studies, the only words that come to mind when I read the long quotation above are “too clever by half.” To my mind, none of these machinations is necessary, especially once we recognize the employment of the (admittedly under-recognized) literary device of repetition with variation. Throughout biblical literature, in all of its genres, the ancient Israelite literati went to great lengths to vary their language whenever possible. 22 The best way to understand the different phraseologies listed above is to posit a single author who demonstrated 21. See similarly ibid., 279–81. 22. See my two articles on the subject: “Variation in Biblical Hebrew Prose and Poetry,” in Built by Wisdom, Established by Understanding: Essays on Biblical and Near Eastern Literature in Honor of Adele Berlin (ed. Maxine L. Grossman; Bethesda, MD: University Press of Maryland, 2013), 197–226; and “Repetition with Variation in Legal-Cultic Texts of the Torah,” Marbeh Ḥokmah: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East in Loving Memory of Victor Avigdor Hurowitz (2 vols.; ed. Shamir Yona et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 1.435–64 .

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his virtuosity at every turn. Through such technical brilliance, he no doubt dazzled his audience, as they listened to the reading of the national epic narrative in ancient Israel. 23 At the same time, however, our author intentionally did not vary his language with one key phrase, to wit, the repeated clause ‫ֲׁשר‬ ֶ ‫א ֵלהֶם ַּכא‬ ֲ ‫ׁשמַע‬ ָ ‫ְולֹא‬ ‫“ ִּדּבֶר יְהוָה‬and he [Pharaoh] did not listen to them, as Yhwh had spoken” (7:13, 22; 8:11, 15; 9:12). The effect of the verbatim repetition is to reflect Pharaoh’s obstinacy. He does not change, and the language does not change— another stellar example of “form follows content.” True, in the last of the verses listed above (9:12), the text includes an additional phrase at the end, ‫ׁשה‬ ֶ ֹ ‫אֶל־מ‬, “to Moses”—hence, not quite verbatim repetition in the final instance, but we are able to explain the departure from the norm as a way of marking closure. As Aharon Mirsky demonstrated, in the last of a list of repeated, parallel, or similar expressions, ancient Hebrew style demanded a slight change; 24 to the list of examples that he provided, I would add Exod 9:12. In short, the source critics are on the wrong path altogether. None of these variations has to do with different sources; rather, they are inherent to ancient Hebrew literary style.

Leitwort (“Leading Word”) We owe the concept of the Leitwort to the research of Martin Buber into biblical literary style. 25 The term refers to a “leading word,” which appears in different episodes of a single narrative, with the goal of uniting said (sometimes disparate) episodes into a cohesive whole. The word ‫ ּבַת‬bat, “daughter” (plural ‫ ּבָנֹות‬banot, “daughters”) functions in this manner in the first two chapters of Exodus. 26 It occurs 11× in the following passages: 23. For an imagined pastoral setting of such a reading, see Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 90–91 (p. 114 in the revised and updated edition). In a more urban environment, I could imagine an audience gathered in the piazza at the city gate (the one place within the city walls with sufficient open space) for such readings. 24. Aharon Mirsky, “Stylistic Device for Conclusion in Hebrew,” Semitics 5 (1977): 9–23. I presented many more examples in my talk entitled “Marking Closure” at the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting, Amsterdam, July 2012. For brief discussion in one of my publications, see “The Two Screens: On Mary Douglas’s Proposal for a Literary Structure to the Book of Leviticus,” JSQ 15 (2008): 175–89, esp. pp. 187–88. 25. Martin Buber, “Leitwort Style in Pentateuch Narrative,” in Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation (trans. Lawrence Rosenwald with Everett Fox; Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 114–28 (based on a German lecture delivered in January 1927). A second relevant essay from the same collection is Martin Buber, “Leitwort and Discourse Type: An Example,” in ibid., 143–50 (originally written in 1935). For general orientation, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “Martin Buber’s Ways of Interpreting the Bible,” JJS 27 (1976): 195–209, even if Talmon did not mention the Leitwort technique specifically. 26. Here and throughout this article, I use a simplified method of transliteration.

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1:16 ‫ֲמ ֶּתן אֹתֹו ְו ִאם־ּבַת ִהיא ָו ָחיָה׃‬ ִ ‫ִאם־ּבֵן הּוא ַוה‬ And if it is a son, you shall kill him, and if it is a daughter (bat), she may live. 1:22 ‫ׁש ִליכֻהּו ְוכָל־ ַהּבַת ְּתחַּיּון׃‬ ְ ַ‫ּכָל־ ַהּבֵן ַהּיִּלֹוד ַהיְאֹרָה ּת‬ Every newborn son, into the Nile you shall cast him, and every daughter (bat) you shall let-live. 2:1 ְ ‫ַוּיֵל‬ ‫ֶך ִאיׁש ִמּבֵית לִֵוי ַוּיִּקַ ח אֶת־ּבַת־לִֵוי׃‬ And a man from the house (bet) of Levi went, and he took a daughter (bat) of Levi. 2:5 (see also vv. 7, 8, 9, 10) ‫וַּתֵ רֶד ּבַת־ּפ ְַרעֹה ִל ְרחֹץ עַל־ ַהיְאֹר‬ And the daughter (bat) of Pharaoh went-down to bathe at the Nile. 2:16 ‫ׁשבַע ּבָנֹות‬ ֶ ‫ּולכֹהֵן ִמ ְדיָן‬ ְ And to the priest of Midian were seven daughters (banot). 2:20 ‫ֶל־ּבנ ָֹתיו ְואַּיֹו‬ ְ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר א‬ And he said to his daughters (bənotaw), “Where is he?” 2:21 ‫ׁשה׃‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ֶת־צּפֹרָה ִבּתֹו ְלמ‬ ִ ‫ַוּיִּתֵ ן א‬ And he gave Zippora his daughter (bitto) to Moses. In addition, the author of this material used two rare words that contain the same syllable, bat, 27 in order to draw further attention to the Leitwort, as follows: 1:21 ‫ָּתים׃‬ ִ ‫ָראּו ה ְַמי ְַּלדֹת אֶת־ ָהאֱל ִֹהים ַוּיַעַׂש ָלהֶם ּב‬ ְ ‫ְהי ִּכי־י‬ ִ ‫ַוי‬

27. Though I admit that, in the first example below, the vowel of the first syllable in ‫ָּתים‬ ִ ‫ ּב‬is pronounced with a slightly different vowel in the Masoretic system (qameṣ, as opposed to pataḥ).

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And it was, when the midwives feared God, and he made for them houses (battim). 28 2:3 And she took for him a papyrus basket (tebat). 29

‫ו ִַּתּקַ ח־לֹו ּתֵ בַת ּגֹמֶא‬

Plus he used the rare phrase ‫ ּבֵית לִֵוי‬bet lewi, “house of Levi,” in Exod 2:1 (see above) to produce additional alliteration. 30 All of this bespeaks a single author weaving together his text, as the early life of Moses proceeds from episode to episode: Pharaoh’s decree > the role of the midwives > his parents’ marriage > life in the basket > saved and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter > flight to Midian > encounter with Jethro’s daughters > marriage to Zipporah. 31 As the reader will anticipate by now, the division of the text into separate sources removes this device. Not so much with Driver, who assigns all of 1:15 through 2:14 (except for 1:20b) to E, so that the Leitwort still works to some extent—though without the last episode included, since 2:15–23a is assigned to J. But this is certainly the result of Friedman’s dissection, which yields E as the author of 1:15–21 and J as the one responsible for 1:22–2:23a. In his system, the initial use of ‫ ּבַת‬bat, “daughter,” in 1:16 has no resonance through the remainder of these chapters, except for the use of the alliterative ‫ָּתים‬ ִ ‫ּב‬ battim, “houses,” in 1:21. True, the Leitwort may still operate within the J material, but without the first instance of the word in 1:16, much is lost. In fact, even more is lost with the source-critical approach to this material in Exod 1–2. The reader is supposed to apprehend the irony, namely: 28. On the meaning of this term in Exod 1:21, see Shalom M. Paul, “Exodus 1:21: ‘To Found a Family’: A Biblical and Akkadian Idiom,” Maarav 8 (1992; Let Your Colleagues Praise You: Studies in Memory of Stanley Gevirtz, part 2; ed. Robert J. Ratner et al.): 139–42; reprinted in Shalom M. Paul, Divre Shalom: Collected Studies of Shalom M. Paul on the Bible and the Ancient Near East, 1967–2005 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 177–80. 29. On the significance of this term in Exod 2:3, see the section below, “Interconnections between Exodus 1–2 and Genesis 1–9.” 30. The phrase occurs elsewhere only in Num 17:23 and Zech 12:13. The normal expressions are “tribe of Levi” (using either of the two synonyms ‫ַּטה‬ ֶ ‫[ מ‬Num 1:49; 3:6; 17:18] or ‫שׁבֶט‬ ֵ [Deut 10:8; 18:1; Josh 13:14, 33; 1 Chr 23:14]) or ‫ּבנֵי לִֵוי‬, ְ “sons of Levi” (passim, including in narrative texts [Exod 32:26; 32:28; Num 16:7, 8, 10]). 31. I have treated this material, albeit from a different angle, in an earlier essay; see my “Literary Approach to the Bible and Finding a Good Translation,” in Biblical Translation in Context (ed. Frederick W. Knobloch; Bethesda, MD: University Press of Maryland, 2002), 179–94, esp. pp. 182–84. As observed in this earlier essay, many English translations mask the repeated use of ‫ ּבַת‬bat in Exod 1–2 by rendering the key word “girl,” “woman,” “daughter,” etc., so that the Leitwort is not apprehended by English readers. As one would expect, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, Die Schrift, vol. 1: Die fünf Bücher der Weisung (originally published 1926; Gerlingen: Schneider, 1976), 154–56, rendered ‫ּבַת‬ bat consistently as Tochter, “daughter.”

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Pharaoh decreed that every “daughter” may live (1:16, 22), and indeed it is “daughters” (of Levi, of Pharaoh, and of Jethro—in addition to other females: Moses’s mother [2:2–3, 8–9], Pharaoh’s daughter’s handmaid [2:5], and Moses’s sister [2:4, 7–8]) who are responsible for the life of Moses. The story of Exod 1–14 is the “birth of a nation” (note the expression ‫עַם‬ ‫ִׂש ָראֵל‬ ְ ‫ּבנֵי י‬, ְ “the people of the children of Israel” in Exod 1:8 [ironically in the mouth of Pharaoh], used to drive home the point), and since women are the birth-givers of the world, they therefore play such a prominent role at the outset of the narrative. 32 While the source-critical approach (of either Driver or Friedman and presumably of others as well) may capture a part of this, only the holistic reading of Exod 1–2 brings this point to the fore in a major way.

Upgrade within Exodus As is well known, when God commissions Moses to be the leader of the Israelites on Mount Horeb and grants him the ability to transform his staff into a reptile, the word used in the text is ‫ נָחָשׁ‬naḥaš, “snake” (Exod 4:3). When Moses and Aaron appear before Pharaoh, however, the term used at this point in the narrative is ‫ ּתַ ּנִין‬tannin, “crocodile” (7:9–10). 33 Almost all scholars see this discrepancy as a hallmark of the Documentary Hypothesis. The former episode is classified as non-P (for Driver it is J, for Friedman it is E), while the latter is clearly of Priestly origin, as may be seen by the inclusion of Aaron in the narrative (indeed, the staff is Aaron’s staff in chap. 7), along with the involvement of the Egyptian magician-priests. But is this the only possible solution to the problem of the different reptiles? First, in the desert climate of Mount Horeb (wherever it be located), snakes abound, so the use of ‫ נָחָשׁ‬naḥaš, “snake,” in chap. 4 is most apt, while in Pharaoh’s palace on the banks of the Nile (regardless of where the palace was actually located, it could never be far from the Nile), the ‫ ּתַ ּנִין‬tannin, “crocodile” is more appropriate. 34 Second, I consider the change in reptile to reflect an upgrade, for while the transformation of staff-to-snake is impressive, qal wa-ḥomer the transformation of staff-to-crocodile! The latter, moreover, accords with the magic performed by the chief lector-priest Webaoner and the caretaker of his gardens in “The Wax Crocodile” story, the 32. See the chapter entitled “Saviors of the Exodus” by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible (New York: Schocken, 2002), 24–33, 360–65, with additional bibliography cited on pp. 361–62. 33. On the identity of the animal as “crocodile,” see my “Moses as Equal to Pharaoh,” in Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion (ed. G. M. Beckman and T. J. Lewis; Brown Judaic Studies 346; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2006), 201–19, esp. p. 209. 34. See already Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 94.

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second of the tales appearing in Papyrus Westcar (P. Berlin 3033, ca. 1600 BCE, though the composition is several centuries earlier). 35 One of the hallmarks of narrative is the manner in which the plot develops as the text advances. As we saw above, this is true of the plagues account, and of course one easily could multiply such examples in both biblical and other (ancient and modern) literature. The escalation from snake to crocodile between chaps. 4 and 7 is simply one more manifestation of this universal technique. It has naught to do with separate sources.

Interconnections between Exodus 1–2 and Genesis 1–9 As previous scholars have noticed, a number of lexical items in the opening chapters of Exodus match those used in the opening chapters of Genesis. Note the following: Exod 1:7 ‫ִׁש ְרצּו ַוּי ְִרּבּו ַוּיַע ְַצמּו ִּב ְמאֹד ְמאֹד ו ִַּת ָּמלֵא ָה ָארֶץ א ָֹתם׃‬ ְ ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ּפָרּו ַוּי‬ ְ ‫ּובנֵי י‬ ְ And the children of Israel were fruitful (‫ פרה‬prh) and they swarmed (‫ שׁרץ‬šrṣ) and they multiplied (‫ רבה‬rbh) and they were strong, very much so; and the land was filled (‫ מלא‬mlʾ ) with them. (all four verbs occur in Gen 1) 36 Exod 2:2 ‫ּׁשה וַּתֵ לֶד ּבֵן וַּתֵ רֶא אֹתֹו ִּכי־טֹוב הּוא‬ ָ ‫ָא‬ ִ ‫וַּתַ הַר ה‬ And the woman conceived, and she bore a son, and she saw him, that he was good (‫ ִּכי טוֹב‬ki ṭob). (expression ki ṭob occurs 6× in Gen 1) 37

35. Standard editions of the entire Papyrus Westcar are A. M. Blackman and W. V. Davies, The Story of King Kheops and the Magicians: Transcribed from Papyrus Westcar (Berlin Papyrus 3033) (Reading: J. V. Books, 1988); and Verena M. Lepper, Untersuchungen zu pWestcar: Eine philologische und literaturwissenschaftliche (Neu-)Analyse (Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 70; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008). English translations of the “Wax Crocodile” episode are available in Richard B. Parkinson, The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940–1640 bc (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 107–8; William Kelly Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 15–16; and Stephen Quirke, Egyptian Literature 1800 bc: Questions and Readings (London: Golden House, 2004), 78–80 (with transliteration). See also the German translation by Lepper (cited above), 31–34 (with transliteration). 36. In the words of Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Norton, 2004), 308 (note to v. 7), “These terms are all of course pointed verbal allusions to the Creation story.” 37. The parallel is noted by Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken, 1983), 263 (note to v. 2).

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Exod 2:3 And she took for him a papyrus basket (‫ ּתֵ בָה‬teba).

‫ו ִַּתּקַ ח־לֹו ּתֵ בַת ּגֹמֶא‬

Exod 2:5 ְ ‫וַּתֵ רֶא אֶת־הַּתֵ בָה ְּב‬ ‫תֹוך הַּסּוף‬ And she saw the basket (‫ ּתֵ בָה‬teba) in the midst of the reeds. (elsewhere, 26× with the connotation “ark” in Gen 6–9) These lexical interconnections at the beginning of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus signify a conscious effort to unite the first two books of the Torah. The nexus created, however, does not constitute a simple game of words but, rather, yields a major theological point. The text wishes us to know that the two greatest acts performed by God were the creation of the world (Gen 1–9) and the creation of the people of Israel (Exod 1–2)—and such is accomplished via the use of shared vocabulary. 38 Predictably, the Documentary Hypothesis misses most of this, for generally it assigns the passages above to different sources. In truth, this is not the case for the first item above, since both Exod 1:7 and the first creation story are designated P. But problems arise with the second example above: as we saw earlier, Driver assigned Exod 2:2 to E, while Friedman considers this portion of the narrative to be J—though either way, the linkage to ‫ּכי טוֹב‬, ִ “that it was good,” occurring 6× in Gen 1 (assumed to be P) is lost. The third illustration above works not at all for Driver and only partially for Friedman, since Exod 2:3 and 2:5, containing the word ‫ּתֵ בָה‬, “basket” belongs to a non-P source (again, E for Driver, J for Friedman), while the same word occurring 26× in the Flood story of Gen 6–9 with the meaning “ark” is distributed across both J and P, according to the source division. 39 A better approach, as indicated above, is to see all of this material as deriving from a single pen.

Interconnections within the Exodus Narrative In like fashion to the above section, one also finds interconnections within the Exodus narrative itself, once more as part of the plot development. Of all the examples that could be provided, I limit myself to one stellar illustration. 38. See already my article “The Literary Approach to the Bible and Finding a Good Translation,” 184–85. 39. On the unity of the Flood narrative, see Gordon J. Wenham, “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” VT 28 (1978): 336–48; Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Biblical Flood Story in the Light of the Gilgameš Flood Account,” in Gilgameš and the World of Assyria: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Mandelbaum House, The University of Sydney, 21–23 July 2004 (ed. J. Azize and N. Weeks; ANES Supplement 21; Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 115–27.

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Exod 2:23–25 (P) ‫ָתם אֶל־ ָהאֱל ִֹהים ִמן־ ָהעֲב ָֹדה׃‬ ָ ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ִמן־ ָהעֲב ָֹדה ַו ִּי ְזעָקּו וַּתַ עַל ׁשַ ְוע‬ ְ ‫ַוּיֵ ָאנְחּו ְבנֵי־י‬ ‫ִצחָק‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבִריתֹו אֶת־א ְַב ָרהָם אֶת־י‬ ְ ‫ֲק ָתם ַו ִּיזְּכֹר אֱל ִֹהים א‬ ָ ‫ִׁשמַע אֱל ִֹהים אֶת־נַא‬ ְ ‫ַוּי‬ ‫ְואֶת־יַעֲק ֹב׃‬ ‫ִׂש ָראֵל ַוּיֵדַ ע אֱל ִֹהים׃‬ ְ ‫ֶת־ּבנֵי י‬ ְ ‫ַוּי ְַרא אֱל ִֹהים א‬   and the children of Israel groaned from the servitude, and they cried-out; and their plea went-up to God, from the servitude.   And God heard their moan; and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.   And God saw the children of Israel; and God knew. Exod 3:6–7 (E/J) . . . ‫ִצחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב‬ ְ ‫ָביךָ אֱלֹהֵי א ְַב ָרהָם אֱלֹהֵי י‬ ִ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר אָנ ִֹכי אֱלֹהֵי א‬ ‫ׁשמ ְַע ִּתי ִמ ְּפנֵי‬ ָ ‫ֲק ָתם‬ ָ ‫ֲׁשר ְּב ִמ ְצ ָריִם ְואֶת־ ַצע‬ ֶ ‫יתי אֶת־עֳנִי ע ִַּמי א‬ ִ ‫ָא‬ ִ ‫וַּיֹאמֶר יְהוָה רָאֹה ר‬ ‫ׂשיו ִּכי יָדַ ְע ִּתי אֶת־מ ְַכאֹבָיו׃‬ ָ ‫נ ְֹג‬   And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”   And Yhwh said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt; and their cry I have heard, in the face of their oppressors, for I know their sufferings.” These two passages link two separate scenes within the narrative. At the end of chap. 2, somewhat as a coda to the story of Moses in Midian, we learn that—meanwhile, back at the ranch (as it were)—the children of Israel, still in bondage in Egypt, called out to God. This mention of God, moreover, constitutes his first appearance in the narrative, save for his cameo role in rewarding the midwives for their good deed (1:20–21). The disappearance of God from the narrative in chaps. 1–2 parallels the nadir of Israel’s experience: the people are enslaved in Egypt, and their potential leader, Moses, 40 is a fugitive from Egyptian law, living in exile in Midian. With the cry to God at the end of chap. 2, the reader can expect Israel’s fortunes to turn; and indeed, this is precisely what transpires at the beginning of chap. 3, as God speaks to Moses for the first time at Mount Horeb. The key linkages between the two episodes are the verses presented above. They share not only the designation of the God of Israel as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but also four verbs: ‫צעק‬/‫ זעק‬zʿq/ṣʿq, “cry out”; ‫ שׁמע‬šmʿ, “hear”; ‫ ראה‬rʾh, “see”; and ‫ ידע‬ydʿ, “know.” This connection was noted already (at least to some extent) by Rashi (1040–1105); and it is

40. The exposed-infant motif in Moses’s birth story (2:1–10) would signal to the ancient readers that the child is destined to become the leader of his people. See the collection of such tales assembled by Donald B. Redford, “The Literary Motif of the Exposed Child (cf. Ex. II 1–10),” Numen 14 (1967), 209–28. For additional discussion, see my “Moses as Equal to Pharaoh,” 204–8.

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recognized by scholars who bring a literary sensitivity to the text, such as Everett Fox and Robert Alter. 41 And yet the Documentary Hypothesis (in our case, according to both Driver and Friedman) is oblivious to all this, for 2:23b–25 is ascribed to P, 3:6 to E, and 3:7 to J. Once more, the holistic approach is to be preferred, especially since the J-E-P dissection removes the theological tenet inherent in the text: when the people cry out to God, the deity responds.

Conclusion In the preceding sections, we have examined the Exodus narrative through eight different lenses. In each case, I believe that the holistic approach to Exod 1–14 provides for a better understanding of the text than that which emerges from classical source division. The partition of this material into its hypothesized J, E, and P components strips the narrative of its literary structure, belletristic artistry, textual interconnections, and at times its theological messages. 42 41. Fox, The Five Books of Moses, 271 (note to v. 7); and Alter, The Five Books of Moses, 319 (note to v. 7). 42. For additional arguments in favor of the literary unity of the Exodus narrative, see Charles D. Isbell, “Exodus 1–2 in the Context of Exodus 1–14: Story Lines and Key Words,” in Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (ed. David J. A. Clines, David M. Gunn, and Alan J. Hauser; JSOTSup 19; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982), 37–59; and idem, The Function of Exodus Motifs in Biblical Narratives: Theological Didactic Drama (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 52; Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2002), 26–45. I am grateful to Jesse Long (Lubbock Christian University) for the former reference. In addition, see now Jonathan Grossman, “The Structural Paradigm of the Ten Plagues Narrative and the Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart,” VT 64 (2014): 588–610, which builds on the work of Scott Noegel (cited above) to argue for yet another overarching literary structure in the plagues account. This article appeared only after the present essay was completed and submitted for publication.

Chapter 8

Moses, the Tongue-Tied Singer! Alan Millard University of Liverpool

There are many paradoxes in the Bible. This essay discusses one that seems to have had little attention: Moses claimed he could not speak adequately, so God provided Aaron to be his spokesman, yet after crossing the Sea of Reeds, Moses sang a song, and the remainder of the Pentateuch contains many speeches by Moses. Had Moses been cured, or is there another explanation? At the burning bush, Moses tried to evade God’s commission with three rather weak objections: he was nobody; he did not know God’s name; he might not be believed. Finally, he offered his fourth excuse: he claimed he could not speak appropriately: “I am not a man of words . . . because I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue” (Exod 4:10, ‫ָרים אָנ ִֹכי ּגַם ִמ ְּתמֹול‬ ִ‫לֹא ִאיׁש ְּדב‬ ‫ּוכבַד לָׁשֹון אָנ ִֹכי‬ ְ ‫ֶרךָ אֶל־ע ְַבֶּדךָ ִּכי ְכבַד־ּפֶה‬ ְ ‫ִלׁשֹם ּגַם ֵמאָז ּדַ ּב‬ ְ ׁ‫)ּגַם ִמּש‬. Later he apparently expresses the same idea in the term “uncircumcised of lips” (Exod 6:12, 30, ‫ָתיִם‬ ָ ‫)עֲרַ ל ְׂשפ‬. In response, God admonished Moses: “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you to speak and will teach you what to say” (4:11, 12). After Moses’ further attempt to avoid the task, praying, “Lord, please send someone else to do it” (v. 13), God appointed Aaron, Moses’ older brother, to be his spokesman, “He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and you were God to him’ (4:14–16). Later God answers Moses’ final objection (that he has “uncircumcised lips”) by saying, “I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet” (ָ‫ְביאֶך‬ ִ ‫)נ‬. “You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh” (6:30–7:2). 1 It is significant that God made no offer to cure Moses. 1. Gary Rendsburg (“Moses as Equal to Pharaoh,” in Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion [ed. G. M. Beckman and T. J. Lewis; Brown Judaic Studies 346; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2006], 201–19) interprets the passage in Egyptian terms. Attractive though an explanation through Egyptian thought may be, the simple interpretation of Moses’ being distanced from Pharaoh and so needing a spokesman, as gods usually did, seems more acceptable.

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What did Moses mean by “heavy of mouth and tongue” and “uncircumcised of lips”? His words have been discussed for centuries, as Jeffrey Tigay demonstrated in a study published in 1978. 2 He explored the two main lines of interpretation: first, an inability to speak Egyptian; second, a speech impediment. Despite the first having strong support from some authorities, for Moses to have forgotten his Egyptian during his years in Midian seems unlikely. A language learned in childhood tends to remain, even if not used for many years. Moreover, God’s response to Moses, “Who gave man his mouth?” (Exod 4:11, 12), concerns the physical aspect more than the mental. Had Moses been a poor speaker of Egyptian, surely God would have designated Aaron as his interpreter, not as his “prophet.” Hebrew has a word for “interpreter,” used in the account of Joseph and his brothers (Gen 42:23— ‫)מ ִֵליץ‬, which would have been apt were it needed in this context. Furthermore, Aaron was Moses’ spokesman not only to the Egyptian court but also to the Israelites, who, presumably, would have understood if Moses spoke their native language. The Jewish translators of the Septuagint understood the expressions “heavy of mouth” and ‘heavy of tongue’ to mean a speech defect, “with an impediment and slow to speak” (ἰσχνοφωνος καί βραδύγλωσσος). The use of the word ‫ ָּכבֵד‬, “heavy,” with “mouth” and “tongue” implies inadequacy, failure to perform as expected. That nuance is evident when the adjective and its cognate verb are applied to the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart (Exod 7:14; 9:7; 8:11, 28[8:15, 32]; 9:34; 10:1), and the verb describes Jacob’s failing eyesight (Gen 48:10) as well as God’s ear, which is not “deaf ” (Isa 59:1). Transferred to language in Ezek 3:5, 6, the adjective denotes incomprehensibility. The term “uncircumcised of lips” can be explained similarly as unsuitable for the purpose, from an Israelite point of view. As many have observed, it is not uncommon, when the younger of two siblings has difficulty in speaking, that the older may understand the younger more easily than the parents and other adults. Another longstanding explanation attributes Moses’ objection to his natural modesty. That was the view taken by John Calvin and by Umberto Cassuto, 3 and by more-recent commentators such as Douglas Stuart. 4 Lack of rhetorical skill has also been advanced. 5 In the light of the texts, neither seems justifiable. According to the Exodus narrative, Aaron first performed his role when he and his brother, on their return from the desert, met the Israelites, “and 2. Jeffrey H. Tigay, “‘Heavy of Mouth’ and ‘Heavy of Tongue’: On Moses’ Speech Difficulty,” BASOR 231 (1978): 57–67. 3. John Calvin, Harmony of the Law, vol. 1, Christian Classics, Ethereal Library, www.ccel.org, 81; Umberto Cassuto, Commentary on Exodus (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), 48–49. 4. Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus (NAC; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2006), 133–37. 5. Rainer Albertz, Exodus, vol. 1: Exodus 1–18 (Zürcher Bibelkommentare; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2012), 91.

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Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses” (Exod 4:30 J). Then “they went to Pharaoh and said” (with 3rd-person-plural verbs; 5:1 E, 3 J), but after Pharaoh increased the workload of the Israelite brick-makers and they complained to Moses and Aaron (5:20 J), the Lord reassured Moses, who reported to the Israelites (with 3rd-person-singular verb; 6:1–9 P), after which the Lord told him and Aaron to bring the people out of Egypt (with 3rd-person-plural suffix; 6:13 RP). Throughout the account of the first plague, Moses and Aaron acted together, but although they both appeared before Pharaoh during the plague of frogs, the text has only Moses speaking to him; then both left (8:5, 8 J—both verbs are singular). The same occurs during the plague of flies, but there, although Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron into his presence, according to 8:21[25], only Moses left according to v. 26[30] (both J); the reader must assume that Aaron did not remain there but also left with Moses. The accounts of the plagues of hail and locusts have the same pattern (9:27, 29, 33; 10:16, 18 J), while with the plague of darkness only Moses is named (10:10, 21–29 J). After the Lord tells Moses and Aaron how to celebrate the Passover, the text has Moses alone giving the instructions to the elders of Israel (12:1 P, 21 J), then the people doing as Moses and Aaron had been told (28 P): both men had faced Pharaoh (31 J) and both had received additional Passover regulations (43, 50 P). Thereafter, Moses speaks to the people in chaps. 13 and 14, but in chap. 16 the Lord told Moses he would send the manna (16:4); then he and Aaron announced that the Lord would demonstrate his glory that evening and next morning (vv. 6, 7), yet in v. 8, “Moses also said . . . ,” with no mention of his brother, whom he proceeded to tell to summon the people (v. 9). Throughout the remainder of the book of Exodus, God speaks to Moses and he relays messages to the Israelites without any mention of Aaron. Consequently, some commentators have assumed that God had healed Moses, or Moses had overcome his disability, 6 yet the initial emphasis given to the problem would surely require the narrator to explain that the problem had disappeared. How should readers treat the text’s vacillation? Did Moses and Aaron act jointly in some instances, Moses alone in others? Did Moses speak directly to the Pharaoh and to the Israelites on some occasions, with Aaron as his spokesman on others? Traditional literary criticism divides the narrative between the sources P, E, and J, as indicated. The P source, the latest, has Aaron cooperating with Moses, as his “alter ego,” according to Frank Cross, 7 6. Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus (New York: Behrman, 1969), 95, “Moses finds his tongue” by Deuteronomy; cf. Terence Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville: John Knox, 1991), 73, “Moses gradually works himself into the role that God originally intended.” 7. Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 206.

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whereas in the earlier, J, source he “is only Moses’ silent companion,” and he is absent from the Elohist source. 8 In his extensive commentary, Cornelis Houtman prefers to deal with the text as a whole, not remarking on the variations, although he observes that “the omission of any mention of Aaron” when Moses took the brick-makers’ complaint before God (Exod 6:9–12) “seems to suggest Moses cannot rely on him any more.” 9 In a discussion of Num 20, K. D. Sakenfeld observes that, throughout the Pentateuch, God addresses Moses only, even when Aaron is present according to P (e.g., Exod 16:11); or, when God speaks to both, the phrases are formulaic, and Aaron’s name may be added in legal passages, for P on the whole reserves divine speech for Moses alone (e.g., Exod 7:19; Num 6:27). However, she concludes that “Aaron’s formal silence does not eliminate his presence from the writer’s purview. The writer simply regards one as speaking for both” (cf. Exod 16:6, 8, where both Moses and Aaron speak, then Moses alone). 10 There may be another avenue to be explored. If Moses’ assertion that he had a difficulty in speaking is accepted, the role of Aaron is clear: he was to convey the sense in intelligible words since, as William Propp has described the situation, “The man closest to God is the least able to communicate his experience.” 11 Should the absence of Aaron’s name in the various passages where it might be expected mean that he was not present? On the occasions when he arrived with Moses but the text says only that Moses left, the reader surely needs to assume that Aaron left also. In a similar way, may Aaron’s presence and role as Moses’ spokesman be assumed throughout the book of Exodus? His reappearance when instructions about the manna were given in chap. 16 suggests that. The suggestion that Aaron spoke to the Israelites in his priestly role, summoning them to “come before the Lord” (Exod 16:12) 12 does not hold true for cases in Leviticus (see below). Otherwise, one might be led to believe that Moses had overcome or been 8. Samuel R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 56, requiring emendation of a plural verb to a singular in 10:3—changing the text to suit the hypothesis; cf. Brevard S. Childs, Exodus (London: SCM, 1974), 130–41. William H. C. Propp (Exodus 1–18 [AB 2; New York: Doubleday, 1998], 231–32) states that, in the E source, “Aaron is important but subordinate and a foil to Moses,” and there was overall cooperation between them; “in fact, neither can function without the other. Without Aaron, Moses cannot be understood. Without Moses, Aaron has nothing to say.” For the failure of source criticism to deal adequately with the verbal differences, see Gary Rendsburg’s essay in this volume. 9. Cornelis Houtman, Exodus (4 vols.; Kampen: Kok, 1993), 1.485, see his summary of Aaron, pp. 75–76. 10. Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, “Theological and Redactional Problems in Numbers 20: 2–17,” in Understanding the Word: Essays in Honor of Bernhard W. Anderson (ed. J. T. Butler, E. Conrad, and B. Ollenburger; JSOTSup. 37; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), 133–54. 11. Propp, Exodus, 211. 12. Houtman, Exodus, 2.335.

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cured of his disability after the twelfth plague, in the way some have suggested, as noted already. Passages in the next books contradict such a suggestion. The book of Leviticus has a similar fluctuation. Moses speaks to the people in chaps. 1– 10; then 11 begins, “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Say to the Israelites . . . ,’” while chap. 12 has the Lord telling only Moses to do that. Moses and Aaron are given instructions about skin diseases in chap. 13, Moses alone directions about cleansing from them (14:1), but both receive the regulations about cleansing from mildew in 14:33, and both are told to speak to the people about bodily discharges in 15:1. Through the remainder of Leviticus, the Lord only tells Moses the commandments to be passed to the people. These differences puzzled Jacob Milgrom; Aaron’s absence from passages dealing with ritual matters, such as 12:1; 14:1, “while he was present in connection with dietary laws (11:1),” Milgrom termed “inexplicable” and “a mystery.” 13 The book of Numbers is just as varied. In 1:17, both Moses and Aaron were commanded to take the census, and in 2:1 the Lord told Moses and Aaron how the camp should be arranged, but when v. 34 reports that “the Israelites did everything the Lord commanded Moses,” perhaps the audience should assume that Aaron had conveyed the directions to the people. In 3:14, 15, the Lord told Moses to count the Levites, while in 4:1 Aaron was to join in counting the Kohathites; yet only Moses was to count the Gershonites according to vv. 21, 22. (A few medieval Hebrew manuscripts omit Aaron from v. 1, but the Septuagint retains his name.) In fulfilling the orders, “Moses, Aaron and the leaders counted the Kohathites’” (4:34), and Moses and Aaron counted the Gershonites (4:41), although Aaron had been named neither for that task nor for counting “all the Levites,” which he did with Moses and the leaders (4:46). When the Israelites rebelled after the ten spies’ negative report on Canaan, and the Lord told Moses and Aaron to reveal the 40-year sentence to the people (14:26), the text has only Moses reporting to them (14:39). Similarly, in the episode of Korah and his fellows, the rebels arose against Moses, then all congregated against Moses and Aaron (14:2, 3), and after Moses addressed them (Num 14), the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, but only Moses addressed the rebels and those around. After the rebels came to the sanctuary’s entrance, the Lord gave instructions to Moses and Aaron (16:20, 22), but it is Moses alone who acts in the following verses (16:23–35). In the episode at Meribah, when Moses wrongly struck the rock, he and Aaron worked together (20:1–13). At the death of Aaron, his son Eleazar succeeded him (20:23–29). In 25:4, 5, the Lord spoke to Moses and Moses to the judges. When the second census was to be taken, God instructed Moses 13. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 645, 743, 830, 905, 906.

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and Eleazar, and both of them told the assembly to do it, “as the Lord commanded Moses,” Eleazar filling the role his father had taken at the first census—perhaps, therefore, also speaking on Moses’ behalf (26:1, 3, 4, cf. 63). Rather than these passages displaying interwoven sources, may they not show a literary sensitivity? How dull the narratives would be if they repeated “Moses and Aaron” on every occasion! Rather, Aaron was named at some junctures, especially in the earlier episodes, to establish the pattern. The writers intended their audiences to understand that Aaron accompanied Moses on each occasion and was the one whose voice was heard by Pharaoh and by the Israelites. Wherever the texts state, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites . . . ,’” readers should assume it was Aaron who spoke the words to the people. Nowhere does the text suggest Moses’ problem was temporary. Indeed, part of his objection indicates this; in Exod 4:10 he said, “Lord, I have never been a man of words, neither in the past, nor since you have spoken to your servant.” Expecting an audience to realize a continuing situation without specifying it is an acceptable literary form. Elsewhere, the text explains, for example, why the 400 prophets of Asherah who were brought to Elijah’s ordeal on Mount Carmel with the 450 prophets of Baal are introduced at the beginning of the pericope in 1 Kgs 18:19 yet do not appear in the rest of the narrative. This seems preferable to treating their appearance as a late insertion into the text. 14 The hearer or reader can deduce that they were there and were slaughtered with the prophets of Baal (18:40). In the same way, the author of Joseph’s biography depicts him talking with his brothers on their first mission to Egypt (Gen 42:7–20). It is when the brothers talk among themselves and he overhears them that the narrator reveals Joseph had not been speaking in their own language but had used an interpreter (Gen 42:23). There was no need to give that fact at the outset. Robert Alter suggests that mentioning the interpreter at the outset “would have blunted the sense of immediate confrontation which, as we have seen, is so essential psychologically and thematically in the progress of that scene.” 15 Aaron having the secondary place to Moses may be taken as a case of the master-agent relationship wherein the distinction between the master and the one who carries out his wish is blurred. 16 Many ancient royal inscriptions exemplify it: kings boast “I wrote . . . ,” when it is certain they did not write; their scribes wrote. Thus on his law stele, Hammurabi of Babylon 14. See, e.g., James A. Montgomery and Henry S. Gehman, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Kings (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1951), 300, 310 (following Julius Wellhausen); John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan ( JSOTSup 265; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 73. 15. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 167. 16. See now Andreas Käser, “‘Then David Wrote a Letter (2 Sam. 11:14)—He Himself or Was It His Secretary? A Study of the Criteria for Handling the ‘Semantic Causative,’” TynBul 65 (2014): 21–35.

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asserts, “I have written my precious edicts on my stele” (xlviii 74, 75, etc.). Did Hammurabi actually write that text or the various letters he sent? No! His scribes did! There are instances in the Bible involving an angel whose identity merges with God’s. When the angel appeared and spoke to Gideon, Gideon replied to the angel; then the narrative continues, “The Lord turned to him and said. . . .” There was further conversation between them until, after Gideon had prepared an offering, the angel spoke with him again, yet, it was the Lord who continued to speak ( Judg 6:11–24). When the angel who had appeared to Manoah and his wife had ascended in the flame of their sacrifice, Manoah said, “We have seen God” ( Judg 13:22). Most relevant is Moses’ experience at the burning bush, where “the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush,” and “God called to” Moses “from within the bush” (Exod 3:2–4). The agent acts for the master and so can be treated as the master. Therefore, even if Aaron was the one whose voice the Israelites heard, the words they heard were the words of Moses, so it was not necessary to name Aaron every time. May Moses’ speech impediment explain why he disobeyed God by striking the rock at Meribah when he had been told to address it? God had answered Moses’ objection to becoming his messenger in the first place by pointing out that he created the human voice and could help Moses. Only after Moses’ plea for another to be sent did he appoint Aaron. At Meribah, where the Israelites were waterless, God ordered Moses, “Take (singular) the staff, you and your brother Aaron, gather (singular) the assembly together. Speak (plural) to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water” (Num 20:8). Moses spoke angrily to the people and struck the rock. Aaron apparently stood by silent. The Lord then told Moses and Aaron, “Because you (plural) did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them” (20:12). Commentators debate the nature of Moses’ sin. One assumes, “if Moses had spoken certain words not specified (Num 20:8), God would have been sanctified.” 17 Another proposal sees Moses’ action in taking the staff from “before the Lord” (v. 9), raising his arm and striking the rock with it as the sin. 18 Moses was told to speak to the rock, so why did he need the staff? By designating it “the staff,” the author may refer to Aaron’s staff of Num 17, which was preserved “as a sign for rebels so that it will bring their grumbling against me to an end and they will not die” (17:25[10]). By holding that staff, which presumably had recognizable signs of its sprouting, as he spoke to the 17. Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1–20 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 490. 18. Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “Numbers 20, 11: Moïse en flagrant délit de ‘main levée’?” in The Books of Leviticus and Numbers (ed. Thomas Römer; BETL 215; Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 535–43.

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rock, Moses would indicate that God would not punish the people on that occasion for their contentiousness. On the other hand, the staff may have been Moses’, the one he held at the burning bush, at the plagues of hail and locusts, and at the Reed Sea (Exod 3:2–4; 9:23; 10:13; 14:15), designated “the rod of God” (Exod 4:20; 17:9). 19 May the explanation for Moses’ act be that he could not face the people through fear of failing to utter the command to the rock; therefore, he hit it? This was no “trivial sin”; 20 it was a lack of faith: “You did not trust in me wholly” (cf. Deut 32:51, with the Hebrew root ‫) ָמעַל‬. Moses did not trust God to give him the power to utter the words clearly, just as he had doubted at the burning bush, and here Aaron apparently made no attempt to carry out the command to speak. Someone might claim that the incident of the Golden Calf presents an obstacle to the proposal that Moses suffered an impediment in his speech throughout his career. When he had descended Mount Sinai and seen what was happening under Aaron’s control, “he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, ‘Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!’” (Exod 32:26). That Aaron was his spokesman at that juncture would be implausible—he had led the idolatry! However, Joshua, Moses’ “aide” (24:13, ‫שׁרֵת‬ ָ ‫)מ‬ ְ who had accompanied him on the mountain and had mistaken the noise of the people’s revelry for warfare on their return (Exod 32:17) is a good candidate to replace Aaron as Moses’ “prophet.” Possibly Joshua continued in that role after Aaron’s death at Mount Hor (Num 20:23–29). (Note, in passing, how Num 33:11 tells us, “Moses would return to the camp [from the Tent of Meeting, where he had been speaking with God] but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.” The text had not stated that Joshua went into the Tent with Moses, leaving the reader to imagine he might have stayed there indefinitely!) Support for Joshua’s taking this role can be adduced from the end of the account of Moses’ Song, which declares that “Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun” (Deut 32:44). Note should be taken, too, of the fluctuation between singular and plural verbs in chap. 31, to which S. R. Driver drew attention: 21 “Write this song for yourselves and teach it to the Israelites,” where “write” is plural—that is, Moses and Joshua—but “teach” is singular, and Moses alone “wrote” (singular verb) in 31:22, leading some to suppose that the command “write” was originally singular in v. 19, although the plural agrees with the statement of 32:44, “Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua, son of Nun.” 19. Johnson T. K. Lim (The Sin of Moses and the Staff of God: A Narrative Approach [Studia Semitica Neerlandica 35; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1997], 81) argues for the rod being Moses’. 20. So William H. C. Propp, “Meribah,” ABD 4.703. 21. Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (3rd ed.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), 341; cf. Andrew D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCBC; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1979), 378.

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One passage still calls for attention: in Exod 15, Moses sings the Song of the Sea with the Israelites. There, this man, hitherto apparently tonguetied, bursts into song! Is this a paradox? The seeds for this paper were sown when my wife and I went to the cinema in 2010 to see the film The King’s Speech. 22 The drama is based on the difficulty in speaking suffered by the late King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II. From childhood, he had a severe stammer; he had difficulty in forming and speaking words. That came to a head in 1925 when, as Duke of York, he had to make a speech at the closing of a major exhibition in London. He and his large audience were very embarrassed at his hesitation and stammer. His wife was especially anxious to help him, so in 1926, when he was about 30 years old, she found an unorthodox speech therapist from Australia, Lionel Logue, who had developed his technique working with wounded soldiers after the First World War. She persuaded the Duke to consult him, which he did reluctantly. The film follows their encounters. The therapist eventually trained the Duke to overcome his disability to a marked degree before, unexpectedly, he acceded to the throne when his older brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936, because of his entanglement with Wallis Simpson. Early in the meetings, the therapist asked him to read aloud while music was blaring so that he could not hear himself—he read fluently! Well before that time he had been involved in Boys’ Camps where he had enjoyed singing songs with the campers. Seeing the film stimulated the idea in me that Moses’ condition might have been similar in some way. Inquiry showed that doctors, psychiatrists, and speech therapists have known for a long time that virtually everyone with a stammer has no difficulty singing at all. The reason is the involvement in the brain of one neural process for singing and a completely different neural process for speech. When damage to the brain causes difficulty in speaking, it can be treated by Melodic Intonation Therapy, in which singing and rhythm help to reverse the effects of the damage. The right side of the brain deals with music and intonation, the left side with language. Rhythm and tone thus help sufferers to overcome the impairment in the left side of the brain that controls speech. That Moses could sing but not speak fits well with this knowledge. 23 Exodus 15 states that “Moses sang and the Israelites,” just as the Duke of York sang with the boy campers. Beside the Song of the Sea, we can set the words Moses spoke to Joshua to explain the noise they heard as they descended the mountain, “It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat, it is the sound of singing that I hear” (Exod 32:18); the words that he uttered as the ark set out and as it rested, “Rise up, Lord, May your enemies be scattered, May your foes 22. The King’s Speech was directed by Tom Hooper; the screenplay was written by David Seidler. 23. I am indebted to Sheona Khan for advice on this subject.

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flee before you; Return, Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel” (Num 10:35–36). In both cases, Moses’ words are poetic couplets. May we assume that he sang them? Moses’ Song in Deut 32, already mentioned, is repeatedly termed a song (‫ׁשירָה‬, ִ 31:19, 21, 22, 30; 32:44), although the term that is used as Moses recited it is “to speak” (‫דבר‬, 31:30; 32:44–45). Biblical writers frankly portray flaws in their heroes, a trait that makes them more human. Would a writer in the Persian Period, the time of the exile, or later, in composing a history of his people give the great leader such a disability as to be forced to have a spokesman because he could not speak to the people himself? One commentator has adduced the stammering of Demosthenes as a parallel, asserting that, “By laying a humiliating disability upon his hero, the Elohist in fact exalts both Moses and his God” and, “that God used such flawed vessels implicitly validates their messages.” 24 Alternatively, may not the book of Exodus correctly describe Moses as burdened with an embarrassing impediment in his speech, always needing someone to present his words to the people? To sum up: Moses’ objection when God called him to lead Israel from Egypt was his “heavy mouth.” That is best interpreted as a speech impediment, perhaps a severe stammer, so he needed a spokesman for any public address. Aaron served through the time of the twelve plagues and, according to Exodus–Deuteronomy, can also be seen to have acted during the exodus and wandering narratives. After Aaron’s death, no one is specified as Moses’ spokesman; we may speculate that Joshua took over the task. Unable to speak well in public, Moses could still sing. That is a known medical condition, eased by the use of music and rhythm. The Song of the Sea, the Song of Moses, and a few other pieces of poetry may preserve the only words that Moses uttered in public. 24. Propp, Exodus 1–18, 230.

Chapter 9

The Egyptian Sojourn and Deliverance from Slavery in the Framing and Shaping of the Mosaic Law Richard E. Averbeck Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

The Egyptian sojourn, the Lord’s deliverance out of slavery, and the implications that these held for debt slavery and the treatment of resident aliens and other disadvantaged people in Israel play a significant role in the framing and shaping of the Law as it is laid out in the Pentateuch. Historical-critical issues abound and will be addressed but, as the text stands, these memories of slavery are essential to our understanding of the literary, historical, theological, and ethical dimensions of the Law. We will pay special attention to the appearance of the theme of deliverance from slavery at the edges of the various law collections in the Pentateuch. It begins with the introduction to the covenant-making narrative in Exod 19–24; the Lord as the Israelites’ deliverer from Egypt is the basic premise of the covenant made at Sinai (Exod 19:4). The Ten Commandments begin with the same theme (Exod 20:2), and the main substance of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21–23), in turn, begins with regulations about debt slavery in Israel (Exod 21:2–11) and ends with themes about not oppressing strangers or resident aliens, provisions for the needy, and the Sabbath rest for slaves and strangers (Exod 23:9–12). Similarly, the same themes appear in Lev 25, the last chapter of regulations given at Sinai (see Lev 25:39–43, 47–55 and the colophon in Lev 26:46). Thus, these themes serve as a frame surrounding the units of Law as given at Sinai. The same theme comes back in the last chapter of regulations in the book of Deuteronomy (see Deut 26:5–15), and the return to Exod 19:5–6 in Deut 26:16–18 frames the pentateuchal regulations from beginning to end. All these passages and other related ones will be treated in some detail below. The overall point is that the exodus from Egypt (Exod 1–18) not only leads to the Mosaic covenant and Law (beginning in Exod 19) but keeps showing up as the basic rationale throughout. Without the deliverance, 143

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there would be no covenant and there would be no Law. The deliverance from Egypt is the explicit premise of both the covenant and the Law. This is essential to our understanding of the Covenantal Law and how it was intended to function in ancient Israel. The approach taken in this essay will be to begin with the extreme outside boundaries of the Law within the Torah and move inward: first, the whole Law, from Exod 19 to Deut 26; and then the Law as revealed at Mt. Sinai, from Exod 20 to 24, and eventually to Lev 25.

From Exodus 19 to Deuteronomy 26 As is well known, the most inclusive frame for the Law extends all the way from Exod 19, the first chapter of the Mosaic Law narrative at Sinai, through Deut 26, the last chapter of Law in the Torah, according to the canonical text. Exodus 19 initiates the covenant-making narrative at Sinai. Deuteronomy 26 concludes Moses’ exposition of the Law in Moab 40 years later in ways that echo Exod 19. In Exod 19:3b–6, the Lord introduces the covenant to Moses this way: Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and lifted you up on the wings of eagles and brought you to myself. So now, if you will truly obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall become my special treasure (‫)סגֻ ָלּה‬ ְ among all the peoples; for all the earth belongs to me, but you yourselves shall become my kingdom of priests (‫מ ְַמ ֶלכֶת‬ ‫הנִים‬ ֲֹ ‫)כ‬ ּ and holy nation (‫)גֹוי ָקדֹוׁש‬.” These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel (19:3b–6b) There is a threefold pattern here. First comes the background history of the Lord’s deliverance from Egypt (v. 4); second, the call for the Israelites’ commitment to keep the regulations of the covenant introduced here (v. 5a); and finally, the Lord’s corresponding commitment to make Israel his “special treasure . . . kingdom of priests and holy nation” (vv. 5b–6). The expression “kingdom of priests” appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, but it is a conspicuous fact that the terms “special treasure” (‫)סגֻ ָלּה‬ ְ and “holy nation” (‫ ְ)וגֹוי ָקדֹוׁש‬reappear together in the last two verses of Deut 26, with the exception that “holy nation” is changed to “holy people” (‫ַם־קדֹׁש‬ ָ ‫)ע‬. Deut 26:18–19 reads as follows: And the Lord has solemnly declared you today to be his people, a ְ ‫ד ֶבּר־ל‬ treasured possession (‫)סגֻ ָלּה‬, ְ just as he spoke to you (‫ָך‬ ּ ִ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶׁ ‫ ;) ַ ּכא‬yes, to keep all his commandments, and to set you high above all the nations that he has made, for praise and for renown, and for splendor, and for you to be a holy people (‫ַם־קדֹׁש‬ ָ ‫ )ע‬to the Lord your God, just as he spoke (‫ד ֵבּר‬ ּ ִ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶׁ ‫) ַ ּכא‬.

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The passage is highlighted here to reflect its internal parallel structure as seen in the clause “just as he spoke to you” in v. 18, and the same at the end of v. 19, less the prepositional phrase “to you.” These are the last words in the Mosaic Law, and they refer back to the very beginning of the Law-giving narrative in Exod 19:5–6. 1 This interpretation of the reference is reinforced by the combination of specialized terminology the two passages hold in common. It is true that the terms “special treasure” and “holy people” occur together earlier in Deut 7:6 and 14:1–2, but there is nothing corresponding to “just as he spoke to you” in those places. There is no such explicit reference back to the Lord speaking these promises at an earlier time. Moreover, there is a corresponding sequence between the Exod 19 and Deut 26 passages. Both Exod 19:5–6 and Deut 26:18–19 begin with Israel as the Lord’s “special treasure” and then add the contrast between all the other nations or peoples and Israel as “holy” to the Lord. Neither Deut 7:6 nor 14:1–2 does this. Both Exod 19 and Deut 26 also include a confirmation of the people’s commitment to the covenant. This is clearer in the Exod 19 narrative context, where Moses recounts the Lord’s words to the Israelites, and they respond, ‫ֲשׂה‬ ֶ ‫ר־ד ֶבּר יְהוָה נַע‬ ּ ִ ‫ֲש‬ ֶׁ ‫כֹּל א‬, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exod 19:8; cf. Exod 24:3). The cultic reconfirmation of this initial commitment takes place as part of the blood-covenant oath-ratification ceremony ֶׂ ‫ר־ד ֶבּר יְהוָה נַע‬ in Exod 24:6–8: the people swear the oath, ‫ִשמָע‬ ְׁ ‫ֲשה ְונ‬ ּ ִ ‫ֲש‬ ֶׁ ‫כֹּל א‬, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do; yes, we will be obedient” (v. 7). Deut 26:17–19 is not without difficulties in this regard, 2 but it is quite clear that the text is referring to some kind of two-way oath commitment between the Lord and his people, using the same unusual key verb and similar structure on both sides. 3 The only two occurrences of the Hiphil form of 1. See the especially helpful comments on this point and, in fact, the whole passage, in Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 245–46. See also Rolf Rendtorff, The Covenant Formulary: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation (trans. Margaret Kohl; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 66–69. 2. It is especially difficult to determine how the last clause in Deut 26:18 fits into the Lord’s solemn declaration; see, e.g., Tigay, Deuteronomy, 246. 3. See the clear explanation in J. G. McConville, Deuteronomy (Apollos Old Testament Commentary 5; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 382–85. The expression “this day” in Deut 26:16 apparently refers to the very day on which Moses delivered the speeches that make up the main substance of Deuteronomy (cf. Deut 1:3; 4:8; 15:5; 19:9). See Tigay, Deuteronomy, 245; and Jack R. Lundbom, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), 733–34. Moreover, 26:16, ‫ֻקּים ָה ֵא ֶלּה ְואֶת־‬ ִ ‫ַלעֲשֹוֹת אֶת־ ַהח‬ ׂ ִ ‫ת ְוע‬ ‫אֹותם‬ ָ ‫ית‬ ָ ‫ָש‬ ּ ָ ‫שמ ְַר‬ ָׁ ‫ה ִַּמ ְׁש ָפ ִּטים ְו‬, “[The Lord commands you] to do these statutes and the judgments, and you shall keep and do them,” corresponds to 12:1, ‫ש ָפ ִּטים‬ ְׁ ‫ֻקּים ְוה ִַּמ‬ ִ ‫הח‬ ֽ ַ ‫ֵא ֶלּה‬ ‫ֲשר ִת ְּׁש ְמרּון ַלעֲשֹוֹת‬ ֶׁ ‫א‬, “these are the statutes and judgments which you shall keep to do.” The regulations referred to are those in Deut 12–26. See Tigay, Deuteronomy, 245; and Lundbom, Deuteronomy, 722–23.

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the verb ‫ ָאמַר‬in the Hebrew Bible appear in parallel with each other here in Deut 26:17 and 18. This verb suggests that some kind of solemn declaration had been made, although the actual cultic occasion for it is not made clear here or anywhere else in the book. 4 First, the people declared their commitment to the Lord in Deut 26:17: You have solemnly declared the Lord today to be your God (‫אֶת־יְהוָה‬ ‫ת הַיֹּום ִל ְהיֹות ְלךָ ֵלֽאל ִֹהים‬ ּ ָ ‫אמ ְַר‬ ֱ ‫ ) ֶה‬and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his judgments; yes, to obey his voice. Then, in vv. 18–19 (cited fully above) the Lord, in turn, declared his commitment back to the Israelites: And the Lord has solemnly declared you today to be his people (‫וַיהוָה‬ ‫ירךָ הַיֹּום ִל ְהיֹות לֹו ְלעַם‬ ְ ‫ֱמ‬ ִ ‫) ֶהא‬, a treasured possession (‫)סגֻ ָלּה‬. ְ The correspondence between the two could hardly be more explicit. Add to that all the familiar terminology of his promises from Exod 19:5–6 in Deut 26:18–19 noted above, and we have the makings of a literary and theological framework or envelope into which the Law fits as a whole in terms of its overall final literary shape. Perhaps the record of the actual occasion for the mutual commitment indicated here is lost in the flurry between the conclusion of the Law in Deut 26 and the anticipation of its ritual ratification when the people enter and conquer the land in Deut 27. Or perhaps it is not emphasized and clarified here for some other reason. As noted above, in Exod 19:4–6 the Lord called the Israelites to enter into a covenant with him. On that occasion, the people respond, ‫ֲשׂה‬ ֶ ‫ר־ד ֶבּר יְהוָה נַע‬ ּ ִ ‫ֲש‬ ֶׁ ‫כֹּל א‬, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exod 19:8). The ritual ratification of the covenant, however, did not take place until Exod 24:6–8 in the covenant-oath blood ritual. Similarly, after the instructions for the ritual to take place at Shechem later, in the land (Deut 27), and the statement of blessings and curses of the covenant (Deut 28), Deut 29:9–14[10–15] recounts a covenant ceremony in which the people enacted their commitment to the Lord. 5 Moses summoned all the people together and recited a retrospective historical prologue (Deut 29:1–8[2–9]). The passage then tells us that the people of all stages and stations of life stood there before the Lord (vv. 9– 10[10–11]) ‫ֲשר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כֹּרֵת ִע ְּמךָ הַיֹּום׃‬ ֶׁ ‫ּוב ָאלָתֹו א‬ ְ ָ‫ָב ְרךָ ִב ְּבִרית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיך‬ ְ ‫לע‬, ְ “to pass over in (or, ‘enter into’) the covenant of the Lord your God and his oath, which the Lord your God is cutting (or, ‘establishing’; or, ‘renewing’) with you today” (v. 11[12]). The verb “pass over” (‫ )עבר‬is the same as that used in Gen 15:17 and Jer 34:18–19 for the passing between the parts of 4. Tigay, Deuteronomy, 245. 5. This may well be the very ceremony to which Deut 26:17–18 alludes; Tigay, Deuteronomy, 277.

Framing and Shaping of the Mosaic Law

147

animals in a covenant-making ritual. The preposition is different here (‫ּב‬, “in,” rather than ‫ ֵבּין‬, “between”), so the connection is not certain, but some scholars have noted the possibility. 6 If this is correct, we know what the ritual procedure was for the ratification (or renewal) of the covenant in the plains of Moab. In any case, this is the occasion in Moab that corresponds to the blood covenant ritual in Exod 24:6–8. Deuteronomy 26:17–19 in Moab corresponds to Exod 19:4–8 at Sinai, and Deut 29:11[12] in Moab corresponds to Exod 24:6–8 at Sinai. In both instances, the former anticipates and the latter consummates. The following verses (Deut 29:12–14[13–15]) assure us that this occasion was all about ratifying the covenant relationship between God and Israel in Moab. The expression to “cut a covenant” appears in both vv. 11[12] and 13[14], and the covenant formulary and reference to the promise to the patriarchs (v. 12[13]) leave no doubt. The correspondences between Exod 19:3–6 and Deut 26:17–19 are not the only links between the beginning and ending of the Law. As noted above, the threefold covenant pattern in Exod 19:4–6 begins with the background history of the Lord’s deliverance from Egypt in Exod 19:4, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and lifted you up on the wings of eagles and brought you to myself.” This element of the covenant pattern is given in more expanded form in Deut 26:5–10, often referred to as the “small credo.” It was to be recited at a firstfruits festival celebration after the conquest and occupation of the promised land:  (5) My father was a wandering (or, “perishing,” or “ailing,” or “refugee”) Aramean (‫)אֲרַ ִּמי אֹבֵד‬. He went down to Egypt and lived there as a resident alien (‫) ַויָּגָר‬, few in number, but there he became a great nation, mighty and numerous.  (6) But the Egyptians treated us badly and afflicted us and imposed upon us hard labor.  (7) So we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.  (8) So the Lord brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand, with an outstretched arm, with great fear, and with signs and wonders.  (9) He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey (‫ּודבָׁש‬ ְ ‫) ֶארֶץ זָבַת ָחלָב‬.  (10a) So now I bring the firstfruit of the ground which you have given to me, O Lord. The credo begins with an apparent reference to Jacob as a “wandering Aramean.” The precise meaning and reference of the term is debated. If 6. See, e.g., Lundbom, Deuteronomy, 805–6; Tigay, Deuteronomy, 277–78; McConville, Deuteronomy, 415; Daniel I. Block, Deuteronomy (NIVAC; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 678.

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“wandering” is correct, it would probably refer to Jacob’s exploits with Laban in Aram for 20 years or so, or perhaps it could refer to the fact that the original home of the patriarchs was Aram (Gen 24:4, 10; 25:20). 7 Alan Millard suggests that it refers to Jacob as a “refugee” from Aram, since he not only lived with Laban and served him but fled from him as a refugee. 8 The most natural rendering of the verb would be “perishing,” which would seem to refer to the more immediate famine that drove Jacob to take his family down to Egypt in the days of Joseph. Some take it to mean that he was old and “ailing” at the time. 9 In any case, the following clauses speak of him and his family living in Egypt as resident aliens, 10 growing from few into many, and then being enslaved. The Lord’s merciful deliverance from Egypt comes next, and finally the anticipated conquest of the land (Deut 26:7–9). The credo ends with a reference to the promised land as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” 11 After the credo, there is a concluding pronouncement to the effect that the Israelite was to bring his basket of firstfruits in celebration of all the Lord’s gifts in the land. 12 He was to place the fruits before the Lord, bow down to him, and celebrate a joyous festival (Deut 26:11): 7. Tigay, Deuteronomy, 240. 8. Alan R. Millard, “A Wandering Aramean,” JNES 39 (1980): 153–55. 9. Yair Zakovitch (“‘My Father Was a Wandering Aramean’ (Deuteronomy 26:5) or ‘Edom Served My Father,’” in Mishneh Todah: Studies in Deuteronomy and Its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay [ed. Nili Sacher Fox et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009], 133–37) summarizes the views and the issues, although his proposed text-critical solution is not necessarily convincing. 10. For a helpful discussion of ‫ ֵגּר‬meaning “resident alien,” see James K. Hoffmeier, The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), 48–52. Here in Deut 26:5, the verb is used, not the noun, but the point remains the same. 11. Even this expression may be intended here as part of the contrast between their life in Egypt as compared with the promised land (see, e.g., Deut 11:8–17 and esp. “a land flowing with milk and honey” in 26:9). The best explanation of this expression that I am aware of is Barry J. Beitzel, The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 2009), 60–62. He notes that Egypt was largely an agricultural land, with the Nile for irrigation, whereas Canaan was largely a pastoral land, dependent on rainfall for sufficient water. Egypt was not completely devoid of pastoralism (e.g., Gen 47:6), of course, nor was Canaan without agriculture (e.g., Gen 26:12; Judg 6:11), but these were not their major commodities (Deut 11:10–17). Thus, the promised land was a land “flowing with milk” of goats “and honey” of bees, not agricultural crops but pastoral produce. Since they were dependent on God to give the rain in due season, the Israelites must trust God for it and live faithful to him. Under God’s blessings, it would be a land of abundance (Lev 26:3–5; Deut 28:4–5, 11–12), “flowing with milk and honey.” Under his curses, there would deprivation (Lev 26:19–20; Deut 28:17–18, 23–24). 12. I shall not enter fully into the debate whether the cultic procedures and pronouncements in Deut 26:5–10 and 13–15 were intended to apply only to the original first and third year of Israelite occupation of the land or whether they extended to every year

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ָׂ ‫ְו‬ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶׁ ‫ַתּה ְו ַה ֵלִּוי ְו ַה ֵגּר א‬ ָ ‫ֵיתךָ א‬ ֶ ‫ּולב‬ ְ ָ‫ן־לךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיך‬ ְ ַ‫ֲש֧ר נָֽת‬ ֶׁ ‫ת ְבכָל־הַטֹּוֹוב א‬ ּ ָ ‫שמ ְַח‬ ‫בֽךָ׃‬ ּ ֶ ‫ְב ִּק ְר‬ Then you shall rejoice in all the good things which the Lord your God has given to you and to your household; (that is,) you and the Levite and the resident alien who is in your midst. The inclusion of the Levite and the resident alien is especially significant and is repeated twice along with the fatherless and widow in the next few verses, where the text moves from the firstfruits celebration when the people enter the land to the principles and procedures of the third-year tithe (Deut 26:12–15; cf. Deut 14:28–29). 13 And, once again, the commanded proclamation ends with the same description of Canaan as “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Deut 26:15). The fact that the Israelites would actually deliver the third-year tithe to the local towns so that “the Levite and the resident alien, the orphan and the widow” could eat and be satisfied is emphasized because in this prosperous land they must practice concern for those less fortunate. This is central to living in covenant relationship with the Lord for those who were his treasured possession, kingdom of priests, and holy people. Moreover, in terms of content, these two proclamations focus first on God’s grace toward the Israelites (26:5–10) and, second, their response to God’s grace through covenant obedience (vv.  13–15). Special care for the needy and disadvantaged becomes the occasion for proclaiming, “I have obeyed the Lord my God. I have done according to all which you have commanded me” (v. 14b). 14 The significance of this kind of care for the resident alien in particular (highlighted in the citations above) is of special interest to us here because of its close connection to the people’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. The Israelites themselves had been the less-fortunate, vulnerable, and enslaved resident aliens in Egypt (v. 5). As we shall see below, the same theme also becomes prominent elsewhere in the shaping and framing of the Torah Law and its various collections.

and/or every third year that the people lived in the land. The tendency among scholars seems to favor the latter interpretation, an opinion with which I agree. For the former view, see Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), 319–20, 322–23. For the latter, see A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCBC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 331–32, 336; E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 331, 335; and McConville, Deuteronomy, 377. 13. For a full discussion of the ancient Israelite tithe system, including the thirdyear tithe and its relation to the other years, see my “‫ֲשׂר‬ ֵ ‫ ַמע‬tithe, tenth,” in NIDOTTE 2.1035–55. 14. See the helpful analysis in Christopher Wright, Deuteronomy (NIBCOT; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 270–74.

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The Ten Words We now turn to the frame, shape, and rationale of the Law as it was revealed at Sinai. The main point of the argument here is that the same covenant law pattern appears here in its own peculiar way. For the purposes of this part of the discussion, the Law at Sinai extends from the introduction of the so-called Ten Commandments in Exod 20:1 to the colophon in Lev 26:46: ׂ ְ ‫בנֵי י‬ ‫ִש ָראֵל ְבּהַר ִסינַי‬ ּ ְ ‫ֲשר נָתַ ן יְהוָה ֵבּינֹו ּובֵין‬ ֶׁ ‫ֻקּים ְוה ִַּמ ְׁש ָפ ִּטים ְוהַתֹּורֹת א‬ ִ ‫ֵא ֶלּה ַהח‬ ‫שה׃‬ ֶׁ ֹ ‫בי ַד־מ‬ ְּ These are the decrees, the judgments, and the instructions that the Lord established between himself and the Israelites at Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses. We could perhaps extend this to the second colophon in Lev 27:34. 15 And, of course, there are a number of units of law between Exod 20 and the end of Leviticus. Furthermore, there are units of law in the book of Numbers 15. There is a good deal of debate about the extent of the so-called Holiness Code in Lev 17–27, sometimes referred to as the “Holiness Legislation” or “Collection” to avoid any sense that this is a comprehensive set of laws, which some take to be implied in the term “code.” See, e.g., the helpful discussions in Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22 (AB 3A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1332–34; idem, Leviticus 23–27 (AB 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 2407–9; and Jeffrey Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (FAT 52; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 12–14, and the bibliographical references cited in those places. I will use the standard term “Holiness Code” or simply “H” in this essay as a convention only. Some scholars limit the Holiness Code to Lev 18–26 because the standard holiness terminology does not appear in Lev 17 or 27. See the holiness command in Lev 19:2, “You shall be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (cf. 20:7, 26; 21:6–8) and the related formula, “I am the Lord (your God),” which appears regularly throughout Lev 18–26 (18:2, 4, 5, 6, 21, 30; 19:3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37; 20:7, 8, 24; 21:8, 12, 15, 23; 22:2, 3, 8, 9, 16, 30, 31, 32, 33; 23:22, 43; 24:22; 25:17, 38, 55; 26:1, 2, 13, 44, 45). Both formulas begin with “I am the Lord.” For example, 20:7 combines them: “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God” (see also 19:2–3). Others extend the Holiness Code back into Lev 17, perhaps considering its placement to be due to a supposed late holiness redaction. On the one hand, Lev 17 looks back to chaps. 1–16 in the sense that it emphasizes making offerings in the tabernacle (Lev 17:1–9) along with blood “atonement” and, therefore, the prohibition against eating blood (vv. 10–16). On the other hand, the primary goal of the regulations in Lev 17 was to reinforce one of the major concerns of chaps. 18–26: the absolute exclusivity of Yahweh worship. Also, this would place a major unit of cultic altar regulations at the beginning of the Holiness Code, as at the beginning of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22–26) and at the beginning of the core legislation in the book of Deuteronomy (Deut 12). Leviticus 27 is normally treated as an appendix to the book because of the colophon at the end of Lev 26. A similar colophon, however, appears at the end of Lev 27 (27:34). Although, like Lev 17, chap. 27 does not use the standard formulas of Lev 18–26, some

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as well. But the point of the colophon is that this is a natural end of the collection as a whole, the blessings and curses of the covenant having just been pronounced (cf. the curses and blessings in Deut 27–28 in relation to the treatment of Deut 26 above). Returning now to the main topic: as is well known among Bible scholars, the term “Ten Commandments” is actually something of a misnomer. The regular term for “commandments” does not appear when the ten are referred to as a group. For example, in Exod 34:28 we read: ‫ש ָתה‬ ָׁ ‫י־שם ִעם־יְהוָה א ְַר ָב ִּעים יֹום ְוא ְַר ָב ִּעים ַל ְילָה ֶלחֶם לֹא ָאכַל ּו ַמיִם לֹא‬ ָׁ ‫ְה‬ ִ ‫ַוי‬ ֶׂ ‫ַוִי ְּכתֹּב עַל־ ַה ֻלּחֹת אֵת ִד ְּברֵי ה ְַבִּרית ע‬ ‫ָרים׃‬ ִ‫ַדב‬ ּ ְ ‫ֲשרֶת ה‬ And he (Moses) was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He did not eat bread and he did not drink water, and he wrote the ֶׂ ‫)ע‬. words of the covenant on the tablets, the ten words (‫ָרים‬ ִ‫ַדב‬ ּ ְ ‫ֲשרֶת ה‬ (see also Deut 4:13; 10:4) As it turns out, this becomes significant in the discussion of the enumeration of “the ten words.” 16 Although this is not the place to discuss all the details, Exod 20:2 stands at the head of the ten words (cf. also Deut 5:6), but it does not contain a “command.” Briefly, there are three major views. Philo, Josephus, the Greek Orthodox, and most Protestants take Exod 20:2–3 to be the first word, prohibiting worship of any other gods in Israel. Augustine, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics take vv. 2–6 to be the first commandment, prohibiting worship of any other gods and making idols. The latter adjust by treating “do not covet” in v. 17 as the ninth and tenth words, since note that its general content is appropriate and, again, its location here may be due to a supposed late H redaction. The content of Leviticus 27 actually suits the pattern of cultic regulations, not only at the beginning of the other law collections (see above), but also at the end of them. The festival regulations in Exod 23:14–19 conclude the laws in the Book of the Covenant (discussed below). Similarly, the firstfruits and third-year tithe festival regulations in Deut 26 conclude the core law section of Deuteronomy (i.e., Deut 12–26; discussed above). Leviticus 27 contains cultic regulations for paying vows, the dedication of houses and fields, the presentation of firstborn animals, and tithes. It seems that, just as Exod 20:22–26 corresponds to 23:14–19, and as Deut 12 corresponds to 26, in the same way, Lev 17 corresponds to 27. It belongs to a regular pattern of the cultic framing of the noncultic law collections. In my view, this explains why Lev 27 is placed after Lev 26 in spite of the colophon in Lev 26:46 and why there is another colophon at the end of Lev 27. 16. See the helpful discussion in Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 108; and M. D. Koster, “The Numbering of the Ten Commandments in Some Peshitta Manuscripts,” VT 30 (1980): 468–73, esp. p. 469. For a good, substantial, up-to-date discussion, see now Mark F. Rooker, The Ten Commandments: Ethics for the Twenty-First Century (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010), 10–15 and the references cited there. And see esp. H. Louis Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982), 119–22. I thank Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Scolnic for pointing me to Ginsberg.

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the prohibition “you must not covet” (‫ )לֹא תַ ְחמֹד‬appears twice in that verse. 17 Thus, both of these traditions combine v. 2 with the following verse(s) as an introduction to the commands. The Jewish tradition, on the other hand, commonly treats v. 2 alone as the first word, on a par with the other nine. Since these are ten “words” rather than ten “commandments,” the first word does not need to express a “command.” 18 Thus, vv. 3–6 constitute the second word, as a prohibition against worshiping other gods and making idols. 19 One can observe this ongoing tradition, for example, on a silver plaque embedded on the front cover of an album made of olive wood, decorated in ivory and mother-of-pearl. It was made in the Bezalel School of Art and Design in Jerusalem around 1912, just over a century ago, and is now housed in the Israel Museum. 20 The first of the ten words begins with ‫אָנ ִֹכי‬, “I,” and the second with ‫ִהיֶה‬ ְ ‫“ לֹא י‬There shall not be . . . ,” corresponding to Exod 20:2 and 3, respectively. The double accent system in the BHS Masoretic Text of Exod 20:2–6 reflects this as a possible reading as well. The last word of v. 2 (“slavery,” lit., “slaves”) has two accents (‫ָד֑ים׃‬ ֽ ִ ‫)עֲב‬, an atnaḥ ( ֑ ), the accent that normally 17. Further support for this view derives from the way Exod 20:17 appears in Deut 5:21, “You must not covet (‫ )תַ ְחמֹד‬your neighbor’s wife. And you must not desire (‫)ת ְת ַאּוֶה‬ ִ your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male slave or his female slave, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” The switch from one verb to the other suggests that perhaps these really are two separate commands, not to be counted as one. See Block, Deuteronomy, 160 and the references cited there for support of this numbering. See also the related discussion below and n. 21. 18. Against this point, Ginsberg (The Israelian Heritage of Judaism, 121–22) argues that Exod 20:2 really amounts to a commandment: “You must acknowledge that I . . . am your God who delivered you, etc.” In either case, v. 2 is normally treated as the first of the ten words in the Jewish tradition, although there are some exceptions, as noted in Moshe Weinfeld, “The Decalogue: Its Significance, Uniqueness, and Place in Israel’s Tradition,” in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islam Perspectives (ed. Edwin B. Firmage et al; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 12 n. 28. I thank Gary Rendsburg for calling my attention to this important contribution to this discussion. 19. See, e.g., the Talmud (b. Makkot 23b–24a) in I. Epstein, ed., The Babylonian Talmud (New York: Bennett, 1959), 36.169, where the tradition of 613 commands from the Lord to Moses corresponds to the members of a man’s body, and the reference given is Deut 33:4, “the law (‫ )תֹורָה‬that Moses gave us.” But the letters of the word ‫תֹורה‬ ָ taken as numbers add up to 611 (i.e., 400+6+200+5 = 611), not 613. The explanation given is that the first two commands in the Decalogue (“I am” and “You shall have no other gods,” Exod 20:2–3) do not count in the 613 because these two Israel “heard from the mouth of the Might [Divine]” directly. Similarly, the Mekilta Baḥodesh 8 speaks about the arrangement of the Decalogue “five on the one tablet and five on the other.” Number one, “I am the Lord your God” (Exod 20:2), corresponds to number six, “You shall not murder,” and number two, “You shall have no other god” (Exod 20:3–6), corresponds to number seven, “You shalt not commit adultery”; see Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (trans. Jacob Z. Lauterbach; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1961), 2.262–3. 20. Chaya Benjamin, Early Israeli Arts and Crafts: Bezalel Treasures from the Alan B. Slifka Collection in the Israel Museum ( Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 2008), 111.

Framing and Shaping of the Mosaic Law

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comes at the middle of a verse, and a silluq with sop passuq ( ‫) ֽ׃‬, the accent that normally comes at the end of a verse. The second would make v. 2 a finished statement and, therefore, suggests that it is being treated as the first of the ten words. Moreover, vv. 3–4 have no sop passuq at all, so there is no ending accent for either of these verses, and the last word of v. 5 once ׂ ‫“ = ְל‬to those who again has both an atnaḥ and a silluq with sop passuq (‫ש ְֹנ ָא ֽ֑י׃‬ hate me”—all one word in Hebrew). The first links v. 5 forward to v. 6 and, therefore, would suggest that the second word of the Decalogue extends all the way from v. 3 through v. 6. Thus, if one reads the accents this way, the “First Word” would consist of v. 2 and the second vv. 3–6. 21 There is good reason to take the Jewish view seriously. It rightly places emphasis on v. 2 as the first and fundamental word at the head of the ten. Nevertheless, Moshe Weinfeld has made a very strong argument for treating Exod 20:2–3 together as the first commandment and vv. 4–6 as the second (following Philo, Josephus, the Greek Orthodox, and most Protestants). 22 But whatever conclusion one comes to in this matter, the major point remains valid: as in Deut 26 at the end of the Law, the fundamental principle with which the Law begins is the redemptive history that made the covenant possible: Exodus 20:2

‫ָדים׃‬ ִ ‫ֵאתיךָ ֵמ ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצרַ יִם ִמ ֵבּית עֲב‬ ִ ‫ֲשר הֹוצ‬ ֶׁ ‫ָא ֽנ ִֹכי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ א‬ I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. Here the term “slavery” actually appears, not just “Egypt” or words for oppression, as in the passages treated above. Furthermore, the Sabbath rest for the slave and not coveting another person’s slave are incorporated into 21. A similar double accent system for the Decalogue in Deut 5:6–10 accents the end of v. 6 (= Exod 20:2) the same as Exod 20:2, but there are variations forward from there. See Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism, 119–22; and Patrick D. Miller, The Ten Commandments (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 387–89 for remarks on the possible differences between the enumeration of the ten words in Exodus as compared with Deuteronomy (see also n. 17 above). Ginsberg argues that in Exod 20 the prologue statement in v.  2 is the first word, while in Deut 5 we should follow the Lutheran and Catholic tradition. We should not read the two texts in the same way. The introduction in Deut 5:6 (= Exod 20:2) is not the first of the ten words as it is in Exod 20 but a statement of the Lord’s commitment under the covenant made at Sinai, which is then followed by the ten words (Deut 5:7–10, the prohibition against other gods and idols, being the first word). Block (Deuteronomy, 159) notes several ways in which the Ten Words are articulated differently between Exod 20 and Deut 5. For a very thorough discussion of the enumeration issues for the the Ten Words, see now Jason S. DeRouchie, “Counting the Ten: An Investigation into the Numbering of the Decalogue,” in For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block (ed. Jason DeRouchie; et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 93–125. 22. See the full discussion in Weinfeld, “The Decalogue,” 4–6, 12–13 n. 28.

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the fourth and tenth words, respectively. This brings us to the Book of the Covenant.

The Book of the Covenant As is well known, the units of the Law in the Torah generally begin and end with cultic regulations. For example, the laws of the Book of the Covenant actually begin with the idol and altar regulations in Exod 20:22–26 and end with three annual feasts in Exod 23:14–19. 23 Right after the cultic introduction at the end of Exod 20, there is a verse that introduces the regulations that follow in chaps. 21–23, “Now, these are the regulations which you shall set before them” (Exod 21:1). What is of special interest to us here is that the debt-slave release laws for fellow Israelites follow immediately in vv. 2–11, right at the beginning of the noncultic regulations. They begin in v. 2 with the release of the male slave: ‫ָפ ִׁשי ִחנָּם׃‬ ְ ‫ַש ִׁב ִעת יֵצֵא ַ ֽלח‬ ּ ְ ‫שנִים יַעֲבֹד ּוב‬ ָׁ ‫שׁש‬ ֵ ׁ ‫ִכּי ִת ְקנֶה ֶעבֶד ִע ְבִרי‬ When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year he shall go out as a free man, without payment. and they end with the release of the female slave in v. 11, ‫ָצאָה ִחנָּם אֵין ָ ּכסֶף׃‬ ְ ‫ֲשׂה לָּה ְוי‬ ֶ ‫ם־שלָׁש־ ֵא ֶלּה לֹא יַע‬ ְׁ ‫ְו ִא‬ But if he does not do these three things for her (see v. 10), then she shall go out without payment; there is no money (involved). There has been some dispute over the meaning of ‫ ִע ְבִרי‬in v. 2. Some scholars regard the term as cognate to Akkadian ḫābiru/ḫāpiru, in which case it would refer to displaced, foreign, and often indigent peoples known from other ANE texts, not necessarily Israelite debt slaves. 24 The parallel pas23. See, e.g., Joe M. Sprinkle, ‘The Book of the Covenant’: A Literary Approach ( JSOTSup 174; JSOT Press, 1994), 36–39. See also Lev 17 with 27 for the Holiness Laws and Deut 12 with 26 for the core legal section of Deuteronomy, discussed at more length in n. 15 above. 24. See the summary discussion in Sprinkle, ibid., 62–64, and the full argument in favor of this interpretation in Christopher J. H. Wright, God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 253–59; and more briefly, idem, Deuteronomy, 192–93. The major problem with this view is the juxtaposition of “your brother” with “(whether) male Hebrew or female Hebrew” in Deut 15:12, which assures us that “Hebrew” there refers to a native Israelite as the debt slave (see presently), contra the arguments in idem, God’s People in God’s Land, 254. See “your brother” versus “your foreigner” in Deut 15:3 and the remarks in Block, Deuteronomy, 370–71; and McConville, Deuteronomy, 256, 261–63. Richard S. Hess points out that any cognate relationship between Hebrew ‫ ִע ְבִרי‬and Akkadian ḫābiru/ḫāpiru is unlikely. Hebrew ‫ ִע ְבִרי‬lacks the i vowel between the last two consonants, and the consonantal spelling in Ugaritic has a p not a b (personal communication). On the one hand, there may be a plausible sociological relationship between the Hebrew ‫ ִע ְבִרי‬and the Akkadian ḫābiru/ḫāpiru. One could argue that the Israelites were

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sage on the Hebrew debt-slave law in Deut 15, however, clearly has it referring to native Israelites when it begins with the term “your brother,” v. 12: ‫ָחיךָ ָה ִֽע ְבִרי אֹו ָה ִֽע ְבִריָּה‬ ִ ‫מכֵר ְלךָ א‬ ּ ָ ‫ִכּי־ִי‬ If your brother (that is,) a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you. . . .

Similarly, compare the parallel passage in Lev 25:39: ְ ‫ִמ ַכּר־ל‬ ְ ‫ְו ִכי־י‬ ‫ָך לֹא־תַ עֲבֹד בֹּו עֲבֹדַ ת ָעֽבֶד׃‬ ְ ‫ָחיךָ ִע ָמ ְּך ְונ‬ ִ ‫ָמּוך א‬

And if your brother becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you must not enslave him in the service of a slave.

This is likely the intended meaning in Exod 21 as well. 25 Scholars have observed, and it is of special interest to us here, that no other ANE law collection begins with slave law. 26 Why do the noncultic laws of the Book of the Covenant begin with slave law, and Hebrew debtslave law in particular? Other scholars and I argue that it is for the same reason that the ten words begin the way they do (see above). According to the text as it stands, the giving of the Law as it was conceived in ancient Israel arose out God’s previous deliverance from slavery in Egypt, which was in turn motivated by his previous covenant commitment to the patriarchs. The sequence of the deliverance from Egypt to receiving the Law at Sinai begins with Exod 2:23b–25: And the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor, and they cried out, and their cry for help rose up to God because of their slave labor. So God heard their outcry, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites and God took notice of them. (Exod 2:23–25) This thematic connection works its way from the narrative context into and through the core substance of the Book of the Covenant. Within the cultic frame noted above (Exod 20:22–26 23:14–19), there is an inner in the general category of ḫābiru. In the Hebrew Bible, however, the term ‫גֵר‬, “resident alien,” seems to cover the social (as opposed to ethnic) category of ḫābiru. See now also the remarks in David P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 125–26; and also Richard S. Hess, “Alalakh Studies in the Bible: Obstacle or Contribution?” in Scripture and Other Artifacts: Essays on the Bible and Arcaheology in Honor of Philip J. King (ed. Michael D. Coogan et al; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 205–8. I thank Rick Hess for his helpful personal communication and for calling my attention to his article on this topic. 25. See, e.g., Sarna, Exodus, 119; and the extensive discussion in William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40 (AB 2A; New York: Doubleday, 2006), 186–88. 26. See, e.g., Sprinkle, The Book of the Covenant, 62; idem, Biblical Law and Its Relevance: A Christian Understanding and Ethical Application for Today of the Mosaic Regulations (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006), 59.

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sabbatical frame in the correspondence between the sabbatical release of the male debt slave in Exod 21:2–11 and the Sabbath for the land and the regular weekly Sabbath in Exod 23:10–13 (i.e., 21:2–6[7–11] 23:10–13). 27 This sabbatical correspondence between the beginning and end of the laws in the Book of the Covenant once again highlights the importance of the people’s deliverance from slavery. Thus, the people were not to enslave one another. Furthermore, and to the same point, one should add the correspondence between Exod 22:20[21] and 23:9: Exod 22:20[21]

‫ב ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצ ָריִם׃‬ ּ ְ ‫ִיתם‬ ֶ ‫הי‬ ֱ ‫ְוגֵר לֹא־תֹונֶה ְולֹא ִת ְל ָח ֶצּ֑נּו ִכּי־גִֵרים‬ You must not afflict a resident alien and oppress him, for you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt. Exod 23:9

‫ב ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצרָי‬ ּ ְ ‫ִיתם‬ ֶ ‫ַתּם יְדַ ְע ֶתּם אֶת־נֶפֶׁש ַה ֵגּר ִכּי־גִֵרים הֱי‬ ֶ ‫ְוגֵר לֹא ִת ְלחָץ ְוא‬ You must not oppress a resident alien, since you yourselves know the life of the resident alien, for you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt. The close correspondence between these two verses is stunning. Structurally, if we keep the cultic and sabbatical framing of the law in mind (see just above), Exod 23:9 would conclude the unit that begins with Exod 2:20[21]. Thus, Exod 22:20[21] through 23:9 would constitute a discreet unit of largely apodictic laws surrounded and framed by these two verses about the treatment of resident aliens in light of the people’s own resident alien experience in Egypt. Actually, as Wright has observed, Exod 23:9 leads naturally to the following sabbatical frame as well, where the poor and enslaved are of special concern once again, along with the resident alien (see vv. 10–13). 28 Here again, therefore, we have the same thematic emphasis that appears elsewhere in the framing of the Law. The enclosing structures within the Book 27. See the very helpful work done on the sabbatical framework of the Book of the Covenant in Igor Swiderski, “Sabbatical Patterns in the Book of the Covenant” (M.A. thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2013). This is truly a masterful thesis, written on the level of a Ph.D. dissertation. It is worthy of serious scholarly attention. 28. D. P. Wright (Inventing God’s Law, 10–16, 51–90) proposes that Exod 22:20–23:19 actually consists of two strings of apodictic laws (Exod 22:20–30 and 23:9–19, respectively). Thus, the parallel laws in 22:20 and 23:9 introduce two sections of law rather than providing an inclusion surrounding the laws between them. In any case, the main point is the same: the basic rationale of the Law in ancient Israel was to protect the poor and underprivileged, because that is what they themselves had been in Egypt. Wright sees the structure his way at least partly because of the supposed parallels between the apodictic laws in the Book of the Covenant and the “exhortatory block” in the Laws of Hammurapi. The analysis suggested here keeps the inclusion structures currently under discussion intact (see also fig. 1).

Framing and Shaping of the Mosaic Law

(1) Exod 20:22–26 (2) Exod 21:2–11

cultic frame sabbatical frame

157

Exod 23:14–19 Exod 23:10–13

(3) a Exod 21:12–22:16[17] //// c Exod 22:20[21]–23:9 largely casuistic largely apodictic: resident alien frame 22:20 23:9 (4) b Exod 22:17[18]–19[20] apodictic: capital crimes Figure 1.  The enclosing structures within the Book of the Covenant. of the Covenant, therefore, look something like what is shown in fig. 1. It is not my purpose here to treat the arrangement of the various laws enclosed within the structural layout summarized in fig. 1. In very general terms, the first major section of law in the Book of the Covenant consists of the main body of largely casuistic laws in Exod 21:1–22:16[17]. The second major section consists of the mainly apodictic laws in Exod 22:17[18]–23:13. 29 (The festival laws in Exod 23:14–19 correspond to the cultic regulations in Exod 20:22–26; see fig. 1; and Exod 23:20–33 gives specific instructions for the upcoming conquest of the land.) Unit (3) in fig. 1 reflects the division between the mainly casuistic and apodictic units, respectively, but it excludes unit (4), Exod 22:17[18]–19[20]. These latter laws actually initiate the apodictic unit, but they stand outside the resident-alien unit (3) and are distinctive. They highlight three major capital crimes in Israel: sorcery, bestiality, and idolatry. They appear to supply a pivot point between the larger casuistic and apodictic units, but that is a subject for another time. 30 As noted above, Exod 23:9 not only echoes 22:20[21] and, therefore, forms an inclusion for the apodictic laws that stand between them, but it also leads suitably into the sabbatical-year rest for the land (23:10–11) and the regular weekly Sabbath (vv. 12–13). These latter laws once again emphasize the need to make special provision for the poor, the enslaved, and the resident alien. They also correspond to the seventh-year release of debt slaves in Exod 21:2–6[-11] at the beginning of the casuistic section, as indicated in unit (2) in fig. 1. The beginning of the casuistic laws corresponds to the end of the apodictic laws in this way. This is all part of the literary framing of the Book of the Covenant. Virtually at every turn, the rationale for the Law depends on the people’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt and 29. See, e.g., Sarna, Exodus, 117–18. 30. See Sprinkle, The Book of the Covenant, 160–65 for a helpful discussion.

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its implications for the way that they must treat the poor and disadvantaged in Israel, including the resident alien. Scholars have recognized the numerous parallels between the first (i.e., casuistic) section of the Book of the Covenant and the cuneiform law collections of the ANE. D. P. Wright argues forcefully that the substance and sequence of both the casuistic and apodictic sections point to the direct compositional literary dependence of the Book of the Covenant on the Laws of Hammurapi—not only its laws but also the (apodictic) prologue and epilogue. 31 Others have proposed a less direct connection, such as, for example, a common oral law tradition that was prevalent in the ANE, or a specifically Amorite legal tradition that influenced Israelite law, or a combination of these and other factors. 32 Wright argues from his documentary compositional analysis that one cannot separate the Book of the Covenant from its narrative context compositionally. Doing this would obviate the rationale for both the narrative and the Law. 33

Debt Slavery in Leviticus 25 This brings us to the overall framework of the Law given at Sinai as a whole, from Exod 19 through Lev 26 (see the discussion of the colophon in Lev 26:46 above). As previously discussed, not only is the call to covenant in Exod 19:3–6 founded upon the deliverance from Egypt, but so are the ten words. Furthermore, not only does the Book of the Covenant begin with debt-slave law, but the whole of the laws given at Sinai also end with the debt-slave law in Lev 25:39–55, just before the blessings and curses of the covenant in Lev 26. This latter point is not often taken into account in discussions of the Sinaitic Law. Perhaps this is because the Laws of Hammurapi, for example, do indeed conclude with slave laws, so an ANE law collection ending this way is in fact not unique to the biblical Law, in con31. This is the main burden of his monograph; D. P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law. His proposal is controversial. For critical reviews, see, for example, Meir Malul’s remarks in Strata: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 29 (2011): 155–59; and Bruce Wells in The Journal of Religion 90 (2010): 558–60. In my view, Wright’s main argument is not convincing. Reading the book and carefully examining his charts of the primary data of the Book of the Covenant as compared with the Laws of Hammurapi (esp. pp. 82–90 and 360–63) have left me with an uneasy sense that his theory is too often imposed on the material. There are too many exceptions, and his rationale for why such exceptions exist does not always convince. Nevertheless, there is much that is of great value in Wright’s analysis (see below). 32. See the helpful review of approaches in D. P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law, 16–24; and also, e.g., Samuel Greengus, “Biblical and Mesopotamian Law: An Amorite Connection?” in Life and Culture in the Ancient Near East (ed. Richard E. Averbeck et al; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2003), 63–81; and Raymond Westbrook and Bruce Wells, Everyday Law in Biblical Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 20–33. 33. D. P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law, 149–51, 322–23, 327, 332–45, 353.

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trast to the fact that no such collection begins with slave laws. Or perhaps it is because the overall canonical shape and frame of the Law is often not given full consideration; the emphasis tends toward the literary shape of the units of law within it. Or perhaps it is due to a combination of these and other factors. In any case, from the point of view of the text as it stands, Hebrew debt slave and release is “the beginning and end” of the Law at Sinai, literally. It is important here to observe the main historical and theological rationale explicitly stated in both units of Hebrew debt-slave law in the later sections of Lev 25. Basically, the point is that the Lord had already brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, so they could not be reenslaved in Israel. After declaring that no Israelite who sold himself was to be treated as a slave  34 in Israel but as (if he were) a hired man (‫)ש ִׂכיר‬ ָ temporary resident (‫)תֹושב‬ ָׁ among them and was to be released in the year of jubilee (vv. 39–41), the Lord then proclaimed (v. 42): ‫ָכרּו ִמ ְמ ֶ ּכרֶת ָעבֶד׃‬ ְ ‫ֵאתי א ָֹתם ֵמ ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצ ָריִם לֹא ִיּמ‬ ִ ‫ֲשר־הֹוצ‬ ֶׁ ‫ִכּי־עֲבָדַ י הֵם א‬ for they are my slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold in a slave sale. All Israelites were already the Lord’s slaves, so no one else could enslave them—not even another Israelite, much less anyone else (cf. Lev 25:53). Similarly, but even more emphatically, after dealing with the situation where an Israelite became a debt slave to a resident alien (‫ )ּגֵר‬temporary resident (‫)ּתֹושב‬ ָׁ among them (vv. 47–54), the Lord once again proclaims in the last verse of the chapter (v. 55): ׂ ְ ‫ּי־לי ְבנֵי־י‬ ‫אנִי יְהוָה‬ ֲ ‫אֹותם ֵמ ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצ ָריִם‬ ָ ‫ֵאתי‬ ִ ‫ֲשר־הֹוצ‬ ֶׁ ‫ָדים עֲבָדַ י הֵם א‬ ִ ‫ִש ָראֵל עֲב‬ ִ ‫ִכ‬ ‫אֱלֹהֵיכֶם׃‬ for the children of Israel are my slaves; they are my slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The double appearance of both “my” and “I” in this verse is conspicuous and emphatic. Furthermore, from a literary and content point of view, Lev 25 flows immediately into Lev 26 with no break. The continuity between the two chapters is self-evident, for example, from the references back to the sabbaticalyear regulations of rest for the land in Lev 26:34–35, 43. But more immediately, Lev 26:1 begins:

34. The term “temporary resident” (‫)תֹושב‬, ָׁ therefore, can be paired with either “hired ָׂ v. 40) or “resident alien” (‫ ;ּגֵר‬v. 47). In the former it refers to an Israelite, and man” (‫;ש ִכיר‬ in the latter a non-Israelite. Moreover, in v. 40 the point is that they should be handled by the “master” according to the standards of (lit., “like”) a hired man temporary resident, not according to the rules of regular debt slavery.

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‫ַש ִׂכּית לֹא ִת ְּתנּו‬ ְ ‫א־ת ִקימּו ָלכֶם ְו ֶאבֶן מ‬ ָ ֹ ‫צבָה ל‬ ּ ֵ ‫ילם ּו ֶפסֶל ּו ַמ‬ ִ ‫ֱל‬ ִ ‫לֹא־תַ עֲשֹוּ ָלכֶם א‬ ‫אנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם׃‬ ֲ ‫ְבּא ְַר ְצכֶם ְל ִה ְׁשתַ ּחֲֹות ָעלֶי ָה ִכּי‬ You must not make for yourselves useless images, and you must not set up for yourselves idols and standing stones, and you must not allow a carved stone in your land, to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. This yields, of course, a sequence that echoes the beginning of the Covenant Law at Sinai. The emphatic statement of the Lord’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt at the end of Lev 25 (cf. Exod 20:2) leads directly to the forceful prohibition against idol images, standing stones, or carved stones in Lev 26:1 (cf. Exod 20:3–6). Thus, we have here at the end of the Law as given at Sinai the same sequence as that in Exod 20:2–6 at the beginning of the Law at Sinai, discussed above. 35 (Compare also “Sabbath” in Exod 20:8–11 with “Sabbaths” in Lev 26:2.) The relatively noncultic regulations of the Holiness Code (Lev 18–26; “noncultic” as compared with Lev 1–16), therefore, end with this emphasis on the Lord’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, just as the Ten Words begin with it in Exod 20. 36 Significantly, the non-cultic regulations of the Holiness Code also begin with the same kind of rationale, and the first major section of the collection is framed by it. Compare the beginning and end of the laws for the holiness of the people and the priests in Lev 18–22. You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived and as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am about to bring you— you must not walk in their statutes. (Lev 18:3) I am the Lord who sanctifies you, the one who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God—I am the Lord. (Lev 22:32b–33) This cannot be a coincidence, especially in light of all the similar framing of the Law as a whole and the other biblical law collections (and subsections) treated above. Moreover, as is well known, Lev 19:18 reads, “You must not seek vengeance and you must not maintain (a grudge) against the sons of your people, but you must show love to your neighbor as yourself—I am the Lord,” meaning that one must love one’s neighbor by doing what is good for him/her just as one naturally does what is good for oneself. It is signifi35. One should also observe here that a similar reference back to the deliverance from Egypt actually appears in the very last verse, Lev 26:45 (i.e., just before the colophon in v. 46): “And I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out from the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.” See the hint at this point also in Weinfeld, “The Decalogue,” 19. 36. See the discussion of the extent and framing of the “Holiness Code” in n. 15 above. Especially recall that, in my view, Lev 17 and 27 provide a cultic frame for this collection, much as does Exod 20:22–26 and 23:14–19 for the Book of the Covenant, and Deut 12 and 26 for the core law collection in the book of Deuteronomy.

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cant that later, in vv. 33–34 of the same chapter, the same principle applies to the resident alien: “When a resident alien resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. Like one native born among you shall be the resident alien who resides with you. You shall show love to him as yourself, for you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt—I am the Lord your God.” Here again. we have the same undergirding rationale as that referred to above in the discussion of Exod 22:20[21] and 23:9, and in the connection between the first and second proclamations in Deut 26. And then again in Lev 19:36b we read: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt” (see also 23:43; 25:38; 26:13; as well as 22:33; 25:42, 55; and 26:45, all treated above). Thus, as J. Joosten has noted, “there is not one single subject treated in H that is not directly connected in some way with that momentous event from the past.” 37 In reality, therefore, there are a good number of instances seeded through the Law in which the call for good and fair treatment of resident aliens is based on Israel’s past experience in Egypt. One could say that it is essential to the ethos of the whole Law, Exodus through Deuteronomy, from beginning to end, and in between. Whether laying foundations or coming to conclusions, the lawgiver gravitated toward the founding event and its implications for the good life in ancient Israel. In summary, therefore, according to the text as it stands, for both the outside framework and the internal rationale that pervades the noncultic Sinai Law, there is a primary emphasis on the Lord’s deliverance of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. The far-outside frame is Exod 20:2–6 with Lev 25:55–26:1 (see just above; cf. Lev 26:45). The next level of the frame, moving inward, is the Hebrew debt-slave laws at the noncultic beginning of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21:2–11) and its correspondence to the end of the noncultic regulations in Lev 25:39–54. Within the Book of the Covenant itself, the laws against oppressing resident aliens and the association of these laws with Israelites as oppressed resident aliens in Egypt (Exod 22:20[21] and 23:9) provide the framework for the second major portion of the Covenant Law (Exod 22:21[22]–23:8). Within the Holiness Code, a similar framing takes place. Furthermore, this framework and rationale has an even wider sweep, covering the whole Law from Exod 19 to Deut 26. Deuteronomy 26:16–19 uses virtually the same terms for “treasured possession” and “holy nation/ people” as Exod 19:5–6. The text itself emphasizes this echo of the beginning of the Law at the end of it in the last clause: ‫ד ֵבּר׃‬ ּ ִ ‫ֲשר‬ ֶׁ ‫ ַ ּכא‬, “as he has spoken” (Deut 26:19b; see the discussion above). The niv and nrsv render it “as he promised,” clearly referring back to the original promises in Exod 37. See J. Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17–26 (VTSup 67; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 101 and the full discussion of this matter on pp. 93–101.

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19:5–6. More to the point, earlier in the same chapter the Lord’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt is the substantial rationale of the proclamation for the presentation of the firstfruits, known as the “small credo” (Deut 26:5b–10a). This, of course, corresponds to the same in Exod 19:4. It also leads to the command to set the firstfruits before the Lord as an act of worship that would supply a feast with the worshiper as well as “the Levite and the resident alien (‫( ”) ַהּגֵר‬Deut 26:11). The second proclamation (Deut 26:13b–15) was associated with the third-year tithe (v. 12). It too emphasizes care for the disadvantaged in the society, including the Levite, the resident alien (‫)ּגֵר‬, the orphan, and the widow (vv. 12 and 13). It is especially significant that this provides the occasion for the worshiper to proclaim: “I have done according to all which you have commanded me” (v. 14b). Thus, the care for the disadvantaged, including the resident alien, was the cutting edge of the Law. To fulfill this requirement was to fulfill the whole Law. After all, the people had lived as oppressed resident aliens in Egypt (v. 5). Living a life worthy of their identity and status before Yahweh required that they never allow the same kinds of oppression to reign in Israel as they themselves had experienced in Egypt. Figure 2 is an attempt to capture this overall pattern visually. Exod 19:4–6 Exod 20:2–6 Exod 21:2–11

Deut 26 Lev 25:55–26:1 Lev 25:39–54

Figure 2.  Visualization of Framing Patterns Regarding Slave Laws.

Major Historical-Critical Considerations The analysis presented above covers a great deal of textual territory and, along the way, the literary terrain varies greatly. As is well known, there are three main parallel sections of legal regulations embedded in the Torah. The results of this study suggest that, even with the varied textual terrain, the basic nature and rationale of the Law from Sinai to Moab is essentially the same throughout. First of all, above all, and throughout, the Law speaks to the Israelites as people who were delivered by the Lord out of slavery in Egypt and, therefore, called and bound by covenant to live as freed slaves devoted to the God who delivered them. Their devotion to the Lord was to include both exclusive worship of him as their only God and special care to treat one another justly, making special provision for the poor and disadvantaged among them, including resident aliens. Since the Israelites themselves had been oppressed as resident aliens in Egypt, they must be sure to avoid oppressing resident aliens when they themselves are in charge. This was the essence of the matter. In the canon as we have it, this provides the

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outside frame for the Law as a whole and, in several instances, major units of law within the Torah. Thus, this essential rationale of the Law not only encases it but also permeates it. The ramifications of this reality for our understanding of the OT Law and its intentional lifegiving application to the people of ancient Israel are immense.

Textual Terrain in the Torah Regarding the canonical text itself, the unevenness of the textual terrain is clearly evident, and that is partly what gives rise to historical-critical analysis of the Law and its relationship to the narrative framework around and through it. First there are the Ten Words and the Book of the Covenant at the core of the initial covenant-making narrative at Sinai in Exod 19–24. Here, there is no tabernacle in view, and the Book of the Covenant even legislates for solitary altars at the outset (Exod 20:24–26). It has the community of freed slaves at the center of its vision, so it puts regulations for debt slavery first and associates them with a sabbatical cycle (Exod 21:2–11). The sabbatical emphasis surfaces again near the end of the legal stipulations of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 23:10–12), thus, forming an inclusion structure. And just before that, the apodictic law section of the Book of the Covenant places special emphasis on provisions for the needy and the resident alien in Israel (see Exod 22:20[21]–23[24] with 23:9, and much that stands between them). As noted above, David Wright has argued that one cannot separate the Book of the Covenant from some version of its narrative context because of the way that the laws and the narrative support and depend on each other. 38 Moreover, according to Wright’s analysis, the Book of the Covenant itself is also a unified composition. 39 These conclusions, of course, depend largely on Wright’s argument that the Law of Hammurapi with its prologue and epilogue served as the primary source document for the composition of the Book of the Covenant, although he admits that some elements of this literary compositional unity do not depend on his theory. 40 In any case, according to Wright, around 700 BC—when the Laws of Hammurapi were available to Israelite scribes as a source for their composition of the Book of the Covenant—at that time, a narrative about the Egyptian enslavement, the Lord’s deliverance from it through Moses, and the making of the covenant between God and Israel at Sinai was already circulating. 41 This preexisting narrative supplied the context and rationale for the writing of the Law. In reality, however, according to Wright, all of this 38. See esp. D. P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law, 332–45. 39. Ibid., 352–55. 40. Compare, for example, the name memorialization in Exod 3:15 with that of 20:24; ibid., 332–33. 41. Ibid., 356.

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was “a cipher for Israel or Judah under Assyrian domination” as far as those who composed the Book of the Covenant were concerned. They took “a primary royal propagandistic motif, the king’s care for the poor,” and used it against their “Mesopotamian overlords.” 42 While I accept neither D. P. Wright’s arguments for thoroughgoing literary dependence of the Book of the Covenant on the Laws of Hammurapi (see the earlier remarks above) nor his view that the narrative of the exodus is a cipher for Israel’s resistance to the Neo-Assyrian domination, nevertheless, his estimation of the central importance of the deliverance from slavery in Egypt for the nature and rationale of the Law in the Book of the Covenant is on the mark. 43 Wright’s argument applies only to the Book of the Covenant, not the whole Law as given at Sinai, much less Moses’ exposition of it in Moab (i.e., Deuteronomy). Nevertheless, what he concludes for the connections between the narrative and the Book of the Covenant applies mutatis mutandis to the whole Law, both at Sinai and in Moab. With that in mind, we turn to the second primary unit of Law in the Torah, where there is initially a shift from the making of the covenant and principles for living it out in the community to instructions for the priests and the tabernacle. Here, the textual and legal terrain is very different, even though the text still has us at Sinai. In general terms, the first part of this priestly material, often referred to as “P” (i.e., the Priestly Code; Exod 25– Lev 16), has the reader (or hearer) of the Law standing and ministering inside the tabernacle, looking out at the community, so to speak. This is the overall perspective of the material. The second part, often referred to as H (i.e., the Holiness Code; Lev 17–27), 44 has the reader standing and living out in the community, looking in toward the tabernacle. The deliverance from slavery and its implications are naturally drawn out in the second part of this priestly material, since this was so significant for the identity and functionality of the community. Near the end of this section of law, the text returns once again to debt slavery (Lev 25:36–55) and the explicit connection to the narrative of deliverance from slavery in Egypt. The text also draws out the implications for taking special care of the needy or disadvantaged, whether native Israelites or resident aliens. The structural correspondence between the debt-slave laws at the beginning of the Book of the Covenant and then again in the final regulations at the end of the Holiness Code, which concludes the Law as given at Sinai, highlights once more the same essential rationale of the Law. Moreover, the same rationale interpenetrates the main substance of the Holiness Code (see also the remarks on Lev 18–22 above). 42. Ibid., 151. 43. Ibid., 335–38. 44. For the content and limits of the “Holiness Code,” see n. 15 above.

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Another major shift in the terrain occurs when we move forward to the third major unit of the Law as Moses expounded it in Deuteronomy. Here, we are no longer at Sinai, but in Moab and about 40 years later, so diachronic factors begin to emerge directly from the text itself. The tabernacle is not directly in view, since the conquest and occupation of the promised land is the more immediate concern, rather than the travel through the wilderness to the promised land. Thus, even the altar law changes to adjust for the shift to occupation of the land (Deut 12) as opposed to travel through the wilderness (Lev 17). In spite of this shift in terrain, the final chapter of legal regulations in Deuteronomy (Deut 26) again comes back to the same essential focus with which the Law began at Sinai and has continued to occupy itself since then. Earlier in this essay, therefore, we treated the Egyptian slavery and deliverance and its connection to the resident alien and other disadvantaged people in Israel as it is articulated in Deut 26. Much more could be done with the permeation of the same rationale in various places through the legal regulations that fill out the book of Deuteronomy as we now have it. There has been no time to pursue that point in the present essay, but for instance, in Deut 5 the rationale for the Sabbath command in the Ten Words specifically emphasizes the deliverance from slavery and its implications for life in Israel (Deut 5:15). At Sinai, the rationale derives from God’s rest on the seventh day of creation instead (Exod 20:11). Moreover, it is of special importance here that the same legal rationale appears once again for the third section of Torah debt-slave and manumission regulations, ‫ְוזָכ ְַר ָּת ִכּי ֶעבֶד‬ ָ‫ב ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצרַ יִם ַוִי ְּפ ְדּךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיך‬ ּ ְ ‫ִית‬ ָ ‫ ָהי‬, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you” (Deut 15:15a; see the discussion of Exod 21:2–11 and Lev 25:39–55 above). The main point here is that these shifts in the canonical terrain are especially important to keep in mind when analyzing the individual legal regulations themselves in their immediate context, as well as in comparing them to parallel regulations situated in another textual terrain. In fact, in my opinion, from the point of view of literary analysis it is only good common sense that this would take methodological priority. The text needs to be thoroughly worked as it stands, including text-critical and other such matters, before we resort to other measures. I do not mean to overstate the matter. There are certainly diachronic dimensions to the text, not only those stated explicitly in the text (as noted above), but also other scribal and compositional processes through time. Some of these are reflected in the text in one way or another. 45 45. See my “Pentateuchal Criticism and the Priestly Torah,” in Do Historical Matters Matter for Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Post Modern Approaches to the Bible (ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 156–58 for some of the details.

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The results of the present study apply most directly to the literary analysis of the Law in the Pentateuch—not so much the question of the historical exodus but more the tradition-historical and redaction-critical issues associated with the composition of the Law. Nevertheless, according to the text as it stands, there would be no Law without the exodus. The latter provides the Law with an ever-present historical rationale that sets a frame within the Law (on its edges) and its various parts and surfaces in numerous places throughout. As noted above, the discussion offered here covers a great deal of textual territory—too much to treat every textual detail directly, much less all the historical-critical issues that have been raised by scholars over the past few centuries. Nevertheless, the results of this inquiry lead naturally to a consideration of two of the foremost historical-critical issues that arise in the study of the Law: the relationship between the Law and the narrative in which it is embedded, and the internal consistency and coherence of the three main sections of law in the Torah. The so-called “small credo” in Deut 26:5–10 discussed above relates directly to the first of these historical-critical questions, while the relationship between the three units of debt-slave law, one in each of the three major sections of law in the Torah, corresponds to the second.

The “Credo” in Deuteronomy 26 With regard to the small credo, as noted above, the explicit connection between Exod 19:4–6 and Deut 26:16–19 provides the outside frame for the legal material in the Torah as a whole. The end returns to the beginning— that is, to the initial and foundational principles of the covenant as it was established at Sinai. Just before the envelope closes, however, Deut 26:5–10 brings us back to the overall narrative in which the Law is embedded. Norbert Lohfink has dubbed this passage “the best-known and most important credal text of the Old Testament.” 46 The relevant historical-critical discussion begins with Julius Wellhausen, who proposed that the Yahwist has the Israelites moving to Kadesh immediately after the crossing of the Reed Sea, without ever going to Sinai. Thus, Kadesh was the true scene of the Mosaic history and the giving of the legislation (see the fragment of the legislation in Exod 15:25b, and compare Exod 17:1–7 with Num 20:1, 13–14). The later Priestly writer, however, inserted the Priestly Code, which includes essentially all of Exod 19–Num 9 (see Kadesh in Num 13:26). 47 46. Norbert Lohfink, “The ‘Small Credo’ of Deuteronomy 26:5–9,” in Theology of the Pentateuch: Themes of the Priestly Narrative and Deuteronomy (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 265. 47. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (preface by Douglas  A. Knight; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 342–43, 353, 438–39. Cf. Gerhard von Rad, “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 1–58, esp. pp. 10–16.

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With this as his starting point, Gerhard von Rad later argued that the small credo in Deut 26:5–10 actually predates the Yahwist and was a set tradition already in his day. The tradition included the patriarchal age, the oppression in Egypt, the deliverance by Yahweh, and his bringing them into the promised land. The giving of the Law at Sinai is conspicuous for its absence. 48 Although the later Deuteronomist knew the Sinai tradition, he dared not add it to this long-established historical credo. He too adopted it as it was. So the exodus and Sinai traditions were originally independent and were not brought together until after they had already developed in oral form separately in different places at different times in association with alternate cultic Sitzen im Leben. The Yahwist is the one who actually brought them together but, as noted above, the credo itself was not changed, precisely because of its already-established traditional status. This is why the credo tradition does not include anything about coming to Sinai and receiving the Law there. 49 Von Rad concluded from the small credo and other contributing passages (cf. Deut 6:20–24; Josh 24:2–13; Pss 78; 105; 136; etc.), that “from the earliest times the Settlement tradition took the patriarchal period as its starting-point,” 50 although he admitted that there are texts that begin the settlement tradition with the exodus, not the patriarchs (e.g., Pss 78 and 136). 51 It was Martin Noth who developed von Rad’s thesis into a full-fledged history of earliest Israel and its various oral traditions, in many cases lending some form of historical credibility to those diverse traditions. 52 Lohfink studied the small credo in detail and concluded otherwise. Basically, he separated Deut 26:5b and 10a from vv. 6–9, since the former are in the first-person singular (i.e., v. 5b, “my father,” and v. 10a, “I” and “me”), while the latter are in the first-person plural (“us” and “our”). Thus, vv. 5b and 10a combined constitute an old prayer for the firstfruit ritual ( J). The Deuteronomist (D) took this old prayer and used the early historical summary of Num 20:15–16 (E) as the core around which to build up the historical summary in Deut 26:6–9, all from “the old sources of the Pentateuch” (i.e., JE). The text as it stands in its context, therefore, is Deuteronomic (i.e., 7th century BC), but it is built up from the older traditions, which, in turn, it preserves. 53 More recently, Konrad Schmid and others have accepted von Rad’s point that the settlement tradition (i.e., patriarchs, to Egyptian slavery, to exodus, to settlement in the promised land) and the Sinai tradition were originally 48. Von Rad, “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” 3–10. 49. Ibid., 38–41. 50. Ibid., 43. 51. Ibid.,41. 52. Martin Noth, The History of Israel (2nd ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 110–38. 53. Lohfink, “The ‘Small Credo’ of Deuteronomy 26:5–9,” 269–89.

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independent. But they have also argued for an original separation between the exodus tradition and the patriarchal tradition, and this not only in the oral but also the literary stage of the development of the biblical account. 54 According to this view, what we have in the small credo is neither the early tradition that the Yahwist adopted (von Rad) nor the older JE traditions that the Deuteronomist adopted (Lohfink). It was the Priestly writer who brought them together in the exilic or postexilic period. The problem with this view, of course, is that, unlike the Sinai tradition, the credo does indeed make reference to the patriarchs at the beginning: “My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt and lived there as a resident alien.” If, as Schmid argues, there is no such connection between the patriarchal tradition and the exodus tradition until after the Priestly tradition became codified in the postexilic period, then the small credo would have to date to the post-P period, near the end of the development of the written text, not at the beginning of the tradition as von Rad had it. 55 Schmid’s conclusion with regard to the “small credo” makes sense, given his method. But the method is precisely what is in question. 56 One sometimes gets the impression that he shapes his reading of a passage to fit his theory rather than the other way around. His dating of the small credo to a post-P redaction is an example of this. It derives from his previous commitment to the theory that the link between the patriarchal and exodus traditions was not made until very late in the compositional process. Moreover, his inquiry itself seems to paint itself into a corner, so to speak. Schmid must deal somehow with the fact that, according to his own analysis, the earlier Israelite tradition has Israel coming up out of Egypt without any indication of how they got down there to begin with. He makes a rather feeble proposal to resolve this problem when he slips from history of tradition over into actual history to suggest that they were among the groups of Semites who regularly moved into the Delta area in northern Egypt. But this does not really resolve the textual problem anyway, since even this proposed rationale for their being down in Egypt does not appear in the text. Why and how could the tradition of deliverance from Egypt start without some kind of rationale for their being there in the first place? 57 54. Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible (trans. James D. Nogalski; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 3–4. 55. Compare von Rad, “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” 41–47; and Lohfink, “The ‘Small Credo’ of Deuteronomy 26:5–9,” 282 with Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story, 8, 97, 156, 236–38, 254–57. 56. For a more complete summary and critique of Schmid’s overall proposal, see my “Review of Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible,” RBL 5 (2011). 57. Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story, 123–24. He suggests that in some passages the Israelites simply lived in Egypt (e.g., Deut 6:21–23). No descent into Egypt is mentioned. But even then, he must admit that they were not actually ethnic Egyptians. Thus, he

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I am not able to consider every detail of the discussion here but, in sum, this is how the discussion of the small credo has gone over the past century or so. This little passage has undergone a long and twisted historicalcritical journey. And there is still no settled consensus—no “assured results” of historical-critical inquiry. In fact, it seems to me that the method does not lend itself to reaching a consensus—only multiple schools of investigation pitted against each other. The von Rad/Noth hypothesis was quite well received for some time, but this is no longer the case. In the meantime, the small credo provides part of the back side of the envelope set in Moab within which the Law of the Torah is inserted. The fact that the small credo does not refer to Sinai is interesting and important, but there could be several different explanations, and not all of them would be diachronic in nature. As it stands, the confession recounts the history of how the worshiper has ended up in the promised land with a firstfruits offering to bring. It is focused on the journey from an ancestry with no homeland, to slavery in Egypt, to the Lord’s deliverance from there, to settlement and prosperity in what is now the worshiper’s homeland provided to him by the God whom he is worshiping. This is the textual terrain. Sinai was a very important stop along the way, but it was never the homeland, and the homeland is the concern of both the worshiper and the text in their context in Deut 26. Moreover, the confession itself is embedded in the Law in the first place, as part of it. So why would it make reference to itself? Furthermore, as we noted at the beginning of this section, the fact remains that the Law itself conceives of no such separation of the exodus and settlement traditions from the Sinai tradition. In fact, the rationale of the Law is largely based on the direct connection between the two.

Hebrew Debt-Slavery and Release Laws Both the small credo in Deut 26:5–10 and the Hebrew debt-slavery and release regulations reflect the same core rationale for the Law in the Torah. With regard to the latter, the Law as it was given at Sinai begins and ends with the native Hebrew debt-slave and release law in light of the Lord’s deliverance out of slavery in Egypt. The deliverance from slavery in Egypt is mentioned as the whole postulate of the Law in the first of the Ten Words (Exod 20:2; see the discussion above), and the noncultic regulations of the Book of the Covenant begin with debt slave and release stipulations (Exod 21:2–11). Similarly, the Law as given at Sinai ends with the same subject (Lev 25:39–43 and 47–55), again with special emphasis on the deliverance from slavery in Egypt as the whole postulate of the Law (Lev 25:38, 42–43, 55). This is the fundamental historical fact and theological rationale underlying the whole covenant as well as the Law embedded within it. God had set resorts to the historical fact that many Asiatic groups settled in the Nile Delta from the beginning of the second millennium BC.

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his people free, so he is their God and they are his people (Lev 25:55–26:1). Deuteronomy 26:5–10 brings us back to the same point in the last chapter of legal regulations in the Torah. The historical-critical point of contention in this instance is the coherence or lack thereof between the three sets of debt-slave regulations distributed across the three main parallel units of Law in the Torah: Exod 21:2–11 (the Book of the Covenant, or “Covenant Code”), Lev 25:39–43 (and vv.  47–55; the “Holiness Code,” a Priestly perspective), and Deut 15:12–18 (the “Deuteronomic Code”). In fact, as Bernard Levinson has noted, “Alongside the history of sacrifice and the festival calendar, the question of the sequence and relation of the laws concerning manumission of slaves has been essential to any larger attempt to construct a history of Israelite religion and a compositional history of the Pentateuch.” 58 The standard historical-critical view has been that the debt-slave law in Exod 21 came first (early preexilic). Deuteronomy 15 came next and revised the Exod 21 regulation in light of new conditions in the 7th century BC (i.e., late preexilic, the well-accepted historical-critical date for Deuteronomy). The combined debt-slave regulations of Exod 21 and Deut 15 failed to carry the day in late preexilic Judah, according to the account in Jer 34. The later (exilic and/or postexilic) Priestly “Holiness Code” regulations in Lev 25 therefore revised the failed Exodus and Deuteronomy debt-slave regulations, maintaining the institution, but only in a substantially revised form in which the manumission would occur in the jubilee year, not in the seventh year after only six years of debt slavery. 59 A substantial contingent of the Israeli school of biblical criticism generally turns the order of Deut 15 and Lev 25 around the other way. The Holiness Code comes before the Deuteronomic Code, so Deut 15 is dependent not only on Exod 21 but also on Lev 25. 60 The major voices in favor of the latter alternative include Sara Japhet, Jacob Weingreen, and Jacob Milgrom. 61 More recently, Benjamin Kilchör has supplied data and argued that 58. Bernard M. Levinson, “The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory,” in Congress Volume Leiden 2004 (ed. André Lemaire; VTSup 109; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 281. 59. Ibid., 283. 60. See the helpful summary in ibid., 285–88. Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (trans. and abridged by Moshe Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 166–211 was one of the first to argue for this historical order in the development of the three codes. But he also argued that there was no dependence of one upon the other in the historical development of their legal regulations and, therefore, no legal innovations between them. 61. Sara Japhet, “The Relationship between the Legal Corpora in the Pentateuch in Light of Manumission Laws,” Studies in the Bible, 1986 (ed. S. Japhet; Scripta Hierosolymitana 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 63–89; J. Weingreen, From Bible to Mishnah: The Continuity of Tradition (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1976), 132–42; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27 (AB 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 2254–57.

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this latter direction of dependence between the legal corpora is much more likely. He bases this, among other things, upon a carefully constructed and rather comprehensive literary analysis comparing the parallel debt-slave regulations in the three corpora, ending up with the sequence Exod  21  > Lev 25 > Deut 15. 62 This is not the place to treat all of the details of these debt-slave laws and the relationships between them, but a few points are especially relevant to our discussion here. 63 First, as a principle of method, when we compare the debt-slave laws in Exod 21, Lev 25, and Deut 15, we need to keep in mind the peculiarities of the textual terrain in each instance. Because the textual terrain varies, one passage may lend access to a detail or perspective that is not found in another. And the differences are important to a more-complete picture of the legal and cultural phenomena. It is important to note, for example, that the second part of the Exod 21 passage in vv. 7–11 turns from the male debt slave to the female debt slave—specifically, a family daughter who is actually slated to become the wife of the master or his son. 64 Thus, she does not go out from the master’s house in the seventh year as the male does. Deuteronomy 15:12–17 makes it clear that if a woman debt slave was not slated to be a wife, she would go out free just as any male debt slave. Jeffrey Tigay, for example, agrees that these texts do not necessarily contradict each other. 65 Unfortunately, many scholars have treated this as a cardinal

62. Benjamin Kilchör, “Frie aber arm? Soziale Sicherheit als Schlüssel zum Verhältnis der Sklavenfreilassungsgesetze im Pentateuch,” VT 62 (2012): 381–97; idem, “The Direction of Dependence between the Laws of the Pentateuch: The Priority of a Literary Approach,” ETL 89 (2013): 1–14. I thank Joshua Berman for kindly calling my attention to these works. 63. For more-comprehensive treatments of the subject, see Gregory C. Chiri­ chigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East ( JSOTSup 141; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993); Joe M. Sprinkle, ‘The Book of the Covenant’: A Literary Approach ( JSOTSup 174; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 50–72; Raymond Westbrook, “The Female Slave,” in Law from the Tigris to the Tiber: The Writings of Raymond Westbrook, vol. 2, Cuneiform and Biblical Sources (ed. Bruce Wells and Rachel Magdalene; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 149–74, a reprint from Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. V. H. Matthews et al.; JSOTSup 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 214–38. For a relatively brief analysis, see my article “Law,” in Cracking Old Testament Codes: Essays in Honor of Richard D. Patterson (ed. D. Brent Sandy and Ronald L. Giese Jr.; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995), 131–34. 64. Contra Calum Carmichael, “The Three Laws on the Release of Slaves,” ZAW 112 (2000): 515–18, I take the Qere reading in v. 8 (lô, “for himself ”), not the Kethiv (lōʾ, “not”). This seems to be the more natural reading, especially in light of the parallel in v. 9, where he designates her as a wife for his son, and the lamed preposition clearly means “to” or “for.” See also the discussion in D. P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law, 132–33. 65. See the helpful discussion in Tigay, Deuteronomy, 148–49, 466. He argues that “it is possible that the two laws refer to different cases,” recognizing that Deut 15:12–17 is not taking into consideration the marital issues for the debt-slave woman in Exod 21:7–11.

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point in their theory, arguing that the woman debt slave going free like the male debt slave is an innovation in Deut 15, intending to subvert Exod 21. 66 Leviticus 25 raises the discussion to a whole different level. Even Tigay agrees that the debt slavery and release regulations in Lev 25 most certainly subvert the regulations in Exod 21 and Deut 15. 67 One of the most obvious differences is that in Exod 21:2 and Deut 15:12 the debt slave serves for six years and goes out in the seventh, while Lev 25:40, 54 has him going out in the year of jubilee. Thus, he could theoretically serve as a debt slave for as many as 49 years. The regular harmonistic approach is to argue that the debt slave serves six years (Exod 21:2; Deut 15:12) unless the jubilee year intervenes, in which case the slave goes free at the jubilee (Lev 25:40). Moreover, even if he chooses to continue as a debt slave to his master after the six years (Exod 21:5–6; Deut 15:16–17) or is indebted to a resident alien or stranger and has not been redeemed by his family (Lev 25:47–53), he must still go free in the jubilee (Lev 25:54–55). Tigay effectively refutes this explanation and argues that “Leviticus 25 represents a system for the relief of the poverty that is independent of the one in Exodus and Deuteronomy.” He leaves open the question of whether Lev 25 derives from a different time and/or place than Exod 21 and Deut 15, or whether “it simply reflects the approach of another school of thought.” However, Bernard Levinson and, following him, Jeffrey Stackert, argue vehemently for the debt-slave laws in Lev 25 as a text whose author(s) intended to subvert the regulations in Exod 21 and Deut 15. 68 To them, it is not a matter of just another school of thought being expressed. This is not the place to engage fully with the details of their arguments, but there are a number of points at which they fail. Perhaps most importantly, Levinson makes much of the importance of rendering Lev 25:46a as follows: ‫בהֶם ּתַ עֲבֹדּו‬ ּ ָ ‫א ֻחזָּה ְלעֹלָם‬ ֲ ‫ֶשת‬ ֶׁ ‫ֲל ֶּתם א ָֹתם ִל ְבנֵיכֶם ַאחֲרֵ יכֶם ָלר‬ ְ ‫ְו ִה ְתנַח‬ You may give them [i.e., foreign slaves] as an inheritance to your sons after you to possess (them as) property. You may enslave them perpetually. 69 After a good deal of discussion, he argues that reading ‫לעֹלָם‬, ְ “perpetually,” as the first word in the second clause (as opposed to reading it as the conclusion to the previous clause) helps us to see that the text “cites the Covenant 66. See, e.g., Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 107; Lundbom, Deuteronomy, 494; Levinson, “The Manumission of Hermeneutics,” 301–4. 67. Tigay, Deuteronomy, 466–67. 68. See esp.  Levinson, “The Manumission of Hermeneutics,” 305–22; and Jeffrey Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (FAT 52; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 141–64. 69. See Levinson, “The Manumission of Hermeneutics,” 308–16. This verse has been of interest to me since I did the NET translation of Leviticus, which Levinson cites positively (ibid., 313 n. 87).

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Code technical term for permanent indenture.” He concludes, “As a result, the older law has, for all practical purposes, been abrogated in terms of its original application to Israelites.” 70 That is, according to Levinson, Lev 25:46 abrogates the regulation in Exod 21:6 (and Deut 15:16–17) that allows for perpetual slavery of an Israelite and applies it to foreign slaves instead. But there is a serious problem with the argument. Leviticus 25:46 does not actually use the Covenant Code’s terminology for perpetual slavery. In Lev 25:46, the expression is a combination of the Qal verb ‫ עבד‬and the preposition ‫ּב‬, which means “to press into slavery; put to forced labor.” It means this all ten times it occurs in the Hebrew Bible (Exod 1:14; Lev 25:39, 46; Jer 22:13; 25:4; 27:7; 30:8; 34:9, 10; Ezek 34:27). We cannot treat all these occurrences here and ones related to it, but it is important to note that Exod 21:6 uses the Qal verb ‫ עבד‬but without the preposition, and the parallel passage in Deut 15:17 uses the noun, not the verb at all, and again without the preposition. In terms of both their context and in their lexical diction, the latter are expressions of voluntary perpetual slavery, which is very different from being pressed into slavery. Leviticus 25:46 in no way abrogates what is being legislated in Exod 21:6, or for that matter, Deut 15:17 either. In fact, it works the other way around. The same verbal expression (the Qal verb ‫ עבד‬with the preposition ‫ּב‬, meaning “to press into slavery”) appears in Exod 1:14 for the Egyptians pressing the Israelites into slavery. So when this terminology appears again at the beginning of the debt-slave regulations in Lev 25:39 (just a few verses before v. 46), the point is that they must never press fellow Israelites into slavery as the Egyptians had done to them as a nation. The Lord himself had delivered all of them from that (v. 38), so they cannot do this to one another. Instead, they should treat one another with all due respect, even when someone among them becomes destitute. This does not mean they could not be treated as “debt slaves” (as in Exod 21 and Deut 15). Yes, the destitute one would “sell himself ” to them (v. 39), but the term “slave” is not used at all in the context to make sure they are not treated as those who were “pressed into slavery.” The latter was reserved for foreign slaves. Adrian Schenker, in fact, has a made a good argument for the position that the debt-slave laws in Lev 25 supplement and complement those in Exod 21. 71 Schenker writes in his first paragraph, “My purpose is to show that the jubilee of Leviticus 25 does not supersede the earlier biblical

70. Ibid., 314. Stackert follows Levinson in this and other points of his argument; see Stackert, Rewriting the Torah, 154 and n. 94. Levinson is fully aware of the distinctiveness of the verbal construction to be treated just below (“The Manumission of Hermeneutics,” 305–6 n. 69) but does not recognize its real significance for the issue at hand. 71. Adrian Schenker, “The Biblical Legislation on the Release of Slaves: The Road from Exodus to Leviticus,” JSOT 78 (1998): 23–41 (esp. pp. 32–34); reprinted in idem, Recht und Kult im Alten Testament: Achtzehn Studien (OBO 172; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 134–49.

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legislation on slaves, but implies and completes it.” 72 In other words, the various slave laws are not contradictory. It is important to keep in mind that the subject in this part of Lev 25 is the year of jubilee, and this law, therefore, is written as part of the ongoing regulations for the 50th-year release. Schenker contends that Exod 21 and Lev 25 are actually referring to two different categories of debt slaves: one who enters debt slavery single or married but without children in Exod 21:2–3, as opposed to one who enters debt slavery married and with children in Lev 25:39–43. The latter is the head of a family who enters slavery at a point of destitution. His circumstances have deteriorated to the point where he has even lost his landed inheritance due to debt. Thus, he enters “debt slavery,” although he is not to be treated as a “slave” but “as a hired worker, as a temporary resident” (v. 40). 73 His purpose is not limited to paying off his debt, however. Part of the deal is that the master is responsible to provide for his family until the jubilee. At that time, his family land inheritance will revert back to him, so he can once again begin providing for his family from the produce of his own land. It would make no sense for such a person to go out of debt slavery before his land reverted back to him. That would leave him without the necessary resources with which to begin again. On the master’s part, there is a great deal of expense in providing for a whole family along with debt forgiveness. There would be little incentive to take on such a financial burden if the time period were limited to six years. So, in the case of a man who is the head of a family, the period of debt slavery needs to extend beyond the regular six-year period. Of course, if the period from the point of entering the debt-slavery agreement to the year of jubilee is longer, there is more incentive, and if it is shorter there is less. This was a concern elsewhere in the ancient Near East as well, as William Hallo has pointed out. 74 On the other hand, generosity toward one’s fellow Israelite is part of the overall burden of Lev 25 in the first place.

Conclusion The point here is that the debt-slave and manumission laws agree between them. They are not contradictory but simply reflect the textual terrain in which they are embedded. Not only that, they also serve a key purpose in underlining the basic historical background and rationale of the 72. Idem, “The Biblical Legislation on the Release of Slaves,” 23. Levinson (“The Manumission of Hermeneutics,” 323) cites this sentence negatively in his last footnote. 73. See the remarks on “temporary resident” in n. 34 above. 74. William W. Hallo, “Slave Release in the Biblical World in Light of a New Text,” in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield (ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 88–93. See also Schenker, “The Biblical Legislation on the Release of Slaves,” 33, 38–39.

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Law that has been the burden of this article. There is no doubt that the Law and the narrative within which it is embedded are closely related, and the rationale of each depends on the connection to the other. They do not make sense independently. The narrative refers to the Law and depends upon it, and the Law likewise depends on the events the narrative recounts—specifically, Israel’s enslavement in Egypt and the Lord’s deliverance from there. Historically, one can at least say that there is good reason to believe that none of the three major sections of Law in the Torah were written without the story of the enslavement in Egypt and the Lord’s deliverance from there clearly in mind. This, in turn, makes it difficult for me to believe that there is no real historical memory here. It was a hard-won release nationally, and it could seem hard for the Israelites themselves to release debt slaves in Israel too, once they were established. This is made explicit, for example, in Deut 15:18. There could be, and there was a temptation to forego the manumission regulations, as Jer 34 makes clear. Nehemiah 5 likewise tells us that even the exile did not rid Israel of the ongoing temptation to oppress one’s fellow Israelites through this and related practices. We have the same in us too, all of us, so we must always be on our guard against oppressive domination of the disadvantaged in whatever ways it rears its ugly head in us, among us, or around us in our culture and in our social and political world. This is essential and central to the OT Law and needs to be at the heart of how we treat people in our lives every day. Having the heart for this, however, depends on knowing and experiencing the reality of our own deliverance at the hand of the Lord from our own corruption that has enslaved us.

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Chapter 10

“Tell Your Children and Grandchildren!” The Exodus as Cultural Memory Jens Bruun Kofoed Fjellhaug International University College

Introduction When, in July 2013, Mohamed Morsi became the second Egyptian president to be ousted in three years, history was repeating itself, according to Zahi Hawass, the flamboyant antiquities minister under former president Hosni Mubarak. For Hawass, the coup d’etat by the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces Abdel Fatah al-Sisi evoked memories of the rise to power of Mentuhotep II, who reunited Egypt and put an end to the First Intermediate Period at the end of the third millennium BC. “In my opinion, Sisi is really Mentuhotep II,” Hawass argues. “You need to understand what happened 4,000 years ago to understand what is happening now.” In Hawass’s view, the upheaval that Egypt has experienced since 2011 mirrors the century of chaos that preceded Mentuhotep’s accession to the Egyptian throne. And just as Mentuhotep restored order to Egypt, “[w]e need an elected officer—a strong man,” Hawass argues, “to control the country. And in my opinion, Sisi is our only hope.” 1 Hawass’s “remembering” of Mentuhotep’s accession to the Egyptian throne is highly characteristic of cultural memory as it was defined influentially by the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, and the purpose of this essay is to describe Assmann’s use of cultural-memory theory in his reconstruction of the mnemohistory of the exodus in the Hebrew Bible, to discuss the path-dependent character of his conclusions, and to sketch an alternative reconstruction. The thesis of this article is that the “sourcecritical” point of departure taken by Assmann is not the only conceivable and defensible point of departure, and that it is possible to apply culturalmemory theory on a different arrangement and dating of the biblical 1. Patrick Kingsley, “Former Minister Zahi Hawass Compares Egypt’s Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi to Pharaoh,” The Guardian, January 2, 2014, sec. World news, n.p., http://www .theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/zahi-hawass-egypt-abdel-fatah-al-sisi-pharaoh. [cited 6 January 2014]

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sources. Before we proceed to a description of Assmann’s reconstruction, we need a few clarifications and definitions.

History as Cultural Memory Cultural-memory studies are not about the historicity of what is remembered. “From the outside, most scholars look at the cultural memory approach as a historical one, but memorization is a process and cultural memory studies are about how the past is mediated, how memory is produced and circulated, how memory works and is therefore not about history ‘as such.’” 2 In other words, cultural memory is mnemohistory—that is, the history and dynamics of the remembering of a given past. The mnemohistorian is not interested, therefore, in the historicity of what is remembered but in chasing the memory itself, how it was and continues to be constructed on the basis of historical facts and the imagination of the person or group who did the remembering, and how it produced and continues to produce the identity that it describes. Using the classical rhetorician Hermagoras of Temnos’s (1st-century BC) seven “elements of circumstance,” persona, factum, causa, locus, tempus, modus, and facultas as the loci of an issue, the questions asked by the mnemohistorian are: “Who remembered? What was remembered? When was it remembered? Where was it remembered? Why was it remembered? In what way was it remembered? By what means was it remembered?”

Communicative and Cultural Memory It was the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann who introduced the term das kulturelle Gedächtnis, “cultural memory,” to the cross-fields of Egyptology, archaeology, and biblical studies. In his 1992 monograph Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und Politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, Assmann distinguishes between different types of social memory—namely, “kommunikatives und kulturelles Gedächtnis,” that is, communicative and cultural memory. 3 Communicative memory, according to Assmann, 2. Pernille Carstens, “The Torah as Canon of Masterpieces: Remembering in Archives,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis (ed. Pernille Carstens, Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch, and Niels Peter Lemche; Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts 17; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2012), 309. 3. Jan Assmann, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in Frühen Hochkulturen (C. H. Beck Kulturwissenschaft; Munich: Beck, 1992); English translation in Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); cf. Sandra Hübenthal, “Social and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis: The Quest for an Adequate Application,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis (ed. Pernille Carstens, Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch, and Niels Peter Lemche; Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts 17; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2012), 175–99 for an elaboration on Assmann’s distinction.

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is shared and conveyed within a “memory community” (a social group defined by common memories) in personal interaction through the means of verbal communication over a time span of approximately 80 years. 4 The participation in this memory that the individual shares with his contemporaries is unstructured, according to Assmann, because everybody can join the personal interaction and thereby shape the communicative memory. Because the participation is unstructured, this memory has the character of a private interpretation of the own past; it is a group’s unofficial, “everyday memory.” The cultural memory, on the other hand, is a group’s official memory and is intrinsically related to power and tradition. Since tradition is the central category of this memory, it covers a much longer period of time. The cultural memory also serves as a “memory reservoir,” containing several collective memories and identities that can be mobilized whenever needed for present purposes—just as Hawass has done with the memory of Mentuhotep II. 5 The proper way of dealing with cultural memory, according to Assmann, is through “reception theory applied to history” or mnemohistory, 6 and applying his mnemohistorical approach to the study of Egyptian religion, Assmann has gone beyond the field of Egyptology by suggesting on the principle of “normative inversion” 7 that the exclusive and revolutionary monotheism of King Akhenaten in the 14th century BC, the (r)evolutionary monotheism of faithfulness suggested by the early prophets at the end of the 8th century BC, and the full-fledged exclusive monotheism of the Deuteronomists at the end of the 7th century BC all are counterreligions—that is, a deliberately or at least semiconsciously inverted mirror image of traditional Egyptian cosmotheism or polytheism. 8 On the same principle of “normative inversion,” Assmann has described what he calls “the exodus myth” as a counternarrative to what he labels “the Abraham myth.” 9 On the basis of a classical source-critical dating of the biblical texts, Assmann traces the memory of “the exodus myth” from its no-longer 4. Assmann, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis, 48–56. 5. Idem, “Communicative and Cultural Memory,” in Cultural Memories: The Geographical Point of View (Knowledge and Space 4; Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2011), 15–27; idem, “Communicative and Cultural Memory,” in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 109–18; idem, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies (Cultural Memory in the Present; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006). 6. Idem, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 9. 7. The concept is used by Assmann to suggest that some aspects of Judaism were formulated in direct reaction to Egyptian practices and theology. 8. Idem, Moses the Egyptian; idem, The Price of Monotheism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). 9. Idem, “Exodus and Memory,” in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspectives (ed. T. E. Levy et al.; New York: Springer, 2015), 5–7. Note that, in the remainder of this article, the term “exodus myth” refers to Assmann’s concept.

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extant but—in Assmann’s opinion—nonetheless historically rooted original version through its various “remembrances” in the Hebrew Bible. The only reminiscences of the original version are in the JE narrative in the book of Exodus, which, according to Assmann, describes what to remember.

The Early Prophets The first allusions to this narrative as cultural memory are found in the early prophets Hosea, Amos, and Micah, where “the exodus myth” is instrumental in the prophets’ complaint about the people’s forgetfulness and call to a “monotheism of faithfulness.” In 1971, Morton Smith argued that these early prophets represented the “Yahweh-alone movement” and that it was this small dissident group and not the state that functioned as the carrier of monotheistic religion in opposition to the polytheistic-syncretistic official majority religion. 10 Assmann characterizes this monotheism, not as exclusive, but as a “monotheism of faithfulness,” since Yahweh, according to this movement, was the highest, but not the only god. By “remembering” Yahweh’s deeds in the exodus, the prophets made it clear to the people, that only Yahweh deserved their faithfulness. Characteristic of these early prophets’ use of “the exodus myth” is, according to Assmann, their coupling of the myth with metaphors of sonship and matrimony: 11 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (Hos 11:1; cf. 2:15; 12:9, 13; 13:4) Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness. (Amos 2:10; cf. the expression “family” in 3:1–2) For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. (Mic 6:4; cf. 7:15) The reason for the early prophets’ “remembrance” of “the exodus myth” is, according to Assmann, twofold. On the more concrete level, it was the Assyrian threat and the catastrophic fall of the Northern Kingdom in the second half of the 8th century BC that necessitated the mobilization of “the exodus myth” as a foundation for the prophets’ call to faith in Yahweh alone. On the deeper and more general level, the 9th and 8th centuries BC were periods of looking back in search of a normative past. 12 In Egypt, the 8th–7th centuries BC were periods of pronounced archaism. Ancient texts were copied and architectural, sculptural, and pictorial models from the Old and Middle Kingdoms were carefully followed. In Assyria, there was a 10. Morton Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); cf. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 183–84. 11. Idem, “Exodus and Memory.” 12. Ibid.; cf. also idem, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 172–73.

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new focus on the Sargonic Period in the 24th–23rd centuries BC. In Greece, Homer was looking back to the Late Bronze Age, and in Israel, the early prophets looked back on traditions that, according to the biblical chronology, were rooted in the Ramesside Egypt of the 14th–13th centuries BC in order to find a normative past that could motivate the people—especially in the Northern Kingdom—to trust and believe in Yahweh alone.

The Deuteronomistic Instructions The next “remembering,” according to Assmann, is located in the Deuteronomistic instructions on how to remember that which had to be remembered. The consecration of the firstborn and the command to tell the children in the D account in Exod 13:1–16 is an example of the characteristic emphasis in the D source on the importance of faithful transmission and observance of the Torah as a response to God’s grace in the exodus event. The symbolic or mnemotechnical function of the consecration of the firstborn is to motivate the whole community to obey the commands of God, and the language in Exodus is very similar to the phrasing found in Deuteronomy, where numerous passages mention the remembrance of God’s mighty deeds in the exodus as a motivation for observance of the stipulations in the covenant (Deut 5:15; 7:18; 8:2; 15:15; 16:3, 12; 24:18, 22). Deuteronomy also mentions the teaching of children, but with much more emphasis on the symbols as ways to recall God’s actions and, again, as motivation for obedience (e.g., the Sabbath day in 5:15 and the unleavened bread in 16:3). Though “the exodus myth,” in Assmann’s view, probably existed as an independent literary narrative at the end of the 7th century, it is given a new and very particular function in Deuteronomy as a historical frame around the law of the covenant. Whereas the relationship between God and his elected people was described in metaphors such as “sonship” or “matrimony” by the early prophets, Deuteronomy, according to Assmann, describes the relationship between God and his people in the conventional treaty language of the day. A political alliance between God and people was an absolutely new and revolutionary idea that required a substantial and specific motivation and explanation in the form of “the exodus myth.” The use of treaty language is deliberate, Assmann argues. Political treaties were written on durable materials such as stone, bronze, and silver. They were regularly read aloud both in the sovereign’s capital and the vassal’s city. And the sovereign party often summoned the vassal to the capital to swear an oath of his continuing loyalty to his overlord. In this light, the forging of Israel’s relationship with its God as a political alliance must be seen as a mnemotechnical device to maintain the people’s motivation for keeping the covenant. Assmann explains: [W]hat was new in this religion was not so much the content (monotheism and iconoclasm) as the form. It created an all-embracing framework that made the comparatively natural settings of collective and cultural memory

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dispensable. These settings comprised kingdom, temple, and territory—the representative institutions that were normally regarded as integral and necessary stabilizations of the collective memory, or lieux de mémoire. With the aid of the new mnemotechnics, all these places were now transferred from the exterior to the interior and from the material to the imaginary, so that a spiritual Israel now emerged that could be situated wherever a group assembled to study the sacred texts and revive memory. 13

As the more concrete reason for this revolutionary remembrance of “the exodus myth” by the Deuteronomists, Assmann points to the continuous political pressure from Mesopotamia. The disaster wrought on the Northern Kingdom by the Neo-Assyrians at the end of the 8th century BC repeated itself in the conquest of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem by the Neo-Babylonians at the beginning of the 6th century BC, and in the light of these theological catastrophes, the people needed—more than ever—motivation to trust God and be persistent in their hope that God would keep his promises of blessing. The revolutionary and ingenious idea of describing the relation between God and his people as a political alliance served precisely that need, and together with the transformation of the concept of secular law into ius divinum and of human history into sacred historiography, it enabled the Israelites to bring with them a codification and (early) canonization of this new religion into exile, where the originally dissident monotheism of faithfulness became the dominant—or exclusive—religion.

False and True Israel The schism between true and false religion in Israel was not, as in Egypt, a schism between ethnic and nonethnic, indigenous and alien, but an ethnically internal schism between the faithful monotheists of the “Yahwehalone” movement and the syncretistic polytheists of the official majority religion, between false Israel and true Israel. What we have here, Assmann explains, is one dissident group that seceded from the rest of society. In our context, the denunciation of the common culture as alien and the claim that the only true Israelite was the one who shared the monotheistic convictions of the dissidents were decisive. This was how religion arose in the context of—and in opposition to—culture, but it was not a foreign culture; it was their own that they branded as alien, rebellious, and forgetful. 14

When the Israelites returned to Jerusalem after the exile, their code of religion had also become their criterion of identity and belonging. Being a Jew and belonging to Israel, God’s chosen people, was no longer defined by blood, descent, and inborn rights but by observance of the law. It was in 13. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 191, 195–200. 14. Ibid., 183.

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this period of exile and return, Assmann argues, “the myth of exodus” came to function as a counternarrative to “the myth of Abraham.” The common denominator of the myths is allochthony, “foreign provenance,” out of Egypt and Mesopotamia, respectively. In the myths, God enters into a covenant with Abraham and Israel, respectively, and in both myths, allochthony describes the main difference between the covenant people and the surrounding Canaanite peoples. It is the significant differences, however, that made “the Abraham myth” convenient as a counternarrative to “the exodus myth.” In the covenant with Abraham, the criterion of belonging is the sign of circumcision and descent through Abraham’s son Isaac. In the Deuteronomistic covenant, the criterion is the keeping of the laws. As for the relation to the land in which the people were to live as foreigners, the land was to be purchased in “the Abraham myth,” whereas it must be conquered in “the exodus myth.” The relations between the foreign covenanters and the indigenous Canaanites are described in terms of friendly, inclusivist coexistence in the patriarchal narratives, but in terms of hostile, exclusivist extermination in the exodus tradition. There is a spirit of humanism, liberalism, and pacifism in “the Abraham myth” but of revolutionary radicalism and violence in “the exodus myth.” In the patriarchal narratives, God is the universal creator god of ‫ֲדמָה‬ ָ ‫כֹּל ִמ ְׁש ְפּחֹת ָהא‬, “all the families of the earth,” but in the exodus tradition, he is the specific national liberator God of the chosen people. It is easy to imagine liberal and radical theological parties behind these myths, Assmann argues, with the radical and exclusivist party gaining the upper hand as it became clear to the people that the doom oracles of the early “Yahweh-alone movement” had materialized and that only an active remembering of “the exodus myth” and a meticulous keeping of the law of the covenant could ensure a return to and blessed future in the land. As a counterfactual memory, the exodus myth forms the basis of “an existential estrangement from the world,” Assmann states, and “[t]his explains why, because of the extraterritoriality, this memory is so greatly at risk, so threatened by forgetfulness, so much in need of every memory technique to help it survive. ‘Thou shalt not forget’ means ‘thou shalt not become assimilated,’ not even in the Promised Land” 15 (see table 1).

An Ideology of Exclusion The final stage in the mnemohistory of “the exodus myth” Assmann finds in the postexilic P-source, where the two myths are brought together with “the Abraham myth” as a prehistory to “the exodus myth” with the Joseph romance as a transitional narrative that binds them together. Because the schism caused by the dissidents had separated true religion from state religion and changed the criterion of belonging from ethnicity to a 15. Idem, Religion and Cultural Memory, 25.

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Table 1.  The Two Myths Compared The Exodus Myth

The Abraham Myth

Out of Egypt

Out of Mesopotamia

Alliance with a people

Alliance with an individual

Criterion of belonging: Keeping the laws

Criterion of belonging: Descendance, circumcision

Relation to Canaan: Conquest, extermination, no contracts

Relation to Canaan: Purchase, coexistence, contractual relations

Exclusivist

Inclusivist

Aggressive

Pacifist

God = Particular liberator

God = Universal creator

particular way of living, priestly specialists with nothing else to worry about apart from mastering an extremely complex repertoire of priestly taboos and prescriptions emerged. After the return from exile, the monotheistic Yahweh-alone movement consequently focused entirely on securing a clean living, while all worldly matters were delegated to the occupying Persian power. 16 All these elements are clearly represented in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The most important tasks for the returnees were to rebuild the temple (Ezra 3 and 6), to reestablish the cult (Ezra 8), and to read, teach, and obey the law (Ezra 7). Ezra, we are told, “had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10), and as a result of Ezra’s teaching the people were told to separate themselves from “the impurity of the peoples of the land with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness” (Ezra 9:11). The people are commanded to avoid any contact with “the impurity of the people,” and especially the intermarriage between Jews and “the peoples of the land” is condemned: “Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever” (Ezra 9:12). It is the fear of seduction and apostasy, Assmann argues, that motivates the focus on clean living. By separating true religion from state religion, exclusive monotheism became immune to the threat of shifting political powers, because it could exist and persist by creation of sharp ethical, nonpolitical boundaries between true Israelites and any surrounding culture and polity. This, Assmann remarks, did not make exclusive monotheism politically lame, since the memory figure of the exodus in later times played a decisive—and violent!—role for the Maccabeans, just as it became foundational 16. Idem, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 185, 187.

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for the Zionistic concept of Aliya or “ascent,” which clearly defines the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the land of Israel in terms of an “active remembering” or “reenactment” of the exodus. 17

Cultural Memory: What’s the Big Deal?! Since Assmann introduced cultural-memory theory to biblical studies, an increasing number of biblical historians have since recommended it as a useful analytical tool for understanding the biblical narratives about the past. 18 Others have been more reluctant and described it as no more than a rehash of historical-critical form criticism and tradition history. Noting that the concept of cultural memory “is now in vogue among some biblical scholars and historians,” Dever remarks forbearingly that, “[f]rom the perspective of the historian, and that’s what archaeologists are . . . all the current emphasis on cultural memory is really simply another way of talking about tradition.” 19 Despite the apparent similarities, however, culturalmemory theory takes form criticism and tradition history to a completely new level. Davies mentions four reasons for not simply using cultural memory as a more modish name for “tradition.” First, it introduces a concept that has both an empirical and theoretical body of knowledge. This is, according to Davies, also true of the concept of “tradition” in folklore studies, but the scope for empirical investigation of folklore is much more restricted than “tradition” is to individual and group memory. A second value of cultural memory is to focus the attention on memory itself rather than the event it conjures. Third, cultural memory forces us to focus on the identity of the group to which the memory belongs, and finally, Davies argues, the phenomenon of cultural memory can 17. Ibid., 190–191. 18. Philip R Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History– Ancient and Modern (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008); idem, “Biblical History and Cultural Memory,” The Bible and Interpretation (2009), n.p., http://www.bibleinterp .com/articles/memory.shtml; idem, “The Bible and Cultural Memory,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis (ed. Pernille Carstens, Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch, and Niels Peter Lemche; Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts 17; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2012), 17–26; Ronald Hendel, Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Niels Peter Lemche, “The Copenhagen School and Cultural Memory,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis, 81–94; idem, “Cultural Amnesia,” in ibid., 159–72; Jens Bruun Kofoed, “Saul and Cultural Memory,” SJOT 25 (2011): 124–50; idem, “The Old Testament as Cultural Memory,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? (ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 303–26. 19. William Dever, “The Exodus and the Bible: What Was known, What Was Remembered, What Was Forgotten” 2013, n.p. Online: https://youtu.be/BBIJRtsnNPY [cited 2 January 2014]; cf. Mark S. Smith, Memoirs of God (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004).

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be applied not only to ancient biblical writers but also to modern biblical scholars. 20 As for Davies’s first reason, cultural-memory theory represents a crucial improvement of the tradition-historical approach by defining different types of social memory. The distinction between communicative and cultural memory is important since it enables us to distinguish between communicative memory as the unstructured, unofficial, “everyday memory” of a given group, and cultural memory as a given group’s structured, official, and power-based memory. Amnesia is the corollary of remembering, and using the insights from psychology on repression and amnesia, we are able to distinguish between different types of memory, which enhances our chances to determine not only what was remembered but also what was actively or willfully forgotten. Regarding Davies’s other three reasons, cultural-memory theory has sharpened our focus on how les lieux des memoires, “the places of remembrance,” influence the remembering and forgetting not only of the ancient “rememberers” and “amnesiasts” but also of modern scholars’ mobilization of memories from a memory reservoir such as the biblical narratives. Assmann has done us a great favor, therefore, by refining the concept of social or collective memory from the field of sociology and introducing it to biblical studies. His application, however, is more controversial, since, for a number of reasons, it must be regarded as only one possible application of cultural-memory theory on the biblical texts.

Constructivism Cultural-memory theory as an analytical tool is just as colored and determined by a priori structures as other analytical tools. “[Y]ou cannot have social memory theory without a constructivist worldview accompanying it,” Sandra Hübenthal notes and argues that “[a]nyone who claims to work with the concept of social memory has to set forth his/her criteria, relating them to inner-theological and the interdisciplinary debates. Biblical scholarship should not claim an exceptional position: our texts are first of all texts.” 21 By mentioning constructivism, Hübenthal no doubt points to the most important a priori discussion in cultural-memory studies, since a “hard” constructivist approach to a remembered past severs the tie between the remembered past and the remembering of it in the present. It comes as no surprise that such a “hard” constructivist approach is foundational to the understanding of the biblical text by minimalist scholars such as Davies and Lemche. “Cultural memory is not about history,” Lemche argues, “but about how present people see themselves in light of the past. This memory is not controlled by historical events belonging to the past (although such events may have a role to play in the formation of the memory) and it is 20. Davies, “Biblical History and Cultural Memory.” 21. Hübenthal, “Social and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis,” 175, 195.

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definitely not limited to only one historical narrative.” 22 And “[a]fter the Copenhagen School’s work,” Lemche continues, “not much is left apart from cultural memory. . . . What we have left is a memory of Israel, or in the language of today, the cultural memory of Israel.” 23 And though Lemche admits that biblical historiography “also sometimes has to do with real events” he continues to say that when, “years ago,” he was asked by an old friend why he did not write a proper history of Israel, he answered: There is no history to write. We can track the history of the landscape of Palestine in some details. We may introduce information from the Old Testament at will but should probably avoid doing so in order not continuously to be brainwashed by biblical historiography and its extension, i.e., the “good work” of the Sunday school and Christian and Jewish religious upbringing. 24

John Van Seters also joins the choir and severs the tie between the collective memory of Israel and the purportedly historical events by describing them as an invention: In place of a long chain of successive generations transmitting the tradition from the primal events to later ages, the accounts of these foundational events were invented centuries after the supposed dating of the history they portrayed. And this was the work of a very few who composed the biblical accounts in order to invent a collective memory for a particular corporate entity. The entity Israel is thus part of an invented memory, and it is this entity that is shaped and reshaped in response to the varying social and political circumstances and competing interests within the Jewish community of Palestine and the diaspora. 25

Members of the Copenhagen School and Van Seters have different reasons for severing the tie. Van Seters’s argument is based on his “DJ” theory, in which the Yahwist, instead of being the oldest source in accordance with classical source-critical theory, reflects a major expansion and revision of the Deuteronomistic History. Van Seters’s understanding of these sources is somewhat coincidental to Assmann’s and therefore important in our assessment of Assmann below. Van Seters argues that Dtr’s concern was to construct a national identity for the people of Israel and that J’s contribution to this identity was to create an ethnic identity based on the myth of generic descent from a common set of ancestors to whom Yahweh had given 22. Lemche, “Cultural Amnesia,” 161. 23. Idem, “The Copenhagen School and Cultural Memory,” 81; Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel, 122. 24. Lemche, “Cultural Amnesia,” 160; cf. idem, “The Copenhagen School and Cultural Memory,” 81–82. 25. John Van Seters, “Cultural Memory and the Invention of Biblical Israel,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis (ed. Pernille Carstens, Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch, and Niels Peter Lemche; Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts 17; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2012), 64.

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an unconditional promise of becoming a great nation. And the Priestly revision of the combined Yahwist-Deuteronomistic history, according to Van Seters, includes yet another massive supplementation to accommodate a radically different ideology and understanding of identity. This revision arises within the socio-historical context of the temple’s re-establishment along with its culture and priesthood in the Persian period. . . . The Priestly Writer aspires to create what Josephus later coined a “theocracy,” with the temple and its priesthood at the very center. 26

Van Seters’s reconstruction is still based on a source-critical analysis of the biblical narrative, albeit on a rearrangement of the sources. Lemche, as we have seen, rejects the use of the biblical text as useless for a reconstruction of ancient Israel’s history. Historical Israel vanished, Lemche states, not because we played a Derrida-like game—we did not—but the traditional historical-critical game. Thus the Copenhagen project was not a postmodern one; it was definitely modern, but it has postmodern consequences. After all, deconstruction also implies construction. When the story of Israel in the Old Testament was, from a historical point of view, torn apart, it was as a matter of fact the historical-critical scholarship’s invention of ancient Israel that was destroyed. 27

And that includes, notably, Van Seters’s reconstruction. I have demonstrated elsewhere that such a historically nihilist use of the biblical text for the reconstruction of ancient Israel’s history is a possible but, importantly, a “path-dependently” positivistic one, and I shall not repeat the arguments here. 28 Suffice it to say that there are other scholars who recommend and use cultural-memory theory with a more-nuanced and nonpositivistic understanding of the relationship between the person or event that caused the remembering and the different stages in the mnemohistory of the remembering. Ronald Hendel, for example, states regarding the relationship between the original historical fact and its purportedly fictive mnemo­­history that [i]t is indeed a virtue of cultural memory to place our focus beyond these dichotomies. But it doesn’t take us out of their scope altogether—rather, it complicates their interrelationship. Both sides of these dichotomies are included in a dialectical fashion in cultural memory, such that history/fiction and truth/falsehood are interwoven in its discourse. The stories of the patriarchs or the Exodus or the battle of Jericho include history and fiction, truth (of various kinds) and falsehoods (of various kinds), held together by their present relevance, the authority of tradition, and the narrative artistry of the 26. Ibid., 69–70. 27. Lemche, “The Copenhagen School and Cultural Memory,” 82. 28. Jens Bruun Kofoed, Text and History: Historiography and the Study of the Biblical Text (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005); idem, “The Old Testament as Cultural Memory.”

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writers. I have made some forays into the “mnemohistory” of these biblical texts, and I submit that this approach yields more fruit than conventional historical scholarship that limits its scope to adjudicating between these “old dichotomies.” 29

In an article on cultural memory in Genesis, Hendel argues that Jacob’s journey to Haran, I suggest, seems to preserve traces of archaic tribal memories that reach back to the Amorite tribal culture of the early- to midsecond millennium B.C. However, the task of mnemohistory does not end with isolating the historical background of cultural memory. We need to trace back-and-forth, the Wanderstrassen, of historical and cultural changes in the subsequent reception of these cultural memories. What are the diachronic turns and discontinuities in the chain of ancestral tradition? 30

Hendel recently confirmed his position in relation to the exodus by arguing that “the past conditions the memory. The memory is calibrating or configuring some kind of past reality. There is historical stuff that is animating the reconfiguration.” 31

Assman’s Methodological Point of Departure Returning to Jan Assmann’s reconstruction of the exodus myth’s mnemohistory, it is now clear that the question that needs to be asked is not whether he bases his research on an a priori structure but which structure he has chosen to guide his use of cultural-memory theory in his description of the exodus tradition’s mnemohistory. First we may note that Assmann rejects the positivism and hard constructivism characteristic of the Copenhagen School and demonstrates the same caution as Hendel by arguing that “mnemohistory cannot do without history. It is only through continual historical reflection that the workings of memory become visible.” 32 And from Assmann’s discussion on the mnemohistory of the exodus myth it is clear that, in his mind, the myth was rooted—at least to a certain degree— in a real historical event and that it existed prior to its first mnemohistorical usage by the early prophets. 33 Although cultural-memory theory primarily focuses on mnemohistory, it is inextricably connected to the wider field of history, since the discussion on how memories are mobilized, reconfigured, and circulated can only—or at least best—be understood if we know the context in which the memory originated. 29. Ronald Hendel, “Cultural Memory and the Hebrew Bible,” The Bible and Interpretation (2011), n.p., http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/hen358016.shtml. 30. Idem, “Cultural Memory,” in Reading Genesis: Ten Methods (ed. Ronald Hendel; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 42. 31. Idem, “The Exodus as Cultural Memory: Poetics, Politics, and the Past” (2013), n.p., https://youtu.be/0ky8bPQoBoE. 32. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 21. 33. Idem, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization; cf. above.

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As historians, we are obliged, therefore, to reconstruct the actual historical events that caused the remembering and forgetting, on the basis of the data we have. Second, it is also clear that Assmann’s reconstruction is based on a classical source-critical arrangement and dating of the biblical data. “Old Testament scholars agree,” Assmann argues, “that Deuteronomy was the manifesto of a group, ‘movement,’ or ‘school,’ which was the bearer of a new, spiritual form of identity that was based solely on the Torah, and through this one foundation possessed everything that other societies had to build up in visible form—territories, institutions, monuments and the trappings of power.” 34 Assmann is correct, of course, that such a classical source-critical arrangement of the biblical data is still mainstream historical-critical scholarship. Van Seters, as mentioned above, and other biblical scholars share this approach in their application of cultural memory theory on the biblical text. 35 It is not only members of the Copenhagen School, however, who insist that the classical source-critical arrangement and dating of the sources behind the Old Testament text are a construct based on hypothetical and nonextant sources and that the historian’s heuristic point of departure in a source-critical weighing of the texts must be the time of the oldest extant text. Though scholars like Van Seters have attempted to revive the sourcecritical approach by rearranging and redating the sources, an increasing number of historical-critical scholars have admitted to themselves that there is no consensus anymore on how to describe the character and dating of the J, E, D, and P sources. Rolf Rendtorff, reflecting on the state of the Documentary Hypothesis, stated in 2006 that “there is general agreement that the Elohist has almost completely disappeared from the discussion and that there is only one narrative ‘source’ alongside the Priestly and Deuteronomistic elements, namely, the Yahwist.” 36 Rendtorff continues, noting that there are three different ways of understanding the Yahwist in the framework of the Documentary Hypothesis. With von Rad, the Yahwist has become not only an author, but also above all a theologian. For Van Seters, J is also an author, 34. Ibid., 192; cf. also Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 118. 35. Carstens, “The Torah as Canon of Masterpieces: Remembering in Archives,” 322–23; Richard Friedman, “The Exodus Based on the Sources Themselves,” 2013, n.p., https://youtu.be/H-YlzpUhnxQ [cited 2 January 2014]; William Propp, “What Was the Exodus?” 2013, n.p., https://youtu.be/x6TsppQ5UNY [cited 2 January 2014]; Thomas L. Thompson, The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel ( JSOTSup 55; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), 49; Van Seters, “Cultural Memory and the Invention of Biblical Israel.” 36. Rolf Rendtorff, “What Happened to the ‘Yahwist’? Reflections after Thirty Years,” SBL Forum 4/6 (2006), https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/SocietyReport2006 .pdf.

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but he lives five centuries later and is more an historian than a theologian. For Levin, J is a redactor; his Yahwist shares with Van Seters’ Yahwist the exilic location, but Van Seters would never agree with the idea of J as a redactor. One could add several variations to these three types held in the recent scholarly debate. 37

Since there is just as much disagreement on the Deuteronomist, the situation is, according to Rendtorff, that many historical-critical scholars are trying to keep the Documentary Hypothesis with one single document— namely, some kind of P. “But,” Rendtorff asks, “can that still be called a documentary hypothesis? . . . A documentary hypothesis with just one single document cannot work like an hypothesis that was originally established and developed with four or at least three documents or sources, whose interrelations are a basic element of the method of working in the framework of this theory.” 38 Add to this the recent attempts by scholars to re-date P to the pre-Exilic period, 39 and the critique of the Documentary Hypothesis by David Carr, who demonstrates that there are no documented examples from the ancient Near East of a successive conflation of sources as it is presupposed in the Documentary Hypothesis, only of supplementation in two or three levels. 40 Though the majority of critical scholars still agree that the general approach of the Documentary Hypothesis best explains the doublets, apparent contradictions, differences in terminology and theology, the crumbling consensus at least demonstrates that the “source-critical” point of departure taken by Assmann for his mnemohistorical analysis of the exodus myth is not the only conceivable point of departure and that it is possible to apply cultural-memory theory on a different arrangement and dating of the biblical sources.

Dating the Idea of Allochthony In his 2008, award-winning monograph Israel’s Ethnogenesis, Avraham Faust presented a new theoretical approach to the study of Israel’s ethnogenesis. He begins his study in the Iron Age II period, where Israel is archaeologically visible, and then proceeds, still on the basis of archaeological data, to ask when it was likely that this archaeologically describable identity was formed. And he concludes that the most likely period in which Israel’s ethnos developed was in the ethnic negotiations of Iron Age I between the 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. E.g., Jacob Milgrom, “The Antiquity of the Priestly Source: A Reply to Joseph Blenkinsopp,” ZAW 111 (1999): 10–22; Avi Hurvitz, “Once Again: The Linguistic Profile of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch and Its Historical Age. A Response to J. Blenkinsopp,” ZAW 112 (2000): 180–91. 40. David McLain Carr, The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

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newcomers in the highlands and the resident Philistines and Canaanites. I suggest a similar procedure for the study of the origin of the exodus tradition. With the exception of the historically nihilist Copenhagen School, there is scholarly consensus that, by the 9th–8th century BC, a story of an Israelite exodus from Egypt existed and that the Israelite identity already by then comprised the idea of foreign origin. The question is not, therefore, whether such an identity existed, but when it is likely that such an identity was formed and what caused the formation? First, it is not likely that a memory of allochthony, “foreign origin,” as expressed in the exodus tradition, developed into such a strong and long-lived “official memory intrinsically related to power and tradition,” if it only pertained to a small group or a minor “memory community.” It must originally have been the communicative memory of the majority of the early Israelite people. Anthony Smith remarks in his monograph on The Ethnic Origin of Nations that “[t]hose whose identities are rarely questioned and who have never known exile or subjugation of land and culture, have little need to trace their ‘roots’ in order to establish a unique and recognizable identity. Yet theirs is only an implicit and unarticulated form of what elsewhere must be shouted from the roof-tops: We belong, we have a unique identity, we know it by our ancestry and history.’” 41 When we find such an explicit and outspoken identity described by the early prophets, it is suggestive of a people that did know exile and subjugation of land and culture. And though A. D. Smith continues to argue that it matters nothing that these identities are based on myths and memoires full of deceptions and distortions, the realistic setting of the exodus in a Late Bronze Age Egyptian context and the tenacity of the exodus tradition speaks in favor of its historical reliability. The scenario of a paranoid pharaoh beginning a program of forced labor for the Israelites, making bricks for building projects, James Hoffmeier notes, has long been considered to have a ring of truth even for more skeptical scholars. Sir Alan Gardiner, the renowned twentieth-century Egyptologist and usually a sharp critic of the historical value of the Old Testament . . . concedes “that Israel was in Egypt under one form or another no historian could possibly doubt; a legend of such tenacity representing the early fortunes of a people under so unfavorable an aspect could not have arisen save as a reflection, however much distorted, of real occurrences.” 42

It is remarkable, for example, that the exodus account refers to the storecity Raamses, which corresponds to Egyptian (Pi)-Ramesses, since much of Pi-Ramesses’s superstructure was dismantled and moved to Tanis in Dynasty 21 (1069–945 BC). Especially since Ps 78:12 and 43 use the contempo41. A. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, 2. 42. James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 112.

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rary first-millennium name of “field of Zoan” as a designation for the area that had been dominated by Pi-Ramesses from around 1300 to 1100 BC but was replaced by nearby Zoan in the subsequent period. Hoffmeier notes that Tanis is never called Pi-Ramesses in Egyptian texts and that there is no evidence of transferring the name of the Ramesside capital to Tanis. 43 An author living centuries after the dismantling of Pi-Ramesses would most likely not have known about the location of the Ramesside capital in PiRamesses but referred to the field of Zoan as in Ps 78. In other words, the reference to Raamses in Exod 1:11 reflects an Egyptian setting prior to the 21st Dynasty, and the author of the Exodus narrative most likely also lived in that historical setting. Forced labor, furthermore, was only used to build palaces and temples in the New Kingdom Period, and, again, an author living centuries later would not have known this, especially because wallpaintings of building scenes are located in tombs supposed to be accessed only by the gods (and grave robbers). It is clear, furthermore, that the identity expressed by the cultural memory of the exodus in the early prophets reflects an experience of being liberated Egyptian slaves. Until the demise of the Egyptian empire in the 12th century BC, every foreigner was a slave to Pharaoh, whether in Egypt or in Canaan, and it is unlikely that such an identity originated after the time of Egyptian withdrawal from Canaan. And if we reckon with a period of 80–100 years before a communicative memory transformed into cultural memory, then the earliest date for this transformation would be sometime in the 11th century BC. Returning to the questions “When is it likely that such an identity was formed and what caused the formation?” we may summarize, then, that the cultural memory of the exodus most likely originated in the Late Bronze Age—a date that coincides with the innerbiblical chronology, which dates the exodus to the 15th or 13th century—and that the enormous durability and identity-related strength of the exodus tradition reflects an historical emigration of a substantial group of liberated slaves.

An Alternative Application We noted above that Assmann’s mnemohistorical analysis of the exodus myth is based on a classical source-critical arrangement and dating of the biblical texts, and the question is, of course, what happens if we apply cultural-memory theory to the biblical texts with respect for their own chronology? The most important consequence is, of course, that the purported Late Bronze Age historical event as it is narrated in the book of Exodus is not a conflation of J, E, D, and P material representing secondary stages in the mnemohistory of the exodus. The text, however we describe its exact composition history, purports to be the very first stage, 43. Ibid., 118.

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representing what was still communicative memory or what had already become cultural memory, depending on whether the text (partly or as a whole) was written shortly after the event or somewhat later. The carriers of this communicative or cultural memory were at this stage both the family and the priesthood in the form of familial autobiographical narration from father to son and the priesthood’s ritual consecration of the firstborn. The next and only slightly later stage, chronologically speaking, is represented by Deuteronomy, where Assmann’s insights need to be redated but nevertheless may stay intact as important observations. Whereas God in the Exodus narrative was described retrospectively as the God of the fathers (Exod 2:24) and, with recourse to his promises to and covenant with Abraham (Exod 1:7; 2:24; 3:6, 15), Deuteronomy employed the conventional treaty language of the day to describe the treaty that God entered into with Israel at Sinai with the Exodus narrative as the historical backdrop for and “gracious” prologue to the stipulations of the treaty. And the theologization of political alliance, secular law, and human history into covenant, Torah, and sacred history, as we find it in Deuteronomy, took place already before the people entered the promised land and not, as Assmann argues, in the 7th century as a result of a deuteronomistic revival. Instead of seeing the deuteronomistic program as a theological radicalization of the “Yahwehalone movement,” commenced and instigated by the early prophets against the political elite, the theologization of the secular concepts of alliance, law, and history in Deuteronomy may be seen as a characteristic of the relationship between God, people, and land from the beginning. Deuteronomy retrospectively states that God chose the wandering Abraham and his sojourning descendants the Israelites as his people and brought them out of Egypt (Deut 26:5) and reminds the Israelites that “all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite” also was given to “the sojourner who is among you” (Deut 6:11). Prospectively, this allochthonous element in their identity was to make them remember that just as Canaan did not belong to Abraham but to God, Canaan does not belong to Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, either. This is the raison d’être, of course, behind the redemption laws in Lev 25, where God declares, for example, that “[t]he land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine,” with the important explanation, “[f]or you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev 25:23). This prospective element is enormously important. What it means to be Israel must be taught in the Liberation Boot Camp, where it is easy to learn, so that it can be remembered in Canaan, where such an identity is difficult to maintain. Another and related prospective element in Deuteronomy is the warning that if, in the future, the Israelites choose to disobey the law, God will take back his gracious gifts and change the blessing of the land to curse (Deut 28). And Israel is not only warned about what will happen but prepared for what to remember when it happens: “The Lord will bring you and your

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king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. . . . The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to the other” (Deut 28:36–37, 64). It is a prospective element, because it prepares Israel for what will happen in the future, but in the treaty format these curses, importantly, also point back to the historical prologue and the stipulations. This understanding of Deuteronomy’s role in the mnemo­history of the exodus also finds support in the comparative material, because the Hittite vassal treaties are a much better or at least just as good example of the political treaty format that is adapted by Deuteronomy to describe the relationship between God and his people Israel. 44 The next stage in the mnemohistory of the exodus is represented by the early prophets, though it must be noted that “rememberings” of the exodus are by no means absent in the books of Judges and Samuel (notably in 2 Sam 7), just as the exodus is mentioned in Solomon’s dedication of the temple in 1 Kgs 8. It is true, however, that it functions as a more contrastive element in the early prophets’ critique of Israel’s and Judah’s religious apostasy and moral decadence. It is also an innovation, as Assmann remarks, that it is coupled with metaphors of sonship and matrimony. And the reason that it figures so prominently could very well be explained as the inevitable “excavation” of a socially structured forgetting that had enabled the Israelites to forget about the guilt of transgression against God since the days of David and Solomon (and perhaps also Asa) but that now, as the forgetting was “excavated,” provoked a remembering of the exclusive monotheism already revealed in Deuteronomy. The early prophets’ use of metaphors of sonship and matrimony may not be without support in the comparative material either, since treaty partners often projected family relationships onto the larger arena of diplomatic interaction. 45 In other words, Hosea may also be using the treaty language of the day in his description of the “Suzerain” as a father and his “vassal” as a son. The final stage is represented by the postexilic books of Ezra and Nehemia, though again, there are two important “rememberings” after the 44. For example, Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963); K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003); J. Berman, “CTH 133 and the Hittite Provenance of Deuteronomy 13,” JBL 130 (2011): 25–44. Most comprehensively, see now Kenneth A. Kitchen and Paul J. N. Lawrence, Treaty Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East (3 vols.; Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012), see 3.93–214. 45. R. Cohen, “All in the Family: Ancient Near Eastern Diplomacy,” International Negotiation 1 (1996): 11–28; Michael S. Moore, “Big Dreams and Broken Promises: Solomon’s Treaty with Hiram in Its International Context,” BBR 14 (2004): 205–21; Amanda H. Podany, Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 28–34.

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early prophets and before the exile—namely, the discovery of ‫ֵספֶר הַּתֹורָה‬ “the book of the law” by Josiah’s high priest Hilkiah (2 Kgs 22) and Isaiah’s use of the exodus as a matrix for his proclamation that God would bring the Israelites “out of Babylon” in the future. The reading of the book of the law by the secretary, Shaphan, to Josiah must, if it included the curses of Deut 27–28, have demonstrated to Josiah that Judah was about to suffer the same divine punishment as Israel unless the people turned again to and remembered the God of the exodus. And the outspoken and exclusive monotheism of Isaiah and his subtle use of the exodus as a matrix for his proclamation of God’s future deliverance must also surely have provoked a remembering of the exodus. Assmann has a point, however, when he shows that a major development of Deuteronomy’s use of the exodus myth was the historical prologue to and backdrop for the people’s allochthony to the radical implementation of the “separation” laws by Ezra and Nehemiah. And though an alternative mnemohistory places Deuteronomy considerably earlier than Assmann does, his point is still valid. Returning once again from exile, the Jews in the Persian province of Yehud needed more than ever to “remember” what it meant to be true Israel. Babylonian and Persian sources demonstrate that many Jews decided to stay and assimilate with the culture of the exile. There was ample reason to fear, therefore, that the Jews who did decide to return would be seduced by and assimilated with the population that had replaced them. And since the returnees no longer had the political power they possessed before the exile, their primary goal was to rebuild the temple and create a theocracy “with the temple and its priesthood at the very center” 46 as mnemonic and to a certain extent also vicarious lighthouses for clean living as God’s people not of—to paraphrase a later prophet—but in the Persian world. To repeat what was stated above, by separating true religion from state religion, exclusive monotheism became immune to the threat of shifting political powers, because it could exist and persist by creating and maintaining sharp ethical, nonpolitical boundaries between true Israelites and any surrounding culture. Assmann does not stop his mnemohistorical analysis of the exodus myth in Ezra and Nehemiah but traces it all the way up to its modern remembrance in the Jewish Seder. The application of cultural-memory theory also makes it pertinent to ask why some scholars in the third millennium AD still want to remember the exodus, whereas others want to forget it. But that is a topic for another article. The modest aim of this article has been to demonstrate that Assmann’s point of departure is not the only possibility and that the advantages of applying cultural-memory theory to the mnemohistory of the exodus are intact when such a mnemohistorical reconstruction is based on the Hebrew Bible’s own dating and arrangement of the texts. 46. Van Seters, “Cultural Memory and the Invention of Biblical Israel,” 69–70.

Part 3 Exodus, the Wilderness Period, and Archaeology

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Chapter 11

Recent Developments in Understanding the Origins of the Arameans Possible Contributions and Implications for Understanding Israelite Origins K. Lawson Younger Jr. Trinity International University Divinity School

In the study of the origins of Israel over the last three decades, the majority of the models posit explanations advocating that the Israelites arose out of the indigenous population of Canaan. While there may be significant differences in the models vis-à-vis the details, causes, and so on, they agree that since no material cultural remains indicate the presence of a new population group all forms of explanation for Israel’s origins outside the land must be rejected. 1 1. This is true whether one looks at older revolution-type models, G. E. Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,” BA 25 (1962): 66–87; idem, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979); or other development-type models, W.  G. Dever, “The Late Bronze–Early Iron I Horizon in Syria–Palestine: Egyptians, Canaanites, ‘Sea Peoples,’ and ‘Proto-Israelites,’” in The Crisis Years: The Twelfth Century BC from beyond the Danube to the Tigris (ed. W. A. Ward and M. S. Joukowsky; Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1992), 99–110; idem, “How to Tell a Canaanite from an Israelite,” in The Rise of Ancient Israel: Symposium at the Smithsonian Institution, October 26, 1991 (ed. H. Shanks et al.; Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992), 26–60; idem, “Ceramics, Ethnicity, and the Question of Israel’s Origins,” BA 58 (1995): 200–213; I. Finkelstein, “The Emergence of Israel in Canaan: Consensus, Mainstream and Dispute,” SJOT 5 (1991): 47–59; idem, “The Emergence of Israel: A Phase in the Cyclic History of Canaan in the Third and Second Millennia bce,” in From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel (ed. I. Finkelstein and N. Naʾaman; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994), 150–78; idem, “Ethnicity and Origin of the Iron I Settlers in the Highlands of Canaan: Can the Real Israel Stand Up?” BA 59 (1996): 198–212; N. P. Lemche, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society before the Monarchy (VTSup 37; Leiden: Brill, 1985); idem, The Canaanites and Their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites ( JSOTSup 110; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991); T. L. Thompson, Early History

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One of the theoretical assumptions upon which this indigenous explanation is based is an immobilist model, which downplays migration as having any explanatory place in historical reconstruction. 2 The model is the product of “a retreat from migrationism” that has characterized most archaeological studies (see below). Of course, the Hebrew Bible has been discounted as evidence, usually by attacking the old Albrightian conquest model, 3 which maintained a simplistic reading and interpretation of the biblical texts and had an incorrect assessment of the archaeological data 4 (hence, it has been an easy and convenient target for criticism 5). Scholars promoting the indigenous model commonly appeal to the archaeological evidence as the main line of argumentation, stressing the lack of any “ethnic markers” for an outside group entering into the land, and the continuity with previous material cultural remains. The only real disagreements are over the causes for the ethnogenesis and what counts as evidence. 6 of the Israelite People from the Written and Archaeological Sources (SHANE 4; Leiden: Brill, 1992). 2. Whether the proponents of these indigenous models are always cognizant of this or not, it is clear that they are working with this as a presupposition. 3. W. F. Albright, “Archaeology and the Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,” BASOR 58 (1935): 10–18; idem, “The Israelite Conquest of Canaan in the Light of Archaeology,” BASOR 74 (1939): 11–23; idem, “The Role of the Canaanites in the History of Civilization,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (ed. G. E. Wright; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1979), 328–62; See also Y. Yadin, “Is the Biblical Account of the Israelite Conquest of Canaan Historically Reliable?” BAR 8/2 (1982): 16–28; idem, “Biblical Archaeology Today: The Archaeological Aspect,” in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society / Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Cooperation with the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1985), 21–27; J. Bright, A History of Israel (3rd ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 132; While Malamat followed the basic conquest model, his understanding was much more sophisticated. See A. Malamat, “Israelite Conduct of War in the Conquest of Canaan,” in Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900–1975) (ed. F. M. Cross; Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1979), 35–55; idem, “How Inferior Israelite Forces Conquered Fortified Canaanite Cities,” BAR 8/2 (1982): 24–35; idem, “Die Frühgeschichte Israels: Eine Methodologische Studie,” TZ 39 (1983): 1–16; idem, “Die Eroberung Kanaans: Die israelitische Kriegsführung nach der biblischen Religion,” in Das Land Israel in biblischer Zeit (ed. G. Strecker; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 7–32. 4. See my essay, “Early Israel in Recent Biblical Scholarship,” in The Face of Old Testament Studies (ed. D. W. Baker and B. T. Arnold; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), 178–79; idem, “The Rhetorical Structuring of the Joshua Conquest Narratives.,” in Critical Issues in Early Israelite History (ed. R. S. Hess, G. A. Klingbeil, and P. J. Ray Jr.; BBRSup 3; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 3. 5. E.g., see I. Finkelstein and N. A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2001). 6. Faust has posited a more complex explanation that includes a migration element, drawing on the old equation of the Shasu as being the outside element that formed Is-

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The purpose of this essay is rather modest—namely, to bring forth serious questioning of this immobilist model and its disqualification of migration as an explanation of the data. Recently, I have studied the various models proposed for the origins of the Aramean tribal entities in the various Near Eastern regions in which they appear. 7 Since both the Arameans and the Israelites were tribal entities, being more or less contemporaneous, there are good grounds for seeing where the Aramean evidence may bear on the Israelite situation.

Models and the Issues of Nomadism Scholars have proposed a number of different models to explain the origins of the Arameans. These have been developed through the matrices of the underlying presuppositions of the anthropological views popular at the time of their conceptions regarding the nature of the relationship of “pastoral nomadism” (or better “mobile pastoralism”) to sedentary societies. 8 They can be grouped according to one of two assumptions: (1) there is a basic hostility between the two, or (2) there is a basic symbiotic relationship between them. rael. See A. Faust, Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (Approaches to Anthropological Archaeology; London: Equinox, 2006); idem, “How Did Israel Become a People? The Genesis of Israelite Identity,” BAR 35/6 (2009): 62–69, 92–94; See earlier M. Weippert, “The Israelite ‘Conquest’ and the Evidence from Transjordan,” in Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900–1975) (ed. F. M. Cross; Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1979), 15–34; Faust states: “The original group—those who came on the ‘Mayflower’ to use Dever’s metaphor—likely included many Shasu along with (given their importance in Late Bronze Age Egyptian sources on Cisjordan) some non-sedentary ‘outcast’ population.” See Faust, Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance, 187. In my opinion, this is moving in the right direction, but what I am advocating here is a much more robust migration model. See also the positive insights offered in G. A. Rendsburg, “The Early History of Israel.,” in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Michael C. Astour on His 80th Birthday (ed. G. D. Young, M. W. Chavalas, and R. E. Averbeck; Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1997), 433–53. 7. K. L. Younger Jr., A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 13; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming). 8. See the discussions of A. Porter, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 8–64; J. J. Szuchman, “Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Arameans” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2007); idem, “Integrating Approaches to Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East,” in Pastoral Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (ed. J. J. Szuchman; Oriental Institute Seminar 5; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2009), 1–9; G. Buccellati, “‘River Bank,’ ‘High Country,’ and ‘Pasture Land’: The Growth of Nomadism on the Middle Euphrates and the Khabur,” in Tall Al-Ḥamīdīya 2. Symposion: Recent Excavations in the Upper Khabur Region (ed. S. Eichler, M. Wäfler, and D. Warburton; OBO Series Archaeologica 6; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1990), 87–118.

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Moreover, major paradigm shifts in the discipline of archaeology during the 20th century (e.g., traditional, processual, postprocessual, etc.) have impacted the types of explanations of the data. It is impossible to give a detailed account of all the systemic issues. Rather, what follows is a general outline with particular focus on the issues germane to the Arameans. The earliest model that became the scholarly consensus was an “invasion model” (see fig. 1). This model portrayed the Arameans as “waves” of wild barbaric nomads flowing out from the fringe of the desert steppe, from the south and east of the Fertile Crescent, and overwhelming the agricultural zones, often wiping out the settled populations and bringing urban civilization to an abrupt end. These nomadic hoards quickly Aramaized the areas that they conquered. As part of an evolutionary process, these nomads would see the advantages of sedentary life and would settle into villages and towns, their place on the steppe taken by other nomadic groups, which in turn would eventually follow the same process. Thus the Arameans invaded the Fertile Crescent from the Syrian desert and by the late 12th century BC were threatening the very existence of Assyria. One of the more influential supporters of this hypothesis was W. F. Albright, 9 who proposed that the Arameans were “camel nomads,” whose use of the camel was an integral part of their mercantile and military success. 10 Thus, Arameans were considered simply one of the waves among many of nomadic Semites that periodically emerged from the desert to overwhelm and destroy the civilized communities of Mesopotamia. A second, more-subtle approach uses a “migration model,” which pictures the nomadic migrations as a river rather than waves (see fig. 2). 11 Like 9. Albright, “The Role of the Canaanites in the History of Civilization,” 532. 10. Lambert put it in these words: “[T]he Aramaeans flooded into Mesopotamia and north Syria in a massive migration, disrupting everything.” See W. G. Lambert, “Exiles and Deportees: A Third Category,” in Nomades et sédentaires dans le Proche-Orient Ancien: Compte Rendu de la XLVIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Paris, 10–13 Juillet 2000 (ed. C. Nicolle; Amurru 3; Paris: Recherche sur les civilisations, 2004), 213; See also H. Tadmor, “The Decline of Empires in Western Asia ca 1200 bce,” in Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ed. F. M. Cross; Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1979), 11–14; J. N. Postgate, “Some Remarks on Conditions in the Assyrian Countryside,” JESHO 17 (1974): 234–37; J. D. Hawkins, “The Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia,” CAH 3/1: The Prehistory of the Balkans; the Middle East and the Aegean World, 10th to 8th Centuries BC, 380–82. 11. Kupper presented a peaceful migration view, describing the spread of the Amorites like a river from the steppe of Syria. Kupper saw a permanent hostility between the sedentary and nomadic communities: “Insérée entre des étendues désertiques et des chaînes abruptes, la Mésopotamie devait être le théâtre d’un conflit permanent entre le sédentaire et ceux qui convoitent ses richesses, le nomade et le montagnard” (p. xi). See J.-R. Kupper, Les nomades en Mésopotamie au temps des rois de Mari (Bibliothèque de la Faculté de philosophie et lettres de l’Université de Liège 142; Paris: Les Belles Lettres,

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Figure 1.  The Invasion Model (based on Buccellati, “‘River Bank,’ ‘High Country,’ and ‘Pasture Land’: The Growth of Nomadism on the Middle Euphrates and the Khabur,” 101).

the Amurrites, the Arameans were a group that had migrated in several stages from the Syrian desert. 12 The Arameans were seen as nomads who filled in the areas around the urban landscape and over time sedentarized. In this model, there were four great Semitic migrations; the Akkadians, the Amurrites, the Arameans, and the Arabs. 13 Both of these models were based on a traditional model of migration and/or invasion (invasion being a type of migration). 14 And importantly, 1957); idem, “Le rôle des nomades dans l’histoire de la Mésopotamie Ancienne,” JESHO 2 (1959): 113–27. 12. F. Briquel-Chatonnet, Les Araméens et les premiers Arabes: Des royaumes Araméens du IXe siècle à la Chute du Royaume Nabatéen (Encyclopédie de la Méditerranée: Série Histoire; Aix-en-Provence: Édisud, 2004), 7–10. 13. Moscati nuanced this, arguing that violent invasions occurred from time to time on a background of continuous and mainly peaceful penetration. See S. Moscati, The Semites in Ancient History: An Inquiry into the Settlement of the Beduin and Their Political Establishment (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1959), 72. 14. Lönnqvist puts it this way: “An invasion theory is technically a sub-class of migrationist theories.” See M. A. Lönnqvist, “Were Nomadic Amorites on the Move? Migration, Invasion and Gradual Infiltration as Mechanisms for Cultural Transitions,” in Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 29 March–3 April 2004, Freie Universität Berlin, vol. 1: The Reconstruction of Environment:

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Figure 2.  Migration Model.

they were heavily dependent on a late 19th- and early 20th-century notion of nomadism that assumed an underlying basic hostility—in fact, a permanent conflict—between nomadic and sedentary communities. 15 These theories of invasion or migration went out of vogue in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in English-speaking scholarship. 16 They were replaced with Natural Resources and Human Interrelations through Time. Art History: Visual Communication (ed. H. Kühne, R. M. Czichon, and F. J. Kreppner; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 197. 15. Szuchman, “Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Arameans,” 119. I would like to thank Dr. Szuchman for kindly providing me with a copy. There are many important observations in it, and it has proven to be a very valuable contribution to scholarship. 16. Ø. S. LaBianca, Sedentarization and Nomadization: Food System Cycles at Hesban and Vicinity in Transjordan. Hesban 1 (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1990); R. Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology (New Studies in Archaeology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); J. Zarins, “Archaeological and Chronological Problems within the Great Southwest Asian Arid Zone, 8500–1850 BC,” in Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (ed. R. W. Ehrich; 2 vols.; 3rd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 42–62; O. Bar-Yosef and A. Khazanov, eds., Pastoralism in the Levant, Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspectives (Monographs in World Archaeology 10; Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, 1992); O. d’Hont, Vie Quotidienne des ʿagédat: Techniques et Occupation de l’espace sur le Moyen Euphrate (Publications de l’Institut français de Damas 147; Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1994).

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largely indigenous and immobilist explanations, sometimes linked to a rise in environmental causal theories as the major ways of explanation for cultural transitions, often without any particular role of human interventions. 17 Chapman and Hamerow have noted: [A]rchaeologists downplayed the significance of migrations and invasions over a period of almost 30 years. All manner of local processes were invoked to explain the most important cultural changes, creating a strong bias towards local, “indigenist” or “immobilist” theorizing. 18

Consequently, there was a divide between the traditional approach of “diffusionists” or “migrationists” on one side and the processual approach of “indigenists” or “immobilists” on the other, with a significant number of scholars opting for the latter approach. 19 Thus a third model emerged. This may be designated the “symbiotic relationship model” 20 (see fig. 3). In this model, there was a rejection of the assumption of a basic hostility between nomadic and sedentary communities. Instead, the relationship was considered to be essentially symbiotic. Based on the study of modern nomadic groups, it was posited that, while there is often confrontation between pastoral nomadism and sedentary agriculture, the two are fundamentally complementary. 21 M. B. Rowton, one of the early theorists of this model, used the terms “enclosed nomadism” and “dimorphic chiefdom” to describe a type of social organization “which represents a curious blend of city-state, tribe, and nomadism.” 22 17. Lönnqvist, “Were Nomadic Amorites on the Move? Migration, Invasion and Gradual Infiltration as Mechanisms for Cultural Transitions,” 195. 18. J. Chapman and H. Hamerow, “Introduction: On the Move Again—Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation,” in Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation (ed. J. Chapman and H. Hamerow; BAR International Series 664; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1. 19. For a survey, see A. E. Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300–1100 BCE (Society of Biblical Literature Archaeology and Biblical Studies 9; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 197–201. 20. The fundamental notion of a symbiotic relationship is what is in common among the scholars who hold the position. It goes without saying that there are many variations and nuances among the viewpoints of these scholars. 21. It is important to note that Rowton, one of the early theorists of this model, did not deny conflict between the two groups but argued that the basic relationship was not permanent hostility but symbiotic. 22. M. B. Rowton, “Urban Autonomy in a Nomadic Environment,” JNES 32 (1973): 201; See also idem, “The Physical Environment and the Problem of the Nomads,” RAI 15 (1967): 109–22; idem, “Autonomy and Nomadism in Western Asia,” Or 42 (1973): 247–58; idem, “Dimorphic Structure and the Tribal Elite,” Studia Instituti Anthropos 28 (1976): 219–57; idem, “Dimorphic Structure and Topology,” OrAnt 15 (1976): 17–31; idem, “Dimorphic Structure and the Parasocial Element,” JNES 36 (1977): 181–98.

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Figure 3.  Symbiotic Model.

According to Rowton, tribes migrated within an area controlled by a central urban authority but were not subject to that authority. The tribes themselves had some sedentary and some mobile members who interacted with the various levels of sedentary society. Rowton’s work led to further research that produced a more integrated view of the processes of nomadic and sedentary adaptations in the ancient world. 23 Thus, in the 1990s and early 2000s, the symbiotic-relationship model 24 became the most preferred model to explain Amurrite mobile pastoralism 23. G. M. Schwartz, “Pastoral Nomadism in Ancient Western Asia,” in CANE (1995), 1.249–58. 24. A fourth model, proposed by Buccellati, is the “nomadization model.” See Buccellati, “‘River Bank,’ ‘High Country,’ and ‘Pasture Land,’” 98–102; Buccellati puts it forth this way: “[T]he steppe is the place whereto one hides from the valley, rather than the irrepressible gene pool from which nomadic waves originate. Rather than seeing only occasional evidence for a sedentary life, I see in the texts pervasive evidence for a peasant settled population that takes to the steppe for economic and to some extent for political reasons. Instead of sedentarization of nomads, I think we must speak of nomadization of the peasants” (p. 100); See also idem, “Ebla and the Amorites,” in Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and the Eblaite Language (ed. Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg; 4 vols.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 3.83–104. While there can be no doubt that there are times when sedentary folk turn to mobile pastoralism, that is, a nomadization

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among Assyriologists. 25 Naturally, it also became the model for explaining mobile pastoralism in the context of Aramean origins. Also during this same period, Rowton’s model was integrated with the collapse model as an explanation for the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Liverani was the first to meld Rowton’s model to the consequences of the collapse of the Late Bronze Age palace economy. 26 In his understanding, during the Late Bronze Age, the apparatus for economic exchange was in the hands of the palaces in urban centers that controlled the populations in the hinterlands. When these palace economies collapsed (due to internal factors), new processes of exchange and new social structures took their place. Urban settlements became smaller, more diffuse, and more numerous, and the nomads of the steppe responded to these changes by becoming sedentary. In the wake of the collapse of the Late Bronze kingdoms, these Aramean tribes filled the vacuum left by the fall of these kingdoms. In this, they followed a well-established settlement pattern in the ancient Near East. So it was that, beginning in 1989, the work of Rowton and his successors was applied to the emergence of the Arameans. 27 G. Schwartz emphasized that “the nomads, rather than keeping to the fringes of sedentary society, moved well within the borders of the settled zone, where nomad process, this model has not gained many adherents as an explanation for the origins of the Amurrites or the Arameans so far as I can discern. 25. M. P. Streck, “Nomaden,” RlA (2001), 9.591–95; idem, “Zwischen Weide, Dorf und Stadt: Sozio-ökonomische Strukturen des amurritischen Nomadismus am mittleren Euphrat,” BaM 33 (2002): 155–209. Although he presents this model, it is perhaps not accurate to place Streck completely within this group of theorists. 26. M. Liverani, “The Collapse of the Near Eastern Regional System at the End of the Bronze Age: The Case of Syria,” in Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World (ed. M. Rowlands, M. Larsen, and K. Kristiansen; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 69. For the issues concerning collapse, see N. Yoffee and G. L. Cowgill, eds., The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988); G. M. Schwartz and J. J. Nichols, eds., After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006); P. A. McAnany and N. Yoffee, eds., Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 27. For example, G. M. Schwartz, “The Origins of the Aramaeans in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia: Research Problems and Potential Strategies,” in To the Euphrates and Beyond: Archaeological Studies in Honour of M. N. van Loon (ed. O. M. C. Haex et al.; Rotterdam: Balkema, 1989), 275–91; H. Sader, “The 12th Century BC in Syria: The Problem of the Rise of the Arameans,” in The Crisis Years: The 12th Century BC from beyond the Danube to the Tigris (ed. W. A. Ward and M. S. Joukowsky; Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1992), 157–63; W. T. Pitard, “Arameans,” in Peoples of the Old Testament World (ed. A. Hoerth, G. Mattingly, and E. Yamauchi; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994), 207–30; idem, “An Historical Overview of Pastoral Nomadism in the Central Euphrates Valley,” in Go to the Land I Will Show You: Studies in Honor of Dwight W. Young (ed. J. Coleson and V. Matthews; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 293–308.

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and sedentist existed in a mutually dependent symbiotic relationship.” 28 Internal socioeconomic dynamics became the preeminent factors, with the external or migratory factor being minimized. H. Sader stated it in blunt terms: “[T]he primary, if not only, cause for the collapse [of the Late Bronze Age] is to be looked for in the social and economic crisis of the city-state. . . . The emergence of the Arameans is to be understood not as the cause but rather as the result of the collapse of the urban system.” 29 Along similar lines, W. T. Pitard stated: It seems quite unlikely that the Arameans were immigrants into Syria and Upper Mesopotamia at all, but rather that they were the West Semitic–speaking peoples who had lived in that area throughout the second millennium, some as pastoralists and some in villages, towns, and cities. During the period following the collapse of the Hittite empire, this West Semitic element of the population slowly became politically dominant in several areas, and it is this element, then, that begins to appear in the sources in the late twelfth century. 30

While the “collapse” explanation in combination with an indigenous model was an important attempt to nuance the understanding of the rise of the Arameans, 31 it is clear that such a mono-causal explanation was insufficient for all the data. 32 In a number of respects, it was reductionist and thus insensitive to other factors. For clearly, other factors must be considered. E. van 28. Schwartz, “The Origins of the Aramaeans in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia,” 281. 29. H. Sader, “History,” in The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria (ed. H. Niehr; HdO 106; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 11–36; idem, “The 12th Century BC in Syria,” 158, 162; idem, “The Aramaean Kingdoms of Syria: Origin and Formation Processes,” in Essays on Syria in the Iron Age (ed. G. Bunnens; ANESSup 7; Louvain: Peeters, 2000), 61–76. 30. Pitard, “Arameans,” 209–10. He adds: “There is simply no evidence that the population of Upper Mesopotamia and northeast Syria were displaced by large groups of Aramean tribes that had been living previously in the desert” (p.  210 n. 6). See also idem, “An Historical Overview of Pastoral Nomadism in the Central Euphrates Valley”; W. M. Schniedewind, “The Rise of the Aramean States,” in Mesopotamia and the Bible: Comparative Explorations (ed. M. W. Chavalas and K. L. Younger Jr.; JSOTSup 341; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 276–87. 31. It is clear that a number of proponents of this model were heavily influenced by third-generation Annalistes. 32. T. L. McClellan, “Twelfth Century BC Syria: Comments on H. Sader’s Paper,” in The Crisis Years: The 12th Century BC from beyond the Danube to the Tigris (ed. W. A. Ward and M. S. Joukowsky; Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt, 1992), 164–73; K. L. Younger Jr., “The Late Bronze Age / Iron Age Transition and the Origins of the Arameans,” in Ugarit at Seventy-Five: Its Environs and the Bible (ed. K. L. Younger Jr.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 131–74; idem, “‘War and Peace’ in the Origins of the Arameans,” in Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien. 52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Münster, 17.–21. Juli 2006 (ed. H. Neumann et al.; AOAT 401; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014), 861–74; idem, A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities.

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der Steen has pointed out that there is never simply one explanation for why nomads settle, or why they take to nomadism and pastoralism again. 33

Additional Recent Developments A continual flowing stream of new literature on mobile pastoralism has enriched the discipline. What follows are developments and contributions that seem especially important to the discussion of Aramean origins. First, it is important to understand that, while the basic trade relationship between mobile pastoralists and sedentary communities is symbiotic, it is an unequal relationship: “[N]omads are much more dependent on agricultural products from sedentary farmers than are farmers on pastoral nomadic products.” 34 Thus the symbiosis can be unstable because of the competition for limited resources. 35 Furthermore, various forms of interactions between nomadic and sedentary societies can lead to the subjugation of the latter by the former. Raiding and demands of tribute are two ways in which the economic adaptations of the nomadic lifestyle (i.e., mobility and military strength) are used as political adaptations to the sedentary world. 36 The fact is the economic, social, and political relationships between nomadic and sedentary communities are highly complex and multifaceted. They can be symbiotic and competitive at the same time. 37 Undoubtedly, over an extended period of time and with different groups in different geographic/environmental contexts, a wide spectrum of relationships can and should be envisioned. Add to this, a mix of different leaders with various personalities, goals, and so on, and the spectrum comprises an even deeper variety. If climate change is introduced as a variable, this adds another dimension to the complexity. To envision the relationship between mobile pastoralists and sedentary communities as basically hostile or basically 33. Van der Steen notes that, while factors such as climate, disease, population pressure, economic decline, or its opposite, economic revival, and international political circumstances have all been used as possible explanations, not one of them can claim to provide the answer. See E. J. van der Steen, “Survival and Adaptation: Life East of the Jordan in the Transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age,” PEQ 131 (1999): 171. Furthermore, which of these, or which combination of these is valid may differ with every instance. 34. Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology, 10–15; A. M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (trans. J. Crookenden; 2nd ed.; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 203. Although Cribb’s work is based on studies of 20th-century models, it seems very consistent with what is seen in the ancient Near Eastern texts. 35. Szuchman, “Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Arameans,” 137; idem, “Integrating Approaches to Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East.” 36. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, 222–27. 37. Szuchman, “Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Arameans,” 137.

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Figure 4.  Aramean tribal variation in modes of subsistence and mobility (after Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology, fig. 2.1; and Szuchman, “Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Arameans,” fig. 15). symbiotic is to pose the issue wrongly. As scholars, we need to express the complexity of relationship more adequately and not juxtapose polar opposites that are inadequate to explain all the data. Second, it is important to understand that there is a variability to tribal nomadic adaptations along the lines of mode of subsistence and extent of mobility. This can be envisioned along two axes: a mode-of-subsistence axis (ranging from agriculture to pastoralism) and a mobility axis (ranging from sedentary to fully nomadic). 38 Aramean socially constructed groups were 38. See Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology, 15–22 and fig. 2.1; D. E. Fleming, Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors: Mari and Early Collective Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 34–36; Szuchman, “Prelude to Empire: Middle Assyrian Hanigalbat and the Rise of the Arameans,” 135–38; Lönnqvist, “Were Nomadic Amorites on the Move?” 200; and for Luwian nomadism, see Z. Simon, “Das Problem des luwischen Nomadismus,” in Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, May, 5th–10th 2008, “Sapienza”–Università di Roma, vol. 1: Near Eastern Archaeology in the Past,

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not all the same! In fact, they can be plotted on a very wide spectrum. In the first instance, there were tribes that were more or less sedentary, with some pastoralist elements (e.g., Bît-Gabbâri/Samʾal); others were more or less nomadic with small elements that were sedentary (e.g., the Ḫaṭallu confederation); 39 and others evidence a great deal of variety (such as the Laqē confederation; see fig. 4). This is, in fact, attested in the textual records. 40 So while tribes such as the Tūʾmānu and Ḫaṭallu may appear in the Sūḫu texts to be very mobile—raiding sedentary regions—they could have some sedentary elements. 41 A group such as the Lītawu (Liʾtāʾu) 42 had some sedentary elements, as a text like BM 40548 indicates, where these Arameans were engaged in agricultural work, owning their own fields and orchards. 43 From Tiglath-pileser III’s Summary Inscription 7, it is apparent that numerous groups out of the 35 Aramean tribal groups listed were, in fact, settled in cities and forts, even though many of these were undoubtedly small. 44 The Laqē confederation is an example of a tribal entity that had capital cities (e.g., Sūru, the capital city of the Bīt Ḫalupē tribe; Sirqu, perhaps the main capital city of the Laqē confederation) along with other cities, yet it was composed of many villages and hamlets. In the inscriptions of Ninurtakudurrī-uṣur of Sūḫu, a large number of adurû (É.DURU5.MEŠ) of Laqē

Present and Future: Heritage and Identity Ethnoarchaeological and Interdisciplinary Approach, Results and Perspectives. Visual Expression and Craft Production in the Definition of Social Relations and Status (ed. P. Matthiae et al.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), 545–56. 39. Szuchman’s study only addresses the more-sedentary entities (e.g., Bît-Zamâni). He does not address the Aramean tribal groups that appear to be less sedentary (e.g., the Ḫaṭallu). 40. Our present knowledge is, of course, partial and incomplete; but in a number of instances, it is possible to evaluate where, roughly, certain groups would be placed on these axes. 41. K. L. Younger Jr., “Another Look at the Nomadic Tribal Arameans in the Inscriptions of Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur of Suḫu,” in Marbeh Ḥokmah: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East in Loving Memory of Victor Avigdor Hurowitz (ed. S. Yona et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 605–31; idem, A Political History of the Arameans, chap. 10. 42. For the vocalization of this tribe, see R. Zadok, “The Onomastics of the Chaldean, Aramean, and Arabian Tribes in Babylonia during the First Millennium,” in Arameans, Chaldeans, and Arabs in Babylonia and Palestine in the First Millennium BC (ed. A. Berlejung and M. P. Streck; Leipziger Altorientalistische Studien 3; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 263–336. 43. BM 40548, lines 8–12, as cited by E. Lipiński, The Aramaeans. Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion (OLA 100; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 423–24; J. A. Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158–722 BC (AnOR 43; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1968), 270–71 n. 1738. Dated to the 9th year of King Eriba-Marduk (ca. 765 BC); For discussion, see my Political History of the Arameans. 44. See RINAP 1, Text 47, lines 8–9; H. Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III King of Assyria ( Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994), 158–61, Summary 7, lines 8–9.

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are mentioned as being raided by the Ḫaṭallu confederation. 45 This term refers to a small rural settlement with a permanent water supply (corresponding roughly with kapru, “village,” though it can be as small as a simple farmstead). 46 Importantly, adurû is also equated with an ālu, which speaks to the diminutiveness contained in the semantic range of the latter term, ālu(m). 47 Nevertheless, the Laqē confederation, due in large measure to the nature of its territory, had a huge pastoralist component. Another example can be seen in case of the Utūʾ/Itūʾ. This tribe was located on the Middle Tigris and had both mobile and sedentary components, as a text of Tukulti-Ninurta II recording his campaign of 885 BC demonstrates: I approached the Tigris; and I captured the encampments (maškanāte) of the land of the Utūʾ/Itūʾ together with their villages (kaprānīšunu), which were situated on the Tigris. I massacred them (and) I carried off much booty from them. 48

In this context, the term maškanāte clearly indicates encampments of tents for seasonal pastoralism, while the term kaprāni signifies actual agricultural villages. 49 While scholars attempt to address why some groups settle, they often neglect the question of why some groups do not settle. Cribb notes that the greater the degree of pastoralism, the stronger the tendency toward nomadism. 50 But at the end of the day, there is really an underlying assumption that has dominated the way archaeologists have often conceptualized this issue: mobile pastoralists and sedentary folk are assumed to be mutually exclusive in every way. Archaeologists rarely consider the possibility that pastoralists were present in, or had any part in shaping the settlements they excavate and the societies that inhabited them, especially once “urbanism” is present. If, for some reason, pastoralists are recognized as intrinsic to the urban record, then they are thought to have sedentarized, which by definition means they have abandoned pastoralism (while perhaps claiming a pastoralist identity) and, by implication, have chosen civilization. 51 Furthermore, 45. See RIMB 2.296, S.0.1002.2, i 28. See COS 2.279–82; Younger, “Another Look at the Suḫu Annals.” 46. See CAD E 39, s.v. edurû; AHw 14, s.v. adurtu, adurû. 47. Thus [a-d]u-ru-ú = ālum (OEC 4.150 iii 55); a-du-ur-tum = ālānu (CT 18.10 iii 53). The term adurû is also combined with other terms to create toponyms (adur X; adurû ša X). 48. RIMA 2.173, A.0.100.5, lines 49–50a. 49. See F. M. Fales, “Arameans and Chaldeans: Environment and Society,” in The Babylonian World (ed. G. Leick; New York: Routledge, 2007), 293. 50. Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology, 16. Thus, “the more animals you have, the further you have to move.” 51. Porter, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations, 10.

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one of the ever-looming problems for studies based on analyses of modern mobile pastoralist groups is the issue of propinquity. This issue forms a barrier to firm conclusions for ancient Near Eastern mobile pastoralists. 52 But the ancient Near Eastern sources that come from the actual ancient context, predating by millennia the modern anthropological materials, must be given primary relevance. 53 When these are given the priority—due to their propinquity, it soon emerges that pastoralism is in no way separate from the sedentary world. 54 Through the recent study of the Mari texts and archaeological evidence, some scholars have suggested that the division between the nomadic and sedentary components was perhaps even more porous than Rowton had claimed. 55 Although Rowton had succeeded in integrating the two elements of the tribe-state dichotomy that featured in work prior to the 1960s, according to Fleming, the tribe and the state at Mari were one and the same. 56 The use of the term ḫana in the Mari texts is not the name of a separate tribe but means “tent-dweller.” 57 Thus, Mari was “a fully integrated tribal kingdom” rather than an urban kingdom ruling over integrated sedentary and tribal elements. 58

52. For the recent critique by Porter, see ibid., 8–10; For my own development of the assessment of propinquity, see my essay “The ‘Contextual Method’: Some West Semitic Reflections,” in COS 3.xxxv–xlii. 53. Porter, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations, 11. 54. Traditionally, the focus of Near Eastern studies has been on the sedentary/urban world because it is in this environment that the fundamental features of the contemporary Western world—civilization, urbanism, public interest, and government are presumed to have come into existence. See ibid. 55. Fleming, Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors: Mari and Early Collective Governance; T. L. McClellan, “Funerary Monuments and Pastoralism,” in Nomades et sédentaires dans le Proche-Orient Ancien (ed. C. Nicolle; RAI 46; Amurru 3; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilizations, 2004), 63–67; A. Porter, “The Dynamics of Death: Ancestors, Pastoralism, and the Origins of a Third-Millennium City in Syria,” BASOR 325 (2002): 1–36; idem, “The Urban Nomad: Countering the Old Clichés,” in Nomades et sédentaires dans le Proche-Orient Ancien (ed. C. Nicolle; RAI 46; Amurru 3; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 2004), 69–74; B. Lyonnet, “Le Nomadisme et l’archéologie: Problèmes d’identification. Le cas de la partie Occidentale de la Djéziré au 3e et début du 2e millénaire avant notre ére,” in ibid., 25–50. 56. Fleming, Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors, 71. 57. J.-M. Durand, “Unité et diversités au Proche-Orient à l’époque Amorrite,” in La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche Orient Ancien (ed. D. Charpin and F. Joannès, RAI 38; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1992), 113 and n. 138; J.-M. Durand, Documents épistolaries du palais de Mari (LAPO 17; Paris: Cerf, 1998), 2.417–18. 58. Fleming, Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors, 71; Porter, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations, 59. Porter points out that “traditional dichotomy of tribe

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Third, while very often ancient Near Eastern scholars divide the ancient population into the sedentary and nomadic categories, the late W. G. Lambert noted that there was in antiquity a third category: “displaced persons” (my designation; his was “exiles and deportees”). 59 This is linked to the next point (i.e., this has connections with the issue of migration), but it deserves mention as a separate point. Lambert provides a number of examples, mostly from second-millennium Syria to document this category. One of these is the inscription of Idrimi. Although scholars have debated the genre of this text, 60 this does not impact the observations that can be gleaned from it concerning this population category. The text relates that Idrimi grew up in Aleppo with his family, but “something nasty” (masiktu) happened that caused them to flee Aleppo, settling in Emar (his mother’s hometown). 61 Idrimi soon realized that he could not remain in Emar as a subject to the king of Emar, and so he left with his horse and chariot and a retainer. He spent the night with Sutean warriors (perhaps other displaced persons?) and then moved to the Canaanite city of Ammiya, where he found other people of Aleppo as well as groups from the lands of Mukiš, Niya, and Amae. Idrimi claims: “(When) they saw that I was their lord’s son, they gathered around me. ‘I have become chief; I have been appointed.’ I dwelt in the midst of the Ḫapiru warriors for seven years” (COS 1.479). After living among this group of displaced people from his homeland, Idrimi returned and became ruler of Alalaḫ (as a vassal to the Mittanian ruler Parattarna). There are two points that I would like to make. First, while Idrimi did not apply the term kaltum/keltum to himself, it seems likely that the word is apropos. To date, this word is attested only in the Mari archives, 62 but from and state is in no way a valid heuristic device. . . . One may obviously therefore belong to a tribe and a state at the same time.” 59. Lambert, “Exiles and Deportees: A Third Category”; See also G. Bunnens, “Assyrian Empire Building and Aramization of Culture as Seen from Tell Ahmar/Til Barsib,” Syria 86 (2009): 72. 60. For Lambert’s discussion of this issue, see “Exiles and Deportees: A Third Category,” 214 n. 2; J.-M. Durand, “La Fondation d’une lignée royale Syrienne. La Geste d’Idrimi d’Alalah,” in Le Jeune Heros. Recherches sur la formation et la diffusion d’un thème littéraire au Proche-Orient Ancien: Actes du colloque organisé par les chaires d’Assyriologie et des Milieux bibliques du Collège de France, Paris, les 6 et 7 Avril 2009 (ed. J.-M. Durand, T. Römer, and M. Langlois; OBO 250; Fribourg: Academic Press, 2011), 94–95, nn. 1–2. 61. Concerning the importance of the mother’s line, see ibid., 110–11. 62. For discussion of the etymology of kaltum/keltum, see J.-M. Durand, “Peuplement et sociétés à l’époque Amorrite: (I) Les clans Bensimʾalites,” in Nomades et sédentaires dans le Proche-Orient Ancien: Compte Rendu de La XLVIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris, 10–13 Juillet 2000) (ed. C. Nicolle; Amurru 3; Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 2004), 183 n. 388; See also J. Sasson, “Scruples: Extradition in the Mari Archives,” in Festschrift für Hermann Hunger zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen freunden, kollegen

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the usages there, we know that a kaltum was typically a political refugee who had claims to be a rightful king, being a descendant of elite or royal families who rivaled other would-be or already installed kings. 63 Second, there is clear reference to other displaced persons. It appears that they, like Idrimi, had come to Ammiya in Canaan either because they were compelled by political factors to leave or they had chosen to seek a better (safer?) place. It seems that one group had successfully settled in Ammiya and others, having heard the news, followed in their path. 64 This is what modern demographic geographers refer to as a chain migration (see below). Thus, in the region of Syria and the Upper Euphrates, there was a significant category of “displaced persons” who sought refuge wherever they could find it, a population that was undoubtedly quite mixed in all respects. They were a mobile population group but not like typical mobile pastoralists. As Bunnens puts it, they “were a people living on the fringe to escape the constraints—especially corvée labour and taxation—imposed on inhabitants of sedentary settlements.” 65 Some of these functioned as armed bands of outlaws and brigands; others adapted as best they could. The term ʿapiru was undoubtedly one of the terms commonly used in the period to designate such uprooted people; another term was Sutû, although this appears to have been a more generic term for “steppe person.” 66 But they represent a third category that must be considered, particularly since their ranks increased significantly in times of weak government and social disorder. An interesting illustration of this comes from a later period, but the vocabulary is particularly interesting in light of this category. Sargon II states: (57)

i-na KUR ma-ad-bar šá-a-tú LÚ.a-ra-me (58)LÚ.su-ti-í a-ši-bu-ut kušta-ri (59)mun-nab-tu sa-ar-ru DUMU ḫab-ba-ti (60)šu-bat-sun id-du-ma ušḫar-ri-ru me-ti-iq-šú In the land of that steppe, the Arameans and Suteans who dwell in tents—fugitives, criminals (and) plunderers (munnabtū sarrū mār ḫabbāti)—had pitched their settlements, and had made its way desolate.

und schülern (ed. M. Köhbach et al.; Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 97; Vienna: Selbstverlag des Instituts für Orientalistik, 2007), 453–73. 63. A. Miglio, Tribe and State: The Dynamics of International Politics and the Reign of Zimri-Lim (Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East 8; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2014), 131–33; idem, “A Comparative Political History: Israel, Geshur and the ‘Amurrite Age,’” JSOT 38 (2014): 441–44; idem, “‘Amurrite Age’ Politics: An Intelligence Report on a Potential Rival to Zimri-Lim,” Aram 26/2 (forthcoming); concerning Idrimi, see Durand, “La fondation d’une lignée royale Syrienne,” esp. p. 111 and n. 60. 64. Lambert, “Exiles and Deportees,” 215. 65. Bunnens, “Assyrian Empire Building and Aramization of Culture as Seen from Tell Ahmar/Til Barsib,” 72. 66. See my book A Political History of the Arameans.

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Interestingly, Idrimi, when he had come to power, related that “I made my inhabitants who were in the midst of my land dwell in better dwellings. Those who (formerly) did not dwell in dwellings, I made them dwell (so). I brought security to my country.” 67 The very security of some of the polities near to the steppe was at risk because of these “displaced persons.” Fourth, it is important to include migration back into the range of explanations for the rise of the Aramean polities—at least in the ways that current scholarship is developing the theoretical conceptions. 68 The “retreat from migrationism” 69—in other words, the abandonment of migration as having any explanatory place in the models of the rise of the Aramean polities, at least among a significant number of archaeologists—has had a particularly limiting effect on historical reconstructions. 70 This has happened to the point that the Arameans are presented in the literature as simply being the same mobile pastoralists that were always “there” throughout the centuries. 71 In this view, there was merely “a modification of the social 67. T. Longman, COS 1.480; M. Dietrich and O. Loretz, “Die Inschrift der Statue des Königs Idrimi von Alalah,” UF 13 (1981): 201–69, esp. p. 206; CAD Š/3 181, s.v. šubtu A. 68. The current neo-migrationist approaches, which are no longer tied to the oncefor-all mass migration of the traditional migration models. See S. Hakenbeck, “Migration in Archaeology: Are We Nearly There Yet?” Archaeological Review from Cambridge 23/2 (2008): 9–26; A. Yasur-Landau, “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again: Migration Processes and the Absolute Chronology of the Philistine Settlement,” in The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BC, vol. 3: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000—2nd Euroconference, Vienna, 28th of May–1st of June 2003 (ed. M. Bietak and E. Czerny; Contributions to the Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean 9; Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007), 609; idem, The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 69. W. Y. Adams, D. P. van Gerven, and R. S. Levy, “The Retreat from Migrationism,” Annual Review of Anthropology 7 (1978): 483–532. 70. Burmeister notes that this “retreat from migrationism” that has characterized archaeology in the English-speaking world since the 1960s cannot be observed in the other social sciences. On the contrary, during the same time period, migration has taken on increased importance in scientific investigations. See S. Burmeister, “Archaeology and Migration: Approaches to an Archaeological Proof of Migration,” Current Anthropology 41 (2000): 539; See also J. Chapman, “The Impact of Modern Invasion and Migrations on Archaeological Explantions,” in Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation (ed. J. Chapman and H. Hamerow; BAR International Series 664; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 12–13. 71. See Sader, “The Aramaean Kingdoms of Syria”; Schniedewind, “The Rise of the Aramean States.” However, it is interesting to note that the only two full-length monographs devoted specifically to the history of the Arameans use a “migration” explanation in their reconstructions, yet neither scholar seems aware of the anthropological and archaeological developments regarding this issue. See P.-E. Dion, Les Araméens à l’âge du fer: Histoire politique et structures sociales (Études bibliques n.s. 34; Paris: Gabalda, 1997); Lipiński, The Aramaeans. In fact, Lipiński emphasizes a basic hostility between the Aramean nomads and the sedentary population, characterizing them on more than one occa-

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structures of the local populations and the takeover of power by one part of them.” 72 But there is clear textual evidence of actual tribal migrations among the Arameans. One example can be seen in the migration of the Yaḫānu tribe from the central Tigris to a location west of the Euphrates near Arpad. 73 As already pointed out, some tribes were quite mobile. They move not just between seasonal areas, but they move to entirely new locations. The Ḫaṭallu group is another example: from the Upper Euphrates region (south of Til Barsib, in the great bend of the Euphrates and perhaps in confederation at an earlier stage with Bīt-Adīni?) to the Wadi Tharthar area; then later, they migrated (or a portion of the group did) to southern Mesopotamia. 74 Another example is the tribe of Rupūʾ. Around the end of the 8th century, the Assyrian turtānu Šamšī‑ilu, who was based in Til Barsib (Kār Shalmaneser), fought them in the area of the Upper Euphrates. Later, Tiglathpileser III fought them in central Mesopotamia early in his reign. Still later, Sargon II faced them on the Tigris, near the border of the Elamite state. 75 Throughout the history of the ancient Near East, there have been many tribal group migrations. 76 Even an important modern example can be cited from the early 19th century AD. The Shammar nomads drove tribes such as the ʿUbaid, once the lords of the Jezirah, across the Tigris into Iraq. 77 This demonstrates that tribal displacement or forced migration sometimes took place. Of course, climate can sometimes be a factor. 78 sion as “roaming bands.” W. T. Pitard, “Arameans,” in Peoples of the Old Testament World (ed. A. Hoerth, G. Mattingly, and E. Yamauchi; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994), 207–300. 72. This is Kepinski’s description of the view. See C. Kepinski, “Conflict, Territory and Culture: The Case of Haradu, a Fortress on the Iraqi Middle Euphrates (11th to 7th Centuries BC),” Syria 86 (2009): 150. 73. See my Political History of the Arameans, chap. 4. 74. Fales gives some excellent examples of the variability in mobility of some of the Aramean tribes in southern Mesopotamia. See Fales, “Arameans and Chaldeans,” 293–95. 75. S. W. Cole, Nippur IV: The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor’s Archive from Nippur (OIP 114; Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1996), 49. 76. Charpin and Ziegler have suggested that Amurrites were part of large migrations in the 21st century BC and consequently sedentarized widely. They use the concept of “toponyms in mirror,” the repeated spread of the same Amurrite toponyms to reflect the sedentarization process in the third millenium BC onward. The “toponyms in mirror” are a likely reflection of chain migrations. See D. Charpin and N. Ziegler, Florilegium Marianum 5: Mari et le Proche-Orient à l’époque Amorrite: Essai d’histoire politique (Memoirs de NABU 6; Paris: SEPOA, 2003), 29. 77. S. W. Cole, Nippur in Late Assyrian Times, c. 755–612 BC (SAAS 4; Helsinki: NeoAssyrian Text Corpus Project, 1996), 24 n. 4. 78. In a letter from the time of Sargon II (SAA 1.74, Text 82), the correspondence reveals the (unwelcome but unavoidable) presence of Arabs in the Jezirah (who apparently have crossed the Euphrates at Ḫind/zānu) in search of pasture during a drought, though their grazing area is to be restricted by a eunuch appointed by the governor of Kalḫu. See also the Neo-Assyrian letter (possibly from the time of Sargon II), where Šarru‑dūri

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M. A. Lönnqvist has made important contributions to this discussion. Her insightful critique of the immobilist model is worthy of quotation: Clearly it has been important to restrict the explanations stressing migrations and invasions to appropriate fields of inquiries. However, in the same time the total abandonment of the migrationist or invasionist hypotheses and models does not conform with the archaeological evidence of stratigraphic discontinuities in every instance. “The retreat from migrationism” has taken some archaeologists too far beyond the data itself. The epigraphic sources originating from archaeological contexts cannot simply be ignored as they form an integrated part of the evidence from the past. 79

Anthony, Burmeister, and numerous studies from the neighboring socialscience disciplines have highlighted the great variability of contemporary forms of migration. 80 While modern scenarios cannot simply be transposed onto the preindustrialized periods as if they were universal, we equally cannot assume that migration in the past was limited to the movement of ethnic groups or demographic expansion. Instead, as Hakenbeck points out, it is more useful to adopt “mobility” as an encompassing and more open concept. In this way, she argues, “both the migration of ethnic groups and ‘demic diffusion’ can then be considered to be specialised forms of mobility, among others, such as transhumance, exogamous mobility, trade, townhinterland migration, raiding or forced migrations. Each of these forms of mobility operates within and is determined by its specific social, historical and environmental context.” 81 Hakenbeck concludes that, [a]fter a renewed period of “immobilist” criticism, a new concept of migration has begun to emerge since the 1990s. Generalising models of explanation that make use of a normative concept of migration are now being rejected in favour of a more open notion of mobility [—emphasis mine, KLY]. New approaches have become critical of a “God’s eye” perspective of migrations as large-scale processes which take place independently from individual or local agency, and as a response they are frequently adopting a multiscalar notion of mobility. That is, a “big picture” is assembled from local evidence for migrations without denying the relevance—or even centrality—of small-scale variwrites to the king, informing him among other things that the Arabs have crossed the Euphrates at Ḫindānu (ND 2626, Saggs 2001, 87 = SAA 19.16–17, Text 12). 79. Lönnqvist, “Were Nomadic Amorites on the Move?” 199–200; For the most recent and clearest discussion of this issue, see Hakenbeck, “Migration in Archaeology”; also see Chapman and Hamerow, “Introduction”; and Lönnqvist, “Were Nomadic Amorites on the Move?” 112–13. 80. D. W. Anthony, “Migration in Archaeology: The Baby and the Bathwater,” American Anthropologist 92 (1990): 895–914; idem, “Prehistoric Migration as Social Process,” in Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation (ed. J. Chapman and H. Hamerow; BAR International Series 664; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 21–32; Burmeister, “Archaeology and Migration.” 81. Hakenbeck, “Migration in Archaeology,” 19.

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ation to a larger-scale understanding of mobility. Crucially, these approaches no longer simply see migration as a vector for change but as a complex phenomenon worthy of study in its own right. This shift opens up new avenues for investigating mobility. 82

Most modern demographers and geographers attribute the decision to migrate to an interplay between “push” factors and “pull” factors, in conjunction with the availability and cost of transportation. 83 “Push” factors are perceived as negative conditions in the home region; and “pull” factors are perceived as positive conditions in the destination region. How the push and pull factors are perceived is also a function of access to information about potential destinations. Thus an important variable is that of information flow. It is also significant that population density is not the most crucial push factor. Powerful push factors can be: social, cultural factors, lineage segmentation (political, religious, social) oppression, climate, or economic factors; or a combination of these. Anthony has pointed out that the density-dependence view of migration routinely ignores the effects of these other push factors, as well as pull factors, transportation costs, and information flows. 84 For many modern demographic geographers, the pull factors are among the most critical components in successful migration models. 85 Thus, the probability that x will migrate to y at time t is partially determined by x’s knowledge about place y; this in turn is largely determined by the prior history of migration between x and y. Earlier migrants return home, recounting information about optimal routes to the destination, and as a result these same routes to the destination are used by later migrants. This type of “chain” migration concentrates on the specific routes, destinations, and social settings that are attractive to the home region. Anthony has emphasized that [m]igration, particularly long-distance migration, is channeled by access to information about a limited number of attractive routes and destinations. Migration therefore proceeds in streams toward known targets, not in broad waves that wash heedlessly over entire landscapes. 86 82. Ibid., 21. 83. Anthony, “Prehistoric Migration as Social Process,” 22; A. Trilsbach, “Environmental Changes and Village Societies West of the White Nile: Central Sudan,” in The Middle Eastern Village: Changing Economic and Social Relations (ed. R. Lawless; London: Croom Helm, 1987), 37–39; C. Tilly, “Migration in Modern European History,” in Human Migration: Patterns and Policies (ed. W. McNeill and R. Adams; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 48–74. 84. Anthony, “Prehistoric Migration as Social Process,” 23. 85. Ibid., 24. 86. Ibid. Thus, in order to control migration into the Jezirah, it is unnecessary to have an army posted along the entire Euphrates; rather, the control of key crossings can minimize “the flow of the streams.”

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Thus, information flows are an important issue. Finally, migration is more likely to occur between place x and place y when travel costs are low. In the case of mobile pastoralists who make seasonal migrations, travel costs are not a major factor, if the routes are available and the pull and/or push factors are great. In summary, the decision to migrate is a function of “pushes,” “pulls,” the structure of information flows, and perceived and actual transportation costs. All of these are mediated through family and household needs, decision-making customs, and local economic structures. Although population densities clearly have important effects on migration, demographers would find it impossible to investigate migration without incorporating data on pushes, pulls, information flows, and transport costs. None of these need be causally related to population density in the migrants’ place of origin. 87 All this leads to the conclusion that “it is only after the structure of the migration process is understood that appropriate methods can be identified or developed to detect its archaeological signature.” 88 Nevertheless, such an understanding of the structure of the migration process (with its more open mobility) stimulates a more comprehensive reconstruction of the Arameans’ origins. From the late second millennium to well into the first three or four centuries in the first millennium, Aramean socially constructed groups migrated throughout Mesopotamia (in some cases, in opposite and/or multiple directions). 89 No doubt, in such a far-flung region, there were many “push” and “pull” factors. Certainly, in the first millennium, the Assyrians were a major “push” factor for a number of these groups: Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II were perhaps the greatest “push” factors of them all. While ancestral ties were a major potential “staying” factor, with mobile groups this is less of a problem since they must cope with distance-identity issues through “distanciation”—that is, the stretching/shrinking of time and space through a mesh of social, ideological, and various practices to bind disparate and distant components of a sociopolitical entity into one. 90 87. Ibid., 26. 88. D. W. Anthony, “The Bath Refilled: Migration in Archaeology Again,” American Anthropologist 94 (1992): 174. For Hakenbeck’s proposal for the discipline’s advancement, see “Migration in Archaeology,” 19–20. 89. The Aramaic language suggests there was a single entity at some point. However, we cannot presently determine where exactly it may have been located. See the discussion of the ultimate origins in my Political History of the Arameans, chap. 2. 90. A. Porter, “Beyond Dimorphism: Ideologies and Materialities of Kinship as Time-Space Distantiation,” in Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: CrossDisciplinary Perspectives (ed. J. Szuchman; Oriental Institute Seminar 5; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2009), 202; idem, Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations, 61.

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Therefore, it seems that the best model is the one that allows for complexity and flexibility in its explanations. In other words, it is a more comprehensive model that (1) draws on the richness of mobile pastoralism with its various mobile and sedentary components; (2) draws on the recognition of a third category of “displaced persons”; (3) draws on the wealth of historical and archaeological data that are most propinquitous; and (4) draws on a sensitivity to a range of explanatory models that have awareness of geographic, environmental issues (including a more sophisticated understanding of migrations; note again the example of the Shammar vs. ʿUbaid above). It is quite an irony that in the very decades when many theorists have opted for an immobilist model of explanation for the origins of the Arameans and the origins of the Israelites, some of the greatest migrations in human history have been happening! There is not a single ethnic marker in the archaeological material cultural record for the Arameans. 91 Not one! This also is the case with the Amorite’s entry and appearance in Babylonia. 92 Some years ago, Bunnens pointed out the archaeological situation concerning Aramean origins: The evidence concerning the emergence of the Arameans is almost entirely textual. Archaeology sheds light on the first Aramean states, but is of little help to understand the settlement process of a people that is commonly recognized as nomadic in origin. No early Aramean site has been identified in the Upper Euphrates area, no regional survey has identified changes in the site distribution and settlement patterns that could reflect the irruption of new social groups. 93

What is clear is that the Arameans were West Semites who were highly adaptable to their various environments. They acculturated within the different regions where they appear in the textual records. 94 91. P.-E. Dion, “Aramaean Tribes and Nations of First-Millenium Western Asia,” in CANE, 2.1281. 92. Alan Millard, “Amorites and Israelites: Invisible Invaders—Modern Expectations and Ancient Reality,” in The Future of Biblical Archaeology: Reassessing Methodologies and Assumptions (ed. J. K. Hoffmeier and A. R. Millard; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 148–60. 93. G. Bunnens, “Aramaeans, Hittites and Assyrians in the Upper Euphrates Valley,” in Archaeology of the Upper Syrian Euphrates the Tishrin Dam Area. Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Barcelona, January 28–30, 1998 (ed. G. del Olmo Lete and J.-L. Montero Fenollós; Aula Orientalis Supplementa 15; Barcelona: Ausa, 1999), 605. 94. M. Novák, “Akkulturation von Aramäern und Luwiern und der Austausch von ikonographischer Konzepte in der späthethitischen Kunst,” in Brückenland Anatolien? Ursachen, Extensität und Modi des Kulturaustausches Zwischen Anatolien und seinen Nachbarn (ed. H. Blum et al.; Tübingen: Attempto, 2002), 147–71; idem, “Arameans and Luwians: Processes of an Acculturation,” in Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia: Papers Read at the 48th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, 1–4 July 2002 (Uitgaven van het Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten te Leiden 102; Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het

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Conclusion What are the implications for the origins of the Israelites? Clearly, indigenous, immobilist explanations are inadequate. Expectations for ethnic markers in the archaeological record are faulty since, as with the Arameans, the Israelites appear to have adopted the material culture in Canaan. Although different markers have been proposed, none have been accepted by all scholars as being definite ethnic markers. In other words, they were West Semites who acculturated. Therefore, it is time for scholars to start looking at the evidence differently, developing explanations that incorporate more recent migration theory in their model. 95 The fact that earlier migration models may have had an incorrect understanding of tribal mobile pastoralism does not negate all migration explanations, including models that allow for violence as part of that explanation. In the history of the ancient Near East, there were many migrations of people groups. One of these was most certainly a small tribal confederation that called itself bĕnê yiśrāʾ ēl. Nabije Oosten, 2005), 252–66; Younger, “The Late Bronze Age / Iron Age Transition and the Origins of the Arameans”; idem, “‘War and Peace’ in the Origins of the Arameans.” 95. That there were some indigenous elements in ancient Israel is not denied here. In fact, see my “Early Israel in Recent Biblical Scholarship.” See also Rendsburg, “The Early History of Israel,” 447–49. What I am especially concerned with is a rethinking of the significance that migration should play in the model.

Chapter 12

Exodus on the Ground: The Elusive Signature of Nomads in Sinai Thomas W. Davis Tandy Institute for Archaeology Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

The exodus story is a foundational event in the Hebrew Bible, yet no direct evidence has yet been uncovered to ground the tale in historical/ physical space. This absence of evidence is often interpreted as a direct challenge to the historicity of the biblical account. However, the formation processes that affect archaeological data in remote desert environments such as Sinai, and the nature of the archaeological signature of a migratory group force a reassessment of this negative conclusion. I am an archaeologist, and my presuppositions regarding the biblical text and archaeology reflect my contextual approach to archaeology. Archaeology is also a “text,” 1 and the meaning of the archaeological record is the result of an interpretive process, as is the meaning of the biblical text or any text. A corollary to this principle is that the failure of a model is NOT the failure of the source: it is simply the failure of the model. Consequently, a model that adopts a particularistic reading of the biblical text and then sets the absence of direct archaeological data in a position of opposition to the text may be at fault, not the text or the data. According to the biblical text, the Israelites were “wandering around” the desert for a generation (Exod 15:22–Num 21), but no evidence of this sojourn has been uncovered. Is it a fruitful enterprise to continue to try and find their footprints? To answer that question, we need to build our interpretive model using biblical studies, Egyptology, archaeology, and geography. Following the above dictum, in our model the biblical data should tell us what to look for archaeologically. According to the biblical text, the Israelites set up temporary encampments, living in “their tents.” 2 We should understand the Israelites as a mobile group whose marching camps 1. Following the model of Ian Hodder, Theory and Practice in Archaeology (London: Routledge, 1992). 2. Numbers 1:52 and many other references.

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were near water sources and were organized in a military fashion. It would be an incorrect application of this interpretive model of the text if we expected to find the archaeological signature of permanent settlements, such as houses and settlement fortifications. Egyptology gives us the historical context. As Kenneth Kitchen, James Hoffmeier, and others have recently argued, although direct evidence of the exodus is lacking, the world that forms the backdrop for the divine action recorded in the biblical texts reflects the current scholarly constructs of the physical and cultural realities of Egypt and Canaan at the end of the Bronze Age. 3 Ancient geography gives us the physical setting. The story opens in the heartland of Egypt, the Nile Delta, and closes on the borders of Canaan, the new homeland for the former slaves; but most of the story takes place in the space between the two homelands, the Sinai Peninsula. For both Israelites and native Egyptians, Sinai is a wilderness, a place outside their comfort zone. “The Israelites are wandering around in confusion hemmed in by the desert,” exults Pharaoh in Exod 14:3; an erroneous conclusion, as the narrative reveals, but surely a reasonable one in the circumstances. 4 Although the biblical accounts record that Moses had spent many years in the Sinai, most of the former slaves in his retinue would have had no experience in living outside the Nile Valley. The Israelites are outsiders in Sinai. Nile Valley–oriented Egyptians are equally outsiders in the Sinai. Papyrus Anastasi I speaks of the dangers of the Wilderness Road as perceived by an outsider: “Lions are more abundant than leopards and bears, while it is hemmed in on all sides by Shasu.” 5 Shasu (ŠꜢsw) is the primary New Kingdom (NK) term for the desert dwellers, regardless of their ethnicity or homeland. 6 Throughout the Egyptian records, there is a consistent, strong antipathy shown toward the pastoral Shasu. An example is found in P. Anastasi VI, which contains a message from the scribe Inena, stationed at a fort in the Wadi Tumilat, to his superior. He reports how he handled a situation with a group of Shasu by following an established policy that limited access by pastoralists to Egypt’s frontier water sources. 7 In the Ramesside era, illustrations of Shasu appear with some regularity in battle scenes, beginning with the incredibly detailed Seti I war reliefs on the outer north side of the Hypostyle Hall at the Karnak temple. 8 Hoffmeier points out that the Num3. K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003); James Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 4. The niv translation is an acceptable rendition of a difficult Hebrew passage. My thanks to my colleague Dr. Ryan Stokes for backstopping my Hebrew. 5. Edward Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1990), 106–8. I thank James Hoffmeier for helping to guide me through the Egyptian textual material. 6. Raphael Giveon, Les Bédouins Shosou des documents égyptiens (Leiden: Brill, 1971). 7. Ricardo Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), 293. 8. Epigraphic Survey, The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I, vol. 4: Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1986), pls. 1–6.

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bers itinerary underlines the nomadic character of the Hebrews in Sinai by using the verb “to camp.” 9 Albright argued long ago that nomads do not leave archaeological footprints, and this judgment shaped subsequent discussions of the archaeological evidence of the exodus. 10 The argument was reignited by Finkelstein and Perevolotsky to explain apparent cycles of sedentism; they proposed what they labeled “an historical-ecological model for human activity in the Sinai and the Negev.” 11 They concluded that “groups that . . . migrate in search of food, water, good pasture—do not leave traceable remains.” Steven Rosen critiqued this model, dismissing it as “a myth,” arguing that “it is possible to find the remains of such nomads.” 12 Rosen documented stone patterns that he interpreted as tent remains including “the stones that held down the flaps of a tent” at the Roman Period site of Givot Reved in Israel. However, Michael Homan, in a monograph on tents in the ancient Near East agrees with Finkelstein, saying, “[T]ents by their nature leave very little in the archaeological record.” 13 Despite his belief that the pastoral or nomadic elements in the peripheral zones such as Sinai did not leave signs of their presence, Finkelstein, insists that, had the Hebrews truly been in Sinai as the biblical traditions maintains, there should be evidence of that presence. 14 In my own experience, sites understood to be the signature of nomadic groups in their own space are generally lithic/ ceramic scatters with occasional hearths or other site furniture in both old world and new world contexts. Such sites will be small, sometimes 10–20 m2, with few sherds or lithic artifacts. For Late Bronze Age sites in the Sinai, pottery is the main diachronic indicator. However, ceramic vessels are not a hallmark of nomadic groups. Waterskins are much more practical, as documented in ethnographic literature. The famous painting of a band of Asiatics in the 12th Dynasty tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan depicts a minstrel carrying a water skin over his shoulder. 15 Watercourses, although 9. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, 150. 10. William F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine (New York: Penguin, 1949). When discussing the wilderness sojourn and the tabernacle, Wright simply says, “Archaeology is unable to help us.” G. Ernest Wright, Biblical Archaeology (London: Duckworth, 1962), 65. 11. Israel Finkelstein and Avi Perevolotsky, “Process of Sedentarization and Nomadization in the History of Sinai and the Negev,” BASOR 279 (1990): 67–88. 12. Steven Rosen, “Nomads in Archaeology: A Response to Finkelstein and Perevolotsky,” BASOR 287 (1992): 75–85. This issue of BASOR also included a rejoinder by Finkelstein and Perevolotsky on p. 87. 13. Michael Homan, To Your Tents O Israel: The Terminology, Function, Form and Symbolism of Tents in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 55. 14. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2003), 62. 15. Percy Newberry, Beni Hasan (London: Kegan Paul, 1893), vol. 1, pl. 31. On the “archaeology of travel,” see James K. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005/2011), 149–53.

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Figure 1.  A “desert pavement” at the site of Tell el Borg (photo by North Sinai Archaeological Project).

they are only periodically active, can deposit a great amount of silt after an intensive storm, effectively burying evidence of short-term occupation. An additional problem when archaeologists are trying to isolate nomadic sites is wind-generated deflation, which creates a “desert pavement” of artifacts, destroying diachronic space (fig. 1). On deflated sites, separating out a specific occupation and isolating it diachronically can become almost impossible. Therefore, finding direct evidence of a single-use campsite of a nomadic group that can be dated in isolation in the Sinai is a totally unrealistic expectation. This severely limits the potential to discover the archaeological signature of the Hebrew sojourn. So where and how should we look? We need to look where worlds collide. The Sinai in the New Kingdom was less a boundary than a highway linking the Egyptian homeland and the imperial space of Canaan. 16 The north coast of the Sinai had served as a military/trade route linking Canaan and Egypt since at least the Early Bronze Age. By the 19th Dynasty, this routing was fully militarized and was known as the Ways of Horus. The Bible calls the route the Way of the Philistines (Exod 13:17). 16. James K. Hoffmeier and Stephen O. Moshier, “‘A Highway out of Egypt’: The Main Road from Egypt to Canaan,” in Desert Road Archaeology in Ancient Egypt and Beyond (ed. F. Förester and H. Reimer; Africa Praehistorica 26; Cologne: Heinrich-BarthInstitut), 485–51.

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The “sea of sand” is a cliché description of deserts worldwide, but northern Sinai does resemble a seascape, being physically dominated by long stretches of sand, what geologists call a “dune sheet.” 17 Conceptualizing the north Sinai as a sea provides an interpretive framework that can bring the interactions of the local inhabitants with outsiders into focus. Following this model, Egypt and Canaan become the mainlands, and the forts and military outposts of the Ways of Horus are islands in the sea functioning as rest stops and places of safety in a hostile environment. Both the biblical sojourn account and the Egyptian texts reflect an outsider’s understanding of these “islandscapes” (using the neologism of Broodbank), 18 seeing them as primarily connectors (“Ways”) between the two mainland spaces and not as places of habitation or significant interchange with the dwellers of the Sinai. In contrast, the islandscape concept helps us to see the forts as dynamic places of interchange between the Sinai nomads and the Egyptian garrison. On larger islands, coastal communities act as agents of transition between the seafaring outsiders and the islanders, particularly locally based outsiders. “Living by the sea, of course, also opens the door to extra-insular relationships and influences, from trading or social exchanges to raiding, piracy or colonization.” If the islandscape model is applicable to the New Kingdom Sinai, then the forts should also have communities of interchange associated with them but outside their physical space. Since the forts are permanent structures, their associated communities have a greater incentive to establish a more enduring relationship. In turn, this creates a greater likelihood for uncovering archaeological evidence of the domestic debris of these interactive communities. This type of interface between locals and outsiders is well attested at the Nubian forts during the Middle and New Kingdoms. 19 Eliezer Oren’s survey and excavations of sites along the Ways of Horus have led him to conclude that there is “a clear hierarchical pattern, in which central forts or stations are grouped with smaller campsites for caravans and many small seasonal encampments.” 20 Furthermore, Oren views the north Sinai forts as administrative centers that would have drawn on the local 17. Ned Greenwood, The Sinai: A Physical Geography (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), 26–29. 18. C. Broodbank, An Island Archaeology of the Cyclades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 19. Stuart T. Smith, “Askut and the Role of the Second Cataract Forts,” JARCE 28 (1991): 107–32; idem, Askut in Nubia: The Economics and Ideology of Egyptian Imperialism in the Second Millennium BC (London: Kegan Paul, 1995); idem, Wretched Kush: Ethnic Identities and Boundaries in Egypt’s Nubian Empire (New York: Routledge: 2003), 34–61. 20. Eliezer Oren, “The Establishment of Egyptian Imperial Administration on the ‘Ways of Horus’: An Archaeological Perspective from North Sinai,” in Timelines: Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak (ed. E. Czerny et al.; OLA 149; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 2.280.

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Figure 2.  Site map (NSAP). population as a work force to help maintain these centers and probably served as militias. 21 21. Ibid., 2.289.

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The Evidence from Tell el-Borg Tell el-Borg was one of the “islands” along the military route of the New Kingdom pharaohs. 22 It is located about 10 km east of the Suez Canal near Qantara Sharq. The elevated area of the roughly oval-shaped tell was about 400 m from the western end, while the maximum width of the mound was about 250 m N-S. The elongated site from the western end is oriented toward the northeast. The highest area at the center of the site (Field VI) stands about 3–4 m above the surrounding area, although most of the elevation is only 1–2 m. Just to the south of this high ground, a Nilotic distributary was revealed by the excavation team that measured around 125 m wide. 23 The waters from this channel separated the higher ground of Tell elBorg from the area to the south of the waterway where a succession of New Kingdom forts was located. Fields II and III, located north of the distributary, were dominated by formal tombs, constructed in mud brick, which were almost certainly the tombs of either the garrison elite or of strongly Egyptianized local officials who were culturally indistinguishable from Nile Valley residents. Public buildings also were present here, with no evidence of non-elite domestic space. South of the Nile distributary, a series of New Kingdom forts occupied the landscape. Unfortunately postdepositional formation processes have left only subfoundational levels intact from the forts, removing any evidence of internal domestic usage. The highest ground of Field VI was occupied in recent times by Israeli and Egyptian military units, who caused widespread damage to the archaeological remains. Despite the damage from the modern military occupants, Field VI held the most potential for discovering traces of the local communities. 24 The entire field had been deflated, leaving a surface pavement of sherds and occasional groundstone artifacts. Initial excavation of Field VI consisted of a 3 × 3 m trench, hand-stripped, in the eastern sector of Area 1, Field VI. Sterile basal sand lay just below the surface, approximately 5 cm deep. A straight, dark (Munsell 10YR 4/2) charcoal-flecked stain was identified within the central block. A possible fire pit was identified on the surface 2 m east of the straight stain. The fire pit was sectioned and a carbon sample removed for dating. A small carbon sample also was taken from the straight stain, designated as Locus 003. The stain extended down at least 10 cm into the surrounding sands. The dark material appeared to be 22. James K. Hoffmeier, Tell el-Borg I: Excavations in North Sinai (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014). 23. See Stephen O. Moshier in Tell el-Borg I, chap. 3: “The Geological Setting of Tell el-Borg with Implications for Ancient Geography of Northwest Sinai.” 24. The final report of Field VI will appear in Tell el-Borg II (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, forthcoming). This article is the first published presentation of these data.

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Figure 3.  Hut 1, Field VI, Tell el-Borg (photo by NSAP).

Figure 4.  Reed hut in the Bedouin village of Gilbana, N. Sinai (photo by T. W. Davis).

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Figure 5.  Buttressed fence walls, Tell el-Borg (photo by NSAP). burned sand and carbonized reeds, with some surface sand. The working hypothesis was that this represented a Bedouin encampment of the recent past. The carbon dating yielded surprising results, indicating a late Middle Kingdom date for the features. Sample TEB02/1 from the fire pit yielded a conventional date of 3630 ±140 BP; Sample TEB02/2 from the burned stain yielded a conventional date of 3570 ±130 BP. However, the date range for the calibration curve was very broad, and the more ancient date for the features was widely questioned by the excavation team. Further investigations were designed to expose the features to understand their nature better and to gather sufficient carbon for a suite of radiocarbon dates to settle the question of the antiquity of the features. Eventually, an area measuring more than 20 × 20 m was opened. The surface sand was very disturbed and, as a guiding principle, all features and deposits were treated as potentially disturbed unless they were clearly intact beneath the upper stratum. Clearly modern features, such as tank tracks and modern military pits were removed. Numerous fire pits were present, some of which were modern. In the field, the key to identifying the age of the fire pits was assumed to be the presence or absence of fish bones. Fire pits that had fishbone were likely to be ancient, since the Nile had shifted away from the site before modern times. Support for this argument was the observation that some of the pits that lacked fish bones contained modern glass in

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Figure 6.  Two phases of use in the fire pit, Locus 3, Tell el-Borg (photo by NSAP).

the matrix. On at least one occasion, a modern fire pit had intruded into an ancient one. All of the fire pits were simple holes in the ground, with no permanent aspects such as stones being used as a base or a hearth ring. A total of 35 loci consisting of burned sand and carbonized reeds were identified within Area 1, Field VI. Some of the loci appeared to form individual structures and are discussed together below. This analysis assumes that all of the ash-blackened stains identified as “Hut” elements are contemporary, which cannot be definitively demonstrated when the stains are not physically linked together. Bound reeds are a traditional building material in Egypt from predynastic times up to the present day. As scholars have long recognized, the forms of reed architecture are echoed in more permanent materials, such as stone construction in temples and palaces. Vernacular architecture also made use of reed bundles and still does in the Delta and the Sinai. The late G. R. H. Wright, the dean of Near Eastern architectural archaeologists, commented favorably on the building properties of reeds: This is a very effective and versatile building material for light shelters. Some of these plants have very robust stems that serve as rigid frame

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Figure 7.  Hut 2, Field VI, Tell el-Borg (photo by NSAP). members in themselves; others can be bundled together to form rigid members; still others can be latticed and interwoven. Above all such elements can be woven into substantial and durable matting which, hung between frames, forms efficient wall paneling. 25 All of these elements were probably present in the hut features at Tell elBorg. Bundled reeds were clearly used as buttressing along the walls of the huts and along the fence lines. Wright goes on to mention that reed architecture often employed mud plaster, creating a form of wattle and daub construction; 26 small fragments of daub were recovered from Locus 003, the outline stain of Hut 1 (fig. 3). The floor plan of the reed features uncovered in Field VI Area 1 suggests conscious spatial organization. The major fence lines appear to separate the visible features into four major clusters: Hut 1 and 3 and their accompanying courtyards, locus 020; Hut 2A, 2B, and loci 011, 013, 016, and 037; and the area to the south of fence line 029. Both major fence lines were replaced at 25. G. R. H. Wright, Ancient Building Technology: Historical Background (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 50. 26. Ibid., 51.

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least once in their use life. This spatial separation suggests the delineation of nuclear family space within a larger kinship grouping. The organization of the Hut 1 and Hut 3 clusters suggests organized activity areas. Most communal tasks probably took place in the open courtyard within the fence and outside the hut. The fire pits (loci 002, 010, and possibly 026) indicate that cooking and food preparation occurred external to the huts. The obvious danger of fire makes this a rational choice. This is supported by the recovery of groundstone tool fragments from either disturbed contexts above the open courtyards or from the cleanup of the courtyards. The superimposition of fires in locus 002 indicates repetitive activity, although the fires could have been lit within a very short time and do not need necessarily imply abandonment and reoccupation of the hut. Cooking was probably done by direct heat using ceramic cooking vessels, because no identifiable boiling stones were found. The fires all yielded fish bones but no animal remains. The fish may have been cooked by placing them directly on the coals. The floor plan of Hut 2A and 2B is not as clear as Hut 1. Hut 2B is more closed, while Hut 2A is very open in plan. Hut 2B may have been the sleeping space, with Hut 2A being a more communal space. Hut 2A is marked by the use of isolated reed bundles, which may have held up a roof, creating a portico-like effect. A small fire pit, probably contemporary with the use of Hut 2A, provides a focal point immediately in front of a small, squaredoff space. The small size of the fire and its location within the apparent boundaries of the space suggest that it may have provided a central focus for socializing in the evening, in addition to a utilitarian role. It is tempting to associate this structure with a more overtly communal role, such as a gathering place for the family or a larger kinship unit. Hut 2A has an oblique opening onto a wide courtyard area (Locus 011) measuring more than 36 m2. Locus 011 has no fire pit or other structural indications of domestic activity. This could have been a family/clan gathering place. Perhaps the small, squared-off space within Hut 2A was set aside for the use of a single high-status individual or to store/display a significant artifact of value to the family/clan, such as a deity figurine or ancestral totem. The minimal size of the directly associated material assemblage precludes any definitive statements. Another possibility is that Huts 2A and 2B are short-term animal pens reused and rebuilt during the occupation of the main huts. The flotation from Field VI identified sheep dung, indicating that domestic animals were quartered among the human occupants. The ceramic subassemblage from the excavation in Field VI Area 1 is almost entirely domestic in character, with small Egyptian black-rimmed bowls and small store jars predominant. According to Catherine Duff ’s analysis of the Levantine ceramics at Tell el-Borg, in the domestic area in Field VI, 80% of the jars are “Canaanite,” showing the cross-connections of this community. The amount of pottery recovered in situ is small, although

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it is consistent with the overlying disturbed material. This subassemblage probably represents household utilitarian wares. A few luxury items were also recovered from here, although no luxury imports were from good contexts. The Cypriot subassemblage included sherds of White Slip I and II milk bowls, Base Ring I and II juglets, and Red Burnished wares. Mycenean stirrup jar fragments and stone vessel fragments were also found. Of course, the luxury items recovered from disturbed contexts may be associated with activities dating after the burning of the huts and were intermixed by subsequent deflation and modern activity. The variety of nonceramic materials recovered from the area indicates generalized domestic life. The evident deflation of the area combined with mechanical stripping during the modern military occupation created a palimpsest of material, preventing the affiliation of most of the recovered finds with a distinct occupational/chronological episode. The copper alloy knife recovered from the small storage/refuse pit was broken in antiquity (TBO 494); this was not a weapon but, rather, a tool. Other copper alloy finds included needle fragments. The flint artifacts recovered were probably used in compound tools, perhaps to cut the reeds or to harvest local grains. One arrowhead fragment was recovered. Outside the excavated area, a suite of groundstone tools was recovered in the general surface collection of Field VI. It is likely that this type of site furniture would have remained here on a semipermanent basis. The groundstone tools were probably used for food processing. The main occupation phase of Field VI Area 1 provided some evidence of animal husbandry from the flotation material recovered from Locus 003, the main walls of Hut 1. It is certainly possible that animals were penned nearby. Animal products were almost certainly used on site but have left no evidence other than the use of dung as fuel. It is likely that the earliest use of this area was to pen animals. The faint, early-phase stain alignments could represent a series of light animal pens that were periodically replaced. In this scenario, the occupational space would have been elsewhere, perhaps under the current military defenses. The entire quartier may have been surrounded by a 2-m-deep mud-brick fosse, delineating space rather than providing a formidable defense line. The fosse has been substantially disturbed by deflation, leaving no trace north and east of Field VI. The original 2002 conventional carbon dating from Field VI indicated a late Middle Kingdom/early New Kingdom date for the features. The four dates from the 2005 season, run as AMS dates, provide a more accurate picture. In toto, the dates suggest at least two phases of occupation on the site: a late Second Intermediate/early New Kingdom date, and the main occupation in the early 18th Dynasty. A fire pit (Locus 023) overlaid by Hut 1 yielded an AMS radiocarbon date of 3310 ±40 BP with a 2-sigmacalibrated range of 1690–1510 BC. The other three dates indicate a relatively tight range of occupation for the main phase of the occupation.

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Figure 8.  Denuded Fosse bottom, Field VI, Area C, Tell el-Borg (photo by NSAP).

The 2-sigma-calibrated date ranges are: 1530–1410 BC from the fence-line (locus 014); 1500–1380 BC from a fire pit (Locus 010); and 1530–1400 BC from Hut 1 (Locus 003). All three dates show that the features are contemporaneous and date to the pre-Amarna 18th Dynasty. The entire final complex appears to have been destroyed at the same time, because the later-phase stains share the same characteristics in terms of color, texture, and evidence of burning. The total ceramic assemblage from Field VI supports the radiocarbon dates. The predominantly black-rimmed bowls, an early to mid-18th Dynasty type, fall into this range. The Cypriot imports have a use life that overlaps with the bowls, as does the Mycenean material. The diagnostic Palestinian material also falls into the earlier half of the Late Bronze Age sequence. Taken together, this material indicates that the Field VI settlement was occupied during the early 18th Dynasty, probably contemporary with the early fosse fort. This area of the site may not have been occupied domestically during the Ramesside Period.

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The archaeological record creates a mixed portrait of the occupancy of Field VI Area 1. The fragility of the features, the extensive military disturbances, and the shallowness of the features all combine to make any analysis problematic. Intact deposits are very limited in nature and difficult to identify. The ancient cultural features uncovered in Field VI Area 1 appear to be the remains of a domestic quarter dating to the earliest occupation of the site. A fire pit and nonstructural fence lines mark the first, more temporary occupation. These features suggest animal enclosures, not domestic dwellings. These were probably sporadically used by the local Shasu or by travelers passing through on the coastal route before the Egyptian garrison occupied the site. The main domestic occupation dates to the 15th century BC. The huts and associated features appear organized on a familial level, with animals quartered among the huts. The presence of ceramic materials, albeit in sherd form and not restorable pots, suggests more-permanent use of the site. Postdepositional movement of the sherd material could account for some of the finds, such as the few coffin fragments found in Area 1; however, the ceramic subassemblage is too large and varied to be explained solely in this way. The large fire pit east of Hut 1 (locus 002) evidences repeated use. The groundstone artifacts are portable but could also have been deliberately left on site in a cycle of repeated occupation. The identity of the occupants that produced the main phase in Field VI Area 1 is unclear. One scenario is that the occupants were the original inhabitants of Tell el-Borg, who created a more permanent presence in the early years of the New Kingdom. The remains from Field VI may represent the remains of a Shasu encampment on their “homeground.” In this case, the field-wide destruction would have been deliberate, evidence of the arrival of the Egyptian garrison who destroyed the huts of the local “Asiatics” to eliminate a possible threat. The islandscape model suggests an alternative interpretation: that the remains from Field VI are the archaeological signature of a community of interchange associated with the first military occupation of the site. The first fort was a permanent structure, a deep fosse that was constructed of nearly 80,000 fired bricks overlaid by thousands of mud bricks. 27 Field VI lies outside the physical space of the fort, separated from the military structure by the Nile distributary, and further delineated by a nearly deflated mud-brick fosse. Because the first fort was a substantial investment by the Egyptian government, an associated community would have had an incentive to establish a more enduring relationship. The occupants might have been farmers or hunters and/or herdsmen providing food for the garrison. Although there is no evidence of large-scale industrial activity, this 27. Thomas W. Davis and James K. Hoffmeier, “Fired Bricks at Tell el-Borg,” in Tell el-Borg I (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014), 198–201.

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does not preclude a local, family-based industry such as weaving or animal by-products. As a community of interchange, the inhabitants of Field VI could have been the middlemen for the truly nomadic Shasu who visited for shorter periods of time to trade with the garrison or with merchants who stopped at this site lying along the banks of the easternmost branch of the Nile. The small amounts of Cypriot and Mycenean wares could have come onto the site as the result of individualized, low-intensity trade from passing merchant vessels. Once the trade goods were exhausted or the local market saturated, the occupants of the huts could have reverted to a more transient lifestyle and simply packed up and left. Trade with the garrison may not have been the only motivation for temporary occupation at the site. The huts could have been occupied by a family group that was passing through the frontier posts. Traffic could have been seasonal, with various groups settling down for a short time near the garrison during the summer to be close to a water source, or to gain the protection of the garrison in unsettled times. The burning of the huts may have been an accidental fire, although the lack of evidence of a rebuild argues against this idea. A deliberate destruction does not necessarily indicate enemy action. It is possible that the entire site may have been abandoned for a number of years when the first fort went out of use. The huts would then have been deliberately burned when the garrison pulled out. A period of site abandonment is suggested by evidence from the fortifications in Fields IV and V. The garrison may have burned the huts as a way of removing the refuse left behind. The islandscape model provides a viable interpretive framework for integrating the somewhat disparate archaeological discoveries at Tell el-Borg. If the remains from Field VI are the archaeological signature of a community of interchange associated with the first military occupation of the site, then where to look for the traces of nomadic groups in the Sinai has become clearer. This model should be further tested in the excavation of other New Kingdom military sites in the Sinai. The islandscape model could be used productively to help frame the research designs of such future archaeological examinations. It is to be hoped that when other sites along the Way of Horus are excavated they may retain similar features in a higher state of preservation. Archaeologists need to be sensitive to the potential survival of fragile cultural features in such settings. A word of caution: in Sinai, the absence of mud brick does not necessarily mean the absence of occupation. Although the archaeological signature of the exodus remains elusive in the Sinai, the islandscape model suggests that a possibly productive line of inquiry would be thoroughly to examine topographical high spots and seasonally drier locations adjacent to the first four or five forts of the Way of Horus, because the biblical account records that the Hebrews turned away

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from the Sea due to the robust Egyptian military presence along the coast (Exod 13:17). In practical terms, this may limit inquiry to the immediate vicinity of Hebua I, Hebua II, and Tell el-Borg. Unfortunately, much of this area is under rapid agricultural development, and the current political situation adds another layer of difficulty to the search. The window of opportunity to use the islandscape model to frame the archaeological space of the exodus event in the northern Sinai is closing.

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Part 4 Exodus in the Hebrew Prophets

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Chapter 13

“I Am Yahweh Your God from the Land of Egypt”: Hosea’s Use of the Exodus Traditions Jerry Hwang Singapore Bible College

The book of Hosea is notable for its plentiful allusions to the history of Israel—the patriarchal period (12:4[3], 13[12]), 1 exodus from Egypt (2:17[15]; 11:1), giving of the law at Sinai (4:1–3; 8:12; 12:10[9]; 13:4), murmuring in the wilderness (9:10; 13:5), settlement followed by apostasy in Canaan (1:4; 2:10[8], 13[11]; 11:2), and exile (7:16; 8:13) followed by restoration (2:1[1:10]; 14:5–7[4–6]). 2 Such a confluence of historical references makes Hosea a promising entrée into the longstanding problem of the literary relationship between the Torah and the Former Prophets on the one hand, and the Torah and the Latter Prophets on the other. 3 Comparison of Hosea’s historical allusions with their narrative intertexts is made problematic, however, by the fact that Hosea’s poetic references to history differ notably in both genre and content from their prosaic counterparts in the Torah and Former Prophets. These differences, coupled with the putative view that the book of Hosea is somehow linked to the 1. All English translations are my own. 2. Studies of Hosea’s uses of history can be found in Else Kragelund Holt, Prophesying the Past: The Use of Israel’s History in the Book of Hosea ( JSOTSup 194; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994); Dwight R. Daniels, Hosea and Salvation History (BZAW 191; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990); Heinz-Dieter Neef, Die Heilstraditionen Israels in der Verkündigung des Propheten Hosea (BZAW 169; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1987); Jochen Vollmer, Geschichtliche Rückblicke und Motive in der Prophetie Des Amos, Hosea und Jesaja (BZAW 119; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), 55–126; Walter Brueggemann, Tradition for Crisis: A Study in Hosea (Atlanta: John Knox, 1968). 3. This is especially so for Hos 12, a chapter which creatively blends references to both Jacob and Moses. See the most recent treatment by Erhard Blum, “Hosea 12 und die Pentateuchüberlieferungen,” in Die Erzväter in der biblischen Tradition: Festschrift für Matthias Köckert (ed. Anselm A. Hagedorn and Henrik Pfeiffer; BZAW 400; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 291–321.

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activities of a Deuteronomistic school of scribes 4 have led to the proposals of so-called minimalists that the tradents of Hosea were inventing rather than drawing upon the past. According to such reconstructions, the book of Hosea heralds a Deuteronomistic movement, which was eventually responsible for many of the foundational ideas of the Hebrew Bible, such as the notion of a covenant between Yahweh and Israel. 5 The view of Thomas Dozeman provides an instructive example of this trend: “My interpretation of the explicit references to the exodus and the wilderness in Hosea suggests that the prophet is not dependent upon, but is laying the foundation for, salvation history.” 6 The position that the book of Hosea largely predates the pentateuchal traditions is also held by minimalists who start their redaction-critical work from the Old Testament narrative literature rather than the prophetic books, such as John Van Seters and Reinhard Kratz. 7 Since the exodus tradition in Hosea has received particular attention from scholars, 8 in this essay I will analyze how Hosea characterizes the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The argument will proceed in two parts. In 4. The term Deuteronomistic has been variously used in scholarship. According to Christophe Nihan (“‘Deutéronomiste’ et ‘deutéronomisme’: Quelques remarques de méthode en lien avec le débat actuel,” in Congress Volume: Helsinki 2010 [ed. Martti Nissinen; VTSup 148; Leiden: Brill, 2012], 409), it may refer to (1) a linguistic style that resembles Deuteronomy; (2) a theology or ideology that resembles Deuteronomy’s; or (3) a group of scribes whose writings evince a Deuteronomic stamp. This essay will accept the hypothesis of a Deuteronomistic school for the sake of engaging minimalists on their own terms, even though much uncertainty remains about the extent of Deuteronomistic editing in the Latter Prophets (see Robert Kugler, “The Deuteronomists and the Latter Prophets,” in Those Elusive Deuteronomists: The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism [ed. Steven L. McKenzie and Linda S. Schearing; JSOTSup 268; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999], 127–44). 5. E.g., Lothar Perlitt, Bundestheologie im alten Testament (WMANT 36; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969), 129–55; Ernest W. Nicholson, God and His People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 187–88. 6. Thomas B. Dozeman, “Hosea and the Wilderness Wandering Tradition,” in Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible—Essays in Honour of John Van Seters (ed. Steven L. McKenzie, Thomas C. Römer, in collaboration with Hans Heinrich Schmid; BZAW 294; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 69, emphasis added. It should be noted, however, that Dozeman’s essay only argues for the diachronic priority of Hosea’s references to the wilderness but not to the exodus. In actuality, Dozeman concedes that the prophet Hosea knows an ancient tradition of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt (pp. 59–60). 7. John Van Seters, The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus–Numbers (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 180, 303; Reinhard G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (trans. John Bowden; London: T. & T. Clark, 2005), 142. 8. In addition to Dozeman (“Hosea and the Wildnerness”), see also Stephen C. Russell, Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature: Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite, and Judahite Portrayals (BZAW 403; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 55–63; Karel van der Toorn, “The Exodus as Charter Myth,” in Religious Identity and the Invention of Tradition: Papers

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the first section, a synchronic analysis of Hosea’s references to the exodus will demonstrate that Israel’s departure from Egypt has become interwoven with traditions of covenant, wilderness wandering, exile, and return. The observation that Hosea embeds the exodus within a cluster of other themes then raises the diachronic question of how and when these traditions became joined in the development of Israel’s literary traditions. Thus, in the second section, I will seek to determine the most likely origin of the exodus traditions in Hosea. I will argue that established traditions of the exodus were mediated to Hosea under proto-Deuteronomistic influence, rather than the opposing view, that Hosea’s creative references to “history” were then stripped of their most interesting features before being expanded into narrative texts in the exilic or postexilic periods, as held by minimalists. In other words, the brevity of the exodus references in Hosea are best explained as allusions to a well-known event, much like a passing reference to “9/11” would be sufficient to evoke a vast network of associations for an American. In the course of this study, I will also examine the relationship of Hosea to the Deuteronomistic polemic against the idolatrous practices of the Northern Kingdom, most notably the golden calves of Dan and Bethel (cf. 1 Kgs 12:28–32). Golden calf motifs are especially useful for intertextual analysis by virtue of being found in all three canonical divisions of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Exod 32; Deut 9; 1 Kgs 12; Hos 8).

Synchronic Analysis of Hosea’s References to the Exodus Hosea’s first reference to the exodus, in chap. 2, is closely intertwined with the tradition complexes of the wilderness period, covenant at Sinai, and settlement in the land. 9 After punishing Israel for its idolatry with the Baalim (Hos 2:11–15[9–13]), Yahweh plans to bring his bride back to the wilderness so as to remarry her: “Therefore, I am coaxing and leading her into the wilderness so that I may speak to her heart” (2:16[14]). Striking in this verse is how the “wilderness” (Heb. ‫)מ ְדּבָר‬, ִ a place usually associated with privation and judgment (e.g., Exod 16; Deut 1–3), has been transformed into the idyllic honeymoon of Israel’s first days with Yahweh (cf. Deut 8). There the people will reenact the time when they became his bride: “She will answer [‫ ]ענה‬as in the days of her youth, as in the day I brought her from the land of Egypt” (Hos 2:17[15]). 10 This remarriage will lead to blessed life in the land (2:20[18], 23–24[21–22]). Read at a Noster Conference, Soesterberg, January 4–6, 1999 (Studies in Theology and Religion; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 116–22. 9. Steven L. McKenzie, “Exodus Typology in Hosea,” ResQ 22 (1979): 100–101. 10. For a convincing case that ‫ ענה‬in Hos 2:17[15] describes the bride’s response to the groom’s offer of remarriage, see Mordechai A. Friedman, “Israel’s Response in Hosea 2:17b: ‘You Are My Husband,’” JBL 99 (1980): 199–204.

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More importantly, reconciliation will bring renewal of the knowledge of Yahweh, which Israel first gained through the exodus: “You will know [‫]ידע‬ Yahweh” (Hos 2:22[20]). This allusion to Yahweh’s “recognition formula” in Hos 2, so prominent in Exod 4–14, 11 is more expansive in its field of reference than the “signs and wonders” usually associated with Israel’s departure from Egypt (cf. Exod 7:5; 10:2; 14:4). Earlier in Hos 2, the acknowledgment of God’s gifts in the land is included in the ironic verdict that Israel has “not known” Yahweh: “As for her [Israel], she has not known [‫ ]לא ידע‬that I personally gave her the grain, new wine, and oil” (Hos 2:10[8]). 12 This expansion of reference for ‫ ידע‬in the recognition formula to encompass satiety in the land anticipates how Hosea will later apply the self-introduction formula “I am Yahweh your God” to encompass the entire history of Israel “from the land of Egypt” (Hos 12:10[9]; 13:4). Thus Hos 2 introduces a trend in the book to modulate the exodus event and the formulaic expressions associated with it into both major and minor keys so as to portray every phase of the relationship among Yahweh, his people, and the land. 13 This synchronic datum will have important implications for the diachronic investigation of whether Hosea picks up or instead invents the exodus tradition. Similar references to the exodus traditions are found in Hos 11–13, though the familial metaphor has shifted in these chapters from the husband-wife relationship to that of a father-child relationship. In the course of moving from the imagery of love spurned and rekindled to that of parental discipline, the latter chapters of Hosea elaborate upon exile and return as variations upon the theme of exodus. In Hos 11, for example, the poignant reference to Yahweh’s grace in calling “my son” out of Egypt (11:1) leads abruptly to an indictment of Israel for worshiping idols (11:2–3). Yahweh thereby 11. In Exod 6–14, the “recognition formula” is found in Yahweh’s repeated declaration about the goal of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt: “that X may know [‫ ]ידע‬that I am Yahweh.” The element X varies in the Exodus narrative among Pharaoh, Egypt as a whole, and “you” (i.e., Israel). The pioneering work on the so-called Erkenntnisaussage is Walther Zimmerli, “I Am Yahweh,” in I Am Yahweh (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 1–28. 12. Cf. M. Douglas Carew, “To Know or Not to Know: Hosea’s Use of ydʿ/dʿt,” in The Old Testament in the Life of God’s People: Essays in Honor of Elmer A. Martens (ed. Jon M. Isaak; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 76–78. 13. The notion that “knowledge of God” refers to other tradition complexes of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt finds other support in the middle chapters of Hosea. Though the exodus itself is not mentioned here, Hosea refers to the “knowledge of God” in a manner which presumes the audience’s familiarity with traditions about Yahweh’s selfrevelation to his people, most notably covenantal legal traditions such as the Decalogue (Hos 4:1–3; cf. 8:1, 12). See Thomas Renz, “Torah in the Minor Prophets,” in Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham (ed. J. G. McConville and Karl Möller; LHBOTS 461; New York: T. & T. Clark, 2007), 81–83; Gene M. Tucker, “The Law in the Eighth-Century Prophets,” in Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (ed. Gene M. Tucker, David L. Petersen, and Robert R. Wilson; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 204–11.

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warns of punishment against Israel in that the Israelites “will [not?] return to Egypt” (Hos 11:5; cf. 7:16; 8:13; 9:3), 14 but divine compassion will eventually bring Israel back “like birds from Egypt” (11:11). Hosea 11 therefore uses exodus imagery to describe not only the historical event of Israel’s departure from Egypt but also exile as an “anti-exodus,” and return to the land as a “new exodus.” 15 The tendency to join past and present events under the rubric of the exodus is also found in Hos 12. Here the contrast between near and far horizons comes to the fore when “Israel” in the historical past is set against the disobedient generation in the present known as “Ephraim.” 16 In the most extensive allusions to the ancestors found in the prophets, 17 Hosea accuses “Ephraim” (11:12; 12:2[1]) of resembling Jacob the supplanter (12:4–5[3–4]) for his treachery (12:10–11[9–10]). In contrast to Hosea’s account of this unsavory history during the patriarchal era, Yahweh responds in the first person with recollections from the days of the exodus, a time of miraculous faithfulness, in which Israel’s history began: “I am Yahweh your God from the land of Egypt” (Hos 12:10a[9a]). The apostasy of Jacob (= “Ephraim”) contrasts starkly with the vigilance toward God represented by the prophets in the line of Moses: “By a prophet Yahweh brought up [‫ עלה‬Hiphil] Israel from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded” (12:14[13]). 18 But because the prophets in Hosea’s time have been corrupt (12:11–12[10–11]), Yahweh will “bring back” (‫ ׁשוב‬Hiphil) the time of Israel’s wilderness sojourn in tents (12:10b[9b]), a reversal of exodus imagery through a spatial contrast with the verb “bring up” (‫ עלה‬Hiphil; cf. 12:14[13]). Hosea 13 scrolls forward beyond the time of the patriarchs by introducing a contrast between the exodus as a time of undivided devotion, and the 14. MT Hos 11:5 reads ‫“( לֹא יָׁשּוב אֶל־ ֶארֶץ ִמ ְצרַ יִם‬they will not return to the land of Egypt”), while the LXX has κατῴκησεν Εφραιμ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ (“Ephraim dwelled in Egypt”). Whichever reading is correct (on which, see Eberhards Bons, “Geschichtskonzeptionen des Hoseabuches: Ein Vergleich von Masoretentext und Septuaginta,” BZ 48 [2004]: 257–58), exile is clearly depicted here as the mirror image of exodus. 15. Santiago Silva Retamales, “Tradición del ‘Éxodo’ en Oseas,” EstBib 56 (1998): 145–78. 16. H. F. Van Rooy, “The Names Israel, Ephraim, and Jacob in the Book of Hosea,” OTE 6 (1993): 135–49. 17. Friedrich Diedrich, Die Anspielungen auf die Jakob-Tradition in Hosea 12,1–13,3: Ein literaturwissenschaftlicher Beitrag zur Exegese früher Prophetentexte (FB 27; Würzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1977). 18. The contrast between Jacob and Moses in Hos 12:13[12] is reinforced by a pun on ‫“( ׁשמר‬to guard, keep”). Jacob only “guarded” sheep in order to gain a wife, but the unnamed prophet “guarded” Israel’s faithfulness to God. Hosea’s earlier accusation that Jacob “wept and sought favor” (12:5[4]) from the angel may also criticize the patriarch by attributing to him a Canaanite ritual in which supplicants attempt to manipulate the gods by shedding tears (René Vuilleumier, “Les traditions d’Israël et la liberté du prophète: Osée,” RHPR 59 [1979]: 495–96).

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present as a time of syncretism with the calves of Samaria (cf. 8:5–6). In response to Israel’s idolatry, which leads to destruction (13:1–3), Yahweh declares his uniqueness in the history of salvation: “I am Yahweh your God from the land of Egypt; you shall not know [‫ ]ידע‬a god besides me, since there is no other deliverer except me!” (13:4). The majesty of this God also extends to the subsequent era, when “I knew [‫ ]ידע‬you in the wilderness in the land of drought” (13:5). 19 Yahweh’s care became a distant memory, however, after the conquest of the land: “They were satisfied and their heart became lifted up; therefore they forgot me” (13:6). As in Hos 11–12, the memory of the exodus in Hos 13 forms part of an interconnected network of traditions that includes the wilderness wanderings, settlement, and apostasy in the land. At first glance, the allusive yet diverse character of the exodus references in Hosea suggests that the 8th-century audience of the book was familiar enough with the history of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt for this tradition to undergo transformation for rhetorical purposes. 20

Diachronic Analysis of Hosea’s References to the Exodus The observation that Hosea seems to presume rather than create the exodus traditions has not gone unchallenged by minimalists. John Van Seters, among others, argues influentially that the exodus must be a postexilic invention, since “[a]ll the preexilic prophets give only meager information about the exodus.” 21 The lack of narrative detail for the exodus in preexilic books such as Hosea thus furnishes a key reason for Van Seters to redate the book of Exodus to the postexilic period. In other words, the synchronic observation that Hosea describes the exodus traditions in an impressionistic fashion has been interpreted as evidence both for and against minimalism. To overcome such an impasse, then, it is necessary to explore Hosea’s diachronic links with other exodus traditions during the 8th century BC. More specifically, what is the literary relationship between the exodus traditions as recorded in Hosea on the one hand, and Israel’s deliverance from Egypt as narrated in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and 1 Kgs 12? The following section will advance several lines of argument in favor of the view that Hosea improvises upon an existing theme of the exodus, while creatively transposing it into a Deuteronomistic melody in order to criticize the illicit sanctuaries of the Northern Kingdom that are depicted in 1 Kgs 12. 19. Neef, Die Heilstraditionen, 179. In Hos 13:5, it is significant that the wilderness has reverted to its usual status as a desolate place, though still a place of God’s tender care for Israel (cf. Hos 2:5–17[3–15]). 20. Here I follow the consensus view that the core of Hosea dates to the 8th century BC. See the comprehensive discussion in Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 24; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 52–76. 21. Van Seters, Life of Moses, 127.

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Exodus Formulas in Hosea, Deuteronomy, and 1 Kings It is suggestive to begin by comparing Hosea’s exodus terminology with that of Deuteronomy and 1 Kgs 12. On the one hand, Hosea mirrors Deuteronomy in using stereotypical phrases to refer to Israel’s salvation out of Egypt. The book of Deuteronomy mixes and matches the two expressions, “Yahweh brought you out [‫ יצא‬Hiphil] of the land of Egypt” (e.g., Deut 4:20, 37) and “signs and wonders” (e.g., Deut 7:19; 29:2[3]), so that each may summarize the whole history of Israel in Egypt. As Brevard Childs has shown, Deuteronomy’s use of the “bringing out” formula includes the plagues, while the phrase “signs and wonders” also encompasses the departure from Egypt. 22 Whether Hosea or Deuteronomy came first is immaterial for the present argument, since the formulaic manner in which both books depict the exodus shows that they share similar theological influences and rhetorical aims. 23 On the other hand, Hosea’s choice of verb for the exodus stands closer to the golden calf narrative in 1 Kgs 12. Hosea portrays the exodus only using the Hebrew root ‫“( עלה‬to go up” [Qal]; “to bring up” [Hiphil]), 24 whereas the exodus in Deuteronomy is recalled almost exclusively with the root ‫יצא‬ (“to go out” [Qal]; “to bring out” [Hiphil]). 25 Hosea’s use of ‫ עלה‬in an exodus formula rather than ‫ יצא‬highlights the land of Canaan as Israel’s final destination more than Egypt as the place of oppression from which Israel must be set free. 26 This lexical gap between Hosea and Deuteronomy becomes especially salient in light of how ‫ עלה‬also occurs in 1 Kgs 12 to describe Jeroboam’s identification of the deity of the exodus with the golden calves at Dan and Bethel: “It is too much for you to go up [‫ עלה‬Qal] to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up [‫ עלה‬Hiphil] from the land of Egypt” (1 Kgs 12:28; cf. Exod 32:4). Since Hosea and Deuteronomy otherwise share many lexical features, the striking difference between them in Hosea’s choice of verb for the exodus indicates that the 8th-century prophet offers an intentionally crafted polemic against the distortion of the exodus tradition in King Jeroboam’s 22. Brevard S. Childs, “Deuteronomic Formulae of the Exodus Traditions,” in Hebräische Wortforschung: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Walter Baumgartner (ed. Benedikt Hartmann et al.; VTSup 16; Leiden: Brill, 1967), 30–34. 23. It suffices to observe that Hosea resembles the distinctive language and rhetorical strategy of the Deuteronomistic school, as shown most influentially by Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 366–70. 24. Hosea 2:17[15]; 12:14[13]. 25. Deuteronomy 1:27; 4:20, 37, 45; 5:6, 15; 6:12, 21, 23; 7:8, 19; 8:14, 15; 9:26, 28; 13:6[5], 11[10]; 16:1; 26:8; 29:24[25]. The only exception, where ‫ עלה‬occurs, is found in Deut 20:1. See the discussion of ‫ יצא‬Hiphil as an exodus formula, by Paul Humbert, “Dieu fait sortir: Hiphil de yāṣāʾ avec Dieu comme sujet,” TZ 18 (1962): 357–71, 433–36. 26. J. N. M. Wijngaards, “‫ הוציא‬and ‫העלה‬: A Twofold Approach to the Exodus,” VT 15 (1965): 91–102.

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time. First Kings 12 is generally recognized as an authentic recollection of events in the 9th century BC, even by minimalists, 27 which means that Hosea could not have invented the exodus tradition a century later. The more convincing explanation for this semantic match with 1 Kgs 12 is that Hosea uses a Deuteronomic or proto-Deuteronomistic rhetorical strategy of historical reminisces about the exodus, while using the ritual terminology of the Samarian cult, all for the purpose of reinforcing the polemic against syncretistic worship at Dan and Bethel (cf. Hos 8:5–6; 10:5). 28

Recognition Formula in Exodus and “Knoweldge of God” in Hosea The preexilic attestation of the recognition formula in Hosea furnishes another line of evidence for the antiquity of the exodus tradition. In testifying to the existence of the recognition formula in the 8th century BC, Hosea poses a major problem for minimalists who assert that Exod 6–14 is actually borrowing the formula from Ezekiel (e.g., 6:7; 34:27) and/or late Deuteronomistic texts (e.g., 1 Kgs 20:13, 28). 29 The alleged lack of the recognition formula in preexilic texts, along with its frequent appearance in exilic and postexilic texts lead minimalists to aver that Exod 6–14 must be a late composition. As noted above, however, the recognition formula is already found in Hosea, a prophetic book that the majority of scholars would date in the preexilic period. 30 Moreover, the prophet’s use of the related nominal phrase ‫“( דעת אלהים‬knowledge of God”; Hos 4:1, 6) is closely linked to the saving history and the statutes revealed at Sinai (Hos 4:2–3; 8:1, 12). 31 27. The fact that even minimalists grant the historicity of 1 Kgs 12, though some proceed to argue that Exod 32 postdates Jeroboam’s time has been noted by Gary N. Knoppers, “Aaron’s Calf and Jeroboam’s Calves,” in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman (ed. A. B. Beck et al.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 92–94. For a case against the minimalist view that the golden calf narrative in 1 Kgs 12 antedates Exod 32, see my essay “The Rhetoric of Theophany: The Imaginative Depiction of Horeb in Deuteronomy 9–10,” in For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block (ed. Jason S. DeRouchie, Jason Gile, and Kenneth G. Turner; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 145–64. 28. Hence the account of the exodus in Hosea could not represent support for Jeroboam’s calf cult in Samaria (contra van der Toorn, “The Exodus as Charter Myth”). Jeroboam’s use of the exodus likely represented a distortion of an existing tradition rather than its origin. 29. E.g., Hans Heinrich Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976), 49–53; Van Seters, Life of Moses, 93–94. 30. See the most recent survey of Hosea research by Brad E. Kelle, “Hosea 4–14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship,” CBR 8 (2010): 314–75; idem, “Hosea 1–3 in TwentiethCentury Scholarship,” CBR 7 (2009): 179–216. 31. Holt, Prophesying the Past, 141; Daniels, Hosea and Salvation History, 111–16; Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea (trans. Gary Stansell; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1974), 79,

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251

The numerous connections between Exodus and Hosea led Zimmerli to conclude that “this [recognition formula in Hosea] is by no means a new form of Yahweh’s self-introduction originating with the prophet. Rather, the self-statement in both passages [Hos 12:10[9]; 13:4] recounting Yahweh’s great reckoning with his people refers unmistakably to a self-introduction already long known to Israel and recalls it as the reality in which Israel ought to stand: ‘I am Yahweh, your God from the land of Egypt.’” 32 Indeed, it is telling that minimalists can use the recognition formula to argue that Exod 6–14 is late only by ignoring Zimmerli’s mention of how Hosea stands at the diachronic junction of Exodus and Ezekiel. 33 Finally, the sociohistorical setting of the 8th century BC increases the likelihood that Hosea used axiomatic traditions of the exodus rather than inventing them out of whole cloth. As observed earlier, the recognition formula in Exodus is characterized by its use of the verb ‫ ידע‬to describe the aim of Israel’s deliverance for various parties to “know that I am Yahweh.” The fact that Hosea would go the risky route of using ‫ידע‬, one of the most common Hebrew roots for sexual relations, 34 even at a time of great conflict between Israelite faith and Canaanite fertility rites at the “high places” (e.g., Hos 4:13–14), shows that ‫ ידע‬in the recognition formula had already become fixed as one of Israel’s traditions in the 8th century BC. 35 Conversely, it is improbable that Hosea would invent a formula using a verb that played into the hands of religious syncretists who had already misattributed the gifts of Yahweh to “Baal[s]” (e.g., Hos 2:10[8], 15[13]). 36 138. Hosea’s numerous echoes of the Decalogue in Exod 20 (e.g., “I am Yahweh your God”) are discussed in detail by Neef (Die Heilstraditionen, 175–209). 32. Zimmerli, “I Am Yahweh,” 16–17. 33. E.g., Van Seters (Life of Moses, 94 n. 47) claims that Zimmerli’s only support for an early dating of the recognition formula is its occurrence in a single text, which is putatively early, 1 Kgs 20, but should actually be dated in the exile. Van Seters’s assertion overlooks the way that Zimmerli (“I Am Yahweh,” 16–17) adduced Hosea as evidence for preexilic use of the recognition formula. 34. E.g., Gen 4:1; 19:8; 38:26; Num 31:17; Judg 19:25; 1 Sam 1:19; 1 Kgs 1:4. 35. This does not prove, of course, that Hosea knew the book of Exodus in its current form, only that Hosea was familiar with a tradition of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt with numerous similarities to Exodus. Contrast the overly optimistic assessment of Umberto Cassuto’s comparison between Hosea and the Pentateuch: “There is nothing in the entire book of Hosea to suppose that the Pentateuchal material existed in his day in a form different from that before us today” (“The Prophet Hosea and the Books of the Pentateuch,” in Biblical and Oriental Studies [trans. Israel Abrahams; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973], 1.100). 36. The title “Baal[s]” is used somewhat ambiguously in Hosea and may denote the Canaanite high god of fertility, local Baal deities, or function as an umbrella term for all manner of heterodox practices. For a survey of possibilities, see J. Andrew Dearman, “Interpreting the Religious Polemics against Baal and the Baalim in the Book of Hosea,” OTE 14 (2001): 9–25.

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The presence of a standard recognition formula by Hosea’s time finds additional reinforcement in the fact that ‫ ידע‬and its Semitic equivalents could also be used in ancient Near Eastern treaties to denote a vassal’s recognition of its suzerain. 37 In a time when foreign alliances often proved to be Israel’s downfall (e.g., Hos 5:13; 7:11; 8:9; 12:2[1]), it would be rather counterproductive for Hosea to concoct an exodus formula ex nihilo that declares that Yahweh is the god of the exodus who is “Savior” against other powers (13:4) 38 yet borrows the terminology of religious compromise from the realm of international relations that was so problematic for Israel. At this juncture, it is important to clarify that whether Hosea engaged in polemics against various parties in Israel is not the issue. 39 Rather, the key question is whether Hosea could have co-opted phraseology original to his opponents, eradicated all nuances in them of religious syncretism, 40 and then reused the very same terms to bear the substantial theological freight of asserting that Yahweh is unique in his deliverance of Israel. Due to the complexity, number, and improbability of lexical shifts required for the root ‫ ידע‬in such revisionist proposals, it seems more likely that the recognition formula in Hosea is an attempt to recover the meaning of preexisting ‫ ידע‬formulas from distortions caused by Canaanite fertility religion and political alliances in the 8th century BC.

Conclusion The preceding arguments tilt the balance of evidence in favor of concluding that Hosea is well versed in an ancient tradition of Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The “given” nature of this exodus tradition provided the impetus for Hosea to fork the original traditum into various streams of traditio. Against the minimalists, it is doubtful that the historical milieu of the 8th century BC could have served as the incubator for Hosea’s themes of exodus, anti-exodus, and restoration as new exodus. Given how these traditions have already become intertwined in Hosea, the minimalist position cannot escape the unlikelihood that the prophet would have needed to invent a motif, counter-motif, and counter-counter-motif in nearly simultaneous fashion, even while keeping contiguous references to the three motifs distinct enough for his audience to understand. 41 Following the prin37. Herbert B. Huffmon, “The Treaty Background of Hebrew YĀDAʿ,” BASOR 181 (1966): 31–37; idem and Simon B. Parker, “A Further Note on the Treaty Background of Hebrew YĀDAʿ,” BASOR 184 (1966): 36–38. 38. Russell, Images of Egypt, 61, shows that the title “Savior” (Heb. ‫)מֹוׁשי ַע‬ ִ in Hos 13:4 refers to Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel from military opponents. 39. Cf. Alice A. Keefe, “Hosea’s (In)Fertility God,” HBT 30 (2008): 21–41. 40. Since ANE treaties typically called upon the gods as witnesses, alliances with foreign nations would result unavoidably in some form of religious syncretism for Israel. 41. This is precisely the view of Gale A. Yee (Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea [SBLDS 102; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985], 226–29), who holds that a postexilic re-

Hosea’s Use of the Exodus Traditions

253

ciple of Ockham’s Razor, the simpler solution to explain Hosea’s variegated use of the exodus is that the declaration “I am Yahweh your God from the land of Egypt” (Hos 12:10[9]; 13:4) would have been both widely known and accepted as historically true in the 8th century BC. Otherwise, the prophet would not have strained repeatedly to make the saving history in general and the exodus in particular into the rhetorical crux of his attempt to turn Israel back to the God who had been with his people from ancient times. During a time of such high stakes, it would have been rather illogical for Hosea to assail his hearers for not knowing what they had never known and for forgetting a past that had never happened. dactor introduced the motifs of exodus, exile, and return into Hos 4–11. Given the lasting trauma of the deportation to Babylon, however, it is rather improbable that a redactor working in the exilic period would have linked the exodus and exile in a positive way. It is equally unlikely that such a redactor would have described the wilderness in a positive manner, since it was precisely the wilderness that most resembled Israel’s unlanded life in exile.

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Chapter 14

Some Observations on the Exodus and Wilderness Wandering Traditions in the Books of Amos and Micah J. Andrew Dearman Fuller Theological Seminary

Introduction The following texts in Amos and Micah relate directly to traditions of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and wandering in the wilderness to a homeland in Canaan: Amos 2:10; 3:1; 5:25; 9:7; Mic 6:4–5; 7:15. The following examination proceeds from the deduction that several of these texts contain formulaic language representing a broader account of Israel’s origins, what recent interpreters describe as a national charter myth or part of Israel’s cultural memory. Whether this narrative account was best known in the 8th century BC in oral form, in penultimate written forms (Hexateuch) preserved at major sanctuaries, in poetic rehearsals (Pss 78, 105, 106), or yet other forms of cultural memory, Amos and Micah drew upon it using shorthand references. They, or perhaps in some instances redactors expanding on their words did so in order to engage an audience on matters related to their religious identity.

The Exodus from Egypt as a Core Tradition in the Old Testament It bears repeating that the tradition of Israel’s exodus from Egypt is a central tradition of the Old Testament. This fact deserves both recognition and explanation. 1 Yair Hoffman’s comment on the centrality of this 1. See discussion in Ronald Hendel, “The Exodus in Biblical Memory,” JBL 120 (2001): 601–22. In Jan Willem van Henten and Anton Houtepen, eds., Religious Identity and the Invention of Tradition (STAR 3; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2001), see the following studies: Karel van der Toorn, “The Exodus as Charter Myth,” 113–27; Rainer Albertz, “Exodus: Liberation History against Charter Myth,” 128–43; John J. Collins, “The Development of the Exodus Tradition,” 144–55.

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tradition is on point: “The exodus from Egypt is the most frequently mentioned event in the OT. Apart from the story itself in Exod 1–25, it is mentioned about 120 times in stories, laws, poems, psalms, historiographical writings, and prophecies.” 2 Whether embedded in the “story itself ” or in these other texts, the most frequent type of reference to the exodus event in the OT is a succinct formulaic one. 3 In the OT, there are some 124 formulaic expressions of the exodus from Egypt. While there are several variations in the formula, it has three fixed elements to give it shape and substance. They are: a verb signifying departure; its object (“Israel” or a representative term for the people such as “you”); and a modifier (“from Egypt”). Many interpreters, following Wijngaards’s seminal study, see the formula as twofold, depending on the verb of departure employed (‫ יצא‬or ‫ ;עלה‬in both cases Hiphil). Here are three examples of the formula with ‫יצא‬: With a strong hand Yhwh brought you out from Egypt (Exod 13:9); I am Yhwh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out   of the house of slavery (Exod 20:2); Yhwh sent Moses and Aaron, who brought forth your ancestors out   of Egypt (1 Sam 12:8). Similarly, here are three with ‫עלה‬: The people whom you [Moses] brought up from the land of Egypt   (Exod 33:1); By a prophet Yhwh brought up Israel from Egypt (Hos 12:14[13] E); Where is Yhwh, the one who brought us up from the land of Egypt   ( Jer 2:6). The literary origin(s) of the formula cannot be demonstrated with certainty. Wijngaards noted the high occurrence of the formula with ‫ יצא‬in Deuteronomistic texts but was hesitant to claim that it originated among the tradents responsible for them. The formula with ‫עלה‬, he concluded, was preexilic and pre-Deuteronomistic in origin, noting its appearances in prophetic texts of the 8th century BC (Hosea, Amos, Micah) as one sign of its age. The formula with ‫ יצא‬does not occur in these three prophetic books. He followed the then-conventional literary-critical dating of sources in the Pentateuch, assigning examples of the formula to J, E, D, and P, as its usage developed. His conclusions on the origin(s) of the formula, as well as 2. Yair Hoffman, “A North Israelite Typological Myth and a Judaean Historical Tradition: The Exodus in Hosea and Amos,” VT 39 (1989): 170. 3. A formula is defined here as a succinct and repetitive expression, with one or more fixed parts, using conventional terms to represent a larger tradition embedded in a host culture. The data on the exodus formula draw heavily on the classic study of Johannes Wijngaards, “‫ הוציא‬and ‫העלה‬, a Twofold Approach to the Exodus,” VT 15 (1965): 91–102.

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the sources of the Pentateuch are similar to those of Martin Noth, whose studies of pentateuchal traditions and Israelite history were influential in the mid-point of the 20th century. Noth regarded the exodus formula as earlier than the written pentateuchal sources, as derived from an oral credo preserved at sanctuaries in Canaan, and as foundational to an all-Israel perspective that arose before the monarchy. 4 In recent years, Noth’s plausible theory of an early Israelite credo, essentially an oral national narrative, has crumbled among many scholars, and there is considerable ferment regarding the dating of Old Testament texts and the development of Israel’s religious traditions. Current trends are for a later dating of the literary traditions in the Old Testament, including those related to the exodus. 5 This trend places added importance on the references to earlier Israelite history in Amos, Hosea, and Micah, since they occur ostensibly in an 8th-century context. 6 What is also under increasing discussion is the variability of the content presupposed by the formula that Israel came forth from Egypt. Given its terseness, some interpreters regard it as a coalescence of various traditions of Israel’s relationship with Egypt. 7 In what follows, the texts in Amos and Micah are treated as 8th-century in origin unless otherwise noted.

Amos 2:10 The reference to Yhwh’s bringing up Israel from Egypt in Amos 2:10 is part of a brief historical summary in first-person speech (2:9–12), which in turn is part of the conclusion to a series of oracles against nations with 4. Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. B. W. Anderson; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972 [German original, 1948]). His discussion of the exodus formula is on pp. 46–51. He regarded the distinction in the formula between the verbs ‫ יצא‬and ‫ עלה‬to be arbitrary. 5. See the discussion of this trend in Collins, “Development of the Exodus Tradition.” 6. One can see the influence of the trend for later dating in the analysis of the exodus formula in H. D. Preuss, “‫יצא‬,” TDOT 6.238–49; H. F. Fuhs, “‫עלה‬,” TDOT 9.85–89. Preuss regards the formula with ‫( יצא‬Hiphil) to be exilic. Fuhs concludes that the formula with ‫ עלה‬is preexilic and originated in the sanctuaries of northern Israel but, oddly, that the four occurrences in Amos and Micah are redactional. In their respective discussions, van der Toorn, Albertz, and Collins agree that an exodus tradition is assumed in northern Israel by the 8th century, whether or not all the references to it in Hosea, Amos, and Micah should be dated to that century. See n. 1 above. 7. See discussions in Hendel, “Exodus in Biblical Memory”; and in Stephen C. Russell, Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature: Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite, and Judahite Portrayals (BZAW 403; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009). Russell also proposes that the formula with ‫ עלה‬anticipates the goal of settlement in Canaan, that it may not presuppose a subsequent wilderness wandering in Sinai and Transjordan, and that it is rooted in Israelite Cisjordan. He suggests that the formula with ‫ יצא‬represents a coming forth or escape from Egyptian control and originated in Transjordan.

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which the book begins (Amos 1:2–2:16). The last and longest of the oracles is directed against Israel (2:6–16). That oracle is comprised of three parts: 2:6–8 (introductory formula, followed by instances of Israelite failures), 2:9–12 (historical summary of divine activity on behalf of the people), and 2:13–16 (consequences of Israel’s failures). But I destroyed the Amorite from before them; His stature was like that of cedars and his strength like oaks, Yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below. And I brought (‫ )עלה‬you 8 up from the land of Egypt, And led you forty years in the wilderness, To possess the land of the Amorites. And I raised up prophets from your children, And Nazirites from your consecrated ones; Isn’t this so, Israelites? says the Lord. But you forced the Nazirites to drink wine, And charged the prophets not to prophesy. (Amos 2:9–12) Verse 10a is a classic representative of the exodus formula. It is not cited in chronological order, because the emphasis of the historical summary in 2:9–12 seems to fall upon Israel’s gaining of the land of the Amorites as a divine gift. The occupation of Amorite land is mentioned twice (2:9, 10c) in order to contrast the gift of a homeland with Israel’s subsequent failures in it. Judgment, therefore, will fall on Israel as it did upon the Amorites, so that descendants of those whom Yhwh brought to the land will lose possession of it. 9 The change in v. 10a to second-person address (“you”) functions rhetorically to connect the past act (deliverance from Egypt) with those who claim it as part of their privileged identity. 10 Verse 10 sets three aspects of Israel’s identity over against its perceived failures: Yhwh brought up the Israelites from Egypt, led them through the wilderness to the land of the Amorites, 11 and displaced the Amorites 8. The change from third person (= Israel) in 2:6–8, 9 to second person in 2:10 is seen by some interpreters as evidence that all or parts of 2:10–12 are an editorial expansion. See discussion and bibliography in Tchavdar S. Hadjiev, The Composition and Redaction of the Book of Amos (BZAW 393; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 48–50. Note also that the “them” (‫ )הם‬of 2:9a is read by some as “you” (cf. BHS). 9. See comments below on Amos 9:7–8. 10. So similarly, Karl Möller, A Prophet in Debate: The Rhetoric of Persuasion in the Book of Amos ( JSOTSup 372; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 206. Amos does not use the first-person plural to contemporize the exodus event (like the Judahites quoted in Jer 2:6), but the “you” of direct address in v. 10 functions similarly, for it characterizes the Israelites addressed in 2:10–16 as recipients of Yhwh’s delivering act as well as his coming judgment. See the comments below on the formula in Mic 6:4, where the “you” of direct address is also used. 11. The generational “forty years” of wilderness wandering in Amos 2:10 and 5:25 is also formulaic. Cf. Exod 16:35; Num 14:33–34; 32:13; Deut 2:7; 8:2–4; 29:4; Josh 5:6; 14:7;

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on their behalf. In addition, vv. 11–12 summarize briefly two institutions of Israelite life that kept the national narrative before the nation, namely, Nazirites 12 and prophets, both of whom the audience is accused of subverting.

Amos 3:1–2 Amos 3:1–2 is a hinge passage in the book, transitioning from the initial judgment oracle against Israel in 2:6–16 to sustained engagement with the audience in what follows. An introduction in v. 1 leads to a quoted message for Israel in v. 2, whose identity is elaborated upon in v. 1b with the exodus formula. Hear this word, Israelites, which Yhwh has spoken about you, About the whole family I brought up (‫ )עלה‬from the land of Egypt, saying:   Only you have I known among all the families of the earth;   For that reason I will bring all of your iniquities upon you. (Amos   3:1–2)

The exodus formula in 3:1b contains a unique elaboration on Israel’s identity. Only here in the OT is Israel defined as “the whole family (‫)כל המשׁפחה‬ from Egypt,” a term representing clan/kinship identity for the people of the exodus. The change to first-person speech for Yhwh in the formula suggests to some interpreters that 3:1b is an editorial expansion on the mention of Israel in 3:1a, where Yhwh is referred to in the third person. 13 That, of course, is possible, but the wordplay on the term “family” in 3:1b–2a (discussed below) is integral to the passage and less likely to be the creation of an editor. 14 Moreover, the “I” of 3:1b leads to the first-person quotation in 3:2. Neh 9:21; Ps 95:10; and the references to the “40th year” of wandering in Num 33:38; Deut 1:3. The “land of the Amorites” apparently represents the land of Canaan, with “Amorite” functioning as a generic term for pre-Israelite inhabitants. See Gen 15:7–21 and particularly the reference in v. 16 to the “iniquity of the Amorites,” whose land will be given to Abram’s descendants. See also the “land of the Amorites” in Josh 24:15; Judg 6:10. 12. This is the only reference to Nazirites in the prophetic corpus. They are likely cited here as representatives of the national traditions in a way similar to the example made of the Rechabites in Jer 35. 13. Hadjiev, Composition and Redaction, 140. One function of the phrase “the whole family,” editorial or not, may be to emphasize that the exodus event includes the ancestors of both Israel and Judah. Yair Hoffman (“A North Israelite Typological Myth”) is among those who believe that the traditions of the exodus had more prominence in the Northern Kingdom of Israel than in Judah. 14. The proposal of Möller (Prophet in Debate, 215–40) is attractive. He sees 3:1–15 as a chiastic unit, with the affirmations of Israel’s chosen status in 3:1b and 2a representing the self-understanding of Amos’s audience, from which the prophet still draws judgmental conclusions regarding Israel’s future.

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Another unique phrase in the passage is the claim in 3:2a that Yhwh has “known” (‫ )ידע‬only Israel among all the families of the earth. It is similar to several instances in the OT in which God/Yhwh “knows” a person and where this indicates God’s choice of a person (Gen 18:19; Exod 33:12–17; Deut 34:10; 2 Sam 7:20; Jer 1:5). 15 The exodus event, then, is seen as an example of Yhwh’s corporate choice in action (cf. Hos 11:1). Essentially, this makes the verb in Amos 3:2a a synonym with the verb ‫בחר‬, used in other settings with God as subject and people or things as objects of choice. 16 As noted above, we should see an artful wordplay in the passage between the two phrases, the “whole family from Egypt” in v. 1b and “all the families of the earth” (‫ )כל משׁפחות האדמה‬in v. 2a. In turn, the phrase in 2a is almost certainly an intertextual echo of the other two occurrences of it in the OT, where God promises blessings to the descendants of Abram and of Jacob from “all the families of the earth” (Gen 12:3; 28:14). Amos 3:2a thereby echoes other election traditions of Yhwh’s dealings with and promises to Israel’s ancestors besides those associated with the exodus from Egypt. These traditions are also reflected in the book of Amos, where those addressed are identified through their eponymous ancestors, figures whom Yhwh earlier engaged in the land of Canaan and who continue to define the heritage of their descendants. 17 A number of interpreters have pointed out that equivalent verbs for “know” used in Hittite and Neo-Assyrian texts, particularly in international treaties, describe relations between suzerains and vassals in an analogous way to 3:2a. 18 A suzerain will declare that he has come to “know” a vassal, which means he has acquired him and promises to provide guidance and security for him. A vassal may declare his knowledge of his suzerain, which indicates a loyal response to the stipulations set out by the overlord. Amos 3:1–2, it is suggested, has Yhwh speaking as Israel’s divine suzerain, who has claimed the Israelites as his own and granted them his covenant (‫)ברית‬, with its structural and thematic similarities to the treaty stipulations through which to express their loyalty to him. Such a mutually reinforcing relationship on the international stage also parallels the presentation of the Decalogue in Exodus and Deuteronomy, where the instructions proper are prefaced with Yhwh’s self-presentation using the exodus formula as the one who “brought Israel out (‫ )יצא‬from the land of Egypt” (Exod 20:2; Deut 5:6). 19 15. Shalom Paul (Amos [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991], 100) translates 3:2a as “You alone have I chosen” (see the niv, jps). 16. E.g., Deut 7:6–7 = Israel; 12:5 = a place for Yhwh’s name to dwell. 17. Amos refers to his audience through the names of 3 ancestors: Israel/Jacob, Isaac (7:9), and Joseph. The phrase “descendants of Israel” (2:11; 3:1, 12; 4:5; 9:7) recognizes an eponymous ancestor. The phrase “house of Israel/Jacob/Joseph” (3:13; 5:1, 3, 4, 6, 25; 6:1, 14; 7:10; 9:8, 9) also has kinship connotations. 18. See Paul, Amos, 101–2. 19. So Delbert R. Hillers (Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969], 120–42), who sees the judgmental language in Hosea,

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The phrase in Amos 3:2a should also be interpreted in light of similar language in Hosea, where there are claims that Yhwh and Israel have known or will know each other (Hos 2:22[20]; 5:3–4; 6:3; 8:2; 13:4–5), and where there is give and take with the audience concerning what Hosea calls “knowledge of God” (‫ דעת אלהים‬Hos 4:1, 6; 6:6; cf. Mic 6:5). The claim in 13:4–5 is important in this regard, as it joins Yhwh and Israel’s “knowing” of each other with Yhwh’s engagement with them in Egypt: I am Yhwh your God from the land of Egypt; Other than me you do not know (‫)ידע‬, For there is no deliverer except me. I knew (‫ )ידע‬you in the wilderness, in the land of drought. 20 (13:4–5) The lexical data in Amos and Hosea regarding a mutual knowing between Yhwh and Israel are evidence for sharp discussion over the significance of the national narrative for Israel’s identity in the mid-8th century. Amos also shares with Hosea a use of kinship terminology in explicating that identity. His claim that Yhwh “knows the whole family from Egypt” fits quite well in this cultural-theological context.

Amos 9:7–8 Verse 7 consists of rhetorical questions to which the speaker projects a “yes” answer. Verse 8 reinforces the major theme of the book—that Yhwh will bring judgment upon his people in the historical process that he oversees—with the qualification in 8c that Israel will not be completely destroyed. This last phrase is likely an editorial expansion, recognizing that Israel’s defeat at the hand of the Assyrians did not bring a complete end to the “whole family” brought up from Egypt, and preparing readers for the announced reinstatement of David’s tent in a transformed future (9:11–15). Are you not like the Cushites to me, Israelites, says Yhwh; Did I not bring up (‫ )עלה‬Israel from the land of Egypt, And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir? Behold, Lord Yhwh’s eyes are on the sinful kingdom, And he will destroy it from the earth; Yet I will not completely destroy the House of Jacob, says Yhwh.  (9:7–8) According to 9:7, Israel’s exodus from Egypt does not make the people unique, because Yhwh also brought the Philistines and the Arameans to Amos, and Micah as based on curses for Israel’s failure to maintain covenant fidelity with Yhwh. 20. The LXX of Hos 13:4 is expansionistic, identifying Yhwh as creator and including the exodus formula that he had brought up (ἀνάγω) Israel from Egypt. In 13:5, the LXX has the verb ποιμαίνω, apparently reading the Hebrew verb “to shepherd” (‫)רעה‬. See BHS.

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their respective homelands. Israel is also like the Cushites (from Nubia), a people on the edge of the world known to Amos and his audience. Each of these claims, without parallel elsewhere in the OT, shows once again how sharply prophet and audience interact over the significance of Yhwh’s historical acts. There is no indication whether or not the audience agreed that Yhwh had been an agent of guidance for the Philistines and Arameans. Either way, the primary issue for the prophetic message is that of the coming judgment on Israel, which is essentially no different from what will come upon these two peoples (1:3–5, 6–8). 21 Israel’s comparison with the obscure Cushites sits awkwardly next to the claim in 3:1–2 that Yhwh has intimately known Israel. Since Amos’s audience adhered to the latter claim, the comparison with the Cushites serves, along with the comparisons with the Philistines and Arameans, as a reason to consider Israel only one among other nations under the aegis of Yhwh. Given the tension between the claims of 3:2a and 9:7, some interpreters deny to Amos either one or the other. 22 Although such an explanation may protect Amos from inconsistency, it does not say much for the book’s editor(s). On the one hand, readers must allow for inconsistency in a document, even as they should, on the other hand, ask whether the inconsistency resides in their grasp of the material rather than the logic of the author. Amos 9:7 is not a denial that Israel is Yhwh’s people; it is a denial that Israel’s exodus was unique and that the exodus excludes Israel from judgment to come. 23 Amos 9:7 is consistent, furthermore, with the affirmation that Yhwh is active among the nations to judge their affairs. 24 The claim that Yhwh brought the Philistines and the Arameans to their respective homelands is as tantalizing as it is astounding. There are no extant Philistine or Aramean texts connecting their respective population movements with Yhwh’s guidance. Multiple Aramean tribes expanded in the Levant during Iron Age I, coalescing in various polities by the time of Amos. 25 The Philistines were part of the migratory movements of various 21. Hadjiev, Composition and Redaction, 113–18, persuasively links the claims in 9:7–8 with those in the oracles against the nations in Amos 1–2. 22. See ibid., 30–31, 113–18, 140, for discussion and bibliography. 23. Note the common use of the verb “destroy” (‫ )שׁמד‬in 2:9 and 9:8, applied to the Amorites and the sinful kingdom of Israel. These are the only examples of the verb in the book. 24. Hartmut Gese, “Das Problem von Amos 9,7,” in Textgemäss. Aufsätze und Beiträge zur Hermeneutik des Alten Testaments. Festschrift für Ernst Würthwein zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. A. H. J. Gunneweg and O. Kaiser; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979), 33–39, proposes persuasively that Amos 9:7 fits in the theology of Deut 2:1–25, whereby Yhwh has apportioned homelands for various peoples and his claim upon Israel does not supercede those acts. 25. See the discussion of Hélène Sader, “History,” in The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria (ed. Herbert Niehr; HdO 106; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 11–36.

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“Sea Peoples” from the broader Aegean to Lower Egypt and the Levant in Iron Age I. 26 Amos’s succinct summary of complex, decades-long migratory movements of Israelites, Philistines, and Arameans shows broad historical reach going back several centuries and theological acumen in assessing them. Elsewhere, Amos names five Philistine cities. 27 The Caphtor of 9:7 is probably Crete. Jeremiah also connects the Philistines to the island (‫ )אי‬of Caphtor (47:4). 28 Interestingly, there are no indications of the Philistines’ migratory status in the books of Judges and 1–2 Samuel. Amos twice names an obscure Kir in connection with the Arameans. In 9:7, it is the place from which Yhwh brought them to their homeland; in the judgment oracle of 1:3–5, they will be exiled to Kir (cf. 2 Kgs 16:9). The pattern here is similar to that in Hos 8:13; 9:3; and 11:5, whereby a return to Egypt is predicated for Israel as judgment for defection from Yhwh. In 1:3–5, the first reference is to Damascus, and much if not all of the oracle is directed against the Aramean kingdom centered there. 29

Summary: The Exodus and Wilderness Traditions in Amos Three times Amos cites a traditional formula that Yhwh brought up Israel from Egypt. The terseness of the references leaves much to the imagination with regard to the events they represent but not to their significance for people and prophet. There is no reference, for example, to slavery in Egypt (cf. Mic 6:4 below), which like the plagues against Egypt 30 or the crossing of the Reed Sea may be presupposed in the formula. The exodus formula is joined in 2:10 with a brief reference to Yhwh’s continuing 26. For the Philistines, see Itamar Singer, “The Philistines in the Bible: A Short Rejoinder to a New Perspective,” and Tristan J. Barako, “Philistines and Egyptians in Southern Coastal Canaan during the Early Iron Age,” in The Philistines and Other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology (ed. Ann E. Killebrew and Gunnar Lehmann; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 19–27, 37–51. 27. Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron in 1:6–8; Gath in 6:2. These five cities are sometimes called the Philistine Pentapolis (cf. Josh 13:3). 28. Deuteronomy 2:23 connects the Caphtorim to a destruction of earlier inhabitants in the region of Gaza. Genesis 10:13–14 connects the Philistines to the obscure Casluhim, and from them back to Egypt, Ham’s son, who is also the father of the Caphtorim. See further Gary A. Rendsburg, “Gen 10:13–14: An Authentic Hebrew Tradition Concerning the Origin of the Philistines,” JNSL 13 (1987): 89–96. 29. Beth Eden in 1:5 has been understood as a reference to the North Syrian kingdom of Bit Adini, but the name may refer to a location closer to Damascus. See discussion in Alan R. Millard, “Eden, Bit Adini and Beth Eden,” ErIsr 24 (Malamat Volume; 1993): 173–77; and P. Bordreuil, “Amos 1:5: La Beqaʿ septentrionale de l’Eden au paradis,” Syria 75 (1998): 55–60. 30. Amos 4:10 is possibly a reference to one or more of the plagues with which Yhwh struck Egypt (cf. Exod 9:3, 15) in order to free Israel, but this is not certain.

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guidance of Israel in the wilderness (cf. 5:25) and the defeat of the Amorites in Canaan, summarizing major elements in the national narrative. 31 In 3:1b, the formula marks Israel as uniquely chosen by Yhwh, while in 9:7 Israel’s exodus is compared with Yhwh’s bringing up Philistines and Arameans to their respective homelands. These three citations represent a duality of employment in the engagement of the audience. On the one hand, the prophet’s rhetorical questions (e.g., 5:25; 9:7b) show that Amos drew from a shared cultural memory. Yhwh did indeed bring up Israel from Egypt, and Israel did not engage in certain cultic practices in the wilderness. Nevertheless, the implication of those events for the national identity as Amos interpreted them is not necessarily shared. On the other hand, his claim that Yhwh had brought the Philistines and Arameans to their respective homelands may not have been as commonly shared as the memory of their earlier migratory status. His rhetoric in 2:11–12 implies that prophets and Nazirites functioned as guardians of the sacred traditions.

Micah 6:4–5 Micah 6:1–5 is a disputation oracle (‫ )ריב‬32 consisting of two parts: vv. 1–3, where Israel is asked to respond before cosmic witnesses to the question of what Yhwh has done wrong; and vv. 4–5, in which Yhwh recites a series of historical acts as evidence of his ongoing care for his people. For I brought you up (‫ )עלה‬from Egypt, And from the house of slavery I redeemed you. I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. My people, 33 remember what Balak, king of Moab counseled, And how Balaam son of Beor responded to him.

31. Amos 2:10 does not fit well with the proposal of Russell (Images of Egypt, 55–63) that in its early usage in northern Israel, the formula with ‫ עלה‬presupposes a movement from Egypt to Canaan without a wilderness wandering in Transjordan. He thus concludes that Amos 2:10 is editorial, a later joining of the two traditions of exodus and wilderness wandering. 32. The term “dispute”/ “controversy” (‫ )ריב‬occurs three times in Mic 6:1–2. Many interpreters see the larger rhetorical unit as 6:1–8. A decision on this matter is not important for the discussion at hand. Some also see the passage as part of a later redaction of the Judahite Micah’s oracles. See the discussion in Delbert R. Hillers (Micah [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], 4–8, 77–79, 89–91), who sees no reason to deny Mic 6–7 to the 8th-century prophet; and Hans W. Wolff (Micah [trans. G. Stansell; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990], 166–220), who regards both chapters as part of later redactions. 33. It is possible that MT ‫ עמי‬is a corruption of ‫עמו‬, a word that should go with the previous verse.See BHS. This would result in v. 4 concluding with a fourth colon: “I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam with him.”

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. . . 34 from Shittim until Gilgal, In order to know Yhwh’s saving acts. (Mic 6:4–5) Verses 4a and 4b form a poetic chiasm in which Egypt is designated as a place of slavery, and the exodus event is characterized as an act of redemption (‫)פדה‬. Neither of these elements occur in the three citations of the exodus formula in Amos. Elsewhere in the OT, a reference to the “house of slavery” in the formula occurs more frequently with the verb ‫יצא‬. 35 This kind of variation with the formula, however, is not surprising, because it can attract (or accrue) elements from a national narrative for rhetorical emphasis. There is a wordplay between the verb of the exodus formula (‫)העלתי‬ and the verb in Yhwh’s rhetorical question in 6:3, “How have I wearied you?” (‫)הלאתי‬. Both verbs take a common object (= “you”), identifying the audience addressed in v. 3 with the community brought up from Egypt by Yhwh. Similarly, the command to “remember” in v. 5a is also an indicator that the traditions of exodus, guidance to Canaan, and settlement therein are intended to connect speaker and audience with material known to them that is relevant for the current dispute. Collectively, these traditions in 6:4–5 constitute Yhwh’s “saving acts” (‫)צדקות‬. While certainly an appropriate term 36 for Yhwh’s deeds, its employment here is likely chosen specifically as a response to the dispute terminology in 6:1–3. The term ‫ ריב‬used there occurs in contexts where the question at hand is one of justice (‫צדקה‬ ‫ ;משׁפט‬cf. Jer 12:1). The five named figures in Mic 6:4–5 are evidence that Yhwh provides guidance through representatives who speak an authoritative word in times of threat. 37 While the pairing of Moses and Aaron is recognized in various traditions, Miriam is mentioned only here outside the Pentateuch as a leader in Israel. 38 Balaam is a curious figure here. This is the only reference to him in the prophetic corpus, as it is for Balak. With regard to Balaam’s 34. Possibly the imperative “remember” in 5a is presupposed here with the prepositional phrase, but this is awkward grammatically. It is more likely that a phrase has disappeared in textual transmission. See n. 41 below. 35. Exodus 13:14; 20:2; Deut 5:6; 6:12; 7:8 (also with ‫ ;)פדה‬8:14; 13:6[5E] (also with ‫;)פדה‬ 13:11[10E]; Judg 6:8; Jer 34:13. Russell (Images of Egypt, 104–13) sees the formula with ‫יצא‬ as particularly emphasizing deliverance from Egyptian oppression and that with ‫ עלה‬as pointing to the destination of Canaan. Neither Mic 6:4 nor Josh 24:17 fits well in this distinction. 36. The term is used similarly in Judg 5:11; 1 Sam 12:7; Ps 103:6. 37. So Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah (AB 24E; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 519–22. Note the claim in 6:4 that Yhwh sent these leaders before “you” (= Micah’s audience). 38. For the pairing of Moses and Aaron: Josh 24:5; 1 Sam 12:6; Ps 77:21[20]; 99:6; 105:26; 106:16. All three are accorded prophetic status elsewhere (Aaron, Exod 7:1; Miriam, Exod 15:20; Moses, Deut 34:10; cf. Hos 12:14[13]).

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“answer” (‫)ענה‬, it is plausibly a reference to the claim that Yhwh intended to bless, not curse Israel and that Balaam’s word could not override this intention (cf. Num 22:12; 23:8). 39 The prepositional phrase “from Shittim to Gilgal” in 6:5c represents the tradition of early Israel’s movement from Transjordan to Cisjordan. Both sites are named in the book of Joshua, where the people move from Shittim (2:1; 3:1; cf. Num 25:1) to Gilgal, their headquarters/camp site on the western side of the Jordan River near Jericho (4:19–20; 5:9–10). Shittim is the eastern plain of the southern Jordan Valley. Gilgal’s ruins cannot be located with certainty. 40 The book of Joshua gives considerable attention to the crossing of the Jordan and related events ( Josh 3:1–5:12) between the two sites. Perhaps some or all of this material is presupposed in the brief phrase. 41 If so, then the crossing of the Jordan is possibly like the crossing of the Reed Sea with respect to the exodus formula and other brief references to the exodus event. The crossing of the sea appears only occasionally in brief references to the rescue from Egypt, even if its centrality was presupposed in the formula.

Micah 7:15 This fragmentary reference to Yhwh’s coming forth from Egypt is part of a collection of restoration poetry (7:11–20) that concludes the prophetic book. 42 In 7:14, Yhwh is implored to shepherd his people and to act on

39. It is not clear from the brief reference in 6:5 whether the figure of Balaam was understood positively or negatively, though his “answer” was positive for Israel. One can cite both elements about him in the OT. Balaam is not explicitly referred to as a prophet in the Old Testament, even though his actions of speaking a word for Yhwh in Num 22–24 are similar to other prophetic figures. Balaam son of Beor (‫ )בלעם בר בער‬is a “seer” (‫ )חזה‬in an Aramaic text from Deir Alla (lines 1, 3) in Jordan. See Meindert Dijkstra, “Is Balaam Also among the Prophets?” JBL 114 (1995): 43–64. 40. The name “Gilgal” (lexeme ‫ )גלל‬may refer to an area marked by stones. The name appears to be used for more than one location in the biblical narratives; see discussion in Ely Levine, “Gilgal,” in The New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (ed. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld; Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 2.572–73. Adam Zertal of Haifa University has recently proposed the ruins of a compound just north of Jericho, dated to the early Iron Age, as the Gilgal of the Joshua narrative. See the press release: http://newmedia-eng .haifa.ac.il/?p=218. 41. As noted above, a phrase has probably fallen out before the prepositional phrase in 6:5c. Some interpreters suggest that such a phrase contained the verb ‫ עבר‬and referred to Yhwh’s help in crossing the Jordan, from Shittim to Gilgal. See Wolff, Micah, 165, and Theodore Lescow, Worte und Wirkungen des Propheten Micah: Ein Kompositionsgeschichtlicher Kommentar (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1997), 196. 42. A number of modern scholars have seen in 7:8–20 a psalm-like composition, whether attributable to Micah or a later editor. The changes in speaker make it difficult to see 7:8–20 as a rhetorical unit. For discussion, see Hillers, Micah, 89–91; and Burkard M. Zapff, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Michabuch im Kontext des Dodekapropheton

Traditions in the Books of Amos and Micah

267

their behalf, and v. 15 continues the theme of divine action: “Like the days of your coming forth (‫ )יצא‬from the land of Egypt, Show us 43 wonders” (7:15). The beginning phrase in v. 15 appears to be a poetic reinforcement of the last phrase of v. 14, where Yhwh is implored to shepherd his flock “like the days of old.” Yhwh’s coming forth from Egypt is thus portrayed as another example from the past in which he acted on behalf of his people. The verb ‫( יצא‬Qal) is used of Yhwh’s coming from Egypt rather than for his bringing out (Hiphil) Israel from Egypt, as is common with the exodus formula. Yhwh’s coming forth is likely the image of a warrior king at the head of his forces ( Judg 5:4; 2 Sam 5:24; Ps 60:12[10]). The noun “wonders” (‫ )נפלאות‬is also associated with the events of the exodus, where Yhwh demonstrates his mastery over Egypt (Exod 3:20; Judg 6:13; Ps 106:7; cf. Ps 78:12).

Summary: The Exodus and Wilderness Traditions in Micah In Mic 6:4–5, Israel’s departure from Egypt is described as a rescue from slavery—probably something implicit in briefer examples of the exodus formula. It is one of several events known collectively as Yhwh’s “saving acts,” a summary term used only in Micah in the prophetic corpus. Five figures are named as part of the wilderness wandering and settlement traditions that follow the exodus event. No other prophetic text contains such a list; indeed, the book of Numbers is the only other text naming all five figures. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam probably represent a previous generation of leaders employed by Yhwh for Israel’s guidance. Balak, Balaam, Moab, and the region of Shittim 44 show connections with Transjordan as the end point of the wandering traditions, and Gilgal represents the tradition of gaining a homeland in Cisjordan. In its scope, 6:4–5 is similar to that of Amos 2:9–12. In both passages, the exodus event is part of Yhwh’s guidance of his people that brings them eventually to Cisjordan. Micah links this guidance with figures chosen by Yhwh, while Amos notes types of instructive witnesses who came afterward (Nazirites, prophets). The brief reference in Mic 7:15 depicts Yhwh as a warrior coming forth from Egypt to vindicate his people. It is a complementary role to that of shepherd set forth in 7:14. (BZAW 256; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 128–36, 157–59. Zapff plausibly sees examples of Fortschreibung in 7:8–20, a process in which an editor updates and shapes earlier materials. 43. Reading ‫ הראנו‬for MT ‫אראנו‬. So BHS. Andersen and Freedman (Micah, 588–91) read v. 15 quite differently. They implausibly take the phrase “your coming out of Egypt” as a reference to Israel, and the “I will show him” of the MT as a reference to Yhwh’s revealing his power to Israel (= third person). 44. A reference to Shittim may be reconstructed in Hos 5:2. Cf. BHS and the nrsv translation. If not, then Shittim is mentioned only in Mic 6:5, Num 25:1, and Joshua (3:1, 18). The valley or wadi of Shittim ( Joel 4:18[3:18]) probably refers to another place.

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Uphill, Eric P. The Temples of Per Ramesses. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1984. Ussher, James. Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti. London: Flesher, 1650. Valbelle, Dominique. “La (les) Route(s)-d’Horus.” Pages 379–86 in Hommages à Jean Leclant. Cairo: Inst. français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1994. VanGemeren, W. A., ed. New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997. Van Rooy, H. F. “The Names Israel, Ephraim and Jacob in the Book of Hosea.” Old Testament Essays 5 (1993): 135–49. Van Seters, John. “Cultural Memory and the Invention of Biblical Israel.” Pages 159–72 in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis. Edited by Trine B. Hasselbalch, Niels Peter Lemche, and Pernille Carstens. Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts 17. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2012. _______.  The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus–Numbers. Louis­ville: Westminster John Knox, 1994. _______.  “Moses.” Pages 115–21 in vol. 10 of Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by M. Eliade. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Velde, Herman te. “Mut.” Pages 454–55 in vol. 2 of Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Edited by Donald B. Redford. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. _______.  “Seth.” Pages 269–70 in vol. 3 of Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Edited by Donald B. Redford. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Virey, Philippe. “Note sur le Pharaon Ménephtah et les temps de l’exode.” Revue Biblica 9 (1900): 578–86. Vollmer, Jochen. Geschichtliche Rückblicke und Motive in der Prophetie des Amos, Hosea und Jesaja. Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 119. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971. Vuilleumier, René. “Les Traditions d’Israël et la liberté du prophète: Osée.” Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 59 (1979): 491–98. Walls, Neal H. The Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. Waterman, Leroy. “Some Determining Factors in the Northward Progress of Levi.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 57 (1937): 375–80. Watson, Wilfred G. E. Lexical Studies in Ugaritic. Vol. 19. Aula Orientalis Supplementa. Sabadell: AUSA, 2007. Watts, James W. Psalm and Story: Inset Hymns in Hebrew Narrative. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 139. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992. _______.  “‘This Song’: Conspicuous Poetry in Hebrew Prose.” Pages 345– 58 in Verse in Ancient Near Eastern Prose. Edited by Johannes C. de Moor and Wilfred G. E. Watson. Alter Orient und Altes Testament

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Williams, Ronald J. “‘A People Come Out of Egypt’: An Egyptologist Looks at the Old Testament.” Pages 231–52 in Congress Volume: Edinburgh, 1974. Vetus Testamentum Supplement 28. Leiden: Brill, 1975. Wilson, Robert D. “Foreign Words in the Old Testament as an Evidence of Historicity.” Princeton Theological Review 26 (1928): 177–247. Wit, C. de The Date and Route of the Exodus. The Tyndale Biblical Archaeology Lecture 1959. London: Tyndale, 1960. Wolff, Hans Walter. Hosea: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea. Translated by Gary Stansell. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1974. _______.  Micah: A Commentary. Translated by Gary Stansell. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990. Wreszinski, Walter. Atlas zur altägyptischen Kulturgeschichte. Vol. 2. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1935. Wright, Christopher J. H. Deuteronomy. New International Bible Commentary, Old Testament Series 4. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. _______.  God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990. Wright, David P. Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Wright, G. Ernest. Biblical Archaeology. London: Duckworth, 1962. Wright, G. R. H. Ancient Building Technology. Technology and Change in History 4. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Yadin, Yigael. “Biblical Archaeology Today: The Archaeological Aspect.” Pages 21–27 in Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984. Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Cooperation with the American Schools of Oriental Research. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985. _______.  “Is the Biblical Account of the Israelite Conquest of Canaan Historically Reliable?” Biblical Archaeology Review 8 (1982): 16–28. Yang, Fenggang. Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Yasur-Landau, Assaf. “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again: Migration Processes and the Absolute Chronology of the Philistine Settlement.” Pages 609–20 in The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BC, vol. 3: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000—2nd Euroconference Vienna, 28th of May–1st of June 2003. Edited by Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny. Contributions to the Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean 9. Vienna: Österreichischen Aka­ demie der Wissenschaften, 2007. _______.  The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

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Index of Modern and Premodern Authors Abarbanel 115 Abbott, R.  94 Adam, S.  11 Adams, W. Y.  216 Albertz, R.  44, 45, 134, 255, 257 Albright, W. F.  89, 200, 202, 225 Allen, J. P.  62, 63 Alt, A.  5 Alter, R.  28, 113, 125, 129, 132, 138 Andersen, F. I.  248, 265, 267 Anderson, B.  6, 7 Anthony, D. W.  218, 219, 220 Artapanus 99 Ashley, T.  30 Assmann, J.  177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196 Augustine 151 Averbeck, R. E.  165, 168, 171 Avigad, N.  82 Baden, J.  114, 115, 123, 124 Baer, K.  84 Barako, T. J.  263 Bar-Yosef, O.  204 Baugh, A. C.  50 Baumgartner, W.  21, 30, 32 Beckerath, J. von  8, 11, 15, 16, 17 Beitzel, B. J.  148 Benjamin, C.  152 Benz, F. L.  42, 43 Berger, D.  79 Berman, J.  171, 195 Bietak, M.  11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 27, 38, 81, 82, 83, 84 Blackman, A. M.  129 Bleeker, C. J.  24 Block, D. I.  147, 152, 153, 154 Blum, E.  243 Bons, E.  247 313

Bordreuil, P.  263 Breasted, J. H.  24, 100 Bright, J.  200 Brinkman, J. A.  211 Briquel-Chatonnet, F.  203 Broodbank, C.  227 Brovarski, E.  73 Brown, H.  81 Brueggemann, W.  243 Buber, M.  125, 127 Buccellati, B.  201, 203, 206 Budd, P.  28, 30 Bunnens, G.  208, 214, 215, 221 Burmeister, S.  216, 218 Burney, C. F.  81 Cable, T.  50 Calvin, J.  134 Caminos, R.  224 Campbell, A. F.  114, 115 Campbell, L.  50 Carew, M. D.  246 Carmichael, C.  171 Carr, D. M.  191 Carstens, P.  178, 190 Cassuto, U.  33, 34, 93, 114, 115, 119, 128, 134, 251 Černý, J.  84, 85 Chapman, J.  205, 216, 218 Charpin, D.  213, 217 Chen, C.  6 Childs, B. S.  136, 249 Chirichigno, G. C.  171 Clines, D. J. A.  43, 47 Cohen, R.  195 Cole, S. W.  217 Coleman, J.  50 Collins, J. J.  44, 255, 257 Conder, C. R.  79 Cornelius, I.  13

314

Index of Modern and Premodern Authors

Cornelius, S.  87, 88 Cowgill, G. L.  207 Craigie, P. C.  108, 149 Cribb, R.  204, 209, 210, 212 Cross, F. M.  93, 108, 112, 135 Crouwel, J. H.  33 Crystal, J.  79 Czerny, E.  38 Daniels, D. R.  243, 250 David, A. R.  7, 8, 29, 31 Davies, B. G.  101 Davies, E.  28 Davies, G. I.  45, 46 Davies, N. de G.  20, 72, 73 Davies, P. R.  185, 186, 187 Davies, W. V.  129 Davis, T. W.  230, 237 Day, J.  138 Day, P. L.  87, 88 Dearman, J. A.  251 DeRouchie, J. S.  153 Derrida, J.  188 Deutsch, R.  21 Dever, W. G.  5, 83, 185, 199, 201 Diedrich, F.  247 Dietrich, M.  216 Dijk, J. van  89 Dijkstra, M.  266 Dion, P.-E.  216, 221 Dodson, A.  86 Doxey, D.  29 Dozeman, T. B.  108, 244 Drioton, E.  79, 80, 81 Driver, S. R.  81, 114, 115, 117, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130, 132, 136, 140 Dunnam, M.  70 Durand, J.-M.  213, 214, 215 Edelman, D.  26 Edwards, I. E. S.  9 El-Kalani, A.  27 Epstein, I.  152 Eusebius 99 Eyre, C. J.  110 Fales, F. M.  212, 217

Faulkner, R. O.  9, 30, 34, 71, 95 Faust, A.  191, 200, 201 Finkelstein, I.  5, 83, 199, 200, 225 Fleming, D. E.  210, 213 Fowler, J. D.  42 Fox, E.  129, 132 Frandsen, P. J.  85 Freedman, D. N.  39, 248, 265, 267 Fretheim, T.  135 Friedman, M. A.  245 Friedman, R. E.  114, 115, 117, 119, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128, 130, 132 Frood, E.  29 Frymer-Kensky, T.  128 Fuhs, H. F.  257 Gardiner, A. H.  9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 30, 63, 81, 98, 106, 192 Gehman, H. S.  138 Gelb, I. J.  40, 42, 45, 47 Geraty, L. T.  79, 80, 81 Gerven, D. P. van  216 Gese, H.  262 Ginsberg, H. L.  151, 152, 153 Gitin, S.  69 Giveon, R.  88, 224 Goedicke, H.  96, 110 Golinets, V.  44 Good, R. M.  9 Gordon, R.  28, 30 Görg, M.  95 Gottwald, N. K.  199 Grabbe, L. L.  82, 83, 84 Grayson, A. K.  106 Grdseloff, B.  72 Greenberg, M.  90, 135 Greengus, S.  158 Greenwood, N.  227 Grimal, N. C.  8, 9 Groll, S. I.  82, 83 Gröndahl, F.  40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 Grossman, J.  132 Grossman, M.  124 Habachi, L.  12, 14 Habicht, M. E.  86 Hadjiev, T. S.  258, 259, 262 Hakenbeck, S.  216, 218, 219, 220

Index of Modern and Premodern Authors Hall, E. S.  103 Hallo, W. W.  174 Hamerow, H.  205, 218 Hammurabi  138, 139 Haspelmath, M.  50 Hawass, Z.  177, 179 Hawkins, J. D.  202 Hayes, W. C.  10, 11 Haynes, A. E.  79 Hays, C. B.  22, 23, 24 Helck, W.  81, 87 Hendel, R.  113, 185, 188, 189, 255, 257 Henten, J. W. van  255 Hermagoras of Temnos  178 Hess, R. S.  18, 22, 37, 40, 43, 44, 46, 69, 154, 155 Hillers, D. R.  260, 264, 266 Hilton, D.  86 Hoch, J. E.  64 Hock, H. H.  50 Hodder, I.  223 Hoffman, Y.  255, 256, 259 Hoffmeier, J. K.  3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 16, 18, 26, 27, 29, 30, 34, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 51, 65, 66, 79, 82, 83, 95, 103, 148, 185, 192, 193, 224, 225, 226, 229, 237 Holt, E. K.  243, 250 Homan, M. M.  20, 34, 96, 97, 98, 225 Homer 181 Hommel, F.  81 Hont, O. d’  204 Houtepen, A.  255 Houtman, C.  4, 136 Hübenthal, S.  178, 186 Huddlestun, J. R.  106 Huehnergard, J.  43 Huffmon, H. B.  41, 42, 252 Humbert, P.  249 Hurowitz, V. A.  98 Hurvitz, A.  31, 191 Hwang, J.  6, 250 Hyatt, J. P.  4, 19 Isbell, C. D.  132 Jack, J. W.  79 Jacob, B.  119

315

Japhet, S.  170 Jones, H. S.  32 Joosten, J.  161 Joseph, B. D.  50 Josephus  151, 153 Junge, F.  62, 63 Kapelrud, A. S.  89 Käser, A.  138 Kastovsky, D.  50 Kaufman, S. A.  60, 82 Kaufmann, Y.  170 Keefe, A. A.  252 Kelle, B. E.  250 Kemp, B.  7 Kepinski, C.  217 Khazanov, A.  204, 209 Kibbee, D. A.  51 Kilchör, B.  170, 171 Killebrew, A. E.  5, 205 Kimuhu, J. M.  85, 86, 89 Kingsley, P.  177 Kitchen, K. A.  4, 15, 18, 19, 20, 34, 39, 82, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 104, 195, 224 Kline, M. G.  195 Knauf, E. A.  25, 26 Knoppers, G. N.  250 Koehler, L.  21, 30, 32 Kofoed, J. B.  185, 188 Koster, M. D.  151 Kratz, R.  244 Kugler, R.  244 Kupper, J.-R.  202, 203 Kurien, P.  6 Kuschke, A.  96 LaBianca, Ø. S.  204 Lambdin, T. O.  32, 49, 53, 63 Lambert, W. G.  202, 214, 215 Lauer, J.-P.  69 Lawrence, P. J. N.  195 Layton, S. C.  43, 44, 45 Leclant, J.  87, 88, 89 Leiman, S. Z.  79 Lemche, N. P.  178, 185, 186, 187, 188, 199 Lepper, V. M.  129

316

Index of Modern and Premodern Authors

Lepsius, R.  80, 81 Lescow, T.  266 Lévai, J.  88, 89 Levine, B. A.  28, 84, 85, 139 Levine, E.  266 Levinson, B. M.  170, 172, 173, 174 Levy, R. S.  216 Liddell, H. G.  32 Lim, J. T. K.  140 Lipiński, E.  211, 216 Littauer, M. A.  33 Liverani, M.  207 Lohfink, N.  166, 167, 168 Long, J.  132 Longman, T., III  216 Lönnqvist, M. A.  203, 205, 210, 218 Loprieno, A.  62, 63 Loretz, O.  216 Lucas, A.  79 Lundbom, J. R.  145, 147, 172 Lyonnet, B.  213 Malamat, A.  200 Málek, J.  11 Malul, M.  158 Manuelian, P. der  111 Maraqten, M.  43 Marouard, G.  15 Maspero, G.  80 Mayes, A. D. H.  140, 149 Mazar, A.  74 McAnany, P. A.  207 McClellan, T. L.  208, 213 McConville, J. G.  145, 147, 149, 154 McDowell, A.  111 McKenzie, S. L.  245 Meek, T. J.  17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 34 Meltzer, E.  19, 24 Mendenhall, G. E.  199 Mercator, G.  80 Merrill, E. H.  149 Meskell, L.  111 Meyers, C. L.  93, 112 Middleton, R.  85 Miglio, A.  215 Milgrom, J.  28, 30, 33, 86, 137, 150, 170, 191

Millard, A. R.  32, 79, 86, 111, 148, 221, 263 Miller, P. D.  153 Mirsky, A.  125 Mlinar, C.  14, 15 Möller, M.  258, 259 Montet, P.  13 Montgomery, J. A.  138 Moor, J. C. de  40 Moore, M. S.  195 Morenz, S.  89 Moscati, S.  203 Moshier, S. O.  27, 226, 229 Moss, R. L. B.  70, 75 Muchiki, Y.  18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 31, 32, 46, 49, 53, 57, 60, 63, 65 Mueller, N.  15 Müller, M.  14, 15 Muraoka, T.  60 Murray, M. A.  71 Neef, H.-D.  243, 248, 251 Newberry, P.  225 Nichols, J. J.  207 Nicholson, E. W.  244 Nihan, C.  244 Noegel, S.  117, 118, 119, 132 Noonan, B. J.  51, 53 Noth, M.  17, 21, 22, 25, 28, 66, 114, 115, 167, 169, 257 Novák, M.  221 Novetsky, H.  79 Obbink, H. T.  70 O’Brien, M. A.  115 Ockinga, B.  111 O’Connor, D.  7, 8, 9 Ondaatje, M.  118 Oren, E.  227, 228 Panitz-Cohen, N.  74 Parker, S. B.  252 Parkinson, R. B.  129 Patterson, R. D.  94 Paul, S. M.  127, 260 Peet, T. E.  9, 10, 71 Perevolotsky, A.  225

Index of Modern and Premodern Authors Perlitt, L.  244 Petrie, W. M. F.  80, 81 Philo  151, 153 Pitard, W. T.  57, 89, 207, 208, 217 Podany, A. H.  195 Porada, E.  13 Porten, B.  60, 119 Porter, A.  7, 201, 212, 213, 220 Porter, B.  70, 75 Postgate, J. N.  202 Preuss, H. D.  257 Propp, W. H. C.  4, 39, 40, 41, 45, 46, 99, 101, 106, 108, 136, 140, 142, 155, 190 Pruzsinszky, R.  44 Quirke, S.  11, 129 Rad, G. von  166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 190 Raleigh, W.  80 Ranke, H.  16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31 Rashbam 115 Rashi 131 Rechenmacher, H.  41, 42, 45, 46 Redford, D. B.  73, 74, 81, 82, 87, 111, 131 Redmount, C. A.  79 Reeves, N.  33 Rendsburg, G. A.  9, 33, 42, 79, 113, 114, 118, 119, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133, 136, 152, 201, 222, 263 Rendtorff, R.  145, 190, 191 Renz, T.  246 Retamales, S. S.  247 Richardson, S.  106 Rooker, M. F.  151 Rosen, S.  225 Rosenzweig, F.  125, 127 Rowley, H. H.  79, 81 Rowton, M. B.  205, 206, 207, 213 Rubin, A. D.  49 Russell, S. C.  244, 252, 257, 264, 265 Ryholt, K. S. B.  15, 16 Sader, H.  207, 208, 216, 262 Sakenfeld, K. D.  136

Sarna, N. M.  4, 25, 115, 151, 155, 157 Sasson, J.  119, 214 Sauneron, S.  15, 29 Sayce, A. H.  79, 81 Schenker, A.  173, 174 Schipper, B. U.  82 Schmid, H. H.  250 Schmid, K.  167, 168 Schmitt, R.  44, 45 Schneider, T.  20, 38, 42, 43, 44 Schniedewind, W. M.  208, 216 Schulman, A.  32 Schwartz, G. M.  206, 207, 208 Scolnic, B. E.  21, 151 Scott, R.  32 Seidler, D.  141 Seidler-Feller, S.  79 Seidlmayer, S.  69 Selman, M.  26 Sethe, K.  71 Shirun-Grumach, I.  110 Shupak, N.  110 Silberman, N. A.  83, 200, 225 Simon, Z.  210 Simons, J.  88 Simpson, W. K.  74, 129 Singer, I.  263 Sisi, A. F. al-  177 Sivan, D.  41, 44, 45, 47 Smith, A. D.  190, 192 Smith, M.  180, 192 Smith, M. S.  57, 89, 93, 108, 185 Smith, S. T.  7, 8, 9, 227 Snape, S.  70 Soden, W. von  40 Sommer, B.  106 Sonnet, J.-P.  139 Spalinger, A. J.  107, 110, 111 Sparks, K.  5 Spencer, J.  20 Sperling, S. D.  33, 115 Sprinkle, J. M.  154, 155, 157, 171 Stackert, J.  150, 172, 173 Stadelmann, R.  87, 88, 89, 91 Steen, E. J. van der  209 Steiner, R. C.  88, 89, 90 Steiner, S.  79

317

318

Index of Modern and Premodern Authors

Stokes, R.  224 Streck, M. P.  15, 42, 44, 47, 207 Stuart, D. K.  134 Süring, M. L.  70 Swiderski, I.  156 Szuchman, J. J.  201, 204, 209, 210, 211, 220 Tadmor, H.  202, 211 Talmon, S.  125 Thom, J. A.  66 Thompson, T. L.  190, 199 Tigay, J. H.  25, 134, 145, 146, 147, 148, 171, 172 Tilly, C.  219 Toivari-Viitala, J.  85 Toorn, K. van der  244, 250, 255, 257 Török, L.  8 Trilsbach, A.  219 Tropper, J.  41 Tucker, G. M.  246 Uphill, E. P.  81, 87 Ussher, J.  80 Valbelle, D.  27 Van Rooy, H. F.  247 Van Seters, J.  19, 187, 188, 190, 191, 196, 244, 248, 250, 251 Velde, H. te  23, 105 Virey, P.  81 Vollmer, J.  243 Vuilleumier, R.  247 Walls, N. H.  89 Waterman, L.  18 Watson, G. E.  57 Watts, J. W.  94 Way, T. von der  108, 110 Weinfeld, M.  152, 153, 160, 249 Weingreen, J.  170

Weippert, M.  201 Weitzman, S.  106 Wellhausen, J.  66, 166 Wells, B.  158 Wenham, G. J.  130 Wente, E.  224 Westbrook, R.  158, 171 Wiener, H. M.  79 Wijngaards, J. N. M.  249, 256 Wilkinson, R. H.  23, 70 Williams, R. J.  3, 5, 34, 35 Wilson, R. D.  49, 67 Wit, C. de  79 Wolff, H. W.  250, 264, 266 Wreszinski, W.  97 Wright, C. J. H.  149, 154, 156 Wright, D. P.  155, 156, 158, 163, 164, 171 Wright, G. E.  225 Wright, G. R. H.  232, 233 Yadin, Y.  200 Yang, F.  6 Yasur-Landau, A.  216 Yee, G. A.  252 Yoffee, N.  207 Younger, K. L., Jr.  93, 105, 200, 201, 208, 211, 212, 213, 215, 217, 220, 222 Yurco, F. J.  82 Zadok, R.  39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 211 Zakovitch, Y.  148 Zapff, B. M.  266, 267 Zarins, J.  204 Zertal, A.  266 Zevit, Z.  33 Ziegler, N.  217 Zimmerli, W.  246, 251 Zivie-Coche, C.  87, 88

Index of Scripture Hebrew Bible Genesis 1  129, 130 1–9  129, 130 1–11 44 4:1 251 5 119 6–9 130 8:20 69 10:13–14 263 12:3 260 15 119 15:7–21 259 15:14 4 15:14–16 4 15:16 4 15:17 146 18:19 260 19:8 251 24:4 148 24:10 148 25:20 148 26:12 148 28:14 260 29:32 30 36:4 45 36:5 43 36:10 45 36:13 45 36:14 43 36:16 43 36:17 45 36:18 43 36:20 25 37:36 21 38:26 251 39:1 21 41:45 30 41:50 30 41:53–42 4 42:5 4 42:7–20 138 42:23  134, 138

Genesis (cont.) 45–46 4 45:10 27 46 5 46:1 5 46:3 5 46:11 18 46:17 26 46:20 30 46:28–29 27 47:6 148 47:11 27 48:10 134 49:3 30 Exodus 1–2  127, 128, 129, 130, 131 1–14  113, 114, 128, 132 1–18  106, 142, 143 1–25 256 1:7  129, 130, 194 1:8 128 1:8–11 80 1:11  80, 81, 82, 87, 193 1:14 173 1:15  42, 46, 127 1:15–21 127 1:16  126, 127, 128 1:20 127 1:20–21 131 1:21  126, 127 1:22  126, 128 1:22–2:23 127 2 131 2:1  126, 127 2:1–10 131 2:2  129, 130 2:2–3 128 2:3  127, 130 2:4 128 2:5  126, 128, 130 319

Exodus (cont.) 2:7–8 128 2:8–9 128 2:10  20, 39 2:11 39 2:14  39, 127 2:15 39 2:15–23 127 2:16 126 2:17 39 2:18 45 2:20 126 2:21 42 2:22 42 2:23 80 2:23–25  131, 132, 155 2:24 194 3 131 3:1 42 3:2 39 3:2–4  139, 140 3:6  5, 132, 194 3:6–7 131 3:7 132 3:15  163, 194 3:19 94 3:20 267 4  128, 129 4–14 246 4:3 128 4:10  133, 138 4:11 134 4:11–12 133 4:13 133 4:14 39 4:14–16 133 4:18 42 4:20 140 4:21  120, 122, 123 4:25 42 4:27 39 4:28 39

320 Exodus (cont.) 4:29 39 4:30  39, 135 5:1  39, 135 5:3 135 5:20 135 6–14  246, 250, 251 6:1–9 135 6:6 95 6:9–12 136 6:12 133 6:13 135 6:14–25 38 6:16 38 6:17 43 6:18  43, 46, 47 6:19 43 6:20 43 6:21  43, 46 6:22  44, 45 6:23  40, 41, 44 6:24  21, 23, 43, 44, 45 6:25  20, 21, 41, 45 6:30 133 6:30–7:2 133 7–12  113, 119 7  128, 129 7:1 265 7:3  120, 121, 122, 123 7:5 246 7:9–10 128 7:13  120, 122, 123, 125 7:14  120, 123, 134 7:15 116 7:19 136 7:22  120, 122, 123, 125 7:26 116 8:5 135 8:6 118 8:8 135 8:11  120, 122, 123, 125, 134 8:15  120, 122, 123, 125 8:16 116 8:21 135 8:22 27 8:26 135 8:28  120, 122, 123, 134 9:1 116 9:3 263

Index of Scripture Exodus (cont.) 9:7  120, 122, 123, 134 9:12  121, 122, 124, 125 9:13 117 9:13–19 118 9:13–35 119 9:14 118 9:16 118 9:23 140 9:26 27 9:27  118, 135 9:28 119 9:29 135 9:33 135 9:34  119, 121, 124, 134 9:35  121, 122, 123, 124 10:1  117, 121, 124, 134 10:2 246 10:3 136 10:10 135 10:13 140 10:16 135 10:18 135 10:20  121, 122, 123, 124 10:21–29 135 10:27  121, 122, 123, 124 11:1–8 115 11:10  121, 122, 124 12:1 135 12:21 135 12:28 135 12:29–30 115 12:31 135 12:40 4 12:43 135 12:50 135 13 135 13:1–16 181 13:3 94 13:9 256 13:14  94, 265 13:16 94 13:17  84, 94, 226, 239 13:17–14:10 109 13:18 98 14–15  94, 95, 98, 100, 105, 106, 107, 108 14  5, 108, 109, 135 14:2 84 14:3 224

Exodus (cont.) 14:4 246 14:8 98 14:10 109 14:10–12 98 14:14  98, 99 14:15  99, 140 14:15–17 109 14:23–28 109 14:24 99 14:24–27 109 14:25  99, 100 14:25–27 109 14:28 100 14:30 101 14:30–31  101, 109 14:31  95, 108 15  101, 109, 141 15:1 94 15:1–3 101 15:1–19 109 15:1–21 93 15:4 100 15:6  95, 103, 108 15:7 103 15:8–9 107 15:9 108 15:12  95, 103 15:13–15 104 15:13–18 109 15:16  93, 95, 101, 108 15:16–17 104 15:17 93 15:17–18 105 15:19 94 15:20  19, 40, 265 15:21 40 15:22–Num 21  223 15:25 166 16  135, 245 16:4 135 16:6 136 16:6–7 135 16:8 135 16:9 135 16:11 136 16:12 136 16:35 258 17:1–7 166 17:9  40, 140

Index of Scripture Exodus (cont.) 17:10  25, 40, 45 17:12 45 17:13 40 17:14 40 18:1 42 18:2 42 18:3 42 18:4 41 18:5 42 18:6 42 18:9 42 18:10 42 18:12 42 18:27 42 19–24  143, 163 19–40 155 19  143, 144, 145, 158, 161 19:3–6  144, 147, 158 19:4  143, 144, 147, 162 19:4–6  146, 147, 162, 166 19:4–8 147 19:5 144 19:5–6  143, 144, 145, 146, 161, 162 19:8  145, 146 20–24 144 20  150, 153, 154, 160, 251 20:1 150 20:2  143, 151, 152, 153, 160, 169, 256, 260, 265 20:2–3  151, 152, 153 20:2–6  151, 152, 160, 161, 162 20:3  152, 153 20:3–4 153 20:3–6  152, 153, 160 20:4–6 153 20:5 153 20:6 153 20:8–11 160 20:11 165 20:17  151, 152 20:22–26  150, 151, 154, 155, 157, 160 20:24 163

Exodus (cont.) 20:24–26 163 20:26 34 21–23  143, 154 21  155, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174 21:1 154 21:1–22:16 157 21:2  154, 172 21:2–3 174 21:2–6  156, 157 21:2–11  143, 154, 156, 157, 161, 162, 163, 165, 169, 170 21:5–6 172 21:6 173 21:7–11 171 21:8 171 21:9 171 21:10 154 21:11 154 21:12–22:16 157 22:17–19 157 22:17–23:13 157 22:20  156, 157, 161, 163 22:20–23 163 22:20–23:9 157 22:20–23:19 156 22:20–30 156 22:21–23:8 161 22:32–33 160 23:9  156, 157, 161, 163 23:9–12 143 23:9–19 156 23:10–11 157 23:10–12 163 23:10–13  156, 157 23:14–19  151, 154, 155, 157, 160 23:20 156 23:20–33 157 24:1  40, 41 24:3 145 24:6–8  145, 146, 147 24:7 145 24:9  40, 41 24:13  40, 140 24:14  25, 45 25–27  96, 97 25:20 97

321 Exodus (cont.) 25:30 75 25:38  30, 161 26:13 161 27:1–2 71 27:2  69, 70, 73 28:1  40, 41 28:4 31 28:32  32, 33 28:39 31 28:40 31 28:42 33 29:9 31 29:11 71 30:1–2 75 31:2  25, 45, 46 31:6  45, 46 32  245, 250 32:4 249 32:11 94 32:17  40, 140 32:18 141 32:26  127, 140 32:28 127 33:1 256 33:11 40 33:12–17 260 34:28 151 35:30  25, 45, 46 35:34  45, 46 36:1 46 36:2 46 36:35 31 37:1 46 37:23 30 38:3 30 38:21 41 38:22  25, 45, 46 38:23  45, 46 39:23  32, 33 39:27 31 39:28  31, 32, 33 39:29 31 Leviticus 1–10 137 1–16 160 2:9 75 2:11 74 6:3 33

322 Leviticus (cont.) 8:7 31 8:13 31 10:1  30, 40, 41 10:4  43, 44, 45 10:6 41 10:12  30, 41 10:16 41 11 137 11:1 137 12 137 12:1 137 13 137 14:1 137 14:33 137 15:1 137 16:4  31, 33 17–22 150 17–27  150, 164 17  150, 151, 154, 160, 165 17:1–9 150 17:10–16 150 18–22  160, 164 18–26  150, 160 18  86, 90 18:2 150 18:3  84, 90, 160 18:3–18 91 18:4 150 18:5 150 18:6  86, 150 18:7 90 18:8 86 18:9 86 18:17 86 18:21 150 18:30 150 19:2 150 19:2-3 150 19:3 150 19:4 150 19:10 150 19:12 150 19:14 150 19:16 150 19:18  150, 160 19:25 150 19:28 150 19:30 150

Index of Scripture Leviticus (cont.) 19:31 150 19:32 150 19:33–34 161 19:34 150 19:36  150, 161 19:37 150 20:7 150 20:8 150 20:24 150 20:26 150 21:6–8 150 21:12 150 21:15 150 21:18 150 21:23 150 22:2 150 22:3 150 22:8 150 22:9 150 22:16 150 22:30 150 22:31 150 22:32 150 22:33  150, 161 23:22 150 23:38 150 23:43  150, 161 23:55 150 24:22 150 25  143, 144, 158, 159, 160, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 194 25:17 150 25:23 194 25:36–55 164 25:38  169, 173 25:39  155, 173 25:39–41 159 25:39–43  143, 169, 170, 174 25:39–54 161 25:39–55  158, 165 25:40  159, 172, 174 25:42  159, 161 25:42–43 169 25:46  172, 173 25:47 159 25:47–53 172 25:47–54 159

Leviticus (cont.) 25:47–55  143, 169, 170 25:53 159 25:54–55 172 25:55  159, 161, 169 25:55–2:1 161 25:55–26:1  162, 170 26  150, 158, 159 26:1  150, 159, 160 26:2  150, 160 26:3–5 148 26:13 150 26:19–20 148 26:34–35 159 26:43 159 26:44 150 26:45  150, 160, 161 26:46  143, 150, 151, 158, 160 27  150, 151, 154, 160 27:34 150 Numbers 1–20 28 1:7 44 1:15 25 1:17 137 1:34 137 1:49 127 1:52 223 2:1 137 2:3 44 2:14 45 3:2  40, 41 3:4  40, 41 3:5–10 28 3:6 127 3:14 137 3:15 137 3:18 43 3:19  43, 46, 47 3:20 43 3:21 43 3:27  43, 46 3:28 38 3:32 41 3:33 43 3:33–36 18 4:1 137 4:1–48 28

Index of Scripture Numbers (cont.) 4:9 30 4:16  41, 75 4:21 137 4:22 137 4:28  28, 41 4:33  28, 41 4:34 137 4:41 137 4:46 137 6:27 136 7:8 41 7:12 44 7:17 44 7:78 25 10:14 44 10:29 45 10:35–36 142 11:28 40 12:1 40 12:4 40 12:5 40 12:10 40 12:15 40 13 26 13:5 25 13:16 40 13:26 166 14 137 14:2–3 137 14:6 40 14:26 137 14:30 40 14:33–34 258 14:38 40 14:39 137 16–17 27 16  4, 21, 28, 34 16:1  28, 30, 43, 46 16:3 28 16:5 43 16:6  30, 43 16:7 127 16:8  43, 127 16:10 127 16:12 30 16:17 30 16:17–18  28, 30 16:18 30 16:19 43

Numbers (cont.) 16:20 137 16:22 137 16:23–35 137 16:24  30, 43 16:27  30, 43 16:32 43 16:38 30 16:39 30 16:40 43 16:49 43 17 139 17:2 41 17:4 41 17:18 127 17:23 127 17:25 139 19:3 41 19:4 41 20:1  40, 166 20:1–13 137 20:8 139 20:12 139 20:13–14 166 20:15–16 167 20:23–29  137, 140 20:25 41 20:26 41 20:28 41 22–24 266 22:5 3 22:11 3 22:12 266 23:8 266 25:1  266, 267 25:4 137 25:5 137 25:7 41 25:11 41 26:1  41, 138 26:3 138 26:4 138 26:9 43 26:10 43 26:11 43 26:44–47 26 26:58 43 26:59  40, 43 26:60  40, 41 26:61  40, 41

323 Numbers (cont.) 26:63 138 26:65 40 27:3 43 27:18 40 27:22 40 31:6 41 31:8 45 31:17 251 32:12 40 32:13 258 32:28 40 33:11 140 33:20–21 43 33:38 259 34:17 40 Deuteronomy 1–3 245 1:3  145, 259 1:27 249 1:38 40 1:40 53 2:1 53 2:1–25 262 2:7 258 2:23 263 3:14 94 4:8 145 4:13 151 4:20 249 4:34 95 4:37 249 4:45 249 5  153, 165 5:6  151, 153, 249, 260, 265 5:6–10 153 5:7–10 153 5:15  95, 165, 181, 249 5:21 152 6:11 194 6:12  249, 265 6:20–24 167 6:21  94, 249 6:21–22 53 6:21–23  66, 168 6:23 249 7:6 145 7:6–7 260

324 Deuteronomy (cont.) 7:8  53, 249, 265 7:18 181 7:19  95, 249 8 245 8:2 181 8:2–4 258 8:14  249, 265 8:15 249 9 245 9:26  94, 249 9:28 249 9:29 95 10:3 53 10:4 151 10:8 127 11:3 53 11:4 53 11:8–17 148 11:10–17 148 12–26  145, 151 12  150, 151, 154, 160, 165 12:1 145 12:5 260 13:6  249, 265 13:11  249, 265 14:1–2 145 14:28–29 149 15  155, 170, 171, 172, 173 15:3 154 15:5 145 15:12  154, 155, 172 15:12–17 171 15:12–18 170 15:15  165, 181 15:16–17  172, 173 15:17 173 15:18 175 16:1 249 16:3 181 16:12 181 18:1 127 19:9 145 20:1 249 24:9 40 24:18 181 24:22 181 25:39–54 162

Index of Scripture Deuteronomy (cont.) 26  144, 145, 146, 151, 153, 154, 160, 161, 162, 165, 166, 169 26:5  147, 148, 149, 162, 167, 194 26:5–9 168 26:5–10  147, 148, 149, 162, 166, 167, 169, 170 26:5–15 143 26:6 147 26:6–9 167 26:7 147 26:7–9 148 26:8  66, 95, 147, 249 26:9  147, 148 26:10  147, 167 26:11  148, 149, 162 26:12 162 26:12–13 162 26:12–15 149 26:13–15  148, 149, 162 26:14  149, 162 26:15 149 26:16 145 26:16–18 143 26:16–19  161, 166 26:17 146 26:17–18 146 26:17–19  145, 147 26:18 145 26:18–19  144, 145, 146 26:19  145, 161 27–28  151, 196 27 146 28  146, 194 28:4–5 148 28:11–12 148 28:17–18 148 28:23–24 148 28:36–37 195 28:64 195 29:1 53 29:1–8 146 29:2 249 29:4 258 29:9–10 146 29:9–14 146 29:11  146, 147

Deuteronomy (cont.) 29:12 147 29:12–14 147 29:13 147 29:24 249 31 140 31:19  140, 142 31:21 142 31:22  140, 142 31:30 142 32 142 32:44  140, 142 32:44–45 142 32:51 140 33:4 152 34:10  260, 265 34:11 53 Joshua 2:1 266 2:10 53 3:1  266, 267 3:1–5:12 266 3:18 267 4:19–20 266 4:23 53 5:6 258 10:29 43 13:3 263 13:14 127 13:21 45 13:33 127 14:7 258 22:13 41 22:30 41 22:31 41 22:32 41 24:2–13 167 24:5 265 24:6 53 24:6–7 66 24:15 259 24:17 265 24:33 41 Judges 1 95 5:4 267 5:11 265 6:8 265

Index of Scripture Judges (cont.) 6:10 259 6:11 148 6:11–24 139 6:13 267 11:16 53 13:22 139 17–21 38 18:30 42 19:25 251 20:28 41 1 Samuel 1:1 44 1:3  20, 41 1:4 44 1:8 44 1:9 44 1:19 251 1:21 44 1:23 44 2:11 44 2:20 44 2:27 53 2:34  20, 41 4:4  20, 41 4:11 41 4:17 41 4:19 41 6:6 53 6:14 40 7:1 41 12:6 265 12:7 265 12:8 256 14:3 41 2 Samuel 5:15  40, 46 5:24 267 7 195 7:20 260 16:5 43 16:7 43 16:13 43 19:17 43 19:19 43 19:22 43 19:24 43 21:21 43

2 Samuel (cont.) 23:9 41 1 Kings 1:4 251 1:8 43 2:8 43 2:36 43 2:38 43 2:39 43 2:40 43 2:41 43 2:42 43 2:44 43 4:8 45 7:50 30 8 195 12  245, 248, 249, 250 12:28 249 12:28–32 245 14:20 40 15:25 40 15:27 40 15:31 40 18:19 138 18:40 138 20 251 20:13 250 20:28 250 2 Kings 16:9 263 17:7 53 22 196 23:8 40 25:15 30 Isaiah 2:16 55 18:2 55 22:15–20 31 22:21 31 28:1–22 23 40–66 106 43:17 99 59:1 134 Jeremiah 1:5 260 2:6  256, 258

325 Jeremiah (cont.) 12:1 265 20 24 22:13 173 25 259 25:4 173 27:7 173 30:8 173 34  170, 175 34:9 173 34:10 173 34:13 265 34:18–19 146 47:4 263 Ezekiel 3:5–6 134 6:7 250 28:13 53 34:27  173, 250 44:18 33 Hosea 1:3–5 263 1:4 243 2  245, 246 2:1 243 2:5–17 248 2:10  243, 246, 251 2:11–15 245 2:13 243 2:15  180, 251 2:16 245 2:17  243, 245, 249 2:20 245 2:22  246, 261 2:23–24 245 4–11 253 4:1  243, 250, 261 4:1–3 246 4:2–3 250 4:6 261 4:13–14 251 5:2 267 5:13 252 6:6 261 7:11 252 7:16  243, 247 8 245 8:1  246, 250

326 Hosea (cont.) 8:5–6  248, 250 8:9 252 8:12  243, 246, 250 8:13  243, 247, 263 9:3  247, 263 9:10 243 10:5 250 11–12 248 11–13 246 11  246, 247 11:1  180, 243, 246, 260 11:2 243 11:2–3 246 11:5  247, 263 11:11 247 11:12 247 12  243, 247 12:2  247, 252 12:4 243 12:4–5 247 12:5 247 12:9 180 12:10  243, 246, 247, 251, 253 12:10–11 247 12:11–12 247 12:13  180, 243, 247 12:14  247, 249, 256, 265 13  247, 248 13:1–3 248 13:4  180, 243, 246, 248, 251, 252, 253, 261 13:4–5 261 13:5  243, 248, 261 13:6 248 14:5–7 243

Index of Scripture

Joel 4:18 267

Amos (cont.) 2:6–16  258, 259 2:9  258, 262 2:9–10 258 2:9–12  257, 258, 267 2:10  180, 255, 257, 258, 263, 264 2:10–12 258 2:10–16 258 2:11 260 2:11–12 264 2:13–16 258 3:1  255, 259, 260, 264 3:1–2  180, 259, 260, 262 3:1–15 259 3:2  259, 260, 261, 262 3:12 260 3:13 260 3:14 75 4:5 260 4:10 263 5:1 260 5:3 260 5:3–4 261 5:4 260 5:6 260 5:25  255, 258, 260, 264 6:1 260 6:2 263 6:3 261 6:14 260 7:9 260 7:10 260 8:2 261 9:7  255, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264 9:7–8  258, 261, 262 9:8  261, 262 9:8–9 260 9:11–15 261

Amos 1–2 262 1:2–2:16 258 1:3–5  262, 263 1:5 263 1:6–8  262, 263 2:6–8 258

Micah 6–7 264 6:1–2 264 6:1–3  264, 265 6:1–5 264 6:1–8 264 6:3 265

Micah (cont.) 6:4  40, 180, 258, 263, 265 6:4–5  255, 264, 265, 267 6:5  261, 265, 266, 267 7:8–20  266, 267 7:11–20 266 7:14  266, 267 7:15  180, 255, 266, 267 Habakkuk 3:9 101 3:11 101 Zephaniah 2:11 75 Haggai 1:1 40 1:12 40 1:14 40 2:2 40 2:4 40 Zechariah 3:1 40 3:3 40 3:6 40 3:8 40 3:9 40 6:11 40 7:5 40 9:14 101 12:13 127 Psalms 42 43 44 43 45 43 46 43 47 43 48 43 49 43 60:12 267 77:21 265 78  167, 255 78:12  192, 267 78:43 84 78:44 53

Index of Scripture Psalms (cont.) 84 43 85 43 87 43 88 43 89 193 95:10 259 99:6 265 103:6 265 105  167, 255 105:26 265 106 255 106:7  53, 267 106:9 53 106:16 265 106:30 41 118:27 70 135:9 53 136 167 136:13 53 136:15 53 144:6 101 Ruth 4 119 4:19 44 4:20 44 Daniel 1 6 1:6 44 1:7 44 1:11 44 1:19 44 2:17 44 3 6 Ezra 2:38 24 3 184 6 184 7 184 7:5 41 7:10 184 8 184 8:2  41, 42 8:18 43 8:33  20, 24, 41 9:11 184 9:12 184

Ezra (cont.) 10:22 24 10:24 46 10:25 41 10:30 46 10:34 43 10:36 24 Nehemiah 3:8 43 3:9 45 5 175 7:41 24 8:4 44 9:9 53 9:10 53 9:21 259 11:9 43 12:17 43 12:42 41 1 Chronicles 1:35  43, 45 1:37 45 2:10 44 2:11 44 2:19 45 2:20  45, 46 2:28 40 2:30 40 2:42 47 2:43  43, 47 2:50 45 3:6 40 3:7 46 4:1 45 4:4 45 4:17 40 4:18 90 4:42 43 5:28  43, 46, 47 5:29  40, 41, 43 5:30  40, 41 5:31 40 6:1 42 6:2 43 6:3  43, 46, 47 6:4 43 6:5 43 6:7  43, 44

327 1 Chronicles (cont.) 6:8 44 6:10  22, 44 6:11 44 6:12 45 6:14 43 6:19 45 6:20 44 6:21 44 6:22  43, 44 6:22–23 23 6:23 46 6:27 43 6:28 42 6:32 43 6:35  40, 41 6:40 47 6:42 47 7:7 43 7:7–8 23 7:36 26 8:4 40 8:19 43 8:23 43 8:27 43 8:30 40 9:8 45 9:12 24 9:15 43 9:16 45 9:19 43 9:20 41 9:36 40 11:12 41 12:7 45 14:5 40 14:6 46 15:9 47 15:10  43, 44 15:11 44 15:20 43 15:23 45 23:12  43, 46, 47 23:14 127 23:15 42 23:18 46 23:19 47 23:20 43 23:21  41, 43 23:22 41

328 1 Chronicles (cont.) 23:23 43 23:24 43 24:1  40, 41 24:2  40, 41 24:22 46 24:26 43 24:28  41, 43 24:30 43 25:4 43 26:23  43, 46 26:25 43

Index of Scripture 1 Chronicles (cont.) 26:29 46 27:16 43 28:1 41 28:2 41 28:3 41 28:4 41 28:5 41 28:6 41 2 Chronicles 1:5  45, 46

2 Chronicles (cont.) 3:14 31 17:16 44 23:1 44 23:12 43 23:13 43 24:20 43 26:23 43 28:7  44, 45 29:14 43 35:20–22 26 36:4 26

Index of Other Ancient Sources

Note: Sources are cited as presented by the individual authors. Some items are cited by primary text reference numbers (e.g., EA 14), some by museum accession numbers (e.g., BM 40548), and some from secondary collections (e.g., COS), with some overlap.

Akkadian RIMA 2.173 212n 3.102.2 106n 3.102.28 106n RIMB 2.296 212n RINAP 1.47 SAA 1.74, Text 82  217n 19.16–17, Text 12  218n Sargon II inscription  215 Tiglath-pileser III Summary Inscription 7 (RINAP 1.47)  211, 211n Tukulti-Ninurta II  212 RIMA 2.173  212n

BM 40548  211, 211n COS 1.479 (Idrimi)  214 1.480 (Idrimi)  216n 2.279–82 (Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur of Sūḫu)  212n Emar texts  44n Enuma Elish  106 Hammurab/pi’s Law  156n, 158, 158n, 163, 164 xlviii 74–75  138–139 Idrimi  214, 216 see also COS Mari texts  213, 214 Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur of Sūḫu  211–12 RIMB 2.296  212n see also COS

Amarna EA (cont.) 287.27  95 288.14  95 367.7 22 368  65n

EA 10.44 22 11.26′ 22 14  65n 286.12  95

Ammonite Seals (per CAI) 55.1  61n 57.1  61n

Seals (per CAI, cont.) 61.1  61n

329

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Index of Other Ancient Sources

Aramaic AECT 49.1:1  60 AECT-L 2:1  60 12:1  60 13:1  60 15:1  60 16:1  60 18:1  60 Idumean ostraca  61 KAI 222A:29  60 222A:32  60 Papyri Amherst Papyrus  60n Elephantine papyri  60 see also under TAD North Saqqara Papyri (per Segal) 70:3  60n Persepolis Fortification Tablets  60n Seals (per ARAI) 69:1  60 74:1  60 75:1  60 76:1  60 80:1  60 83:1  60 375:1  60 425:1  60

TAD A3.11:3–4  60n A3.11:3  60n A5.4:1  60n A6.2  60n C1.1:165  60n C3.1:2–5  60n C3.7  59 C3.7 Ev1:2  59 C3.7 Ev1:14  59 C3.7 Ev1:16  59 C3.7 Ev2:5  59 C3.7 Ev2:19  59 C3.7 Fr1:7  59 C3.7 Fr2:4  59 C3.7 Gr1:12  59 C3.7 Gr2:22  59 C3.7 Gr3:16  59 C3.7 Jv2:7  59 C3.16:3–5  60n C3.26:15  60n D20.5:4  60n Tell Šēḫ Ḥamad (TelSheHa) 3:1  60 4:1  60 5:1  60 Tg. Neofiti 14:24  99n Uruk Incantation  60n

Deir ʿAlla Deir ʿAlla inscription  266n

Egyptian Amarna Boundary Stela N  72, 73 Amenemhet II inscription  11 Amenhotep III building inscription  94 Atum-Khepri benben-stone  9 Baʿal-Ṣaphon seal impression  13 Bakenkhons biography  29 BM 10731  103n Brooklyn Papyrus 35.1446  10, 10n, 11 Hathor-Nefer-Hetep furniture list  71 Horus and Seth  111 Khnumhotep tomb painting  225

KRI 1.7  107n 2.173  104n 3.298  29n 5.22  107n 5.63  104n 5.71  104n LEM 7.53 (P. Anastasi IV)  64, 64n 84.13 (P. Sallier I)  71, 71n 101.8–9 (P. Lansing)  72, 72n 109.10 (P. Lansing)  72, 72n

Index of Other Ancient Sources LEM (cont.) see also under Egyptian: Papyri Merenptah Stela  20, 80, 93, 94 Nefertity Colonnade  73 Papyri P. Anastasi III  83 IV  64 VI  224 P. Berlin 3033  129, 129n (see P. Westcar below) P. BM 10403  71n P. Chester Beatty III  110, 111 P. Lansing  72 2  72n 10  72n P. Sallier I  71, 71n III  110, 111 P. Westcar  129, 129n (see P. Berlin 3033 above) see also under LEM Pyramid Texts  71 PT 219  71 Ramesses II 400-year stela  13, 14 inscription  89 Kadesh inscriptions  94, 96, 96n, 98, 106 Kadesh Bulletin  98, 98n, 103n, 105 B87  105n B91–93  103n–104n Kadesh Poem  94, 98, n, 99, 100, 101n, 103, 105, 106, 106n, 108, 109, 109n, 110, 111, 112 P8  107 P12  101n P78  105n P123  99 P125  99 P126  99 P130  101n P136  107 P138–40  100 P141  100 P142  100 P155  107 P157  100n P158  100n

Ramesses II, Kadesh Poem (cont.) P161  100n P163  107 P197  107 P222  105n P224–49  101 P224  101 P225  101, 107 P226  101 P227  103 P228  103 P229  101 P230  101 P231  101 P234  101 P235  101 P236  101, 107 P237  101 P238  101 P239  101 P240  101 P241–42  107 P241  103 P242  103 P243  104 P247  104 P248  104 P276  107 P277  99 P279  99 P280  99 P281  99 P282  99 P285  99 P286  99 P290  107 P297  99 P298  105n P302  107 P305  107 P332  104 P333  104 P334  104 P335  104 P336  104 P338  104 P339  104 P340  104 P342  104

331

332

Index of Other Ancient Sources

Ramesses II, Kadesh Poem (cont.) P343  104 see also table 1 on p. 109 military tent (Abu Simbel)  96, 97 Ramesses III Medinet Habu inscription  107n Ramose tomb inscription  28–29 RITA 2.2–14  99n 2.17  104n 2.46  104n 4.133  103n 5.20  107n 5.50  104n 5.54  104n Satire of the Trades  111 Seker-Kha-Bau stela  71 Serabit el-Khadim Stela 93  10 Stela 95  10 Stela 98  10 Stela 110  9 Stela 114  9

Serabit el-Khadim (cont.) Stela 120  9 Seti I, Karnak Temple reliefs  107, 224 Sinuhe  94, 95 Tel el-Dabʿa Khayan inscription  15–16 Khety inscription  11–12 Scarabs  14, 15 Theban Tomb reliefs TT 16  75 TT 74  75 Topographical Lists (per Simons) XIII 59  88n XIV 61  88n XV 23  88n XVI a,3  88n XIX 5  88n XX 16  88n XXI 8  88n XXIV 39  88n XXXIV 124  88n Washptah biography  72, 73 Wax Crocodile story  128, 129n

Greek Artapanus apud Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.27.37  99n Hermagoras of Temnos  178 Homer 181 Josephus  151, 153, 188

Manetho 80 Philo  151, 153 Septuagint (LXX)  247n, 261n

45n, 46n, 134, 137,

Hebrew Abarbanel 115n B. Makkot 23b–24a  152n Mekilta Beshallaḥ 6, Exod 14:25  99n Baḥodesh 8, Exod 20:2–6  152n

Rashbam 115n Rashi 131 Seal inscription 

Latin Augustine 151

Phoenician KAI 5.9–10  57

82n

Index of Other Ancient Sources

Ugaritic Aqhat  46, 46n Baʿal Cycle  57n, 93, 106, 108 CAT/KTU 1.1 III.1  93 1.3 III 30  93 1.3 IV 20  93 1.4 VII 13–14  93 1.7 V 7  57n 1.8 VI 15  93

CAT/KTU (cont.) 2.47:17  57n 4.81:4–5  57 4.81:88–9  57 4.123:20  57 4.366:1–14  57 4.402:6  57n 4.691:6  57 5.22:16  57

333