Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible: The Ways the Bible Challenges Its Gender Norms (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Biblical Criticism) [1 ed.] 9781138216587, 9781315442006, 1138216585

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Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible

Though the Hebrew Bible often reflects and constructs a world that privileges men, many of its narratives play extensively with the gender norms of the society in which they were written. Drawing from feminist, masculinity, and queer studies, Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible uses close literary analysis to argue that the writers of the Bible intentionally challenge gender norms in order to reveal the dangers of destabilizing societal and theological hierarchies that privilege men and masculinity. This book presents a fascinating argument about the construction and import of gender in the biblical narratives and will be of great interest to academics in the fields of religion, theology, and biblical studies as well as gender studies. Amy Kalmanofsky is an associate professor of Bible at The Jewish Theological Seminary, US. She teaches courses on biblical literature, religion, and feminist interpretation of the Bible.

Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Biblical Criticism

1 Paul and Death A Question of Psychological Coping Linda Joelsson 2 Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible The Ways the Bible Challenges Its Gender Norms Amy Kalmanofsky

Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible The ways the Bible challenges its gender norms Amy Kalmanofsky

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Amy Kalmanofsky The right of Amy Kalmanofsky to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Kalmanofsky, Amy, author. Title: Gender-play in the Hebrew Bible : the ways the Bible challenges its gender norms / Amy Kalmanofsky. Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016033828 | ISBN 9781138216587 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315442006 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Gender identity in the Bible. | Sex role—Biblical teaching. | Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. Classification: LCC BS1199.G36 K35 2016 | DDC 221.8/3053—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033828 ISBN: 978-1-138-21658-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-44200-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Jewish tradition claims that the world stands on three pillars: Torah, labor, and kindness. Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible stands on the same three pillars. I am grateful to those whose subject expertise and critical challenges helped to make Gender-Play a stronger book. There were numerous anonymous readers as well as colleagues who spent serious time with this book when it was a manuscript, and whose suggestions added richness, complexity, and clarity to my arguments. I am particularly grateful to members of the Writing/Reading Jeremiah group of the Society of Biblical Literature as well as to the members of the Women’s Working Bible Group who provided supportive intellectual space in which to share and shape Gender-Play’s central ideas. Above all, I am grateful to those who studied with me at the Jewish Theological Seminary, in the many synagogue communities, and in the Wine, Women and Torah study group as my ideas formed. I am grateful for your insights, interest, and time—in other words—for your Torah, labor, and kindness. I dedicate this book to you. As always, I also dedicate this book to my family—to Jeremy, Yedidya, Hadas, Shaya, and Odelya. You are the five pillars upon which my world stands.

Contents



Introduction: Biblical gender norms

1

1 Eve and Adam

28

2 Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera

47

3 Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah

68

4 Jezebel and Ahab

95

5 The Shunammite and Elisha

114

6 Rebecca and Isaac

136

7 Jeremiah

161

Conclusions

186

Index197

Introduction Biblical gender norms

Gender expectations and identity An abandoned baby floating down the Nile River grows up to topple an empire and lead a nation. A Moabite woman pledges loyalty to her Israelite mother-in-law and gives birth to a boy whose great-grandson becomes Israel’s most beloved king. While an inexperienced boy, that greatgrandson proves his worth by defeating a giant warrior. Each of these biblical characters – Moses, Ruth, and David – exceeds expectations within his or her narrative. They are biblical underdogs whose stories capitalize on the ways the characters defy limitations of station and character. Pharaoh does not know that Moses will be his worst enemy. Otherwise, he never would have welcomed him into his home. If Naomi understood that Ruth’s loyalty would enable the birth of Israel’s greatest king, she would have demanded that Ruth join her in Judah, instead of begging her to remain in Moab. Goliath never would have accepted David’s challenge if he had known that David would chop off his head. Great stories defy the expectations set by the narratives themselves, and by their readers, capitalizing on the elements of suspense and surprise.1 The Bible is full of great stories. In this book, I argue that one of the ways the Bible plays with expectations is through its construction of gender. I contend that the Bible, at large, constructs a world that coheres to a consistent set of gender norms and expectations that I outline below. I also contend that many biblical narratives challenge the Bible’s conventional gender norms and expectations. These narratives present women and men who exhibit behaviors or characteristics that we usually associate with a different gender. In these gender-playing narratives, women seduce, overpower, and kill men, and men obey women at great personal expense. These stories, I argue, intentionally play with the gender expectations of their characters and their readers. For example, in Judges 4, the Canaanite general Sisera enters Yael’s tent. In the biblical world, a man entering a woman’s tent could mark the onset of domesticity and fertility, as it does in Genesis 18:6 and 24:67. It could also be a hostile invasion resulting in a sexual conquest. This is what Sisera’s mother and the wise Canaanite women assume in Judges 5:30. Expectations, of course, are not met in this narrative.

2  Introduction Instead of being conquered, a woman kills. Instead of fertility, there is death. In my reading of Judges 4 and of the other gender-playing narratives I analyze, the power of these stories relies in large part on the ways they defy the Bible’s conventional gender norms, most often by inverting the social hierarchy and the behaviors associated with it that privilege men. Although these narratives overtly play with and destabilize the Bible’s gender norms, I argue that they do not support an alternative set of gender norms and behaviors that encourage women to assume male characteristics or men to behave like women, at least not within the social realm, as I clarify below. Such a reading would not fit within the Bible’s conventional assumptions about gender or its typical patterns of behavior that I describe below and therefore, must be defended as the exception to the rule.2 More importantly, I demonstrate that the narratives that play with gender do not support this reading. When read closely and together, with specific attention to the gender dynamic that appears through the course of each narrative, it becomes clear that these narratives ultimately support the Bible’s conventional gender norms. As I demonstrate, the gender-playing narratives challenge these norms in order to uphold them.3 I also argue that these narratives do not construct a new gender identity that combines characteristics and behaviors typically associated with a particular gender. Therefore, these narratives intrinsically do not invite a queer reading that works to destabilize gender by identifying “a new identity distinct from both heterosexual and homosexual labels” or that falls “outside the boundaries defined by heterosexuality.”4 Corrine L. Carvalho defines queer theory as “an approach to gender that is deconstructionist in its aims,” and that “rejects the objective reality of sexual dichotomy functioning within patriarchy.”5 Similarly, Ellen T. Armour and Deryn Guest recognize a revolutionary or contrary quality to queer theory. Armour writes that “to ‘queer’ is to complicate, to disrupt, to disturb all kinds of orthodoxies,” particularly the orthodoxies related to the binaries that define sex and gender.6 Guest observes that “the confrontational, uncompromising stance of queer theory is one of resistance to such binaries: subverting, undoing, deconstructing the normalcy of sex/gender regimes, cracking them open, focusing on the fissures that expose their constructedness.”7 I do not offer a queer reading of the biblical stories I analyze because I think a queer reading would disturb the integrity of these narratives by imposing an interpretation on these texts that cannot be supported. Perhaps with the exception of the selections from Jeremiah, which I discuss in Chapter 7, the narratives I analyze construct a world that is deeply invested in distinguishing between masculinity and femininity, in keeping with the Bible’s general perspective. In my reading, the biblical stories that overtly play with gender are not interested in challenging heterosexuality or heteronormativity. In fact, they work to support them. I contend that these biblical narratives have a social agenda. They protect the gender hierarchy that privileges the Bible’s men by revealing the dangers of destabilizing gender

Introduction 3 norms – either by challenging the gender hierarchy, or by depicting men who behave like women and women who behave like men. I also contend that these biblical narratives have a theological agenda. They work to secure the hierarchy between Israel and God by protecting masculinity and by communicating the value of submission. Given these conclusions, my analysis of the gender-playing narratives fits more comfortably within the realm of feminist biblical scholarship, which seeks to expose patriarchal strategies in the Bible, rather than within queer biblical scholarship that seeks to subvert these strategies.8 In the Bible’s gender-playing stories, Israel’s women learn to submit to Israel’s men, and Israel’s men learn to submit to Israel’s male God. Deborah F. Sawyer makes a similar argument about the biblical narratives “that allow pre-eminence to particular women,” and in which “male characters can be denigrated to positions of powerlessness.”9 Sawyer argues that the Bible destabilizes gender expectations in these narratives “in order for the supreme manifestation of patriarchy – the power of the male god – to be triumphant and unchallenged.”10 Brittany E. Wilson notes a similar pattern in the Christian Bible’s book of Acts, which describes the “unmanning” of Saul/Paul that results in his recognition “that ultimate power resides with the God of Israel, who has acted in Jesus.”11 Seen in this way, the biblical stories I analyze that overtly play with gender norms do not reject the gender dichotomy functioning within patriarchy. They work to strengthen it. They operate within and uphold a gender hierarchy that grants men more power than women, and that grants Israel’s male God the most power of all. The stories of Eve and Adam, Deborah and Barak, Yael and Sisera, Manoah and his wife, Samson and Delilah, Jezebel and Ahab, the Shunammite and Elisha, and Rebecca and Isaac are stories in which women and men assume qualities and behaviors or perform acts more typically associated with the other gender. As depicted in his eponymous book, I also consider the prophet Jeremiah to be a figure who, at times, manifests a female’s perspective. I argue that the atypical gender dynamic is an essential part of each of these narratives that works to support the social and theological hierarchies that privilege men and God. My goal is to consider how individually and collectively these narratives challenge gender norms and support these hierarchies. Before presenting the atypical gender dynamic of these narratives, I first identify the Bible’s typical gender norms. Indebted to Judith Butler who argues that “the gendered body is performative,” many scholars consider gender to be a social construct that distinguishes between male and female behaviors, and that determines male and female identity and roles within a given society.12 According to Butler, gender norms are culturally constructed and must be learned and sustained through practiced behaviors.13 In this perspective, society and not biology determines gender behavior. Given this premise, the Bible’s gender norms should reflect ancient Israel’s gender norms. How accurately the Bible reflects the norms and practices of ancient Israel is a topic of considerable debate among scholars. Although scholars

4  Introduction agree that the Bible is a cultural product of ancient Israel, they also recognize that it is a composite work comprised of multiple texts composed and edited over time. Given the Bible’s complicated compositional history, it is difficult to pin down its ideology and its practices to a specific time. One expects attitudes toward gender and its norms to change over time. Also, the Bible may reflect and protect the interests of a particular constituency in ancient Israel. Therefore, it may have its own gender agenda that stands apart from more pervasive norms and practices of ancient Israel.14 Although I recognize the Bible to be a composite book, in this study I approach the Bible as a literary unit. My goal in doing so is to expose aspects of the gender dynamic within the Bible at large that are manifest in the narratives I analyze, rather than to reconstruct the gender norms of ancient Israel or to provide a compositional history of the Bible. I follow the example set by Mieke Bal in Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Bal views the biblical text “as a figuration of the reality that brought it forth and to which it responded.”15 I also follow the example of Don Seeman, whose analysis of Genesis 17–18 methodologically applies a “cultural poetics” that “takes as its concern those poetic features that are important to the cultural and not just to the literary analysis of biblical texts.”16 Both Bal and Seeman perceive the biblical text as being in conversation with the norms and values of the society that produced it. Yet they also recognize that the Bible, as literature, works “to form new associations and subtle reformulations.”17 I identify common attitudes and literary conventions related to gender in the stories I analyze, as well as address differences that may challenge the notion of a coherent gender dynamic within the Bible at large.

The biblical gender dynamic My goal is to consider how the Bible constructs gender within the texts I analyze, and to use these texts to illuminate broader aspects of the biblical gender dynamic. To this end, my focus is primarily textual and not theoretical. Although gender theory informs my textual analyses, I strive to allow the texts to speak for themselves, and therefore I pay most attention to rhetorical structures and literary details within the narratives I address. I am indebted to Phyllis Trible, whose description of the methodology she employed in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality mirrors my own; she writes: A literary approach to hermeneutics concentrates primarily on the text rather than on extrinsic factors such as historical background, archeological data, compositional history, authorial intention, sociological setting, or theological motivation and result. To be sure, these external concerns supplement one’s understanding so that the critic never divorces herself or himself from them; yet at the same time stress falls upon interpreting the literature in terms of itself.18

Introduction 5 Like Trible, I offer an “intrinsic reading” of the gender-playing texts that relies upon extrinsic factors like social/historical context and critical theory, but that primarily strives to interpret the literature in terms of itself. Because I identify literary patterns and a shared ideology among the gender-playing stories, I could also describe my methodology as intertextual. Carleen R. Mandolfo adopts a similar methodology in her study of the book of Lamentations, which she places in conversation with prophetic texts; she writes: The connections I foreground between prophetic revelations and Lam[entations] 1–2 suggest some intentionality, more or less depending on the particular portion of text being examined . . . in the end my work would best be understood as a type of intertextuality. This is so for two reasons: the evidence I examine is rarely conclusive enough to make a definitive call regarding allusion, nor am I much interested in establishing dependence and perhaps more important, I make connections between particular prophetic texts and Lamentations because in canonical and literary terms the texts themselves demand them, and because I think others’ readings of these texts will be enriched by these associations.19 The broad literary and ideological focus of this project is unique. Recent works examining biblical gender dynamics tend to be edited volumes or focused studies that do not adopt as broad a perspective as I do.20 In large part, the strength of my argument lies in a persistent pattern I identify in the texts I analyze. Given the chronological scope of biblical texts and their literary variety,21 looking for ideological coherence among various narratives is a suspect endeavor for some readers.22 For these readers my analyses may be viewed more as creative interpretations of the biblical texts, rather than as revealing something integral about the text.23 I acknowledge their concerns but respond that the sheer number of narratives that play with gender norms suggests, if not a coherent ideology related to gender in the Bible, at least a consistent, and perhaps persistent, literary trope regarding gender. Considering texts outside of the Hebrew Bible that play with gender norms, Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson similarly observe that the “literary and philosophical topos of the subject who is anatomically female but morally masculine is an exceptionally far-flung one, found in early Christian texts, and even in early Buddhist texts, as well as in ancient Jewish texts and pagan Greek and Roman texts.”24 Gender is an unsettling feature in many biblical narratives despite the fact that the Bible reflects and constructs a world in which gender norms and behaviors are clearly defined, as I discuss below. The many biblical stories that defy gender norms suggest that these stories share a literary function, perhaps introducing the elements of suspense and surprise that are the hallmarks of good literature. My readings of these narratives suggest that they do much more. Close reading reveals remarkable similarities in the ways

6  Introduction each narrative challenges biblical gender norms. In this book, I offer a way to understand the rhetorical function of these unconventional narratives and argue that the stories that defy gender expectations have significant social and theological objectives. In my reading, they are essential to the world and the theology constructed by the Bible at large. My readings take into account what we know about gender norms and relations in ancient Israel but are mostly concerned with the gendered world constructed by the Bible itself. As Bal notes, narrative “is a means of expression of a culture that is establishing its own history.”25 As such, narratives strive to construct a cohesive world, yet they, as Bal observes, never fully succeed. All narratives allow for what Bal terms to be “countercoherence,” a reading that looks for what has been repressed or left out of the cohesive official reading.26 By examining the Bible’s stories that play with gender, I analyze the moments in which conventional gender norms are challenged, though, according to my reading, are ultimately upheld. Looking at the unconventional helps us better understand the conventional. In the Bible, stories of Israel’s disobedience, such as its worship of the golden calf in Exodus 32, help clarify proper ritual observance, which does not include icons of any kind. By revealing behaviors that defy gender norms, texts that play with gender also provide insight into proper genderdefined behaviors. For example, Eve’s assertiveness in her narrative and its consequences supports a male-dominant gender hierarchy in marriage. But these texts also reveal the fragility of these norms, and the reality that gender norms are imposed and can be challenged. In other words, these texts reveal that gendered behavior is indeed socially constructed, as Butler declares, as opposed to innate, and therefore must be maintained continuously.27 Eve was not born to be subservient to Adam. God must impose subservience upon her. These texts also reveal that contemporary readers are not the only ones to consider the distinctions of gender. Gender was a category for the biblical authors as well, who intentionally play with its norms, and for their readers who would recognize and respond to the ways in which typical gender roles and behaviors are defied.

Biblical gender norms The following verse illustrates that gender determines behavior in the biblical world: Male instruments [‫ ]כלי גבר‬must not be put upon a woman; nor shall a man [‫ ]גבר‬wear a woman’s garment [‫]שמלת אשה‬, for all who do these things is an abomination unto YHWH, your god.28 (Deut 22:5) This passage is often understood as the biblical prohibition against transvestitism. Women should not wear men’s clothing, just as men should not wear women’s clothing. Yet, as Harold Torger Vedeler argues, this passage

Introduction 7 is mostly concerned with behavior, not apparel. Vedeler notes that the Bible prohibits women from putting on “male instruments,” which are most likely weapons and not garments.29 A woman who wears a weapon does not dress like a man, but behaves like a warrior – the proper translation for the Hebrew ‫גבר‬.30 Vedeler concludes that Deuteronomy 22:5 “reflects the most basic ideology of gender in Israelite society . . . it distinguishes not simply between male and female but also between different qualities of men.”31 To be a warrior, a male ideal, a man must avoid contact with items, like women’s clothing, that symbolize weakness. He must remain distinct from a woman and behave as a man. Stuart Macwilliam observes that a biblical man “performs his gender” in “terms of both rivalry with other men and contrast with women,” and “must maintain the clear distinctions that ‘naturally’ exist between men and women.”32 Claudia Bergmann similarly concludes that “being or becoming a female is considered utter failure for a male,” and that women and unsuccessful warriors “are characterized by their feminine dress and their lack of weapons.”33 As Bergmann observes, weakness was considered a feminizing quality in the ancient world.34 Deuteronomy 22:5 illustrates that the Bible reflects this world and does not want its men to appear weak like women. The Bible depicts a world defined by distinct gender behavior. Carol Meyers provides enormous insight into the cultural context of the Bible, illuminating life in ancient Israel, and the distinct roles men and women play in Israelite households. Her work provides essential background, helping to clarify the world that produced and is reflected in the Bible. As Meyers notes, the household was the “fundamental economic unit”35 of ancient Israel in which men and women had different, but equally important and valued roles to fulfill.36 Men engaged in the seasonal activities necessary to produce grain, such as plowing, sowing, and reaping.37 Women performed the daily maintenance activities that transformed the grain into edible food – such as parching and grinding grain and kneading dough and baking bread – along with other activities, such as childrearing and educating, clothing production, and a variety of household ritual functions.38 Although women’s labor was essential to household survival, and therefore valued, the distinct tasks women performed enabled them to develop particular skills and qualities that shaped a woman’s behavior distinct from a man’s. The food and clothing production tasks required great technical expertise and seemingly were performed communally in informal women’s networks.39 As a result, Meyers suggests that women in ancient Israel enjoyed the personal and communal benefits of social interaction. They received the physical assistance necessary to complete the tasks, as well as the emotional support of female companionship.40 They also enjoyed power. Women’s expertise was honored within women’s networks, and could even financially benefit their households, as it does for the woman of valor in Proverbs 31, affording some women a professional status.41 Given the value of women’s labor to the households, and the power they enjoyed as a result, Meyers argues for a more complementary gender dynamic than is typically

8  Introduction assumed in ancient Israel in which men and women exercise distinct power; she writes: Forms of female power may look different than forms of male power, but they cannot be discounted. Conventional ideas that see women as passive and powerless in all premodern societies thus misrepresent the reality, namely, that women’s maintenance roles in traditional agrarian societies translate into certain kinds of power that overlap with or complement male power.42 Although writing mostly about the world that produced the Bible, Meyers certainly offers an important corrective for contemporary readers of the Bible who are quick to overlay their own perspectives onto the Bible, and who judge the Bible harshly for not reflecting contemporary egalitarian values. Yet it remains important to distinguish between the world of ancient Israel and the Bible’s world.43 Although women may have enjoyed privilege and prestige in ancient Israel, many Bible scholars, among whom I am included, contend that the Bible reflects a patriarchal ideology – if not a patriarchal society – that politically, socially, and cultishly privileges its men over its women. Meyers challenges us to adopt a more objective critical perspective and insists that we take into account the daily lives of real Israelite women. She urges us to recognize the realm in which women were empowered and asks that we refrain from using what she argues is the anachronistic term of patriarchy.44 Her argument broadened the perspective of all Bible scholars and compelled feminist Bible scholars in particular to examine their biases and the assumptions reflected in their language. She convinced us that women were vital to, and even valued within, ancient Israel. Yet Meyers, in my opinion, underestimates essential aspects of Israelite society reflected in the Bible that determined a woman’s secondary status, such as its marriage practices, inheritance rights, and access to cultic participation and political power.45 These features, I argue, do not support a complementary gender dynamic. Instead, they reflect a culture that privileges its males and supports the use of the term “patriarchal” to describe life depicted in the Bible, and in ancient Israel as well. Despite noted exceptions, such as the story of Jacob, the Bible reflects a patrilocal society in which married women left their father’s house to live with their husband’s family. It also reflects a patrilineal society in which family property was passed through the male line, and a cultic system in which only male priests had direct cultic access. Given these features of Israelite society, Meir Malul suggests that women essentially had the status of a foreigner in ancient Israel.46 In contrast to Meyers, who contends that “male dominance was real; but it was fragmentary, not hegemonic,”47 Malul concludes: The doctrine of ‘male domination’ seems thus to be well grounded in reality and the woman does indeed seem to be (and to have been in the

Introduction 9 ANE) the perpetual object of control by the male, or the male society at large; and this tallies well with her perpetual status as the Other, that entity which is in constant need of being known and controlled.48

God’s masculinity and its impact on the Bible’s gender dynamic As I mention above, the Bible reflects the norms and practices of ancient Israel, but as a literary work, it forms “new associations and subtle reformulations.” The Bible is an ideological book informed by a social and theological agenda. It primarily seeks to establish a cultic practice as well as a system of cultic and political authority that secures allegiance to YHWH, Israel’s God, and the individuals who serve God. Most contemporary scholars acknowledge that the Bible portrays God as male, although they are quick to qualify what this means. Mark S. Smith observes that the God of the Bible “seems to have a male body,” though the Bible “rarely focuses on features that distinguish God as male.”49 Although lacking in detailed bodily descriptions, the Bible does depict God as various male figures, such as a king,50 a shepherd,51 a father,52 and a husband.53 Howard Eilberg-Schwartz argues that ancient Israel imagined God to be male, whether literally or metaphorically.54 Eilberg-Schwartz views God’s maleness, as I do, to be a determining factor in the Bible’s gender dynamic. Recognizing “the problems posed to human men by a father God,” Eilberg-Schwartz sees “divine masculinity and human masculinity as two separable and sometimes conflicting symbols.”55 Not only does the biblical God sometimes appear like a man, God also behaves like a man defending his male honor. Throughout the Bible, God is particularly concerned with Israel’s loyalty, which the prophets depict metaphorically as sexual fidelity. The prophetic equating of cultic loyalty to sexual fidelity reflects the values of the ancient world and its gender dynamics. In the ancient world, a man protected and controlled the sexuality of the women in his care. As Susan E. Haddox comments, it is a man’s job “to keep his wives faithful and his daughters chaste.”56 A man unable to do this was weak and shamed. His masculinity was compromised. The prophets portray Israel as the promiscuous wife and God as the betrayed husband.57 Israel’s promiscuity insults God’s male honor, and incurs God’s justified wrath. Ken Stone observes how the relationship between God and Israel in the book of Hosea reflects social anxieties related to sex and gender; he writes: As a way of insuring their own reputation and status . . . these men must demonstrate their ability to father children and to be absolutely vigilant with respect to both the sexual purity of the women of their household and the sexual intentions of other men. The failure to perform these tasks adequately puts one’s manhood at risk . . . the scenario utilized by Hosea, in which one’s wife and the mother of one’s children

10  Introduction is characterized as sexually promiscuous, represents a horrifying possibility that haunts the men who share these cultural values. Such values are used by Hosea to characterize Yhwh, for Yhwh reacts to the religious infidelity of Israel in much the same way that an Israelite man is expected to react to the sexual infidelity of his wife.58 Ezekiel 16:36–38 illustrates how God exerts control over Israel, thereby restoring his male honor and shaming Israel for her promiscuity: Thus says Lord YHWH: Because of your brazenness, revealing your nakedness through your promiscuity before your lovers . . . Therefore, I will gather your lovers whom you please, along with everyone you love and everyone you hate, I will assemble them against you from all around, and reveal your nakedness before them so that they will see your nakedness. I will inflict upon you the punishment of adulteresses and murderesses, and I will release bloody fury upon you. Along with ensuring the fidelity of Israel, God also is concerned deeply with other masculine attributes he possesses such as his physical strength and reputation. As Exodus 15:3 declares: “YHWH is a man [‫ ]איש‬of war.”59 God demands, and commands, military prowess, by assisting Israel in its battles and by condemning other nations to annihilation.60 At moments of great crisis, Moses appeals to God’s reputation as an invincible warrior and strong leader. When God threatens to destroy the people for wanting to return to Egypt after hearing the spies’ report that giants live in the land of Israel, Moses negotiates with God on the people’s behalf, saying: If you kill the people as if one man, the nations who hear the report will say: YHWH was incapable of bringing this people to the land that he swore to them so he killed them in the wilderness. (Num 14:15–16) Moses knows that God, like any male, does not want to be viewed as weak, and therefore will defend his honor and not destroy Israel. Throughout the Bible, God works hard to defend his reputation and protect his masculinity, seeking vengeance violently on those who challenge it.61 As T. M. Lemos observes, inflicting violence is a means to assert the “superior status . . . of the one inflicting violence upon someone else.”62 Lemos suggests that this dynamic is evident in the prophetic marriage metaphor mentioned above in which “physical force is used to establish, or reestablish, social hierarchies.”63 I contend that God’s maleness is among the most important factors influencing the Bible’s gender dynamic. It informs how men relate to women, and how Israel relates to God. The Bible, I argue, protects masculinity – a compilation of qualities I outline below. I also argue that the Bible protects the masculinity of its men, in large measure to protect the masculinity and

Introduction 11 the superiority of its God. In her study of the gendered language of warfare in Assyria and ancient Israel, Cynthia R. Chapman argues that “the biblical prophets portrayed their god as perfectly realized masculinity and then tied that masculinity to the legitimate exercise of power.”64 Addressing the meaning of God’s glory, ‫כבוד‬, Alan Hooker likewise argues that “‫ כבוד‬highlights Yahweh’s masculinity and that through ‫ כבוד‬theology Yahweh is constructed as the Most Masculine in accordance with those attributes of masculinity . . . namely, military prowess, the production of offspring, and physical beauty.”65 The Bible reflects a society that privileges its men and constructs an ideology that secures male superiority. This is why I consider the Bible to be a patriarchal book. It is my contention that the biblical stories that play with gender norms support this ideology and the hierarchy it engenders.66 As Harold C. Washington observes, gender is “an organizing category for human experience in the Bible.”67 The Bible, I argue, is invested in a gender dynamic in which women are politically, socially, and cultishly subordinate to men. As I mention above, Deuteronomy 22:5 illustrates that the Bible is invested in men behaving like men and women behaving like women. Because of this investment, the biblical world adheres closely to a binary notion of gender. Many contemporary gender scholars work hard to challenge the notion of a gender binary, and identify multiple manifestations of masculinity and femininity that do not conform to a strictly binary understanding of gender.68 Addressing masculinities, Roland Boer notes “that masculinity is by no means an eternal, static, and singular quality inherent to men, but that it is constructed, performed, multiple, fluid, and subject to historical change.”69 Although it may be possible to identify various expressions of masculinity in the Bible – priests, prophets, and patriarchs indeed may offer different paradigms of maleness – I contend that the Bible has a hegemonic notion of maleness manifest most clearly in its male God. Similarly, Ovidiu Creangă recognizes various expressions of masculinity in the Bible, but observes that the “diversity of biblical men and the many ways of being ‘manly’ are reduced in the holy script to a model that reflects little variation.”70 In my view, the biblical God represents the ideal male from which essential characteristics of human maleness can be drawn.71 Human maleness falls on a continuum that is in relation to God’s superior maleness. In crucial ways, the biblical God outmans humans, as is seen throughout this study.

Biblical masculinity and its impact on women Since the late twentieth century, feminist biblical scholars, and those influenced by them, have focused on women in the Bible and have illuminated the role and status of women within the Bible’s world.72 Only recently have scholars turned their attention to what it means to be a man in the Bible – considering how characters embody male characteristics and behaviors.73 David J. A. Clines identifies several essential ideal male characteristics based on the biblical portrayal of King David. The ideal man is a warrior whose

12  Introduction strength is measured by the number of men he has killed.74 He must be good with words and able to bond with other men. He also must be emotionally impervious to women. The ideal man, Clines observes, “does well to steer clear of women, a man does not need women, a man is not constituted by his relationship with women.”75 Agreeing with Clines, Haddox also observes that though a man should not become emotionally entwined with a woman, sexual potency, which she associates with military and political power, is an essential component of masculinity.76 Men can claim women in war.77 Royal men can claim women for political alliance.78 In his recent study on male coming-of-age narratives in the Bible, Stephen M. Wilson modifies and expands Clines’s essential male characteristics.79 For example, Wilson agrees with Clines that warriors are idealized men, but he identifies the core and valued quality “necessary for every warrior” as being “strength, both physical and psychological (i.e., courage),” and not a propensity for violence and an ability to kill, as Clines claims.80 Wilson also includes other essential characteristics of biblical manhood such as selfcontrol and marital status; he concludes: First and foremost, the biblical adult male must be physically strong and courageous, a quality that is most frequently and appropriately expressed on the battlefield. The idealized adult male must also have wisdom, evidenced by his persuasive words and prudent deeds. He avoids excessive socialization with women . . . He is further to embody self-control and self-mastery . . . He has ensured his legacy through his fertility . . . The concern for his heirs’ legitimacy means that he expresses his fertility within the confines of marriage, preferably an endogamous marriage. He defends the honor of his kin . . . finally, although the ideal male is not connected explicitly with a particular age, it is worth noting that several biblical legal texts consider twenty the age of legal majority.81 Many of these essential qualities of maleness apply directly to God. All, I argue, can be adapted to accommodate a notion of a God who is gendered male, but may not be viewed as biologically or sexually male. Eilberg-Schwartz observes that “a great deal of information is available about the gender of the monotheistic God, but the sex of this God is carefully obscured.”82 Given the absence of a clear image of divine anatomy in the Bible,83 a few of Wilson’s essential male characteristics must be modified to apply to God. For instance, God’s fertility is measured not through biological heirs, but through God’s ability to control the fertility of people84 and of the land.85 In the course of the Bible, Israel becomes God’s “kin.” Whether viewed as Israel’s husband or adopted father,86 God, the super man, protects, provides for, and defends the honor of his kin. Possessing these characteristics is essential to maintaining male honor. Honor, Clines asserts, “is essential for male identity” and is “a competitive matter.”87 It can be challenged, and therefore must always be protected. Even God’s honor can be challenged. In the biblical world, male honor is bound up

Introduction 13 with personal characteristics, such as strength, courage, and generosity.88 It is also bound up with circumstances. To preserve his honor, a man must protect and provide for his family.89 As I mention above, one important indicator of a man’s honor in the Bible is the chastity of the women in his household. As Haddox notes, allowing “another man to have unauthorized access to the women under his control is a direct threat to a man’s masculinity, which leads to great dishonor.”90 This dynamic plays out in the divine realm in the prophets’ depiction of Israel as God’s adulterous wife. It also is evident in the human realm in narratives such as the story of Dinah. In Genesis 34, Shechem sexually takes Dinah without authorization from her family. As her brothers’ deadly reaction indicates, this is an affront to the honor of Jacob’s family. The threat of male dishonor, whether divine or human, lies at the foundation of the biblical gender dynamic. It insists on maintaining behaviors and characteristics that differentiate men from women, and works hard to maintain gender distinctions. If men behave or appear like women, or are made to behave or appear like women, they suffer dishonor. Fear of the dishonor that comes from emasculation is manifest clearly in the widespread practice of ancient warfare evident in the Bible, in which victors humiliated and mutilated their enemies. Lemos observes that practices such as shaving off beards or exposing genitals91 were designed to feminize captives, thereby indicating their violated honor and lowered status.92 Similarly, commenting upon the iconography of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Levantine, Carole R. Fontaine notes: The desire to make one’s enemy into a female, suitable for destruction or enslavement, becomes the hallmark of such “military” art. . . . Maleness is a symbolic construction, representing potency, activity, agency, courage, movement, and, by inference, choice.93 Fear of emasculation is evident in several of the narratives I analyze.94 Within a male-privileged society like biblical Israel, gender distinction contributes to a perception of woman as other. Male physical and social qualities are perceived as normative, as Thomas Hentrich observes: “[T]he average and therefore normative Israelite in the eyes of the Old Testament editors was an able-bodied male, who was the head of the family and could sufficiently contribute to Israelite society.”95 In contrast, female physical and social qualities are considered other,96 and are associated with weakness.97 As Lemos observes, men could avoid being subject to violence and associated with weakness by “avoiding war or by triumphing in it.”98 In contrast, women were “by nature” subject to violence; Lemos writes: Her vulnerability was dual – she, too, might have her personhood effaced by enemy soldiers in war, but might also meet the same fate at the hands of her father, husband, or other men in her own society.99 According to Saul M. Olyan, the impurities accrued through menstruation and parturition regularly marginalized women of childbearing age as

14  Introduction “potential polluters,” thereby rendering them other. Olyan also notes the possibility that “immature girls and postmenopausal women share this stigmatization, given that they will become/once were women of childbearing age.”100 The association of women with impurity, and their consequential otherness, is manifest particularly in prophetic texts.101 Threat of male dishonor also leads to a social system in which men have dominion over women in order to protect masculine honor. Speaking specifically about the marriage metaphor, Lemos contends that the metaphor would be ineffective if it did not “conform to social norms and expectations – namely, if husbands were not the social superiors of wives, as Yahweh was superior to the Israelites, and if husbands did not have the power to punish wives, as Yahweh had the right to punish Israel.”102 Meyers is right to caution scholars against evaluating biblical norms and practices through the prism of contemporary values and experiences. We do not and cannot know what it was like for a biblical or an Israelite woman to live in the household of her father or her husband. Still, it is important to recognize the gender hierarchy which the Bible establishes in its first chapters, and assumes throughout, that privileges its men, granting them social authority and sexual control. The Bible clearly is invested in this gender hierarchy. Male honor demands that men provide for and protect their women, and controlling a woman’s sexuality is essential to this responsibility. As is evident in Genesis 34, fathers and brothers were responsible for maintaining the sexual purity of their unmarried daughters and sisters.103 The ritual inflicted upon a woman suspected of adultery illustrates that husbands were responsible for their wives’ sexual fidelity.104 This translates into a fundamental aspect of the biblical gender dynamic. The Bible is not comfortable with sexually aggressive women. Women can be sexually aggressive only when it serves the interests of their patriarchs, but they do so at great risk. In Genesis 38, Tamar is justified in sleeping with her father-in-law Judah since he did not force his third son to fulfill the duties of levirate marriage with Tamar. Yet she must trick Judah into sleeping with her, and is almost burned for her assumed promiscuity. Commenting on the Bible’s sexual dynamic, Athalya Brenner notes: Males are constructed largely as penetrators, insertive,[sic] initiators, active sexual agents; women are constructed largely as penetrated, receptors, passive sexual objects (an active seductress is condemned unless in the service of procreation). Whereas female sexuality is either ignored altogether or presented as negative and uncontrolled, male sexuality is presented as potentially normative or neutral.105

The social and theological significance of the Bible’s gender-playing stories In summary, conventional gender norms in the Bible distinguish clearly between men and women, associating qualities and behaviors with specific

Introduction 15 genders. The Bible’s conventional gender dynamic preserves this difference, and protects the gender hierarchy it creates. The Bible privileges men and protects masculinity. My goal in this book is to look at the narratives in the Bible that manifest an unconventional gender dynamic. I examine the stories of Eve and Adam; Deborah and Barak; Yael and Sisera; Manoach and his wife; Samson and Delilah; Jezebel and Ahab; the Shunammite and Elisha; and Isaac and Rebecca. I also consider the gender identity of the prophet Jeremiah. The existence of these narratives suggests that the biblical authors thought about gender, and intentionally played with its norms. The fact that they sometimes portrayed masculine women and feminine men suggests that on some level the Bible’s authors understood that gender was socially constructed, and that gendered characteristics and behaviors are not fixed. Sometimes men can be weak and women strong. Eve’s story alone indicates that women were not born to be subservient to men. According to this story, male domination is a consequence of human behavior. The existence of the biblical stories that defy gender norms also suggests that social roles were not so clearly defined in all realms of life in ancient Israel. Theodore W. Burgh observes how the gender of musicians portrayed in Mesopotamian iconography is often indeterminate, and that “cross-dressing in musical performance during the Iron Age was not uncommon.”106 From this, he concludes that gender roles in Israel and Mesopotamia during this period “may not be as demarcated as has previously been thought.”107 Similarly, Vedeler observes how cross-dressing was a cultic practice in Canaan and Mesopotamia associated with the worship of Ashtarte and Inanna/Ištar.108 Vedeler assumes this behavior was confined to a cultic setting since “in the normal gender ideology of ancient Near Eastern cultures, male and female roles were sharply defined and fixed.”109 Reflecting the malleability of ancient Israelite gender norms, the stories I analyze may reveal that the biblical gender norms are equally malleable, and that the patriarchal world of the Bible is not as strictly fixed as I suggested above. Although I acknowledge this possible conclusion, it is not the one I draw. As I mention above, I contend that the Bible constructs a gender-defined world that is invested in a hierarchy that privileges men. The stories I analyze help construct this world. Through a close literary analysis that draws from the resources of contemporary scholarship, my analyses of the stories that play with gender strive to illuminate gender dynamics in the Bible, and to consider the impact these stories have on the world created by the Bible. Although I argue that on some level the biblical authors recognize gender performance and perceive gender as a construct, I do not suggest that this gender ideology was clearly articulated by them, or that they crafted these stories specifically to manifest this ideology. Like Bal, I identify a countercoherence, and search for unexpressed meaning within the narratives I analyze. Naturally, this endeavor involves speculation. I hope that my readings provide insight into the gender dynamic of each individual narrative, regardless of whether readers perceive, as I do, a consistent gender ideology reflected collectively in these

16  Introduction narratives. My goal is to offer a convincing argument supported foremost by close readings of the biblical texts themselves in conversation with each other, and in conversation with contemporary scholarship. The stories I analyze are a significant part of the Bible’s narrative and ideology. By reading them together, I uncover common themes and features, and suggest a rationale for when and why the Bible defies its gender norms.110 These stories fundamentally are about power and submission. In essence, they upend the Bible’s typical and desired power dynamic in which men control women, Israel controls foreigners, and God controls Israel. By inverting the conventional power dynamic, these stories manifest social and theological instability and serve as impetus to realign the power dynamic, thereby protecting the normative gender hierarchy, and enabling the narrative to progress, once again conforming to conventional gender expectations. Ultimately, these narratives strive to maintain Israel’s proper relationship with God, by ensuring that Israel remains submissive to God. Submission, I argue, is a central value of the narratives that play with the Bible’s gender norms and expectations. I want to be clear that submission does not mean powerlessness. An individual or a community that submits does not forfeit all power, but acknowledges and lives in relationship with a higher power. In the Bible, women and Israel can influence and challenge men and God, but ultimately they must remain under their control and at their mercy. Abraham pleads before God on behalf of the righteous Sodomites in Genesis 18, but he does so respectfully and knows when to stop. Many biblical stories manifest women’s power. In fact, one could argue that women have some power in all the stories that feature them. What distinguishes the stories I analyze is that in these narratives, women overpower or are seen as being more powerful than the men. Although the Bible invests deeply in this conventional gender dynamic, it enables its readers to see an alternative dynamic through these stories, and even more radically, I argue, it demands that they embrace this alternative dynamic on some level. At its core, the Bible is concerned with Israel’s relationship to God. This relationship is both gender-conforming and gendernonconforming. It conforms to the gender hierarchy that privileges men by placing Israel in a subservient position to its male God. Yet it is gender nonconforming in that it asks those who relate closely to God (and in the Bible’s world these are men)111 to assume a female position vis-à-vis God. In other words, I distinguish between the social and theological realms. Both are gender-conforming in that they privilege masculinity. Yet the theological realm, I argue, demands male subservience to a male God. As we see in Chapters 6 and 7, Isaac and Jeremiah are both feminized men. To highlight their similarity, I analyze Isaac and Rebecca’s narrative out of its logical canonical order before turning to Jeremiah. Although often seen as the weakest link in the patriarchal chain, Isaac exhibits a compromised masculinity, which I argue reflects his intimacy with God. Similarly, I suggest that the prophet Jeremiah embodies male and female characteristics. He

Introduction 17 is most male when he relates to Israel and reflects God’s masculine power, but most female when he relates intimately to God. Although according to the Bible’s conventional gender dynamic, men must behave like men and women must behave like women in the social realm, on a deeply personal level, it appears that God wants men who behave like women. These are the men – like Isaac and Jeremiah – that God, the uber-male, relates most intimately to. As Eilberg-Schwartz observes, “The man is to his wife as God is to Israel.”112 Eilberg-Schwartz argues, as I do, that Israel’s intimacy with its male God undermines “accepted notions of masculinity” and results in the “feminization” of its men in the theological realm.113 Haddox draws a similar conclusion in her analysis of the biblical patriarchs; she writes: The patriarchs in Genesis, while flawed individuals, model a proper relationship with God. The patriarchs chosen are explicitly the less masculine of the pair, the one more likely to submit to God’s will. Despite the many faults the patriarchs have in their dealings with humans, they do show themselves willing to worship and submit to God, at the cost of their masculine honour and even their lives.114 The biblical texts I analyze invert the conventional gender hierarchy to reveal a world in which women can overpower men, and in which men can be overpowered. It is also a world in which women can behave like men and men can behave like women. Although subversive, this world serves the Bible’s central concern – protecting God’s masculinity while constructing a relationship between God and Israel. Ultimately, the Bible seeks to establish an intimate relationship between God and Israel. The relationship between God and Israel, like the relationship between men and women, is hierarchical. Just as a woman submits to the power and position of the men in her life, Israel must submit to God’s power and position as the ultimate male. The biblical texts that play with gender norms support the Bible’s conventional gender hierarchy, while enabling Israel to assume a woman’s place in relation to its God.

Notes 1 Literary critic Noël Carroll locates suspense in narratives in which there are competing possible outcomes, and the least likely outcome is the morally correct one. See Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 137–138. This definition works well in the context of the Bible. It is unlikely, but morally desirable by the Bible’s standards, that Moses and David defeat their enemies. 2 I am not suggesting that such readings are not possible, but rather that they are counterintuitive in the biblical context. Ilana Pardes is an example of a scholar who uncovers “countertraditions” in the Bible; she writes: “The Bible is a far more heteroglot text than Higher Criticism would have it . . . What Higher Criticism didn’t dream of dealing with (nor Bakhtin for that matter) is the gender code, or rather the possibility of friction between heterogeneous perceptions of

18  Introduction femininity. My goal is to explore the tense dialog between the dominant patriarchal discourses of the Bible and counter female voices which attempt to put forth other truths.” Ilana Pardes, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 4. In contrast to Pardes, I consider the narratives that play with gender to adhere to the Bible’s dominant patriarchal discourse. 3 Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson make a similar argument in their analysis of 4 Maccabees, a story that, according to their reading, plays with gender and presents a “manly” woman. They conclude: “Victory is achieved in 4 Maccabees only by accepting and reaffirming the dominant hierarchical continuum along which ruler and ruled, master and slave, male and female were positioned . . . Antiochus is feminized, his apparent mastery called severely into question because of his inferior level of self-control. But although Eleazar, the boys, and their mother emerge as the true men in the end, the connection between masculinity and domination is not overturned or seriously challenged in this book.” Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson, “Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees,” JBL 117:2 (1998), pp. 272–273. 4 Stuart Macwilliam, Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield and Oakville: Equinox, 2011), p. 45. 5 Corrine L. Carvalho, “Sex and the Single Prophet: Marital Status and Gender in Jeremiah and Ezekiel,” in Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East (eds. Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), p. 252. 6 Ellen T. Armour, “Queer Bibles, Queer Scriptures? An Introductory Response,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (eds. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), p. 2. 7 Deryn Guest, “From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens,” in Bible Trouble, p. 9. 8 I recognize that my project shares certain assumptions with queer scholarship about gender, in particular the assumption that gender norms are constructed. Ken Stone notes the overlap in feminist and queer studies, and observes “that feminist projects and queer projects, while not reducible to one another, are likely to remain intertwined due to the fact that both sets of projects have a stake in exploring, and contesting, hegemonic notions of proper gendered behavior....” Ken Stone, Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective, (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 112. 9 Deborah F. Sawyer, “Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham’s Masculinity,” in Gender, Religion and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (eds. Ursula King and Tina Beattie; London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005), p. 163. 10 Ibid., p. 164, 11 Brittany E. Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133:2 (2014), p. 370. 12 Butler writes: “Such acts, gestures, enactments, generally construed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means. That the gendered body is performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from various acts which constitute its reality.” Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), p. 185. 13 Ibid., pp. 22–24.

Introduction 19 14 Carol Meyers writes: “In general, however, the term gender denotes the culturally constructed, not innate, aspects of human life that differentiate females and males (or women and men). As such, it is not fixed but varies from group to group and also can change over time within a group. Moreover, a group’s ideas about appropriate gendered behavior do not always coincide with actual practice.” Carol Meyers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 6. 15 Mieke Bal, Death & Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 3. 16 Don Seeman, “ ‘Where is Sarah Your Wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible,” HTR 91:2 (1998), p. 105. 17 Ibid., p. 114. 18 Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), pp. 8–9. 19 Carleen R. Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), p. 10. 20 For example, see Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit eds., Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014), and Susan E. Haddox, Metaphor and Masculinity in Hosea (New York: Peter Lang, 2011). 21 The Bible includes a wide array of literary expression, such as narratives, poems, prayers, laws, and prophecies. 22 Despite the chronological scope of the biblical texts, I do not think it is impossible for there to be ideological coherence. The coherence could reflect a persistent gender ideology that spans generations or could be the product of an overall editorial perspective. 23 Trible owns the creative aspects inherent to her methodology; she writes: “Although it employs learned procedures, principles, and controls, this methodological approach resides in the realm of art. It uses critical tools but is not determined by them. Indeed, it welcomes intuition, guess, and surprise.” Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 11. 24 Moore and Anderson, “Taking It Like a Man,” p. 267. 25 Bal, Death & Dissymmetry, p. 18. 26 Bal writes: “A countercoherence relates the ‘official’ reading to what it leaves out; it relates the texts to the needs of the reader; it relates everything that is denied importance to the motivations for such denials.” Ibid., p. 17. Like Bal, Mandolfo looks for what has been left out of texts; she writes: “I want to recognize that all texts, of necessity, must exclude elements, that all texts make choices, and that reading honestly and carefully requires attending to the exclusions, those things that the text omits or wants us to overlook.” Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks Back, p. 9. 27 Butler perceives gender to be essentially unstable and contingent upon culturally ascribed norms. Drag performances, which intentionally play with gender norms, not unlike the Bible’s gender-playing narratives, reveal this contingency; she writes: “In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself – as well as its contingency. Indeed, part of the pleasure, the giddiness of the performance is the recognition of a radical contingency in the relation between sex and gender in the face of cultural configurations of causal unities that are regularly assumed to be natural and necessary.” Butler, Gender Trouble, p. 187. 28 All biblical translations throughout the book are my own. 29 Harold Torger Vedeler, “Reconstructing Meaning in Deuteronomy 22:5: Gender, Society, and Transvestitism in Israel,” JBL 127:3 (2008), pp. 469–473. See also

20  Introduction Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “Symbols for Masculinity and Femininity: Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic Rituals,” JBL 85:3 (1966), p. 332. 30 Mark S. Smith translates gibbôr as “warrior, strong one,” and observes that the word denotes “physical strength and size.” Mark S. Smith, Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2014), pp. 1–2. 31 Vedeler, “Reconstructing Meaning,” p. 473. 32 Stuart Macwilliam, “Athaliah: A Case of Illicit Masculinity,” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, p. 81. 33 Claudia Bergmann, “We Have Seen the Enemy, and He Is Only a “She”: The Portrayal of Warriors as Women,” CBQ 69 (2007), p. 665. 34 Ibid., p. 668. 35 Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, p. 123. 36 Meyers observes how in ancient Israel individual identity was “derived from her or his contribution to household life rather than from individual accomplishment.” Ibid., p. 119. 37 Ibid., p. 128. 38 Ibid., pp. 125–139. 39 Ibid., p. 139. 40 Meyers writes: “At the most basic level, this web of connections meant companionship and emotional support for women in the face of the drudgery of their tasks and the inevitable difficulties they encountered.” Ibid., p. 140. 41 According to Meyers, women could become cooks and bakers and make and sell textiles and could also be healers, and ritual professionals. See ibid., pp. 171–177. 42 Ibid., p. 184. 43 Meyers strongly opposes using the term patriarchy to describe Israelite society; she writes: “It is time for us to acknowledge that patriarchy is a Western, constructed concept, not a “social law” or an immutable feature of all societies . . . It is my contention that it no longer provides a valid heuristic formulation for representing Israelite society.” Carol L. Meyers, “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?” JBL 133:1 (2014), p. 26. 44 Meyers lobbies for the term “heterarchy” to describe Israelite society, which allows for multiple hierarchies and “acknowledges that different power structures can exist simultaneously in any given society, with each structure having its own hierarchical arrangements that may cross-cut each other laterally.” Ibid., p. 27. 45 Robert S. Kawashima writes: “A girl lived under the legal guardianship or ‘house’ of her father (beit ’av), until she was betrothed and eventually married, at which point she entered the guardianship of ‘house’ of her husband (beit ’ish). In other words, a woman could never attain to the same legal status as her male counterpart, unless she was widowed or divorced – that is, detached from the houses of both father and husband.” Robert S. Kawashima, “Could a Woman Say “No” in Biblical Israel? On the Genealogy of Legal Status in Biblical Law and Literature,” AJS Review 35:1 (2011), p. 8. 46 Meir Malul, Knowledge, Control and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture and Worldview (Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2002), p. 355. 47 Meyers, “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?” p. 27. 48 Malul, Knowledge, Control and Sex, p. 360. 49 Mark S. Smith, How Human Is God? Seven Questions about God and Humanity in the Bible (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2014), p. 56. In his article identifying three types of divine bodies, Smith notes the rare direct reference to God as a “man.” Mark S. Smith, “The Three Bodies of God in the Hebrew Bible,” JBL 134:3 (2015), pp. 474–475.

Introduction 21 0 Psalms 93; 97; 99. 5 51 Gen 48:15; Psalms 23; 80. 52 Exod 4:22; Hos 11:1; Isa 63:16. 53 Hosea 2; Jeremiah 2; Ezekiel 16; 23. There are a few notable biblical passages that suggest that God is gendered female and exhibits maternal qualities. See Deuteronomy 32:13; Numbers 11:11–15; Isaiah 42:14; Isaiah 49:14–15; and Isaiah 66:12–13. For discussions of female imagery associated with God, see Julia A. Foster, “The Motherhood of God: The Use of hyl as God-Language in the Hebrew Scriptures,” in Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson (ed. Lewis M. Hopfe; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), pp. 93–102; and L. Juliana M. Claassens, “Rupturing God-Language: The Metaphor of God as Midwife in Psalm 22,” in Engaging the Bible in a Gendered World: An Introduction to Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Katharine Doob Sakenfeld (eds. Linda Day, Carolyn Pressler; Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), pp. 166–175. 54 See Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon, 1994), pp. 13–29. 55 Ibid., p. 6. 56 Susan E. Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Ovidiu Creangă; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), p. 6. 57 Hosea 1–3; Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 16; 23. 58 Stone, Practicing Safer Texts, p. 119. 59 Mark S. Smith observes how Israel’s warrior God conflates roles and co-opts attributes previously associated in particular with female warrior goddesses of the ancient Near East such as Anat. See Smith, Poetic Heroes, p. 326. 60 Israel’s struggles with Amalek illustrate how God both assists Israel in battle, and commands Israel to engage in battle. See Exodus 17:8–16 and 1 Samuel 15. 61 See Jeremiah 48: 41–42; 50:31. In “ ‘As she did, do to her!’: Jeremiah’s OAN as Revenge Fantasies,” I argue that the foreign nations insulted God’s male honor, and that God defends and restores his honor in the oracles against them. See Concerning the Nations: Essays on the Oracles against the Nations in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (eds. Else K. Holt, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, and Andrew Mein; New York and London: T&T Clark, 2015), pp. 109–127. 62 T. M. Lemos, “Physical Violence and the Boundaries of Personhood in the Hebrew Bible,” HeBAI 2 (2013), p. 501. 63 Ibid., p. 528. Lemos writes about the punishment depicted in Ezekiel 16:40: “The woman has gone against a social order in which husbands have the right to control their wives and enjoy exclusive access to their bodies, and the stoning reasserts her subordination through a communal act of ritual violence.” Ibid. 64 Cynthia R. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the IsraeliteAssyrian Encounter (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), pp. 7–8. 65 Alan Hooker, “ ‘Show Me Your Glory’: The Kabod of Yahweh as Phallic Manifestation?” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, p. 19. 66 As Meyers observes, a patriarchal system is a hierarchical system; she writes: “[I] t is important first to recognize the nature of patriarchy as a hierarchical system. As anthropologists define it, hierarchy designates an organizational structure in which, on the basis of certain factors, some elements are subordinate to others and are usually ranked accordingly.” Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, p. 196. Meyers’s preferred term heterarchy to describe ancient Israel works to recognize the existence of multiple hierarchies in Israelite society – some that place women in the privileged position. Perhaps multiple hierarchies existed in Israelite society. My perception is that they do not exist in the world constructed by the Bible.

22  Introduction The biblical world places men in the privileged position in all realms, and therefore should be described as patriarchal. 67 Washington is speaking specifically about the impact the Deuteronomic war code exerts on the Bible. See Harold C. Washington, “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible: A New Historicist Approach,” BI 5:4 (1997), p. 345. 68 See Stephen M. Whitehead, Men and Masculinities (Cambridge and Malden: Polity, 2002), Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), and J. Jack Halberstam, Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Boston: Beacon, 2012). For an example of how the gender binary is being challenged socially in contemporary society see Amy Ellis Nutt, Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family (New York: Random House, 2015). 69 Roland Boer, The Earthy Nature of the Bible: Fleshly Readings of Sex, Masculinity, and Carnality (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillian, 2012), p. 72. 70 Ovidiu Creangă, “Introduction,” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, p. 6. 71 Hooker draws a similar conclusion about the meaning of God’s glory; he writes: “As (a manifestation of) Yahweh’s body, Glory shares in the normative masculinity embodied by Yahweh and the ways in which Yahweh functions as the man par excellence.” Hooker, “ ‘Show Me Your Glory,’ ” p. 20. 72 I consider the publication in 1978 of Phyllis Trible’s God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality to mark the beginning of feminist biblical scholarship as a distinct critical discipline. 73 David J. A. Clines was among the first scholars to address masculinity. See “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible,” in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995), pp. 212–243. More recently, see Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Ovidiu Creangă; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010) and Creangă and Smit’s Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded. Creangă observes that female characters can embody masculine qualities; he writes: “Biblical masculinities as distinct representations of the male gender is not about studying the Bible’s male characters . . . Rather, it is about studying male and/or female characters and their ‘manly’ acts. It is the multiple de- or re-constructions of the male gender in biblical literature that drives the investigation, not the sex of the character/s examined.” Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, p. 4. 74 A warrior is someone who has physical strength and a capacity for violence. Clines notes that David’s body count is 140,000 men. Clines, “David the Man,” pp. 216–219. 75 Ibid., pp. 226–227. 76 Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” p. 4. 77 Deuteronomy 21:10–14. 78 1 Kings 3:1. 79 Wilson notes that “despite scholars’ frequent emulation of Clines’s work, not all of his conclusions stand up to closer scrutiny.” Stephen M. Wilson, Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 30. 80 Ibid., pp. 31–33. 81 Ibid., pp. 45–46. 82 Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus, p. 24. 83 Eilberg-Schwartz writes: “Not only is there no indication that this God has a penis, but we do not even know whether this being has secondary sexual characteristics such as facial hair. We have no information about the divine anatomy.” Ibid.

Introduction 23 84 This accounts for the barren wife motif. See Geneis 21:1, 25:21, 29:31, and 30:22. 85 See Deuteronomy 11:13–14, 28:11. 86 For an analysis of God as Israel’s adopted father, see Janet L. R. Melnyk, “When Israel Was a Child: Ancient Near Eastern Adoption Formulas and the Relationship between God and Israel,” in History and Interpretation: Essays in Honour of John H. Hayes (eds. M. Patrick Graham, William P. Brown, and Jeffrey K. Kuan; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), pp. 245–259. 87 David J. A. Clines, “He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters,” in Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll (eds. Alastair G. Hunter and Phillip R. Davies; London and New York: Sheffield Academic, 2002), p. 316. 88 Wilson writes: “This means that while an idealized biblical man may engage in sexual competition with other men to gain honor, he is just as likely to acquire honor through values that promote social cohesion such as hospitality or grace.” Wilson, Making Men, p. 44. 89 Stone writes: “[T]he domain of sexuality is only one of several domains in which a man must embody norms of masculine behavior. Among the other components of a man’s skill ‘at being a man’, we also find references to the provision of food for one’s dependents . . . A review of the relevant anthropological literature seems to indicate that these two components of male honor – sexual vigilance and the ability to provide – often go together.” Stone, Practicing Safer Texts, p. 119. 90 Susan E. Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” in Men and Masculinity, p. 6. 91 2 Samuel 10:4. 92 T. M. Lemos, “Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible,” JBL 125:2 (2006), p. 241. 93 Carole R. Fontaine, “ ‘Be Men, O Philistines!’ (1 Samuel 4:9): Iconographic Representations and Reflections on Female Gender as Disability in the Ancient World,” in This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (eds. Hector Avalos, Sarah Melcher, Jeremy Schipper; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), pp. 66–67. 94 Wilson cautions against reducing masculinity to avoiding “identification with and as a woman.” He suggests that the “general avoidance of women” among the Bible’s men reflects “the need to avoid infantilization,” since the Bible often associates women with children. Addressing the practice of shaving the beards of defeated enemies, Wilson writes: “This need for men to avoid infantilization could be the motivation behind the common practice of shaving the beard of a defeated enemy (e.g., Jer 41:5; 2 Sam 10:4) and is almost certainly the cause for shaving the head (Judg 16:17), or the head and pubic region of a conquered foe (Isa 7:20).” Wilson, Making Men, p. 38. 95 Thomas Hentrich, “Masculinity and Disability in the Bible,” in This Abled Body, p. 78. 96 Fontaine writes: “Femaleness is characterized as the binary opposite, and, for the male worldview, to be female is to be handicapped in all essential ways.” Fontaine, “ ‘Be Men, O Philistines!’,” p. 67. 97 Chapman observes that femininity in the biblical and Assyrian military narratives is “an empty, negative category used to describe failed masculinity.” Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare, p. 8. 98 Lemos, “Physical Violence,” p. 530. 99 Ibid., pp. 531. 100 Saul M. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 59.

24  Introduction Eilberg-Schwartz similarly writes: “The otherness of women is recognized and reinforced through rituals that associate impurity with menstruation and childbirth and that bar women from contact with the sacred.” Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus, p. 141. 101 Jeremiah 13:27 offers an example. According to Alice A. Keefe, the conflation of women with impurity is a result of the exile; she writes: “The exilic legislators were particularly obsessed with ritual cleanness, and fears concerning the defilement of the body politic were projected on to the bodies of women as the carrier of ritual contamination.” Alice A. Keefe, Woman’s Body and the Social Body in Hosea (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), p. 187. 102 Lemos, “Physical Violence,” p. 526. 103 Dinah’s brothers’ outrage at Jacob’s lack of response to Shechem’s unauthorized taking of Dinah suggests that they expect Jacob to avenge Dinah’s sexual violation. 104 Numbers 5. Analyzing the laws regulating female sexuality found in the book of the Covenant (BC) in Exodus and in Deuteronomy (DL), Cheryl B. Anderson concludes: “The BC and the DL systematically favor males because they confer upon males the right to control female sexuality . . . the implication of the laws concerning unlawful intercourse is that before her marriage or engagement, a female’s sexuality is controlled by her father, and after marriage, it is controlled by her husband.” Cheryl B. Anderson, Women, Ideology and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004), p. 80. 105 Athalya Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire & ‘Sexuality’ in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden, New York, Kőln: Brill, 1997), p. 178. 106 Theodore W. Burgh, “ ‘Who’s the Man?’ Sex and Gender in Iron Age Musical Performance,” Near Eastern Archaeology 67:3 (2004), p. 130. 107 Ibid., p. 134. 108 Vedeler, “Reconstructing Meaning,” p. 465. 109 Ibid., 467. 110 Smith similarly provides a rationale for the “gender inversion” he identifies in warrior poetry, and offers three possible explanations for the phenomenon. See Mark S. Smith, Poetic Heroes, pp. 73–74. 111 These are the biblical priests, prophets, and patriarchs. Like Meir Malul, I assume that women were secondary citizens of the nation of Israel. Although many scholars argue that women did participate in the centralized cult, most agree that they did not participate as fully as their male counterparts. See Cheryl B. Anderson, Women, Ideology, and Violence, pp. 39–40. For a discussion of how the Israelite cult came to exclude women, see Carol Meyers, “The Roots of Restriction: Women in Early Israel,” BA (1978), pp. 91–103. Because women did not have the same cultic obligations as men, and did not assume leadership positions in the cult, I argue that the biblical God does not seek nor experience intimacy with women as God does with men. 112 Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus, p. 99. 113 Ibid., p. 3. 114 Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” p. 15.

Bibliography Anderson, Cheryl B. Women, Ideology and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004.

Introduction 25 Armour, Ellen T. “Queer Bibles, Queer Scriptures? An Introductory Response.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, edited by Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, 1–7. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Bal, Mieke. Death & Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Bergmann, Claudia. “We Have Seen the Enemy, and He Is Only a “She”” The Portrayal of Warriors as Women.” CBQ 69 (2007), pp. 651–672. Brenner, Athalya. The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire & ‘Sexuality’ in the Hebrew Bible. Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1997. Burgh, Theodore W. “ ‘Who’s the Man?’ Sex and Gender in Iron Age Musical Performance.” Near Eastern Archaeology 67:3 (2004), pp. 128–136. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. Carvalho, Corrine L. “Sex and the Single Prophet: Marital Status and Gender in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.” In Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Easternnbn Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East, edited by Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho, 237–267. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Chapman, Cynthia R. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. Claassens, Juliana M. “Rupturing God-Language: The Metaphor of God as Midwife in Psalm 22.” In Engaging the Bible in a Gendered World: An Introduction to Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, edited by Linda Day, Carolyn Pressler, 166–175. Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Clines, David J. A. “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible.” In Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible, edited by David J. A. Clines, 212–243. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995. Clines, David J. A. “He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters.” In Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll, edited by Alastair G. Hunter and Philip R. Davies, 311–328. London and New York: Sheffield Academic, 2012. Creangă, Ovidiu and Peter-Ben Smit, eds. Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Fontaine, Carole R. “ ‘Be Men, O Philistines!’ (1 Samuel 4:9): Iconographic Representations and Reflections on Female Gender as Disability in the Ancient World.” In This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies, edited by Hector Avalos, Sarah Melcher and Jeremy Schipper, 61–72. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Foster, Julia A. “The Motherhood of God: The Use of hyl as God-Language in the Hebrew Scriptures.” In Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson, edited by Lewis M. Hopfe, 93–102. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994.

26  Introduction Guest, Deryn. “From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, edited by Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, 9–43. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Haddox, Susan E. “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities.” In Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Ovidiu Creangă, 2–19. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Haddox, Susan E. Metaphor and Masculinity in Hosea. New York: Peter Lang, 2011. Halberstam, J. Jack. Female Masculinity. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998. Halberstam, J. Jack. Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. Boston: Beacon, 2012. Hentrich, Thomas. “Masculinity and Disability in the Bible.” In This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies, edited by Hector Avalos, Sarah Melcher and Jeremy Schipper, 73–87. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Hoffner, Harry A. Jr. “Symbols for Masculinity and Femininity: Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic Rituals.” JBL 85:3 (1966), pp. 326–334. Hooker, Alan. “ ‘Show Me Your Glory’ ” The Kabod of Yahweh as Phallic Manifestation?” In Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, edited by Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit, 17–34. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014. Kalmanofsky, Amy. “ ‘As She Did, Do to Her!’: Jeremiah’s OAN as Revenge Fantasies.” In Concerning the Nations: Essays on the Oracles against the Nations in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, edited by Else K. Holt, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, and Andrew Mein, 109–127. New York and London: T&T Clark, 2015. Kawashima, Robert S. “Could a Woman Say “No” in Biblical Israel? On the Genealogy of Legal Status in Biblical Law and Literature.” AJS Review 35:1 (2011), pp. 1–22. Keefe, Alice A. Woman’s Body and the Social Body in Hosea. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Lemos, T. M. “Physical Violence and the Boundaries of Personhood in the Hebrew Bible.” HeBAI 2 (2013), pp. 500–531. Macwilliam, Stuart. “Athaliah: A Case of Illicit Masculinity.” In Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, edited by Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit, 69–85. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014. Macwilliam, Stuart. Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield and Oakville: Equinox, 2011. Malul, Meir. Knowledge, Control and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture and Worldview. Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2002. Mandolfo, Carleen R. Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Melnyk, Janet L. R. “When Israel Was a Child: Ancient Near Eastern Adoption Formulas and the Relationship between God and Israel.” In History and Interpretation: Essays in Honour of John H. Hayes, edited by M. Patrick Graham, William P. Brown and Jeffrey K. Kuan, 245–259. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993. Meyers, Carol. Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Meyers, Carol. “The Roots of Restriction: Women in Early Israel.” BA (1978), pp. 91–103.

Introduction 27 Meyers, Carol. “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?” JBL 133:1 (2014), pp. 8–27. Moore, Stephen D. and Janice Capel Anderson. “Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees,” JBL 117:2 (1998), pp. 249–273. Nutt, Amy Ellis. Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family. New York: Random House, 2015. Olyan, Saul M. Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pardes, Ilana. Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1992. Sawyer, Deborah F. “Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham’s Masculinity.” In Gender, Religion, and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by Ursula King and Tina Beattie, 162–171. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005. Seeman, Don. “ ‘Where is Sarah Your Wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible.” HTR 91:2 (1998), pp. 103–125. Smith, Mark S. How Human Is God? Seven Questions about God and Humanity in the Bible. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2014. Smith, Mark S. Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2014. Smith, Mark S. “The Three Bodies of God in the Hebrew Bible.” JBL 134:3 (2015), pp. 471–488. Stone, Ken. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978. Vedeler, Harold Torger. “Reconstructing Meaning in Deuteronomy 22:5: Gender, Society, and Transvestitism in Israel.” JBL 127:3 (2008), pp. 459–476. Washington, Harold C. “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible.” BI 5:4 (1997), pp. 324–363. Whitehead, Stephen M. Men and Masculinities. Cambridge and Malden: Polity, 2002. Wilson, Brittany E. “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133:2 (2014), pp. 367–387. Wilson, Stephen M. Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

1 Eve and Adam

An overview of the gender dynamic The best evidence to support the premise that the biblical authors considered gender to be a social category, and intentionally played with its norms, may be the Bible’s first narrative – the story of Eve and Adam in the garden of Eden – in which gender norms are fixed, and the hierarchy is established between men and women, and between men and God. The Bible begins with this story because it sets the stage for all that follows. As Carol Meyers observes, Eve and Adam are both archetypes and prototypes. They are archetypes in that they manifest qualities of all males and females, and they are prototypes for Israelite men and women living in Iron Age Israel.1 Seeing them as archetypes and prototypes, as humans and as Israelites, supports my thesis that the gender dynamic that defines human relationships helps define the relationship between God and Israel as well. Eve and Adam’s story, I argue, is not just about how women relate to men. It is also about how Israel relates to God. It demonstrates how the hierarchy between men and women reflects and impacts their relationship with God. Although scholars have carefully distinguished between gender and sexuality, perceiving gender as a social construct and sex as biologically defined, many recognize that gender and sexuality are often intertwined, since biological features can affect social behaviors. As Diane F. Halpern writes in Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilitlies, “[W]e are all biological organisms that develop within a cultural environment.”2 In Adam and Eve’s story, gender and sexuality are both defined and intertwined concerns. It is possible to read this story as a fable about the development of human sexuality. Eve and Adam begin their narrative sexually innocent. According to Mieke Bal, they exist as ‫ איש‬and ‫אשה‬, as a biologically differentiated man and a woman. In Genesis 2:25, the Bible comments that they were naked and not ashamed. In Bal’s reading of this verse, their lack of shame indicates an initial lack of awareness of their sexually differentiated bodies.3 In the next episode and stage of their development, the serpent convinces Eve to eat from the divinely prohibited tree of knowledge. Eve then offers its fruit to Adam, who also eats. Although the narrative does not specify the knowledge Eve and Adam

Eve and Adam 29 gain from their transgression, their immediate reaction to eating the fruit, the awareness that they are naked [‫]וידעו כי עירמם הם‬, suggests that they acquire sexual knowledge, especially since, as Bal notes, throughout the Bible the root ‫ידע‬, to know, often indicates sexual intercourse.4 The role the serpent plays in the narrative also supports this reading. The overtly phallic creature represents, as Dmitri M. Slivniak observes, the animal kingdom or “the ‘animal’ side of the human being escaping rational control” – in other words, the snake represents the sexual drive.5 The attribute ‫ ערום‬crafty, applied to the serpent is a not-so-subtle play on the word ‫ערומים‬, nakedness, creating an association between the serpent and Adam and Eve’s sexuality. The serpent is responsible for Adam and Eve’s loss of sexual innocence. He brings them from a state of being unaware of their nakedness – their sexuality – to being aware. Awareness of their sexuality inevitably leads Adam and Eve to the biological reality of childbirth, bringing the fable of sexuality to its logical conclusion. Biologically defined sex certainly plays a role in Eve and Adam’s story. But so does socially constructed gender. My analysis argues that this story is concerned with establishing the distinct roles men and women assume in society, as well as the way men and women relate to one another – their gender dynamic. In particular, I argue that the gender dynamic is not biologically determined, since it is presented as part of the punishment inflicted upon Eve and Adam, as opposed to being inherent to their nature and relationship. The gender dynamic established by Eve’s and Adam’s punishments reflects the Bible’s conventional gender norms in which men control women sexually and socially. Therefore, in my reading, the gender dynamic presented prior to the punishment in the narrative of their transgression is unconventional. I consider the features of the unconventional gender dynamic in light of the conventional one. I also consider the impact the gender dynamic has on the other central relationship in this narrative – the relationship between God and humanity – and argue that the gender dynamic established between Adam and Eve is paradigmatic of the relationship between God and Israel. In this way, the social and the theological realms mirror each other. Both protect and privilege masculinity. They also intertwine. An inversion of the social hierarchy threatens the theological hierarchy. Adam disobeys God when he obeys Eve. Eve and Adam’s story falls into three distinct stages.6 There is the “before” stage in which Adam and then Eve are created, the “during” stage in which Eve and Adam transgress, and the “after” stage in which God renders his punishment. How one interprets each of these stages is critical to constructing a cohesive understanding of the narrative. For readers like Phyllis Trible, who perceive the before stage, in which God created Eve to be Adam’s ‫( עזר כנגדו‬his companion), as reflecting an ideal moment of gender equality; the during and after stages disrupt this ideal and introduce strife and subordination into the narrative and the world.7 Readers like Jerome Gellman perceive Adam as “exclusively sexually a male all-along,”8 and view Eve as

30  Eve and Adam subject to him from the time of her birth. The during and after stages of the narrative exist on a continuum, and do little, if anything, to alter the initial gender dynamic.9 For Gellman, then, there is no point of comparison – no unconventional gender dynamic to define in contrast to a conventional one. By not perceiving a disruption in the gender dynamic, this reading could support the notion that gender behavior is innate and not constructed. My reading aligns more with Trible’s, at least initially, but comes to a conclusion similar to Gellman’s. Like Trible, I contend that there is an initial stage in which men and women coexist with limited hierarchy.10 Eve disrupts this stage with unconventional (that is, within the greater context of the Bible) gender behavior in which she overpowers Adam, thereby forcing God to institute a gender hierarchy that privileges men. Like Gellman, I argue that Eve and Adam’s story has a patriarchal agenda that supports male control over women. Gellman concludes: I believe that the attempt to read Genesis 2–3 as woman-friendly, and to neutralize the theme of male sexual domination, does not and cannot succeed. We are doomed to understand this story as androcentric in nature. Hence, this story cannot serve us as a source for a primal ideal of gender and sexual egalitarianism between men and women.11 My conclusion differs from Gellman in that I suggest that the Bible preserves two alternative gender dynamics – one in which women and men coexist without hierarchy (the before stage) and one in which women dominate (the during stage). Ultimately, the Bible supports the male-dominant gender hierarchy of the after stage. But by preserving these other alternatives, the Bible suggests that gender behavior is constructed, not innate, and that men and women, at least theoretically, could adopt a different gender dynamic – though they do so at their peril. Eve and Adam’s story relates how upending the gender hierarchy that privileges men in the social realm disrupts the relationship between God and humanity. In my analysis of Adam and Eve’s story, I work backward and begin with the after stage part of the narrative, in which the Bible’s conventional gender dynamic is established. My choice to begin with the end enables me to define the unconventional in terms of the conventional. I believe that it is easier to know what is extraordinary if you first know what is ordinary.

Establishing the conventional gender dynamic In the final episode of the narrative, God punishes all three participants in the transgression: the serpent, Eve, and Adam. Many commentators agree that the order in which they are punished matters, just as the order in which they were created, and the order in which they transgressed mattered. Trible observes that the order of judgment – from serpent to woman to man – mirrors the order of their disobedience, demonstrating how the punishment

Eve and Adam 31 fits the crime.12 In my reading, the order of the punishment reflects the posttransgression relationships that exist between the animal world, represented by the serpent, women, and men. Post-transgression, enmity and hierarchy have replaced harmony in all these relationships. In Genesis 3:14–15, God curses the snake: Lord, YHWH said to the serpent: Because you did this, you are more cursed than all the wild beasts and than all the animals of the field. You will walk upon your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will place enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers. They will bruise your head, and you will bruise their heel. The serpent’s punishment is twofold. First, its status among the animals is diminished, which indicates an animal hierarchy that places the serpent at the bottom. Prior to God’s curse, the serpent seems to be a hybrid figure. Although an animal, it embodies qualities such as walking, talking, and cunning that typically are associated with humans. Sliviniak suggests that the serpent “functions as a mediator between the human beings and the animal world.”13 As a mediator between animals and humans, the serpent should be at the top of the animal hierarchy. Once cursed, the animal hierarchy is inverted, and the serpent becomes the basest of all animals. Lyn M. Bechtel contends that the legless, dust-eating serpent is shamed, observing that “the snake’s bodily position is part of a common shaming technique used in warfare.”14 If so, then the cursed, phallic serpent represents male dishonor within the narrative, and either symbolizes Adam’s shame, after all the language of cursing [‫ ]ארר‬connects Adam’s punishment with the serpent’s,15 or serves as a means to deflect shame away from Adam. The snake could embody Adam’s shame so that he does not bear it. Although a hierarchical relationship clearly is established between the serpent and other animals, one is not overtly established between the serpent and the humans. Post-curse, the human-serpent relationship is defined more by enmity than by hierarchy, particularly with the woman.16 The woman and her children – male and female – will struggle with the serpent. Each will harm the other. No one is placed in a dominant position, as Trible writes: “A power struggle prevails between the animal world and the human world, each striking to kill the other.”17 The omission of a clear hierarchy between the animal and the human world may reflect the presumption that one already exists. Adam’s naming of the animals in Genesis 2:19–20 certainly suggests dominion over them.18 That fundamental hierarchy may continue to exist post-curse, though perhaps less harmoniously. The omission also may indicate a destruction of that hierarchy post-transgression. The human and the animal worlds are distinct, especially now that the walking-talking-thinking serpent has been demoted among the animals.19

32  Eve and Adam It is possible that humans cannot have dominion over something so other from themselves. They cannot control the other, only struggle with it. Eve’s punishment reveals that humans can control what is more familiar to them. Genesis 3:16 states: To the woman he said: I will make great your toil and your pregnancies. With hardship, you will birth children. But toward your man is your desire, and he will rule over you. This verse receives enormous scrutiny by scholars. Settling on a translation presents considerable challenges. Word-choice matters since it affects how one understands the substance of Eve’s punishment. In Rediscovering Eve, Meyers recounts the challenges of translation.20 My translation reflects her understanding of many of the words. Meyers links the conditions of Eve’s punishment to what Meyers understands about women’s lives in ancient Israel. Meyer’s suggested translation “I will make great your toil and many your pregnancies. With hardship, shall you have children,”21 reflects the reality of “women’s role in production and reproduction,”22 and the harsh physical and emotional demands these gendered roles impose on them. Meyers observes that childrearing in ancient Israel was a stressful endeavor, not only because of the physical labor children require, but also because the realities of infant mortality in the ancient world induced emotional stress and distress.23 My understanding of the phrase ‫והוא ימשל בך‬, “and he will rule over you,” differs from that of Meyers not in translation, but in the implication of its meaning. Reacting to scholars who attribute gender hierarchy, “divinely ordained female subservience and male dominance in all aspects of life,”24 to this verse, Meyers notes that the word ‫משל‬, rule, does not indicate absolute control. Instead, she argues for understanding ‫ משל‬in this context as mandating only male sexual dominance. Once again Meyers contextualizes Eve’s punishment, and suggests that the harsh life in ancient Israel, the agrarian demands and the reality of infant and maternal mortality, explain why the Bible mandates male control of female sexuality. It is a means “to overcome pregnancy reluctance so that agrarian households would have essential offspring.”25 Meyers’s knowledge of the ancient world makes her argument convincing. Yet I do not think it is the only possible reading of this passage even within the social context of ancient Israel. Given the realities of infant and maternal mortality, is it not at least possible that men were the reluctant parties in procreation since they did not want to lose their wives and children, especially since women’s status in ancient Israel was linked to their ability to conceive? Women had more at stake, and may have wanted children more than men, and therefore were more willing to undertake the risks of

Eve and Adam 33 childbirth than their male partners.26 Fertility rituals appear to be part of ancient Israelite religion.27 Women may have had a central role in these rituals, which would indicate that they went to great lengths to have children despite the risks.28 Although I appreciate Meyers’s social context reading of Eve’s punishment, my reading sees it primarily within its literary context. Using the transgression narrative that precedes the punishment as a point of comparison, I argue that Eve’s punishment reflects the Bible’s conventional gender dynamic, manifesting a male-privileged hierarchy of which male sexual domination is only one part.29 The male-privileged hierarchy is evident in Adam’s punishment as well. Genesis 3:17–19 states: To Adam he said: Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree which I commanded you saying, do not eat from it, cursed is the land because of you. Through toil, you will eat from it all the days of your life. Thorn and thistle will sprout for you, but you will eat from the grass of the field. Through the sweat of your brow, you will eat bread until your return to the earth from which you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you will return. Just as Eve’s punishment reflects the reality of women’s lives in ancient Israel and the gendered roles they assume in production and reproduction, Adam’s punishment reflects the reality of men’s lives. Punished, he will spend his life in back-breaking labor to produce ‫עשב השדה‬, grass of the field, which Meyers identifies as the “the grains that were the major foodstuffs.”30 Sweat of the brow must come from the plowing, sowing, and reaping that were the hallmarks of male labor. I contend that Adam’s punishment not only reflects the typical roles assumed by men in Israel, it also reflects the Bible’s typical gender hierarchy that grants men social control over women. Adam is punished specifically for ‫שמעת לקול אשתך‬, a phrase that literally means “you listened to your wife’s voice,” but carries the meaning of “to obey.” We see this meaning when the phrase is used in the context of Israel’s relationship with God. God demands that Israel obey God [‫ ]תשמע לקול יהוה‬and perform his commandments (Ex 15:26). God laments that Israel failed to obey (Ps 81:12 [‫)]ולא שמע עמי לקולי‬. Given God’s displeasure of Israel’s disregard for divine law, expressed throughout the Bible, it is noteworthy that God does not condemn Adam directly for disobeying God’s first prohibition. God does not say “because you did not obey me.” Instead, God condemns Adam directly for obeying his wife, who convinced him to disobey God. Adam, therefore, is guilty of subverting the appropriate hierarchy in which God rules man, and man rules woman. He obeyed his wife, and by doing so, he disobeyed God. In my reading, this is not about sexual control. It is about authority that extends

34  Eve and Adam beyond sexuality. Adam is guilty of obeying his wife, not of succumbing to his wife’s romantic wiles. Once punished, Adam assumes social and sexual control over Eve, which further supports the understanding that ‫ והוא ימשל בך‬does not refer exclusively to sexual authority. In the final episode of the narrative, Adam names Eve, which, as Trible observes, “chillingly echoes the vocabulary of dominion over the animals.”31 Her name links her to sexuality, as well as to her biologically determined social function. She is the “mother of all life.” By naming her this name, Adam asserts both sexual and social control over Eve. He has the authority to name, and the authority mandated by God’s punishment of Eve to ensure that she lives up to her name sexually. By doing so, Eve fulfills her social function as a mother. The punishments inflicted upon the serpent, Eve, and Adam establish hierarchical relationships – the serpent in relation to other animals, and Eve in relation to Adam. They also, I argue, are about God’s relationship to humanity. As the punishments reveal, God is deeply invested in hierarchy. In fact, Eve and Adam’s story could be read as God’s efforts to preserve the hierarchy in which God is the ultimate authority. Just as a woman should know her place in relation to a man, a man should know his place in relation to God. In the story’s final episode, God exiles Adam and Eve from the garden lest “the man become like one of us.”32 I propose that God’s particular concern is that Adam, not Eve, will eat from the tree of life and attain immortality. The use of the singular “man,” especially since Eve has just received her proper name, who can become like “one” of us, supports this reading. As the male in the privileged position post-transgression, Adam, not Eve, is the one who could become most like God. God exiles both,33 perhaps because he fears Eve will convince Adam once again to eat from the prohibited tree of life, and not because God fears Eve will eat from the tree herself and embody its qualities. By exiling Adam and Eve, God assures difference, and secures his position as the ultimate authority. With access to the second tree denied to him, Adam, God’s potential rival, cannot become more Godlike.

The first unconventional gender dynamic Having examined the conventional gender dynamic established in the final stage of the narrative, I now consider the unconventional gender dynamics in the previous stages of the narratives. Before looking at the moment of the transgression, I address the opening episode in which God creates Eve and presents her to Adam. Just as the punishments have been the subject of much scholarly scrutiny, so too is Eve’s birth narrative. For feminist scholars in particular, there is a lot at stake in its interpretation. Both Bal and Trible perceive Adam as sexually undifferentiated prior to Eve’s birth.34 Trible’s term “earth creature” for the sexually undefined Adam captures this.35 Sexual differentiation comes with Eve. In Bal’s reading, the male and

Eve and Adam 35 the female are simultaneously created since the male is defined in relation to the female.36 Adam cannot become a male until there is a female. Bal perceives the relationship between Adam and Eve, at least initially, to be like the relationship between a brother and a sister – as opposed to a parent and child.37 It is complementary and not hierarchical. Like Bal, Trible does not perceive the initial relationship between Adam and Eve as hierarchical. She notes that Eve “does not fit the pattern of dominion that the preceding episodes have established.”38 Gale A. Yee challenges Trible and Bal’s perception of the sexually undefined earth creature, claiming that “the first human is envisioned in this text as a male peasant.”39 Similarly, Gellman asserts that the earthling was originally sexually male, noting that Adam retains his name and the consciousness of his own identity after the female is created.40 Yee argues that not only was Adam male, he also exercised a position of authority over Eve from the beginning; she writes: Nevertheless, the priority of the male is indicated by the fact that the primal woman is formed from his substance, reversing of the real state of affairs where women give birth to men. Just as he names the animals, evincing his primacy over them, the man names the woman ΄īššâ (2:23), expressing his authority over her. As the man is created by YHWH, a god, from the ground to serve and tend the ground, the woman built from the man exists to serve and tend the man.41 My understanding of Eve’s birth aligns more with Trible and Bal, than with Yee, yet my understanding of the narrative’s ideology, particularly its investment in establishing a gender hierarchy, aligns with Yee. Yee asserts that the gender ideology of Genesis 2–3 “legitimizes an increased subordination of the wife to her husband, who himself becomes subordinate to a wider social hierarchy.”42 Like Yee, I contend that in the course of the narrative Adam becomes subordinate to a wider hierarchy. Yet, whereas for Yee, the higher power to which Adam, the male peasant, becomes subordinate is the monarchy and its demands for tribute,43 for me, it is God. I argue that evidence for a complementary as opposed to hierarchical gender dynamic is best found in Adam’s speech after Eve’s birth; he says: This one [‫]זאת‬, now, is bone of my bone [‫ ]עצם מעצמי‬and flesh of my flesh [‫]בשר מבשרי‬. This one [‫ ]זאת‬will be called woman [‫ ]אשה‬for from a man [‫]איש‬, this one [‫ ]זאת‬was taken. (Gen 2:23) Whereas many scholars derive great meaning from the birth-order, or from the means by which Eve was created, I contend that Adam’s words provide enormous insight into his perception of Eve, and her relationship to him. Adam makes it very clear that the substance of “this one,” repeated three

36  Eve and Adam times, is the most like his own. Her lack of a proper name at this point, I argue, indicates that Adam does not see her as an other. This one, unlike the animals that Adam – recognizing their otherness – is quick to name, is like him. She cannot have a name yet, since she is barely distinct from Adam. They share the same essence – bone and flesh. They are man and woman, ‫ איש‬and ‫אשה‬, Hebrew words whose sound is almost indistinguishable one from the other. At this moment in their lives, the man and the woman are more than complementary figures; they are interchangeable. The Bible acknowledges this in the narrator’s comment immediately following Adam’s words in Genesis 2:24: “This is why a man leaves his father and his mother and clings [‫ ]דבק‬to his wife so that they become one flesh [‫]בשר אחד‬.” This verse noticeably contradicts the prevailing Israelite patrilocal culture in which a woman moves into the family home of her husband upon marriage. In a patrilocal culture, a man would not leave his parents, but would continue to live with them. The conflict with this custom expressed in this verse suggests that it is not about establishing marriage practices, but rather it is making a statement about the relationship between a husband and a wife. The combination of Adam’s words and this verse projects an image of a husband and wife, not as a complementary team but rather as an undifferentiated unit. They are of the same flesh, and they long to become the same flesh. The use of the verb ‫דבק‬, to cling, is striking since the verb often describes how Israel clings intimately and wholeheartedly to God or to God’s commandments.44 At this point in Adam and Eve’s narrative, the gender dynamic projected is not defined by hierarchy, but by symmetry. Adam and Eve are two identical halves that long for unity. This, I argue, is the first unconventional gender dynamic in the narrative.

The second unconventional gender dynamic The second unconventional gender dynamic is manifest in the transgression scene. The serpent approaches the woman in Genesis 3:1 and asks: “Is it true that God has said: You should not eat from every tree of the garden?” Many scholars question why the serpent approaches the woman and not the man. Bechtel reads the Adam and Eve narrative as a myth that “deals with the process of maturation,” and suggests that women mature earlier than men, which is why Eve is approached and is the first to eat the fruit. Bechtel also suggests that there is an affinity between Eve and the serpent, since both are associated with “recurring life and wisdom.”45 Also recognizing an affinity between Eve and Adam at this point in the narrative, Trible suggests that the woman functions as the “spokesperson for the human couple.” By speaking to the woman, the serpent effectively speaks to the man as well. Trible supports her reading by observing that the snake addresses the woman with the plural verb forms.46 In contrast, Gellman suggests that the serpent does not approach Adam because, as the

Eve and Adam 37 authority figure prohibited directly by God, he would not have eaten the fruit. In Gellman’s reading, Eve and Adam do not have a nonhierarchical relationship. Subject to Adam, having not received the divine prohibition directly, Eve was easily duped, and through her, so was Adam. Gellman suggests that Adam may have been unaware that the fruit she offered was from the prohibited tree. Adam, Gellman writes, was “extremely impressed with his own authority and by the boundaries he had placed on the woman.”47 He assumed that Eve would not defy his authority. The serpent’s approach of Eve alters Adam and Eve’s relationship, disturbing its equilibrium, and making Eve the primary actor in the narrative. This, I contend, is the second example of an unconventional gender dynamic in the narrative and the most challenging to the Bible’s preferred gender dynamic in which men exercise authority over women. In this unconventional gender dynamic, a woman exerts authority over a man. As Trible notes, when the serpent first approaches Eve, the serpent uses the secondperson plural form of the verb “to eat” and asks if is true that God has said, “You should not eat [‫ ]לא תאכלו‬from every tree of the garden?” Eve responds consistently in the plural in Genesis 3:2–3: “From every tree of the garden, we can eat [‫]נאכל‬. But from the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God has said: “You should not eat [‫ ]לא תאכלו‬from it, nor should you touch it [‫לא‬ ‫ ]תגעו‬lest you die [‫]תמתון‬.” Her use of the plural suggests that Eve sees herself equally bound by God’s prohibition, and that Adam and Eve function as a unit. Neither one has permission to eat of the tree. If either one of them does, the consequence is the same – death. The serpent responds to Eve in Genesis 3:4–5: “Indeed you will not die [‫]תמתון‬. For God knows that on the day that you eat [‫ ]אכלכם‬from it, your eyes will be opened [‫ ]ונפקחו‬and you will be [‫ ]והייתם‬like God, discerners of good and bad.” Every verb in this passage remains conjugated in the plural. The snake affirms that Eve and Adam are no different. Both of them can benefit from the tree’s fruit. Both of them can be like God. Notably, in Genesis 3:6, Eve begins to act for herself: “The woman saw that the tree was good for eating, that it was pleasant to look at, and that the tree was desirable to be wise. She took from its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her man who was with her, and he ate.” Four verbs, conjugated in the third-person feminine singular, define Eve’s actions: she saw, she took, she ate, and she gave. Her swift and decisive movements register her autonomy. She is acting alone and of her own accord. Eve does not refrain from eating so that she and Adam could eat together. Instead, Eve clearly assesses the fruit’s qualities herself, decides for herself that they are good, and then eats of the fruit. Both the conjugation and the order of the verbs suggest that Eve eats the fruit first before offering a piece to Adam. The phrase, “The woman saw that the tree was good for eating” hearkens back to the first story of creation in which God observes what God created, and declares it to be good.48 This parallel suggests that Eve not only acts independently, but that she acts like God. Thus, Eve dramatically

38  Eve and Adam disturbs the equilibrium of her relationship with Adam who was with her, and assumes the godlike position of authority in the narrative. Adam’s presence beside Eve counters Gellman’s reading that Adam may not have known that the fruit came from the prohibited tree. Though silent, Adam appears to be present during the serpent and the woman’s exchange. Initially, Eve does speak for both of them, but her assessment of the fruit’s qualities and her decision to partake is her own. Adam accepts her assessment and blindly follows her example, as Trible observes: The contrast that he offers to the woman is not strength or resolve but weakness. No patriarchal figure making decisions for his family, he follows his woman without question or comment.49 In the ancient world, trees symbolize life and the deity who bestows it.50 A tree that specifically bestows the knowledge of good and bad has no parallel in the ancient world. Without biblical or ancient Near Eastern (ANE) precedent, it is difficult to understand the nature of the knowledge gained by eating this fruit. It could be moral knowledge, sexual knowledge, or as Bechtel suggests, the knowledge of mortality.51 The knowledge of good and bad also could be a merism, encompassing all knowledge, as it does in 2 Samuel 14:17 and 20. Trible understands the meaning of the phrase the “knowledge of good and evil” as referring to the tree’s function and not its essence. In other words, the tree does not bestow knowledge. Rather, it functions as a means through which “good” and “evil,” obedience and disobedience, will be demonstrated.52 The tree will prove whether Adam and Eve are good or evil – obedient or disobedient. Disagreeing with Trible, Bal argues that the tree does grant knowledge which “includes sexual knowledge.”53 In Bal’s reading, sexual knowledge imparts immortality as well as the awareness of mortality. By allowing you to live through your children while aware of your own life’s limits, sexual knowledge “makes you both die and not die.”54 In Bal’s reading, by introducing sexuality, the tree of knowledge is also a tree of life. But whereas the tree of life promises immortality for the individual who consumes its fruit, the tree of knowledge promises immortality for the species through procreation, and not for the individual who eats of it. Recognizing the tree’s qualities, Eve’s choice to eat from the tree shows “she is open to reality, and ready to assume it.”55 Although the nature of the knowledge gained by eating the fruit is unspecified, Genesis 3:5 and 3:22 make clear that knowing good and bad is a quality associated with God. In the Bible, sexual knowledge is not associated directly with God.56 God commands and manipulates human sexuality, but God does not manifest explicit sexuality, as Tikva Frymer-Kensky writes: God is not sexed, God does not model sexuality, and God does not bestow sexual power . . . To the Bible, the sexual and divine realms have

Eve and Adam 39 nothing to do with each other. Indeed, the Bible is concerned to maintain their separation, to demarcate the sexual and sacred experiences and to interpose space and time between them.57 By eating the fruit first, Eve is the first to acquire this Godlike quality. As I mention above, even before eating the fruit, Eve already behaves like God when she sees the fruit, assesses its attributes, and declares it to be good. Therefore, the fruit must provide Adam and Eve with something other than sexual knowledge, which is not a divine quality, and something more than the ability to act independently and to reflect upon their actions, which Eve was able to do before she consumed the fruit. The effect the fruit has on Adam and Eve provides some insight into the knowledge they acquire. Genesis 3:7 reads: “Both of their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves and made for themselves loincloths.” Adam and Eve’s sudden awareness that they are naked, and their efforts to cover up their genitals, supports the reading that they gain sexual knowledge and now perceive themselves as sexually differentiated beings. Their desire to cover themselves implies that they feel discretion-shame – a positive form of shame that is associated with sexuality and is akin to modesty. Jacqueline E. Lapsley notes that discretion-shame “plays a larger role in the configuration of women’s shame than of men’s.”58 Yet the text does not mention shame. This omission is particularly notable since Genesis 2:25 describes pre-transgression Adam and Eve as naked, but unashamed. It would be a sharp literary parallel if post-transgression they were naked and shamed. The desire to wear loincloths does not have to reflect newly acquired sexual modesty. In the ancient world, loincloths had practical as well as social purposes. They were used to indicate professional and social status, as is clear from biblical references to loincloths.59 Exodus 28:42 commands priests to wear linen loincloths that extend to their thighs. Warriors wore loincloths as protection, but also to hold weapons.60 The expression “to gird one’s loins” indicates an individual’s physical and emotional readiness to undertake a challenge. Prepared to escape from Egypt, Israel eats the Passover sacrifice with sandals on, staff in hand, and loins girded.61 Proverbs 31:17 praises the woman of valor, saying: “She girds her loins with strength.” God commands the prophet Jeremiah to gird his loins before prophesying to Israel.62 I contend that Adam and Eve gird their loins to face God. They are not concerned with how they appear in relation to each other but how they appear in relation to God. They are not self-conscious of their bodies and their sexuality in front of each other. Instead, they are self-conscious before God. They do not feel shame, but fear, as Adam admits in Genesis 3:10. Having eaten the fruit, they now understand right from wrong and know that they have defied God’s authority. Before eating the fruit, Eve could recognize only what is good, the fruit, but could not see the bad. She did not

40  Eve and Adam grasp the consequences of her actions. Having eaten the fruit, Adam and Eve gain a moral acuity and can discern good from bad. Despite growing more godlike with their ability to discern good from bad, they also gain an awareness of being human – of being not like God, as Trible observes: “They know their helplessness, insecurity, and defenselessness.”63 They know they have transgressed the boundaries of being human, but they know that they are not fully divine. Afraid and reluctant, they gird their loins and prepare to face God. In verse 8, they listen to the sound/voice of God [‫ ]וישמעו את קול יהוה‬walking about the garden, and hide. There is a subtle irony in this verse that is made clearer in God’s punishment of Adam. Adam listened to his wife’s voice, not God’s [‫]כי שמעת לקול אשתך‬, when he transgressed. He defied God’s authority and inverted the gender hierarchy. Now Adam and Eve hear God. Although they have girded their loins in preparation, Adam and Eve hide, not wanting to face God. Having defied God’s authority, they cannot bear to be in relationship with God. God confronts Adam: GOD CALLED TO ADAM AND SAID TO HIM:  “Where

are you?”  He responded, “I heard you [‫ ]את קלך שמעתי‬in the garden. I was afraid because I am naked so I hid.” HE SAID:  “Who told you that you are naked? Did you eat from the tree which I commanded you not to eat from it?” Adam said: “The woman that you gave me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.” (Gen 3:9–12) Just as there are several possible reasons why the serpent approaches Eve and not Adam, there are several possible explanations for why God confronts Adam and not Eve. God may hold Adam more culpable than Eve either because God perceives Adam as Eve’s authority, and therefore holds him responsible for her behavior, or because God prohibited Adam directly and therefore considers Adam more responsible for the transgression. It is also possible that God, as Trible suggests, strategically addresses Adam in order to increase “tension within the unity of the couple.”64 Whatever God’s motivations are for addressing Adam alone, God appears invested in hierarchy. Either God assumes a hierarchy within Adam and Eve’s relationship or hopes to establish one. God also appears invested in his own hierarchical relationship to Adam. His call to Adam [‫ ]ויקרא יהוה אל האדם‬evokes Adam’s naming of the animals in Genesis 2:20 [‫ ]ויקרא האדם‬and Adam’s naming of Eve in 3:20 [‫]ויקרא האדם‬. As I mentioned earlier, naming indicates dominion.65 By calling to Adam, God names Adam as God’s direct subordinate. In response, Adam speaks for himself and suggests his obedience to God by opening with the phrase [‫]את קלך שמעתי‬, “I heard you.” At this point in the narrative, Adam and Eve no longer speak as a unit, but as individuals. Not

Eve and Adam 41 referring once to Eve, Adam admits that he is afraid because he knows that he is naked. The mention of his own nakedness [‫]כי עירם אנכי‬, and not Eve’s, supports the understanding that nakedness does not refer to sexual awareness. Adam is aware of his nakedness because he fears his encounter with God, not because he stands naked beside Eve. At first, God does not accuse Adam of eating from the tree. Instead, God assumes that someone told Adam that he was naked. God’s initial assumption alludes to the real cause of Adam’s problems – Eve – and conveys God’s central concern. God knows that Adam ate from the tree. His behavior demonstrates his transgression. God wants to know to whom Adam is listening, if not to God. Adam’s response indicates that he understands precisely what God wants to know. In Genesis 3:12, he says: “The woman that you gave to me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.” Adam informs God that he has been listening to Eve. He tries to justify his obedience to Eve. God gave Eve to Adam. Eve gave the fruit to Adam. With this response, Adam exonerates himself, and implicates Eve and God. Eve transgressed. Adam only is guilty of trusting the woman that God gave to him. Adam’s trust in Eve reflects Adam’s trust in God. He cannot be held accountable for trusting that God would provide him with a benevolent partner. Perhaps God should have known better. God does not respond, but turns to Eve and asks in Genesis 3:13: “What have you done?” As Trible notes, God’s direct accusation of Eve shows that God has accepted Adam’s explanation.66 Eve replies: “The snake deceived me and I ate.” Trible identifies ways in which Eve’s response to God differs from Adam’s. Unlike Adam, Eve does not blame God – directly or indirectly. She also does not blame Adam, but confesses that the serpent deceived her, thereby admitting her culpability and her gullibility. Also, unlike Adam, Eve confesses quickly.67 Having confronted Adam, then Eve, God turns to the serpent and begins administering the punishments. God noticeably does not engage the serpent in dialog, which implies that God does not relate to the serpent, and perhaps to the animal world, as God relates to the human world. Although angry, God dialogs directly with both Adam and Eve. Even after transgressing, humans remain in relationship with God and are able to speak with God. Yet the relationship humans have with God must conform to a hierarchy, just as the relationship between the man and the woman conforms to a hierarchy. God confronts Adam, then Eve, then the serpent. This order reflects the proper hierarchy, and is the inversion of the order of the transgression which moved from serpent to Eve to Adam. The order of the punishment mirrors the order of the transgression, but as I argue above, it reinstates the proper relationship between animal and human, man and woman, and man and God. Enmity defines the relationship between animal and human. Hierarchy defines the relationship between man and woman, and between man and God. Eve’s punishment does render women sexually subservient to men as Meyers claims. But Eve’s sexual

42  Eve and Adam subservience should not be viewed in isolation. Rather it should be viewed, as Yee does, to be a significant part of social subservience.68 In Yee’s reading, Adam and Eve’s story reflects the intensification of gender hierarchy that took place during the period in which Israel transitioned to a monarchy. Adam’s authority over Eve mirrors a king’s authority over his people.69

Conclusions Like Yee, I contend that Eve and Adam’s story is invested in hierarchy, though I am more concerned with theological than political authority. In my reading, Adam and Eve’s story is about securing a hierarchical relationship between men and women, and between God and men. Eve and Adam’s story conveys that the social hierarchy between men and women is not innate, but imposed.70 Adam and Eve begin their lives as interchangeable counterparts. Eve, then, asserts authority over Adam, and by doing so, challenges God’s authority. In response, God establishes the Bible’s normative gender hierarchy in which men socially and sexually rule over women. Eve and Adam’s story makes clear how the social hierarchy is connected intrinsically to the theological hierarchy. When read in the context of the other gender-playing narratives, it is evident that the social hierarchy imposed upon Adam and Eve, and the related theological hierarchy, can and will be challenged. These narratives illustrate that both hierarchies can be inverted, and therefore must be protected to sustain God’s relationship with Israel. As Roland Boer astutely observes, hierarchies and hegemonies are “inherently uncertain and shaky”; he writes: [D]espite the effort in the Bible to present a series of overlapping ruling and dominating perspectives, all the way from social organization to sexuality, not to mention religion, they are very shaky indeed. Or to put it even more forcefully, the very act of asserting dominance is inherently unstable. Subversion lurks in every murky doorway and under every bed. Hegemony is continually undermined from within and without.71 I agree with Meyers’s assertion that Adam and Eve are both archetypes and prototypes. Like Meyers, I contend that Eve and Adam are an archetypical woman and man, manifesting qualities and behaviors common to all men and women. I also view them as prototypical Israelites – defined in my reading by a theological perspective. Adam and Eve’s story establishes the groundwork for Israel’s story – the Bible – and more specifically, for how Israel relates to its God. The lessons to be learned from their story are fundamental to the Bible at large. From Eve’s transgression we learn that women should not behave like God, as Eve did when she assessed and consumed the fruit. Nor should women assume authority over their husbands, as Eve did when she gave the fruit to Adam. From Adam’s transgression, we learn that men should not obey women and become subservient to women.

Eve and Adam 43 Men also should not cling [‫ ]דבק‬to women as Adam clung to Eve. Adam and Eve’s story teaches that in the hierarchical world constructed by the Bible, women must obey men, and men must obey and cling to God.

Notes 1 Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, p. 68. 2 Diane F. Halpern, Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, Fourth Edition (New York and Hove: Psychology, 2012), p. 355. 3 Bal writes: “After the story of the creation of the body, after that of sexually differentiated bodies, comes the story of the development from unawareness to awareness of the body.” Mieke Bal, “Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow: The Emergence of the Female Character (A Reading of Genesis 1–3), Poetics Today 6:1/2 (1985), p. 31. 4 Ibid., p. 33. 5 Dmitri M. Slivniak, “The Garden of Double Messages: Deconstructing Hierarchical Oppositions in the Garden Story,” JSOT 27:4 (2003), p. 452. 6 Because the word adam usually appears with the definite article in the narrative (with exceptions in Gen 2:5, 20; 3:17, 21), it is unlikely that Adam should be considered a proper noun. Since for generations readers have considered Adam to be a name, I use it for literary clarity in my analysis. 7 Trible writes: “According to Yahweh God, what the earth creature needs is a companion, one who is neither subordinate nor superior; one who alleviates isolation through identity.” Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 90. Remarking on the creation of Eve in contrast to the animals, Trible writes: “She does not fit the pattern of dominion that the preceding episodes have established. She belongs to a new order that will by itself transform the earth creature.” Ibid., p. 97. 8 Jerome Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality in the Garden of Eden,” Theology & Sexuality 12:3 (2006), p. 324. 9 Gellman asserts that Adam, being the one to receive the prohibition, “figures as the authority and Eve as subject to him.” Ibid., p. 326. 10 Responding to Adam’s claim in Genesis 2:23 that Eve is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” Trible writes: “These words speak unity, solidarity, mutuality, and equality.” Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 99. 11 Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality,” p. 335. 12 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, pp. 122–123. 13 Sliviniak, “The Garden of Double Messages,” pp. 452–453. 14 Lyn M. Bechtel, “Rethinking the Interpretation of Genesis 2.4B-3.24,” in The Feminist Companion to Genesis (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), pp. 91–92. 15 Unlike the serpent, Adam is not directly cursed, but the land is cursed because of him. 16 A hierarchy may be suggested in the head-heel language which indicates who exists at the top of the hierarchy. 17 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 125. 18 Genesis 1:28 mentions dominion over the animals as part of what scholars widely recognize to be a creation narrative that is distinct from Adam and Eve’s story. 19 Howard Eilberg-Schwartz similarly observes: “The ‘punishments’ of the story also fit this interpretation, for they are designed to complete the separation of the human and animal world.” Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon, 1994), p. 89.

44  Eve and Adam 20 Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, pp. 88–97. 21 Ibid., p. 102. 22 Ibid., p. 91. 23 Ibid., p. 92. 24 Ibid., p. 95. 25 Ibid., 101. 26 The status afforded a woman with children is evident in the way barrenness was viewed as a curse in the Bible and the ancient world. Malul writes: “A woman who is barren has not lived up to her destiny and has violated her professed role in the social group.” Malul, Knowledge, Control and Sex, p. 359. 27 See William G. Dever, The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel: Where Archaeology and the Bible Intersect (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012), pp. 278–279. 28 Meyers writes: “Rituals surrounding childbirth overlap with the rituals and activities meant to achieve reproductive success and were surely a central aspect of household religion.” Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, p. 157. 29 My reading of Genesis 3:16 coheres with the traditional interpretations of this verse, as Meyers notes: “Perhaps more than any other text in the Hebrew Bible, this line has been used to justify gender hierarchy: divinely ordained female subservience and male dominance in all aspects of life.” Ibid., p. 95. 30 Meyers, Rediscovering Eve, p. 82. 31 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 133. 32 Gen 3:22. 33 It is interesting that God does not order explicitly Eve’s exile. The verbs are conjugated in the singular: YHWH sent him away [‫]וישלחהו‬ . . . he exiled him [‫]ויגרש את האדם‬. Eve’s exile could be voluntary. 34 Bal attributes her understanding of hā-΄ādām to Trible. See “Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow,” p. 25. 35 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 77. 36 Bal, “Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow,” pp. 27–28. 37 Bal understands Adam to be the son of the earth creature, and Eve its daughter. Ibid., p. 28. 38 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 97. 39 Gale A. Yee, “Gender, Class, and the Social-Scientific Study of Genesis2–3,” Semeia 87 (1999), p. 181. 40 Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality,” p. 323. In other words, Gellman views the female as the marked gender. The unmarked body, according to Sally Robinson, is “the self-evident standard against which all differences are measured.” Sally Robinson, Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 1. 41 Yee, “Gender, Class, and the Social-Scientific Study,” p. 182. 42 Ibid., p. 181. 43 Yee writes: “The king and the ruling elite began to demand their surpluses, in both human and natural resources, to foot the bill for the centralized bureaucracy, ambitious building projects, and luxurious lifestyle at court.” Ibid., p. 178. 44 See Deuteronomy 4:4; 10:20; 11:22; 30:20; Joshua 22:5; Psalm 63:9; 119:31. 45 Bechtel, “Rethinking the Interpretation,” p. 110. 46 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, pp. 108–109. 47 Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality,” p. 327. 48 Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. 49 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 113. 50 See Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), pp. 186–190.

Eve and Adam 45 1 Bechtel, “Rethinking the Interpretation,” pp. 88–90. 5 52 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 87. 53 Bal, “Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow,” p. 33. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., p. 34. 56 In my introduction, I argue that God manifests gender, not sexuality. Although the Bible does not describe God’s sexuality, the marriage metaphor depicted by the prophets that portrays Israel as God’s wife implies God’s sexuality. See Jeremiah 2–3 and Ezekiel 16 and 23. 57 Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 189. For a similar reading see Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 57–58. 58 Jacqueline E. Lapsley, “Shame and Self-Knowledge: The Positive Role of Shame in Ezekiel’s View of the Moral Self,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (eds. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), pp. 151–152. 59 See Katherine Low, “Implications Surrounding Girding the Loins in Light of Gender, Body, and Power,” JSOT 36:1 (2011), p. 7. 60 Ibid., p. 4. 61 Exodus 12:11. 62 Jeremiah 1:17. 63 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 114. 64 Ibid., p. 117. 65 Trible comments on Adam’s naming the animals: “Through the power of naming, the animals are subordinated to the earth creature. They become inferiors, not equals.” Ibid., p. 92. 66 Ibid., p. 119. 67 Ibid., p. 120. 68 Yee argues that a woman’s sexual subservience ensures fidelity to her husband, thereby strengthening the nuclear family. See Yee, “Gender, Class and Genesis 2–3,” p. 186. 69 Ibid. 70 Ken Stone similarly observes that the “consequences” of the narrative indicate “that such phenomena as pain in childbirth, back-breaking agricultural labor, and the subordination of women to men . . . are all to be read as alterations in, rather than realizations of, ‘God’s original intention for creation’.” Ken Stone, Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 41. 71 Roland Boer, The Earthy Nature of the Bible: Fleshly Readings of Sex, Masculinity, and Carnality (Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 72.

Bibliography Bal, Mieke, “Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow: The Emergence of the Female Character (A Reading of Genesis 1–2).” Poetics Today 6:1/2 (1985), pp. 21–42. Bechtel, Lyn M. “Rethinking the Interpretation of Genesis 2.4B-3.24.” In The Feminist Companion to Genesis, edited by Athalya Brenner, 77–117. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997. Boer, Roland. The Earthly Nature of the Bible: Fleshly Readings of Sex, Masculinity, and Carnality. Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

46  Eve and Adam Dever, William G. The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel: Where Archaeology and the Bible Intersect. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon, 1994. Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: Free Press, 1992. Gellman, Jerome. “Gender and Sexuality in the Garden of Eden.” Theology and Sexuality 12:3 (2006), pp. 319–336. Halpern, Diane F. Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, Fourth Edition. New York and Hove: Psychology, 2012. Keel, Othmar. The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997. Klawans, Jonathan. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Lapsley, Jacqueline. “Shame and Self-Knowledge: The Positive Role of Shame in Ezekiel’s View of the Moral Self.” In the Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong, 143–173. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000. Low, Katherine. “Implications Surrounding Girding the Loins in Light of Gender, Body, and Power.” JSOT 36:1 (2011), pp. 3–30. Malul, Meir. Knowledge, Control and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture and Worldview. Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2002. Meyers, Carol. Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Robinson, Sally. Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Slivniak, Dmitri M. “The Garden of Double Messages: Deconstructing Hierarchical Oppositions in the Garden Story.” JSOT 27:4 (2003), pp. 439–460. Stone, Ken. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978. Yee, Gale A. “Gender, Class, and the Social-Scientific Study of Genesis 2–3.” Semeia 87 (1999), pp. 177–192.

2 Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera

An overview of the gender dynamic In Chapter 1, I argue that gender was a central concern of Adam and Eve’s story, which establishes the Bible’s conventional gender norms in which men and women have distinct social roles, and women are subject to men’s sexual and social authority. Eve and Adam’s story justifies the imposition of conventional gender norms by first presenting alternative gender norms that are unsustainable and threatening. Their story, post-transgression, testifies that men and women are not equal counterparts as they were immediately after Eve’s birth, and that women should not exert authority over men as Eve does when she gives the fruit to Adam. Instead, gender roles should remain distinct and gender hierarchy intact. The Bible, I contend, is invested in gender hierarchy not only because it preserves male social power but also because it preserves divine power. Eve and Adam’s story is a lesson in hierarchy in which the relationship between man and woman mirrors and impacts the relationship between God and man. Just as Eve learns to be subject to Adam, Adam learns to be subject to God. He learns not to obey Eve but to obey God. Gender is also a central concern of Judges 4 – the story of Deborah, Barak, Sisera, and Yael. Judges 4 provides another example of the Bible intentionally playing with gender norms and presents an unconventional gender dynamic in which a woman commands a man while yet another woman kills a man to ensure Israelite victory over the Canaanites. My analysis considers the specific ways the narrative defies gender norms and offers an explanation for why it does so. I argue that the unconventional gender dynamic of Judges 4 reflects the chaos of the world depicted in the narratives. The book of Judges describes an Israel that lacks effective and unifying male authority figures. The narratives describe leaders, called judges, each of whom successfully rules over Israel for a brief period until an enemy again threatens, and chaos intervenes until a new judge arises. The book, which concludes with the statement in Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his eyes,” often is viewed as a justification for centralized government under the authority of a king. The ideology of

48  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera this comment is clear, as Gale A. Yee notes: “the absence of a king accounts for the chaos and cruelty of Israel’s tribal period.”1 Only a king can stop the cycle of violence that spirals through the book of Judges and restore order to Israelite society. Israel crowns its first king in Samuel 1 – the biblical book that immediately follows Judges. Women figure prominently in Judges, and scholars strive to account for why. Their stories can be divided between those about women who are victims of violence – such as the stories of Jephthah’s daughter, who is killed by her father (Judges 11), and of the concubine who is gang-raped (Judges 19) – and those about women who are violent – such as Yael (Judges 4) and Delilah (Judges 16).2 According to scholars such as J. Cheryl Exum, the depiction of women in these narratives as victims or perpetrators of violence reflects the social instability portrayed in the book. Violence against women, Exum observes, “is part of the larger problem of social and moral decay in Israel.”3 Exum argues that the narratives about women in Judges “betray a fear of women and women’s sexuality, and they are all aimed at circumscribing and controlling women’s behavior.”4 According to Exum, the book of Judges not only reflects patriarchal ideology, but it also incorporates a patriarchal strategy that scapegoats women by blaming women for the violence done to them.5 In contrast to Exum, Adrien Janis Bledstein offers a more positive explanation for the prominence of women in Judges. Bledstein suggests reading Judges as a satire composed by a woman who “is satirizing men who play God”6 and contends that Deborah’s story sets the tone of the whole book. Deborah, according to Bledstein, is “the exemplary judge”; she writes: She is a prophet who unequivocally trusts in YHWH despite the odds. She knows the law, can instruct people and make decisions. She is well aware of the pitiful preconceptions of men which make them hem and haw, and is also critical of women who oppress other women.7 Bledstein’s assessment of the book’s overall theological ideology coincides with my own. She observes that God is the deliverer in Judges, and that the men in Judges “have a tendency to get carried away with their selfimportance” and “behave as if they are gods.”8 Bledstein suggests that Judges was written by a woman who “ridiculed Israelite men who experience themselves, instead of YHWH, as the deliverers of Israel and consequently made a tragic mess of things.”9 Although I am not concerned with authorship, like Bledstein I consider the book of Judges to be about securing a theological hierarchy in which God reigns supreme. Like Exum, I also consider the book of Judges to be about securing a social hierarchy in which women are subordinate to men. In my reading, the social and the theological hierarchies are intertwined. Women are subordinate to men, just as men are subordinate to God. The narratives in Judges that play with gender norms, such as the story of Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera and the related story of Samson, Samson’s mother, his father

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 49 Manoah, and Delilah, which I discuss in Chapter 3, show an inverted world with an unconventional gender dynamic. They work to realign the world according to the conventional hierarchy that privileges men and God. We see that gender is an essential component, “an organizing category,”10 of these narratives that intentionally evokes and plays with its norms and expectations. My reading supports Deborah Sawyer, who observes that “where biblical writers have employed female characters, it is for the pragmatic purpose of underlining the omniscient power of the deity.”11 As a whole, Judges does work to justify the monarchy and its system of male authority. But in my reading, it also is concerned with establishing divine authority and relies upon its stories with an unconventional gender dynamic to do both. Judges 4 depicts a world with an inverted gender hierarchy, in which women prophesy, command, and kill. I contend that the strength of the women of Judges 4 attests to the weakness of its men and will argue that Deborah and Yael are compromised heroes in their narrative. Their story uses these strong women to reveal the instability of a world in which women overpower men, and like Genesis 3, offers a lesson in hierarchy. Ultimately, Judges 4 works to secure the Bible’s conventional hierarchy in which women submit to men, and men submit to God. In other words, Judges 4 presents strong women and weak men in order to protect masculine power – both human and divine. My reading aligns with the contention of Susan E. Haddox, who comments on Judges 4 and 5: “While the texts present characters who violate gender norms, the basic ideology remains deeply patriarchal with the masculine coming on top.”12 Many scholars recognize the topsy-turvy world of Judges 4 in which women dominate men. Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn remark about Judges 4 and 5: “One hardly has to be a feminist to become interested in the gender roles of this narrative.”13 Eric S. Christianson writes: “As is widely recognized, Judges is riddled with anxiety over the construction of gender, particularly in chs. 4–5.”14 Scholars often view Judges 4 and 5 as a literary unit even though most consider the poetry of chapter 5 to be an earlier rendering of the events recounted in prose in chapter 4.15 My analysis focuses on Judges 4, the prose narrative, and uses the poetic retelling of the story in Judges 5 as a point of comparison.

Deborah, Barak, and Sisera Chapter 4 opens with a typical description of Israel’s recurring bad behavior.16 After Judge Ehud dies, Israel once again behaves badly in the eyes of God. God delivers Israel into the hands of Canaanite King Jabin and his general Sisera. Having suffered Canaanite oppression for twenty years, Israel then cries out to God for salvation. Judges 4:4–5 introduces Israel’s savior Deborah: Deborah, a female prophet, a charismatic woman, she judged Israel at that time. She would sit beneath the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah

50  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera and Bet El, in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would come up to her for judgment. Deborah’s introduction provides a lot of personal information, though it is important to observe that the narrative does not record specifically that God appoints Deborah to be Israel’s savior. Introducing judge Othniel, Judges 3:9 notes that God raised up a savior for Israel. Similarly, Judges 3:15 records that God raised up the savior Ehud. This lapse could imply that Deborah is not divinely ordained, though she clearly is a respected and sought-after prophet and judge, who warrants that a tree be named after her. The description ‫אשת לפידות‬, which I have translated charismatic woman, has inspired much debate. Although its most literal translation is “woman of torches,” many consider “torches” to be a proper name, and identify Deborah as “the wife of Lappidoth.” My translation concurs with that of Mieke Bal, who observes that Lappidoth is an unattested Hebrew name. Bal notes that “being ‘of torches’ is the essence of Deborah,” who is “an inflamed and inflaming woman.”17 Like Bal, I consider the phrase to be descriptive of Deborah’s personality or role in the narrative, as opposed to her marital status. She is, as Fewell and Gunn describe, a “woman of fire,” a “spirited woman.”18 The “woman of fire” makes a particularly appropriate narrative counterpart to General Barak, whose name means “flash” or “lightning.” Since, according to this reading, the narrative does not mention her family, it is reasonable to assume that this prophetic woman leader was unmarried. Judges 5:7 refers to Deborah as a “mother in Israel.” This designation may indicate her professional, and not her personal status.19 Similarly, Elisha refers to his mentor Elijah as his father in 2 Kings 2:12. Deborah appears to hold two distinct professional roles. She is a prophet and a judge. To assess the role that gender plays in this narrative, it is necessary to consider whether a female prophet or judge was unusual at the time. By referring to Deborah as a woman prophet, ‫אשה נביאה‬, as opposed to the simple ‫נביאה‬, the female form of the word for prophet, the text emphasizes that Deborah is a woman, indicating that it is either an unusual or a significant detail.20 I consider it to be both unusual and significant. There were female prophets in the ancient world. Yet questions arise as to whether female prophets were as prominent as male prophets in the ancient world, and whether female prophets served a similar function and were ascribed a similar status as male prophets. Martti Nissinen asserts that prophecy was not gender specific in the ancient world – a reality that Nissinen observes was not true of other forms of divination, such as astrology and augury. From this, Nissinen contends there must be unique features of prophecy “enabling a socioreligious role that was not gender-specific.”21 Although men and women could be prophets, Nissinen observes a correspondence between the gender of the deity and the gender of the prophet in Assyria and the West Semitic world. He notes an Assyrian female deity/non-male prophet pattern and a West Semitic male deity/male prophet pattern.22 This

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 51 pattern helps explain the relatively few biblical examples of female prophets. The Bible mentions only five female prophets – Miriam (Ex 15:20), Huldah (2 Kgs 22:14–20), the unnamed woman (Isa 8:3), Noadiah (Neh 6:14), and of course, Deborah. Ezekiel 13:17–23 describes a group of women prophesying [‫]מתנבאות‬. Nissinen comments that the paucity of their number, when compared with their male counterparts, makes female prophets “look like an exception rather than the rule.”23 Of course the Bible offers no explanation for the discrepancy in number. It could be that Israel’s male deity preferred male prophets, thereby conforming to the West Semitic pattern. It also could be that the Bible’s patriarchal ideology, which was invested in fostering male authority, limited the role of female prophets. Esther Fuchs argues that the Bible’s depiction of female prophets supports their existence, and perhaps even their prominence early in Israel’s development, but that it works to suppress and malign their activity. Fuchs concludes that the Bible “recognizes female prophetic agency as minor, if not downright false in order to insure the unperturbed continuance of the andro-theistic dialog of monotheistic religion.”24 Although female prophets may not have been unusual early in Israel’s history – precisely the time period depicted in the book of Judges – they are unusual in the context of the Bible. It is also noteworthy that Deborah is the only female judge mentioned in the Bible. Thus, I contend that Deborah is a woman prophet and a woman judge, and that her gender is emphasized by the text,25 and should be viewed as atypical, if not extraordinary in its biblical context. Her position of authority as a woman is indicative of an unstable world that is tilted toward chaos.26 It is a world, as described by Christianson that “exudes uncertainty,”27 in which “ambiguity is a deepseated feature.”28 It is an inverted world in which, as Christianson observes, a woman figuratively dresses up like a man29 and assumes typically male positions of authority. As Exum notes, this is a morally and socially deteriorating world in which the center cannot hold.30 Deborah sends for Barak, and relays God’s message to him: She says to him: Did YHWH, the God of Israel, not command you: “Go, draw up to Mount Tabor and take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulin. I will draw Sisera, commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and troops to you at Wadi Kishon, and I will give them into your hand”? (Judg 4:6–7) Deborah does not speak as a military or as a political figure in this passage. She speaks solely as a prophet, communicating God’s words to Barak as if God is speaking in the first person directly to Barak. In this way, it appears that God, not Deborah, commands Barak to go into battle, since Deborah speaks as God.

52  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera At this point, Deborah has no intention of joining Barak on this military expedition. God, not Deborah, will deliver the enemy into Barak’s hands. The irony of this statement becomes clearer as the narrative progresses, and it is evident whose hands are responsible for Israel’s victory. Her framing the prophecy as a question (Did YHWH not command you?) is accusatory. It appears that Barak has not yet followed God’s command, and therefore, at this stage in the narrative, could be viewed as disobedient. Barak responds to Deborah: Barak said to her: If you go with me, then I will go, but if you do not go with me, then I will not go. (Judg 4:8) Yee perceives the character of Deborah (Yael as well) to be a biblical manifestation of a woman warrior – a metaphorical figure who functions in some literary renderings “primarily to shame the weaker males who surround her.”31 Although identified as female, a woman warrior is a liminal figure who assumes males traits and status,32 and whose “rejection of gender roles elicits strong reactions.” She can be used “to great rhetorical effect to support, denounce, or modify different perceptions of gender relations.”33 Thus, a woman warrior is a destabilizing and disruptive figure.34 Yee agrees with my rendering of ‫אשה נביאה‬, and observes that Deborah is presented as a female prophet to emphasize her gender in contrast to Barak.35 Once Barak refuses to go into battle unless she goes with him, Deborah functions as a woman warrior who shames Barak, and is part of the “descending cycle of male characters.”36 Like Yee, I consider Barak’s demand that Deborah accompany him into battle to be a sign of weakness. At the start of the narrative, it reveals his compromised masculinity and faith. Barak should have trusted in God, and immediately followed God’s command without conditions. Instead, he chooses to follow a woman. Deborah’s gender, therefore, is an essential feature of this narrative. Barak’s condition “If you go with me, then I will go,” echoes another biblical passage. In the book of Ruth, Ruth the Moabite pledges allegiance to her mother-in-law Naomi. Unwilling to return to her own mother’s house in Moab, Ruth swears to follow Naomi wherever she goes, and to accept Naomi’s people and her God. Ruth’s words to Naomi in Ruth 1:16–17, “Where you go, I will go [‫]כי אל אשר תלכי אלך‬,” sound like Barak’s to Deborah. Ruth’s words convey her willingness to accept Naomi’s authority, and through Naomi, God’s authority. Similarly, Barak’s words convey his acceptance of Deborah’s authority, and through Deborah, God’s authority. Deborah is God’s prophet. Understandably, Barak may assume that her presence in battle would ensure God’s presence and secure Israel’s victory.37 Yet it is also clear that Barak is not willing to rely exclusively on God’s promise to deliver Sisera into Barak’s hand. His desire to have Deborah present in the battle to ensure victory conveys a lack of faith. Despite Deborah’s prophecy,

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 53 he does not believe that he will win unless she is with him. Unlike Ruth, Barak makes a conditional statement. He will not go into battle unless Deborah accompanies him. In other words, he is willing to defy God’s command if his demand is not met. Deborah answers Barak: She said: “Indeed I will go with you. However, you will have no glory on the path that you are walking because YHWH will deliver Sisera through the hands of a woman.” Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. (Judg 4:9) As the narrative plays out, Deborah’s words certainly have a prophetic quality. Indeed, God delivers Sisera through the hands of a woman – just not the woman that Barak or for that matter the reader of the narrative at this point expects. It is important to observe that Deborah does not speak in God’s name when she responds to Barak. Although her words prove prophetic, she does not in fact utter a prophecy. Instead, she states a reality about herself. She will accompany Barak, but not to his personal benefit. Military glory is the province of men. Her presence in battle as a woman will detract from Barak’s glory. Deborah makes a statement about gender, and by doing so, she makes this narrative about gender. Although the passage may allude to Yael, the woman who actually kills Sisera with her hands, I contend that it refers in context to Deborah. Deborah is speaking about herself. She assumes that she is the woman who will steal Barak’s glory. She assumes that God will deliver Sisera through her, and that her presence in the battle will bring Barak shame, not glory. Deborah’s assumption is revealing. Clearly, Deborah speaks for God, and functions as God’s prophet in Israel. Yet it is also clear that her gender overrides her status as a prophet. Battle is a male arena in which women, even women prophets, have no place except as the spoils of war – a reality this narrative will invert shortly – as Mark S. Smith observes: Warfare is not only a matter of physical conflict. In going to war, heroes perform social roles defined in large measure by gender. It is the cultural expectation that human females are generally not part of combat, in contrast to the paradigmatic presence of goddesses in warfare.38 In battle, therefore, Deborah is more woman than prophet. She can speak for God. She can even secure victory for Israel. But she does so as a woman. In a more stable world, a woman would not be on the battlefield. According to Yee, Deborah assumes military leadership in “response to emergency situations of conflict,” and would relinquish the role, and return to a more traditional role after the conflict passes.39 Deborah fully recognizes that her gender is a detriment to Barak, and indicative of his weakness.

54  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera Deborah’s acknowledgment that Barak’s glory will be compromised by a woman’s presence shows that gender is a central concern of the narrative, while at the same time revealing the narrative’s bias against the unconventional gender dynamic it presents. Judges 4 does not celebrate the female authority and power it presents. Even Deborah knows the cost of following a woman’s lead. Rather, it begrudgingly employs female power when male power is wanting. Barak and, as I show below, Sisera are emasculated men. Barak hesitates in following God’s command, and relies upon women for success. Sisera is felled by a woman. As women, I contend that Deborah and Yael are compromised heroes within the narrative. Yee draws similar conclusions to my own; she writes: Rather than a story about female military power, Judges 4 becomes a reflection on what it means “to be or not to be a man”. Maleness is equated with honor. To be dishonored is to be “unmanned.” Instead of celebrating women’s military leadership, the story places women as adversaries of men. They become the means by which men are “unmanned” or shamed.40 It is interesting to note that even in the poetic retelling of the narrative, which we see below presents a more powerful image of its women, Yael is praised as a hero among women in Judges 5:24. She is ‫תברך מנשים‬, meaning either she is more blessed than other women, or she is blessed among/by women. Either way, her worth is assessed relative only to women.41 Deborah, I argue, is compromised by Yael’s presence in the narrative. Deborah assumes that she is the woman who will deliver Sisera to Barak. By employing Yael, a non-Israelite, the narrative denies Deborah this position and curtails her power. An Israelite prophet who secures Israel’s victory could be an extremely powerful figure – even if a woman. To ensure that Deborah does not prove herself to be too powerful, and become a true hero in Israel, the narrative employs a non-Israelite woman, thereby deflecting attention and praise away from Deborah. In this way, the normative biblical gender hierarchy is challenged, but not completely inverted by Judges 4. The narrative prevents Deborah from fully becoming Israel’s savior. Deborah accompanies Barak to Kedesh, where he assembles an army. She then orders him into battle. Deborah said to Barak: “Arise, for this is the day that YHWH will give Sisera into your hand. Is YHWH not going out before you?” Barak went down from Mount Tabor, followed by ten thousand men. (Judg 4:14) Deborah’s assertion that God will deliver Sisera into Barak’s hand supports my reading that she does not anticipate Yael’s role in the narrative, and that she sees herself as the woman who will detract from Barak’s glory. Deborah

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 55 assumes that Barak will be successful in battle, and that he will defeat Sisera. She does not anticipate Yael and the role her hands will play. Earlier, Deborah predicted that a woman’s hand would ensure Barak’s victory. Now, she states that God will deliver Sisera into Barak’s hands. It appears that Deborah perceives herself as the enabler whose hands brought Barak to battle. But once there, Deborah predicts that God will deliver Sisera directly into Barak’s hands. She does not anticipate or expect that another woman’s hands will secure Sisera’s defeat. Deborah’s words prove false. God does enable Barak’s army to defeat Sisera’s army, but God does not deliver Sisera into Barak’s hand. Sisera gets away. It appears that Deborah is unable to determine or to predict fate. Obedient to Deborah’s command, Barak descends down the mountain into battle. Barak’s physical descent, ‫וירד‬, is a literary marker of Yee’s “descending cycle of male characters.” Barak descends in body and in status, not unlike Sisera who in verse 15 descends from his horse [‫]וירד‬, and flees from Barak on foot. Yee notes that when Sisera is forced to descend from his chariot, “the mark of his identity and superiority, and flee on foot, the author magnifies Sisera’s dishonor.”42 The descent of both men stands in contrast to the woman, Yael, who will best them. Her name can be derived from the root ‫עלה‬, which means to ascend.43

Yael, Sisera, and Barak Yael enters the narrative in Judges 4:17–18: Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite for there was peace between Jabin, king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. Yael went out to greet Sisera and said to him: “Turn, my lord, turn to me. Do not be afraid.” He turned toward her, toward her tent. She covered him with a blanket. Unlike Deborah, Yael’s marital status is clear. She is married to Heber the Kenite. Her husband is a descendent of Moses’s father-in-law Hobab, as verse 11 relates. Susan Ackerman notes that Moses’s father-in-law was a Midianite priest and suggests that Heber was “some kind of religious official,” and that Yael was “a member of the clan’s religious aristocracy.”44 Sisera appears to hesitate before entering Yael’s tent. Yael must invite him and reassure him – telling him not to fear. Given Heber’s relationship to Hobab, it is possible that there is peace between Israel and Heber, just as there is between Heber and Jabin. Therefore, Sisera may doubt Yael’s goodwill and feels that his peace with Heber is tenuous, or that Heber is more of an ally to Israel. The potential presence of a husband also may raise concern for Sisera. Perhaps he feels that it would be improper to enter a woman’s tent, especially if he has a positive relationship with her husband.

56  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera With Yael’s invitation to enter her tent, the narrative starkly differentiates between a public and a private space – the battlefield and the tent – and, I contend, between male and female space.45 Ackerman suggests that Sisera flees to Yael’s tent “because he perceives her to be some sort of religious functionary and regards her tent as demarcating sanctified space.”46 Although Ackerman makes a convincing argument that Yael is a cultic functionary, Sisera does not seem to be seeking her out for religious purposes. He certainly does not seem eager to enter into her space. Yael must urge Sisera to leave the realm of the male battlefield, and to enter her presumably safe domestic space. Don Seeman observes how the motif of women’s tents in Genesis teaches “little about kinship or residence patterns in ancient Israel.” Rather, Seeman argues, the motif is rife with “cultural poetics,” that indicate and represent social oppositions such as those that exist between men and women or between Israelites and foreigners. In Seeman’s reading, a woman’s tent evokes the qualities of “fecundity, vulnerability, and intimacy.”47 A man entering a woman’s tent can be understood poetically either to indicate the onset of fertility, or to register the threat of hostile invasion.48 Sisera’s entering Yael’s tent defies convention. He enters seeking refuge, not sex, and is not a hostile invader. Surprisingly, as Bal notes, Yael appears as the threat, thereby inverting gender expectations. Her words of invitation carry a threatening edge that Sisera does not seem to perceive. Yael tells Sisera not to be afraid, ‫אל תירא‬. Elsewhere in the Bible, this phrase carries the promise of divine presence and often is used to encourage warriors in a military context.49 By using this phrase, Bal suggests that Yael subtly communicates that “although she lives inside the tent, she will participate in the battle.”50 In other words, against expectation, the battleground has extended into domestic, female space. Once Sisera enters Yael’s tent, she covers him with a blanket. Bal interprets this to be a motherly gesture.51 Her maternal behavior continues when she provides Sisera with milk, which lulls him to sleep. Interpreters of Judges 4 often present two distinct images of Yael. There is Yael the deadly seductress and Yael the murderous mother. In their reading of the narrative, Fewell and Gunn combine these images and note both the sexual and the maternal aspects of Yael’s encounter with Sisera.52 Either one of these options, seductress or mother, suggests that Yael remains within the confines of a female role and female space in order to defeat Sisera. For these interpreters, Yael defies gender expectations only in so far as she does not live up to the expectations of the specific gender-defined roles. Instead of nurturing and loving a man, as a wife and mother should, she kills him. My reading supports this interpretation. I argue that Yael upends the expectations of her gendered roles but is not “manned” in the process. Instead, she remains within the confines of domestic space, employs methods and tools associated with that space, and becomes a violent manifestation of distinctively female figures. She becomes the murderous mother and the dangerous seductress.53 I also argue that though Judges 4 is not about

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 57 the “manning” of Yael, it is about the “unmanning” of Sisera, and to a lesser extent, Barak. Like Yee, I uphold that the women of Judges 4 are “the means by which men are ‘unmanned’ or shamed.” In this way, Judges 4 reveals the vulnerability of manhood and the contingencies of male honor and offers support for the notion that gender is constructed. Masculinity is not impervious or fixed in this narrative. Men can be feminized and even can lose their manhood. Deryn Guest draws a similar conclusion; she writes: Strong, active Deborah and reluctant, ineffective Barak, strong, active Jael and passive, compliant, deflowered Sisera. It also happens in the Jezebel story, which produces an unmanly Ahab. The two-sex paradigm is not so much upset by this as it is sustained by the balancing act, but there is a glimpse of a more destabilizing effect if one is caused to think about how masculinity is therefore not a given, resulting from biological maleness, but an achievement, a continual assignment.54 Whereas Barak’s manhood is compromised by Deborah, and as we see, by Yael as well, Sisera’s manhood is at first compromised, and but then is obliterated by Yael. Sisera becomes the image of the feminized and defeated warrior depicted in ancient Near Eastern iconography and curses. Commenting on the ANE curses, Cynthia R. Chapman observes: All of the curses that evoke images of feminization focus on the metaphorical domain of warfare . . . The shame factor in these curses seems to be heightened because, as we will now see, they paint a picture of the vassal king as one who has not simply failed to carry out duties associated with masculinity but has begun to exhibit “feminine” characteristics.55 Chapman notes how the motif of the “fleeing king” evoked, I suggest, when Sisera flees the battlefield on foot, “effectively discredited the masculinity of the foreign king by contrasting his fear and cowardice – i.e., his nonperformance of constitutive masculine activities – to the Assyrian king’s strength and courage.”56 Sisera leaves the battlefield a lesser man, only to lose his manhood in Yael’s tent. Despite the attacks on the manhood of Sisera and Barak, I argue that Judges 4 ultimately protects masculinity, and preserves the gender hierarchy by not granting these women full honor or glory. The women’s victory is not celebrated in the narrative. Instead, it manifests the increasing instability of Israel under the rule of the judges.57 Having accepted Yael’s hospitality, Sisera addresses her in Judges 4:19–20: He said to her: “Give me a little water because I am thirsty.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him some to drink, and covered him. He said to her: “Stand at the opening of the tent. If a man comes by and asks you saying: ‘Is there a man here,’ you must respond no.”

58  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera Sisera asks for water, but Yael gives him milk. Once again, Yael mothers or as Bal maintains, “anti-mothers” Sisera by providing him with milk, thereby falsely assuring him that he will be cared for. 58 Athalya Brenner suggests that the substitution of milk for water is more than a care-taking gesture that reassures Sisera. She notes the association between male gods and storms in the ancient world and remarks that water can be viewed as a symbol of male potency and fertility. In Brenner’s reading, the substitution of milk for water “constitutes transference from the male into its corresponding female symbolism.”59 Milk should symbolize female potency and fertility. Instead, it heralds death and marks the moment when Yael, in Brenner’s reading, becomes “God’s accomplice and avenger.” For Brenner, this is the moment that “signifies her assumption of the male role of the warrior.”60 Instead of receiving water, a symbol of male potency and life, Sisera receives milk, which Brenner views as a symbol of “false nurture and death.” Brenner notes the ambiguous gender dimensions of Yael’s action; she writes: God’s gift of life, as symbolized by water, is not given to Sisera by Jael, God’s accomplice and avenger. Here Sisera’s vertex is cut off. Instead, he gets a false “female” substitute and a “male” death blow. Jael, acting on behalf of God, goes about her task in a true “male” manner, although she assumes female hospitality.61 Although this moment may signify Yael’s intentions, I argue that from the moment Yael greets Sisera, it is clear that she has a plan to defeat him, which she immediately begins to execute. Her intentional agency is evident in the series of third-person singular verbs used to describe her activity. She approaches him and invites him into her tent, subtly alluding to her military intent, as mentioned above. She physically and verbally calms his fears and intentionally presents herself as a mother figure to help bring down his guard. Designed to lull Sisera emotionally and physically into sleep, the substitution of milk for water is just part of Yael’s plan. Thus, from the beginning, Yael behaves like a warrior who conforms to the expectations of her gender. She is a woman warrior, in the same way that Deborah is a woman judge and a woman prophet. My understanding of the woman warrior differs slightly from Yee’s view, who posits that a woman warrior “is neither female nor male as these are customarily defined,” taking “on the attributes, roles, and accompanying prestige [my emphasis] that are usually reserved for the male, but still remains female.”62 In contrast to Yee, I contend that as a woman warrior, Yael remains distinctly female. War is waged in her home and not on the battlefield. She depends on gender assumptions to execute her strategy, and as we see, even fights like a woman. Most importantly, as a woman warrior, Yael never acquires the status and prestige reserved for men. As I already observed, she is praised as a woman in Judges 5:24. If Sisera had been delivered through

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 59 her hands while on the battlefield, Deborah potentially could have achieved that status since she would have been a triple threat as an Israelite prophet, judge, and warrior. Yet by having non-Israelite Yael slay Sisera instead of Deborah, the Bible denies Deborah and Yael the status ascribed to its male warriors. Still, as a woman warrior, Yael poses a serious threat to Sisera – certainly to his life, but also to his manhood. Yael may not behave like a man, but Sisera behaves like a woman. Sisera reveals his compromised manhood when he orders Yael to stand watch at the tent opening and to respond negatively if anyone asks if there is a man present. Bal observes that Sisera asks Yael to stand guard – a role typically allotted to the men of the house.63 Sisera cannot function as the man of the house. Should someone inquire if a man is present, Yael must respond negatively. The irony is patently obvious in a denial of the presence of a man in the tent. Yee observes that the irony in the response that Sisera suggests to Yael “dramatizes the extent to which Sisera has been unmanned.”64 Similarly, Fewell and Gunn note that Yael’s response is intended to be a lie, but in fact reflects the truth. No longer a man, Sisera “has become a vulnerable child; the virile man lies impotent.”65 Also noting the irony in Yael’s denial, Bal suggests that it functions as a speech-act. Sisera orders Yael to lie. Yael decides not to lie by “killing the man who gives her the misplaced order, so that he will be truly none.”66 In Judges 4:21, we read that Yael kills Sisera. Yael, wife of Heber, took a tent peg. She placed a mallet in her hand and came to him quietly. She thrust the tent peg into his temple until it sunk into the ground while he was sleeping from exhaustion. He died. When Yael kills Sisera, she transforms from the murderous mother to the deadly seductress. The attribution of wife presents Yael in a sexual, as opposed to a maternal role. Stealthily, she comes to Sisera [‫]ותבוא אליו‬. The expression “to come to” [‫ ]לבוא אל‬has sexual connotations, though it usually appears with a man as the subject.67 For many interpreters, the manner in which Yael kills Sisera is overtly sexual. She penetrates her victim with a phallic object, evoking the image of rape, or as Bal and Yee note, the image of a reversed rape, in which a woman is the violator and the man is violated.68 Like these interpreters, I perceive sexual connotations in Yael’s murder of Sisera that are suggestive of rape. The sexual connotation of the violent act inverts gender expectations. Typically, male warriors rape female captives.69 In Judges 5:30, a woman comforts Sisera’s mother by telling her that Sisera is delayed because the warriors are dividing up the captive women. This woman does not realize that Sisera is the one who is being violated. And even more shocking, he is being violated by a woman. The fact that Yael is a woman is what upends expectations. Penetrated by a phallic object, Sisera is unmanned. Yet, I do not suggest that Yael is manned by the act. Instead, I contend that Yael operates within

60  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera the confines of her gender, relying upon means that are accessible and appropriate to her gender. We have already seen how she capitalizes on maternal behavior to alleviate Sisera’s concerns and to lull him to sleep. Once asleep, Yael attacks him. She attacks as a woman. Unlike the Bible’s male rapists who attack alert victims, Yael does not overpower an alert man.70 This suggests that, as a woman, she lacks the strength to do so. Although phallic in shape, she uses a weapon that is associated with her domestic space. It is a peg from her tent – the tent that is designated as her space in verse 17.71 Yael pins Sisera to this domestic space by driving the stake into the ground. In this way, Sisera is absorbed into female space. In contrast to Sisera, Yael does not enter into the male world – either literally or figuratively. She remains confined to the female realm and defined by female behavior. Whether viewed as the murderous mother or the deadly seductress, Yael appears as a threatening manifestation of wholly female figures. The narrative capitalizes on her femaleness. Just as Barak’s victory over Sisera is marred by a woman, Sisera’s defeat is made more shameful because of a woman. I identify a similar dynamic in the Samson and Delilah story. Mere women, not strong armies, defeat Samson and Sisera. In a world in which male honor is determined by the ability to control and protect the women in a man’s life, and by a man’s ability to prove and sustain his superiority over male rivals, this is a more shameful fate.72 Yael remains within the domestic space, leaving only to invite the next man in. Barak arrives at her doorstep in Judges 4:22: Now Barak was pursuing Sisera. Yael goes out to greet him. She says to him: “Go so that I can show you the man that you are seeking.” He came to her and there was Sisera lying dead, with the peg in his temple. Once again Yael demonstrates initiative and agency. She greets Barak just as she greeted Sisera, thereby pairing the two men and suggesting that they inhabit a similar narrative position and status vis-à-vis Yael. Yael could prove as dangerous to Barak as she proved to Sisera. Yael does not coerce Barak into her home. Instead she orders him [‫]לך‬, using similar language used by Deborah at the start of the narrative when she ordered Barak to go up to Mount Tabor [‫]לך‬. Just as Barak is aligned with Sisera, Yael is aligned with Deborah. Yael invites Barak in to show him the man that he is seeking. Why she does this is unclear. She easily could have informed him that his enemy was dead without showing him the body. I contend that her desire to show him conveys her desire for recognition. Yael wants Barak to see that she has done what he could not. She wants to show him that she has killed the man that Barak pointlessly still seeks. Her use of man to refer to Sisera could ironically refer to Sisera, the non-man. It could also be a barb at Barak’s manhood since Barak was unable to capture this man while a woman could. It also could be indicative of her pride. Yael, the woman, was able to capture and kill Sisera, the man.

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 61 Barak enters Yael’s tent. As it did in verse 21, the expression “he came to her [‫ ”]ויבא אליה‬has sexual connotations. This time, more appropriately, the male is the subject, suggesting that Barak enters the tent in the conventional position of power in relation to a woman. Immediately, he spies Sisera’s penetrated corpse, and his power and position in the narrative are compromised. He understands that women can be dangerous and that men can be their victims. By visually witnessing what the hand of this woman has wrought, he now understands fully the meaning of Deborah’s prophecy. Barak’s glory has been compromised, but not on the battlefield, and not by a woman prophetjudge. Instead his glory has been compromised by the hands of a nonIsraelite woman in her tent. This woman did what he could not. Barak does not acknowledge what Yael has done, nor does he praise her. The narrative concludes in Judges 4:23–24. On that day, God subdued Jabin, King of Canaan before Israel. The hand of the Israelites grew stronger against Jabin, King of Canaan, until they destroyed Jabin, King of Canaan. Despite Yael’s efforts, the narrative attributes Canaan’s defeat to God. God does intervene earlier in verse 15 to wreak havoc on the battlefield, which sends Sisera running. The Bible’s silence about Yael’s role in Israel’s triumph particularly is notable because the final verse of the narrative mentions the hand of Israel that oppresses the Canaanites. It appears that just as Yael’s hand eclipsed Deborah’s, God and Israel have eclipsed the hand of Yael in the narrative. Praise for Yael occurs in the poetic retelling of the story in chapter 5. As I mention above, the poetic Song of Deborah in chapter 5 retells the events of chapter 4. Scholars concur that the poetry of the Song is among the earliest biblical texts. Arie van der Kooij notes interesting differences between the poetic and the prose accounts of Deborah and Yael’s story. The honorshame motif is central to the narrative but absent in the Song. The Song does not focus on the pre-battle scene between Deborah and Barak, yet focuses more on the battle scene than the narrative does. Most important to my argument, van der Kooij observes that women are more prominent than men in the Song than in the narrative, and that God is more powerful in the narrative than in the Song. These differences suggest to van der Kooij that Judges 5 presents a female perspective, and may be authored by a woman.73 Though I am not interested in authorship, I agree with van der Kooij that the Song, in contrast to the narrative, praises Deborah and Yael, and appears to acknowledge their role in Israel’s victory. In Judges 5, Deborah and Barak offer the victory song. Although they sing together, Deborah is mentioned first. This suggests to van der Kooij that Deborah composed the Song, which “is fully in line with her high and crucial position.”74 In the Song, Deborah is called “a mother in Israel,” which, according to van der Kooij, identifies her “as a woman of counsel, inspiration, and leadership.”75

62  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera The Song includes Yael and praises her like a hero. Whereas the hand of Israel seems to overshadow the hand of Yael in the narrative, Yael’s hand is prominent in the Song. It bludgeons, shatters, splits, and cuts Sisera’s head. Van der Kooij notes how Yael is mentioned immediately after the inhabitants of Meroz are cursed in verse 23 for not coming to God’s aid. This implies that Yael is praised for coming to God’s aid.76 By acknowledging what Deborah and Yael have done for Israel, the Song preserves a different, perhaps older, perspective than the narrative. It offers a fitting counterbalance to the narrative, which, according to my reading, works to compromise the roles Deborah and Yael play and does not bestow glory upon them. Although the Song does praise the women, it is offered in praise of God for being Israel’s deliverer.77 In this way, the Song concurs with one of the narrative’s central concerns – God’s ultimate authority. In my reading, the narrative concerns itself more with denigrating and emasculating its men than elevating and praising its women.78 Deborah and Yael are means through which Barak and Sisera are brought low. They also are the means through which God is brought high. Ultimately, in the narrative, it is not Barak’s, nor Deborah’s, nor even Yael’s hand that delivers Sisera, defeats his army, and subdues Canaan. It is God.79

Conclusions Judges 4 depicts a chaotic world of precarious leadership and faith in which the gender hierarchy has been upended and women command, prophesy, and fight. Judges 4 does not celebrate this world and its unconventional gender dynamic. Barak is not honored for relying on Deborah’s presence in battle. Yael is not hailed as a hero. Instead, Judges 4 evokes a world in which women prophesy and kill in order to justify male authority and to lay the groundwork for the establishment of the monarchy. Israel, like Barak, should not want to be ruled by Deborah, nor should it want non-Israelite Yael to fight its wars. Along with the other stories in Judges, Judges 4 argues that Israel should submit to the authority of a king. Judges also makes clear that even though a king must one day rule over Israel, God always reigns supreme. In this way, Judges 4, like Genesis 3, offers a lesson in submission. Both narratives use an unconventional gender dynamic to argue for a conventional one in which women submit to male authority, and men submit to God’s authority.

Notes 1 Gale A. Yee, “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17–21 and the Dismembered Body,” in Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies; Second Edition (ed. Gale A. Yee; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), p. 148. Although Judges is set during Israel’s pre-state period, roughly 1250–1020 BCE, it is considered to be part of the Deuteronomic History – the biblical books of Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings. Scholars suggest that a first edition of the History was edited

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 63 during Josiah’s reign over Judah in the seventh century BCE, and reflects the political and cultic reforms Josiah introduced. They posit that a later edition was edited during the Babylonian exile. See Yee, Judges & Method, pp. 6–9; 143–147. 2 See Jo Ann Hackett, “Violence and Women’s Lives in the Book of Judges,” Interpretation 58:4 (2004), pp. 356–364. 3 J. Cheryl Exum, “Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests Are Being Served?” in Judges & Method, p. 87. 4 Ibid., p. 86. 5 Ibid. 6 Adrien Janis Bledstein, “Is Judges a Woman’s Satire of Men Who Play God?” in The Feminist Companion to Judges (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), p. 34. 7 Ibid., p. 42. 8 Ibid., p. 52. 9 Ibid., p. 53. 10 Harold C. Washington, “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible,” BI 5:4 (1997), p. 345. 11 Deborah F. Sawyer, “Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham’s Masculinity,” in Gender, Religion, and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (eds. Ursula King and Tina Beattie; London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005), p. 163. 12 Susan E. Haddox, “Gendering Violence and Violating Gender in Judges 4–5,” Proceedings of the Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society 33 (2013), p. 81. 13 Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn, “Controlling Perspectives: Women, Men and the Authority of Violence in Judges 4 & 5,” JAAR 58:3 (1990), p. 391. 14 Eric S. Christianson, “The Big Sleep: Strategic Ambiguity in Judges 4–5 and in Classic film noir,” BI 15 (2007), p. 532. 15 For a discussion of the dating of the chapters, see Jacob L. Wright “Deborah’s War Memorial: The Composition of Judges 4–5 and the Politics of War Commemoration,” ZAW 123 (2011), pp. 516–534. For a discussion specifically about the dating of Judges 5, see Mark S. Smith, Poetic Heroes, pp. 242–251. 16 See also Judg 3:12; 10:6; 13:1. 17 Mieke Bal, Death & Dissymmetry (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 209. 18 Fewell and Gunn, “Controlling Perspectives,” p. 391. 19 Esther J. Hamori observes that the Bible portrays female diviners to be childless and suggests that this literary pattern reflects the “widespread instinct to separate female divinatory and traditional maternal roles.” Esther J. Hamori, “Childless Female Diviners in the Bible and Beyond,” in Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East (eds. Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), p. 191. Although the Bible indicates that female prophets did marry, Huldah is introduced as the wife of Shallum in 2 Kings 22:14, it may not have been a given for these religious professionals. The Bible never attributes a husband to the prophetess Miriam. 20 The Bible designates other women as prophets but does not add the qualifier “woman,” thus indicating that Deborah’s gender is being emphasized in this narrative. 21 See Martti Nissinen, “Gender and Prophetic Agency in the Ancient Near East and in Greece,” in Prophets Male and Female, p. 36. 22 Ibid., pp. 48–49. 23 Ibid., p. 44. 24 Esther Fuchs, “Prophecy and the Construction of Women: Inscription and Erasure,” in Prophets and Daniel: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second

64  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera Series) (ed. Athalya Brenner; London and New York: Sheffield Academic, 2001), p. 68. 25 Haddox similarly states: “The first mention of ‘woman’ and the pronoun ‘she’ are superfluous to the meaning of the sentence, except for underscoring gender.” Haddox, “Gendering Violence and Violating Gender,” p. 75. 26 Gale A. Yee writes: “We have seen that the social structure of pre-state Israel makes it possible for female leadership in war to emerge during times of crisis.” Gale A. Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman: The Metaphor of the Woman Warrior in Judges 4,” Semeia 61 (1993), p. 114. 27 Christianson, “The Big Sleep,” p. 528. 28 Ibid., p. 542. 29 Ibid., p. 532. 30 J. Cheryl Exum, “The Centre Cannot Hold: Thematic and Textual Instabilities in Judges,” CBQ 52 (1990), pp. 410–429. 31 Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 115. 32 Yee writes: “The woman warrior is neither female nor male as these are customarily defined, although she shares qualities of each. Moreover, as a warrior she acquires the status of the man in his domain, although she is female.” Ibid., p. 105. 33 Ibid., p. 107. Although she recognizes the limitations of language, in particular the use of gendered pronouns, Deryn Guest challenges Yee’s perception that this liminal figure is identified as female; Guest writes: “The repeated reference to ‘she,’ ‘her,’ and the phrase ‘still remains female’ threaten to undermine the liminal figure Yee has been at pains to identify.” Deryn Guest, “From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (eds. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), p. 17. Addressing the character of Yael, Guest argues for a “genderqueer” reading that does not conform to a binary notion of gender. See “From Gender Reversal,” pp. 23–24. 34 Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 105. 35 Yee writes: “For the author, the one who confronts Barak with the oracle of God is first and foremost a woman.” Ibid., p. 115. 36 Ibid. 37 A similar justification is made for bringing the ark of the covenant into battle. See 1 Samuel 4:3. 38 Smith, Poetic Heroes, p. 76. 39 Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 112. 40 Ibid., p. 115. 41 Tikva Frymer-Kensky discusses the ambiguity of this verse and its implications in Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories (New York: Schocken Books, 2002), pp. 51–52. 42 Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 116. 43 Ellen van Wolde notes that Yael’s name is conjugated in the third person masculine singular and asks: “What are the actions described in 4:18–19 and 4:21–22 as performed by this woman, who bears a name which is marked as masculine?” See Ellen van Wolde, “Deborah and Ya‘el in Judges 4,” in On Reading Prophetic Texts: On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specific and Related Studies in Memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes (eds. Bob Becking and Meindert Dijkstra; Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1996), p. 292. 44 Susan Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 95. 45 See Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 116. 46 Ackerman, Warrior, p. 98. 47 Don Seeman, “ ‘Where is Sarah Your Wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible,” HTR 91:2 (1998), p. 106.

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 65 48 Seeman writes: “I have already indicated my view that the tent opening is a site for the mediation of fecundity . . . It is also, however, a site for the representation of danger from inappropriate exteriority, or from the intrusion of a hostile outside world.” Ibid., p. 121. 49 See Genesis 15:1; 26:24; 46:3; Numbers 21:34; Deuteronomy 1:21; Joshua 8:1; 10:8; 11:6; Judges 6:23. 50 See Bal, Death & Dissymmetry, pp. 212–213. 51 Ibid., p. 213. 52 Fewell and Gunn, “Controlling Perspectives,” pp. 392–393. 53 As I mention in the introduction, women are not supposed to be sexually aggressive. The Bible presents sexually aggressive women in a negative light and uses them as emblems of sin, and to portray the seductive qualities of sin. See Proverbs 7 and Ezekiel 23. 54 Guest, “From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck,” p. 23. Guest and I differ in that I consider Yael to be female, while Guest considers Jael to be a genderqueer figure. 55 Cynthia R. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the IsraeliteAssyrian Encounter (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), p. 48. 56 Ibid., p. 35. 57 Haddox similarly argues: “One has the impression from the narrative that, if Barak had jumped up into battle when Deborah first told him, he might have had the opportunity to kill Sisera himself. Because of his failure to act, Jael was lifted up to shame him. Although Barak was shamed by a woman, losing to her the glory of killing Sisera, the woman’s authority is still determined by his (in)action and that of YHWH.” Haddox, “Gendering Violence and Violating Gender,” p. 80. 58 Bal, Death & Dissymmetry, p. 213. 59 Athalya Brenner, “A Triangle and a Rhombus in Narrative Structure: A Proposed Integrative Reading of Judges IV and V,” VT 40:2 (1990), p. 132. 60 Ibid., p. 135. 61 Ibid., p. 32. 62 Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 105. 63 Bal, Death & Dissymmetry, p. 213. 64 Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 116. 65 Fewell and Gunn, “Controlling Perspectives,” p. 393. 66 Bal, Death & Dissymmetry, p. 214. 67 See Genesis 29:21; 38:9, 16; Deuteronomy 21:13; 2 Samuel 3:7. 68 See Bal, Death & Dissymmetry, p. 215; Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 116; Fewell and Gunn, “Controlling Perspective,” p. 394; van Wolde, “Deborah and Ya‘el,” p. 293. 69 See Susanne Scholz, Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), pp. 150–155 and Susan Niditch, “War, Women, and Defilement in Numbers 31,” Semeia 61 (1993), pp. 49–53. 70 For examples of biblical rape narratives, see Judges 19 and 2 Samuel 13. 71 Fewell and Gunn suggest that the tent and its opening “become uterine and vaginal images respectively.” See Fewell and Gunn, “Controlling Perspective,” p. 393. 72 Examining the Assyrian “royal performance of masculinity,” Chapman considers the importance of male rivalry on the battlefield; she writes: “Successful performance of masculinity on the battlefield resulted in the royal claim of having ‘no rival among princes.’ ” See Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare, pp. 32–33. For a broad discussion, see pp. 20–59. Wilson discusses the elements that determine male honor, including male rivalry in Making Men, pp. 42–44. 73 Arie van der Kooij, “On Male and Female Views in Judges 4 and 5,” in On Reading Prophetic Texts, pp. 135–152.

66  Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 74 Judges 5 may conform to the custom also evident in Exodus 15 and 1 Samuel 18 in which women greeted returning warriors with a victory song. Van der Kooij notes that Judges 5 does not mention other women singing and dancing, and concludes: “The Song of Judges 5 is not just a song of victory sung by women, but an impressive piece of poetic literature, sung by two leaders of whom the first one, Deborah, is thought to be the composer.” Ibid., p. 144. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., p. 148. 77 Judges 5:2–3, 9, 11. 78 Yee similarly writes: “As women warriors Deborah and Jael become for the male author metaphorical strategies of entitlement, functioning primarily as the agents of male shame.” Yee, “By the Hand of a Woman,” p. 117. 79 Haddox similarly concludes: “The prose version puts a much more male centered spin on the story . . . The prose section summary is that YHWH subdued the Canaanites, and that the hand of Israel went harder and harder against them and Jabin until they were destroyed. The regularization of YHWH’s message and action seems to better fit the Deuteronomistic perspective of centralized power, with the military leader under the influence of the prophet, and all the events under the authority of YHWH but carried out by humans.” Haddox, “Gendering Violence and Violating Gender,” pp. 80–81.

Bibliography Ackerman, Susan. Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Bal, Mieke. Death & Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Bledstein, Adrien Janis. “Is Judges a Woman’s Satire of Men Who Play God?” In The Feminist Companion to Judges, edited by Athalya Brenner, 34–54. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Brenner, Athalya. “A Triangle and a Rhombus in Narrative Sturcture: A Proposed Integrative Reading of judges IV and V.” VT 40:2 (1990), pp. 129–138. Chapman, Cynthia R. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. Christianson, Eric S. “The Big Sleep: Strategic Ambiguity in Judges 4–5 and in Classic film noir.” BI 15 (2007), pp. 519–548. Exum, J. Cheryl. “The Center Cannot Hold: Thematic and Textual Instabilities in Judges.” CBQ 52 (1990), pp. 410–429. Exum, J. Cheryl. “Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests Are Being Served?” In Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies: Second Edition, edited by Gale A. Yee, 65–89. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. Fewell, Danna Nolan and David M. Gunn. “Controlling Perspectives: Women, Men and the Authority of Violence in Judges 4 & 5.” JAAR 58:3 (1990), pp. 389–411. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories. New York: Schocken Books, 2002. Fuchs, Esther. “Prophecy and the Construction of Women: Inscription and Erasure.” In Prophets and Daniel: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series), edited by Athalya Brenner, 54–69. London and New York: Sheffield Academic, 2001. Guest, Deryn. “From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical

Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera 67 Scholarship, edited by Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, 9–43. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Hackett, Jo Ann. “Violence and Women’s Lives in the Book of Judges.” Interpretation 58:4 (2004), pp. 356–364. Haddox, Susan E. “Gendering Violence and Violating Gender in Judges 4–5.” Proceedings of the Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society 33 (2014), pp. 67–81. Hamori, Esther J. “Childless Female Diviners in the Bible and Beyond.” In Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East, edited by Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho, 169–191. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Kooij, Arie van der. “On Male and Female Views in Judges 4 and 5.” In On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specific and Related Studies in Memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, edited by Bob Becking and Meindert Dijkstra, 135–152. Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1996. Niditch, Susan. “War, Women, and Defilement in Numbers 31.” Semeia 61 (1993), pp. 39–57. Nissinen, Martti. “Gender and Prophetic Agency in the Ancient Near East and in Greece.” In Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East, edited by Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho, 27–58. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Sawyer, Deborah F. “Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham’s Masculinity.” In Gender, Religion, and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by Ursula King and Tina Beattie, 162–171. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005. Scholz, Susanne. Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Seeman, Don. “ ‘Where is Sarah Your Wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible.” HTR 91:2 (1998), pp. 103–125. Smith, Mark S. Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2014. Washington, Harold C. “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible.” BI 5:4 (1997), pp. 324–363. Wilson, Stephen M. Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Wolde, Ellen van. “Deborah and Ya’el in Judges 4.” In On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specific and Related Studies in Memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, edited by Bob Becking and Meindert Dijkstra, 283–295. Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 1996. Wright, Jacob L. “Deborah’s War Memorial: The Composition of Judges 4–5 and the Politics of War Commemoration.” ZAW 123 (2011), pp. 516–534. Yee, Gale A. “By the Hand of a Woman: The Metaphor of the Woman Warrior in Judges 4.” Semeia 61 (1993), pp. 99–132. Yee, Gale A. “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17–21 and the Dismembered Body.” In Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies: Second Edition, edited by Gale A. Yee, 138–160. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.

3 Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah

An overview of the gender dynamic Despite having triumphed over Canaan at the conclusion of Judges 4, Israel resumes its familiar patterns of behavior and does evil in the eyes of God.1 In response, God likewise adheres to divine patterns of behavior and delivers Israel into the hands of new enemies until Israel, predictably, cries out.2 God then appoints new judges and restores order. But chaos always returns in Judges. As I argue in Chapter 2, Judges depicts an unstable world that lacks effective and unifying male authority figures to justify the establishment of a monarchy and to secure God’s ultimate authority. A king is crowned in the Bible’s next book, but even this king must learn the power of divine authority. King Saul, Israel’s first king, must lose the throne in order to learn that God values obedience most of all.3 Saul’s successor, David, understands better that God demands obedience and transmits this value at the end of his life to his son and heir Solomon.4 Women are central figures in the book of Judges. Their narratives depict an unstable world and often portray women as agents or subjects of violence. It is also a world in which women like Deborah and Yael can assume authority and succeed where men cannot. Yet instead of celebrating these women, I argue that Judges uses their stories as indicators of social chaos. Like the Bible at large, Judges is invested in a social and a theological hierarchy in which women are subordinate to men and men are subordinate to God. Characters such as Deborah, Barak, Yael, and Sisera challenge the Bible’s preferred hierarchies, as did Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. These narratives, I argue, reveal the ways in which the social and the theological hierarchies intertwine and work to restore the hierarchies they potentially invert. In a stable world, men rule women, and God reigns supreme. The story of Samson begins at Judges 13 and continues through Judges 16. It opens as a typical narrative in Judges: Israel commits evil before God, and God subjects Israel to Philistine rule for forty years. Then the story relates the birth of Samson, a savior. Despite the narrative’s conventional beginning, Samson is a perplexing figure when compared to other judges, and his narrative takes unique turns. As many scholars observe, Samson,

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 69 Israel’s savior, is an extremely flawed figure. Michael J. Smith contends that Samson is “a picture of the nation” who embodies Israel’s flaws.5 Neither Israel nor Samson learns “from painful experiences of covenant-making with the enemy.”6 Both continue to pursue foreign alliances and ultimately fall victim to them. Although Samson is a unique figure, there are literary and thematic reasons to link Samson’s narrative with Judges 4. The most direct connection between the stories is the mention of the tent peg. In Judges 4:21, Yael thrusts a tent peg [‫ ]ותתקע את היתד‬into Sisera’s temple while he slept. Similarly, Delilah thrusts a tent peg into Samson’s braids [‫ ]ותתקע ביתד‬while he sleeps in what is a failed attempt to weaken him. There is also a structural similarity between the narratives. Judges 4 begins with the prophecy exchanged between Deborah and Barak and concludes with the violent encounter between Yael and Sisera. Samson’s narrative begins with a prophecy exchanged between Manoah and his wife, and concludes with a violent encounter between Delilah and Samson. This structural similarity invites comparisons between the characters and their actions. Like Deborah, Manoah’s wife is a woman prophet whose gender, I argue, is a significant part of the narrative.7 Like Yael, Delilah enacts the prophecy. The parallel with Yael suggests that Delilah, though an enemy of Israel, may serve God by betraying Samson, thereby initiating the events that fulfill the prophecy. Above all, Samson’s narrative, like Judges 4, invites a gender critique. Both narratives portray strong women and weak men. Recently, scholars have focused attention upon Samson’s masculinity, which they view as being compromised in the course of the narrative. Ela Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska observes that at the beginning of the narrative, Samson is at the peak of his masculinity and is an “epitome of virility.”8 Yet, in a culture that prizes male honor and measures it in large part by physical strength, an ability to protect and acquire property, as well as sexual potency, masculinity must be constantly maintained. Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska argues that Samson’s masculinity is lost through the course of the narrative but is restored possibly at its end. This argument supports the notion that masculinity is not an inherent compilation of characteristics with an accompanying fixed status. In Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska’s reading, Samson’s story relates how biblical masculinity can be challenged, lost, and reasserted.9 According to Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, Samson’s masculinity is challenged first in chapter 14 when the Philistines convince Samson’s bride to help them solve the riddle Samson had posed to them during the wedding feast. Samson’s retort to the Philistines in 14:18, “had you not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle,” conveys that Samson’s male honor has been violated. As Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska notes, a heifer is a virginal cow. Thus, Samson implies that the Philistines, at least figuratively, sexually violated his virginal bride when compelling her to betray Samson.10 Since marriages were consummated after the wedding feasts were completed, it is logical that Samson had not yet consummated his marriage.

70  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah This shields Samson from the even greater humiliation of having to share his wife sexually with other men. Appropriately, his bride is given to one of the men at the wedding party who most likely had participated in the “plowing,” and therefore had a sexual claim upon her. Samson’s manhood remains consistently under attack, according to Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, until he is completely unmanned by Delilah, who sexually seduces him and emasculates him by cutting off his hair – a symbol of vitality, power, and sexual potency. In this reading, Samson’s haircut is a symbolic castration.11 Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska suggests that Samson’s masculinity is restored when his hair begins to grow again. His restored strength enables him to perform one final and fatal violent act. He destroys the Philistine temple and kills more Philistines than he ever did before. He also kills himself. According to David J. A. Clines, deadly military strength is a hallmark of masculinity.12 Thus, by killing thousands, Samson proves himself to be more a man in death than he did in life, as Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska writes: The emphasis on the information that Samson killed more Philistines at his death than he did during his life (16:30) is not incidental: in order to rehabilitate himself from the enormous dishonour he suffered, he had to surpass his enemies in violence.13 Stephen M. Wilson also considers Samson’s manhood. Wilson observes that at first glance, Samson is “the embodiment of idealized machismo,” performing feats of great strength, and demonstrating a facility with language.14 Yet, Samson’s manhood is stunted according to Wilson. He remains a man-child who never fully matures. Wilson identifies several factors that indicate Samson’s immaturity. Samson remains unmarried and childless and connected to his parents through the narrative. He acts impetuously and violently and fails to develop appropriate relationships with other adult males. Also, the text refers to him frequently as a boy or young man, and not as a mature adult.15 Wilson considers Samson’s story to be one of “arrested development,” and suggests that it may have been “told among elders about the difficulties associated with rearing a boy properly.”16 Wilson also suggests, like Smith, that Samson epitomizes Israel. Samson and Israel “are given every advantage from the moment of their birth,” and “possess a special relationship with God.”17 Both, through personal weakness, squander their potential and fail to live up to expectations.18 Like Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska and Wilson, I contend that Samson’s story is concerned with Samson’s compromised masculinity. In this way, it resembles Judges 4, which, according to my reading, uses women to reflect the compromised masculinity of its male characters, and even to unman them. Barak’s reliance on Deborah, and not directly on God, indicates his weakness and compromises his masculinity. Yael completely unmans Sisera and then displays his body to Barak so that Barak can see that this woman

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 71 could do what he could not – kill a man. In my reading of Judges 4, Deborah and Yael overpower men and challenge the gender hierarchy in the narrative as women. Deborah, a woman prophet, and Yael, a woman warrior, compromise or annihilate the power and masculinity of the men they engage with. They inflict a greater blow to Barak’s and Sisera’s masculinity because they are women. Women function similarly in the Samson narrative. Manoah’s wife and Delilah compromise the power and the masculinity of Manoah and Samson respectively. And they do so as women. By portraying a chaotic world in which women control and overpower men, their story relates a similar message to the stories told in Genesis 3 and Judges 4. Read together, these narratives convey that women should not control or overpower men. When women control men, as Eve does Adam, Deborah does Barak, and Delilah does Samson, bad things happen that lead to violence, and even death. Most importantly, in a world in which men submit to the authority of women, men do not submit directly to God’s authority. The Bible is invested in a gender and a theological hierarchy. In fact, as the narratives discussed reveal, the social and the theological hierarchies intertwine. Adam’s obedience to Eve overrides his obedience to God. Barak’s reliance on Deborah weakens his reliance on God. Samson’s attraction to foreign women undermines his unique relationship with God. Like Judges 4 and Genesis 3, Samson’s story is fundamentally about God’s power. All three narratives illustrate how men who submit to women jeopardize their relationship to God. If Samson’s power and manhood are restored at the story’s conclusion, they are restored by the grace of God, and at the expense of Samson’s life. After Samson succumbs to Delilah, God turns from Samson in Judges 16:20. The Philistines erroneously believe that their god delivered Samson to them and praise Dagon in Judges 16:23–24. They force Samson to dance in celebration of their victory. Humiliated, Samson cries out to God and begs God to grant him one final act of strength. Samson is willing to die so that he can take vengeance upon his enemies. God grants Samson his request. I contend that Samson’s humiliation, followed by his death, testify to God’s power. Samson was a Nazir from birth – an individual dedicated to God. His strength, which resides in his long hair, is associated with his consecrated status and therefore derives from God. Despite the fact that he acquires his consecrated status at birth, the power it affords him is not innate to him, as is evident by how a haircut weakens him. His death also makes it clear that he is, as he has always been, only God’s instrument. His strength is God’s strength. In my reading of Samson’s narrative, it takes Samson his lifetime to learn this, and it costs him his life. Without God’s strength, Samson is nothing more than an emasculated man. Samson’s story reveals how human masculinity reflects but cannot supersede God’s masculinity. In Chapter 7, I identify a similar dynamic evident in the fluctuating gender identity of the prophet Jeremiah. There, I argue that Jeremiah presents more masculine when addressing Israel and

72  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah reflecting God’s masculinity than when he stands before God. In the course of his narrative, Samson learns the limits of his power. Samson’s story also reveals how masculinity and a consecrated status are constructed identities. Both are acquired and must be sustained. Both can be compromised. In this way, Samson’s story does mirror Israel’s story and functions as a warning. Like Samson, Israel was sanctified and assumed a special status by being in an intimate relationship with God.19 Samson’s story relates how human behavior can jeopardize the relationship with God and the status it incurs. This is Israel’s story as well. Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi similarly observes how Samson “symbolizes Israel, a people among peoples specially consecrated to YHWH”20 and considers the overlap in their narratives; she writes: Israel’s coherence and unity derive from its relationship with YHWH, which is why Judges depicts the people struggling on both fronts. Israel has no ideologically secure unity outside of and prior to its relationship with YHWH. Relationship with YHWH precedes and conditions Israel’s very existence, a point not only found in Genesis (12:1–2), but also reaffirmed in the Samson story . . . Samson embodies the contingent and contested existence of his people.21 Samson’s identity, like Israel’s, is not fixed. In my reading, Samson’s gender and his consecrated status are contingent and contested from the beginning of his narrative. My analysis focuses on the chapters in which Samson’s Nazirite status is a factor and the divine-human relationship is most pronounced. Although women are significant in the intervening chapters, they are particularly prominent in Judges 13 and 16 in which Samson’s Nazirite status is determined and managed. His mother establishes it, while his lover obliterates it. I argue that Manoah’s wife and Delilah challenge the Bible’s conventional gender hierarchy and thereby function as obstacles between men and God. Their stories register the social chaos depicted in Judges and work to present Samson as a flawed figure, ultimately laying the groundwork for the establishment of the monarchy. Their engagement with Samson, I argue, compromises his masculinity and reveals how masculinity is a contingent and contested quality.

Judges 13: Manoah, Manoah’s wife, and Samson’s birth As I mention in the introduction, great stories defy expectations. Many scholars recognize that Judges 13 is a rendering of a biblical annunciation scene in which the birth of important figures are announced either by God or by a divine emissary to an unsuspecting, if not incredulous, parent. Esther Fuchs identifies three “thematic components” of a typical annunciation scene: a wife’s barrenness, a divine promise of conception, and the birth of a son.22 As Fuchs notes, every annunciation scene varies in detail and

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 73 complexity, often “as foreshadowing techniques alluding to future events in the life of the future son.”23 Paying particular attention to mothers in the annunciation scenes, Fuchs observes an increasing emphasis on the role they play. Despite their prominence, Fuchs concludes that the annunciation typescene communicates the message “that woman has no control at all over her reproductive potential.” God and men do.24 Barren women require the intervention of both in order to conceive. Most scholars recognize the unique features of the annunciation scene recounted in Judges 13. For many, the role assumed by Samson’s mother, referred to as Manoah’s wife, as the narrative’s protagonist is its most unique feature. Even in the context of other biblical annunciation scenes in which women play important roles, Manoah’s wife stands out, particularly in relation to Manoah. Manoah’s wife, and not her husband, receives the prophecy that she will conceive. Susan Niditch remarks that Manoah plays “the timid uncomprehending fool to his wife” who is the featured character.25 Adele Reinhartz suggests that Manoah’s wife is aligned with the divine messenger in the narrative – the unnamed man of God who appears to Manoah’s wife and announces her pregnancy. Reinhartz contends that the anonymity of both characters suggests a relationship between them, which testifies to their significance in the narrative, and to their shared role of communicating and initiating God’s plan.26 Like Reinhartz, I recognize the central and significant role Manoah’s wife plays in this narrative relative to her husband and to other biblical mothers. Manoah’s wife is the protagonist of Judges 13. She exercises power and agency, particularly when seen in relation to her husband and son. She overshadows her husband, communicates directly with the angel, and determines her son’s Nazirite status. Also, like Reinhartz, I recognize commonalities between the angel and Manoah’s wife. Yet, I contend that Manoah’s wife is more aligned with Samson, whose Nazirite status is transmitted through her, than with the angel. Aligned with her erratic son who does not live up to his potential, Manoah’s wife is not a positive symbol of knowledge and power, as Reinhartz suggests.27 Rather, in my reading, she is indicative of an unstable world in which women overpower men, and distance men from God. Judges 13 opens with the declaration that Israel, once again, behaves badly. In response, God delivers Israel into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. A familiar biblical narrative trope begins: There was a man from Zorah, from the Danite clan whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, and had not given birth. (Judg 13:2) Focusing first on Manoah, the narrative states his city of origin and his clan association. According to Judges 18, the Danites were not allotted tribal territory and migrated in order to claim land. Manoah could have been among those who migrated from the central Danite city of Zorah,28 although

74  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah his name, which means “resting place,” suggests stability. Its root, ‫נוח‬, is common in the Deuteronomistic histories and is used to denote the rest that God provides Israel from its enemies as a reward for their obedience.29 It also evokes another biblical character, Noah, who provides continuity during the primordial flood and restores stability to a chaotic world. Expectations, therefore, are high for Manoah, who could be the judge who will liberate Israel from Philistine rule. Yet the narrative takes an unconventional turn in the context of Judges and conforms more to a patriarchal narrative found in Genesis. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Manoah has a barren wife. Biblical convention suggests that there will be a patriarchal appeal, followed by a divine response and intervention. Abraham prays for an heir in Genesis 15. God promises Abraham that Sarah will produce an heir in Genesis 17 and fulfills the promise in Genesis 21. Isaac appeals to God on behalf of his barren wife, Rebecca, who immediately conceives, in Genesis 25:21. Rachel may hope that Jacob will appeal to God on her behalf in Genesis 30:1–2. I contend that Judges 13 plays with conventional expectations and intentionally crafts a story that defies them. Manoah does not appeal to God on behalf of his barren wife. God does not engage with Manoah. Instead, God engages with Manoah’s wife: An angel of God appeared to the woman and said to her: “Indeed you are barren and have not given birth. But you will conceive and bear a son. Now, be careful. Do not drink wine or beer. Do not eat anything impure for you will conceive and bear a son. A razor shall not touch his head for the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb. He will initiate Israel’s salvation from the hand of the Philistines.” (Judg 13:3–5) The appearance of an angel evokes Genesis 18 in which divine messengers approach Abraham while he recovers from his recent circumcision at his tent’s opening, to deliver the news that Sarah will conceive a child within the year. Sarah overhears the announcement from within the tent. In Judges 13, it is striking that the messenger appears to Manoah’s wife and not to Manoah. As Fuchs notes, the thematic parallels between Judges 13 and Genesis 18 “highlight the radical shift in the characterization and respective status of the potential mother and father figures.”30 In Fuchs’s reading, Manoah’s wife, as the central protagonist who receives direct prophecy, is aligned more with Abraham than with Sarah. Manoah, she observes, is somewhat dispensable.31 Not only is he not the judge that Israel awaits, but his role as patriarch is compromised. Manoah does not mediate the relationship between his wife and God. In fact, he remains distant from God throughout the narrative, while his wife takes center stage. After informing Manoah’s wife that she will conceive, the angel relates a list of prenatal instructions. Manoah’s wife must refrain from drinking

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 75 alcohol and eating impure foods because she will give birth to a Nazirite who will herald Israel’s salvation. Scholars debate the significance of Samson’s Nazirite status and its impact on his character and his role within the narrative. A Nazir is a man or a woman who consecrates his or her life by voluntarily taking a vow, or whose life is consecrated, as Samson’s is by his mother.32 The root ‫ נזר‬connotes separation and can be used negatively to convey estrangement, or positively to indicate something or someone who has been set apart and dedicated to God.33 According to the laws found in Numbers 6, which relate to an individual who vows to become a Nazir, the Nazirite status is marked and sustained by a number of behaviors that resonate with priestly behavior. Nazirites avoid consuming any intoxicants, grapes, or grape products,34 do not cut their hair during the duration of their vow, and avoid any contact with the dead – even from among their closest family members. In this way, a Nazir resembles the high priest who, unlike common priests, is prohibited in Leviticus 21:10–11 from coming in contact with the corpses of his close family members. Although, as Susan Niditch writes, the Nazir is “a special kind of demarcated person, set apart, holy, and self-disciplined,” the Bible does not delineate, as it does for the priests, a ritual function for the Nazir.35 Amos 2:11–12 suggests an association between Nazirites and prophets, perhaps perceiving both as charismatics who, intimate with God, are indicative of God’s generosity.36 Samson, like Deborah, is a hybrid figure. Whereas Deborah is a prophetjudge, Samson is a Nazir-judge. Leaving aside the possibility that Samson was a real figure who was a Nazir, it is interesting to speculate why Judges presents Samson as a Nazir and not as a prophet. As I mention above, Mbuvi suggests that Samson is a Nazir because “he symbolizes Israel,” and contends that Samson is consecrated from birth, as opposed to vowing later to become a Nazir. In this way he resembles better Israel, which is sanctified by God, as opposed to choosing its own special status. Like Wilson, Mbuvi also contends that Samson does not live up to the potential his status bestows.37 Recognizing several qualities related to Nazirite status, Niditch focuses on the qualities particularly associated with the Nazir’s most visible feature – uncut and unkempt hair. As Niditch notes, Samson’s hair “is central to the narrative, its plot, its hero’s characterization, and its central themes.”38 Numbers 6:5 describes the Nazir’s hair as being ‫פרע‬, which means “to let loose.” Niditch observes how in the ancient world, hair was perceived to be endowed with magical strength.39 Samson’s wild, uncut hair is the source of his strength. It is, as Niditch notes, “related to a kind of life force, connoting a heroic status that sets Samson apart from other people,”40 and is indicative of “the divine power within the man.”41 It also is indicative of his virility and his masculinity. In the ancient world, warriors were depicted with long, unkempt hair that communicated their “prowess and power.”42 Niditch, like Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, argues that “the shearing of Samson’s hair is

76  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah a sexual stripping and subjugation.”43 By cutting his hair, Delilah disempowers and feminizes Samson; Niditch writes: The defeated warrior has been made into a woman; the cutting of Samson’s hair, ironically accomplished by a woman’s treachery, makes him into a woman, the subdued one, the defeated warrior.44 For both Mbuvi and Niditch, Samson’s Nazirite status serves as a means through which the narrative displays Samson’s weaknesses. Samson’s behavior and his demise should be viewed in contrast to his position as a Nazir. Flawed and defeated, Samson is a failure as a Nazir and as a judge. It is evident throughout the story that he cannot control his appetites or his enemies. I contend that even at its onset, Samson’s status and character are suspect. The fact that the angel breaks biblical convention to address Samson’s mother directly and not his father manifests an inversion of the Bible’s preferred gender hierarchy and marks Samson from the get-go as an unstable figure born into an unstable world. I also contend that the fact that Samson is a Nazir, and not a prophet, is a sign of his initial weakness. Whereas God designates prophets in the Bible, human beings designate Nazirites. A person can either assume Nazirite status through a vow, or a parent can designate a child. A Nazir, then, is more removed from God than a prophet. There is more of a human factor in becoming a Nazir than there is becoming a prophet. Although in Samson’s case, an angel directs his mother and informs her that she will give birth to a Nazir, the fact that she assumes some of the Nazirite behaviors suggests that she transmits the status to her unborn child. In other words, the human element persists even in the case of a Nazir who is designated from the womb. The angel cannot simply declare the child to be a Nazir. His mother must transform Samson into a Nazir by adopting similar behaviors. Like her son, she must not drink wine or eat anything impure. Samson’s association with his mother, I argue, also suggests an affinity with his mother. Samson is more like his mother than his father. Though I agree with Niditch that Delilah dramatically feminizes Samson, I argue that Samson is somewhat feminized through his association with his mother. Thus, the narrative plays with gender from its beginning by inverting gender roles in the familiar biblical annunciation scene, and by linking Samson socially and biologically with his mother.45 Samson becomes a Nazir by being part of his mother’s “consecrated” body. After her encounter with the angel, Manoah’s wife informs Manoah of the angel’s prophecy: The woman comes [‫ ]ותבא האשה‬and says to her husband: “A man of God came to me [‫]בא אלי‬. His appearance was like the appearance of a divine angel – very awesome. I did not inquire where he came from and he did not tell me his name. He said to me: ‘You will conceive and give birth to

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 77 a son. Now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat anything impure for the boy will be a Nazir of God from womb until the day of his death. (Judg 13:6–7) As Yael comes to Sisera in Judges 4:21, Manoah’s wife comes to her husband in Judges 13:6. As they do in Yael’s movements,46 scholars perceive sexual innuendo in the actions of Manoah’s wife. As I mention in Chapter 2, the expression “to come to” has sexual connotations and usually appears with the man as the subject. The fact that Manoah’s wife comes to her husband indicates the inversion of the conventional sexual dynamic and further disempowers Manoah in the narrative. Also, Manoah’s wife’s account that a man of God came to her suggests that their encounter was sexual, and conformed to the conventional gender dynamic. Reinhartz locates hints within the narrative that the angel and Manoah’s wife were sexually intimate, though she admits that the text is ambiguous.47 Nowhere does the text say that Manoah impregnates his wife. Reinhartz acknowledges that this is an argument from silence and offers more textually based support found in the angel’s prophecy. When the angel first appears, he declares in verse 3 that Manoah’s wife will conceive [‫]והרית‬. The verb appears in the vav-consecutive perfect form and carries a future sense – you will conceive. The prophecy is repeated in verse 5. This time the verb appears in the perfect form [‫]הרה‬, which can be translated “you have conceived,” indicating that Manoah’s wife conceived in the course of her encounter with the angel.48 Bal similarly argues that the encounter with the angel has a symbolic “sexual aspect.”49 The angel “fertilizes” Manoah’s wife by announcing her pregnancy. They are not physically intimate.50 Like Bal, I recognize a sexual aspect in Manoah’s wife’s encounter with the angel, which I argue is not physical. I do not think that Samson is the product of a divine and human romantic tryst. If he was, he should be more successful in overcoming his passions and his enemies. It is hard to imagine a child of the Bible’s God lusting after Philistine women, or that his strength would reside solely in his hair. Although Samson consecrates his life to God and is able to channel divine power, Samson, I argue, is thoroughly and fatally human. As I observe above, his Nazirite status highlights his humanness. The course of his narrative further demonstrates his humanness. Given this, the sexual innuendo in the text does not identify Samson as semi-divine. Instead, it works to highlight Manoah’s dispensability in the narrative, helping to portray him as a weakened and impotent man in contrast to his strong wife. Manoah’s wife is strong relative to her husband, but, I argue, her strength is not celebrated in the narrative. Instead, her strength indicates male weakness, just as it did for Yael and Deborah. Although depicted as less foolish than her husband, Manoah’s wife is not completely aware of what is happening to her. She seems to recognize the angel as an angel – something her husband does not – but she is not certain. He appears like an angel. When recounting the prophecy to her

78  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah husband, she adds the detail that their son will be a Nazir from the womb until the day of his death. Reinhartz suggests that by predicting her son’s death, Manoah’s wife modifies the prophecy to foretell Samson’s death. In this way, she is like the angel. As Reinhartz observes, they both “understand the nature of God’s plan.”51 Although Manoah’s wife does foretell Samson’s death, she is incorrect about his uninterrupted Nazirite status. Throughout the narrative, Samson defies the Nazirite stringencies and thereby, I argue, disrupts his Nazirite status. He consumes impure substances such as honey found in the lion’s carcass and attends wedding feasts, where it is likely that he drank wine. Certainly, with shorn hair, Samson is no longer a Nazir. Thus, it appears that the prophetic status of Manoah’s wife is suspect. In this way, she resembles Deborah who erroneously predicted that God would deliver Sisera into Barak’s hand in Judges 4:14. Manoah’s wife does not have her own direct line to God. She merely repeats, incorrectly, the angel’s prophecy to her husband. Her certainty that Samson will remain a Nazir until his death sets up an expectation that will not be met, as does Deborah’s prediction of Barak’s success. Manoah responds to his wife’s news: Manoah appeals [‫ ]ויעתר‬to YHWH and says: “Please, my Lord, let the man of God that you sent come again to us and instruct us what we should do with the boy that will be born.” (Judg 13:8–9) Just as Isaac appeals [‫ ]ויעתר‬to God on behalf of his barren wife in Genesis 25:21, Manoah appeals to God. Manoah, it seems, wants to behave like a typical patriarch, and insert himself into the annunciation narrative. Yet, whereas Isaac hopes to intervene on behalf of his infertile wife to elicit God’s help, Manoah does not intervene on behalf of his wife, nor does he want to elicit God’s help. He accepts the angel’s prophecy as true and fixed. He simply wants more information about the child. He also may want to corroborate his wife’s story. Perhaps Manoah is suspicious and wants to meet the man who came to his wife. Given what happens next, it is interesting that Manoah asks the angel to appear to him and his wife. Perhaps he wants to see them together to gage their level of intimacy. God responds to Manoah’s request: God listened to the voice of Manoah [‫ ]וישמע האלהים בקול מנוח‬and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was sitting in the field. But Manoah, her husband, was not with her [‫]אין עמה אישה‬. (Judg 13:9) The text implies that God granted Manoah’s request, since, as I discuss in Chapter 1, the expression “to listen to the voice” carries the meaning of “to obey.”52 Yet, if God obeyed Manoah, he would have sent the angel to him

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 79 and his wife. Once again, Manoah appears expendable. He remains distant from God. The angel appears to Manoah’s wife, this time while she is alone in the field. As Reinhartz observes, her location again may hint of sexual intimacy, evoking Deuteronomy 22:25–27, which records laws pertaining to the rape of a woman that takes place in a field.53 According to Deuteronomy, a betrothed woman who is raped in a field is not held accountable since her cries for help could not have been heard. Echoing Deuteronomy, Judges 13:9 may work to exonerate Manoah’s wife from the accusation of adultery since she encounters the angel in the field. The text makes a point of noting Manoah’s absence. Manoah’s absence from his wife’s side [‫אשה אין‬ ‫ ]עמה‬echoes and contrasts with Adam’s presence at his wife’s side in Genesis 3:6 [‫]גם לאישה עמה‬. In both narratives, whether through their husband’s absence or presence, wives overshadow and overpower their husbands. Manoah’s wife runs to inform Manoah that the angel has appeared again, and tells him in Judges 13:10 that the man, ‫האיש‬, who has come to her before [‫]אשר בא ביום אלי‬, has come again. This time, Manoah’s wife does not refer to the angel as a “man of God,” as she did in Judges 13:6. Instead, she says a man came to her. This may be the narrative’s most overt sexual innuendo. Manoah follows her to meet the angel in Judges 13:11 and asks: “Are you the man [‫ ]האיש‬who spoke to the woman [‫ ”?]האשה‬The angel affirms that he is. Like his wife, Manoah refers to the angel as a man, but he does not say “the man who came to my wife.” Instead, he says “the man who spoke to the woman.” By referring to his wife as “the woman,” Manoah distances himself from his wife, perhaps allowing room for more intimacy between the angel and Manoah’s wife. Yet, he noticeably avoids using the sexually charged verb “to come.” Instead, Manoah focuses on words, and says to the angel in Judges 13:12: “Now, let your words come true [‫]יבא דבריך‬. What will be the laws and actions regarding the boy?” In Manoah’s framing of the incident, it is the words and not the man who does the coming. The angel responds accordingly: The angel of God said to Manoah: “You must follow [‫ ]תשמר‬all that I said to the woman. She must not eat from any grape product. She must not drink wine or beer, or eat anything impure. You must keep [‫]תשמר‬ all that I commanded her.” (Judg 13:13–14) Since the verb ‫ תשמר‬can be either a third person feminine singular or a second person masculine singular, there is some ambiguity to whom or about whom the angel is speaking. I have translated it as a second person masculine singular. The angel addresses Manoah, and tells him to observe all that the angel has commanded his wife. In other words, Manoah should listen to his wife. Even though Manoah asked for laws pertaining to his son, the angel repeats the stringencies that his wife must observe.54 Thus, even when the angel speaks to Manoah, his wife remains the angel’s focus. The angel

80  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah makes this very clear. The angel spoke directly to the woman [‫אשר אמרתי אל‬ ‫ ]האשה‬and commanded her directly [‫]צויתיה‬. Manoah does not receive new instructions. He is to follow precisely what his wife already was commanded to do. In this narrative, authority flows from God through the woman to the man. It does not reflect the Bible’s preferred social and theological hierarchies in which authority flows from God through men to women. As we have already seen, an inverted gender hierarchy reflects and contributes to social and to theological instability. Thus, despite the angel’s good news to Manoah and to his wife, the narrative is unsettling and poised for disruption. Seemingly happy to receive the news of impending parenthood and a good host, Manoah offers to make a meal for the angel. The angel responds to Manoah’s invitation: The angel of YHWH said to Manoah: “Do not detain me. I cannot eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, offer it to YHWH.” For Manoah did not know that he was an angel of YHWH. (Judg 13:16) Manoah’s ongoing ignorance about the angel’s identity makes him look even more foolish than he did at the beginning of the narrative. How could Manoah receive a prophecy that he accepts as true and not know that it comes from God? Is Manoah that thick? I contend that Manoah’s ignorance does more that manifest his foolishness. It manifests his religious instability. Manoah understands that he has received a prophecy. He just does not understand that the prophecy comes from YHWH. Assuming the angel represents a different god, Manoah asks the angel his name in verse 17 so that he can properly honor that god. The angel rebuts Manoah’s question because he is incredulous that Manoah still does not know who to honor. The angel made it clear to Manoah when he told him to offer a sacrifice to YHWH. Manoah’s ignorance may reflect his stupidity, but it also may result from the distance between himself and the angel. Had the angel approached Manoah directly, and not his wife, Manoah may have been able to identify him as an angel of YHWH. The inverted gender hierarchy prevents Manoah from recognizing Israel’s God. At last, Manoah understands that the angel represents YHWH and offers a sacrifice to YHWH. Manoah and his wife watch as the angel ascends to heaven on the flames of the sacrifice. Directly witnessing the angel’s miraculous exit makes Manoah a true believer. He now knows that he has encountered the divine, and fears for his and his wife’s life, as Judges 13:22–23 relates: Manoah said to his wife: “Indeed we will die for we have seen God.” His wife said to him: “If YHWH had wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted from our hands the burnt offering and the grain sacrifice.

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 81 He would not have shown us all this and he would not have pronounced to us these matters now.” Manoah’s fear that they will die for having seen God is understandable. Before passing by Moses and allowing Moses to view only God’s back, God declares to Moses in Exodus 33:20: “No man can see me and live.” After witnessing God’s glory and receiving revelation at Sinai, Israel fears for its life in Deuteronomy 5:24. Manoah, therefore, has a rational response. It even indicates a true reverence for YHWH since Manoah acknowledges God’s deadly power. Manoah’s wife alleviates his fears. It is illogical that God would kill them after delivering this prophecy. It would negate the prophecy. Although Manoah’s wife thinks practically, she is not entirely correct. After all, God does have the right to retract a prophecy. Abraham received the promise of a child in Genesis 18, only to be told to sacrifice the child in Genesis 22. Manoah and his wife have no guarantees that they would see the prophecy to fruition. Also, God could kill Manoah. Manoah was expendable in the reception of the prophecy and could be expendable to its fruition if his wife already is pregnant. The fact that Manoah does not die after seeing God supports the argument that the encounter between the angel and his wife was not sexual. Manoah still needs to impregnate his wife. I suggest that Manoah and his wife do not die because the revelation they received was indirect. Unlike Moses and Israel, they did not engage with God but with an emissary of God. This is another indicator of the unstable world of Judges. This is not the world of Genesis in which God selects patriarchs and nations and communicates directly with them. This is a world in which angels speak to women, and men are foolish, impetuous, and vulnerable. Samson is born into this world, and Manoah’s wife names him. Thus, Manoah remains overshadowed by his wife even after the birth of his son. Although the narrative ends on a hopeful note, as the divine spirit stirs within Samson, its beginning suggests that Samson ultimately will be a compromised judge and savior. Born to an overbearing mother and a foolish father, he is not destined for greatness. Indeed, Samson heralds in Israel’s salvation, as the angel declared to Manoah’s wife, but it comes through Samson’s weakness, and at the expense of his life. In my reading, the unconventional gender dynamic of Samson’s birth narrative sets the stage for what follows.

Judges 16: Samson and Delilah and Samson’s death Despite his birth, which compromises his status as a savior, Samson grows to become a strong, passionate, and impulsive young man. I agree with Wilson that Samson behaves throughout his narrative like an impetuous “man-child,”55 or what we might recognize today as a perpetual adolescent, whose uncontrolled emotions and appetites, particularly romantic desires, dictate his life. In Wilson’s reading Samson’s impetuousness compromises his masculinity and prevents him from maturing into an ideal man endowed

82  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah with the quality of self-restraint.56 In my reading, Samson’s impetuousness reveals an excess of masculinity, perhaps a characteristic of his youth, as Wilson suggests, which needs to be modulated, if not obliterated so that Samson can fulfill his God-given destiny. There are several women in Samson’s life between his mother and the appearance of Delilah in Judges 16. There is the unnamed Philistine woman from Timnah who marries Samson and then betrays him during their wedding feast by providing the Philistines with the answer to Samson’s riddle, and her younger sister who, after the elder is married to another, is offered to Samson. There is also the prostitute whom Samson has sex with in Gaza. Yet the only woman whom the text says that Samson loved is Delilah. Delilah is Samson’s downfall. She overpowers him in the same way that Yael overpowers Sisera in Judges 4. As we see below, the narrative incorporates rape language, as it did in Judges 4, suggesting that Samson, like Sisera, is emasculated by Delilah. My analysis of Judges 4 argues that whereas Sisera’s masculinity is compromised, Yael remains within the confines of her gender, though her gender-defined roles grow dark. She becomes a murderous mother and a dangerous seductress at Sisera’s peril. I now argue that Judges 16 similarly portrays Delilah as a violent woman who emasculates Samson. Like Yael, she is a dangerous seductress and murderous mother. Compared to Sisera’s, Samson’s demise is perplexing. Sisera’s defeat was the desired outcome of the narrative, and manifested the triumph of God and Israel over Canaan – though Israel’s triumph is tempered by the fact that a foreign woman kills Sisera. Samson also is killed by a foreign woman. Since Samson is an Israelite, it is difficult to perceive his death as the desired outcome of the narrative, or that his death manifests Israel’s triumph. My analysis argues that Samson’s death, unlike Sisera’s, does not manifest Israel’s power. It manifests God’s power only. I contend that Samson, the impulsive man-child, must be emasculated in order to understand his position vis-à-vis God, and to be able to channel God’s power. Before Samson succumbs to Delilah, he is too impulsive and too self-indulgent to submit to God’s authority. Samson is too much of a man. He is too quick to fight, and too quick to have sex.57 Delilah must emasculate him so that he can fulfill his divinely ordained destiny as Israel’s savior. Samson fulfills his destiny by dying. My reading of Samson’s narrative supports Bledstein’s observation that the men of Judges “have a tendency to get carried away with their selfimportance,” and to see themselves as gods.58 The narratives in Judges satirize these men and reveal the consequences of their hubris. Although the chaos of Judges justifies kingship and serves as a fitting introduction to the books of Samuel and Kings, the book makes it clear that God is the ultimate authority to which men and Israel must submit.59 Perhaps more than any other story in Judges, Samson’s communicates this essential message. Judges 16:4 relates that Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah from the Wadi Sorek. Although most scholars assume that Delilah is a

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 83 Philistine, J. Cheryl Exum raises the possibility that she is an Israelite since she has a Hebrew name, and she lives on the border between Israelite and Philistine territory.60 My reading assumes Delilah is a Philistine, not only because the Philistine officers have easy access to her and she is comfortable speaking with them, but also because a foreign status aligns her more closely with Yael, who as I have mentioned already, is her tent-peg-thrusting literary counterpart. No mention is made of Delilah’s family. She is not introduced as someone’s daughter or as someone’s wife. Bal perceives Delilah to be “a prototype of the socially successful, independent woman.”61 Unlike the woman from Timnah,62 Samson does not appear to pursue Delilah. The narrative does not mention that Samson sought her hand in marriage. Instead, the story opens with the Philistines pursuing Delilah with an offer. The Philistines officers went up to her and said to her: “Seduce him and see the means of his great strength, and how we can overpower him, bind him up, and weaken him, and each man will give you 1,100 silver pieces.” (Judg 16:5) The Philistines do not overpower Delilah. Needing her to get to Samson, the Philistines negotiate with her, offering her an enormous sum of money if she complies.63 As Bal observes, Delilah’s interaction with the Philistines “looks more like a business transaction than a low betrayal.”64 She knows where her best interests lie, and acts accordingly. The Philistines seek to overpower Samson. They appear aware that Samson has a weakness for women in general, and for this woman in particular. Thus, they take advantage of Samson’s weakness and Delilah’s strength by asking her “to seduce him.” The verb used is ‫פתה‬, which means “to persuade.” It appears in several contexts that imply the sexual connotation of “to seduce.” The verb appears earlier in the narrative in Judges 14:15 when the Philistines encourage Samson’s first wife to seduce [‫ ]פתי‬him into revealing the secret to the riddle. Exodus 22:15–16 also uses the verb to describe a man who seduces [‫]יפתה‬ and has sex with an unbetrothed virgin.65 A sexual connotation is also evident in the use of the verb ‫לענתו‬, translated above as “to weaken.” The verb ‫ ענה‬is used to connote degradation, and the infliction of pain,66 but also appears in several sexually explicit texts that suggest a translation of “rape,” such as Genesis 34:2; Deuteronomy 21:14; 22:24, 29; 2 Samuel 13:12, 14, 22, 32; Lamentations 5:11. Analyzing the verb, Sandie Gravett concludes that the root “can carry the meaning of ‘rape’,” though context is determinative.67 The combination of ‫ פתה‬and ‫ ענה‬makes a strong case for perceiving a sexual implication in the Philistine’s intentions, and suggests that Samson will be seduced before he is raped. Samson’s rape is metaphorical, not literal. The narrative, I argue, employs rape language to communicate Samson’s emasculation and demise.

84  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah As I mention in my introduction, in the ancient world, weakness is associated with femininity, which is why victors feminized their captors. The Philistines seek to capture and then feminize Samson to communicate their victory over him. The narrative conveys this by employing rape language because, as Susanne Scholz observes, society views men subjected to sexual violence “as not male enough, as too much like women.”68 Notably, the Philistines, at this point, are the ones who plan to overpower and feminize Samson physically, not Delilah. Delilah will seduce him, but the Philistines will bind Samson and metaphorically rape him. This is one of the few examples of male-on-male rape either hinted at or described in the Bible.69 The allusion to male-on-male rape makes the narrative, at this point, about competing masculinities. The Philistines’ need to bind Samson first demonstrates Samson’s, and perhaps through association Israel’s, superior strength and masculinity. They cannot overpower him until he is physically hindered. Once Samson is subdued, Philistine prowess and masculinity can triumph. It appears that Delilah does not hesitate in accepting the Philistines’ offer. Immediately, she engages Samson and says: Tell me the means of your great strength and how you can be bound in order to weaken you.” Samson said to her: “If they bind me with seven fresh and moist chords which are not dry, I will weaken and become like one of the human beings.” (Judg 16:6–7) It is difficult to discern Delilah’s strategy. Although she does not mention the Philistines, she seems to employ no guile. She asks directly what will weaken Samson. In response, Samson lies to Delilah, but as Bal notes, “he uncovers more of himself than we might think.”70 He admits to his “exceptionality.” Samson recognizes himself to be a super man. Yet, he also admits to his potential weakness by suggesting that he can become like an ordinary man [‫]כאחד האדם‬. Samson would have to be a big fool not to understand the danger he is in. This raises the question of why Samson engages with Delilah even though she appears to be plotting against him. Throughout the narrative, Samson proves himself to be a passionate and impulsive figure. His love for Delilah may cloud his judgment and drive him to engage with her even at his own peril. He may want to be with her at all costs. He also may be overconfident in his capabilities and enjoy showing off, particularly before the woman he loves. It certainly should be clear to Samson, after the Philistines’ first attempt to ambush him, that he is in danger. Judges 16:9 specifically relates that the Philistines are in the room with Delilah when she wakes Samson up, declaring: “The Philistines are upon you!” Yet, Samson remains willing to engage further with Delilah. In Judges 16:10–12, Delilah tries and fails a second time to make Samson an ordinary man [‫]כאחד האדם‬. This time she binds him with new ropes. Once

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 85 again, they have no effect on Samson, who easily rips them off. Delilah tries a third time, saying: “How long will you mock me and speak lies to me? Tell me, how can you be bound?” He said to her: “If you weave seven locks of my head with a web.” She thrust a tent peg in it and said to him: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He woke from his sleep and drove out the tent peg, the loom, and the web. (Judg 16:13–14) Samson still does not reveal his secret to Delilah, but he comes close by telling her to braid his hair. Either Delilah is wearing him down, or he cannot resist revealing his secret. The seven-plaited hairstyle may be an allusion to a figure found in Mesopotamian art with long hair that was braided into six locks. Although uncertain, the Akkadian name for this figure appears to be lahmu, meaning “the hairy one.” According to Gregory Mobley, the lahmu was a “wild man” – a savage figure who lives on the margins of society.71 In Mesopotamian ritual texts, the lahmu was a demon who guarded gates and doorways. Mobley suggests that Samson’s seven plaits was “an Israelite variation on the six locks of the lahmu.”72 By presenting himself as a lahmu, Samson once again admits his exceptionality and his liminality. He is a man on the margins of society.73 Samson also alludes to the true source of his power, his hair, thereby alluding to the source of his weakness – though taming his hair by braiding it will have no effect. As Samson will soon admit, it must be cut off. Delilah does more than braid Samson’s hair. She thrusts a tent peg into the hair and pins him to the wall, perhaps in an effort to domesticate the wild man.74 As I mention earlier, this is a direct link to Judges 4 and should be read in its context. In Judges 4, Yael, the foreign woman, thrusts a tent peg into Sisera’s head, and kills him. As I note in Chapter 2, Yael uses a weapon associated with her domestic space, her tent, and fatally confines Sisera to that space. In this way, Sisera is feminized not only because he is overpowered by a woman, but also because he is absorbed into female space. In Judges 16, a foreign woman thrusts a tent peg into Samson’s hair and attempts, unsuccessfully, to confine him to her domestic space. The allusion to Judges 4 may simply work to heighten tension within the text, and to let a reader know that this is a life-ordeath situation. Samson could die like Sisera. It may even reveal Delilah’s desire to kill him. Yet, the fact that Delilah is unsuccessful also highlights the differences between Yael and Delilah, and between Sisera and Samson. Although unacknowledged in Judges 4, Yael arguably is the hero of that narrative. Delilah is the antagonist, if not the villain, of this narrative. The book of Judges may be invested in portraying a chaotic world – in which women can overpower men – to justify the monarchy. It also may be invested in humbling Samson

86  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah and manifesting God’s power. But it is not invested in portraying the Philistines or Philistine women as heroes against Israelites. Philistine Delilah’s attempt at securing Israelite Samson and absorbing him into her home is unsuccessful, unlike Kenite Yael’s efforts to secure and absorb Canaanite Sisera into her home. It is also possible that Delilah’s attempt to domesticate Samson is unsuccessful because Samson is too much of a man to be domesticated. The wild man who lives on the margins of society cannot be tamed so easily. Thwarted three times, Delilah tries again. This time, Delilah appeals to Samson’s love for her, his true weakness, and asks in Judges 16:15: “How can you say, ‘I love you?’ ” Finally, she breaks Samson. When she pressed him with her words for many days, and urged him, he grew impatient to the point of death. He said to her all that was in his heart. He said to her: “A razor has never touched my head for I have been God’s Nazir from my mother’s womb. If I shave, my strength will leave me. I will grow weak and become like any man.” (Judg 16:16–17) Delilah’s words, not moist chords or new ropes, weaken Samson. Samson’s frustration to the point of desiring death evokes other biblical figures. Exhausted from engaging with a demanding and whining Israel, Moses expresses the desire to die in Numbers 11:15. While fleeing from Ahab and Jezebel, Elijah asks to die in 1 Kings 19:4. Having witnessed the salvation of Nineveh and feeling frustrated, Jonah asks God to end his life. Each of these prophetic figures can no longer bear the burden of their mission, and each begs God to end his live. God, of course, does not oblige. In contrast to Moses, Elijah, and Jonah, Samson does not pray to God. This may be because as a Nazir, and not a prophet, Samson may feel less connected to God. Also, as a Nazir, he bears the burden of his status, not of a specific mission. As he reveals to Delilah, Samson has borne this status all of his life, as he says from his “mother’s womb,”75 and may feel like he has to relinquish his life to relinquish his status.76 If so, Samson does not pray to God because, at this point, he does not want God to interfere and prolong his life, as God does with Moses, Elijah, and Jonah. According to this reading, Samson really wants to die and knows full well what he is doing by revealing his secret to Delilah. What happens next, then, is a suicide. Delilah understands that Samson at last speaks truthfully to her, and informs the Philistine officers who come up with their payment. Delilah delivers Samson to them. She lulled him to sleep in her lap and called to the man. She shaved the seven locks of his head. She began to weaken him. His strength turned from him. She said: “The Philistines are upon you Samson!” He woke

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 87 up from his sleep and said: “Let me flee now and shake loose.” He did not know that YHWH had turned from him. (Judg 16:19–20) Samson is asleep during Delilah’s three prior attempts to deliver him to the Philistines. This time, the narrative includes the detail that Delilah lulled Samson to sleep. The image of Delilah lulling Samson to sleep upon her lap [‫ ]ותישנהו על ברכיה‬is maternal, not unlike the image of Yael offering Sisera milk to lull him to sleep. A similar expression appears in Genesis 30:3 when Rachel offers her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob as a concubine. Bilhah functions as a surrogate for Rachel. The expression ‫תלד על ברכי‬, “she (Bilhah) will give birth upon my lap,” signifies Rachel as the adopting mother of Bilhah’s children. As Rachel says, “I will be built up through her.” Similarly, the mention of Delilah’s lap signifies Delilah as the maternal figure. At this moment, Delilah becomes the dangerous seductress and mother, as Yael did before her. With Samson asleep, Delilah calls a man. The text appears suspect at this point by not relating what the man was called to do. He may provide the razor that enables Delilah to shave Samson. The LXX sees the man as the subject of the verbs that follow, reading: “He shaved the seven locks and he began to weaken to him.” My reading follows the MT, and preserves Delilah as the subject of this sentence. She, not the man, shaves and weakens Samson. As Yael did in Judges 4, Delilah overpowers a man. As I mention in my introduction, shaving was a means of shaming captives in the ancient world by feminizing them. Iconographic and textual evidence suggest that ancient Near Eastern men wore full beards. T. M. Lemos writes that shaving captives “effects a lowering of status by removing that which visibly separates one status group from another, that is, men from women.”77 Although Samson’s head and not beard is shorn, the act of shaving certainly induces and indicates his impotence, and suggests his emasculation, as Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska observes: In folkloristic tales hair is frequently indicated as the seat of powers of a superhumanly strong hero. This motif operates in connection with the symbolic association of hair with masculine vitality and power, and in particular with sexual potency. The probable sexual setting of the scene, the symbolism of hair, and far-reaching results of the shaving have led a number of scholars to describe the shaving of Samson’s hair . . . as symbolic castration.78 The association of the shaving with the verbs ‫ ענה‬and ‫ פתה‬that I discuss above suggests that Samson’s haircut is akin to rape. It is notable that Samson is not raped by the Philistine men as was the plan, but if one follows the MT, by a Philistine woman. This raises the question of which is more of an affront to Samson’s masculinity – to be raped by a man or by a woman.

88  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah I contend that Samson’s rape by a woman is more shameful to him. It should have taken an army to subdue him. Certainly this is what the Philistines initially thought. But it took only a woman, as it did with Sisera in Judges 4. Once Delilah emasculates Samson by cutting his hair, the Philistines take over and continue to shame and to feminize him. They gouge out his eyes, shackle him, and force him to be a mill slave in Judges 16:21. Lemos suggests that the gouging out of Samson’s eyes is an example of enemy mutilation. The Philistines, according to Lemos, put the blind Samson on display by having him stand in their temple in order to shame him.79 Brittany E. Wilson observes how “sight and power are often linked in the ancient world.”80 Wilson notes that “ ‘true’ men in antiquity . . . correspondingly had powerful gazes,”81 and offers a similar reading of Saul’s blindness, recounted in the Christian Bible’s book of Acts, to my reading of Samson’s blindness. Wilson writes: “In Acts 9, Saul is a man who loses power, sight, and self-control and in the process recognizes the greater power of God.”82 I draw a similar conclusion about Samson’s story and suggest that Samson, like Saul, must be feminized in order to recognize God’s power. Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska suggests that the particular forced labor of grinding was another way to shame and emasculate Samson, since it was labor typically done by women.83 Also suggesting that grinding may have a “sexual double entendre,” Lazarewicz-Wrzykowska writes: “The sexual innuendo of the verb takes his ‘womanization’ one step further: in doing the woman’s work, he is not only ‘like a woman’, but like a sexually subdued woman.”84 Another hint of Samson’s emasculation occurs in the next scene, in Judges 16:26, when a boy leads him by hand to the Philistine temple. Wilson notes that the “hand-holding gesture in reference to the blind” is “consonant with other texts in the ancient world” that “associate this gesture with those who are dependent on others due to age (usually old age), disability, or some other marker that disqualified a person from attaining ‘manly’ prowess.”85 In these ways, the Philistines demonstrate their masculine prowess over Samson and feminize him. Delilah disappears from the narrative once she serves her purpose for the Philistines. It is interesting that she does not convey to the Philistines the possibility of Samson regaining his strength as his hair grows. Perhaps she does not consider this possibility. Or perhaps, once she delivers Samson to the Philistines and collects her money, she has no interest in what happens next. Her only interest is her own gain. The Philistines celebrate their victory in their temple, proclaiming in Judges 16:24: “Our god gave our enemy into our hand.” Clearly, the Philistines perceived their victory as the triumph of their god, and implicitly, as a defeat of Israel’s god. Drunk, they call Samson into the temple so that he can “play” before them. The verb ‫צחק‬/‫ש‬, to play, seems to have a sexual connotation in Genesis 26:8, where it is used to describe the play between Isaac and Rebecca that Abimelech notices and recognizes as behavior appropriate between a husband and a wife. This indicates once again that Samson suffered a sexual humiliation – this time, as Judges 16:27 states, before men and women.86

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 89 In response, Samson cries out to God and says: My Lord, YHWH, take note of me and strengthen me for this one time, O God, so that I can avenge the Philistines for at least one of my two eyes. (Judg 16:28) Although Samson’s hair has begun to grow, bringing with it, one assumes, renewed strength, Samson prays to God. Samson’s prayer communicates his feelings of weakness, suggesting that Samson is not aware that his strength is returning, or that he is too impatient to wait for its full return. It also may suggest that Samson’s strength is not returning despite the fact that his hair is growing. More importantly, Samson’s prayer focuses attention directly on God’s strength. In it, Samson asks God for strength in order to avenge the Philistines. This is not a strength acquired through a predestined personal status, and mediated by hair. This strength comes directly from God. As Exum observes, Samson’s prayer reveals that he “is dependent wholly upon Yhwh.”87 The blind, emasculated Samson must rely entirely on God’s strength to defeat the Philistines. Samson prays for more than strength. He also prays for death in Judges 16:30, asking to die along with the Philistines. I suggest above that Samson’s confession to Delilah may have been a death wish. Broken by Delilah, Samson reveals the secret of his strength knowing full well, after three unsuccessful attempts, how she plans to use it. He confesses to Delilah, but he does not pray to God. I suggest that Samson does not pray to God because he fears that God will intervene and prolong his life. Samson wants to die and thinks that the best way of doing so is at the hands of the Philistines. If Samson’s plan is to die, it does not work, since the Philistines do not kill him. Instead, they emasculate him. Unable to stage his own suicide, Samson needs God not only to avenge the Philistines, but also to kill him. God complies. At the story’s end, Samson’s weakness and humiliation make it clear that salvation and devastation come from God – not from Samson.88 I contend that Samson needs to be emasculated to learn this lesson. He learns that he cannot control his life or his death, but must depend upon God. Samson’s lesson is also Israel’s lesson. It is a lesson that Israelites must learn before selecting a king to rule over them, as Mbuvi writes: The final line of the book [Judges] suggests that monarchy is the only way forward, that Israel’s battered (social) body must undergo a radical reconstruction. The Samson story illustrates the pain of this choice even as it offers the hope of divine presence.89 Like Samson, Israel must not be driven by its passions or seduced by its desires. Most importantly, Israel must learn not to rely upon its own strength. Israel must recognize, as Samson does at his death, that its strength is an instrument of God, and that all strength comes from God. To be in relationship with God, Israel must assume a submissive position. In essence, Israel,

90  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah like Samson, assumes a woman’s perspective, and by doing so, recognizes that God is the man with the strength and authority. Samson learns this lesson at his death, when, briefly, his strength returns because of God’s grace. Samson’s final battle manifests God’s strength alone. He is an emasculated warrior who is able to channel God’s power and fight for God – not unlike David when he faces the warrior Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. Small and pretty, David’s triumph over the giant Goliath is God’s triumph alone, as 1 Samuel 17:47 states: “For the battle belongs to YHWH and he will deliver you into our hands.” Samson’s prayer to God reveals that he has learned his lesson. He knows that God is the source of his strength and that he is at God’s mercy. Having learned his lesson, Samson can die like a man and be buried like a man. His death destroys the Philistine temple and causes the death of many Philistines. Lazrewicz-Wyrzykowska contends that Samson’s final act “symbolically restores his honor and masculinity.”90 My own reading perceives Samson’s burial more than his death as symbolic of his restored masculinity. Samson’s kinsmen and all the members of his father’s house retrieve Samson’s body and bury it in the tomb of his father Manoah. As my analysis argues, Samson is more identified with his mother at the beginning of the narrative than with his father. This, I argued, was not a credit to his character or to his status. From birth, his masculinity was compromised by the unusual circumstances of his birth, by his association with his mother, and by his ineffective father. But at his death, Samson’s identity aligns with his father’s house. He is buried like a man, beside men, in the tomb of his father Manoah. Samson is more a man dead than he was alive.

Conclusions Samson’s story reveals that masculinity is not an inherent set of qualities and a secure status, but rather is contingent and can be contested. Samson’s surplus of masculinity can be diminished, if not obliterated by a Philistine woman. Samson’s story also reveals the precarious nature of the Bible’s preferred gender dynamic that privileges men. In this narrative, a woman can receive a prophecy that makes her husband appear foolish, if not impotent. Ultimately, the unconventional gender dynamic in Samson’s story conveys social and theological instability. The Bible does not support a world in which women overpower men. It also does not support a world in which men do not recognize God’s superior status. At best, Samson is a flawed hero who must be emasculated and die in order to triumph. His death works to justify a new system of male authority, the monarchy, and testifies to God’s ultimate power.

Notes 1 Judges 6:1; 8:33; 10:6; 13:1. 2 After the defeat of the Canaanites in Judges 4, Israel faces the Midianites, then the Ammonites, and finally in Judges 13–16, the Philistines.

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 91 3 1 Samuel 15:22–23. 4 1 Kings 2:1–4. 5 Michael J. Smith, “The Failure of the Family in Judges, Part 2: Samson,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (Oct-Dec 2005), p. 431. 6 Ibid., p. 432. 7 Although she receives revelation, Manoah’s wife is not formally designated as a prophet, and therefore is not included among the Bible’s five female prophets mentioned in Chapter 2. 8 Ela Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, “Samson: Masculinity Lost (And Regained?),” in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Ovidiu Creangă; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010), p. 174. 9 Lazarewicz-Wyrkzykowska writes: “On a different level, using the lens of masculinity reveals Samson’s gender instability, which is connected in particular with his status as a warrior. This instability undermines the popular perception of biblical masculinity as a uniform, secure, and stable feature of biblical men.” Ibid., p. 185. 10 Ibid., pp. 175–176. 11 Ibid., p. 181. 12 David J. A. Clines, “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible,” in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995), pp. 216–219. 13 Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, “Samson: Masculinity Lost,” p. 182. 14 Stephen M. Wilson, “Samson the Man-Child: Failing to Come of Age in the Deuteronomistic History,” JBL 133:1 (2014), pp. 44–45. 15 Ibid., p. 53. 16 Ibid., p. 55. 17 Ibid., p. 59. 18 Wilson writes: “Samson’s similar failure to transition out of his liminal status caught between boyhood and manhood metaphorically corresponds to Israel’s repetition of this pattern that prevents the nation from maturing politically.” Stephen M. Wilson, Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 144. 19 This is perhaps best exemplified by God’s declaration to Israel just before Israel receives revelation in Exodus 19:5–6: “Now, if you obey me and keep my covenant, you will be a treasure among all the people, for all the earth is mine. You will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” 20 Amanda Beckenstein Mbvui, “Samson’s Body Politic,” BI 20 (2012), p. 400. 21 Ibid., p. 390. 22 Esther Fuchs, “The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible,” in Women in the Hebrew Bible (ed. Alice Bach; New York and London: Routledge, 1999), p. 128. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., 135. 25 Susan Niditch, “Samson As Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak,” CBQ 52 (1990), pp. 610–611. 26 Adele Reinhartz, “Samson’s Mother: An Unnamed Protagonist,” JSOT 55 (1992), p. 33. 27 Ibid., p. 36. 28 Judges 18:2. 29 Deuteronomy 3:20; 12:10; 25:19; Joshua 1:13–15; 2 Samuel 7:1–11. 30 Fuchs, “The Literary Characterization of Mothers,” p. 131. 31 Ibid. 32 The prophet Samuel also appears to be consecrated as a Nazirite by his mother Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:11.

92  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 33 See Susan Niditch, “My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008), pp. 70–71. 34 Leviticus 10:9 prohibits priests from drinking before performing their temple duties. 35 Niditch, “My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man,” p. 73. 36 Ibid., p. 74. God generously provides Israel with prophets and Nazirites as mediators of divine will. 37 Mbuvi, “Samson’s Body Politic,” p. 400. 38 Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero,” p. 612. 39 Ibid. 40 Niditch, “My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man,” p. 66. 41 Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero,” p. 616. 42 Niditch, My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man,” p. 77. 43 Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero,” p. 616. 44 Ibid., p. 617. 45 I make a similar point in Chapter 7 about the prophet Jeremiah, who is designated by God to be a prophet while in his mother’s womb. As a result, I argue that Jeremiah, like Samson, strongly associates with his mother. 46 See my discussion in “Yael, Sisera, and Barak” in Chapter 2. 47 Reinhartz, “Samson’s Mother,” p. 35. 48 Ibid. pp. 33–34. 49 Mieke Bal, Death & Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 74. 50 Bal writes: “Of course, strictly speaking, announcing a conception is not the same thing as fertilizing. But word and deed are the same in Hebrew, and, beginning with the creation, the biblical poetics emphasize the power of words on which its own status is based.” Ibid., p. 266 n. 9. 51 Reinhartz, “Samson’s Mother,” p. 36. 52 Chapter 1, p. 9. 53 Reinhartz, “Samson’s Mother,” p. 35. 54 Perhaps in an effort to have the angel respond more directly to Manoah’s question, the LXX has masculine instead of feminine forms of the verbs, which refer to the stringencies Samson must observe. 55 Wilson notes that impetuousness is often a characteristic of boys in the Bible, and that “self-restraint and impulse control,” are the qualities of the ideal Israelite man. See Wilson, “Samson the Man-Child,” pp. 47–48. 56 Wilson writes: “His lack of impulse control results in a careless violation of his nazirite vows when he eats honey from a lion’s carcass (14:8–9) . . . The ideal Israelite man, in contrast, is marked by self-restraint and impulse control, carefully keeping his desire towards gluttony, unbridled violence, and wanton sexuality in check.” Wilson, Making Men, p. 136. 57 As I mention below when I discuss the end of Samson’s story, his story has similarities to the story of the future King David, who overcomes Goliath, a story that celebrates God’s authority and power. 58 Bledstein, “Is Judges a Woman’s Satire?” p. 52. 59 Bledstein writes: “The anguish evoked by a review of the period of Judges was presented through the defensive shield of ironic laughter, so that all of Israel might remember that YHWH alone is Divine.” Ibid., p. 53. 60 J. Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993), p. 69. 61 Mieke Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 51. 62 Judges 14:1–4. 63 For perspective, Abraham paid 400 silver pieces for his family’s burial plot in Genesis 23:15, 19, and we read in 2 Samuel 24:24 that David paid 50 shekels of silver for the threshing floor that would become the site of the temple.

Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah 93 64 Bal, Lethal Love, p. 51. 65 The verb also appears in Hosea 2:16 and Jeremiah 20:7 with a possible sexual connotation as well. In Chapter 7, I discuss the sexual connotation of its use in Jeremiah 20:7. 66 See Exodus 1:11; 22:21; Deuteronomy 26:6. 67 Sandie Gravett, “Reading ‘Rape’ in the Hebrew Bible: A Consideration of Language,” JSOT 28:3 (2004), p. 285 and 288. 68 Susanne Scholz, Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), p. 158. 69 Scholz also considers Judges 3:12–30 to be a narrative that hints at male-onmale rape. See ibid., pp. 160–164. I add Genesis 19 and Judges 19. 70 Bal, Lethal Love, p. 52. 71 Gregory Mobley, “The Wild Man in the Bible and the Ancient near East” JBL 116:2 (1997), pp. 223–224. 72 Ibid., p. 231. 73 See Gregory Mobley, Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East (New York: T&T Clark, 2006). 74 The LXX adds the detail “to the wall,” which is not included in the MT. 75 Specific mention of his mother may convey the affinity and attachment he feels with her. 76 This is another connection with the prophet Jeremiah, who, as I argue in Chapter 7, wants to relinquish his life in order to relinquish his prophetic status. Like Samson, Jeremiah assumes his special status at birth. As a result, each one might assume death is the only way to relinquish his status. 77 Lemos, “Shame and Mutilation of Enemies,” p. 233. 78 Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, “Samson: Masculinity Lost,” p. 178. See also Exum, Fragmented Women, p. 83. 79 Lemos, “Shame and Mutilation of Enemies,” p. 239. 80 Brittany E. Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133:2 (2014), p. 375. 81 Ibid., p. 376. 82 Ibid., p. 374. 83 Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, “Samson: Masculinity Lost,” p. 179. See also Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero,” 617. Ecclesiastes 12:3 provides textual support for seeing grinding as woman’s work. 84 Ibid. 85 Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul,” p. 374. 86 See also Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero,” p. 617. 87 J. Cheryl Exum, “The Theological Dimension of the Samson Saga,” VT 33:1 (1983), p. 34. 88 See Ibid. 89 Mbuvi, “Samson’s Body Politic,” p. 406. 90 Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, “Samson: Masculinity Lost,” p. 182.

Bibliography Bal, Mieke. Death & Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Bal, Mieke. Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987. Bledstein, Adrien Janis. “Is Judges a Woman’s Satire of Men Who Play God?” In The Feminist Companion to Judges, edited by Athalya Brenner, 34–54. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.

94  Manoah, Manoah’s Wife, Samson, and Delilah Clines, David J. A. “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible.” In Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible, edited by David J. A. Clines, 212–243. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995. Exum, J. Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives. Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993. Exum, J. Cheryl. “The Theological Dimension of the Samson Saga.” VT 33:1 (1983), pp. 30–45. Fuchs, Esther. “The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible.” In Women in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Alice Bach, 127–139. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. Gravett, Sandie. “Reading ‘Rape’ in the Hebrew Bible: A Consideration of Language.” JSOT 28:3 (2004), pp. 279–299. Lazarewicz-Wyrzykkowska, Ela. “Samson: Masculinity Lost (And Regained?). In Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Ovidiu Creangă, 171–187. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Lemos, T. M. “Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible.” JBL 125:2 (2006), pp. 225–241. Mbuvi, Amanda Beckenstein. “Samson’s Body Politic.” BI 20 (2012), pp. 389–406. Mobley, Gregory. Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East. New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Mobley, Gregory. “The Wild Man in the Bible and the Ancient Near East.” JBL 116:2 (1997), pp. 217–233. Niditch, Susan. “My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Niditch, Susan. “Samson as Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak.” CBQ 52 (1990), pp. 608–624. Reinhartz, Adele. “Samson’s Mother: An Unnamed Protagonist.” JSOT 55 (1992), pp. 25–37. Scholz, Susanne. Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Smith, Michael J. “The Failure of the Family in Judges, Part 2: Samson.” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (Oct-Dec 2005), pp. 424–436. Wilson, Brittany E. “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133:2 (2014), pp. 367–387. Wilson, Stephen M. Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Wilson, Stephen M. “Samson the Man-Child: Failing to Come of Age in the Deuteronomistic History.” JBL 133:1 (2014), pp. 43–60.

4 Jezebel and Ahab

An overview of the gender dynamic The narratives I address in Chapters 1 through 3 invert the Bible’s preferred gender hierarchy which privileges its men. Adam obeys Eve; Deborah leads Barak into battle; Yael kills Sisera; Samson’s mother outshines her husband; and Delilah seduces Samson. I argue that though the subversion of the gender hierarchy emasculates the men in these stories, the women do not fully leave the confines of their gendered roles. Instead, they inhabit dangerous manifestations of these gendered roles to become murderous mothers and seductresses. They function in their narratives as women who register social and theological instability. These narratives, then, are more gender nonconformable for the men. The men of the gender-playing narratives embody female qualities such as weakness. They are associated with female experiences and positions, as evidenced by their depiction as sexual victims and as in the case of Samson, as performing tasks associated with women such as grinding grain. Thus far, it appears that the stories that play with gender are more concerned with emasculating the men than they are with manning the women.1 By revealing a world gone awry, of which the inverted gender dynamic is indicative, I argue that in fact the Bible uses these narratives to uphold the gender hierarchy that secures male authority and privilege. This is particularly true for the narratives found in the book of Judges, which work to justify the monarchy. In Judges, caught within a cycle of disobedience, Israel finds itself constantly at the mercy of its enemies. The authority women assume and the roles they play within these narratives reflect the instability of this world. The chaos of Judges makes way for the relative stability of Samuel and Kings in which Israel submits to the authority of its male king. I also argue that the Bible perceives an intrinsic relationship between the gender hierarchy in which women submit to the authority of men and the theological hierarchy in which Israel submits to the authority of God. In the most stable world, men and women assume their proper positions in relation to each other and to God. By portraying instability, the narratives that play with gender norms work, therefore, to protect the social and theological hierarchies that ensure a stable world. These narratives can be viewed

96  Jezebel and Ahab as textual inscriptions that actively support a binary notion of gender and a gender hierarchy that privileges men. They also reveal that such a world is not a given, but must be constructed and sustained through these texts.2 Queen Jezebel, whose narrative runs intermittently from 1 Kings 16 to 2 Kings 9, is the most masculinized female figure I analyze. Unlike Yael and Delilah, who disempower and emasculate men as women, Jezebel behaves like a man and assumes the male position in her household. Bradley L. Crowell observes that Jezebel “is pictured as repeatedly usurping male authority and acting against the traditional social structure of male leadership.”3 When her husband Ahab fails to assert royal authority, Jezebel functions as the king. In this way, Jezebel exists as a boundary crosser, “achieving power by transgressing the usual social limits,” as Janet S. Everhart notes.4 In my reading, she is the Bible’s drag king. As such, Jezebel transgresses gender boundaries and illustrates the degree to which gender identity is a gender performance.5 We see below how Jezebel can don male markers of authority to play the role of a man, and how she can paint her face to play the role of a woman. In the gender-playing narratives I analyze in Chapters 1 through 3, we see men behave like women. Jezebel’s gender fluidity suggests that a woman is able to behave like a man. Commenting on Athaliah, Jezebel’s daughter, who is said to have “reigned over the land [‫]מלכת על הארץ‬,” in 2 Kings 11:3, Stuart Macwilliam similarly observes: “Athaliah’s career threatens to reveal the artificiality of gender: if a woman can survive for six years in power, what does that say about masculinity; what is the point of a man?”6 Everhart contends that Jezebel dies a fitting gender transgressive death. According to Everhart, eunuchs, who are themselves gender transgressive and therefore, have access to the queen, throw Jezebel out of a window to her death. Like Jezebel, the eunuchs “highlight the reality of a world where gender is not always binary.”7 Although Jezebel and the eunuchs may challenge the notion of a gender binary inherent to human experience, their story reveals the degree to which the Bible supports a binary notion of gender that distinguishes between male and female behaviors, and that works to uphold male privilege. Whereas Samson’s masculinity was compromised in life, but restored somewhat in death, Jezebel’s compromised femininity is not restored in death. I argue that in the Bible’s male-privileged world, a woman who transgresses the boundaries of her gender as dramatically as Jezebel must be utterly eliminated. Macwilliam makes a similar point when comparing Jezebel’s death to Athaliah’s. Macwilliam notes that both “women are the objects of narratorial condemnation,” for pursuing “their careers in unwomanly fashion,” and consequently suffer “post-mortem annihilation.”8 Macwilliam’s overall reading of Athaliah’s narrative is very similar to my reading of Jezebel’s story; he writes: I want to show that Athaliah attempts to resist the necessity to perform her gender correctly and is punished for doing so . . . Her resistance is in

Jezebel and Ahab 97 terms of gender roles rather than irregular sexual desire. Her offense is that she acts as a man beyond her gender, exaggeratedly so, in that she kills en masse and takes on the role of king.9 Macwilliam’s analysis of Athaliah’s story can be applied directly to Jezebel’s story. Jezebel also kills en masse when she kills God’s prophets,10 and in my reading, takes on the role of king.11 I would also argue that, like Athaliah, the Bible does not portray Jezebel as sexually transgressive, despite the fact that later tradition does.12 Jezebel’s one attempt at seduction, if indeed it is an attempt, is unsuccessful. In her biblical narrative, Jezebel is gender transgressive, and for this she must be punished. Jezebel’s body, which becomes food for dogs, is spread like excrement across the fields of Jezreel. Her identity is completely annihilated. Looking at her remains, no one could say: “This is Jezebel.”13 Although emasculated in the narrative, and therefore a gender transgressive figure as well, Ahab does not die such a gruesome death. Struck in battle against Aram, Ahab bleeds to death in a chariot. His body then is buried in Israel. After the bloody chariot is cleaned in a pool, 1 Kings 22:38 notes, “Dogs licked his blood and whores bathed [in it].” Like Jezebel’s demise, Ahab’s death fulfills Elijah’s prophecy offered in 1 Kings 21:23–24 that all of Ahab’s line will be devoured by dogs. Although dogs devour both Jezebel and Ahab, only Jezebel is completely consumed and her identity obliterated. Ahab’s identity remains intact as he is buried among his ancestors in Israel in 1 Kings 22:40. This affords him a degree of dignity in his death and burial when compared to Jezebel, much like Samson who is buried among his ancestors.

Jezebel and Elijah First Kings 16:31 introduces Jezebel and states that Ahab married “Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians,” and began to worship Baal. Jezebel’s character is defined by two significant factors. She is foreign and of royal descent. According to Hannelis Schulte, Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel reflected the politics of the Omride dynasty and its willingness to participate in a coalition with the Phoenician city-states. Schulte notes that poorer Israel “had a natural inclination toward the rich and highly cultured maritime trading center,” and that the Phoenician city-states were eager to form a coalition with their less wealthy neighbors. The result was a standard-ofliving increase for all, and a “lively international trade.”14 Ahab’s choice of a Phoenician bride therefore was potentially politically wise, by working to secure and enrich Israel among its neighbors. Despite the political and financial gains of marrying a foreign bride, there were clear religious risks for Ahab. A foreign bride can introduce foreign religious practices. First Kings 18:18–19 suggests an association between Jezebel and Baal worship. In this passage, the prophet Elijah rebukes Ahab and accuses him and his household of abandoning God’s commandments,

98  Jezebel and Ahab and chasing after baalim. Elijah orders Ahab to gather Israel together, along with the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table. Although both Ahab and Jezebel appear to be active participants in the Baal cult, it is likely that the Bible assumes Jezebel integrated her native rituals into her marriage, and introduced Ahab to Baal worship, as Crowell notes: Upon his marriage to Jezebel, the Deuteronomists note that Ahab served Baal, worshiped him, built an altar for the Temple of Baal that he had constructed in Samaria (1 Kgs 16:31–32). The foreign woman is directly connected to and blamed for the religious infidelity of her husband.15 Jezebel’s name also indicates her connection to the Baal cult. As Phyllis Trible observes, the pointed Hebrew name yields “the perverted meaning ‘dung,’ ” which “signifies utter contempt as it presages her eventual demise.”16 Without the Hebrew pointing, the name means “Where is the Prince?” which, according to Trible, “resounds in the liturgy of the Baal cult, miming the cry that goes out when vegetation dries up in the land: ‘Where is Baal the Conqueror? Where is the Prince, the Lord of the earth?’ ”17 Thus, Jezebel’s name communicates her cultic allegiance just as Elijah’s name communicates his allegiance to YHWH. Elijah’s name means “YWHW is my God.” Trible comments: “Not unlike Jezebel, the faith Elijah espouses, his name announces.”18 More than Ahab, Jezebel is Elijah’s opponent. Trible observes how the narrative constructs them as diametrically opposed characters: She is female and foreign; he, male and native. She comes from the coastlands; he, from the highlands. She thrives in a sea climate; he, in a desert climate. She belongs to husband and father; he, neither to wife nor father. She embodies royalty; he, prophecy.19 Most importantly, Elijah represents YHWH, and Jezebel represents Baal. Jezebel’s cultic practices and allegiances in the broader context of the Bible, which does not support cultic pluralism within Israel, is certainly an unforgivable sin, and is punishable by death.20 Yet, when seen particularly within the context of the Deuteronomistic histories of which it is a part, Jezebel’s religious behavior, even her character, take on a symbolic quality and come to reflect and represent evil. Recounting the narrative of the establishment of Israel’s monarchy, the books contained within the Deuteronomistic histories, Joshua through Kings, manifest nationalistic concerns and fears of foreigners. Foreign women are a particular source of anxiety, and these books portray them, as Crowell writes, “as agents of the Other.” Crowell argues that most foreign women in the histories “use their bodies . . . to combine their foreign cultures and religions with their new Israelite identities” and become deceivers and seductresses “who actively mislead Israel to worship

Jezebel and Ahab 99 foreign gods and adopt foreign customs according to the Deuteronomistic authors.”21 Given the above symbolism, it can be argued that Jezebel is the most maligned character in the Bible whose narrative reflects, as Helena Zlotnick suggests, “a deep-seated fear of idolatry through contamination.”22 She is a foreign woman who actively misleads Israel to foreign worship and gods. Although maligned, the text clearly portrays Jezebel as powerful. I contend that Jezebel exercises a different kind of power than is exercised by the other women I discuss. Jezebel does not seduce men physically or verbally as Eve, Yael, and Delilah do. Instead, Jezebel assumes a position of political authority and exerts a power that comes from her royal office. This is not unlike Deborah, who as a judge also exerts the power of her office. But as I argue in Chapter 2, the Bible goes out of its way to temper Deborah’s power of office, by explicitly noting how her gender negatively impacts Barak’s status, and by having Yael, not Deborah, kill Sisera. Jezebel quite successfully exerts a power that comes solely from her royal position – a position that I argue should belong to a man – and does not attempt seduction until the end of her life, and even then, as we see below, there is a question of whether she acts seductively. Jezebel’s final attempt to behave like a woman, whether seductive or not, is catastrophically unsuccessful. To assess Jezebel’s power of office, one must first consider how much power is afforded to queens in the Bible. Although the Bible records the names of women who are married to kings, it remains a question whether these women occupy political positions with circumscribed duties, honors, and authority, and therefore should be referred to as queens, a term indicating an official position of power. Since the verb mlk – to rule – is only used in reference to Athaliah in 2 Kings 11:3, it is reasonable to conclude that she is the only woman in the Bible who rules, and therefore is the only one who should be considered a queen. Both Esther and Bathsheba are married to kings and exert power and influence over their kings, but they do not rule their kingdoms. Carol Smith considers the particular role of the gebîrâ, a term many scholars believe refers to the queen mother – the mother of the designated royal successor – and asks whether the power these women exert comes from their position or from personal qualities.23 She concludes that the term indicates influence that comes from personal qualities, and that “a woman who was seen to be powerful was granted the title as recognition of that power.”24 Smith admits that a woman’s position in the court did grant her access to power, but that “it was her own qualities that enabled her to wield it effectively.”25 Within their narratives and their courts, Bathsheba and Esther do not wield their own power. They cannot make demands and assume they will be met because of royal decree. Instead, they use their personal qualities to influence their kings and get what they want. In other words, as Smith observes, their power derives “from the men with whom they are associated” and not from their position as queens. 26

100  Jezebel and Ahab

Jezebel and Ahab Jezebel, I argue, does wield her own power, which makes her a unique figure. She does not seduce her king, but influences and subverts him. As I mention above, Ahab’s cultic practices reveal Jezebel’s influence on him. Her influence also is felt throughout Israel. She is a force to be reckoned with. She kills God’s prophets in 1 Kings 18:4 and threatens Elijah’s life in 1 Kings 19:2, causing him to flee in terror. In 1 Kings 21, Jezebel is a political force, and it is in this narrative that she assumes a formal position of power. The narrative opens with Ahab approaching Naboth about his property in 1 Kings 21:1–3: It was after these events. Naboth the Jezreelite owned a vineyard in Jezreel next to the palace of Ahab, King of Israel. Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying: “Give me your field so that it can become my vegetable garden since it is close to my house. In exchange for it, I will give you an even better vineyard. If this is not good for you, I will give you a good price.” Naboth said to Ahab: “God forbid if I give you my ancestral property.” This passage pits a king against a commoner and communicates a strained power dynamic. Whereas Ahab owns a palace, Naboth owns a vineyard which is “the basic property of any Israelite,” as Alexander Rofé observes. Rofé suggests that “the contrast between bare necessity and luxury” lies at the basis of the plot.27 Similarly, Deborah A. Appler contends that “Ahab’s desire to acquire Naboth’s vineyard and Jezebel’s collusion . . . is the epitome of royal abuse.”28 Appler considers how food imagery, which appears throughout the narrative, illustrates this. Ahab pursues Naboth’s vineyard, which is, according to Appler, “Naboth’s inheritance, his connection to the land and to his family.”29 Appler notes how vineyards are symbolic of Israel in the Bible. For example, the prophet Isaiah compares Israel to a vineyard in Isaiah 5. Similarly, Psalm 80:8–11 describes how God plucks a vine from Egypt, and plants it in the land of Israel. Appler also notes the care needed to tend vineyards, and how precious they were economically in ancient Israel. She concludes: “A family vineyard was exceedingly important to the family’s welfare and future and was to be cherished at all costs.”30 Ahab’s plan to replace the vineyard with a vegetable garden demonstrates his disregard for Naboth, his family, and all of Israel. Appler observes that “vegetables within the Hebrew Bible are usually considered insubstantial and of little consequence,”31 as is evident in Proverbs 15:17, and writes: “By tearing out the vineyard, Ahab is symbolically uprooting Israel and replacing it with something useless – Baal and a futile kingship.”32 Naboth rejects the king’s proposal and acknowledges the importance of the vineyard to his family. Thus, he proves himself to be more committed to his family and its inheritance, and following Appler, to all of Israel than Ahab is. The dynamic between Ahab and Naboth is similar to the dynamic between

Jezebel and Ahab 101 another biblical king and a commoner – David and Uriah the Hittite. The story of David, Uriah, and Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, related in 2 Samuel 11, shares significant narrative elements with 1 Kings 21 and invites comparison. Both narratives are about the abuse of royal power. In both narratives, a king desires something that is not rightfully his. For Ahab, it is a vineyard. For David, it is Bathsheba. For the king to attain the object of his desire, an individual must die. Both deaths occur through indirect and similar means. Uriah demonstrates in his narrative a similar piety to Naboth’s. David brings Uriah back from war to sleep with Bathsheba who, unbeknownst to Uriah, is pregnant with David’s baby. By doing so, David attempts to side-step the accusation of adultery and to relinquish his paternity of Bathsheba’s child. Yet, Uriah refuses to return home and have sex with his wife. He spends the night at the palace among the king’s servants. Just as Naboth refuses to relinquish his ancestral property and adheres, by implication, to the values and beliefs of Israel, Uriah refuses to pursue the personal pleasure of having sex with his wife, and adheres, instead, to his military position defending God and Israel.33 Whereas Naboth shares positive qualities with Uriah, Ahab, in contrast, proves himself to be no David. David desired Bathsheba and took her without asking for her, or demanding that Uriah give her to him. Although one assumes that it would be easier for a king to acquire property than a married woman, Ahab does not demand the vineyard. Instead, he negotiates for it. The fact that he does so, and that he is unsuccessful, suggests a compromised authority. Naboth does not hesitate to say no to the king. In response, Ahab grows despondent in 1 Kings 21:4: Ahab entered his house and became agitated over what Naboth the Jezreelite said to him. He said: “I will not give to you my ancestral property.” He lay down on his bed, turned his face away, and did not eat bread. Ahab appears to accept Naboth’s refusal. He does not rage against Naboth and demand his property. Unlike David, who immediately acts both to acquire what he desires, and then to deal with the repercussions of his actions, Ahab accepts his defeat, and appears broken by it. He replays Naboth’s refusal in his mind as if he is more upset by Naboth’s audacity than he is by the loss of the property. He takes to his bed and refuses food. Below we see that fasting plays an important role in this narrative. Whereas Jezebel institutes a ritual fast in verse 9, Ahab fasts from depression. As Zlotnick observes, Ahab “appears to lose his will and to recede into inactivity.”34 In contrast to her husband, Jezebel springs into action in 1 Kings 21:5–7: Jezebel came to her husband and said to him: “Why are you despondent and not eating bread?” He said to her: “Because I spoke to Naboth the

102  Jezebel and Ahab Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money or, if you desire, I will give you a vineyard in exchange.’ He said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’ ” Jezebel, his wife, said to him: “Now, you must exert royalty over Israel! Get up, eat bread, and cheer up. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” Observing Jezebel’s concern for her husband in the privacy of the marital bedroom, Zlotnick contends that she “emerges as the king’s solicitous spouse rather than as a bearer of idolatry.”35 Zlotnick considers this scene as offering a “rare glimpse into a royal marriage” which “reveals a model of spousal relations and an inordinate degree of marital harmony and trust.”36 Jezebel may be motivated by concern for her husband, as Zlotnick suggests. But she also may perceive a royal misstep, and recognize a personal opportunity. Smith suggests that Jezebel “was not only the more powerful in the relationship,” but she also was “more politically aware” than her husband.37 Jezebel understands that royals do not negotiate with commoners. They demand and their demands must be met. It is interesting that Ahab edits his account of his interaction with Naboth when relaying it to Jezebel. He does not mention the vegetable garden that he intends to plant, and inverts the order of his offer by relating that he offered money to Naboth before he offered him a land-swap. Also, Ahab does not quote Naboth accurately and does not include Naboth’s specific mention of his ancestral property. These edits may be made for Jezebel’s benefit. More astute politically than Naboth, Jezebel may have preferred a monetary exchange rather than giving up land – especially land acquired for a vegetable garden. She would not have been happy with Ahab’s initial offer. Also, by not quoting Naboth exactly, Ahab softens Naboth’s refusal. He does not allow Jezebel to hear the indignation and insult embedded in Naboth’s refusal to relinquish his ancestral property. By doing so, he protects himself from appearing weaker than he already appears to Jezebel. He does not let her know that Naboth did more than refuse his offer. He insulted him. Despite Ahab’s editorial efforts, Jezebel appears to grasp the situation fully. Her command to Ahab to behave like a king and now exert leadership indicates that she recognizes his failure to do so before. Although Jezebel tells Ahab to be the king, she makes it clear who is in charge. Jezebel orders Ahab to get up and eat, while she acquires Naboth’s vineyard for him. Her words are precise. “You” [‫ ]אתה‬behave like a king. “I” [‫ ]אני‬will acquire the property. In other words, Ahab will look like a king, while Jezebel will act like one. It is at this moment that their roles formally reverse, and Jezebel assumes the position of ruling monarch in the narrative, as Appler writes: As for Ahab, Does he stand? Does he eat? Does he play any role in the events to come? The text is silent. We do, however, know that it is Jezebel, not Ahab, who shows kingship over Israel in this moment . . . Jezebel and Ahab switch roles as Jezebel takes on the role of king.38

Jezebel and Ahab 103 Zlotnick also perceives Jezebel as usurping the king’s position and power,39 as does Smith, who writes: “Jezebel’s power seems to come from Ahab’s weakness, to which the text makes reference when the incident of Naboth’s vineyard is described.”40 From this moment on, Jezebel assumes the king’s position in the narrative, and becomes King David’s literary counterpart in the narrative. Like David who must remove the obstacle of Uriah to secure Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11, Jezebel actively secures the object of her desire in 1 Kings 21:8–10: She wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived in Naboth’s city. She wrote letters saying: “Declare a fast and place Naboth at the front of the people. Place two worthless men across from him to testify against him saying: ‘You cursed God and king.’ Then bring him out and stone him so that he dies.” Although Jezebel writes in her husband’s name, the fact that she can write suggests that women, at least royal women, were literate.41 Further evidence for this is that Queen Esther composes a letter in Esther 9:29. Although she writes the letter herself, Jezebel’s use of Ahab’s seal appears to be an intentional act of deception that is somewhat out of character. Jezebel shows no qualms about being aggressive and threatening the lives of God’s prophets and Elijah. Perhaps she feels free to act in her own name when cultic issues are at stake. Political issues may be a different matter, and Jezebel may not command the same authority on her own. I suggest that Jezebel’s use of Ahab’s name and seal is not a necessary deception to get what she wants. Instead, it indicates that Jezebel overtly assumes Ahab’s identity. In my reading, Jezebel does not masquerade as Ahab. She usurps his position as king. The formal use of Ahab’s name and seal indicates that Jezebel assumes not only his identity, but also his position of power. She now wields power through official tools such as the king’s seal and decree in order to get rid of Naboth. In 2 Samuel 11:14, David employs a similar means to rid himself of Uriah. Having refused David’s suggestion that he return home to have sex with Bathsheba, David decides to eliminate the paternity problem by killing Uriah. Like Jezebel, he writes a letter and asks Uriah to deliver it to his general Joab when he returns to battle. The letter instructs Joab to place Uriah at the front line where the battle is fiercest, and then retreat from him so that he easily would be killed. Joab does as he is commanded, and Uriah is killed. In response, God is furious at David both for the means and the ends of what he did. God is angry that David abused his royal power to claim something that belonged to one of his subjects.42 God is also angry that David used subterfuge and violence to do so.43 David accepts his guilt. God accepts David’s penitence and spares David’s life, but claims the life of his son, thereby causing David to experience the loss of something beloved.

104  Jezebel and Ahab It is interesting that Jezebel does not send Naboth into battle, even though the preceding chapter describes Ahab’s battle against the Arameans. It is at least possible that Jezebel could have done to Naboth precisely what David did to Uriah. Instead, she constructs her own subterfuge. She declares a fast and accuses Naboth of treason. By proclaiming a fast, Jezebel behaves like a king. Appler notes that it was “the king’s prerogative” to proclaim fasts in times of “national and religious crises.”44 Appler also observes legal logic in Jezebel’s plan, noting that Jezebel “manipulates the judicial system to ‘legally’ obtain the land that her husband craves.”45 To legally claim Naboth’s land, Jezebel must “represent Naboth as both traitor and blasphemer” 46 – accusations that, according to biblical law, are punishable by death.47 She ensures that there are two witnesses present, which is the number set by biblical law to convict a person of a capital offense.48 Thus, Jezebel wields authority effectively, as a king would, by using the legal system to her advantage. Her plan has the added effect of denying Naboth a hero’s death. Had he died in battle fighting for Israel, Naboth could have accrued honor. Instead, he is killed as a traitor, against God and king, which is what he was to Jezebel. Naboth gets what he deserves, at least from Jezebel’s perspective. Presumably, Naboth would die suspecting who was behind his death. He knows very well who he has angered. Although Naboth might not have known Jezebel’s specific role in his murder, the elders and the nobles do, despite Jezebel’s use of Ahab’s identity. This may be the strongest evidence suggesting that Jezebel overtly usurps the king’s power and does not masquerade as king. First Kings 21:11 clearly states that the elders and the nobles follow Jezebel’s instructions [‫ויעשו אנשי‬ ‫ כאשר שלחה אליהם איזבל‬. . . ‫]עירו‬, despite the fact they were delivered using Ahab’s seal. After following Jezebel’s instructions, they send word directly to her, and not to Ahab, saying: “Naboth has been stoned, and died.”49 Jezebel then informs Ahab: Upon hearing that Naboth had been stoned and died, Jezebel says to Ahab: “Get up and claim the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite who refused to sell it to you for money, for Naboth is living no longer. He is dead.” Upon hearing that Naboth was dead, Ahab got up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to claim it. (1 Kgs 21:15–16) Jezebel continues to command her husband, and Ahab continues to follow her commands. Biblical narrative does not communicate tone. There is no indication how Jezebel delivers her message to Ahab. She may have spoken triumphantly, intending to bolster Ahab’s confidence and elevate his mood. She also may have adopted a more threatening tone. By mentioning Naboth’s refusal to sell his property, Jezebel perhaps reminds Ahab of his failure to behave like a king and seize the property. She also emphasizes, with some dramatic buildup, that Naboth is not alive, but

Jezebel and Ahab 105 dead. Jezebel promised Ahab that she would acquire Naboth’s vineyard for Ahab. Her words inform Ahab just how she acquired the vineyard. From this, Ahab learns that Jezebel is in charge, and the lengths she will go to exert her authority. It is also noteworthy that Jezebel commands Ahab to claim [‫ ]רש‬the vineyard. The root ‫ ירש‬means “to take possession of” or “to inherit.” In the biblical world, women did not typically inherit property, and were not engaged in the transmission of property.50 Once again, Jezebel defies gender roles and expectations, this time by securing property/inheritance for her husband. In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan confronts David with his crimes against Uriah. Although, as I argue, Jezebel up until this moment plays the David role in 1 Kings 21, effectively functioning as the king, the prophet Elijah confronts Ahab and not Jezebel. This is particularly surprising since, as Trible notes, Elijah and Jezebel are narrative counterparts – often standing in parallel tension with one another.51 By confronting Ahab and not Jezebel, God and Elijah dismiss Jezebel’s authority. They do not recognize Jezebel’s position as king. This is similar to God’s post-transgression confrontation with Adam in Genesis 3:9. By confronting Adam first, God dismisses Eve’s authority, which she had just exercised over Adam. God commands Elijah to speak to Ahab in 1 Kings 21:19: You will say to him: “Thus says YHWH: Will you murder and inherit?” And you will say to him: “Thus says YHWH, in the same place that the dogs lick the blood of Naboth, the dogs will lick your blood. God also promises to destroy Ahab’s house, and singles out Jezebel for particular punishment in 1 Kings 21:23–24: YHWH has also spoken about Jezebel: “The dogs will eat Jezebel in the field of Jezreel. 52 Those of Ahab’s dead who die in the city, dogs will eat. Those who die in the field, the birds of the sky will eat.” Elijah’s prophecy suggests that Jezebel and Ahab will share a horrific fate. Both will become carrion consumed by dogs. Yet, as I mention above, Jezebel and Ahab do not share one fate. Ahab is spared the exact and more horrific fate that Jezebel suffers. First Kings 21:25 helps explain why Ahab is spared by noting that no one surpasses Ahab for the evil that he committed under Jezebel’s instigation (‫)הסתה אתו איזבל אשתו‬. Jezebel, like Eve and Delilah, inverts the preferred gender hierarchy and leads a man astray. Therefore, Jezebel should be held more accountable than Ahab. Although it may be logical that Jezebel be held more accountable than Ahab, it does not fully explain why Ahab’s punishment is remitted. Ahab may have fallen under the sway of his Baal-worshipping Phoenician wife, but he still is, according to 1 Kings 21:25–26, the worst king in Israel’s history, who performed abominations on par with the Amorites. He deserves

106  Jezebel and Ahab to die a gruesome death. The conclusion of the narrative relates why God remits Ahab’s punishment in 1 Kings 21:27–29: When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes and placed sackcloth on his flesh. He fasted, lay in sackcloth, and walked about bowed. The word of YHWH came to Elijah the Tishbite saying: “Have you seen that Ahab is subdued before me? Because he is subdued before me, I will not bring calamity in his lifetime. I will bring calamity to his house during his son’s lifetime.” In response to Elijah’s prophecy, Ahab adopts behaviors that communicate his sorrow. He behaves like the Ninevites, who avert destruction by fasting and donning sackcloth in the book of Jonah.53 This is Ahab’s second fast, but it is noticeably different from his first one. A response to Naboth’s refusal, Ahab’s first fast communicates his depression at not getting what he wants. Ahab refuses to eat, takes to his bed, and pouts like a spoiled and frustrated child. Now, Ahab fasts like the repentant Ninevites in Jonah 3:5, and even more importantly, like David fasts in 2 Samuel 12:16. Like David, Ahab fasts in an effort to appeal to God. David Lambert argues that fasting in the Bible is not a penitential act that is “an external sign of internal contrition.”54 Rather, fasting, along with acts such as weeping, tearing clothing, and wearing sackcloth, is an “expression of anguish and affliction” that should be viewed in the context of prayer.55 Lambert views fasting as a means through which an individual expresses suffering. Fasting “sets the stage for the central moment of appeal to God.”56 God will have compassion on the one who fasts, and administer mercy. In response to Nathan’s prophecy that calamity will befall David from within his own house, and that another man will claim David’s wives, David accepts his guilt in 2 Samuel 12:13. Because David admits his sin, God spares David’s life, but promises to kill Bathsheba’s yet unborn child instead. Once born, God afflicts the child. David appeals to God to save the life of his son by fasting and spending the night lying on the ground. His efforts are unsuccessful. The child dies. Once David learns that the child has died, he gets up from the ground and eats. When questioned by his servants why he is able to eat, David responds in 2 Samuel 12:22: “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept because I said: ‘Who knows? Perhaps God will be gracious toward me and the child will live.’ ” Ahab employs a similar strategy in 1 Kings 21:27. At last, Ahab behaves like David and fasts, hoping that God will see his distress, and have mercy upon him and his household. Indeed, God has a degree of mercy upon Ahab, but not upon his household. Ahab’s wife and his son must suffer. Unlike David, Ahab does not confess his sin. But he does wear sackcloth and bow low, gestures that indicated he submits to God’s authority. As a result, his efforts appear moderately successful. God recognizes and emphasizes Ahab’s submission in 1 Kings 21:29 (‫)כי נכנע אחאב מלפני‬. The verb ‫כנע‬, to submit or to

Jezebel and Ahab 107 humble oneself, also appears in Judges 4:23 to describe how God, not Yael, Deborah, or Barak, subdued the Canaanites. I contend that Ahab’s submission, his willingness to assume his proper position in relation to God, distinguishes him from Jezebel, and spares him from the most undignified death. Like Samson, Ahab is buried in his family tomb. Ahab recognizes God’s authority and power and humbles himself before God. Jezebel does not, and therefore must be humbled – brought low. Her body literally and forcibly is cast down to the ground and then obliterated.

Jezebel’s death Second Kings 9:30–37 recounts Jezebel’s death. Jehu, the usurper king whom Elisha anoints, kills her. Knowing that she is in danger because Jehu has already killed her son Joram (2 Kings 9:24), Jezebel prepares to meet Jehu (2 Kgs 9:30). She applies makeup, fixes her hair, and looks out the window. Jezebel’s final actions can be read as a carefully orchestrated gender performance. Her position at the window evokes images of women that are carved onto ivory plaques dated to the ninth through eighth centuries BCE.57 Although scholars debate whether these images depict goddesses or queens, Jezebel’s position at the window conveys publicly that she stands there as a woman, whether royal or divine. Although the text does not reveal Jezebel’s motivation, her application of makeup suggests that she hopes to seduce Jehu and save her life, just as the figure of personified Zion adorns herself to meet her invading enemies (Jer 4:30–31).58 By applying makeup, whether or not for seductive purposes, Jezebel presents herself as a woman before Jehu. Judith E. McKinlay considers why the narrative offers a “feminizing” portrait of Jezebel at this point. McKinlay suggests that since “warfare was for the most part the province of the virile male,” Jezebel’s femininity places her in contrast to Jehu and indicates her impending defeat.59 In this reading, Jezebel’s femininity communicates her weakness. McKinlay also suggests that Jezebel’s femininity is emphasized at her death as a punishment for having defied gender norms in her life; she writes: The writer wants us to understand that while this is indeed a woman in all the feminine senses, this is one who has not acted her part as woman in Israel, and women who do not behave like women – according to this narrator’s gender construction – must fall from their place.60 In agreement with McKinlay that Jezebel works to project femininity, Francesca Stavrakopoulou offers a different interpretation of Jezebel’s final actions. Stavrakopoulou suggests that Jezebel’s application of kohl to her eyes and the adornment of her head do not project femininity as weakness, communicating Jezebel’s impending defeat. Rather, Jezebel’s primping is “a reassertion of her high status as a woman of power, whether as a queen or queen mother or as a member of the elite class,” and therefore should be

108  Jezebel and Ahab viewed as “a ritualized (though not necessarily cultic) behavior of power in relation to the ‘other.’ ”61 In this reading, Jezebel remains defiant until her end. She adorns herself to communicate that she remains a powerful woman, and that she is not prepared to cower and die. Like McKinlay and Stavrakopoulou, I contend that the narrative intentionally places Jezebel in a feminine position before her death. I agree with McKinlay that Jezebel is placed in the feminine position in response to her transgression of gender boundaries. Either Jezebel is forced into this position by the narrative in an effort to make her conform to gender roles, or Jezebel assumes this position herself, perhaps to save her life. She may be trying to seduce her attacker, or she may be proving her femininity – announcing that she is indeed a woman and no longer a woman playing at being a man. She also, as Stavrakopoulou suggests, may be communicating to Jehu that though she no longer functions as king, she remains a powerful woman. Whatever her motivation, Jezebel’s efforts are unsuccessful. Her gender performance fails.62 Jehu arrives and kills Jezebel. As Jehu arrives at the gate, Jezebel says: “Is all well, Zimri, murderer of his master?” He looked up to the window and said: “Who is with me? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. He said: “Throw her down.” They threw her down. Her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled her. (2 Kgs 9:31–33) Jezebel does not cower before Jehu, but accuses him of being a traitor. She calls him Zimri, the officer who kills King Elah and destroys the house of Baasha in order to become king in 1 Kings 16:8–14. In response, Jehu asks who is on his side. Several eunuchs attending Jezebel indicate that they are. Responding to Jehu’s command, they throw Jezebel down to her death. The presence of the eunuchs is not unusual. Everhart notes that cross-culturally, eunuchs “are typically located near the heart of political and/or religious networks,” and are liminal figures, “crossing thresholds that present barriers to both men and women; their liminality is often a source of power.”63 In the Bible, eunuchs appear most often as officials or members of the royal court, and play a prominent role in the “biblical foreign court stories of Esther, Daniel, and Joseph (Genesis 37–50).”64 Most importantly for my analysis, Everhart views eunuchs as “nonprocreative (usually through castration) men who constitute a distinct gender.”65 Their unique gender status “affords them access to a variety of positions of power at the imperial court.” They move easily between the worlds of men and women relaying messages, and have particular access to royal women. Therefore, it is not surprising to find eunuchs attending Jezebel. Yet their presence at her death, suggests Everhart, is also reflective of Jezebel’s status as a gender-crosser.66 Like Jezebel, eunuchs are gender transgressive, and

Jezebel and Ahab 109 therefore are symbolic of Jezebel’s ambiguous gender identity. Everhart also contends that the gender transgressive eunuchs play a crucial role in both causing and marking her demise. Easily crossing political and gender boundaries, eunuchs are able “to mediate the transfer of power from one ruler to another.”67 They would have little problem transferring allegiance from the house of Ahab to the house of Jehu. Having the eunuchs throw Jezebel out the window, according to Everhart, “dramatizes the transition from one leader to another, since eunuchs are often involved in the rise and fall of monarchs and the shifting of boundaries.”68 Similarly, Stavrakopoulou recognizes the liminality evoked by the eunuchs and Jezebel, and their placement at the window; she writes: This understanding is precisely the way in which the window appears to function in the biblical portrayal of Jezebel’s own transitory modification, the cultured performativity of which is arguably underscored by the presence of eunuchs alongside her at the window (9:32–33), themselves embodying both the liminality of the space and their own bodily modification.69 Despite her efforts to present herself as a woman and assume her place as queen, Jezebel does not relinquish power easily. She must be cast forcibly out of the window and out of power. Her body splatters blood against the walls as it falls to the ground, and then is trampled by horses. Viewing Jezebel’s death as a “perverted sacrifice,” Appler compares the blood on the wall to the blood splattered by the priests on the altar.70 Like a priest who consumes the sacrifice, Jehu then enters her house triumphantly and eats and drinks. He addresses the eunuchs: “Attend to this cursed woman. Bury her because she is the daughter of a king.” They went to bury her, but could only find a skull, feet, and hands. (2 Kgs 9:34–35) In a surprising act of deference, Jehu orders the eunuchs to bury Jezebel. But there is not much left to bury. All that remains are particular body parts. As verse 36 relates, dogs have fulfilled Elijah’s prophecy and have consumed Jezebel’s flesh. The symbolic significance of Jezebel’s particular remains is subject to interpretation. Her remains can represent Jezebel’s royal power since in the Bible head and hands convey authority and might.71 They also can represent Jezebel’s sexuality. McKinlay observes how the specific body parts mentioned carry “traces of the sexual,” particularly the hands and feet, which are ancient euphemisms for genitals.72 Whether these body parts symbolize power or sexuality (or both), disembodied from the whole, they become abject objects that evoke horror. A mockery of what they represent, they declare the destruction of Jezebel’s identity.73 Eaten by dogs, Jezebel exists

110  Jezebel and Ahab no more. She has no power, no sexuality, and no identity. Appler notes the irony in Jezebel’s falling prey to dogs since dogs “have a high status in Canaanite religion.”74 In the end, her service to the Canaanite cult cannot save her life. If her name means “Where is the Prince,” the answer is now clear. The Prince, Baal, Jezebel, is no more.

Conclusions Jezebel is a gender transgressive figure in ways that Eve, Deborah, Yael, Manoah’s wife, and Delilah are not. Jezebel is a woman who not only defied the conventional gender hierarchy, as these other women do, but who also usurped her husband’s power and position. She is a woman who behaves like a man, a queen who becomes king, and as such, she must be obliterated within the context of the gendered world constructed by the Bible. She must learn her proper place in relation to men and God. Jehu, the usurper king, obedient to God’s prophecy, whose name bears the theophoric element,75 teaches her this lesson. Jehu defeats Jezebel. Effectively, YHWH defeats Baal. Gender transgressive until the very end, given that her final gender performance fails her, Jezebel’s fate is similar to the fates of Samson and Sisera. Both men have compromised masculinity and are killed. Their stories communicate the value of submission to divine power. Ahab and Jezebel’s story also illustrates the value of submission. Despite the evil he commits, Ahab bows low before God and is shown some mercy. Jezebel, the Phoenician queen, refuses to submit to God or to her husband’s power and therefore is brought low and destroyed. Her body and her identity obliterated, Jezebel becomes excrement strewn across the land.76

Notes 1 Noting a similar focus, Ken Stone asserts that the “rhetorical strategies deployed by the book of Hosea rely to a significant degree on mobilizing male fears of emasculation, of being feminized.” Ken Stone, Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 121. 2 I view these texts in the same way that Judith Butler views socially sanctioned gestures and behaviors that inscribe gender on the body. Butler writes: “In other words, act and gestures, articulated and enacted desires create the illusion of an interior and organizing gender core, an illusion discursively maintained for the purposed of the regulation of sexuality within the obligatory frame of reproductive heterosexuality.” Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 185–186. 3 Bradley L. Crowell, “Good Girl, Bad Girl: Foreign Women of the Deuteronomistic History in Postcolonial Perspective,” BI 21 (2013), p. 11. 4 Janet S. Everhart, “Jezebel: Framed by Eunuchs?” CBQ 72 (2010), p. 689. 5 Butler writes of drag: “In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself – as well as contingency. Indeed, part of the pleasure, the giddiness of the performance is in the recognition of a radical contingency in the relation between sex and gender in the face of cultural configurations of casual unities that are regularly assumed to be natural and necessary.” Butler, Gender Trouble, p. 187. Judith Halberstam also considers the relationship

Jezebel and Ahab 111 between masculinity and performance in drag in Female Masculinity (Durham and London: Duke University, 1998), pp. 231–266. 6 Stuart Macwilliam, “Athaliah: A Case of Illicit Masculinity,” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded (eds. Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), p. 83. 7 Everhart, “Jezebel,” p. 698. 8 Macwilliam, “Athaliah,” p. 78. 9 Ibid., p. 72. 10 1 Kings 18:13. 11 Macwilliam and I differ on this point. Macwilliam notes that whereas Athaliah functions as the sole monarch, Jezebel “stops short of taking regal power for herself.” Macwilliam, “Athaliah,” p. 79. 12 For the evolution of Jezebel’s character as a “tramp,” see Tina Pippin, “Jezebel Re-Vamped,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), pp. 196–206. 13 2 Kings 9:37. 14 Hannelis Schulte, “The End of the Omride Dynasty: Social-Ethical Observations on the Subject of Power and Violence,” Semeia 66 (1994), p. 138. 15 Crowell, “Good Girl, Bad Girl,” p. 11. 16 Phyllis Trible, “Exegesis for Storytellers and Other Strangers,” JBL 114:1 (1995), p. 4. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 5. 20 See Deuteronomy 13 and 17:1–5. 21 Crowell, “Good Girl, Bad Girl,” p. 14. Similarly, Carol Smith writes: “The Deuteronomist’s agenda of depicting (and maybe helping to create?) a monarchy that could only be deemed to be effective insofar as it espoused monolatrous Yahwism and eschewed all things foreign, most particularly foreign women, is particularly pertinent to discussion of the stories of Bathsheba, Jezebel and Athaliah.” Carol Smith, “ ‘Queenship’ in Israel? The Cases of Bathsheba, Jezebel and Athaliah,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. John Day; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), p. 150. 22 Helena Zlotnick, “From Jezebel to Esther: Fashioning Images of Queenship in the Hebrew Bible,” Biblica 82 (2001), p. 485. 23 The term appears in 1 Kings 11:19; 1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 15:16; 2 Kings 10:13; Jeremiah 13:18 and 29:2. 24 Smith, “ ‘Queenship’ in Israel,” p. 145. 25 Ibid., p. 146. 26 Ibid., p. 160. 27 Alexander Rofé, “The Vineyard of Naboth: The Origin and Message of the Story,” VT 38:1 (1988), p. 90. 28 Deborah A. Appler, “From Queen to Cuisine: Food Imagery in the Jezebel Narrative,” Semeia 86 (1999), p. 60. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., p. 61. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., p. 62. 33 2 Samuel 11:9–13. 34 Zlotnick, “From Jezebel to Esther,” p. 492. 35 Ibid., p. 479. 36 Ibid. 37 Smith, “ ‘Queenship’ in Israel?” p. 154. 38 Appler, “From Queen to Cuisine,” p. 62.

112  Jezebel and Ahab 39 Zlotnick writes: “The hostility of biblical narrators to queens who, like Jezebel, usurp the role of kings in a manner that highlights the limitations of kingly power and the breakdown of male authority within the home is undisguised.” Zlotnick, “From Jezebel to Esther,” p. 482. 40 Smith, “ ‘Queenship’ in Israel?” p. 160. Offering a different view, Macwilliam suggests that Jezebel “stops short of taking regal power for herself.” Macwilliam, “Athaliah,” p. 79. 41 Karel Van der Toorn comments on literacy among women in Mesopotamia; he writes: “Only the social elite – the royal family, its entourage, the administrators, the wealthy landowners – could afford to provide their children with a scribal education. . .Most girls were not eligible for a scribal education; as a rule only princesses and the like learned to write, as a mark of personal cultivation.” Karel Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 55. 42 2 Samuel 12:8–9. 43 2 Samuel 12:12. 44 Jehoshaphat and Josiah proclaim fasts in 2 Chronicles 20:2–4 and Jeremiah 36:9. See Appler, “From Queen to Cuisine,” p. 63. 45 Appler notes the biblical evidence indicating a king’s right to confiscate land “belonging to a tried and convicted Israelite.” Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Exodus 22:27; Deuteronomy 13:10; 17:5. 48 Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15. 49 1 Kings 21:14. 50 As Numbers 27:1–11 and 36:2–4 legislate, a daughter can inherit her father’s property only when there are no sons, and if she marries within her tribe. 51 Trible writes: “Though he condemns her, he never confronts her. But again, polarity produces similarity. In parallel structures each character prevails to exercise authority on behalf of others.” Trible, “Exegesis for Storytellers,” p. 13. 52 My translation of “field” agrees with the parallel text found in 2 Kings 9:36 that reads ‫חלק יזרעאל‬, and multiple ancient translations of the verse. 53 Jonah 3:6–9. 54 David Lambert, “Fasting as a Penitential Rite: A Biblical Phenomenon?” HTR 96:4 (2003), p. 479. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., p. 480. 57 Susan Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New York and London: Doubleday, 1998), pp. 155–162. 58 Crowell writes: “While the application of kohl to outline the eyes was common, especially among royalty and upper-class women, other biblical texts that refer to kohl criticize its use as preparations for seduction and even the act of adultery (cf. Jer. 4:30; Ezek. 23:40).” Crowell, “Good Girl, Bad Girl,” pp. 12–13. Appler notes the word play of ‫ ;פוך‬she writes: “The term ‫פוך‬ . . . is a foreign word that means ‘to pulverize’ in the Syriac. Jezebel’s very body is soon to be pulverized when she is trampled by horses before becoming food for dogs.” Appler, “From Queen to Cuisine,” p. 64. 59 Judith E. McKinlay, “Negotiating the Frame for Viewing the Death of Jezebel,” BI 10:3 (2002), p. 307. 60 Ibid. 61 Francesca Stavrakopoulou, “Making Bodies: On Body Modification and Religious Materiality in the Hebrew Bible,” HeBAI 2 (2013), p. 541. 62 Even if Jezebel intends to seduce her attackers, the fact that she fails supports my contention that Jezebel is not sexualized in the narrative. 63 Everhart, “Jezebel, Framed by Eunuchs?” p. 692. 64 Ibid., p. 694.

Jezebel and Ahab 113 5 Ibid., p. 693. 6 66 Ibid., pp. 698–699. 67 Ibid., p. 696. 68 Ibid., 698. 69 Stavrakopoulou, “On Body Modification,” p. 543. 70 Appler, “From Queen to Cuisine,” p. 65–66. 71 Head can refer to the king. See Isaiah 7:8; Psalm 18:44, and Job 29:25. Hands symbolize strength. See Exodus 14:31; Deuteronomy 32:36; Joshua 8:20. 72 McKinlay, “Negotiating the Frame,” p. 318. 73 Ibid., pp. 318–319. 74 Appler, “From Queen to Cuisine,” p. 65. 75 Jehu’s name could be a shortened version of ‫ אוהוי‬which means “he is YHWH.” 76 Stavrakopoulou writes: “With the loss of her face, and the desiccation of her head, Jezebel’s corporeal materiality, and thereby her sociality, is so severely compromised that she is ultimately rendered a ‘no-body;’ for “no one can say, ‘This is Jezebel’ ” (9:37).” Stavrakopoulou, “On Body Modification,” p. 547.

Bibliography Ackerman, Susan. Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Appler, Deborah A. “From Queen to Cuisine: Food Imagery in the Jezebel Narrative.” Semeia 86 (1999), pp. 55–71. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. Crowell, Bradley L. “Good Girl, Bad Girl: Foreign Women of the Deuternonomistic History in Postcolonial Perspectve.” BI 21 (2013), pp. 1–18. Everhart, Janet S. “Jezebel: Framed by Eunuchs?” CBQ 72 (2010), pp. 688–698. Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998. Lambert, David. “Fasting as a Penitential Rite: A Biblical Phenomenon?” HTR 96:4 (2003), pp. 477–512. Macwilliam, Stuart. “Athaliah: A Case of Illicit Masculinity.” In Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, edited by Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit, 69–85. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014. McKinlay, Judith E. “Negotiating the Frame for Viewing the Death of Jezebel.” BI 10:3 (2002), pp. 305–323. Pippin, Tina. “Jezebel Re-Vamped.” In A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, edited by Athalya Brenner, 196–206. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994. Rofé, Alexander. “The Vineyard of Naboth: The Origin and Message of the Story.” VT 38:1 (1988), pp. 89–104. Schulte, Hannelis. “The End of the Omride Dynasty: Social-Ethical Observations on the Power of Violence.” Semeia 66 (1994), pp. 133–148. Smith, Carol. “ ‘Queenship’ in Israel? The Cases of Bathsheba, Jezebel and Athaliah.” In King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, edited by John Day, 142–162. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998. Stavrakopoulou, Francesca, “Making Bodies: On Body Modification and Religious Materiality in the Hebrew Bible.” HeBAI 2 (2013), pp. 532–553. Stone, Ken. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005.

5 The Shunammite and Elisha

An overview of the gender dynamic Jezebel may be the most maligned woman in the Bible. She certainly is among its most powerful women. David Jobling argues that when strong women appear, the Bible seeks to diminish their power, even when it means detouring from other textual goals. For example, Elijah’s fight for “true religion” becomes “a crusade against the strong woman Jezebel.”1 Whereas other powerful women like Eve and Deborah have their power circumscribed within their narratives, Jezebel physically is cast down violently and utterly obliterated in her narrative. Her particularly violent fate may be attributed to the enormous threat she poses as a foreign woman who assumes a man’s position in Israelite society. As I argue in Chapter 4, not only does Jezebel invert the gender hierarchy, she behaves like a man, and most importantly, assumes a man’s formal position of authority. Therefore, one could argue, it is not enough to punish Jezebel, as Eve was, nor is it enough to deflect attention away from her, as the Bible does with Deborah when it introduces Yael. Gender transgressive Jezebel must be destroyed. The narrative shows her no mercy. In contrast, Samson and Ahab are buried as men among their ancestors. Perhaps emasculated men are less threatening than manned women, or perhaps, though compromised, as men they demand some dignity. Jobling perceives an affinity between Jezebel and the Shunammite woman whose story appears in 2 Kings 4:8–37 and 2 Kings 8:1–6. Both are powerful women whose narratives work to curtail their power.2 Many scholars focus on the power dynamics in the Shunammite’s narrative and recognize an inversion of the conventional gender hierarchy in the relationship between the narrative’s central figures – the Shunammite and the prophet Elisha. Mary E. Shields observes how the narrative plays with its readers’ expectations. Initially, Elisha appears more powerful than the Shunammite. He bears a name, has a servant who speaks for him, and performs miracles. Yet, upon closer reading, “the roles, indeed the power, of Elisha and the Shunammite woman are surprisingly reversed.”3 Like Shields, Yairah Amit observes how “a casual reading” of the narrative suggests that it praises the

The Shunammite and Elisha 115 prophet. Yet a closer reading reveals “his limitations and human errors.”4 According to Amit, the role the Shunammite plays in the narrative is to “highlight the prophet’s failings.”5 Similarly, Mark Roncace observes how close readings “have found many indications of admiration for the Shunammite and a diminution of the prophet’s role.”6 My reading of the Shunammite’s story aligns with these scholars and contends that this narrative employs an unconventional gender dynamic to correct a prophet who assumes too much power. Once again, we see below how a narrative that plays with gender norms intertwines the theological and the social hierarchies, challenging both, only to restore the conventional hierarchies that privilege God and men at its conclusion. In the end, the Shunammite assumes a subservient position in relation to Elisha and is confined to the gender-specific role of mother, a role I suggest she does not initially seek. In this way, 2 Kings 4 manifests a dynamic similar to the one Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson describe in 4 Maccabees: One suspects, nevertheless, either that the author of 4 Maccabees has had second thoughts, fearing that he has painted too masculine a portrait of his heroine, one that risks alienating his elite male readership . . . or, alternatively, that a later editor has undertaken to soften it for him. Whoever the author of the speech may be, its effect is the same. The “manly” woman is effectively, if clumsily, “feminized.” . . . Though she has shown that she can take it like a man, she remains a woman in the end.7 The interaction between the Shunammite and Elisha does evoke the struggle between Jezebel and Elijah, Elisha’s prophetic predecessor. Both prophets engage with powerful women in order to secure their prophetic power. Gender, as we saw, certainly plays a role in Elijah’s struggle against Jezebel, yet there are other factors that come into play as well. Since Jezebel is a foreign Baal-worshipping woman, her struggle with Elijah has political and religious dimensions. As I mention in Chapter 4, their names convey these struggles. Gender, I argue, is the central factor in the Shunammite’s struggle with Elisha. This is a story about a great woman engaging with a man of God in which the man learns what it means to be in relationship with God. In this story, gender and the theological hierarchies intertwine, just as they did in the story of Adam and Eve. Elisha, like Adam, learns how to be in relationship with God by being in relationship with a powerful woman. As with all the other narratives with unconventional gender dynamics that I discuss, this is also a story about submission. At the story’s end, the Shunammite submits to Elisha’s authority, conventional gender dynamics and roles are restored, and Elisha realizes, as Amit writes, that he is “a mere instrument of God,”8 the same lesson that Samson learns at the end of his life, as I mention in Chapter 3.

116  The Shunammite and Elisha

A great woman meets a man of God and becomes a mother The narrative begins in 2 Kings 4:8: One day Elisha came to Shunem. A great woman was there. She grabbed hold of him to feed him bread. And so it was that whenever he passed by, he would turn there to eat bread. Unlike the prophet Elisha, the woman is unnamed. Although her anonymity may indicate her secondary status, she bears the attribute “great” [‫]גדולה‬. This is the only time in the Bible where a woman is described as great, and it remains unclear whether the adjective describes the woman’s wealth or her status within the community.9 My reading assumes both. She seems to have abundant property – enough to share with the prophet – as well as servants. Also, she has no trouble securing an audience with the king in 2 Kings 8:5. I contend that the adjective “great” communicates her significance and offsets the fact that she is not named. More importantly, by referring to her as a great woman, ‫אשה גדולה‬, the narrative places her in direct relationship with the man of God, ‫איש אלהים‬, whose name does not appear as frequently as his title does in the narrative and is never used by the Shunammite. In this way, the great woman and the man of God become narrative counterparts. Their titles highlight the gender dynamic within the narrative, just as the names of Jezebel and Elijah highlight the cultic dynamic in their narrative. When the Shunammite first sees Elisha, she grabs hold of him and urges him to allow her to feed him. Clearly, this woman is not afraid to touch the man of God. She physically grabs him again in verse 27. The expression used, ‫תחזק בו‬, conveys physical and emotional force. Similar expressions appear in Genesis 19:16; Deuteronomy 22:25; Judges 19:4, 25; and 2 Samuel 13:14 in the context of rape. The root ‫ חזק‬also appears in Jeremiah 20:7 and carries an implicit meaning of rape, as I will argue in Chapter 7. Although I do not think there is a sexual implication at this point in the narrative, there may be one in verse 27. The use of this particular verb indicates that the Shunammite exercises some degree of power over the prophet.10 She is able to compel him toward her. Already, then, the power dynamic in Elisha’s and the Shunammite’s relationship is complex. The Shunammite takes initiative and pursues the prophet. But she does so in order to feed and care for him. At this point, it is unclear who wields more power and who is more beholden to whom. The Shunammite conceives a plan to deepen her relationship with the prophet, and shares the plan with her husband. She said to her husband: “Indeed I know that he is a holy man of God that always passes by us [‫]הנה נא ידעתי כי איש אלהים קדוש הוא‬. Let us make [‫ ]נעשה‬a small upper chamber and place there for him a bed, table, chair, and light so that when he comes to us, he will turn there.” (2 Kgs 4:9–10)

The Shunammite and Elisha 117 The Shunammite’s husband, also nameless, does not appear to be an active, let alone proactive, partner for the Shunammite. In fact, their relationship appears to be an unconventional one in which the Shunammite inverts the expected gender hierarchy in her marriage, not unlike the relationship between Manoah and his wife that I discuss in Chapter 3. Although the Shunammite seeks her husband’s approval, she devises the plan herself and presents it to him in full detail. Her words have an imperial tone and echo God’s words [“Let us make,” ‫ ]נעשה‬before God creates human beings by fiat in Genesis 1:26. The Shunammite appears to be in charge and recognizes Elisha as a “holy man of God.” Significantly, her words evoke another biblical passage. In Genesis 22:12, an angel of God stops Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac and declares: “Now I know that you are God-fearing [‫כי ירא אלהים אתה‬ ‫]כי עתה ידעתי‬.” Just as the divine being has unique insight into Abraham’s character, the Shunammite, and not her husband, has unique insight into Elisha’s character. In this way, she resembles Manoah’s wife who knew that her visitor was divine [‫ ]איש האלהים‬before her husband did.11 There are other connections, as we see below, to Judges 13 – Samson’s birth narrative – related to the unusual nature of the annunciation scenes and the secondary role each father plays in the narrative. There are also other connections to Genesis 22 that I address. For now, it is important to note that the Shunammite’s words, both “Let us make,” and “Indeed I know,” align her with the divine voice and perspective. The Shunammite is quite specific about her plan. She wants to build a small upper chamber for Elisha, and furnish it with a bed, table, chair, and lamp. Although the Shunammite clearly acts out of deference to the prophet, she constructs a small room [‫ ]קטנה‬as opposed to a large [‫ ]גדולה‬one. This detail may be distinguishing subtly between the “greatness” of the Shunammite and the “smallness” of the prophet – a distinction that becomes even clearer as the narrative continues. The room is built above the Shunammite’s living quarters. Uriel Simon suggests that the Shunammite places the prophet in the upper chambers “to offer the man of God the full respect he merits.”12 Likewise, I contend that the physical placement of characters throughout the narrative indicates status, marking who is above and who is below. My reading agrees with Shields, who observes that the narrative works to elevate the Shunammite in relation to the prophet in the beginning, only to bring her down at the end when she bows at the prophet’s feet.13 At this point in the narrative, her reverence for the prophet, as indicated by her placing him in the upper chamber, is a positive attribute that presents the Shunammite in a favorable position, albeit in a position beneath Elisha. Unlike the prophet, we see that the Shunammite assumes her proper place and does not overstep boundaries. She behaves as if Elisha is her superior and accordingly positions herself in relation to him. Amit notes how the furniture that the Shunammite provides the prophet resembles the furnishings of a “small sanctuary,” reminiscent of the temple.14

118  The Shunammite and Elisha The temple included a table for the display of bread (Ex 25:23–30), a lamp (Ex 25:31–40), and a throne for God (1 Kgs 22:19). Amit suggests that the bed corresponds to the altar – an interesting comparison considering the role it plays later in the narrative, as I discuss below. The Shunammite’s exacting preparations for the prophet convey her recognition of his status, and more importantly, of his inherent holiness. She views him as more than just a divine messenger who deserves honor and hospitality. She considers him to be inherently holy, and strives to contain his holiness in her home. She wants his physical presence. As Roncace notes, “in this story there is a strong connection between prophetic power and prophetic presence.”15 In this way, I suggest that the Shunammite functions like a priest in the temple who ensures that God’s presence resides in the temple. By ensuring and sustaining the prophet’s presence in her home, she enacts a male role, since only men were allowed to be priests in Israel.16 In this way, the Shunammite is like Jezebel who, according to my reading, usurps the male position of king. Although she assumes a male position, the Shunammite may enjoy a kinder fate than Jezebel because she remains submissive to Elisha while serving as his “priest.” After all, as a man of God, Elisha is God’s representative. She provides for him and remains deferential to him. The Shunammite’s efforts pay off. Elisha and his servant Gehazi stay in the upper chamber whenever they pass through Shunem. Indebted, Elisha offers to compensate the Shunammite for her generosity in 2 Kings 4:12–13: He said to his servant Gehazi: “Call this Shunammite!” He called her and she stood before him. He said to him: “Say to her. Indeed, you have acted reverently with us. What can be done for you? Perhaps to speak on your behalf to the king or to the army commander?” She said: “I dwell among my people.” Elisha speaks through his servant Gehazi as if to preserve his distance from the Shunammite and his superior status in relation to her. Although he recognizes and appreciates her reverence (the verb used to connote her reverence, ‫חרד‬, to tremble, is used to describe Israel’s reverence when receiving revelation at Sinai in Ex 19:16), he refers to her coldly as “this Shunammite.” Shields suggests that Elisha not only avoids naming her, “a classic status differentiation tactic,” but that “he may in fact be indicating a kind of contempt for her status.”17 Although grateful to her, he may be sensitive to her power and to the fact that she challenges gender expectations by assuming priest-like duties by managing his presence, and seeks to put her in her place. It is interesting that Elisha offers the Shunammite political support. Initially, he does not offer her divine favor or assistance. Remarkably, the Shunammite refuses his offer, responding obliquely, but directly to him and not to Gehazi: “I dwell among my people [‫]בתוך עמי אנכי יושב‬.” Her refusal may be an honest response to the prophet’s offer that communicates her comfort

The Shunammite and Elisha 119 and high social status, as well as her generosity and her confidence. In this reading, the Shunammite does not need the prophet’s political assistance, nor does she expect to be paid for her actions.18 She requires and wants nothing from Elisha but his presence in her house. Yet, it is also possible to hear a critical and demanding tone in her refusal. Indeed, she dwells comfortably among her people and has no need for political assistance, but now she stands before a man of God [‫]ותעמד לפניו‬. The expression “to stand before” indicates respect and subservience in the Bible, and can be used to describe an individual standing in service before God.19 Standing before this man of God, the Shunammite may expect some kind of divine favor. This may be why she brought the prophet into her home in the first place. Her words recall the words of the prophet Isaiah during his temple vision in Isaiah 6:5. After being granted a vision of the heavenly court, Isaiah is aware of his human limitations, and laments: “Woe is me! I am undone for I am a man of impure lips who dwells among impure people [‫ובתוך עם טמא‬ ‫]שפתים אנכי יושב‬.” In response, one of the divine creatures purifies him and readies him for prophetic service. The Shunammite may expect a similar transformation from her man of God. She even may hope to become a woman of God, a prophetess, through her association with the prophet. Whatever her motives, in this reading the Shunammite is assertive and critical. She is not afraid to say no to the prophet, nor is she afraid to let him know that he has misunderstood her intentions. Shields contends that this direct exchange between the Shunammite and Elisha places the Shunammite on “equal footing” with the man of God.20 At this point in the narrative, the Shunammite and Elisha physically are face-to-face, indicating that Elisha may no longer be above her in status. Although the prophet and the Shunammite are physically leveled, I suggest that this exchange actually elevates the Shunammite above her holy male counterpart by revealing her loftier intentions and goals. The Shunammite does not want political gain or security. She wants divine favor. Elisha persists and consults with Gehazi. He said: “What is to do for her?” Gehazi responded: “Alas, she has no son and her husband is old.” He said: “Call her!” He called her and she stood at the door. He said: “At this season next year, you will embrace a son.” She said: “No, my lord, man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.” (2 Kgs 4:14–17) At a loss how to compensate the Shunammite for her generosity, Elisha turns to his servant, who provides information that could guide Elisha. The woman and her husband have no children. Her husband, it appears, is too old. It would take divine intervention to provide a child for the Shunammite. The Bible tells many stories about miraculous births. Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph, Saul, and as we see in Chapter 3, Samson, are all products

120  The Shunammite and Elisha of divine intervention in human fertility. Although every miraculous birth story in the Bible has unique elements, many conform to the broad pattern in which God intervenes on behalf of a barren woman who delivers a muchdesired son who plays a significant role in the biblical narrative, either as an heir apparent or as a leader or savior. Although it evokes other biblical birth narratives, particularly those of Isaac and Samson, 2 Kings 4 has unique features. Unlike many other birth narratives, it does not tell the story of a barren woman who actively seeks to have a child. The Shunammite’s infertility is attributed to her husband’s age and not to her inability to conceive. More surprising though is the fact that the Shunammite and her husband do not seem to desire a child. In this way, they resemble Manoah and his wife, who are not trying actively to have a baby, even though Manoah’s wife is described as barren. In Judges 13, the angel seeks out Manoah’s wife, seemingly out of the blue, and announces her pregnancy. Another similarity between Judges 13 and 2 Kings 4 is the focus on the mother figures. Just as Manoah’s wife was the focus of Judges 13, the Shunammite is the focus of 2 Kings 4. My analysis of Judges 13 suggests that the focus on the mother was indicative of an inverted gender hierarchy that registers the social instability during the time of the judges. A similar dynamic in 2 Kings 4 may register a similar social instability. One major difference between these narratives is the significance of the children. Manoah’s wife may be the focus of the birth narrative, but Samson is born to be a savior. Once he is born, he becomes the focus of the story. In contrast, the Shunammite remains the focus of 2 Kings 4 even after the birth of her son. Her nameless child does not become a savior, nor is he a significant heir. In fact, as we see below, his inheritance will be in jeopardy in 2 Kings 8:1–6. Although 2 Kings 4 and Judges 13 share narrative features, 2 Kings 4 is textually linked with Genesis 18, Isaac’s birth narrative, as well as with other episodes in Isaac’s life, such as Genesis 22, the narrative in which Isaac’s father Abraham almost kills him. The direct literary references to Isaac’s story suggest that the Bible intends a comparison. By using the expression ‫למועד הזה כעת חיה‬, at this season next year, 2 Kings 4:15 intentionally evokes Genesis 18:10 and 14, the annunciation of Isaac’s birth – the only other places this expression appears. Given the literary connections with Isaac’s narrative, readers must consider whether to draw positive or negative comparisons between the characters and events of 2 Kings 4 and the characters and events of the Genesis stories. Most agree that the parallels do not bode well for Elisha. When seen in the context of the Isaac narratives, Elisha appears overconfident, even arrogant in his narrative. As Amit observes, Elisha “displays the self-importance of one to whom everything is due, who can do favours thanks to his connections to high places.”21 Like Amit, I contend that Elisha oversteps his position as God’s prophet when he promises the Shunammite a child. Humans can request children from God, but even men of God

The Shunammite and Elisha 121 cannot force God’s hand. The Shunammite, who overpowers Elisha, helps the prophet learn that he is merely an instrument of God, and therefore he cannot control the forces of life and death without help. She demands that the prophet fix the problems his arrogance caused and thereby forces him to understand the limits of his power. Once Elisha learns his lesson and recognizes God’s power, the conventional gender hierarchy is restored. In the narrative’s end, the Shunammite properly submits to Elisha’s authority and fully becomes the mother she never asked to be. Responding to the prophet’s second summons, the Shunammite stands at the doorway. Although unspecified, it is logical that she stands at the doorway to the prophet’s upper chamber.22 The expression ‫ותעמד בפתח‬, she stood at the door, evokes the figures of both Abraham and Moses. Abraham sits at the opening of his tent in Genesis 18:1, ‫פתח האהל‬, when he receives the divine messengers who will announce Isaac’s birth. Similarly, Exodus 33:9 describes how Moses would stand at the doorway of the tent shrine, ‫ועמד פתח האהל‬, in order to receive divine revelation. In the ancient world, doorways had sacred potential. As liminal spaces, they marked the border between the natural and supernatural worlds and were sites for revelation. Menahem Haran observes how the interior of tent shrines was a place “for the sharpening of the worshiper’s faculties in preparation, so to speak, for the revelation of the divine presence.” Revelation, notes Haran, does not occur inside the shrine, but at the shrine’s entrance.23 As I mention above, the Shunammite furnished the prophet’s room like a shrine. She now stands at the doorway of this shrine like Moses and Abraham, anticipating revelation. Just as the divine messengers deliver the news to Abraham, and indirectly to Sarah who is standing in the doorway [‫ ]פתח האהל‬in Genesis 18:10, that Sarah will conceive, Elisha informs the Shunammite that she will be holding a child in a year’s time. Notably, Elisha does not inform the Shunammite that she will conceive a child, as the divine messengers inform Sarah. Instead, he tells her that she will embrace a child. Like the reader, the Shunammite assumes that the prophet is telling her that she will be holding a newborn child. Yet, the prophet’s words are oddly prescient of the child’s unhappy fate, which will be to die in his mother’s embrace. Even more notably, Elisha does not mention God in his promise to the Shunammite. Amit accuses the prophet of behaving “superciliously even with God, whom he fails to mention in announcing the child’s forthcoming birth.”24 Not only does Elisha not credit God with the miraculous birth, he forces God’s hand. Elisha promises a child that God must deliver if God is going to manifest God’s power through this prophet. Of course, God could decide to prove Elisha a false prophet. Amit suggests that this is the Shunammite’s concern when she begs him not to lie to her. The Shunammite expresses anxiety not because she fears she will not become a mother, but because she is afraid “that the prophet would disappoint her and thereby lose his holiness.”25 As we saw in her efforts to contain his holiness and in

122  The Shunammite and Elisha her deference to him, the Shunammite is invested in Elisha’s holiness. She does not want him to lose his status by promising something that he cannot fulfill. If Amit is right, then the Shunammite doubts the prophet’s ability to fulfill his promise and understands long before Elisha does that he should not have made it. Amit also suggests that Elisha not only imposes the child upon God but that he imposes the child upon the Shunammite as well. As I mentioned, the Shunammite does not display any desire for a child. In fact, she makes it clear in verse 28 that she never asked for a child. Forcing the Shunammite into a maternal role may be a way for Elisha to restrain her power and ambition. The Shunammite may aspire to a priestly or prophetic position, but Elisha ensures that she becomes a mother and assumes a more genderappropriate role. In this reading, the man of God ensures that the great woman does not overstep the boundaries of her gender. Amit notes how providing the Shunammite with a child seems “to answer the prophet’s needs rather than hers.”26 In this reading, Elisha strives to prove that he is a man of God for his own gain, perhaps to secure his position. Shields similarly observes how “the child is Elisha’s gift to the woman,” and that neither “God nor the woman is consulted in the matter.”27 This is evident in the announcement of the child’s birth in 2 Kings 4:17: “The woman conceived and bore a son at the same season the following year just as Elisha spoke to her [‫]אשר דבר אליה אלישע‬.” In Genesis 21:2, Sarah bears Isaac at the appointed time just as God spoke to Abraham [‫למועד אשר דבר אתו‬ ‫]אלהים‬. Whereas God promised a child to Sarah and Abraham, Elisha, not God, promises a child to the Shunammite. For Shields, this raises the issue of responsibility. It is unclear if God, the woman, or the prophet is responsible for the child’s life.28 Jobling makes an even stronger argument than Amit and Shields for Elisha’s paternal responsibility; he writes: “Elisha does not seek the woman’s consent, overpowers her with his wonder-working ability, and makes her pregnant – what else is this than rape?”29

The great woman pursues the man of God and pleads for her son’s life Time passes and the child grows older. While out plowing with his father, the child suddenly falls sick and dies. The child grows and one day goes out to join his father and the reapers. He says to his father: “My head! My head!” He says to the servant: “Carry him to his mother!” He lifted him and brought him to his mother. He sat upon her lap until the afternoon and then he died. (2 Kgs 4:18–20) This passage reveals a complicated family dynamic. Father and son, two nameless and marginalized characters in the narrative, engage with one

The Shunammite and Elisha 123 another. Since the boy seeks his father’s companionship, it appears that they have a positive relationship. Yet the moment the boy complains of a headache, his father, addressing a servant, sends him off to his mother. The father does not display tenderness toward his son. The Shunammite is the one that nurses her dying son. Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes contends that the boy’s words to his father communicate more than physical discomfort. She suggests reading them as a question, and understanding them literally. Old enough now to ask questions, the child wants to know “who is his ‘head,’ that is, his father.” He wants to know “where he belongs and where he comes from.”30 Given his birth narrative, the answer is not simple. Shields suggests that the child was Elisha’s gift to the Shunammite. Therefore, Elisha is responsible for him. In other words, Elisha is the child’s “head,” and should act as his father. Yet, at this point, Elisha is not present to assume responsibility, and the child’s father abdicates his responsibility.31 By bringing the child onto her lap [‫]על ברכיה‬, the Shunammite assumes full parental responsibility for the child. In Genesis 30:3, barren Rachel offers her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob as a wife. She states that Bilhah will give birth upon my lap [‫]ותלד על ברכי‬, and that Rachel will be built up from her. In Genesis 50:23, Joseph’s great-grandchildren are born upon his knees [‫ילדו‬ ‫]על ברכי יוסף‬. These passages suggest that placing a child on one’s lap is a gesture that communicates a parental relationship, emotionally, if not even legally. With this gesture, the Shunammite claims the child that she did not ask for, and that the father and the prophet have rejected. The child dies in his mother’s lap, and the Shunammite springs into action. She rises and lays the child down on the bed of the man of God. She shuts the door behind him and goes out. She calls to her husband and says: “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys so that I can run after the man of God and return.” He said: “Why are you going to him today? It’s not the new month or the Sabbath.” She said: “All is well.” (2 Kgs 4:21–23) In the immediate wake of her son’s death, the Shunammite pursues the prophet. It is unclear whether the Shunammite harbors hope that he will revive her son, or whether she wishes to confront the prophet in anger. Either way, the Shunammite does not passively accept her son’s death. The fact that she places his dead body on the prophet’s bed suggests that she harbors hope that the child could be revived. The bed, through its proximity to the prophet’s body, may have absorbed some of the prophet’s powers. This may reflect the practice of “contactual magic,” in which, as Stuart Lasine describes, “shamans lie down in bed with the person they are attempting to heal or revive,” hoping to transfer their life force into the person.32 If so, the Shunammite is proactively working to save her son’s life by placing him

124  The Shunammite and Elisha atop the prophet’s bed in an effort to harness the prophet’s life force. It is also possible that though devastated by it, and perhaps enraged, she accepts his death as final, and places his body across the bed as an offering on the symbolic altar, as I mention above. The Shunammite shuts the door to the upper chamber, and goes out. Again, it is difficult to interpret her actions. Simon suggests that she wishes to conceal the body from everyone else in the house “to prevent those of little faith from accepting the child’s death as incontrovertible fact.”33 I suggest that she wants to prevent others from intervening on the child’s behalf. By shutting the door, she seals off the room and removes its “opening,” its ‫פתח‬, the site of revelation. Thus she prevents others from praying ineffectively on the child’s behalf. The Shunammite knows that only Elisha has the power and more importantly, the obligation to heal the child. The exchange between the Shunammite and her husband reveals that the Shunammite has no expectations of her husband. She calls to him just as Elisha called to his servant Gehazi, and Gehazi called to the Shunammite in verses 12 and 15,34 commanding him to provide her with a servant and a donkey so that she can run to the man of God. Her husband shows no concern for his child and has no idea why the Shunammite so urgently wants to see the man of God,35 though he clearly finds it odd that she does. Her curt response to his question, all is well [‫]שלום‬, may either reflect her faith that it will be, or her desire not to engage with her husband further on this matter. Her request for a servant and a donkey is another literary link to Genesis 22. Above I mention how the Shunammite in 2 Kings 4:9 echoes God’s words in Genesis 22:12 when she recognizes Elisha as a holy man of God. Now, I argue that the Shunammite assumes a position in the narrative that corresponds to Abraham’s position in Genesis 22, just as Jezebel assumes a position in her narrative that corresponds to King David. Abraham has servants and a donkey with him when he prepares to sacrifice his son Isaac. Although Genesis 22 uses a different word for donkey [‫ ]חמור‬than 2 Kings 4 [‫]אתון‬, both the Shunammite and Abraham saddle their animals in preparation for their journeys.36 Genesis 22:5 particularly resonates in vocabulary and syntax to 2 Kings 4:22; it reads: Abraham said to his servants [‫]נעריו‬: “Stay here with the donkey, while the lad [‫ ]נער‬and I go there so that we can worship and return [‫ ]נשובה‬to you.” The Shunammite promises to return to her husband [‫]אשובה‬, just as Abraham promises to return to his servants. These links to Genesis 22 further elevate the Shunammite’s position in the narrative by equating her with Abraham, the patriarch who proves to be God-fearing [‫]ירא אלהים‬. Yet, the evocation of Abraham also highlights differences between the Shunammite’s story and character and the patriarch’s narrative and qualities. Abraham leaps into action to kill his son and proves himself God-fearing because he was willing

The Shunammite and Elisha 125 to do so. He values obedience to God over the life of his son. In contrast, the Shunammite leaps into action to save her son and expects a man of God, someone who channels the divine presence, to help her. The Shunammite perceives God as a source of life, while Abraham experiences God as a commander of death. The Shunammite acts while Abraham submits. Through the literary connections to Genesis 22, the Bible invites its readers to see these differences, though it does not overtly pass judgment upon them. My analyses of the biblical texts with unconventional gender dynamics argue for the value of submission. Thus, the Shunammite’s refusal to submit to her fate should be viewed negatively. She should accept her son’s death as an act of God. Yet I contend her action is a corrective to Elisha’s inappropriate offer of a child, and his imposition on God. The Shunammite understands that Elisha has overstepped the boundaries that define proper prophetic behavior. She understands that the birth of her child was not an act of God, and therefore that she does not have to submit to his death. The Shunammite will make clear to Elisha that he had no right to promise her a child, and that now Elisha is obligated to save him. The Shunammite’s proactive behavior is a means through which Elisha will be subdued and come to recognize God’s power. Once she achieves her goal, she will return to a subservient position in relation to Elisha. The Shunammite takes off and encounters the prophet on Mount Carmel. She saddled the donkey and said to her servant: “Drive! Do not stop me from riding until I tell you.” She went and came to the man of God on Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her from afar, he said to his servant Gehazi: “Over there is the Shunammite. Now, run to greet her and say to her: ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with your son?’ ” She said: “All is well.” (2 Kgs 4:24–26) The Shunammite is physically and emotionally driven. She lets her servant know who is in charge and commands him not to stop driving until she says to stop driving. It appears that Elisha spies the Shunammite before she sees him. Just as Elisha initially speaks to the Shunammite through Gehazi, he now dispatches Gehazi to greet her. Elisha consistently avoids direct contact with the Shunammite. He may feel that she, as a lay-woman, is beneath him socially, and that proper communication should go through an intermediary. He also may not understand the power of his physical presence – a lesson she will insist that he learn by the story’s conclusion. Either way, Elisha’s distance from the Shunammite does not seem worthy or wise. Gehazi is not an effective intermediary on his behalf. Sensing that the Shunammite is in distress, the prophet inquires through Gehazi after her welfare, and the welfare of her husband and child. Her response to Gehazi, all is well [‫]שלום‬, is as dismissive or as confident as was her response to her husband in verse 23.37

126  The Shunammite and Elisha Refusing to engage with Gehazi as the prophet’s intermediary, the Shunammite directly addresses Elisha. The woman approaches the man of God on the mountain and grabs hold of his feet. Gehazi approaches to push her away, but the man of God said: “Leave her be for she is distressed, and YHWH has hidden it from me and not told me.” She said: “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not tell you: ‘Do not mislead me?’ ” (2 Kgs 4:27–28) Once again, the Shunammite touches the prophet, this time grabbing hold of his feet [‫]ותחזק ברגליו‬. At first glance, the Shunammite appears to prostrate herself before the prophet in a gesture of respect and submission. Yet, feet in the Bible can be a euphemism for genitals.38 Therefore, it is possible that the Bible figuratively alludes to Elisha’s paternal responsibilities by describing the Shunammite’s grasping his feet/genitals. Considering Gehazi’s reaction to the gesture, it may even intend a literal reading. If so, then the Shunammite is, once again, physically on a level with the prophet, and not bowed at his feet. Either way, it is not a gesture of submission but rather one of demand. Elisha registers her urgent distress and prevents Gehazi from pushing her aside. Elisha admits his ignorance of what causes her distress and attributes it to God. The prophet’s ignorance places him in a dependent position to the Shunammite. The man of God, as Shields observes: “the one who should know, must wait for the woman to enlighten him.”39 The Shunammite is blunt with the prophet. She did not ask for this child from Elisha. Her words [‫ ]השאלתי בן מאת אדני‬echo and contrast with Hannah’s in 1 Samuel 1:27. Hannah prays fervently for a child and is rewarded by God for her piety [‫]ויתן יהוה לי את שאלתי אשר שאלתי מעמו‬. In contrast to Hannah, the Shunammite specifies that this child comes from “my lord [‫]מאת אדני‬,” making it clear that she did not ask for this child, and that the child does not come from God. She also accuses the prophet of deceiving her, by claiming that she warned him not to mislead her. Her words indicate that not only does she consider Elisha paternally obligated to help her, she holds him accountable for the child’s death. She understands that he overstepped his bounds. He is only a man of God; he is not God. Elisha responds by saying to Gehazi: Gird your loins, take my staff in your hand, and go! If you meet a man, do not bless him. If the man blesses you, do not respond. Place my staff over the boy. (2 Kgs 4:29) Elisha turns yet again to Gehazi as his intermediary and orders him into action. Roncace suggests that Elisha enlists Gehazi because, having

The Shunammite and Elisha 127 interrupted the Shunammite before she told him about her son’s death, he has “underestimated the gravity of the situation and thought Gehazi’s intervention would suffice.”40 Yet, he orders Gehazi to gird his loins, an expression that indicates preparation for an important and arduous task,41 and tells him not to stop to exchange greetings with anyone until he reaches the boy and places Elisha’s staff upon him. It appears that Elisha does understand the gravity of the situation. He just does not offer his presence to remedy it. Either he does not care enough to do so, or he does not understand that his presence is necessary. Perhaps he even thinks that he is powerless to revive the child. At this point, Elisha may consider his efforts to manipulate life a failure since the child he brought to life was unable to sustain it. Unsatisfied by the prophet’s response and the dispatch of Gehazi, the Shunammite demands the prophet’s presence. The mother of the boy said: “As YHWH lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” He got up and followed after her. (2 Kgs 4:30) This, I contend, is a pivotal and complex moment in which the Shunammite secures the prophet’s presence, redefines her relationship to him, and begins to restore a conventional gender dynamic between them. It is a moment in which the Shunammite simultaneously asserts power over the prophet and assumes a subservient position to him. Up to this point, I agree with Shields and Amit that the Shunammite outshines, and even overpowers, Elisha. Whereas Elisha abuses his prophetic power by promising something he should not, the Shunammite displays enormous reverence for a man of God, yet challenges him when appropriate. She is not afraid to pursue him, confront him, and make demands of him. I also argue that the Shunammite’s actions transcend her gender. They resemble a priest’s and mirror the patriarch Abraham’s actions, suggesting that she aspires to, if not succeeds at, fulfilling a man’s role within the narrative. She even channels God’s voice in the narrative and seems to participate in an unconventional marriage in which she overpowers her husband. In these ways, the Shunammite challenges the Bible’s conventional gender norms and preferred hierarchy. Now, I contend that the relationship between the Shunammite and the prophet shifts and begins to conform to conventional gender norms and roles. Identified as “the mother of the boy,” and not as the Shunammite, she swears to the prophet that she will not leave him. The attribution reveals her motivation, and that she has accepted and assumed the maternal role that the prophet had imposed upon her. As a mother, she now acts out of maternal love and grief, as opposed to the reverence for the prophet that motivated her earlier in the narrative. In other words, her motivation now is

128  The Shunammite and Elisha more gender-appropriate than it was at the start of the story. She seeks the prophet for the sake of her child, and not, as I suggest, to harness his holiness for herself. In essence, the Shunammite’s oath that she will not abandon the prophet links her physical presence to Elisha’s. She swears that where the prophet goes, she will go. Her words echo Elisha’s words to his master Elijah in 2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6. In 2 Kings 2, Elijah is about to die. Elisha refuses to leave his master until he names him as his successor. On the one hand, by echoing Elisha’s oath to Elijah, the Shunammite indicates submission to Elisha’s authority. Elisha is to her what Elijah was to Elisha – a master. On the other hand, the Shunammite asserts her own power over Elisha. As Simon observes, she demonstrates “that pious awe does not always entail passive obedience.”42 Her goal is to get the prophet to return with her. Notably, the Shunammite does not demand that Elisha return with her. Instead, she declares the she will not abandon him. It is the force of her presence that causes him to follow her. Although he is her master, Elisha follows the Shunammite. In this way, they are evenly matched.

Restoring the social and the theological hierarchies Gehazi arrives first to the Shunammite’s home, followed by Elisha. Gehazi arrived before them and placed the staff upon the boy, but there was no sound, no response. He turned to meet him and said to him: “The boy did not wake up.” Elisha entered the house. The boy lay dead upon his bed. He entered and closed the door on them both and prayed to YHWH. He got up, lay down on the boy and placed his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands. He bent over him. The boy’s flesh grew warm. (2 Kgs 4:31–34) Elisha enters his room and closes the door. Having used the force of her presence to bring the prophet to her home, the Shunammite’s presence is no longer needed. The man of God now works alone. Although the child begins to warm when Elisha lies across him, the prophet needs to repeat the strange ritual before the child opens his eyes and revives (verse 35). Shields contends that Elisha’s initial attempt to revive the child shows that “his power is nearly inadequate.”43 Disagreeing slightly with Shields, I contend that the narrative shows that Elisha’s physical power is not adequate enough – something he should have known all along. Just as he should not have promised a child on his own, he cannot revive the child on his own. Elisha may not have prayed for the child’s birth, but he now prays for the child’s life. Like Samson who channels God’s power through prayer in a final act of vengeance against the Philistines, Elisha channels God’s healing powers through prayer. Human actions, reflected in the healing rituals, are not enough. Only

The Shunammite and Elisha 129 God restores life. The prophet’s body, like Samson’s, is a conduit for God’s power. Like Samson, Elisha learns that he is God’s instrument. Once the child revives, Elisha asks Gehazi to call the Shunammite into the room to embrace her living child. He called to Gehazi and said: “Call to this Shunammite!” He called her and she came to him. He said: “Lift up your son!” She came, fell upon his feet, and bowed to the ground. She lifted up her son and went out. (2 Kgs 4:36–37) Elisha resorts to using Gehazi as an intermediary, but this time, I argue, this should not be seen as a shortcoming. Rather, it reveals that the relationship between the Shunammite and the prophet has assumed its proper hierarchy. With God’s assistance, Elisha has proven himself to be a man of God by reviving the child through prayer and ritual. The Shunammite enabled this to happen, but she was not present for the miracle. She enters the room as a woman, a mother, and assumes her proper position in relation to this man of God. The use of Gehazi, as well as the fact that Elisha refers to her as “this Shunammite” registers the distance that exists between them. The Shunammite now registers this distance as well. She enters the room, and falls at the prophet’s feet, this time in a gesture of submission and gratitude. She does not grab hold of his feet as she does in verse 27.44 Her prostration before the prophet, as Simon observes, communicates that the Shunammite, once again, is “the humble maidservant of the holy man of God.”45 She claims her son, and leaves the prophet’s presence. At this point, the narrative could be complete. The prophet has prevailed, and the gender hierarchy has been restored. Yet, the Bible includes a sequel narrative in 2 Kings 8:1–6, which reaffirms the gender hierarchy by illustrating Elisha’s ongoing power over the Shunammite. Famine afflicts the land. Elisha commands the Shunammite to leave the land. Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he revived saying: “Get up and go, you, your household, and sojourn where you will, for YHWH has decreed that a famine will come to the land for seven years. The woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God. She and her household left and sojourned in the land of Philistines for seven years. (2 Kgs 8:1–2) Elisha informs the Shunammite that YHWH decreed the famine, demonstrating to her that he behaves like a typical prophet who relies upon God’s decree. Notably, Elisha does not address the Shunammite’s husband. Clearly, the Shunammite remains the driving force in her household. Yet, without hesitation, the Shunammite fulfills the prophet’s command. Roncace comments: “It is somewhat surprising to find the independent, self-driven Shunammite so quick to follow the prophet’s advice.”46 The

130  The Shunammite and Elisha Shunammite’s willingness to leave her home and her people is particularly surprising since she made it clear to the prophet that she lived comfortably among her people (2 Kgs 4:13). Ostensibly to save her life and the life of her son, the prophet makes her do something she does not want to do. She may do this out of deference for Elisha or out of maternal concern for her child. Either way, the Shunammite defers to the prophet. Elisha’s motivations for warning the Shunammite are also unclear. He may act out of concerned panic – not wanting the woman or her son to be in jeopardy yet again. He also may want the woman to know that he holds power over her family. Whereas once she provided for the man of God, and taught him a powerful lesson, now he provides for her and her family. After seven years away, the Shunammite returns to discover that her property has been confiscated. She approaches the king. At the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines. She went forth to appeal to the king about her household and her field. (2 Kgs 8:3) The Shunammite does not hesitate to appeal directly to the king. It is interesting that she does not appeal to the prophet, despite the fact that he came to her aid in the famine. Just as she said in 2 Kings 4:13, she lives securely among her people, and does not require Elisha’s intervention with the king. The Shunammite may act with the understanding that land-related matters fall under the auspices of the monarch and not of the prophet. Remarkably, the Shunammite approaches the king when he is speaking to Gehazi. The king was speaking to Gehazi, the man of God’s servant, saying: “Tell me all the great deeds that Elisha has done.” While he was speaking to the king about the resurrection of the dead, the woman whose son was revived appealed to the king for her household, and her field. Gehazi said: “My Lord, the king, this is the woman and this is her son that Elisha revived.” (2 Kgs 8:4–5) The king wishes to hear about Elisha’s great deeds, ‫הגדלות‬, an allusion, perhaps, to the Shunammite herself, ‫אשה גדולה‬, the great woman who may be Elisha’s greatest deed. If so, it appears that Elisha’s greatness has overshadowed the Shunammite’s. She is not referred to as the great woman in the sequel narrative, but as “the woman.” This may be the most convincing evidence to support Jobling’s assertion that the Bible actively diminishes the power of its strong women. It is unknown why Gehazi is speaking to the king. He could be, as Roncace suggests, still functioning as an intermediary, this time speaking “on

The Shunammite and Elisha 131 behalf of his master.”47 The Shunammite interrupts Gehazi with her own needs, and “obviates Gehazi’s function.”48 Gehazi does not appear angry at the Shunammite’s interruption. Instead, he seems pleased to have an opportunity to illustrate the prophet’s great deeds with this mother and son. The child’s presence is interesting, especially given the absence of her husband. The Shunammite may be using her son to appeal to the king’s compassion. She also may not want to leave her son at home with her ineffective husband,49 or she may not wish to include her husband in her appeal. The king bypasses Gehazi, and speaks directly to the Shunammite. The king asked the woman and she told him. The king assigned to her a eunuch and said: “Restore her property, and all the yield of the field from the day she left the country until now.” (2 Kgs 8:6) The presence of the eunuch is evocative of Jezebel’s story. As I mention in Chapter 4, eunuchs appear in the Bible as members of the royal court. I also suggest that eunuchs are gender-nonconforming figures who are able to move easily between the worlds of men and women relaying messages. When Jezebel dies, she is surrounded by eunuchs. These eunuchs, I suggest, literarily reflect Jezebel’s unconventional gender status. The presence of the eunuch in the Shunammite’s narrative may have a similar function. As a compromised male, the eunuch is able to engage directly with the Shunammite and not her husband, while symbolically marking the unconventional gender status she displays through much of her narrative. Although the king restores the Shunammite’s property without Elisha’s direct assistance, it is possible to hold the prophet responsible for her good fate. Initially, Elisha prevents the woman and her family from starving during the famine by encouraging them to leave the land. Upon their return, Gehazi’s presence seems fortuitous. Had Gehazi not been recounting Elisha’s great acts when the Shunammite appeals to the king, the king might not have responded so favorably to the Shunammite. The king either meets her demands out of loyalty or obligation to the prophet, or he does so because he does not want to overturn the prophet’s great deed.50 In this way, the sequel narrative reaffirms the power the prophet holds over the Shunammite. This time the prophet does not overstep the boundaries of appropriate behavior. He does not promise what he should not promise, and he goes through the proper channels to assist the Shunammite. In the sequel narrative, there is a physical distance between the prophet and the Shunammite. In 2 Kings 4, the Shunammite longs for the prophet’s physical presence. She provides a room for him in her house, grabs hold of him, and swears never physically to abandon him. In 2 Kings 8, the prophet appears only at the beginning of the narrative to command the Shunammite to flee her famine-stricken home. After that, his power is exercised remotely. I argue that the distance between the prophet and the Shunammite in the

132  The Shunammite and Elisha sequel narrative preserves the prophet’s authority and power over the Shunammite, and reflects the Bible’s preferred gender hierarchy. The Shunammite no longer has direct access to the prophet, and cannot tap into or rely upon his inherent holiness.

Conclusions In 2 Kings 8, the Shunammite remains a formidable woman. She continues to function as the head of her household, and approaches the king on behalf of her family. Her husband is not even mentioned in this narrative. Yet, the great woman who was secure, independent, and assertive in 2 Kings 4, the woman who could nurture a man of God so that he would feel indebted to her, and could grab hold of him so that he would do her bidding, is now a woman at the mercy of both the prophet and the king. She does not provide a home and sustenance; she must beg for her own. The distance between the prophet and the Shunammite also serves to limit the prophet’s power, thereby securing his proper place within the theological hierarchy. In 2 Kings 4, Elisha oversteps his role as God’s prophet and meddles in matters of life and death. The result is disastrous. My reading of this chapter suggests that the interaction between the Shunammite and the prophet realigns the prophet with God. In essence, the Shunammite teaches the prophet that it is God who gives life, and it is God who restores life. As a man of God, Elisha’s role is not to behave like God. Rather, he must submit to God’s authority and channel God’s power through prayer and ritual. God, not men, performs miracles – or God working through men. Elisha appears to have learned his lesson in 2 Kings 8. In this narrative, he no longer is the active miracle worker on the Shunammite’s behalf. The power of restoration belongs to the king and is administered politically. The Shunammite and Elisha have assumed their proper places in relation to each other, and in relation to God. The Shunammite does not seek intimacy with the prophet, or claim its benefits. She is a woman at the mercy of male authority. The prophet does not manipulate divine powers. He is a man who can direct a woman but who has learned through his engagement with her the limits of his power and authority. The great woman has taught him what it means to be a man of God.

Notes 1 David Jobling, “A Bettered Woman: Elisha and the Shunammite in the Deuteronomic Work,” in The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation (eds. Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer, Erin Runions; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature: 1999), p. 190. 2 Jobling writes: “Utterly different as she is, the Shunammite is Jezebel’s alias, for in the real battle being waged, the battle at a deeper level than the class struggle, any strong woman is every strong woman.” Ibid.

The Shunammite and Elisha 133 3 Mary E. Shields, “Subverting a Man of God, Elevating a Woman: Role and Power Reversals in 2 Kings 4,” JSOT 58 (1993), p. 60. 4 Yairah Amit, “A Prophet Tested: Elisha, the Great Woman of Shunem, and the Story’s Double Message,” BI 11 (2003), p. 279. 5 Ibid., p. 291. 6 Mark Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem: 2 Kings 4.8–37 and 8.1–6 Read in Conjunction,” JSOT 91 (2000), p. 109. 7 Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson, “Taking it Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees,” JBL 117:2 (1998), pp. 271–272. 8 Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 281. 9 Uriel Simon writes: “The adjective gadol, ‘great’, is applied in Scripture both to the propertied and affluent (such as Nabal the Carmelite, 1 Sam 25:2) and to those of high rank and social status (e.g., Naaman, the commander of the army of Aram, 2 Kings 5:1).” Uriel Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives (trans. Lenn J. Schramm; Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), p. 236. 10 Gershon Hepner offers a different reading and suggests that 2 Kings 4:8 is rife with sexual innuendo, and that the verse “underscores that the Shunammite rather than Elisha takes the sexual initiative in their relationship.” Gershon Hepner, “Three’s a Crowd in Shunem: Elisha’s Misconduct with the Shunamite Reflects a Polemic against Prophetism,” ZAW 122 (2010), p. 392. 11 Judges 13:6. 12 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 239. 13 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 66. 14 Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 284. 15 Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” p. 119. 16 A comparison can be made between the Shunammite feeding the prophet and the priests offering sacrifices to God. 17 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 61. 18 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narrative, p. 241. 19 See Deuteronomy 4:10; 1 Kings 22:19; Ezekiel 44:15. 20 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 62. 21 Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 286. 22 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 242. 23 Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985), p. 266. 24 Amit, “A Prophet Tested,” p. 286. 25 Ibid., p. 287. 26 Ibid., p. 288. 27 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 63. 28 Ibid. 29 Jobling, “A Bettered Woman,” p. 180. 30 Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Great Woman of Shunem and the Man of God: A Dual Interpretation of 2 Kings 4.8–37,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), pp. 226–227. The term “head” connotes a head of a family or political leader. See Exodus 6:14; Numbers 7:2. 31 Dijk-Hemmes writes: “The man who in this story is called the child’s father, and who is marked by Gehazi as ‘old’, does not want to be held responsible for his own presumed paternity. He sends the child off to his mother.” Ibid., p. 227. 32 Stuart Lasine, “Matters of Life and Death: The Story of Elijah and the Widow’s Son in Comparative Perspective,” BI 12:2 (2004), p. 123. 33 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 244.

134  The Shunammite and Elisha 34 The expression “to call to” someone is often used in the Bible to summon servants. See Genesis 20:8; Numbers 22:5, 20; 2 Samuel 1:15. 35 Shields notes that the father’s lack of awareness is “a further indication of his lack of responsibility for this child.” Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 64, fn. 10. 36 See Genesis 22:3 and 2 Kings 4:24. In a personal exchange, Gordon Tucker observed how the Shunammite rides an ‫אתון‬, a female donkey, while Abraham rides a ‫חמור‬, a male donkey. 37 Shields reads it as dismissive; she writes: “Neither her husband nor Gehazi needs to know what has happened – her words are reserved for Elisha alone. Hence, she goes straight to the man of God.” Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 65. 38 See Exodus 4:25; Isaiah 6:2; 7:20. 39 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 65. 40 Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” p. 118. 41 See Katherine Low, “Implications Surrounding Girding Loins in Light of Gender, Body, and Power,” JSOT 36:1 (2011), pp. 3–30. 42 Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 250. 43 Shields, “Subverting a Man of God,” p. 65. 44 Simon similarly writes: “By falling at his feet, she seeks to amend her assault on his dignity when she clasped his legs.” Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, p. 253. 45 Ibid. 46 Roncace, “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem,” p. 121. 47 Ibid., p. 123. 48 Ibid. 49 After all, it was while in his care that her son got deathly ill. 50 Walter Brueggemann and Davis Hankins discuss the complicated relationship between prophetic and royal authority in “The Affirmation of Prophetic Power and Deconstruction of Royal Authority in the Elisha Narratives,” CBQ 76 (2014), 58–76.

Bibliography Amit, Yairah. “A Prophet Tested: Elisha, The Great woman of Shunem, and the Story’s Double Message.” BI 11 (2003), pp. 279–294. Brueggemann, Walter and Davis Hankins. “The Affirmation of Prophetic Power and Deconstruction of Royal Authority in the Elisha Narratives.” CBQ 76 (2014), pp. 58–76. Dijk-Hemmes, Fokkelien van. “The Great Woman of Shunem and the Man of God: A Dual Interpretation of 2 Kings 4.8–37.” In A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, edited by Athalya Brenner, 218–230. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994. Haran, Menahem. Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985. Hepner, Gershon. “Three’s a Crowd in Shunem: Elisha’s Misconduct with the Shunamite Reflects a Polemic against Prophetism.” ZAW 122 (2010), pp. 387–400. Jobling, David. “A Bettered Woman: Elisha and the Shunammite in the Deuteronomic Work.” In Th Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation, edited by Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer and Erin Runions, 177–192. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999.

The Shunammite and Elisha 135 Lasine, Stuart. “Matters of Life and Death: The Story of Elijah and the Widow’s Son in Comparative Perspective.” BI 12:2 (2004), 117–144. Low, Katherine. “Implications Surrounding Girding the Loins in Light of Gender, Body, and Power.” JSOT 36:1 (2011), pp. 3–30. Moore, Stephen D. and Janice Capel Anderson. “Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees,” JBL 117:2 (1998), pp. 249–273. Roncace, Mark. “Elisha and the Woman of Shunem: 2 Kings 4.8–37 and 8.1–6 Read in Conjunction.” JSOT 91 (2000), pp. 109–127. Shields, Mary E. “Subverting a Man of God, Elevating a Woman: Role and Power Reversals in 2 Kings 4.” JSOT 58 (1993), pp. 56–69. Simon, Uriel. Reading Prophetic Narratives. Translated by Lenn J. Schramm. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997. Trible, Phyllis. “Exegesis for Storytellers and Other Strangers.” JBL 114:1 (1995), pp. 3–19. Van der Toorn, Karel. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2007. Zlotnick, Helena. “From Jezebel to Esther: Fashioning Images of Queenship in the Hebrew Bible.” Biblica 82 (2001), pp. 477–495.

6 Rebecca and Isaac

An overview of the gender dynamic In Chapter 5 I argue that the story of the Shunammite and Elisha intentionally evokes Genesis 22 – the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac – to elevate the Shunammite’s status relative to Elisha’s. Literary links between Genesis 22 and 2 Kings 4 highlight both similarities and differences in these narratives. Both stories are about endangered sons, though 2 Kings 4 tells the story of a mother who attempts to save her son, whereas Genesis 22 tells the story of a father who attempts to kill his son. Both stories, I contend, are fundamentally about submission. Despite significant differences in how they address the topic, read together, 2 Kings 4 and Genesis 22 illustrate that God controls life and death and that human beings do not. God determines who will be born, who will die, and who can live again. Humans, even men of God, must submit to God’s power. For many readers, Genesis 22 is the Bible’s paradigmatic story of submission. Understandably, attention has focused on Abraham. Traditional and contemporary commentators view Abraham as heeding God’s command to sacrifice his son without hesitation.1 His willingness to sacrifice his beloved son proves that Abraham is obedient to God. He is ‫ירא אלהים‬, God-fearing.2 I concur that Genesis 22 is about human submission to divine will. Yet, my focus in this chapter shifts from Abraham to Isaac. I argue that Isaac, like his father, submits to divine will, and that his submissiveness, evident throughout his narrative, reflects the Bible’s ideal human posture before God. As Susan E. Haddox observes, God selects “the one more likely to submit to God’s will.” In this way, Isaac, who “allows himself to be nearly sacrificed,” models “a proper relationship with God.”3 Unlike Elisha, Isaac does not have to learn in the course of his narrative that he is a man of God, and not God. He does not have to learn that God controls life and death. He dramatically learns that lesson at the start of his narrative when his father prepares to sacrifice him. This experience profoundly defines his character. It also narratively defines the character of the woman who is closest to him – Rebecca. Isaac and Rebecca are often viewed in contrast to and in tension with one another.

Rebecca and Isaac 137 Whereas Isaac is submissive, Rebecca is assertive. Referring to Isaac as the passive patriarch, Lieve Teugels observes that “Rebekah is largely characterized by her action,” and that “Isaac, by contrast, is inactive”.4 Joel S. Kaminsky observes that “Isaac is passively manipulated by Rebekah.”5 Similarly, Elisabeth Boase observes that Isaac presents “as a shadowy, ill-defined and subordinate figure,” who, when he does act, merely mirrors or echoes Abraham.6 Isaac’s passivity at times is seen as reflective of a compromised masculinity. As I mention in my introduction, weakness and passivity are associated with women in the ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible. Thus, it is not surprising that Dennis Sylva describes passive Isaac as an “interpersonally stunted man,”7 who is “portrayed as a little man governed by little goals,”8 or that Kaminsky labels Isaac a “schlemiel” who “is dominated by the women in his life, first by his mother and later by his wife.”9 Haddox also views Isaac’s passivity as a feminizing quality; she writes: Isaac’s masculinity is ambiguous throughout the text. Isaac’s first major scene is Genesis 22, where he is nearly sacrificed by his father. In this story, he appears as a passive figure, questioning his father once as to the missing ram, but otherwise submitting wordlessly to his potential death . . . In his adulthood, Isaac continues to be a relatively passive figure. His father finds a wife for him, and the text notes that he took her into his mother Sarah’s tent and thus was ‘comforted after the death of his mother’ (Gen. 24.67) . . . He loves Rebekah, and when she is found to be barren, he prays to God for offspring for her. In general, Isaac appears more attached to the world of women than to that of men.10 In contrast to her passive husband, Rebecca is viewed as wearing the proverbial pants in her family. As Teugels observes: “By human standards, a weak man and a strong woman are united in the Isaac-Rebekah couple.”11 Rebecca is a “doer” whose actions and values mirror her father-in-law Abraham’s.12 In this way, Abraham can be seen as Rebecca’s narrative counterpart, as David was Jezebel’s and Abraham was the Shunammite’s. In Genesis 24:60, Rebecca even receives from her family a variation of the blessing bestowed upon Abraham by God in Genesis 22:17. In significant ways, we see how Rebecca, and not Isaac, plays the man in the narrative. Like Sylva, Kaminsky, and Haddox, I perceive Isaac to be a weak man and Rebecca to be a strong woman, not unlike weak Ahab and strong Jezebel. Yet, in contrast to these scholars, I argue that Isaac’s weakness is a positive attribute in its biblical context, unlike Ahab’s weakness, which was a detriment to be overcome. My reading differs specifically from Haddox’s view in that Haddox recognizes the value of Isaac’s weakness in establishing

138  Rebecca and Isaac a relationship with God, but does not consider Isaac’s weakness to be a merit of his character; she writes: The text paints a picture of a man who is associated with women, passive, not in control of his own family, blind, and waiting to die. He hardly speaks in the text and when he does, it is to deceive Abimlelech or to bestow his blessing on the wrong son. This is not a vision of robust masculinity. God chose Isaac over Ishmael, the wimp over the manly man, but it does not seem to be for any merit of Isaac.13 In contrast to Haddox, I argue that Isaac’s weakness is a positive characteristic that not only enables him to be in relationship with God, but that also enhances his character. In other words, Isaac’s weakness does seem to be for his merit. In my reading of Isaac and Rebecca’s shared narrative, which runs from Genesis 22 to Genesis 28, their relationship is a relatively positive example of one that defies gender expectations – perhaps the Bible’s most positive one. For this reason, their relationship, characters, and narrative may be the most open to a queer interpretation that “undermines or complicates the ease with which biblical interpretation undergirds normative configurations of sex, gender, and kinship.”14 Isaac, I argue, is not a stunted and small man. He is not a schlemiel. Instead, passive Isaac can be viewed as the most highly evolved patriarch who knows from the beginning of his narrative how to be in relationship with God. Strong, active Rebecca assumes the role of the patriarchal male in the narrative, thereby enabling Isaac to maintain his relationship with God. My reading of their narrative aligns with that of Teugels, who identifies a partnership between Isaac, “the passive bearer of the blessing,” and Rebecca, “the active helper, the one in charge of passing it on to the right heir.”15 Rebecca’s strength is necessary to ensure that the blessing Isaac embodies is realized and secured for the next generation. In my analyses in Chapters 1–5 of the Bible’s narratives that play with gender norms, I argue that the Bible is invested in a gender hierarchy that privileges men over women because this hierarchy models the hierarchy that exists between God and humanity. Human beings relate to God, the ultimate male patriarch, as women relate to men. The stories that play with gender expectations, I argue, work to preserve the social and theological hierarchies by portraying unconventional gender dynamics in which men, to their detriment, engage with powerful women such as Eve, Yael, Delilah, Jezebel, and the Shunammite, and learn the extent and limits of human male power. Deborah F. Sawyer makes a similar argument: In narratives that allow pre-eminence to particular women, male characters can be denigrated to positions of powerlessness. In the biblical context where male supremacy is assumed, this process of emasculation

Rebecca and Isaac 139 functions to destabilize the audience’s expectations, and allows the author to apply the surprise tactic of a male deity using female vehicles to ensure his plan is accomplished.16 As I mention in my introduction, the Bible, according to Sawyer, often destabilizes both masculinity and femininity “in order for the supreme manifestation of patriarchy – the power of the male god – to be triumphant and unchallenged.”17 Thus far, my analyses of the biblical narratives that play with gender norms support Sawyer’s thesis. Like Sawyer, I argue that these narratives destabilize gender norms in the social realm, revealing the dangers of a social system that inverts a gender hierarchy that privileges men. Ultimately, these narratives work to protect masculinity, particularly God’s masculinity, thereby securing the hierarchy that exists in the theological realm. My readings of the gender-playing narratives identify the ways in which they preserve and perpetuate male privilege, and therefore, I argue, are best viewed as feminist as opposed to queer readings. In significant ways, Rebecca and Isaac are unique figures. I contend that Isaac is not a typical man, even in the context of the Bible’s stories that reflect an unconventional gender dynamic. His character and narrative are defined consistently by submission. I also contend that Rebecca is not a typical woman. Although strong, she does not function like the powerful women in the other biblical narratives that play with gender expectations. Rebecca does not need to teach Isaac how to submit to God and therefore serves a different purpose in her narrative. In my reading, the narrative preserves Isaac’s submissiveness and employs Rebecca’s strength. It may in fact preserve Isaac’s submissiveness by employing Rebecca’s strength. Rebecca performs many of the essential patriarchal acts. She journeys from her home, sacrifices a son to secure the blessing of another, and ensures that the blessed son marries appropriately. She may do these acts because Isaac is, or so that Isaac remains, a passive figure. Although the narrative uses Rebecca to progress the patriarchal narrative, we see below the ways in which it still preserves patriarchal privilege. For this reason, my reading of Isaac and Rebecca’s narrative resembles my readings of the other gender-playing narratives, and remains a feminist reading. Despite Isaac’s passivity, we see that the social gender hierarchy remains in his relationship with Rebecca, and that Rebecca’s role as a patriarch is constrained by her gender. I argue that Rebecca functions as a female patriarch in her narrative, just as Deborah functioned as a female prophet in hers. Both figures push the limits of gender expectations, but do not fully defy them. As we see below, Rebecca does the work, but does not reap the same rewards as the male patriarchs. God may value Rebecca’s strength, but God does not bless her fully. She receives the blessing of progeny but not land. Instead, God protects Isaac, blessing him a hundredfold with both land and progeny.

140  Rebecca and Isaac Most importantly, we see that though Rebecca behaves like a patriarch and secures God’s blessing for her son, she is unable to transmit it. Only male Isaac can bestow God’s blessing. In these ways, the Isaac-Rebecca narrative upholds the social gender hierarchy, while modeling the ideal way to relate to God.

Genesis 22 As I note, Genesis 22 is a story about submission. By being willing to sacrifice his son, Abraham proves himself obedient to divine command and submissive to divine will. Abraham’s obedience is evident from the first moment he responds to God. God calls to Abraham in Genesis 22:1, and Abraham responds, ‫הנני‬, “Here I am.” As Jon D. Levenson notes, the Hebrew phrase communicates Abraham’s “readiness to act upon a command from God,” and functions as a “refrain” throughout the narrative, appearing again in verses 8 and 11.18 The phrase also appears in Genesis 27:1 when Isaac calls to Esau to bless him, and in Genesis 37:13 when Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers who are shepherding in Shechem. Although the phrase appears in moments of private revelation as well, such as Exodus 3:4 and 1 Samuel 3:4, its inclusion in the three Genesis narratives links them. These narratives share a common motif – the sacrifice of children – and the use of the expression ‫ הנני‬marks them as child sacrifice narratives. In each of these narratives, parents jeopardize, perhaps willingly, the lives of their children.19 Like many traditional and contemporary commentators, Levenson contends that Genesis 22 illustrates Abraham’s obedience. God’s command to Abraham “tests whether Abraham is prepared to surrender his son to the God who gave him,” and “demonstrates his putting obedience to God ahead of every possible competitor.”20 I agree that Genesis 22 manifests Abraham’s submission to divine will. Yet, I contend that Genesis 22 conveys Isaac’s submission as well. Knowing what his father prepares to do, Isaac grants Abraham permission and remains complicit throughout the narrative. Genesis 22:6–8 conveys Isaac’s complicity: Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and placed it upon Isaac, his son. He took the fire and the knife in his hand. The two of them walked together [‫]וילכו שניהם יחדו‬. Isaac said to Abraham, his father, he said: “Father!” He said: “Here I am [‫]הנני‬.” He said: “Here is the fire and the wood. Where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” Abraham said: “God will see to the sheep for the burnt offering, my son.” The two of them walked together [‫]וילכו שניהם יחדו‬. It is possible that Isaac is unaware of what his father prepares to do, but his question to Abraham suggests otherwise. By placing the wood upon his son, Abraham nonverbally communicates his intentions. Abraham has brought everything for a sacrifice – including the wood, the fire, and the knife. It is

Rebecca and Isaac 141 highly unlikely that he has forgotten to bring the domesticated animal for the sacrifice. Isaac’s question conveys his suspicion that the absence of the animal is intentional, and that he may even suspect himself to stand in its place, as Levenson suggests: “Perhaps Isaac wishes to let his father know that he recognizes – and accepts – his role in the great drama unfolding”.21 Father and son walk together. In my reading, this expression indicates complicity. Abraham does not lead his son, or drag his son to his fate. Instead, they willingly walk forward together, despite the fact that Isaac, bearing the wood, seems to be walking toward his death. When Isaac calls to his father, Abraham responds, ‫הנני‬, “Here I am.” The use of the phrase at this moment indicates that Abraham’s resolve to sacrifice his son wavers. If the expression conveys absolute obedience, then Abraham’s response to Isaac informs his son that he would be obedient to him. Abraham will do what Isaac asks him to do. If Isaac refuses to lie upon the altar, Abraham will not force him. Jonathan Jacobs similarly observes: The first “here I am” is an absolute declaration, with no doubts, with absolute submission and readiness to fulfill any Divine command even before it is given. The second appearance – “Here I am, my son” – shows the other side: Abraham’s loyalty to his son.22 Abraham’s response to his son’s question about the sheep is oblique, but truthful. God will provide the animal. Despite the ambiguity of his father’s response, Isaac does not speak again. Instead, the two walk together. This time, the phrase, as Levenson notes, is “infinitely more meaningful”; he writes: For the first time these words appear, Abraham has just assured his two attendants that he and Isaac will, after an act of worship, return to them. But by the second time, Isaac has accepted his own mandated role as victim. And the two of them still walked together, or to render the Hebrew yahdāw more literally, “as one.”23 Like Jacobs, I contend that Abraham asks Isaac for permission to follow the will of God. And like Levenson, I contend that Isaac grants Abraham that permission. In Genesis 22, both Abraham and Isaac learn that God controls life and death – Abraham at the end of his life and narrative, and Isaac at the beginning. Isaac accepts his role as victim and enables his father to proceed and to succeed. Even though he does not sacrifice his son, and even though he wavers slightly in course, Abraham passes God’s test, proves himself to be God-fearing, and receives God’s blessing in Genesis 22:16–17. These verses clearly link Abraham’s blessing to his obedience. Because [‫]יען‬ Abraham did not withhold his son, God blesses him. Abraham’s seed will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand by the sea, and they will inherit the gates of their enemies.

142  Rebecca and Isaac Genesis 22 relates a transformative moment not only in the life and character of Abraham, but in the life and character of Isaac as well. As Seth Daniel Kunin argues, Isaac symbolically dies and is reborn on the altar. His biological relationship with his father symbolically is severed in order to establish his relationship with God. In Kunin’s reading of Genesis 22, God replaces Abraham as Isaac’s parent. From this moment, divine agency determines Isaac’s life, not human agency.24 On the altar, Isaac is reborn into God’s family to become a product and transmitter of divine seed.25 Like Kunin, I contend that Isaac’s experience on the altar changed him and suggest that from this moment on, Isaac exhibits a compromised masculinity that enables him easily and effectively to submit to divine agency. This is the same transformation that Brittany E. Wilson observes in Paul’s conversion recounted in Acts 9; she writes: “Paul goes from exercising power to recognizing the ‘Lord’s’ power via a divine encounter in which he completely loses power and self-control.”26 Like Paul, Isaac recognizes God’s power at the moment he “loses power and self-control” – when he is bond on an altar with a knife at his throat. From this moment onward, without lapse, Isaac submits to God’s will.27 Genesis 22 concludes with a genealogy of the family of Abraham’s brother Nahor. Abraham has eight nephews, including Bethuel. Although the Bible rarely records the birth of a female, Genesis 22:23 records the birth of Rebecca. The explicit mention of Rebecca indicates her significance, though it does not account for why she is significant. Mention of Rebecca may provide implicit comfort to readers by assuring them that Isaac’s line will continue despite his brush with death.28 It also may foretell the active role she will play in the narrative, particularly in contrast to her passive husband. If, as Kunin suggests, Isaac symbolically is sacrificed in Genesis 22 and becomes a sanctified person, then Rebecca enters the narrative and genealogy as Isaac’s human replacement. She is his patriarchal counterpart, his substitute (not unlike the ram that was sacrificed in Isaac’s place), who will do the necessary work of ensuring the continuation of Isaac’s line. Rebecca is Isaac’s patriarchal proxy.

Genesis 24 Isaac’s absence in the patriarchal role is most evident in Genesis 24, which recounts the designation of Rebecca as Isaac’s wife. At the start of the chapter, Abraham sends a servant to his native land to secure a wife for Isaac. Whereas a generation later, Jacob will make a similar journey, Isaac is commanded not to leave the land of Israel. Isaac is the one patriarch who does not undertake an extensive journey to and from his homeland. Abraham takes several significant and transformative journeys. He leaves his father’s house in Mesopotamia and heads to Israel in Genesis 12, travels to and from Egypt in Genesis 13, and heads to the land of Moriah in Genesis 22. In the course of these journeys, Abraham builds his household and proves himself

Rebecca and Isaac 143 worthy of God’s blessing. Isaac’s son Jacob also journeys when he flees from his brother Esau and heads to Mesopotamia in Genesis 28, and when he returns home in Genesis 31. Like his grandfather’s household, Jacob’s family and wealth grow in the course of his journey as he acquires wives, children, and livestock. In Genesis 24:6, Abraham explicitly states to his servant that Isaac is not to travel from Israel to Mesopotamia. In Genesis 26:2, God prohibits Isaac from leaving Israel even though there is famine. Although it is possible to consider Isaac’s sedentariness as indicative of his limitations,29 I propose that it indicates his maturation and his wholeness of character. After accompanying his father to Moriah, Isaac becomes a paradigmatic figure who does not need to go on a physical or a metaphysical journey that would teach him how to submit to God and become worthy of God’s blessing. Both Abraham and Jacob needed to go on their journeys to mature as patriarchs and to prove their faith.30 Isaac’s sedentariness thus indicates his wholeness of character. Unlike his father and son, he does not need to grow into being a patriarch. It also indicates his intimacy with God and the direct blessings he receives from that intimacy. Isaac is the only patriarch who lives his whole life in the land of Israel – the site and symbol of God’s blessing. He is also the only patriarch to sow its soil. Genesis 26:12 describes how Isaac plants seeds, and within a year, reaps a hundredfold. Unlike Abraham and Jacob, Isaac grows rich in Israel, not in a foreign land. For Isaac, divine blessing is inherently connected to the land of Israel to which he is intrinsically connected. It is the immediate source of his blessing. He sows the soil, reaps its bounty, and immediately receives God’s blessing [‫]ויברכהו יהוה‬. In this way Isaac is more Israel, more identified with the land, than his son Jacob is, even though it is his son who comes to bear the name Israel in Genesis 32:29. Not only does Isaac’s absence in Genesis 24 mark his unique relationship to the land of Israel and its blessing, it also indicates, along with the chapter’s design, Rebecca’s significance. Meir Sternberg contends that the chapter highlights God’s control of events, and works to present Rebecca as predestined for Isaac.31 Teugels similarly perceives Rebecca to be presented as predestined for Isaac and as a “divine gift.”32 Not only does the chapter work to emphasize God’s involvement in the selection of Rebecca, but it also works to align Rebecca closely with Abraham, thereby highlighting her patriarchal qualities and foreshadowing her role as Isaac’s patriarchal proxy. Isaac’s absence in the narrative makes Rebecca’s alignment with Abraham even stronger. Abraham’s command to his servant to go to “my land, my birth place [‫ ”]אל ארצי ואל מולדתי‬to find a wife for Isaac echoes the moment in Genesis 12:1 when God commands Abraham to leave his homeland [‫ ]מארצך וממולדתך‬and head to Israel. This literary link conveys the magnitude of the moment. It also suggests that the individual who the servant finds will make a journey similar to the one that Abraham made.

144  Rebecca and Isaac Like Abraham at the start of his narrative, Rebecca willingly leaves her father’s house and takes the patriarchal journey to fulfill her destiny. Teugels observes that like Abraham, Rebecca makes an “irreversible decision,” and wonders if Rebecca’s decisiveness is “confirmation to Abraham of the choice made.”33 Rebecca also manifests qualities of character similar to Abraham. Rebecca goes to extreme measures to provide water for the servant and his camels, and is quick to offer them food and shelter. Her generous hospitality evokes Abraham’s hospitality when he welcomes divine messengers into his home in Genesis 18; as Sternberg notes, “and the elevating analogy stamps her as worthy of the patriarch himself.”34 In Genesis 24, Rebecca resembles Abraham both in action and in character. Yet the feature of the narrative that aligns her most with Abraham may be the blessing she receives at the end. In Genesis 24:58, Rebecca’s mother and brothers ask her if she is willing to leave her home and follow Abraham’s servant. Rebecca responds, ‫אלך‬, “I will go.” It is extraordinary in the biblical context for a woman to be asked and to offer consent in marriage. Marriages typically are arranged between the male members of the households involved.35 Yet, as the servant expresses in Genesis 24:5, Rebecca’s consent is integral to her selection. Rebecca thus appears as an independent agent who determines her future in direct accordance with God’s will. She does not rely upon mediators such as fathers or husbands to determine her fate. As is true for other biblical patriarchs, Rebecca’s will reflects and conforms to God’s will. After Rebecca agrees to go, her brothers send her off with a blessing in Genesis 24:60: They blessed Rebecca and said to her: “Our sister, may you grow into multitudes. May your offspring inherit the gates of their enemies [‫ויירש‬ ‫]זרעך את שער שנאיו‬.” As I mentioned, Rebecca’s blessing echoes Abraham’s blessing in Genesis 22:17. God blesses Abraham with numerous descendants who, like Rebecca’s offspring, will inherit the gate of their enemies [‫]וירש זרעך את שער איביו‬. The shared blessing may be the strongest link between Abraham and Rebecca and supports the perception of Rebecca as a patriarch. Rebecca manifests an admirable and generous character, journeys from her father’s house, is divinely selected, and now bears the blessing of a patriarch. Despite these patriarchal elements to her narrative, it is also important to recognize differences between Rebecca’s story and Abraham’s story. The most significant difference is the direct relationship that exists between Abraham and God. Rebecca does not engage directly with God in Genesis 24. Whereas Abraham follows God’s command to leave his father’s house, Rebecca’s journey is framed in the context of marriage. She leaves her home to follow her husband. Her selection to be Isaac’s wife may be divinely ordained, but she is not identified or addressed directly by God. Her actions

Rebecca and Isaac 145 alone prove her worthy. She receives a blessing similar to Abraham’s, but it does not come from God. It comes from her brothers. Also, the content of the blessing is noticeably truncated. Abraham will have numerous descendants who will inherit the gate of their enemies, but he also is blessed with land in Genesis 12:7; 13:15; 15:7, and 17:8. Rebecca receives the promise of progeny, but not the promise of land. The land is promised to her husband Isaac in Genesis 26:3–4. In the biblical world, women had progeny, not property. With rare exception, the Bible legislates that only a male heir could inherit property.36 Thus in Genesis 24, Rebecca appears like a modified patriarchal figure – one that I argue is compromised by her gender. Rebecca undertakes the patriarchal journey, but she does so for marriage, not in response to a divine command. She receives blessings similar to Abraham’s, but she does not receive divine blessing directly. Blessing comes through her family. Most significantly, she receives only the blessing of progeny, and not of property. She does not receive God’s promise of land. In these ways, Rebecca’s gender defines and limits her patriarchal role. The close of Genesis 24 further confines Rebecca to female space. After meeting his new wife, Isaac brings her into his mother’s tent. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah. He took Rebecca, and she became his wife. He loved her and Isaac was consoled after his mother. (Gen 24:67) Biblical women, as Don Seeman observes, “frequently appear inside tents, especially in passages that emphasize their deep concern over uncertain or contested motherhood.”37 Given this, Isaac takes Rebecca into her tent in an act that reaffirms life and its fertility after having experienced the death of his mother in Genesis 23. Seeman writes: “For women, entering the tent is a condition for the attainment of “open doors,” and for the generalized blessing which that image encodes.”38 This passage inscribes Rebecca as Sarah’s replacement and confines her to a role as wife and mother within the narrative. Thus, the Bible actively works to represent Rebecca as a matriarch, as opposed to the patriarch she was up to this point, making clear that Rebecca’s primary task as Isaac’s wife is to have his children. In Chapter 5, I noted a similar narrative pattern in the Shunammite’s story. There, I argued that the Shunammite aspired to a male role in her narrative. She wanted to tend to the man of God, as a priest tends to God’s presence in the temple. Uncomfortable with a woman in this position, I suggested that Elisha imposed the role of mother upon her, in an attempt to confine the Shunammite to a more typical female role. Ultimately, she accepts this role. Like the Shunammite, Rebecca embraces her role as mother, though we will see that she continues to perform the patriarchal tasks as her husband’s proxy.

146  Rebecca and Isaac

Genesis 25–26 After a brief period of infertility, Rebecca conceives twins and has a difficult pregnancy. She seeks divine assistance and receives a prophecy. God said to her: “Two nations are in your womb and two nations will separate from your body. One nation will prove stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger. (Gen 25:23) As God does with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God now speaks directly to Rebecca, though the content of her prophecy is significantly less personal than it is for her male counterparts. The male patriarchs receive God’s promise of personal protection and property. Rebecca is given crucial but ambiguous information about her children. As many commentators have noted, the critical piece of the prophecy that distinguishes the child who will serve from the one who will be served lacks the typical Hebrew direct object marker ‫את‬, making it unclear who will serve whom. Therefore, it could be read in two different ways; either: the elder will serve the younger; or the elder, the younger will serve.39 Given the ambiguity of the oracle, there are three ways of understanding how it plays out to Jacob’s, the younger brother’s, favor. The first is that Rebecca interprets the oracle correctly and discerns the will of God. The second is that Rebecca interprets the oracle incorrectly and brings her interpretation to fruition even though it does not reflect God’s will. The third possibility is that Rebecca interprets an intentionally ambiguous oracle and determines its meaning apart from God’s will. In all cases, passive Isaac is not a factor in the outcome. In what follows, Rebecca appears determined and powerful as she works to secure Jacob’s blessing. Before turning to Genesis 27 in which Rebecca secures the blessing for Jacob, and in which she undertakes another patriarchal act, I briefly consider the events of Genesis 26. This is the chapter in which Isaac is the most active, and as Boase observes, the most like Abraham.40 I argue that the similarities to Abraham work to elevate Isaac in comparison to his father. In Genesis 26:3, and again in Genesis 26:24, God blesses Isaac with the blessing he gave to Abraham. Isaac occupies himself through much of the chapter redigging his father’s wells, which the Philistines had blocked. It is possible to view his actions as redundant, as if Isaac is unable to make his own mark on the world and can only live in his father’s footsteps. Yet wells are important for human civilization. Kunin suggests that digging wells was “tantamount to a claim on the land,” and observes how wells are “symbolically (or narratively) tied to the concept of marriage” in the Bible; he writes: Thus digging wells may be connected to marriage with the land. A further step is also possible. The land was intimately connected with God’s

Rebecca and Isaac 147 promise to Abraham and his descendants, in effect a bride price. Thus the claim on the land enacted in the digging of wells is also a claim on God, in distinction to the Philistines who lacked such a claim.41 If Kunin is correct, then Isaac’s actions are another way in which he is more intrinsically tied to the land, the site and symbol of divine blessing, than Abraham is. God not only forbids Isaac from going to Egypt, but God tells him to stay in the land and that God will bless him (Gen 26:2–3). Isaac sows the land (Gen 26:12), and digs wells deep into the land. Abraham dug wells, but his wells did not remain open. Therefore, Abraham’s claim to the land was not as strong as Isaac’s. Another feature that links Isaac with Abraham in this chapter, and works to elevate Isaac in comparison to his father, is the wife-sister story that appears in Genesis 26:6–11. Twice Abraham presents his wife Sarah as his sister to foreign leaders in order to protect himself. The first time is in Genesis 12:10–20. In this passage, Pharaoh takes Sarah into his home as his wife and richly rewards Abraham in return. Although the text does not state this explicitly, it is possible, if not likely, that Pharaoh consummates his relationship with Sarah before God intervenes and informs Pharaoh that Sarah is Abraham’s wife. Pharaoh promptly returns Sarah to Abraham and sends them both away. The second time Abraham presents Sarah as his sister is in Genesis 20. This time, Abimelech, the king of Gerar, takes Sarah into his home, and this time it is clear that God intervenes before Abimelech and Sarah consummate their relationship.42 Heeding God’s warning, Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham. Since Isaac is born in the next chapter, the unconsummated relationship is crucial to the narrative. God prevents Abimelech from sexually violating Sarah, thereby protecting the purity of Isaac’s line. Abimelech is not Isaac’s father. Abimelech is the victim again in Genesis 26. Scholars consider the significance of the story’s repetition, suggesting that the repetition reflects how one narrative tradition associated with a particular patriarch borrows from the other.43 Although I do not seek to draw text-critical conclusions, I do agree that the repetition of the narratives invites comparison. When compared with its counter-narratives, the Isaac episode is noticeably abbreviated. For some, this provides evidence of Isaac’s insignificance and supports the notion that Isaac is a patriarch constructed “in the mold of Abraham.”44 Kaminsky even suggests that in this episode, in which Abimelech essentially catches Isaac with his pants down, “Isaac moves closest to being a schlemiel.”45 In contrast to Kaminsky, my reading suggests that the unique features of the Isaac wife/sister episode, when seen in comparison with the Abraham narratives, preserve the purity of Isaac’s character and of his relationship with God, as well as preserving Rebecca’s sexual purity. Whereas Abraham’s character and honor are compromised in his narratives, particularly in Egypt, Isaac’s are protected.

148  Rebecca and Isaac In the Abraham narratives, Sarah is twice taken and once potentially violated, and Abraham appears vulnerable, both before the incident and after, since Abraham must justify his deceit before an angry foreign ruler.46 Isaac, in contrast, appears secure. Although he expresses similar fears to those of Abraham that his life is at risk on account of his beautiful wife, Isaac seems not to be particularly concerned. He sports with his wife publicly, in full view of the king. Unlike Kaminsky, I view Isaac’s actions as indicative of his strength and not of his stupidity. Isaac demonstrates no fear before Abimelech. Not only is Isaac willing to indicate his true relationship with Rebecca, but he shows no need to justify his actions when caught. In contrast, Abraham goes to great lengths to justify his deception of Abimelech in Genesis 20. By doing so, he admits his vulnerability to the foreign king, and even his guilt. Abraham acknowledges that what he did was wrong, though he makes it clear to Abimelech that he had no choice.47 Most importantly, Isaac’s family remains intact throughout the narrative. Abimelech does not take Rebecca into his home. Her sexual purity is not violated. As I mention in the introduction, male honor in the biblical world was tied to controlling and protecting a woman’s sexuality. In her study of the construction of gender in biblical legal texts, Cheryl B. Anderson observes that “an important aspect of female identity is submitting her sexuality to male control,”48 and that “male control of female sexuality is the only construction that applies to both privileged and non-privileged women.”49 Thus, though Abraham essentially offers his wife’s sexuality to foreign leaders, Sarah’s violation compromises Abraham’s honor. Abraham cannot claim exclusive ownership of and control over Sarah’s sexuality. Essentially, he shares Sarah with another man. I contend that the lack of narrative tension and detail in the Isaac-Rebecca wife/sister episode does not reflect Isaac’s pallor and insignificance as a character. Rather, it reveals Isaac’s integrity and virtue in comparison to Abraham. Isaac and Rebecca do not fall victim to Abimelech because God directly protects Isaac. It may be Isaac’s assumption of divine protection that emboldens him to sport with his wife before Abimelech. Famine sets Isaac in motion, as it did with Abraham in Genesis 12:10. Like his father, Isaac heads to Egypt. Yet in contrast to the Abraham narrative, God appears to Isaac and tells him not to go. God commands Isaac: Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you. Indeed, to you and your descendants, I will give all these lands and establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father. (Gen 26:3) Isaac follows God’s command and remains in Gerar, and as a result, he is protected in ways that Abraham, whose wife was taken by two foreign leaders, and seemingly compromised by one, was not. God specifically prevents Isaac from entering Egypt and encountering Pharaoh – the ruler who arguably violated Sarah. Isaac only has to engage with Abimelech, the

Rebecca and Isaac 149 least-threatening foreign leader, and his engagement is relatively uneventful. Rebecca never enters Abimelech’s house. Immediately following the wife-sister story, Isaac sows the land and reaps its blessings (Gen 26:12). Whereas Abraham grows rich from the wealth of foreign rulers (Gen 12:16 and 20:14), Isaac grows rich from the land. Indeed, God is with Isaac, providing for his family and continuing to protect the purity of his family line.

Genesis 27 Although God protects its purity, the direction the line will take remains ambiguous at the start of Genesis 27. Isaac and Rebecca have two sons – Jacob and Esau. Rebecca interprets God’s prophecy in Jacob’s favor. Seemingly ignorant of the prophecy, Isaac favors the firstborn, Esau. For many readers, Isaac’s love of Esau is another indicator of his weak character, or even, as Kaminsky suggests, that Isaac is “a bit dimwitted.”50 Admittedly, Isaac’s role in the events described in Genesis 27 is difficult to understand. By loving the wrong son, and falling victim to his wife and son’s machinations, Isaac does appear to play the role of the schlemiel. Kaminsky convincingly observes: “Clearly, Jacob’s fooling of Isaac does not reveal Jacob’s great acting ability, but Isaac’s utter stupidity.”51 My reading of Genesis 27 contends that in this narrative, Rebecca assumes more dimensions of the patriarchal role by metaphorically sacrificing one son and securing the marriage of the other. In my reading, Isaac does not perform these typical patriarchal duties, but leaves them to his wife, who secures Jacob’s blessing. Isaac’s passivity in Genesis 27 is consistent with his overall passive and submissive character, which I have argued should be viewed as positive within its narrative context. My reading conforms to Teugels’s, who perceives Isaac and Rebecca’s relationship to be a partnership in which Isaac is the “passive bearer” of God’s blessing and Rebecca is his “active helper.” I also argue that though Rebecca functions as Isaac’s patriarchal proxy in this narrative, her position remains defined by her gender. She secures the blessing for Jacob, but she cannot bestow it. Rebecca enables Isaac to do the essential patriarchal act she cannot – bless his son. Isaac prepares to bless his oldest son Esau: When Isaac was old, and his eyes weak from seeing,52 he called to Esau, his eldest son and said to him: “My son [‫]בני‬.” He said to him: “Here I am [‫]הנני‬.” He said: “Indeed I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Now, take your gear, your quiver and bow, and go to the field. Hunt game for me, and make for me delicious food that I love. Bring it to me so that I can eat and bless you before I die.” (Gen 27:1–4) The initial exchange between Isaac and Esau evokes Genesis 22, bringing Isaac’s narratives full circle. Isaac’s narrative ends where it begins, with a father and a son at a pivotal moment in their relationship. The call “my son”

150  Rebecca and Isaac and the response “Here I am,” significant words in Genesis 22, signal to the reader that Genesis 27 relates another story of child sacrifice. It appears that the once almost-sacrificed son now stands in the father’s position, and prepares to sacrifice his son, if not physically then metaphorically. One son must lose the patriarchal blessing, and with it the divine promise of land and progeny. The allusions to Genesis 22 in the exchange between Isaac and Esau support the reading that Isaac either knows what is about to happen, or senses what needs to happen. Like his father before him, Isaac must jeopardize his beloved son’s life and future.53 His later declaration in verse 18, “I am here,” to the son he thinks is Esau, indicates he’s willing to do so. By sending Esau off to hunt, whether intentionally or not, Isaac enables events to ensue. Despite initiating events, Isaac, true to character, assumes a passive position in the narrative, creating an opportunity for Rebecca to assume the more proactive presence. Rebecca was listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went to the field to hunt and bring game, Rebecca said to Jacob her son: “Indeed I heard your father speaking to Esau, your brother, saying ‘Bring to me game, and make for me delicious food so that I can eat and bless you before YHWH, before my death.’ Now, my son, listen to what I command you. Go to the flock and take for me from there two good goats and I will make of them delicious food for your father that he loves. You will bring it to your father to eat, so that he will bless you before his death.” (Gen 27:5–10) This passage makes explicit who loves whom, and who acts for whom. Isaac speaks to his son Esau, while Rebecca speaks to her son Jacob. When addressing Jacob, Rebecca does not refer to Esau as her son, but as your brother. She refers to Jacob as my son. Teugels observes that Rebecca is a “doer” but not a “talker” in Genesis 24.54 In Genesis 27, Rebecca is both a doer and a talker, and her voice is a commanding one. In Genesis 27:8, she demands that Jacob obey her [‫שמע‬ ‫]בקלי‬, and follow her command [‫]אני מצוה אתך‬. As I note in Chapter 1, in Eve and Adam’s story, a woman commands a man, and inverts the gender hierarchy at great peril. God punishes Adam specifically for obeying his wife [‫כי‬ ‫]שמעת לקול אשתך‬, and according to my reading, consequently for not heeding God’s command. In Genesis 27, a woman commands a man, but this time her objectives seemingly align with God’s will, or at least with her perception of God’s will. Although Isaac initiates events, Rebecca works to actualize the prophecy she received in Genesis 25:23. Like Abraham, she follows God’s will and is prepared to sacrifice one son. Not only does Rebecca assume the patriarch’s active position in this sacrificial narrative, but she also assumes God’s position. Her specific commands to Jacob to go and to take [‫וקח לי‬ . . . ‫ ]לך נא‬echo God’s command to Abraham in Genesis 22:2

Rebecca and Isaac 151 [‫ולך לך‬ . . . ‫]קח נא‬. Therefore, Rebecca’s actions remarkably blend the divine and the human perspectives. She both commands and submits. In this way Rebecca resembles the Shunammite in 2 Kings 4. As I observe in the Chapter 5, the Shunammite displays appropriate reverence before God’s prophet, yet echoes the divine voice and perspective when she informs her husband that Elisha is a holy man [‫ ]כי עתה ידעתי כי ירא אלהים אתה‬and that they should build him [‫ ]נעשה‬an upper chamber. Clearly, Rebecca is the central actor in this narrative whose actions appear divinely sanctioned. Her husband and sons appear as pawns or even victims of her plotting and maneuvering. Although Jacob modifies his mother’s plan, Rebecca assumes full responsibility for what it could reap in Genesis 27:11–13: Jacob said to Rebecca his mother: “Indeed Esau, my brother, is a hairy man, while I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will touch me, and I will be seen in his eyes as a mocker. I will bring a curse upon myself, not blessing.” His mother said to him: “Upon me will be your curse, my son. Heed my voice; go and take for me!” Once again personal allegiance is laid bare in this passage, which refers to Rebecca as Jacob’s mother, not Esau’s. Jacob recognizes the flaw in his mother’s plan. If Isaac touches Jacob, he would know that Jacob is not Esau and that Jacob is deceitful, and curse him. Rebecca eases her son’s concern by taking upon herself the potential curse. Her willingness to accept the curse may imply something about the blessing as well. By implication, Rebecca may hope to accept the benefits of the blessing just as she accepts the burdens of the curse. As we have seen, though Rebecca acts like a patriarch, she is denied a central element of the patriarchal experience – God’s full blessing of land and progeny. In Genesis 24:60, Rebecca received a portion of that blessing, the progeny, from her family when she departed Mesopotamia. Now, as a wife and mother, this may be the only way for Rebecca to receive the full blessing and the promise of land – through deception, and through her son. Despite Jacob’s concerns, Rebecca demands his obedience and reiterates her command [‫]שמע בקלי ולך קח לי‬, once again echoing God’s command to Abraham in Genesis 22. Whereas Abraham heeds God’s command in Genesis 22:3 [‫ וילך ויקח‬. . .], Jacob follows his mother’s command [‫]וילך ויקח‬, and brings her the meat to prepare. Rebecca then addresses Jacob’s concern that he is smooth skinned while his brother Esau is hairy: Rebecca took her eldest son Esau’s best clothing that he had in the house and dressed her younger son Jacob. She placed the goatskins upon his hands and upon the smooth parts of his neck. She placed the delicious food and the bread that she made into her son Jacob’s hand. (Gen 27:15–17)

152  Rebecca and Isaac Rebecca remains the central actor in the drama. By dressing Jacob in Esau’s clothing, Rebecca hopes to fool Isaac into thinking that Jacob is his hairy son Esau. Yet her actions are more than practical. They are also maternal, as well as deeply symbolic. She dresses one son in the other’s clothes, visibly enacting the identity theft that is about to take place. Jacob steals Esau’s identity and with it, his blessing. At this moment, the mother prepares the sacrifice, symbolized by the goatskins placed on Jacob’s body to indicate Esau’s identity. This moment resembles the moment when Abraham places the wood on Isaac’s back as if already on the altar and heads up the mountain. Now, Esau is the goat on the altar, and his mother put him there. His identity, his birthright, is about to be sacrificed. The irony is that at this moment, his mother finally claims him. Rebecca places Esau’s clothes, her son’s clothes, onto Jacob’s body. She is willing to claim him in the moment that she metaphorically sacrifices him. Rebecca places the food into Jacob’s now hairy hands, the same hands that Isaac will falsely identify as Esau’s in Genesis 27:22. Jacob then takes the food to his father. He came to his father and said: “My father.” He said: “Here I am. Who are you my son?” Jacob said to his father: “I am your first born Esau. I made just as you said to me. Come and sit and eat from my game so that you can bless me.” Isaac said to his son: “How did you find this so quickly, my son?” He said: “Because YHWH, your God, assisted me.” (Gen 27:18–20) Having prepared the sacrifice, symbolically placing the goat upon the altar, Rebecca is not present when father encounters son. At this moment, Isaac takes over and becomes like Abraham, who responds, “Here I am,” to his son’s call in Genesis 22:7. Once again, Isaac’s words indicate that he is aware of what is happening and knows that he is about to sacrifice a child – though he may not know precisely which child. Given the biblical law of primogeniture,55 it is reasonable to assume that the child being sacrificed would be the firstborn, the child Isaac loves. Although Rebecca prepares the sacrifice, Isaac effectively performs it by blessing his younger son. As the father, he is the only one who can bestow the blessing upon his son. Rebecca cannot. The exchange between Jacob and Isaac suggests that Isaac genuinely is uncertain who is standing before him. He asks Jacob to identify himself. Unsatisfied, he further questions Jacob, asking how he was able to prepare the food so quickly. Still not convinced, he asks Jacob to approach him. Isaac said to Jacob: “Approach me so that I can touch you, my son. Are you Esau or not?” Jacob approached Isaac, his father so that he could touch him. He said: “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are

Rebecca and Isaac 153 the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands were. He blessed him. (Gen 27:21–23) Although blind, in significant ways Isaac sees clearly. He recognizes the dissonance in Jacob’s presentation. He knows Jacob’s voice but feels Esau’s hands. Isaac’s attention to Jacob’s hands is a testament to Rebecca’s efforts and illustrates that it is Rebecca who secures the blessing for Jacob. The hands that Rebecca covered, and into which she placed the food, convince him that this is Esau (or justify his choice), and Isaac blesses him. The aftermath is ugly. Esau returns from his hunt and prepares food for his father. He brings it to Isaac and asks for his blessing. Once again, Isaac asks his son to identify himself. In Genesis 27:33 when Isaac learns that this is the real Esau, he trembles greatly and is deeply agitated. Isaac’s agitation suggests that he has been genuinely deceived, although it remains possible that he subconsciously knew, or that he understood on some level that a child, whether Jacob or Esau, was being sacrificed for the sake of the other. If one considers Isaac to be a passive, ineffective, and even idiotic patriarch, it is easy to account for Isaac’s deception. Kaminsky suggests that Isaac’s weakness, evident in his deception, is a humorous element in the narrative designed to showcase God’s strength; he writes: In particular, the humor generated by the encounter between the mentally slow Isaac and the larger world in which he lives is part of a theology that hints at a God who makes fools wise and the wise foolish.56 Like Kaminsky, I suggest that Isaac’s narrative, like the other narratives that play with gender expectations, is designed to showcase God’s strength. But unlike Kaminsky, I argue that Isaac’s passivity is a positive sign of his submissive behavior, and a hallmark of his character. If so, I must account for Isaac’s deception since Isaac’s need to be deceived suggests that he was not willing to bless Jacob, and therefore worked against or was unaware of God’s desire. It does not make sense that either would be true for a religiously evolved character like Isaac. I offer two explanations for the course the narrative takes. First, as I suggested, Isaac wants to be deceived and allows himself to be duped. This reading attributes power to Isaac, who has tremendous empathy for a sacrificial victim. Having once been offered as a sacrifice by his father, he cannot openly sacrifice a son that he loves.57 Therefore, Isaac willingly allows Rebecca to do it for him – to effectively place their son upon the altar. Isaac knows what must happen but is unwilling to do the deed himself. As he did in Genesis 22, Isaac submits to his fate and to God’s will but lets another wield the knife. The deception, therefore, does not illustrate his foolishness, but rather it actively reflects his submission to God’s will. The younger son must usurp the elder’s blessing. It is what Isaac knows must happen and

154  Rebecca and Isaac what Isaac allows to happen despite his reluctance to ensure actively that it does. In other words, Isaac’s reluctance showcases his submission to God’s will. Against his will, he does what must be done.58 Another explanation is that Isaac’s deception is necessary to showcase Rebecca’s strength, allowing her to fulfill her patriarchal role, while demonstrating Rebecca and Isaac’s unique partnership. Having received God’s prophecy, like Abraham and Jacob, Rebecca struggles to transform the promise of divine blessing into a reality. Abraham must negotiate with wives, sons, and foreign leaders to secure his blessing. Similarly, Jacob negotiates with wives, sons, and a hostile father-in-law to secure his. These struggles shape the patriarchs and define their relationship with God. In their course, Abram becomes Abraham and proves to be God-fearing.59 Jacob becomes Israel, the man who struggles with God and prevails. Interestingly, Isaac is the one patriarch who does not experience a name change. This suggests that Isaac is removed from the struggles that define patriarchal life. Having survived the altar at the start of his narrative, he does not engage in the messy and mundane aspects of patriarchal life to grow worthy of God’s blessing. He is not transformed in the course of the narrative to become a bearer of God’s name and blessing. As Kunin suggests, Isaac’s experience on the altar transformed him and made him worthy of God’s blessing from the start of his narrative. Isaac leaves the mundane aspects of patriarchal life to his wife. In this reading, Rebecca’s deception of Isaac functions as one of the struggles that define her patriarchal role. Like Abraham did and Jacob will do, Rebecca, through great effort, must prepare to sacrifice a child to secure the patriarchal blessing. Rebecca does one more defining patriarchal act. At the end of the narrative, Rebecca makes sure that Jacob goes on his transformative journey to Mesopotamia to find a bride. Rebecca’s motivation for sending Jacob to Mesopotamia is to remove him from his enraged brother Esau, who plans to kill Jacob. Esau admits this in Genesis 27:41. Once again, Rebecca commands Jacob: “Now, my son, listen to my voice [‫]שמע בקלי‬. Get up and flee to Laban, my brother, to Haran. Dwell with him for some time until your brother’s anger subsides.” (Gen 27:43–44) Although her rationale is clear to Jacob (she does not want him to be Esau’s victim), Rebecca informs Isaac that her concern is marriage. Genesis 26:34 records that Esau married a Hittite woman. Rebecca tells Isaac in Genesis 27:46 that she does not want Jacob to marry a Hittite woman. In response, Isaac summons Jacob. Isaac called to Jacob and blessed him, and commanded him. He said to him: “Do not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Get up and

Rebecca and Isaac 155 go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take from there a wife for yourself from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.” (Gen 28:1–2) Once again, it takes an act of deception by Rebecca for Isaac to bless his son. This raises, again, the question why Rebecca must resort to deception. Any number of explanations is possible. Rebecca may assume that Isaac would not have sent Jacob away if he knew the truth, either because he would not take her seriously, or because Isaac may be angry enough with Jacob that he is willing to risk Jacob’s death. Perhaps Rebecca does not want Isaac to think further about the brothers’ rivalry to protect him from more agitation. She may also want to distance herself from their rivalry so as not to reveal her involvement in it. Whatever her motivation, Rebecca’s deception enables Isaac to act with proper patriarchal motivation, while casting Rebecca’s motivation in a gendered and suspect light. Whereas Rebecca is motivated by maternal love and a selfish desire not to be bereft of both child and husband at once (Gen 27:45), Isaac is motivated by the need to find a suitable wife for his blessed son, thereby protecting his property and line. With Rebecca’s impetus, Isaac commands his son to embark on his own patriarchal journey, sending him to Haran to secure a proper wife. This is a pivotal moment in which Jacob’s independent narrative effectively begins. Before Jacob leaves, Isaac blesses Jacob with more than a father’s blessing, as he did in Genesis 27:27–29. Isaac now offers Jacob God’s blessing – the blessing that belonged to his father Abraham – the blessing of progeny and land: May El Shaddai bless you and make you fertile and numerous, so that you become an assembly of peoples. May God grant the blessing of Abraham to you and your progeny, to inherit the land of your sojourning that God gave to Abraham. (Gen 28:3–4)

Conclusions Thanks to Rebecca’s efforts, Isaac transmits God’s blessing to the next generation. Throughout their narrative, Rebecca and Isaac work together to realize God’s will and secure God’s blessing. Isaac consistently remains a passive figure, while Rebecca remains active. Although some perceive Isaac’s weakness and Rebecca’s active deception as negative characteristics in tension with one another, I argue that they should be viewed positively, and in a complementary relationship with one another. Isaac’s weakness signifies his submission to God’s will and his evolved religious character. He is the only patriarch who does not have to embark on a physical or metaphysical

156  Rebecca and Isaac journey, having learned how to submit to God at Moriah. Rebecca performs the patriarchal acts in Isaac’s place and does the necessary work to ensure the continuation of the patriarchal line. I have suggested that Isaac welcomes Rebecca’s deception since it enables him to remain submissive and prevents him from engaging in unpleasant acts, such as sacrificing a beloved son. Arguably, Rebecca and Isaac’s relationship is the Bible’s most positive portrayal of a relationship that manifests an unconventional gender dynamic. Rebecca assumes the patriarchal position for much of the narrative and asserts authority and will over its male characters. Remarkably, the Bible does not punish Rebecca for asserting authority as it does with Eve, or for assuming a male position as it does with Jezebel. It also does not work to curtail her power, or to subsume it under a higher power as it does with Deborah and the Shunammite. Yet, even in this relatively positive portrayal of a strong woman, the gender hierarchy persists. Although Rebecca initiates and orchestrates events to secure God’s blessing for Jacob, she does not bestow it. Only Isaac can bestow the blessing upon his son. In significant ways, Rebecca functions like a female patriarch. She journeys from Mesopotamia to Israel for marriage, and not in response to a divine command. Although she undertakes the patriarchal struggles, she does not receive a name change like Abraham and Jacob that indicates a new status. She also is the recipient of only half of the patriarchal blessing and is promised children, not land. Intrinsically connected to the land, Isaac receives the full patriarchal blessing, even though, as the paradigm of submission, he does not actively work to secure it for the next generation. Despite Rebecca’s pivotal and active role in securing God’s blessing, Isaac alone has the privilege to bestow this blessing. In these ways, the Bible preserves a gender hierarchy that privileges males even within the relationship that most defies its norms.

Notes 1 For traditional Jewish interpretation that highlights Abraham’s unwavering obedience, see the commentaries on Genesis 22 of Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak), and Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor. For an example of a contemporary commentator that offers a similar view, see G. W. Coats, “Abraham’s Sacrifice of Faith,” Interpretation 27 (1973), pp. 389–400. 2 Mayer I. Gruber considers how obedience falls within the semantic field of what it means to be God-fearing in the Bible; he writes: “At the center of the spectrum is worry about impending danger. At the one end of the spectrum is the tendency to respond to the impending danger by adopting a positive course of action. One who adopts such a positive course of action in order to avoid heaven-sent reprisal is called in Hebrew yĕrē΄΄ĕlōhîm . . . ‘one who reveres G/god’.” Mayer I. Gruber, “Fear, Anxiety and Reverence in Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew and Other North-West Semitic Languages,” VT XL:4 (1990), p. 420. 3 Susan E. Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Ovidiu Creangă; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), p. 15.

Rebecca and Isaac 157 4 Lieve Teugels, “ ‘A Strong Woman, Who Can Find?’ A Study of Characterization in Genesis 24, with Some Perspectives on the General Presentation of Isaac and Rebekah in the Genesis Narrative,” JSOT 63 (1994), p. 96. 5 Joel S. Kaminsky, “Humor and the Theology of Hope: Isaac as a Humorous Figure,” Interpretation (2000), p. 272. 6 Elisabeth Boase, “Life in the Shadows: The Role and Function of Isaac in Genesis – Synchronic and Diachronic Readings,” VT LI:3 (2001), p. 312. 7 Dennis Sylva, “The Blessing of a Wounded Patriarch: Genesis 27.1–40,” JSOT 32:3 (2008), p. 269. 8 Ibid., p. 273. 9 Kaminsky, “Humor and the Theology of Hope,” pp. 366–367. 10 Haddox, “Favoured Sons,” p. 9. 11 Teugels, “ ‘A Strong Woman,’ ” p. 102. 12 Ibid., pp. 97–98. 13 Haddox, “Favoured Sons,” p. 10. 14 Ken Stone, “Queer Reading Between Bible and Film: Paris Is Burning and the “Legendary Houses” of David and Saul,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (eds. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), p. 94. 15 Teugels, “ ‘A Strong Woman,’ ” p. 103. 16 Deborah F. Sawyer, “Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham’s Masculinity,” in Gender, Religion and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (eds. Ursula King and Tina Beattie; London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005), p. 163. 17 Ibid., p. 164. 18 Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 126–127. 19 In Genesis 37, Jacob effectively sacrifices his son Joseph when he intentionally sends him down to Shechem to check on his jealous and murderous brothers. Jacob is well aware of his sons’ jealousy of Joseph (Gen 37:11), and conceivably of the harm they could cause him. Genesis 37 is marked literarily as a sacrificial narrative not only by the use of the phrase ‫ הנני‬in Genesis 37:13, but also by the appearance in Genesis 37:31 of the goat [‫ ]שעיר עזים‬killed to bloody Joseph’s coat. As in Genesis 22 and 27, the animal becomes symbolic of the sacrificed child. 20 Ibid., p. 126. 21 Ibid., p. 133. 22 Jonathan Jacobs, “Willing Obedience with Doubts: Abraham at the Binding of Isaac,” VT 60 (2010), p. 557. 23 Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, p. 134. 24 Kunin writes: “The sacrifice (or in this case the abortive sacrifice) removes Isaac from the line of human descent. His parents have been symbolically removed, and thus his rebirth can be solely through divine agency rather than human agency.” Seth Daniel Kunin, “The Death of Isaac: Structuralist Analysis of Genesis 22,” JSOT 64 (1994), p. 63. 25 Kunin notes: “With the sacrifice of Isaac, Isaac is symbolically reborn, and becomes the bearer of the divine seed and blessing in the place of Abraham.” Ibid., p. 64. 26 Brittany E. Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133:2 (2014), p. 386. 27 Wilson notes that Paul still “evinces some characteristically masculine traits,” post-conversion, though “he is by no means the epitome of a “manly,”

158  Rebecca and Isaac self-controlled man according to ancient elite standards.” Ibid., p. 369. Like Wilson, I argue that Isaac’s masculinity is compromised, but not obliterated, post-altar. 28 See Teugels, “A Strong Woman,” pp. 91–92. 29 Sylva writes: “Isaac is not an expansive character, and the restriction of his focus is aptly mirrored in the abridgement of his story.” Sylva, “The Blessing of a Wounded Patriarch,” p. 270. 30 Abraham and Jacob certainly acquire property while journeying, but they also prove their faith and solidify their relationship with God – Abraham most dramatically at Moriah, and Jacob on the banks of the Jabbok River (Gen 32:23–33). 31 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University, 1987), pp. 149–151. 32 Teugels, “A Strong Woman,” p. 96. 33 Ibid., pp. 97–98. 34 Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, p. 138. 35 Genesis 34 depicts a typical marriage negotiation. 36 Numbers 27:1–11 legislates that a daughter can inherit her father’s property if her father dies without a male heir, and if she marries within the paternal clan. 37 Don Seeman, “ ‘Where is Sarah Your Wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible,” HTR 91:2 (1998), p. 107. 38 Ibid., p. 115. 39 Sylva, “The Blessing of a Wounded Patriarch,” p. 277. 40 Boase, “Life in the Shadows,” p. 319. 41 Kunin, Seth Daniel, The Logic of Incest: A Structuralist Analysis of Hebrew Mythology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995), p. 109. 42 See Genesis 20:6. 43 See Boase, “Life in the Shadows,” pp. 323–326. 44 Ibid., 323. 45 Kaminsky, “Humor and the Theology of Hope,” p. 371. 46 See my analysis of Genesis 20 in Dangerous Sisters of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), pp. 87–100. 47 Abraham offers three reasons why he presents Sarah as his sister. First, he feared the men of Gerar would kill him in order to marry Sarah. Second, Abraham states that Sarah is his half-sister, though there is no biblical evidence for this. Third, he mentions that God forced him to wander from his father’s house, thereby making him vulnerable. These reasons indicate that although Abraham knows his actions are wrong, he feels compelled to do them, and therefore does not feel fully responsible for them. 48 Cheryl B. Anderson, Women, Ideology, and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004), p. 69. 49 Ibid., 72. 50 Kaminsky, “Humor and the Theology of Hope,” p. 371. 51 Ibid. 52 According to Wilson, blindness is a marker in the ancient world of compromised masculinity; she writes: “Saul’s loss of sight is especially noteworthy since sight, as we shall see, was considered the most powerful and the most masculine of all the senses in the ancient world”; Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul,” p. 374. 53 Genesis 22:2 identifies Isaac as the son Abraham loves, despite the existence of Ishmael, Abraham’s eldest son. Genesis 25:28 identifies Esau as the son Isaac loves. 54 Teugels, “A Strong Woman,” p. 98. 55 Deut 21:17.

Rebecca and Isaac 159 6 Kaminsky, “Humor and the Theology of Hope,” pp. 373–374. 5 57 Isaac’s identification with the sacrificial victim may explain his preference for Esau. Perhaps, from the moment the twins are born, Isaac intuitively knows that the younger must usurp the elder, and therefore empathizes particularly with Esau as the one who must be sacrificed. 58 In this way, Isaac acts like a reluctant prophet who is forced into divine service. The prophet’s reluctance indicates that it is divine will and not human will that motivates him. 59 Abraham’s name change occurs in Genesis 17:5.

Bibliography Anderson, Cheryl B. Women, Ideology and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004. Boase, Elisabeth. “Life in the Shadows: The Role and Function of Isaac in Genesis – Synchronic and Diachronic Readings.” VT 51:3 (2001), pp. 312–335. Coats, G. W. “Abraham’s Sacrifice of Faith.” Interpretation 27 (1973), pp. 389–400. Gruber, Mayer L. “Fear, Anxiety and Reverence in Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew and Other North-West Semitic Languages.” VT 40:4 (1990), pp. 411–422. Haddox, Susan E. “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities.” In Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Ovidiu Creangă, 2–19. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Jacobs, Jonathan. “Willing Obedience with Doubts: Abraham at the Binding of Isaac.” VT 60 (2010), pp. 546–559. Kalmanofsky, Amy. Dangerous Sisters of the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014. Kaminsky, Joel S. “Humor and the Theology of Hope: Isaac as a Humorous Figure.” Interpretation (2000), pp. 363–375. Kunin, Seth Daniel. “The Death of Isaac: Structuralist Analysis of Genesis 22.” JSOT 64 (1994), pp. 57–81. Kunin, Seth Daniel. The Logic of Incest: A Structuralist Analysis of Hebrew Mythology. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic: 1995. Levenson, Jon D. The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993. Sawyer, Deborah F. “Biblical Gender Strategies: The Case of Abraham’s Masculinity.” In Gender, Religion, and Diversity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by Ursula King and Tina Beattie, 162–171. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005. Seeman, Don. “ ‘Where is Sarah Your Wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible.” HTR 91:2 (1998), pp. 103–125. Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987. Stone, Ken. “Queer Reading Between Bible and Film: Paris is Burning and the “Legendary Houses” of David and Saul.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, edited by Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, 75–98. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Sylva, Dennis. “The Blessing of a Wounded Patriarch: Genesis 27.1–40.” JSOT 32:3 (2008), pp.267–286.

160  Rebecca and Isaac Teugels, Lieve. “ ‘A Strong Woman, Who Can Find?’ A Study of Characterization in Genesis 24 with Some Perspectives on the General Presentation of Isaac and Rebekah in the Genesis Narrative.” JSOT 63 (1994), pp. 89–104. Wilson, Brittany E. “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133:2 (2014), pp. 367–387.

7 Jeremiah

An overview of the gender dynamic My reading of Rebecca and Isaac’s narrative supports Susan E. Haddox’s observation that the “man most favored by God often appears less masculine” than the man God does not favor.1 Haddox and I agree that God’s preference for the “less masculine” patriarch reflects how much God values the quality of submissiveness – a quality associated often with women in the Bible – and one, according to Haddox, that “is not part of the standard construction of masculinity” in the Bible.2 Although I would argue that Isaac is the most submissive of the patriarchs, Haddox observes that all the chosen patriarchs “show themselves willing to worship and submit to God, at the cost of their masculine honour and even their lives.”3 I consider Rebecca and Isaac’s narrative to be a positive example of a story that plays with gender expectations and norms. Passive Isaac, who embodies submissiveness early in his life when bound on the altar, lives a protected and blessed life. He is intimately connected to the land of Israel, reaps its blessing, and is protected from the struggles experienced by the other biblical patriarchs. In contrast to Isaac, active Rebecca acts as Isaac’s patriarchal proxy and performs tasks typically associated with patriarchs. Although Rebecca and Isaac’s narrative plays with gender expectations, we see the ways in which gender continues to define the roles they assume within it. Rebecca receives only half of Abraham’s blessing and is promised progeny, but not property. She also struggles to secure the blessing for her son Jacob, but is unable to give it. It is male Isaac who receives the full blessing and is the one officially to pass it along to his son Jacob. In these ways, the Bible preserves the social hierarchy that privileges its men while supporting the theological hierarchy that privileges God. Perhaps the Bible’s most submissive figures are its prophets – individuals designated by God to address Israel in God’s name, and to communicate God’s critique of Israel’s behavior and plans for Israel’s future. At times portrayed as reluctant, prophets epitomize submission to divine will by accepting the task against their will. Moses is the paradigmatic example of the reluctant prophet. Called to service by God in Exodus 3:10, Moses responds in Exodus 3:11, asking “Who am I to go before Pharaoh and release the

162  Jeremiah Israelites from Egypt?” Moses’s reluctance to fulfill his mission communicates that he does not serve his own ego, but instead serves the will of God. The prophet Ezekiel physically enacts his submission to God’s will. In Ezekiel 3:24–27, God informs the prophet that cords will bind him, and promises to make Ezekiel’s tongue cleave to his palate. Bound and mute, Ezekiel can only speak when God speaks through him. He is completely at God’s mercy. The prophet Jeremiah is another reluctant prophet.4 Like Moses, Jeremiah initially resists the role of prophet and consistently throughout his life expresses the burdens of being God’s prophet, and his desire to be released from them. Despite the hardships, Jeremiah submits to God’s will and does his job. He has no choice. He cannot relinquish his role as prophet anymore then he can relinquish his identity as Jeremiah. As we see in this chapter, the two are inextricably linked. Given my contention that God relates most intimately with men who submit fully to God, and that submission is a feminizing quality, Jeremiah’s position as a prophet should compromise his masculinity. David J. A. Clines argues that it does not. Clines asserts that prophecy in the Bible “is essentially a masculine project.”5 Although the Bible mentions five female prophets, most of its prophets are male – and certainly all of the prophets to whom books are attributed are men.6 Clines outlines elements that are characteristic of the prophets’ masculinity such as their strength, their propensity for verbal violence, their concern for honor, and their attitudes toward women. For Clines, prophetic masculinity fundamentally is tied to God’s masculinity. The prophets’ strength reflects God’s strength. According to Clines, the prophets “worshiped” God’s power, and viewed “their office as an exercise of power.”7 Clines notes that the prophets “do not mince words,” and suggests that their verbal aggression reflects “the divine violence, for the divine male is above all the fighter and the killer.”8 Clines also suggests that a prophet stresses God’s honor because, “as one male to another, that is the only way he knows of expressing his own esteem for the deity.”9 Although thoroughly and conventionally male, Clines suggests that most interpreters ignore the gender of a prophet because they take it for granted.10 They do not see it as anything unique. Yet, Jonathan Stökl considers the gender of Israel’s prophets interesting and unique. He observes how it is common in the ancient world for a male deity to communicate through female mediums and for female deities to communicate through male mediums.11 Exceptions to this are found in the Bible where the male God communicates most often through male prophet, and Neo-Assyrian prophetic texts in which female prophets speak for the goddess Ištar.12 Stökl suggests that the male gender alignment in the biblical tradition results from the fact that ancient Israel was a patriarchal and monotheistic society and that Israel’s god was male; he writes: We should not, therefore, blame the misogyny of the editors and redactors for the fact that there seems to be a gender bias amongst prophets

Jeremiah 163 in the Hebrew Bible. The gender of Israel’s deity YHWH is far more important in the gendering process of biblical prophecy than has hitherto been acknowledged.13 According to Stökl, Israel’s male God privileged Israel’s men. The biblical God lived in a gender-defined world, and would not engage intimately with women. Biblical prophets may have to be biologically male to get close to God, but being close to God, I argue, compromises their masculinity by forcing prophets to assume a submissive posture before their male God. In the biblical world, it may be easier for prophets who include women among their ranks to be feminized than it is for other religious figures, such as the priests. Like prophets, priests function as intermediaries between God and Israel. Yet, unlike prophets, Israel’s priests were exclusively male. Priests physically stand close to the divine presence and manage the presence in the temple. Despite their physical proximity to God, their masculinity, I argue, is not compromised – perhaps because they manipulate but do not embody the divine essence, as the prophets do.14 By not embodying God, priests are less intimate with God. They do not submit as fully or as physically to God as prophets do and therefore may be able to protect their masculinity. Serving as cultic intermediaries between the people and God, priests may also physically represent God’s masculinity more directly to the people than the prophets do. Markers of the priests’ masculinity are evident in the laws that regulate their lives and bodies, as opposed to the sacrifices they offer. For example, according to the laws of Leviticus 21, priests’ bodies must be whole, unblemished, with their sexual organs intact. Thus, they are marked as physically male. Also, priests are forbidden to marry sexually promiscuous [‫ ]אשה זנה‬or divorced women.15 Thereby, their sexual prowess is protected, as is their male honor, against rival males. It appears that prophets could marry sexually promiscuous women. In Hosea 1:2, God commands Hosea to marry Gomer, a sexually promiscuous woman [‫]אשת זנונים‬. Doing so compromises Hosea’s male honor. As I mentioned, Israel’s prophets were not exclusively male, though clearly the Bible canonizes only books attributed to male prophets. Martti Nissinen observes that in the ancient world, prophetic action is not “gender-specific,” and that anyone “can achieve an altered state of consciousness required for prophesying.”16 Nissinen differentiates between prophetic agency that is instrumental, in which the prophets are passive intermediaries, and prophetic agency that is independent, in which prophets are active agents.17 Nissinen asserts that the gender aspect of prophetic agency “is fundamentally dependent on the prevailing gender matrix in the given social context of prophetic activity.”18 Given the biblical preference for male active agency, its prophets, who operate as dynamic agents with distinct personalities, are usually men. They confront the people and work to influence their religious, social, and political actions and consciousness.

164  Jeremiah Yet prophets are also God’s instruments who physically embody God’s word and speak in God’s name. Throughout the ancient world, women could be instrumental prophets. Nissinen contends that the prophetic role “enabled women to open their mouth in public because they were expected to talk divine words – not as themselves but as mere instruments of gods speaking through them.”19 Like Nissinen, I contend that women could be instrumental prophets because women naturally assume a subordinate position that enables them to be instruments. I also suggest that functioning as God’s instrument feminizes the male prophets.20 It certainly compromises Jeremiah’s masculinity. Biblical prophets like Jeremiah manifest both instrumental and independent agency. Prophesying as Babylon rose to power, Jeremiah was a transformative religious and political figure. Jeremiah believed that God sent Babylon as a punishment for Israel’s sins, as Jeremiah 25:8–9 illustrates: Therefore, thus says YHWH of Hosts: “Because you did not listen to my words, I am sending for all the peoples of the north,” says YHWH, “and for Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will destroy them and make them into a desolation, an object of derision, and into ruins for all time.” King Nebuchadrezzar is God’s servant doing God’s bidding.21 Going against the prevailing opinions of those in power, Jeremiah prophesied that Israel must submit to Babylonian rule, go willingly into exile, and settle in Babylon.22 Jeremiah enacts his prophecy of submission in Jeremiah 27. In this chapter, God commands the prophet to place a yoke around his neck, stand before King Zedekiah of Judah, and declare that Israel must put its neck under the yoke of Babylon and serve its king.23 It cannot be surprising that Jeremiah was a political liability, one that tenaciously provoked Israel’s leaders. In response to Jeremiah’s message of submission, Israel’s leaders tortured him24 and threatened to kill him.25 Although Jeremiah actively engaged with Israel and its leaders, and was known as an individual troublemaker, he did so as God’s instrument. God makes this clear. Therefore, thus says YHWH, Lord of Hosts: “Because you speak this thing, I place my words in your mouth as fire. This people will be the wood, and you will consume them.” (Jer 5:14) Jeremiah embodies and communicates God’s destructive words. Like Babylon, Jeremiah is the instrument through which God is able to enact his destruction. Filled with God’s rage and God’s words, the prophet pours them upon Israel and wreaks havoc.26 In this way, Jeremiah is both an active

Jeremiah 165 and a passive agent. Before God he is passive, accepting God’s word, yet before the people he is active, releasing God’s destructive force. As such, I contend that Jeremiah exhibits gender flexibility – exhibiting male and female perspectives and qualities. I distinguish between gender flexibility and gender fluidity, and suggest that gender flexibility reflects an overarching binary notion of gender in which the male and female perspectives do not manifest simultaneously, but are exhibited separately. In contrast, gender fluidity implies that the male and female characteristics and perspectives can be manifest simultaneously. I accept that this distinction is a fine one, and that Jeremiah, as a male who at times embodies a female perspective, does challenge a binary notion of gender. In my introduction, I mention that the material from Jeremiah may be open to a queer reading. Yet, my reading of these gender-playing texts perceives a fundamental notion of a gender binary and hierarchy at work that I emphasize, and that challenges a queer reading. When Jeremiah functions as an active agent, representing and communicating God’s power, he presents as a man. When Jeremiah functions as God’s instrument, receiving God’s word and submitting to God’s power, he presents as a woman. Other scholars have noticed the gender flexibility or fluidity of Jeremiah’s imagery, in particular the imagery used to describe Israel’s fate or character. Observing what I consider gender flexibility, Mary E. Shields notes a shift from female to male imagery when the prophet moves from accusation (female imagery) to promise (male imagery).27 Shields also notes a shift from addressing Israel in the feminine singular – the subject position of God’s promiscuous wife – to addressing Israel in the masculine plural as God’s disobedient sons who are capable of, and promised, salvation.28 Only the males are promised salvation. Stuart Macwilliam observes what I consider gender fluidity in the representation of Israel, and concludes “that there is no neatly consistent distinction made between female Jerusalem with her sexual sins and male Israel and his politico-religious apostasy.”29 For Macwilliam, the gender fluidity of the character of Israel invites a queer reading which “is always on the lookout for evidence of breakdowns in the patterns of [gender] re-enactments.”30 It is the task of queer theorists, asserts Macwilliam, to “demonstrate that categories of gender and sexual desire are both leaky and contingent.”31 Similarly, Ken Stone states: “The identification and proliferation of misalignments among sex, gender, and sexual practice has become, in the wake of Butler’s work, a goal for many queer theorists, for such misalignments represent both weak spots in the heterosexual matrix and openings for a reconfiguration of that matrix.”32 As I do with all the gender-playing texts, I recognize the contingency and performance of gender in the Jeremiah texts I analyze. Yet, I also recognize how these texts impose distinctions that conform to a gender binary and support male privilege and a gender hierarchy. In this way, the Jeremiah texts share the assumptions about gender reflected in the other gender-playing

166  Jeremiah narratives I analyze. Like these texts, the Jeremiah texts associate weakness and submission with being female, and work to secure a hierarchy that privileges Israel’s male God. I contend that there is gender flexibility not only in the imagery employed by Jeremiah to describe Israel, but in the prophet’s identity as well. I argue that Jeremiah exhibits a male perspective when he engages with Israel, and enacts God’s rage. He exhibits a female perspective when he engages with God, and submits to his role as God’s instrument. Corrine L. Carvalho makes a similar argument to mine, though she perceives gender fluidity in Jeremiah’s character. She contends that Jeremiah’s unmarried status affects his gender identity. In Jeremiah 16:2, God commands Jeremiah not to marry and have children. According to Carvalho, marriage “was a public arena through which people expressed their gendered identity,” and was “an important arena for the performance of masculinity.”33 Therefore, Jeremiah’s single status places him in a precarious position in terms of his gender performance and identity – not unlike the eunuchs discussed in Chapter 4. Like a eunuch, Jeremiah is a “nonprocreative” male who constitutes a “distinct gender.”34 Carvalho perceives Jeremiah’s “gendered persona as fluid, that is, simultaneously changeable and often ambiguous.”35 She argues that Jeremiah is “a liminal figure, one who transgresses boundaries and resides in a place of dis-resolution.”36 At times, Jeremiah behaves like a woman, particularly when he laments.37 Other times, he behaves like a man. Addressing Jeremiah’s single status and the related prohibition in Jeremiah 16:5 and 16:8 against attending wedding or funeral feasts, Carvalho observes: Jeremiah’s inability to participate in these gender performances calls his own gender identity into question. Is he, as a male, claiming a status he does not have by refusing to participate in certain social functions? Is he renouncing his own gender identity by behaving like a woman (assuming that women could only attend certain social functions, and only when attached to some male figure)?38 Carvalho identifies Jeremiah’s submissiveness as a feminine quality,39 and raises the possibility that Jeremiah’s message of submission to Israel reflects his compromised masculinity; she asks: “Does he advise surrender because he is insufficiently brave, and fears like a woman?”40 For Carvalho, Jeremiah’s compromised masculinity is intrinsically related to his relationship with God who “overpowers” Jeremiah, and forces the prophet “to do his bidding.”41 God’s decree that Jeremiah not marry reflects the nature of Jeremiah’s relationship with God, and God’s exclusive claim on Jeremiah. Carvalho notes that though “the relationship between God and Jeremiah is not sexualized. . . . Jeremiah would have committed ‘adultery’ against God by ignoring his command.”42 In other words, by becoming God’s prophet and submitting to God’s will, Jeremiah assumes the female position in the relationship and becomes God’s wife.

Jeremiah 167 I examine three related passages in Jeremiah that manifest Jeremiah’s gender flexibility. Unlike the material I analyzed in Chapters 1–6, the prophetic material, much of which is considered poetic, does not display narrative coherence. Without narrative, it is difficult to analyze Jeremiah as a character, and to consider whether he consistently behaves like a man or like a woman. Therefore, my argument draws mostly from the imagery Jeremiah employs in his prophecy and its gendered associations. Although Jeremiah exhibits both a masculine and feminine gender identity in these passages, I argue that these perspectives do not coexist in harmony. My analyses below show that the feminine and the masculine perspectives exist in tension with each other – both for the prophet who experiences them and for God who interacts with them. At times we see below that the prophet resists assuming a feminine perspective, while God insists upon it. Other times, we see that God indeed wants Jeremiah to act like a man, but Jeremiah presents himself in the female position. The tension between the masculine and feminine perspectives in Jeremiah supports the idea of distinct gender behaviors and identities that indeed conform to a gender binary. Although Jeremiah may exhibit a degree of gender ambiguity, as Carvalho claims, he does not do so comfortably. I argue that his discomfort conforms to the Bible’s overall preference for the “strict segregation of the genders,” as I note in my introduction.43 I also argue that the gender dynamic in Jeremiah, in keeping with the dynamic manifest in the other gender-playing narratives I have addressed, privileges men and protects masculinity – particularly God’s masculinity. Jeremiah exhibits a compromised masculinity when in relation to God and an uncompromised masculinity when he represents God to the people. In this way, Jeremiah’s gender dynamic projects God’s male strength while teaching the value of submitting to it.

Jeremiah 1 I  begin with Jeremiah’s call to prophecy.  The word of YHWH came to me saying:  “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you and made you a prophet unto nations.” I SAID:  “Ah, my Lord, YHWH, I do not know how to speak for I am a boy [‫]נער‬.” YHWH SAID TO ME:  “Do not say ‘I am a boy,’ for wherever I send you, you will go, and everything I command, you will say. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to save you.” says YHWH. YHWH SENT FORTH HIS HAND AND TOUCHED MY MOUTH. YHWH SAID TO ME:  “Indeed I put my words in your mouth.”

(Jer 1:4–9) This passage describes Jeremiah’s submission to God, and his acceptance of his role as God’s prophet. Remarkably, God designates Jeremiah to be a prophet in his mother’s womb. Jeremiah is the only biblical prophet who is

168  Jeremiah predestined for his position.44 The only other figure described as being called to service from birth is the figure of the servant described in Isaiah 49:1. Like Jeremiah, the servant is called by God in the womb [‫]בטן‬, in his mother’s body [‫]ממעי אמי‬. Both the prophet’s location, and the time in which he is called are formative to Jeremiah’s identity. Having been called to service in utero, Jeremiah knows no other identity than that of being God’s prophet. His role and his identity are inextricably linked. Noticeably, Jeremiah does not mention his father but appears particularly attached to his mother. Although conscious in the womb, and able to speak as an individual, Jeremiah is part of his mother’s body and bears a deep association with that body. This association is apparent in latter passages such as Jeremiah 15:10 and 20:17 in which he refers back to his birth and mentions his mother. Jeremiah also relies heavily on maternal imagery throughout the book, suggesting that he continues to think about mothers in general, if not his own in particular. He conjures up the figure of Rachel weeping over her lost children in Jeremiah 31:15, and frequently uses the image of the laboring woman to describe terrified Israel and the foreign nations.45 Some scholars interpret the perplexing image found in Jeremiah 31:22 of the female encompassing a man [‫]נקבה תסובב גבר‬ to be a maternal image that evokes pregnancy.46 Jeremiah’s preference for maternal imagery suggests that he deeply identifies with his mother. I contend that this identification informs his professional and his gender identities, and that the two are linked. He was part of his mother’s body when he received the initial call from God, and begins his role as God’s prophet while in the womb – physically connected to his mother.47 Edward L. Greenstein makes a related observation when he notes the differences between Jeremiah’s language and the language employed in the book of Job. According to Greenstein, Job 3:10 “parodies” the language in Jeremiah. In this verse, Job curses the day that did not shut the “doors of my womb” [‫]דלתי בטני‬. Unlike Jeremiah, Greenstein observes that Job does not mention his mother. His reference to “my womb” – a kind of disembodied womb – reveals “a sense of radical aloneness.”48 In contrast to Job, Jeremiah, I contend, associates deeply with his mother. Jeremiah becomes a prophet while part of his mother’s body. In this way, Jeremiah’s professional and gender identities become intertwined with his mother’s body. He begins his life and his vocation within a woman, and to some extent, I argue, with a woman’s perspective. The female perspective is cultivated further by the sexual innuendo found within Jeremiah 1:4–9. Although a form of the elocution “the word of God came to me,” appears throughout the prophets, Jeremiah exhibits a particular preference for it.49 In the opening chapter, the expression appears four times and opens the second chapter as well. I suggest that Jeremiah employs this phrase because it captures well his experience of instrumental prophecy in which he receives, embodies, and transmits the word of God. The word of God comes to Jeremiah and penetrates the prophet while still in the

Jeremiah 169 womb. The prophet describes how God extends God’s hand to place the word within the prophet’s mouth.50 The image of a hand [‫ ]יד‬extending into a womb is sexual. As in Isaiah 57:8 and 10, hand can be a euphemism for penis. A similar meaning of hand is suggested in Song 5:4. In Jeremiah 1, God’s hand penetrates the womb, and Jeremiah, who is of the womb, likewise is penetrated. As Carvalho notes, God overpowers Jeremiah, who assumes the passive female role. He is “nothing but God’s ‫ נער‬forced to do his bidding.”51 According to Stephen M. Wilson, the term ‫נער‬, translated as boy, indicates a compromised masculinity; he writes: “The most commonly noted attribute of the ‫ נער‬is his powerlessness, lacking both physical strength (though not necessarily physical energy) and social authority.”52 Following Wilson, Jeremiah’s identification of himself as a ‫ נער‬suggests that at the moment Jeremiah is called into service, he recognizes his compromised masculinity. When interacting with God, Jeremiah assumes the female perspective. When interacting with Israel, Jeremiah must become a man. The gender shift is evident at the close of the first chapter. Having designated Jeremiah to be his prophet and having revealed to him his plans for Israel’s destruction, God commands the prophet to muster the courage to transmit his message to the people: You must gird your loins, and get up and speak to them all that I command you. Do not be afraid of them lest I break you before them. Indeed, I have made you today a fortified city, an iron column, and bronze walls against all the land, against Judah’s kings and her officers, and against the priests and the people of the land. They will attack you, but they will not overcome you for I am with you, says YHWH, to save you. (Jer 1:17–19) In this passage, God commands Jeremiah to be a man. Strength, as we have seen, is an essential characteristic of masculinity. Like a soldier preparing for battle, God orders Jeremiah to gird his loins.53 The prophet must display no fear and no weakness before the people. If he does, God threatens to destroy him. The prophet no longer is associated with the maternal body – at least not from God’s perspective. When confronting the people, Jeremiah must behave like a man and assume a male body. God gives him that male body and transforms Jeremiah effectively from a womb into a phallus. God makes Jeremiah tall and hard like an iron column and impenetrable like bronze walls. Candida R. Moss notes that the ancient world viewed healthy bodies as whole and hard. Sickly bodies were porous bodies “that failed in this effort to remain impermeable.”54 Moss contends that gender also distinguished the healthy from the sick body. She observes that women’s bodies were “moist, squishy, and porous,” and that “effeminate means weakness, softness, porosity, and moisture.”55

170  Jeremiah Although Moss specifically addresses the Greco-Roman world, I contend that her observations apply to the biblical world as well, as is evident in the Bible’s treatment of the menstruating and parturient woman – both of whom can be seen as “porous.”56 Leviticus 12:2 associates menstruation, childbirth, and illness by legislating that if a woman gives birth to a boy, she is impure for seven days “as in the days of her menstrual infirmity [‫כימי נדת‬ ‫]דותה‬.” The root ‫ דוי‬has Akkadian and Ugaritic cognates that, according to Jacob Milgrom, “conform to and confirm the contextual connotation of the biblical root ‘be sick, infirm.’ ”57 The distinction between the hard, impenetrable male body and the soft, leaking female body is also evident in the physical descriptions of the male and female lovers in the Song of Songs. Fiona C. Black argues that the woman’s body in the Song is “the uncontrolled body,” which drips and is “never contained.” In contrast, the man’s body “is closed and hardened,” “jewel-encrusted,” and “statuesque.”58 Viewed in this context, Jeremiah’s hard impenetrable body is a male body. It is the body that he must assume to engage with Israel. It is a body that reflects God’s male body. The association between Jeremiah’s male body and God’s male body is made explicit in Jeremiah 13. In this chapter, God orders Jeremiah to put on a linen loincloth, which he is not allowed to wash in water. Then, God commands Jeremiah to remove the loincloth and bury it in the rocks near Perath. After some time, God tells Jeremiah to retrieve the rotten loincloth. God then reveals to Jeremiah the meaning of the loincloth. This evil people who refuse to listen to my words and go after the stubbornness of their hearts, and pursue other gods to serve them and to worship them, will become like this worthless loincloth. Just as the loincloth clings to the loins of a man, thus the whole house of Israel and Judah cling to me, says YHWH, to be my people, for fame, praise, and glory. (Jer 13:10–11) This passage implies that Jeremiah’s girded body is analogous to God’s body, and therefore, I argue, is gendered male. Jeremiah wears the loincloth, like God wears Israel. Israel is compared to the garment that covers God’s masculinity. Loincloths do more than protect a man’s genitals. They also draw attention to them and communicate male virility and prowess.59 Like a loincloth on a warrior, Israel has been the marker of God’s masculinity, communicating God’s power and glory to the world. In light of chapter 13, God’s command to Jeremiah in chapter 1 to gird his loins can be seen as a command to perform masculinity. When addressing Israel, God wants Jeremiah to act like a man. He wants Jeremiah’s masculinity, which represents God’s masculinity, to be on display before Israel. Even though God wants Jeremiah to act like a man and reflect God’s strength, God lets Jeremiah know who is in charge. The hierarchy is clear in Jeremiah

Jeremiah 171 1:17. Jeremiah will do what God commands [‫ ]אצוך‬Jeremiah to do.60 If Jeremiah displays fear before Israel, Jeremiah’s weakness will not reflect badly on God any more than the soiled loincloth reflected badly on God’s glory in Jeremiah 13.61 If Jeremiah displays weakness before Israel, God will crush Jeremiah before them [‫]לפניהם‬, thereby displaying God’s strength.

Jeremiah 15 The next passage I consider is literarily linked to chapter 1, and similarly exhibits Jeremiah’s gender flexibility. Jeremiah 15:15–21 is considered to be one of Jeremiah’s confessions or laments in which the prophet offers, as O’Connor describes, “prayers of complaint to God similar to laments in the book of Psalms.”62 At the start of Chapter 15, God informs Jeremiah that the prophet cannot intercede on behalf of Israel. God will not listen to him. Israel’s fate is sealed. Some will die by sword, others by starvation, and others will be taken captive. God refuses to be placated by the prophet, and will be merciless because Israel, addressed in the second person female, has abandoned God [‫]נטשת אתי‬. Addressing Israel as a female suggests that God’s male pride has been hurt. In response to God’s declaration of destruction, Jeremiah expresses his distress and evokes his call narrative. Woe is me, my mother, that you birthed me, a man of contention and strife for all the land. I have never borrowed nor have I lent. Everyone curses me. (Jer 15:10) Whether present or not, Jeremiah addresses his mother. In despair, he appears to seek his mother’s comfort. He also, in response to God, may remember the day of his birth when he assumed his role as prophet, and wonders why God designated him to be a prophet if God will not allow him to intervene on Israel’s behalf. He remembers the day his identity as a prophet was formed in his mother’s womb, evoking the association with his mother that was evident in chapter 1. Jeremiah, I suggest, expresses a desire to return to the womb, to become part of his mother again so that he would not have to be a man [‫ ]איש‬of contention and strife. God places Jeremiah in the untenable position of delivering a damning prophecy that provokes the people’s ire. God made him a man of contention. Jeremiah’s lament expresses his anger and frustration at being placed in this position: You know, YHWH. Remember me, deal with me, take vengeance for me upon my pursuers. Do not take me in your patience. Know that I have born disgrace on your account. Your words were discovered, and I ate them. Your words were a joy for me, a delight to my heart,

172  Jeremiah for I bear your name, YHWH, Lord of Hosts. I did not sit among the company of revelers and rejoice. Because your hand is upon me, I sat alone. Your rage fills me. Why is my pain endless, my wound incurable, refusing to heal? Indeed you have been to me like a deception, like unreliable waters. (Jer 15:15–18) Jeremiah does not hesitate to confront God, and to express his anger. Jeremiah wants vengeance against his persecutors. He suggests that God owes him this for assuming the role of being God’s prophet, and then bearing its burdens. In this passage, Jeremiah offers a different picture of his call to prophecy. He is not the reluctant prophet he was in chapter 1. He now claims that he discovered God’s words [‫]נמצאו דבריך‬, and that he ate them willingly and joyously, not that God placed his words into Jeremiah’s mouth directly, if not forcibly. Jeremiah’s altered recount of the call narrative justifies his demands. Whereas the image of the reluctant prophet works to convince Israel that Jeremiah works for God and not for his own ego, the willing prophet works to convince God that God is indebted to his prophet. God should reward Jeremiah for choosing to become a prophet, and for the shame he has born on God’s behalf. Jeremiah’s reward may be more than vengeance. He asks God not to take him in his patience [‫]אל לארך אפך תקחני‬. This verse challenges its translators. It can be understood in two different ways with completely opposite meanings. Either it can mean do not let me die at the hands of my enemies while you patiently deal with Israel; in other words, take vengeance on my enemies quickly so that I do not die. Or it can mean do not take me in your patience, meaning do not make me suffer a slow death, but let me die quickly. Although I recognize the ambiguity of the passage, I contend that Jeremiah has a death wish that he will rearticulate and make more explicit in the next related passage I examine, Jeremiah 20. Jeremiah is at a breaking point. He wants his enemies punished. Yet, Israel is not Jeremiah’s only enemy. He feels betrayed by his community, and he feels betrayed by his god.63 In Jeremiah 15:18, Jeremiah accuses God of deception, and of not being trustworthy. God has not protected Jeremiah from his enemies. God has not yet enacted the prophecy that Jeremiah would be vindicated before his enemies.64 Jeremiah has had enough. He is ready to relinquish his role as prophet. Yet, the only way he can do this is to relinquish his life. Designated in the womb, his identity is bound to his vocation. To give up being a prophet is to give up life. In mercy, God should end Jeremiah’s life quickly. In this way, Jeremiah resembles Samson. According to my reading in Chapter 3, Samson, like Jeremiah, has a death wish and acquiesces to Delilah because he wants to die. He explicitly expresses the desire to die when the Philistines taunt him in their temple. It is interesting that both Samson and Jeremiah were designated for divine service while in the womb – Samson to be a Nazir/judge

Jeremiah 173 and Jeremiah to be a prophet. Designated from birth, both figures may feel the need to relinquish their lives to relinquish their roles. Whereas Samson is able to pray for death in Judges 16:30, God refuses to respond to Jeremiah’s prayers in Jeremiah 15:1. Jeremiah must devise a way other than prayer to provoke God to kill him. In Jeremiah 1:17, God threatens to destroy Jeremiah if he displays weakness. God wants Jeremiah to gird his loins and act like a man. His body should be hard and impenetrable like a man’s body. In Jeremiah 15, Jeremiah displays weakness and presents a broken body before God. Jeremiah complains in verse 18 that he is afflicted with a fatal and incurable sore. I contend that Jeremiah’s wounded body is a feminized body that manifests his weakness, and should be seen in contrast to the masculine girded body discussed above. I also contend that Jeremiah presents a feminized body to provoke God. Appearing throughout the prophets, the image of the incurable wound is particularly prominent in Jeremiah. Jeremiah uses this image to describe the afflicted bodies of sinful Israel, Egypt, and Babylon.65 It conveys both the corruption of the nations infected by their sins, as well as the anger and power of God who afflicts them. In Jeremiah, the wounded body most often is gendered female. In Jeremiah 8:21–22, the prophet describes an incurable rupture that afflicts ‫בת עמי‬, feminized Israel. Similarly, the prophet weeps over the incurable wound of ‫ בתולת בת עמי‬in Jeremiah 14:17. In Jeremiah 51:8–9, the image of wounded female Babylon evokes pity. Several explanations are possible for why the wounded body is gendered female. If, as I suggest above, the male body was viewed as hard and impenetrable, then the wounded body that flows with pus could easily be associated with the female body, especially within the biblical context where women’s bodies were considered regular sources of impurity.66 Also, as I have mentioned, mutilation of one’s enemies was a common practice in the ancient world. According to T. M. Lemos, mutilating one’s enemies “served to bring shame upon the victim and their community by associating the victim with a lower-status group and/or by effecting an actual status change in the victim.”67 Lemos suggests that some of these mutilations were designed to shame victims by feminizing them.68 If God treats Israel like an enemy, as Jeremiah 30:14 claims, then it makes sense that God feminizes Israel by wounding Israel. The gendered image may also reflect the prophet’s rhetorical strategy. As Jeremiah 8:23, 14:17, and 51:8–9 illustrate, the wounded body evokes pity. The prophet may utilize the image of the wounded female body to elicit divine compassion and convince God that Israel has suffered enough. In Jeremiah 14:19, Jeremiah confronts God with the image of wounded Israel directly and asks: Have you rejected Judah? Are you disgusted with Zion? Why do you smite us when we have no cure? Why do we hope for well-being and have no good; for a time of healing, but find terror?

174  Jeremiah Having presented Israel’s wounded body with the hope of evoking God’s pity, Jeremiah then begs God not to reject Israel (Jer 14:21). Jeremiah presents his own wounded body to God in Jeremiah 15:18. By using this gendered image, I contend that Jeremiah presents a feminized image of himself. His body no longer resembles God’s strong male body as it did when he put on the loincloth in Jeremiah 13. It now resembles Israel’s broken female body. Jeremiah uses this image to convey his weakness. He also uses this image to confront God, and perhaps to provoke compassion. Jeremiah 30:14 explicitly states that God struck Israel with an enemy’s blow [‫]כי מכת אויב הכיתיך‬, which resulted in an infected wound. By presenting his wounded body to God, Jeremiah implies that God has struck Jeremiah a similar blow – one that the prophet clearly did not deserve since Jeremiah willingly and joyfully serves God. Jeremiah uses his wounded body to accuse God of treating him like an enemy and feminizing him. Perhaps by witnessing what he has done to his prophet, God will show mercy, and take Jeremiah out of his misery. According to my reading, this would entail killing Jeremiah, and killing him quickly. “Do not take me in your patience” [‫]אל לארך אפך תקחני‬, begs the prophet. Jeremiah no longer wants to be God’s prophet. He has suffered enough. Yet, the only way for him to not be God’s prophet is to no longer be. He must die. I suggest that Jeremiah provokes God with the image of his wounded body. God told him to gird his body, be strong, in essence to be a man. If Jeremiah fails to do so, God will crush him. Jeremiah intentionally shows God his broken, feminized body – thereby inciting God to kill him whether out of compassion for this willing prophet or out of anger for this weak prophet. God responds: Thus says YHWH: If you return, then I will bring you back. Before me you will stand. If you bring forth that which is precious from that which is worthless, you will be my spokesperson. They will return to you, but you will not return to them. I will make you as a fortified wall of bronze against this people. They will fight you, but will not overtake you, because I am with you to deliver and to save you, says YHWH. I will deliver you from the hands of the evil, and rescue you from the hands of the dreadful. (Jer 15:19–21) God does not kill Jeremiah. Instead, God invites him back, and offers to redesignate Jeremiah as his prophet. It is interesting that God speaks conditionally, suggesting that if Jeremiah does not comply, God could or would kill him. Jeremiah can return to God, but he must stop being weak and start acting like a man. The language explicitly evokes the initial call narrative in chapter 1. To return to God, Jeremiah must relinquish his wounded, feminized body and resume his impenetrable, masculine body. Once again, he must become a fortified wall of bronze. If he does, God promises to be with

Jeremiah 175 him and to protect him as he did in Jeremiah 1:8. If Jeremiah acts like a man, he will not be overpowered [‫ ]ולא יוכלו לך‬by Israel. The hierarchy in this passage is clear, as it was Jeremiah 1:17. Jeremiah must turn to God. God will not pursue Jeremiah. The people must turn to Jeremiah. Jeremiah must not cater to the people. Thus, God thwarts Jeremiah’s efforts to relinquish his role as God’s prophet. God does not accept Jeremiah’s weakness, nor does God show Jeremiah compassion. He refuses to kill his prophet. Instead, God wants Jeremiah to act like a man, and do his job.

Jeremiah 20 Jeremiah obliges and delivers his prophecy of doom like a man before the people, provoking more ire and even more threats.69 In Jeremiah 19, Jeremiah smashes pots before the elders and the priests, and proclaims Israel’s destruction. This act proves Jeremiah’s strength. He is not the one that is crushed and smashed to bits. Israel is. Jeremiah, of course, acts on God’s behalf, delivering God’s blow and manifesting God’s strength. Upon hearing Jeremiah’s prophecy of doom, the priest Pashhur orders him flogged and placed in stocks in chapter 20. Jeremiah remains strong before Pashhur and delivers him a damning personal prophecy in Jeremiah 20:6. Although strong before Pashhur, Jeremiah immediately turns to God and once again, from a female’s perspective, expresses his anger, frustration, and despair: You enticed me, and I was enticed. You grabbed hold of me and prevailed. I was a constant laughingstock; everyone mocked me. For whenever I speak, I must shout out. I must cry out “violence and destruction!” For the word of God is to me a constant shame and humiliation. I said I would not mention him. I would no longer speak in his name. But it was like a raging fire in my heart, shut up in my bones. I was unable to contain it. I was overcome. (Jer 20:7–9) Many readers have noted the sexual innuendo of this passage, suggesting that Jeremiah feels raped by God. They particularly focus on the word ‫פתה‬, claiming that it can refer to sexual seduction.70 The verb appears in other sexually charged passages, such as Exodus 22:15 and Judges 14:15 and 16:5. Considering whether or not “rape” is an appropriate translation for ‫פתה‬, Sandie Gravett concludes: Jeremiah’s case stands out as the most intriguing possibility to employ ‘rape’. While undoubtedly figurative, the combination of seductive entreaty with physical force certainly supports such a reading and conveys the depth of his anger, fear and betrayal in clear, unequivocal language.71

176  Jeremiah Like Gravett, I contend that Jeremiah intentionally employs sexually charged language and compares his experience of prophecy to rape. This strong language conveys his feelings of being overpowered by God and supports the perception that Jeremiah sees himself in the woman’s position vis-à-vis God.72 Other vocabulary supports this reading. Jeremiah asserts that God grabbed hold [‫ ]חזקתני‬of him. Deuteronomy 22:25 mandates capital punishment for a man who grabs hold of [‫ ]החזיק בה‬a betrothed woman in a field. In this case, rape is a reasonably accurate translation. Amnon grabs hold [‫ ]ויחזק ממנה ויענה‬of his sister Tamar before raping her in 2 Samuel 13:14. In Judges 19:25, a husband grabs hold of his concubine [‫ ]ויחזק‬and casts her out to be gang-raped by the Benjamites of Gibeah. The combination of ‫ פתה‬and ‫ חזק‬in Jeremiah 20:7 connotes sexuality. Jeremiah compares his call to prophecy to seduction and rape, and the impact of both is shame. Just as rape leads to shame, so too does Jeremiah’s experience of being God’s prophet. Pleading with her brother Amnon not to rape her, Tamar asks in 2 Samuel 13:13: “Where can I go with my shame [‫ ”?]חרפתי‬In Jeremiah 20:8, the prophet proclaims that God’s word to him is a constant shame [‫ ]לחרפה‬and humiliation. Like Tamar, Jeremiah is innocent. He must bear the shame of being overpowered by God, just as an innocent woman must bear the shame of being raped. For Jeremiah, rape language best conveys the power dynamic between God and his prophet. As Carvalho observes, God’s terrifying power often is “presented in gendered terms, that is, as attacks on and rapes of a feminized victim (in chaps. 2–3, 6, and 13).”73 Jeremiah presents himself as God’s victim in Jeremiah 15 and 20. Open and violated, his wounded and raped body is feminized. Jeremiah, once again, attempts to alleviate his suffering. This time, he refuses to speak in God’s name in an effort to relinquish his role as prophet. Yet Jeremiah discovers that he is unable to do so. God’s words, which are compared in Jeremiah 5:14 to fire in the mouth of the prophet, burn within him. He is unable to contain them but must release them upon the people. He must release God’s destructive force upon the people. The passage plays with the root ‫יכל‬, to be able, and highlights the prophet’s weakness in relation to God and Israel.74 God seduces Jeremiah and overpowers him [‫]ותוכל‬. Jeremiah attempts to resist God, and is unable [‫]ולא אוכל‬. In Jeremiah 20:10, the people react to Jeremiah’s prophecy and threaten to attack him: “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail over him [‫]אולי יפתה ונוכלו לו‬.” Their threat echoes Jeremiah’s accusation against God in 20:7. The people hope to overpower Jeremiah. It is clear that at this moment Jeremiah stands weak before God and before Israel. In Jeremiah 15:20, God promised Jeremiah that if he remained strong like a fortified bronze wall, the people could not overpower him [‫]ולא יוכלו לך‬, even though they fight against him. Jeremiah evokes that promise in Jeremiah 20:11. He appeals to God by referring to God as a powerful warrior who will cause his enemies to stumble so that they will not prevail [‫]ולא יכלו‬. Without God’s assistance, Jeremiah is unable

Jeremiah 177 to prevail against his enemies. He does not rely on his fortified masculine body to assault them but must beg God to avenge him just as God avenges the needy person against evildoers.75 Violated and weak, Jeremiah needs a man to save him. In Jeremiah 20:13, the prophet’s mood appears to brighten as if he anticipates God’s salvation, and he commands his listeners to sing praises to God. Yet, the prophet grows dark again in Jeremiah 20:14–18: Cursed is the day upon which I was born. The day that my mother bore me, may it not be blessed. Cursed is the man who brought the news to my father saying: “A male child was born to you.” He rejoiced over him. Let that man become like the cities that God relentlessly overturned. He shall hear cries in the morning and shouts in the afternoon because he did not kill me in the womb, so that my mother would be my grave, her womb eternally pregnant. Why did I come out of the womb to see struggle and strife and for my days to end in shame? By cursing the day of his birth, Jeremiah curses the day in which he was called into service, and comes close to cursing the god that called him.76 Just as he did in Jeremiah 15, Jeremiah offers an altered account of his birth narrative. This time he includes the man who announces his birth to his father. The inclusion of these male figures, along with the specificity of Jeremiah’s own gender, incorporates a masculine presence and perspective that was missing from the first chapter. In this passage, Jeremiah seems acutely aware of his masculinity and of the men in his life. Neither makes him happy. I contend that Jeremiah regrets having been born a man who is destined to act like one and serve God. As he expressed in Jeremiah 15:10, he regrets that he is born to become a man of strife and contention [‫]איש ריב ואיש מדון‬. Once again, Jeremiah expresses a death wish, though this time he does not ask God to kill him quickly in the prime of his life. Instead, he expresses the desire that he had died in his mother’s womb. Jeremiah’s choice of imagery, the eternally pregnant womb [‫]ורחמה הרת עולם‬, suggests that Jeremiah actually does not want to die. Rather, he wishes that he had never been born. Jeremiah wants to remain in utero, part of his mother’s body. To use the image of Jeremiah 31:22, Jeremiah wants to be a male surrounded by a female [‫]נקבה תסובב גבר‬. Unable to have the body of a woman, he wants to remain within the body of a woman so that he does not have to become the man that God demands him to be. Jeremiah’s desire to remain in his mother’s womb is not a rejection of God but rather a rejection of the role in which God has placed him. His wish to remain within his mother’s body reflects his desire to remain intimately connected to God. After all, it was in the womb that he was touched by God and called into service. Jeremiah longs for the easy intimacy he felt with God when he was part of his mother’s body – when he was able, as much as possible, to be a woman.

178  Jeremiah

Conclusions God places Jeremiah in an unbearable position. God seduces Jeremiah and penetrates him with his word. By doing so, God compromises Jeremiah’s masculinity so that the prophet would be intimate with God and submit to his will. Yet, God also demands that Jeremiah behave like a man when he interacts with Israel, thereby reflecting God’s strength and protecting God’s honor. Carvalho observes how the “narratives of chapters 26–52 remove most of the gender ambiguity of the first part of the book,” though she notes “even within this return to patriarchy, male power is depicted as ineffectual.”77 From this, Carvalho draws a similar conclusion to my own – that “male patriarchal privilege is a delusion in the human world, even if it is still intact in the divine realm.”78 My conclusion differs from Carvalho’s in that I argue that patriarchal privilege in the human world is not delusional. The hierarchy that privileges men in the social realm can be challenged and must be maintained, but it is essential to maintaining the patriarchal privilege in the divine realm. In Jeremiah, male patriarchal privilege belongs to God. God is the most powerful male who defeats and shames those who challenge his masculinity. This is as true for Israel, who defies God’s authority, insults God’s honor, and is shamed,79 as it is for the foreign nations.80 Israel’s fate proves more positive than the foreign nations who must suffer a complete destruction.81 Vindicated and appeased, God promises to restore his relationship with Israel. On that day, says YHWH of Hosts, I will break his yoke from your neck, and shatter your shackles. Strangers will no longer enslave him. They will serve YHWH, their god, and David, their king whom I will establish for them. You must not fear, my servant Jacob, says YHWH. Do not be afraid for I am going to save you from afar, your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob will return and be at rest, tranquil, without someone to frighten him. Indeed I am with you, says YHWH, to save you. I will make a complete destruction among the nations where I have scattered you, but you I will not destroy. Though I will punish you, I will chastise you in measure. (Jer 30:8–11) In this hopeful prophecy, the proper relationship between God and Israel and its hierarchy will be restored. Israel no longer submits to Babylon’s authority [‫]ולא יעבדו בו‬. Instead, Israel submits to God’s authority [‫ועבדו את‬ ‫]יהוה‬. Israel has learned the lesson of submission – a lesson the prophet Jeremiah knows very well. In fact, reformed Israel resembles the prophet. God promises Israel precisely what God once promised his prophet (Jer 1:8; 15:20) – have no fear [‫ ]אל תירא‬because God will be with and will save Israel [‫]כי אתך אני נאם יהוה להושיעך‬. Israel, like Jeremiah, learns the hard way what it

Jeremiah 179 means to be in relationship with God. By submitting to Babylon, Israel learns how to submit to God. After being punished, Israel willingly and gratefully turns back to God, and God welcomes submissive and female Israel [‫ ]בתולת ישראל‬back in love, as the following passage illustrates. From afar, God appeared to me: I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I draw you in compassion. Once again, I will build you and you will be built, Maiden Israel, again you will take up your timbrels and go forth in the dance of revelers. (Jer 31:3–4) Israel and the prophet come to understand what it means to be in a relationship with God. They know that they must assume a woman’s submissive position to relate to the powerful male God. They also know that they must represent and reflect God’s masculine glory and power in the world. For Jeremiah, and arguably for Israel, this means exercising a gender flexibility. Although gender identity in Jeremiah may be flexible, my reading revealed how it still conforms to a binary notion of gender that privileges men and masculinity. It also reflects how the social hierarchy mirrors the theological hierarchy. God wants Jeremiah to submit to his power as a woman submits to a man. God also wants Jeremiah to be a man in order to reflect and transmit God’s power to Israel. At times, Jeremiah resents the position he has been placed in and unsuccessfully fights to relieve himself of it. He seeks to die and wishes he had never been born. Yet Jeremiah knows what is expected of him. Time and again he submits to his God like a woman and enacts his fate like a man.

Notes 1 Susan E. Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Ovidiu Creangă; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), p. 2. 2 Ibid., p. 15. 3 Ibid. 4 Jonah may be the Bible’s clearest example of a reluctant prophet. Amos 7:14–15 suggests that Amos also was a reluctant prophet, or at least not a volunteer prophet. Not born a prophet or a disciple of one, Amos was shepherding when God called him into service. 5 David J. A. Clines, “He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters,” in Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll (eds. Alastair G. Hunter and Phillip R. Davies; London and New York: Sheffield Academic, 2002), p. 311. 6 Female prophets are mentioned in Exod 15:20–21 (Miriam); Judg 4:4 (Deborah); 2 Kgs 22:14–20 (Huldah); 2 Chron 34:22–28 (Huldah); Neh 6:14 (Noadiah), and Isa 8:3 (presumed to be Isaiah’s unnamed wife). 7 Clines, “He-Prophets,” pp. 312–313. 8 Ibid., pp. 314–315. 9 Ibid., p. 318.

180  Jeremiah 0 Ibid., p. 325. 1 11 Jonathan Stökl, “Ištar’s Women, YHWH’s Men? A Curious Gender-Bias in NeoAssyrian and Biblical Prophecy,” ZAW 121 (2009), p. 87. 12 Stökl notes that the evidence “does not align entirely,” and that there are male prophets of Ištar as well. Ibid., p. 95. 13 Ibid., p. 99. 14 Although agreeing with my overall point that God relates to submissive, feminized men, William H. C. Propp disagrees with my assertion that priests were allowed to be more masculine than prophets. Commenting on the law in Exodus 28:42 that priests must cover their genitals with linen pants while serving in the temple, Propp writes: “What’s wrong with exposing one’s genitals . . . I think rather the offense lies in implicit sexuality; a man should approach Yahweh as submissive (i.e., feminized), not displaying his sex before his master.” William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40 (AB; New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, 2006), p. 453. 15 Leviticus 21:7. 16 Martti Nissinen, “Gender and Prophetic Agency in the Ancient Near East and in Greece,” in Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, The Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East (eds. Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), pp. 35–36. 17 Ibid., p. 37. 18 Ibid., p. 38. 19 Ibid., p. 39. 20 In Chapter 3, I similarly argue that Samson is feminized in order to become God’s instrument. 21 See also Jeremiah 27:6. 22 Jeremiah 29:4–7. Although Jeremiah offers a particular prophecy of submission, Haddox notes that all prophets ask for submission; she writes: “The prophetic literature, which is generally aimed at the elite men in charge of the country, critiques the leadership for making decisions and taking action independent of God’s will. The remedy is to submit to God.” Haddox, “Favoured Sons,” p. 15. 23 Jeremiah 27:8. 24 Jeremiah 20:2. 25 Jeremiah 11:19. 26 Jeremiah 6:11. 27 Mary E. Shields, “Circumcision of the Prostitute: Gender, Sexuality, and the Call to Repentance in Jeremiah 3:1–4:4,” BI 3:1 (1995), p. 61. 28 Ibid., pp. 67–71. 29 Stuart Macwilliam, “Queering Jeremiah,” BI 10:4 (2002), pp. 396–397. 30 Ibid., p. 397. 31 Ibid., p. 387. 32 Ken Stone, Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (New York and London: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 127. 33 Corrine L. Carvalho, “Sex and the Single Prophet: Marital Status and Gender in Jeremiah and Ezekiel,” in Prophets Male and Female, pp. 238–239. 34 I employ Janet S. Everhart’s language. See “Jezebel: Framed by Eunuchs?” CBQ 72 (2010), p. 693. Carvalho also makes an analogy with eunuchs. See Carvalho, “Sex and the Single Prophet,” p. 239. 35 Ibid., p. 252. 36 Ibid., p. 253. 37 Ibid., pp. 258–259. 38 Ibid., p. 261.

Jeremiah 181 39 Carvalho writes: “Jeremiah, though male, takes on the passive, acted upon, female role.” Ibid., p. 262. 40 Ibid., p. 261. 41 Ibid., p. 262. 42 Ibid., p. 263. 43 Macwilliam’s queer reading of the prophetic marriage metaphor responds to the “segregationists,” like myself; he writes: “By means of an anti-schema, which maps the grammatical genders used in the text, I demonstrate breakdowns in this alleged gender segregation, and thereby argue that the oddity of equating a faithless wife with male citizens cannot be easily ignored.” Stuart Macwilliam, Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield and Oakville: Equinox, 2011), p. 212. 44 William L. Holladay comments: “It is a daring affirmation to make, that Jrm is called to be a prophet from his birth. It is intimated that Moses, Samson, and Samuel were each called to their tasks from their birth, but the closest parallels in existence in Jrm’s time are royal ones from Mesopotamia and Egypt.” William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Heremeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), p. 33. 45 The image of the laboring woman appears throughout the prophetic books, but is prominent in Jeremiah. See Jeremiah 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 30:5–6; 48:41; 49:22, 24; 50:43. I offer an analysis of this image in “Israel’s Baby: The Horror of Childbirth in the Biblical Prophets,” BI 16 (2008), pp. 60–82. 46 Jerome believed the verse referred specifically to Jesus in the womb. For a discussion of various interpretations, see Deborah F. Sawyer, “Gender-Play and Sacred Text: A Scene from Jeremiah,” JSOT 83 (1999), pp. 107–110. 47 As I suggest in Chapter 3, Samson’s identity as a Nazir begins in utero and causes Samson to identify more fully with his mother than his father, as it does with Jeremiah. 48 Edward L. Greenstein, “Features of Language in the Poetry of Job,” in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2005), p. 85. Greenstein writes: “Accordingly, the womb is not his mother’s but his own, just as the knees that received him and the breasts that suckled him (3, 12) are disembodied, unconnected to any other person.” Ibid., pp. 85–86. 49 Joep Dubbink considers what “word” means to Jeremiah; he writes: “The translation ‘word’ for dābār is inadequate because it neglects its deed-character. The word of YHWH sets an event in motion; it makes history. It may be seen as God’s revelation in history. His word seizes the prophet (1:5), sets his objections aside (1:6–7), and occupies him. . .Not only is this word in itself “like fire . . . like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces” (23:29), it retains this power in the mouth of the prophet, where it is also described as being “like fire” (5:14).” Joep Dubbink, “Getting Closer to Jeremiah: The Word of YHWH and the Literary-Theological Person of a Prophet,” in Reading the Book of Jeremiah: A Search for Coherence (ed. Martin Kessler; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), p. 31. 50 Scholars note that Jeremiah identifies himself to be a boy, ‫נער‬, in verse 6, which suggests that God may have designated Jeremiah to be a prophet while in the womb but that the dialog between God and Jeremiah occurs later. For a discussion of Jeremiah’s possible ages at this moment, see Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20 (Anchor; New York: Doubleday, 1999), pp. 232–233. Despite the use of ‫נער‬, my reading assumes that the dialog occurs in the womb since there is no clear indication otherwise, and since the prophet suggests he is unable to speak. Also, the phrase “the word of YHWH came to me” appears in verses 4 and 11, suggesting that what falls between should be considered a literary unit. The use of ‫ נער‬also is not definitive of a more advanced age since, as Stephen M. Wilson

182  Jeremiah notes, “the term’s range is from before birth to around twenty years old.” Stephen M. Wilson, Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 56. 51 Carvalho, “Sex and the Single Prophet,” p. 262. 52 Wilson, Making Men, p. 56. 53 Loingirding could refer to the physical act of putting clothing on a body, but it also could imply assuming the quality of strength. See Katherine Low, “Implications Surrounding Girding the Loins in Light of Gender, Body, and Power,” JSOT 36:1 (2011), p. 9. 54 Candida R. Moss, “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25–34,” JBL 129:3 (2010), p. 513. 55 Ibid. 56 For the laws regulating the parturient, see Leviticus 12, and for the menstruant, see Leviticus 15. 57 Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1991), p. 746. 58 Fiona C. Black, “Beauty or the Beast? The Grotesque Body in the Song of Songs,” BI 8:3 (2000), p. 315. 59 Roland Boer considers loingirding symbolic of masculinity. See “The Patriarch’s Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Biblical Hebrew,” Journal of Men, Masculinities, and Spirituality 5:2 (2011), p. 45. 60 Katherine Low offers a similar reading; she writes: “The loingirding command acts as God claiming Jeremiah for God’s mission; the use of militaristic language engages power. Clearly, the control and power belong to God (God even threatens Jeremiah in v. 17), who entrusts Jeremiah with a dangerous mission to speak to the people as prophet. As a result, Jeremiah no longer remains an ordinary person; he belongs to God.” Low, “Implications Surrounding Girding the Loins,” pp. 18–19. 61 It is interesting that the loincloth rots off of the prophet’s body, creating a protective distance between the loincloth and the body that wears it. 62 Kathleen O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), p. 81. O’Connor identifies Jeremiah 11:18–12:6; 15:10–21; 17:14–18; 18:18–23; 20:7–18 as confessions, although other scholars debate the perimeters of these confessions. Mark S. Smith considers the passage I analyze, Jeremiah 15:15–21, to be a literary unit. Smith identifies four shared elements of the laments: a prophetic invocation of God; a direct speech of the enemies of Jeremiah; Jeremiah’s declaration of innocence; the prophet’s quest for vengeance. There is also a less consistent fifth element – the divine answer to the prayer. See Mark S. Smith, The Laments of Jeremiah and their Contexts (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 1–3. 63 O’Connor writes: “When he prays, Jeremiah accuses God of outright injustice. But here is his most fundamental complaint: God is a traitor and false friend who has forsaken him.” O’Connor, Pain and Promise, p. 86. 64 O’Connor observes: “Jeremiah believes he is a failed prophet, but it is not his fault. God delayed in fulfilling the prophetic word, and this delay makes Jeremiah a sitting duck, an object of scorn from his enemies, friends, and family who simply do not believe him.” Ibid., p. 87. 65 Jeremiah 8:20–23; 10:18–21; 14:17–19; 30:12–17; 46:11; 51:8–9. 66 Saul M. Olyan includes the menstruant and the parturient among the people considered to be disabled in ancient Israel. See Saul M. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 56–60. 67 T. M. Lemos, “Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible,” JBL 125:2 (2006), p. 226.

Jeremiah 183 8 Ibid., p. 233. 6 69 Jeremiah 18:18. 70 O’Connor translates Jeremiah 20:7: “O YHWH you have seduced me and I was seduced. You have raped me and you have prevailed.” She comments: “I prefer the harsher translation because it conveys intimate violation and rupture of faith that accompany disaster, and it connects Jeremiah’s outrage with the fate of Daughter of Zion, raped by her divine husband (13:20–27).” O’Connor, Jeremiah, p. 87. 71 Sandie Gravett, “Reading ‘Rape’ in the Hebrew Bible: A Consideration of Language,” JSOT 28:3 (2004), p. 296. 72 Although Jeremiah could be assuming male-on-male rape, his experience of being a rape victim suggests a compromised masculinity. See Susanne Scholz’s discussion on male rape in Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), pp. 157–177. 73 Carvalho, “Sex and the Single Prophet,” pp. 262–263. 74 Holladay writes: “The verb ‘overpower’ (‫ )יכל‬occurs here for the fourth time in the passage. The whole passage turns out to ring the changes on power: Yahweh is stronger than Jrm; Jrm is not stronger than Yahweh’s word; Jrm’s enemies assume they are stronger than Jrm; Jrm’s enemies, if Yahweh will work as he should, will not ultimately be strong.” Holladay, Jeremiah I, p. 558. 75 This is another link between Jeremiah 1, 15, and 20. All three passages mention God’s salvation (Jer 1:8; 15:20; 20:13). In Jeremiah 15:21, as here, God promises to save Jeremiah from the hand of the evildoers [‫]מיד רעים‬. 76 Edward L. Greenstein writes: “The motif of cursing or seeking to abolish a certain day, as an expression of grief or despair, is attested from a relatively early period in Mesopotamian literature.” Greenstein points out that only Jeremiah and Job (Job 3:1–12) curse the day of their birth. See Edward L. Greenstein, “Jeremiah as an Inspiration to the Poet of Job,” in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon (eds. John Kaltner and Louis Stulman; London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004), p. 102. 77 Carvalho, “Sex and the Single Prophet,” p. 265. 78 Ibid. 79 The marriage metaphor developed throughout Jeremiah, particularly in Jeremiah 2–3, best captures how Israel insults God’s masculine honor. 80 To see how the foreign nations insult God’s honor, see my discussion in “ ‘As she did, do to her!’ Jeremiah’s OAN as Revenge Fantasies,” in Concerning the Nations: Essays on the Oracles Against the Nations in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (eds. Else K. Holt, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, and Andrew Mein; London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 109–127. 81 Jeremiah 30:11.

Bibliography Black, Fiona C. “Beauty or the Beast? The Grotesque Body in the Song of Songs.” BI 8:3 (2000), pp. 302–323. Boer, Roland. “The Patriarch’s Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Biblical Hebrew.” Journal of Men, Masculinities, and Spiritualty 5:2 (2011), pp. 41–52. Carvalho, Corrine L. “Sex and the Single Prophet: Marital Status and Gender in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.” In Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East, edited by Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho, 237–267. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.

184  Jeremiah Clines, David J. A. “He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters.” In Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll, edited by Alastair G. Hunter and Philip R. Davies, 311–328. London and New York: Sheffield Academic, 2012. Dubbink, “Getting Closer to Jeremiah: The Word of YHWH and the LiteraryTheological Person of a Prophet.” In Reading the Book of Jeremiah: A Search for Coherence, edited by Martin Kessler, 25–39. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004. Everhart, Janet S. “Jezebel: Framed by Eunuchs?” CBQ 72 (2010), pp. 688–698. Gravett, Sandie. “Reading ‘Rape’ in the Hebrew Bible: A Consideration of Language.” JSOT 28:3 (2004), pp. 279–299. Greenstein, Edward L. “Features of Language in the Poetry of Job.” In Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen, edited by Erhard Blum, Christine Gerber, Shimon Gesundheit, Matthias Konradt, Konrad Schmid, Jens Schröter and Samuel Vollenweider, 81–96. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2005. Greenstein, Edward L. “Jeremiah as an Inspiration to the Poet of Job.” In Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon, edited by John Kaltner and Louis Stulman, 98–109. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004. Haddox, Susan E. “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities.” In Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Ovidiu Creangă, 2–19. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Holladay, William L. Jeremiah 1. Heremeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986. Kalmanofsky, Amy. “ ‘As she did, do to her!’: Jeremiah’s OAN as Revenge Fantasies.” In Concerning the Nations: Essays on the Oracles against the Nations in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, edited by Else K. Holt, Hyun Chul Paul Kim and Andrew Mein, 109–127. New York and London: T&T Clark, 2015. Kalmanofsky, Amy. “Israel’s Baby: The Horror of Childbirth in the Biblical Prophets.” BI 16 (2008), pp. 60–82. Lemos, T. M. “Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible.” JBL 125:2 (2006), pp. 225–241. Low, Katherine. “Implications Surrounding Girding the Loins in Light of Gender, Body, and Power.” JSOT 36:1 (2011), pp. 3–30. Lundbom, Jack R. Jeremiah 1–20. AB; New York: Doubleday, 1999. Macwilliam, Stuart. Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield and Oakville: Equinox, 2011. Macwilliam, Stuart. “Queering Jeremiah.” BI 10:4 (2002), pp. 384–404. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16. AB; New York: Doubleday, 1991. Moss, Candida R. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25– 34.” JBL 129:3 (2010), pp. 507–519. Nissinen, Martti. “Gender and Prophetic Agency in the Ancient Near East and in Greece.” In Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East, edited by Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho, 27–58. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. O’Conner, Kathleen. Jeremiah: Pain and Promise. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011. Olyan, Saul M. Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Propp, William H. C. Exodus 19–40. AB; New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, 2006. Sawyer, Deborah F. “Gender-Play and Sacred Text: A Scene form Jeremiah.” JSOT 83 (1999), pp. 99–111.

Jeremiah 185 Scholz, Susanne. Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Shields, Mary E. “Circumcision of the Prostitute: Gender, Sexuality, and the Call to Repentance in Jeremiah 3:1–4:4.” BI 3:1 (1995), pp. 61–74. Smith, Mark S. The Laments of Jeremiah and their Contexts. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990. Stökl, Jonathan. “Ištar’s Women, YHWH’s Men? A Curious Gender-Bias in NeoAssyrian and Biblical Prophecy.” ZAW 121 (2009), 87–100. Stone, Ken. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Wilson, Stephen M. Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Conclusions

Many would agree with Harold C. Washington that gender is “an organizing category” in the Bible, and that gender-defined roles, qualities, and behaviors are a given in the biblical world.1 This world is captured in the Bible’s first narrative that delineates gender roles and serves as an archetype that informs and shapes the gender dynamic of the Bible. Post-transgression, Adam and Eve live in a world in which women are defined principally by the duties of childbearing and men by the demands of agriculture. It is also a world that exhibits a gender hierarchy in which men exercise social and sexual control over women. Although men and women share common concerns, gender distinctions and hierarchy remain evident throughout the biblical narratives. Women in the Bible appear often as wives and mothers and exhibit behaviors and concerns that reflect those roles. It is the rare biblical woman, such as Deborah, whose story does not focus on motherhood, and an even rarer woman, such as the Shunammite, who does not appear to desire a child even when offered one. Men in the Bible function as heads of their households, as well as political and religious authorities, who ensure the stability and longevity of the family by protecting its property and the purity of its line, and by managing its relationship with God. Although men in the Bible certainly desire children, their stories are less focused on securing a child and more concerned about securing God’s blessing for themselves and their designated sons. Although many readers would agree that gender defines the world the Bible constructs, fewer may argue that the Bible intentionally constructs this world, or that the Bible perceives gender to be a constructed as opposed to an innate category of human experience. It is possible to understand gender construction and performance to be contemporary ideas imposed anachronistically upon an ancient text. In this book, I argue that the Bible’s gender-playing narratives illustrate the extent to which the Bible constructs gender. By challenging biblical gender norms that support a gender-defined society with a clear hierarchy that privileges men, these narratives reveal that gender dynamics and behaviors are not innate but must be carefully cultivated and monitored. For example, Adam and Eve’s story offers three distinct models for gender dynamics. In the first model, Adam and Eve enjoy

Conclusions 187 a complementary, relatively nonhierarchical relationship. In the second, Eve assumes a position of authority over Adam. In the third, Adam assumes a position of authority over Eve. Although God and the Bible sanction the third model, the existence of the other two models suggests that a maleprivileged gender hierarchy is not the only option for human society – or for that matter, even the most natural, since it was the post-transgression default model. Adam and Eve’s story, along with the other gender-playing narratives, also reveals the vulnerability of this model and how easily the social hierarchy can be overturned. I maintain that many biblical stories intentionally utilize gender as an organizing category and play with its norms. As I demonstrate in Chapter 2, gender is a key factor in Judges 4 and arguably the narrative’s central literary device. Deborah’s prophecy that Sisera would be delivered “through the hands of a woman,” brings gender to the fore of the narrative, and makes the story about gender.2 Conventional gender expectations are upended and prove to be dangerous. A woman accompanies a man to battle and brings victory, but not honor to him. Another woman promises respite to a weary warrior, offering her tent as a refuge, and delivers death instead. Masculinity also is compromised in Judges 4, suggesting that gender behavior is not fixed and must be sustained. Neither Barak nor Sisera behaves like a man. Barak compromises his gender by relying upon a woman in military battle. Sisera compromises his masculinity by falling victim to a woman in her home. Despite the role Deborah and Yael play in unmanning Barak and Sisera, my analysis of their narrative reveals that they do not fully transcend their gender roles. Although they upend the gender hierarchy by exerting authority and influence over men, Deborah and Yael are women who defeat men as women. Their gender is a crucial factor in the dishonor and harm they cause to Barak and Sisera. Women also prove dangerous in the Samson narrative. Like Judges 4, Samson’s story illustrates a world in which the gender hierarchy is inverted, and in which a male compromises his masculinity. Both narratives portray a chaotic world in which women overpower men to their detriment, if not to their death. In the greater context of the book of Judges, these stories work to justify kingship. A world in which women channel the voice of God and command men, a world in which women wield weapons and defeat enemies, is not a stable world. This world requires centralized male authority. With its gender instability, the world depicted in Judges makes way for the establishment of the monarchy and the world depicted in the books of Samuel and Kings. My analysis of these narratives also reveals that they do more than promote the social hierarchy that privileges men, securing male authority and working to justify kingship. Along with the other stories that play with gender norms, these narratives also reflect a concern to ensure the theological hierarchy that privileges God and secures God’s authority. Throughout this book, I argue that the social and theological hierarchies intertwine, and

188  Conclusions that the Bible protects and privileges masculinity in society because it wants, above all, to protect and privilege God’s masculinity. As Israel’s protector and provider, God exhibits characteristics and concerns common to all biblical men but appears as the strongest, most potent male in the Bible. The hierarchy that should exist between men and women mirrors the hierarchy that should exist between God and Israel. The gender-playing narratives reveal the interconnected relationship between the social and the theological hierarchies. When the social hierarchy is compromised, the theological hierarchy is also compromised. When Adam listens to Eve, he does not listen to God. When Barak follows Deborah, he does not follow God. When Samson succumbs to Delilah, he jeopardizes his sanctified status. I argue that the Bible’s narratives that play with gender protect the Bible’s preferred social and theological hierarchies by depicting a world in which both are threatened. In the story of Elisha and the Shunammite, the prophet Elisha oversteps appropriate boundaries when he promises a child to the Shunammite, and by doing so, he threatens the hierarchy between himself and God. In the Bible, only God decides matters of life and death. Elisha must learn what it means to be a man of God, not God. It takes a great woman who challenges the gender hierarchy, and arguably overpowers him, to teach Elisha that lesson. Elisha must be overpowered to realize that he has overstepped the appropriate limits of his own power in relation to God. Once Elisha learns his lesson, the gender hierarchy is restored. Perhaps more than any other gender-playing narrative, Jezebel’s story reveals the dangers of inverting the social hierarchy and illustrates how the social and theological hierarchies are intertwined. In my analysis I argue that Jezebel overpowers Ahab, transcends her gender, and assumes a position of male authority. Jezebel’s position of authority poses an existential threat to Israel’s relationship with God, because she introduces Baal worship and fights with God’s representative, Elijah. A threat to both the theological and the social hierarchies, Jezebel is obliterated. Cast to her death by eunuchs who may be symbolic of her ambiguous gender status, her body is eaten by dogs. Emasculated Ahab demonstrates contrition for his acts by fasting, tearing his clothes, and lying down in sackcloth. Unlike Jezebel who, in her final scene, adorns and elevates herself in the palace, Ahab brings himself low, physically and emotionally, and submits to God. Because Ahab humbles himself, God accepts his penance and lessens his punishment. Submission is a central value of all the gender-playing narratives. Women like Eve and the Shunammite learn to submit to male authority. Men like Adam, Barak, and Ahab suffer for submitting to women’s authority, and for not submitting to God’s authority. Fundamentally, submission indicates that someone has authority over you, and is an acknowledgment of relative weakness. In the Bible’s world, weakness is often considered a female quality that reflects women’s position in the social hierarchy.3 As David Jobling argues, the Bible typically does not valorize or even tolerate strong women, and works to diminish their power.4 The biblical stories that play with

Conclusions 189 gender norms present an array of strong women that support Jobling’s thesis. Eve, the Shunammite, and Jezebel are literally or figuratively cast down in their narratives, and come to submit to male authority. Although Deborah and Yael do not formally submit to male authority, I argued that their power is circumscribed by the narrative, and that they are denied proper praise for their actions. Although it is Yael who pins Sisera to the ground, Judges 4:23 declares that God humbles [‫]ויכנע‬5 the Canaanites. Rebecca may be the Bible’s strongest woman, functioning more like a patriarch than her husband Isaac. In my analysis of their story, I argue that Rebecca and Isaac’s relationship is the Bible’s most positive portrayal of a relationship that defies gender norms. The narrative portrays Isaac as passive and submissive, characteristics more typically associated with women in the Bible. In contrast, the story depicts Rebecca as active and powerful, exhibiting characteristics and behaviors typically associated with men. I also argue that Isaac’s submissiveness – that is, his apparently compromised masculinity – is embraced by the narrative. Intimacy with God, I contend, demands submission to divine authority. Because in the biblical world, men are the ones allowed to be the most intimate with God, intimacy with God compromises human masculinity in deference to God’s masculinity. Of all the patriarchs, Isaac is the most submissive, and I argue, the most consistently aligned with God. Having submitted to God early in his life, and having learned what it means to be in relationship with God, Isaac remains within Israel, close to God his whole life, and reaps God’s blessings directly from the land. Rebecca, I contend, takes up the patriarchal slack and serves as Isaac’s proxy. Rebecca and Isaac display a unique partnership throughout their narrative, in which Rebecca’s activity enables Isaac’s passivity. Both are necessary to fulfill God’s will. Yet, despite Rebecca’s significance for her family, and for the fulfillment of God’s plan for Israel, as a woman, she is denied the ability to channel or receive directly God’s blessing. In this way, the Bible preserves its social and theological hierarchies. Only Isaac receives God’s full blessing, and only Isaac can bestow God’s blessing upon the next generation. The biblical stories that play with gender norms protect the social and theological hierarchies by promoting the value of submission and most often, by illustrating the dangers of defying gender behavior and inverting hierarchies. As Deuteronomy 22:5 conveys, the Bible wants men to behave like men, and women to behave like women. It also wants women to submit to men, and men to submit to God. Throughout this book, I argue that though gender is performative, the Bible fundamentally adheres to a binary notion of gender that distinguishes sharply between men and women. In other words, the Bible does not embrace gender ambiguity positively. More importantly, I argue that the Bible is invested in gender segregation, in privileging men, and in protecting masculinity. The Bible upholds a hegemonic notion of masculinity that is reflected in its portrayal of its male God. The Bible privileges men and protects masculinity in order to privilege and

190  Conclusions protect its male God. In other words, I contend that the Bible has a patriarchal agenda. For the most part, gender-playing narratives portray moments of crisis and chaos in which men display weakness and women assume power. The Bible uses these stories to expose the threat posed by gender-destabilization in the social realm in order to stabilize the crisis. Yael, Deborah, Manoah’s wife, and the Shunammite are not heroes in the overall biblical context. The Bible, I argue, does not support a world in which women function as prophets, judges, or kings. It does not support a world in which women seduce men or teach prophets how to behave. These gender-defying, strong women are necessary correctives, and function to protect the social and theological hierarchies that privilege the Bible’s men and God. At their heart, the gender-playing narratives convey a fear of emasculation, and demonstrate the threat strong women pose to the social and theological hierarchies. Yael emasculates Sisera. Delilah emasculates Samson. The Bible portrays Eve, Deborah, Yael, Manoah’s wife, Delilah, and Jezebel as strong or dangerous women who challenge the social hierarchy, and consequently the theological hierarchy. Even for those who are portrayed more positively, their stories work to contain or restrain their power. Deborah’s power is diminished by Yael and eclipsed by God. Ultimately, the Shunammite bows before Elisha. Even Rebecca, who assumes the patriarchal duties in her husband’s place, is confined and defined by her gender. Although the Bible does not tolerate strong women, it does, in one significant way, value a weak man. As I mention above, men like Isaac, and like the prophet Jeremiah, exhibit a compromised masculinity that indicates their intimacy or proximity with God. To be in relationship with God, one must accept God’s masculine prowess. The prophet Jeremiah knows this, and assumes the submissive female position when he engages with God. This is manifest in the sexualized language used to describe Jeremiah’s call to prophecy and his reception of God’s word. Yet, when he engages with the people and represents God, Jeremiah must gird his loins and man-up. In these public moments, Jeremiah’s masculinity reflects God’s masculinity. Able to adopt male and female perspectives, the prophet exhibits a gender flexibility. Yet, despite Jeremiah’s gender flexibility, I argue that the gender binary remains distinct within the prophet, marked by the tension evident between the male and female perspectives that Jeremiah exhibits. The gender hierarchy also remains clear in Jeremiah. The feminized prophet must submit to his masculine god, and at times, feels sexually violated by his god. In this way, the texts from Jeremiah conform to the gender dynamic found in the other gender-playing narratives I analyze. They affirm a gender hierarchy that privileges masculinity. Before concluding, I suggest possibilities for future study. I examine several narratives that defy gender norms, in which strong women overpower men and upend the social hierarchy. Of course, there are more genderplaying narratives such as the stories of Judah and Tamar and Hannah and

Conclusions 191 Elkanah. It is important to analyze these narratives to see if they manifest similar patterns and support my conclusions. It also would be interesting to consider narratives such as Sarah and Hagar’s in which women exert power, but do not upend the social hierarchy, to see if these stories manifest women’s power differently and if they embrace women’s power or view it as a destabilizing force. It is interesting to consider whether power can be an organic part of a woman’s character and experience, or whether it is always co-opted from the male realm and therefore viewed as threatening. Finally, I would suggest further study on the idea that God relates most intimately to the man who surrenders his masculinity. In this book, I look at only one patriarch and one prophet. It is important to consider other prophets, as well as other figures that are intimate with God to see if they support my thesis.6 To make the strongest argument that God relates most intimately with men whose masculinity is compromised, it is imperative to consider the two biblical figures who are most intimate with God – Moses and David – to see if they exhibit a compromised masculinity. To this end, I briefly consider the gender identity of King David to lend support to my argument, and to encourage further study. The intimacy between God and David is evident throughout David’s narrative, but particularly in 2 Samuel 7 when God, speaking through his prophet Nathan, promises David and his descendants the eternal dynasty. In 2 Samuel 7:9, God informs David that from the moment God designated him as king, God has been with David wherever he went [‫]ןאהיה עמך בכל אשר הלכת‬, destroying his enemies, and working to make his name great. Given this intimacy, David should exhibit a compromised masculinity, according to my reading. Yet, David J. A. Clines perceives David as embodying all the essential characteristics that reflect masculinity in the Bible, such as being a fighting male, a persuasive male, a beautiful male, a bonding male, and a womanless male.7 Clines recognizes moments in which David fails to live up to the Bible’s masculine ideal, but sees these as markers of David’s fallibility, and not as indicative of an essential compromised masculinity.8 I offer a different reading from Clines that supports my premise that intimacy with God demands submission and compromises masculinity. I agree with Clines that David manifests essential masculine characteristics, and is portrayed as a powerful, strong male. He kills the giant Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:50, is said to kill tens of thousands of warriors in 1 Samuel 18:7, and is responsible for killing many Philistines throughout his military career.9 Yet, I contend that despite David’s military strength (or perhaps because of it), David’s masculinity is compromised in the course of his narrative. God makes it clear to David that David is God’s servant, and that God has no male rival. At the beginning of David’s narrative, David faces the giant warrior Goliath as a young, ill-equipped boy. Goliath seeks a man to challenge him10 and clearly does not view David as a man, but as a ruddy-faced young lad [‫]נער‬.11 Against expectations, the lad triumphs, and the giant dies.12 Just as the

192  Conclusions emasculated Samson’s victory over the Philistines displayed God’s strength, young David’s victory over Goliath, with no more than a slingshot, displays God’s strength, as David himself expresses in 1 Samuel 17:45: “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of YHWH of Hosts, the god of the ranks of Israel who you have shamed.” David grows from ruddy lad to powerful king, killing tens of thousands. As David grows in military and political power, so grows his masculinity, until, I argue, it grows out of control and threatens his relationship with God.13 David’s affair with Bathsheva and his murder of Uriah, related in 2 Samuel 11, reflects his unchecked masculinity. In the aftermath of these events, David learns that he cannot have any woman that he wants, and he cannot kill any man that he wants. In other words, he learns that he has limited masculine power. God makes this clear to David through his prophet Nathan. Nathan said to David: You are the man [‫]אתה האיש‬. Thus says YHWH, God of Israel: I anointed you as king over Israel and I saved you from the hand of Saul. I gave to you the house of your master, possession of your master’s women, and the house of Israel and Judah. And if small, I would increase for you much more. Why do you spurn the word of God and do evil in his eyes? You struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife as a wife. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Therefore the sword will never turn from your house forever because you spurned me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite as a wife. Thus says YHWH: I will raise up evil from your own house. I will take your women before your eyes and give them to another man, and he will lie with your women in daylight. Because you acted in secret, I will do this before all of Israel in daylight. (2 Sam 12:7–12) In this passage, God accuses David of abusing his male power. Although a man should be a strong fighter, he should not kill without discretion to satisfy his personal appetites. Although a man has the right to be sexually aggressive, he should not challenge another man’s sexuality by taking that man’s wife. Above all, God makes it clear to David that God outmans him. God gave David the kingship; God gave David the women. As punishment for David’s abusing his power, God vows to assert his masculine power over David. God will subject David’s house to military strife. God will claim David’s women. Their public violation will be affront to David’s masculinity and honor, just as it was an affront to Samson’s honor to have his bride “plowed” in Judges 14:18. Like Ahab in 1 Kings 21, David responds with contrition, and admits his sin in 2 Samuel 12:13. As a result, David is punished, but not killed. Although spared death, post-transgression it is clear that David exhibits a compromised masculinity. Both his wives and his daughter are violated, and

Conclusions 193 he cannot sustain patriarchal control over his household.14 David’s compromised masculinity is most evident at the end of his life. David’s courtiers suggest to their aged king that he enjoy the company of a young woman and bring beautiful Abishag to David. Although the young woman attends to David, they are never sexually intimate with one another.15 It appears that the once-lascivious king ends his life impotent. David’s compromised masculinity, I argue, enables him to remain in relationship with God until his death. David’s final words acknowledge God’s superior power, and his submission to it. David speaks his final words as a ‫גבר‬, a warrior, the Bible’s ideal strong man.16 Yet David understands that his position in the social realm resulted from his relationship with God – his intimacy with God. God elevated him; God’s spirit spoke through him.17 David declares in 2 Samuel 23:3–5 that he rules through his fear of God [‫מושל‬ ‫]יראת אלהים‬, and that it was God who established his house and caused his success. David may have proven himself to be a warrior, a ‫גבר‬, to his subjects in his life, but he proves himself to be a servant, an ‫עבד‬, to God at his death.18 Above all else, the Bible values submission to God. Even strong men like David must submit to God, and by doing so compromise their masculine strength. As Deuteronomy 10:12 expresses, God wants full-bodied and wholehearted loyalty and obedience: Now, Israel, what does YHWH your God ask from you? Only this: to revere YHWH, your God, to walk according to all his paths, to love him, and to serve YHWH, your God, with all your heart and with all your self. In this book, I argue that the Bible’s gender-playing narratives communicate the value of submission and therefore, support the Bible’s social and theological agendas. By illustrating the dangers of its inversion, the genderplaying stories protect the social hierarchy that privileges men. I also argue that the biblical gender-playing stories protect masculinity – both of the men and of the god they depict. The Bible constructs a world in which women submit to men, and men submit to God. No one, not even a man of God or a king, should overpower God and compromise God’s masculinity.19 The Bible’s gender-playing narratives support this world and ensure that the social and theological hierarchies persist. They also, remarkably, provide a glimpse into an alternative world in which women overpower men, and in which women and men coexist with minimal hierarchy. Contemporary readers may take comfort in this alternative world even though only hints of it exist in the Bible. These hints suggest that such a world is at least possible, if not sometimes desired, as the prophet Hosea suggests. Initially, Hosea depicts a world with a clear gender hierarchy. He is the first prophet to portray Israel as God’s promiscuous wife who is brutally punished by God for her adulteries.20 Hosea also conjures a vision of a world in which intimacy with God does not mandate gender hierarchy. It is a world in which God

194  Conclusions and Israel restore the more complementary relationship of Adam and Eve before their transgression, as Hosea 2:18 relates: It will be on that day, says YHWH, you will call me “my husband [‫]אישי‬,” and you will no longer call me “my master [‫]בעלי‬.” Although Hosea’s redeemed world does not erase the memory of the former hierarchy, it does offset it by offering an alternative. Similarly, the gender-playing stories offer an alternative to the Bible’s normative gender dynamic, and suggest that women can invert the gender hierarchy, and that a more complementary gender dynamic is possible. Although the gender-playing stories do not celebrate their non-normative gender dynamic, contemporary readers are free to mine them for the possibilities they present. My readings of them reveal a patriarchal ideology that protects gender distinction and privileges men and masculinity. Yet, they also reveal the moments of vulnerability in which “hegemonic notions of proper gendered behaviors” are challenged.21 As Ken Stone suggests, recognizing gender instability in the Bible “serves as a check on our tendency to essentialize, or overestimate the stability of, such phenomena as ‘patriarchy’ or, for that matter, ‘manhood’,” and invites readers “to imagine alternative, and even queer, religious and theological scenarios.”22 Most importantly, the Bible’s gender-playing narratives illustrate that the Bible perceives gender to be performative, and not innate to human identity. Gender identity in the Bible, for human beings, must be constructed and sustained. Only God’s gender identity remains consistent. In the world of the Bible, God determines what it means to be a man and who is man enough to be in relationship with God.

Notes 1 Harold C. Washington, “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible,” BI 5:4 (1997), p. 345. 2 One could say the same thing about the book of Esther. Queen Vashti’s refusal to appear before the king at the start of the narrative results in her dismissal and triggers the events that follow, presenting gender as a central concern of the book. The king removes Vashti lest all women learn to disrespect their husbands (Esth 1:17). 3 Susan Haddox writes: “In the social construction of gender, masculinity, at least in public arenas, frequently represents political and social dominance. Becoming like women or feminized is a frequent metaphor used by men to represent loss of social prestige or power.” Susan E. Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. Ovidiu Creangă; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010), p. 4. 4 David Jobling, “A Bettered Woman: Elisha and the Shunammite in the Deuteronomic Work,” in The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation (eds. Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer, Erin Runions; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), p. 190. 5 The verb means “to bend, to humble, and to submit,” and is the same verb used to describe Ahab’s humility before God in 1 Kings 21:29. 6 In “Favoured Sons,” Haddox briefly considers the other patriarchs. A deeper textual analysis would strengthen her arguments.

Conclusions 195 7 David J. A. Clines, “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible,” in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995), pp. 212–243. 8 Clines argues that David’s fallibility functions as warnings and “serves to inscribe yet deeper the authority of the cultural norms of his time.” Ibid., p. 229. 9 See 1 Sam 18:27; 19:8; 23:5; 31:1. 10 Goliath emphasizes that he seeks a man in 1 Samuel 17:8, 10. 11 1 Samuel 17:42. 12 Stephen M. Wilson argues that 1 Samuel 17 should be read as David’s comingof-age narrative. See Stephen M. Wilson, Making Men: The Male Comingof-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 96–107. Wilson contends that David’s “performance of masculinity” on the battlefield against Goliath marks David’s transition from boyhood to manhood; he writes: “David’s defeat of Goliath in battle, therefore, is a characteristically manly activity through which David shows his fellow Israelites that he has made the transition from boyhood to manhood.” Ibid., p. 101. According to Wilson, David’s battle with Goliath is a “contest of masculinity,” and David’s defeat of Goliath “functions as a metaphorical emasculation of the Philistine.” Ibid. 13 According to Wilson, self-control is “among the fundamental characteristics of ideal biblical masculinity.” Ibid., p. 40. Biblical law works to limit excesses and to keep appetites in check. Ibid., p. 39. 14 David’s daughter Tamar is violated in 2 Samuel 13 by her brother Amnon, and David’s wives are violated by his son Absalom in 2 Samuel 16:22. 15 1 Kings 1:4. 16 2 Samuel 23:1. 17 2 Samuel 23:1–2. 18 David is referred to as God’s servant in 2 Samuel 7:5, Psalm 18:1; 36:1. 19 Israel’s promiscuity, manifest in the prophetic marriage metaphor, compromises God’s masculinity. Commenting on the marriage metaphor in Hosea, Ken Stone writes: “With this experience of anxiety we confront one of the most paradoxical aspects of Hosea’s use of cultural norms of manhood to characterize Yhwh. For anxiety is not a characteristic that readers of the Bible generally attribute to God. Yet the notions about manhood that are utilized in Hosea’s characterization of Yhwh are grounded in a profound sense of anxiety about masculinity. . .That is, Hosea’s rhetoric of food and sex exposes, on the part of Hosea’s god, an anxiety about the possibility of symbolic divine castration.” Ken Stone, Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 125. 20 See Gerlinde Baumann, Love and Violence: Marriage as Metaphor for the Relationship between YHWH and Israel in the Prophetic Books (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2003), pp. 85–104 and Gale A. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), pp. 81–109. 21 Stone, Practicing Safer Texts, p. 112. 22 Ibid., p. 128.

Bibliography Baumann, Gerlinde. Love and Violence: Marriage as Metaphor for the Relationship between YHWH and Israel in the Prophetic Books. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2003. Clines, David J. A. “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible.” In Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible, edited by David J. A. Clines, 212–243. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995.

196  Conclusions Haddox, Susan E. “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities.” In Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Ovidiu Creangă, 2–19. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Jobling, David. “A Bettered Woman: Elisha and the Shunammite in the Deuteronomic Work.” In The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation, edited by Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer and Erin Runions, 177–192. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999. Stone, Ken. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex, and Bible in Queer Perspective. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Washington, Harold C. “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible.” BI 5:4 (1997), pp. 324–363. Wilson, Stephen M. Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Index

1 Kings 21 105 2 Kings 4 114 – 16, 120, 124, 131 – 2,  136 2 Kings 8 129, 131 – 2 4 Maccabees 115 1 Samuel 191 2 Samuel 7 191 2 Samuel 11 – 12 192 Abimelech (king) 147 – 9 Abraham (patriarch) 74, 120 – 2; alignment with/differentiation from Rebecca 137, 143 – 5, 150; alignment with the Shunammite 124 – 5; blessings of land and progeny 141, 144 – 7, 154 – 5; name change 154, 156, 159n59; obedience/submission to and reverence for God 117, 124 – 5, 136, 140 – 1, 156n1; role and journeys 142 – 3, 158n30; wife/sister episodes and 147 – 9, 158n47; see also Isaac (patriarch) Ackerman, Susan 55 – 6 Adam 43n6; punishment of 33; response to God 40 – 1; view of Eve 35 – 6 Adam and Eve: see Eve and Adam Ahab (king) 96 – 110, 188; comparison to David 106; Naboth’s vineyard and 100 – 2; punishment/death of 97, 105 – 6; submission to God 106 – 7 Amit, Yairah 114 – 15, 117 – 18, 120 – 2 Amnon 176, 195n14 Anderson, Cheryl B. 24n104, 148 angels/messengers 73 – 4, 76 – 81 animal-human relationships: see human-animal relationships annunciation scenes 72 – 3, 120 – 1 Appler, Deborah A. 100, 102, 104

Armour, Ellen T. 2 Athaliah (queen) 96 – 7 Baal worship 97 – 8, 110; see also Jezebel (queen) Babylon 164, 178 – 9 Bal, Mieke 4, 6, 19n26; on Deborah 50; on Eve and Adam 34 – 5; on sexuality and sexual knowledge 28 – 9, 38, 43n3, 77, 92n50; on word and deed 77, 92n50; on Yael 56 Barak 51 – 5, 57, 60 – 1, 65n57, 70 – 1,  187 Bathsheba 99, 101 Bechtel, Lyn M. 31, 36, 38 Bergmann, Claudia 7 Bible 7 – 8; gender dynamics and (see gender dynamics); hierarchies and 11, 42 – 3 (see also gender hierarchy; male power and privilege; masculinity; theological hierarchy); see also biblical literature; men in the Bible; women in the Bible biblical literature 1 – 4, 17 – 18n2 biblical scholarship: feminist 3, 8, 18n8, 22n72, 139; intertexual methodologies 5, 19n23; literary interpretations 4 – 5; queer (see queer readings and theory) birth narratives (biblical): Eve 34 – 5; miraculous 120 – 1; Samson 76 – 81; see also annunciation scenes Bledstein, Adrien Janis: on Judges (book) and Deborah 48; on men in Judges (book) 82 blessings: Abraham’s 141, 144 – 7, 154 – 5; Isaac’s 138 – 40, 143, 146, 154, 156, 189; Jacob’s 146, 149 – 53, 155 – 6; Rebecca’s 137, 139, 144 – 5, 151, 156

198 Index blindness 88, 158n52; see also Isaac (patriarch) Boase, Elisabeth 137, 140 bodies, male and female 169 – 70, 173 – 4; see also masculinity Boer, Roland 11, 42 Brenner, Athalya 14, 58 Burgh, Theodore W. 15 Butler, Judith 3, 18n12, 19n27, 110n2, 110 – 11n5 Canaanite religion: see Baal worship Capel Anderson, Janice 5, 18n3, 115 captives, shaming of: see enemies, humiliation of; shaving Carvalho, Corrine L. 2, 166, 176, 178 Chapman, Cynthia R. 11, 57, 65n71 children and child rearing 32 – 3; desire for 74, 186 (see also Manoah’s wife (Samson’s mother); Rebecca (matriarch); Sarah (matriarch)); perception of 23n94; significance in narrative 120; see also child-sacrifice narratives; motherhood and mother figures; parental responsibility; progeny, blessing of; the Shunammite’s son child-sacrifice narratives 140 – 1; Esau 150 – 4, 159n57; Isaac (see Isaac (patriarch)); Joseph 157n19 Christianson, Eric S. 49, 51 Clines, David J. A. 11 – 12, 70, 162, 191, 195n8 conception narratives: see birth narratives (biblical) cosmetics 107 – 8, 112n58 Creangã, Ovidiu 11, 22n73 cross-dressing 15; see also drag (performance and dress); transvestism Crowell, Bradley L. 96, 98 – 9 curses and cursing 177, 183n76; ancient Near Eastern 57; of barrenness 44n26; land 33, 43n15; as opposed to blessing 151; serpent 31; as treachery 103 David (king) 191 – 3, 195n8, 195n12, 195n14; Bathsheba and 101, 103; Goliath and 90, 191; narrative counterpart to Jezebel 103 – 4; submission to God 68, 106, 192 – 3 death, desire for: Jeremiah 172, 177; Samson 82, 86, 89

Deborah (judge and prophet) 48 – 55, 59 – 61, 69 – 71,  187 Delilah 69 – 71, 82 – 8 Deuteronomy 10 193 Deuteronomy 22 7, 79, 189 Deuteronomy (book) 24n104 Dijk-Hemmes, Fokkelien van 123 Dinah 13, 24n103 discretion-shame: see shame dishonor: see honor (male) and honor-shame motif; masculinity: honor and; shame divine-human relationships: see God divine intervention 118 – 20; see also angels/messengers; birth narratives (biblical) divine revelation: see revelation doorways and entrances imagery 121, 123 – 4 drag (performance and dress) 110 – 11n5; see also cross-dressing; transvestism Dubbink, Joep 181n49 Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 9, 12, 17, 22n83, 24n100 Elijah (prophet) 97 – 8, 105 – 6,  115 Elisha (prophet) 114 – 32, 188; power dynamic with the Shunammite 116 – 19, 126 – 30; role 114 – 15, 120 – 5, 129,  132 emasculation: fear of 13, 110n1, 190; of Samson 70 – 1, 82 – 90; through subversion of gender hierarchy 95 – 7; see also Sisera emissaries of God: see angels/ messengers enemies, humiliation of 13, 23n94, 87, 173; see also sexual imagery; shame; shaving Esau 149 – 54; Isaac and 149 – 50, 158n53, 159n57; Jacob and 151 – 2, 154; Rebecca and 150, 152, 154 Esther (book) 194n2 Esther (queen) 99, 103 eunuchs 96, 108 – 9, 131, 166 Eve: autonomy of 37 – 8; birth story 34 – 5; punishment of 32 – 3; response to God 41 Eve and Adam 28 – 42; exile of 34, 44n33; punishment of 30 – 4; sexuality and gender dynamics 28 – 30, 33 – 5, 43n9, 186 – 7;

Index  199 theological agenda and 29, 34; as undifferentiated 35 – 7 Everhart, Janet S. 96, 108 – 9 Exum, J. Cheryl 48, 83 Ezekiel 16 10, 21n63, 45n56 Ezekiel 23 45n56, 65n53 Ezekiel (prophet) 162 fasting 101, 103 – 4, 106 femininity and feminization 2 – 3, 8, 96 – 7, 107 – 8; as failed masculinity 23n97, 57; female space and 85; as loss of power or prestige 194; see also bodies, male and female; emasculation; enemies: humiliation of; gender dynamics; gender expectations and norms; Isaac (patriarch); Jeremiah (prophet); Jezebel (queen); masculinity; prophets and prophetic agency; Samson; Sisera; submission to God Fewell, Danna Nolan 49 – 50, 56, 59 Fontaine, Carole R. 13 Frymer-Kensky, Tikva 38 – 9 Fuchs, Esther 51, 72 – 4 gadol (“great,” significance of) 133n9 gebîrâ (possibly, queen mother) 99, 111n23 Gehazi 118, 125 – 31 Gellman, Jerome 29 – 30, 35 – 7,  43n9 gender dynamics 19n14, 122; alternative or unconventional dynamic 16, 30, 47, 193 – 4; Bible and 3 – 6, 15, 37, 181n43, 186, 189 – 90; binary 96, 165, 167, 189 – 90; cultic loyalty and 9 – 10; Eve and Adam story and 29 – 37, 43n7, 43nn9 – 10; honor/dishonor and 13; Isaac and Rebecca story and 136 – 9, 156; Judges 4 47 – 9, 56 – 7; procreation and 32 – 3; sexuality and sexual fidelity 9 – 10, 28; as a social construct 3, 28 – 30, 57, 110n2, 186 – 7, 194, 194n2; as support for hierarchies 3, 115; see also power dynamics; sexual dynamics gender expectations and norms 1 – 3, 17 – 18nn2 – 3, 18n12, 19n27, 161; behavior and dress 6 – 7, 11, 21n63 (see also women in the Bible); biblical 14 – 15, 47; defiance/inversion of/ challenge to 5 – 6, 56, 105, 127, 138 – 9, 189 (see also gender

hierarchy); ideological coherence and 5 – 6, 19n22, 19n26; instability and 91n9, 187, 194; see also masculinity; under individual biblical narratives gender flexibility and fluidity 165 – 6, 190; see also Jeremiah (prophet) gender hierarchy 11, 32 – 4, 41 – 2, 44n29, 45n70, 47, 95 – 6; the Bible and 14, 17, 30, 42 – 3; inversion of 40, 42, 49, 80 – 1, 107, 110, 114, 156, 187 (see also gender expectations and norms: instability and); in Jeremiah (book) 165 – 6, 190; patriarchy and 3 gender identity 2 – 3, 5; see also masculinity Genesis 1 43n18 Genesis 2 – 3 28, 30 – 3, 35 – 41, 43, 43n10, 44n29 Genesis 12 142 – 3, 147 – 9 Genesis 17 159n59 Genesis 18 16, 74, 120 – 1 Genesis 20 147 – 9 Genesis 22 117, 156n1; Genesis 27 and 149 – 52; Isaac (patriarch) and 137 – 8, 140 – 2; literary connection to the Shunammite 117, 120, 124 – 5, 136 Genesis 24 142 – 5 Genesis 25 – 26 146 – 50 Genesis 27 149 – 55; Genesis 22 and 149 – 52 Genesis 34 13 – 14, 158n35 Genesis 37 157n19 God 21n53, 137, 191; anatomy of 9, 22n83; authority/power of 34, 39 – 42, 49, 52, 62, 68, 82, 92n57, 153, 162, 176, 192 (see also Samson); as deliverer of Israel 48, 52 – 5, 62, 66n78, 89, 178 – 9, 188; honor and masculinity of 9 – 12, 21n61, 162 – 3, 178, 183n79, 189 – 90, 195n19 (see also theological hierarchy); humans and 17, 41, 71, 89 – 90, 115, 138, 190; instruments of (see Babylon; God: prophets and); Israel and 9 – 12, 16 – 17, 28, 42, 89 – 90, 178 – 9; obedience to/ reverence for 136, 156n2 (see also Abraham (patriarch)); prophets and 132, 163 – 5, 176, 179; salvation and 177, 183n75; sexuality and 38 – 9, 45n56; submission to (see submission to God); as warrior 10, 21nn59 – 60; see also “word of God”

200 Index Goliath 90, 191 Gravett, Sandie 83, 175 Greenstein, Edward L. 168, 181n48, 183n76 Gruber, Mayer I. 156n2 Guest, Deryn 2, 57, 64n33 Gunn, David M. 49 – 50, 56, 59 Haddox, Susan E. 9, 12, 17, 49, 65n57, 66n78; on Isaac (patriarch) 137 – 8; on masculinity 161, 194n3 hair motif 87; see also lahmu (hairy one); Samson; warriors Halpern, Diane F. 28 Hamori, Esther J. 63n19 hands, head, and feet imagery 109, 113n71 Hannah 126 Haran, Menahem 121 Heber the Kenite 55 Hentrich, Thomas 13 Hepner, Gershon 133n10 heterarchy 20n44, 21n66 hierarchies: see gender hierarchy; theological hierarchy Holladay, William L. 181n44 honor (male) and honor-shame motif 23n89, 60 – 1, 66n77; masculinity and 13 – 14, 31, 57, 69 – 70; priests and 163; see also Hosea (prophet) Hooker, Alan 11, 22n71 Hosea (book) 9 – 10, 110n1, 195n19 Hosea (prophet) 163, 193 – 4 human-animal relationships 31 – 2, 41, 43nn18 – 19 impurity 13 – 14, 24n101 infantilization 23n94 inheritance 8, 105, 112n50; see also Naboth and his vineyard Isaac (patriarch) 16 – 17, 136 – 56, 161, 189; Abraham and 146 – 7, 152, 158n53; annunciation scenes 120 – 1; blessing 146 – 7, 154, 156; complicity in sacrifice narrative 140 – 1; deception of 151 – 6; Esau and 149 – 50, 159n57; Jacob and 149, 152 – 5; as passive and submissive 136 – 8, 142, 149, 153 – 6, 159n58; relationship with God 138 – 40, 142, 157nn24 – 25; wife/sister episode and 147 – 9 Isaiah (prophet) 119

Israel (land) 142 – 3, 145 – 7; see also blessings Israel (nation/people) and Israelite society 20n43, 90n2; instability of 48 – 9, 68 – 9, 95; prophets and 161 (see also Jeremiah (prophet)); relationship with God 9 – 10 (see also God); suffering of 173 – 4; vineyard symbolism and 100; see also God: Israel and; Samson: as epitome of Israel Jacob (patriarch) 24n103, 142 – 3, 158n30; blessings of 146, 149 – 53, 155 – 6; Esau and 154; Isaac and 149, 152 – 5; Rebecca and 149 – 52,  154 Jacobs, Jonathan 141 Jehu (king) 107 – 9, 113n75 Jeremiah 1 167, 174 – 5 Jeremiah 2 – 3 183n79 Jeremiah 13 24n101, 170 – 1 Jeremiah 15 171 – 2, 174, 176 – 7 Jeremiah 19 – 20 175 – 7, 183n70 Jeremiah 25 164 Jeremiah 27 164 Jeremiah 31 179 Jeremiah (prophet) 16 – 17, 161 – 79, 181n47, 183n72; birth narrative 177; comparison to Samson 71 – 2, 93n76, 172 – 3; compromised masculinity/ feminized body 162 – 3, 169, 173 – 4, 176, 183n72; confessions and laments 171, 182n62; confrontation with God 171 – 5, 182nn63 – 64; death wish and rejection of role 162, 172 – 4, 177; designation as prophet 171 – 2, 174, 181 – 2n50; gender flexibility and perspectives 166 – 7, 171 – 5, 176 – 9; identification with mother 92n45, 168, 171, 177; imagery 165 – 6, 168 – 70, 181nn45 – 46; as an instrument of God 164 – 5, 171; submission to God and acceptance of role 164, 167 – 8, 181n44 Jezebel (queen) 96 – 110, 114 – 15, 188; usurption of male role and exercise of power 96, 99 – 105, 107 – 8, 110, 112n40; femininity of 107; Naboth and 103; punishment and death of 97, 105, 107 – 10, 113n76; significance of name 98 Jobling, David 114, 122, 188 – 9

Index  201 Judges 4 1 – 2, 47 – 9, 54, 56 – 7, 62, 69, 187 Judges 5 61, 62 – 3n1, 66n73 Judges 13 74 Judges (book) 48 – 9, 68 Kaminsky, Joel S. 137, 147 – 9, 153 Kawashima, Robert S. 20n45 Keefe, Alice A. 24n101 kings and the monarchy 95; exercise of power 42, 102 – 3, 112n39; justification of/need for 48 – 9, 68, 187; the Shunammite and 130 – 2; see also Jezebel (queen) Kings (book): see 1 Kings; 2 Kings knowledge 29 – 30, 38 – 40 kohl: see cosmetics Kooij, Arie van der 61 – 2, 66n73 Kunin, Seth Daniel 142, 146 – 7, 157nn24 – 25 lahmu (hairy one) 85 Lambert, David 106 Lamentations (book) 5 land (as a blessing) 145 – 7 Lapsley, Jacqueline E. 39 Lazarewicz-Wyrzykowska, Ela 69 – 70, 87 – 8 Lemos, T. M. 10, 13 – 14, 21n63, 87, 173 Levenson, Jon D. 140 – 1 literacy of royals 103, 112n41 literature 1, 5, 17n1; see also biblical literature; under various narrative entries loins and loincloths 39 – 40, 169 – 70, 173, 182n53, 182nn59 – 61 Low, Katherine 182n60 Maccabees (book): see 4 Maccabees Macwilliam, Stuart 7, 96 – 7, 165, 181n43 makeup: see cosmetics male power and privilege 8, 11, 15, 138 – 9, 178,  187 male weakness 9 – 10, 49, 69, 77, 137, 174 – 7,  190 Malul, Meir 8 – 9, 44n26 Mandolfo, Carleen R. 5, 19n26 manhood: see masculinity Manoah 73 – 4, 77 – 81 Manoah’s wife (Samson’s mother) 69, 71, 73 – 81,  91n7 masculinity 2 – 3, 18n3, 194n3; in battle 65n71 (see also warriors);

as a biblical construct 22n73, 161, 189 – 90; competitive 84; compromise of 158n52, 191 – 3 (see also blindness; Jeremiah (prophet); male weakness; of God 9 – 11, 21n66, 22n71, 71, 139, 188; honor and 13 – 14, 31, 57, 69 – 70; ideal 92nn55 – 56, 191 – 2, 195n13; presentation of 169 – 70, 195n12; see also femininity and feminization; Jeremiah (prophet); male power and privilege; men in the Bible; Samson Mbuvi, Amanda Beckenstein 72, 75, 89 McKinlay, Judith E. 107 men in the Bible 114, 186; Bledstein’s view 48; feminization of 180n20 (see also femininity and feminization; under individual names; Jeremiah (prophet)); ideal 11 – 13; overpowering of 30, 49, 71, 79, 82 – 4, 85 – 7 (see also Ahab (king); Jezebel (queen)); as providers 23n89; in relationship with God (see God: humans and; masculinity: compromise of; submission to God); submissive or weak 139, 190 (see also Isaac (patriarch); Jeremiah (prophet); masculinity: compromised); see also male power and privilege; masculinity; social control and hierarchy messengers: see angels/messengers Meyers, Carol 7 – 8, 19n14, 20nn43 – 44; on Eve and Adam 28; on Eve’s punishment 32 – 3, 44n28; on patriarchy 8, 21n66 milk imagery 56 – 8 monarchy: see kings and the monarchy Moore, Stephen D. 5, 18n3, 115 Moses 121, 161 – 2 Moss, Candida R. 169 – 70 motherhood and mother figures 120 – 2, 126 – 7; see also children and child rearing; Manoah’s wife (Samson’s mother); Rebecca (matriarch); Sarah (matriarch) Naboth and his vineyard 100 – 5, 112n45 naming and naming authority 40; of animals 31, 45n65; changes to names 154, 156, 159n59; of Eve 34 – 6

202 Index Naomi 52 narratives: see birth narratives (biblical); child-sacrifice narratives; literature; patriarchs and patriarchal narratives Nathan (prophet) 105 – 6, 191 – 2 Nazirites 71 – 6,  78 Nebuchadrezzar (king) 164 Niditch, Susan 73, 75 – 6 Nissinen, Martti 50 – 1, 163 – 4 O’Connor, Kathleen 182nn62 – 64, 183n70 Olyan, Saul M. 13 – 14 Pardes, Ilana 17 – 18n2 parental responsibility 123, 126, 133n31 Pashhur (priest) 175 patriarchs and patriarchal narratives 74, 161; see also under individual names patriarchy and patriarchal ideology/ privilege 3, 139, 178, 194; gender hierarchy and 3, 51, 190; view in Judges (book) 48 – 9; view of Meyers 8, 20n43, 21n66 Paul (apostle) 3, 142, 157 – 8n27 Pharaoh (king) 147 – 8 Philistines 68 – 71, 83 – 4, 87 – 90 Phoenician city-states 97 power dynamics 16, 176, 183n74, 192; see also gender dynamics; gender hierarchy; men in the Bible: overpowering of priest and temple imagery 117 – 18, 133n16 priests 163, 180n14 procreation: see children, desire for progeny, blessing of 139, 145, 151, 155 prophets and prophetic agency 163 – 5, 169 – 71; female 50 – 1, 63n19, 179n6; feminization of 164; masculinity of 162; reluctance of 161 – 2, 179n4; submissiveness of 161 (see also Jeremiah (prophet)) Propp, William H. C. 180n14 queer readings and theory 2, 18n8, 165 Rachel (matriarch) 87, 123 rape and rape imagery/language 83 – 4, 87 – 8, 175 – 6, 183n70, 183n72; see also seduction imagery

Rebecca (matriarch) 136 – 56; alignment with/differentiation from Abraham 137, 143 – 5, 150; blessing 144 – 5, 151, 161; comparison to the Shunammite 151; Jacob and 149 – 52, 154; patriarchal role and journeys 139 – 40, 143 – 5, 149 – 51, 154 – 6, 161, 189; record of birth 142; as strong and active 137 – 9, 149 – 51, 154 – 6; wife/sister episode and 147 – 8 Reinhartz, Adele 73, 77 – 8 revelation 91n19, 140; divine 121, 181n49; indirect 81, 91n7; sites of 121, 124 Rofé, Alexander 100 Roncace, Mark 115, 118, 126 – 7 Ruth 52 Samson 68 – 90, 187; comparison to Jeremiah 71 – 2, 93n76, 172 – 3; comparison to Sisera 60, 69, 82, 85; conception and birth of 76 – 81; death of/desire for 82, 86, 89; emasculation of 70 – 1, 82 – 90 (see also blindness); as epitome of Israel 69 – 70, 72, 91nn18 – 19; hair 75 – 6 (see also emasculation); humanness 77; immaturity and weakness 71 – 6, 81 – 2, 92n56; masculinity 69 – 72, 90, 91n9; mother and 76, 92n45, 93n75 (see also Manoah’s wife (Samson’s mother)); Philistines and 83 – 4, 87 – 90; as reflection of God’s authority and power 71, 82, 90 Samson’s mother: see Manoah’s wife (Samson’s mother) Samuel (book): see 1 Samuel; 2 Samuel Sarah (matriarch) 74, 121 – 2, 147 – 9, 158n47 Saul (apostle): see Paul (apostle) Saul (king) 68 Sawyer, Deborah F. 3, 49, 138 – 9 Schulte, Hannelis 97 seduction imagery 83, 93n65, 175 – 6, 183n70; see also rape and rape imagery/language Seeman, Don 4, 56, 65n48, 145 the serpent 28 – 31, 36 – 7,  41 sexual dynamics 14, 77; see also gender dynamics sexual imagery 59; feet 126, 129; grinding 88; hand and womb 169; see also rape and rape imagery/language

Index  203 sexual knowledge and sexuality 14, 38 – 9, 45n56, 133n10; control of 9, 13 – 14, 24n104, 33 – 4; development of 28 – 9, 43n3; fidelity and 9 – 10, 14; gender and 28; potency 12, 23n89 shame 9, 31, 39, 53, 173, 176 – 7; see also honor (male) and honor-shame motif shaving 13, 23n94, 86 – 7; see also Nazirites Shields, Mary E. 114, 117 – 19, 122, 126, 128, 165 the Shunammite 114 – 32; alignment with Rebecca 151; comparison to Abraham 124 – 5; power dynamic with Elisha 116 – 19, 126 – 30; role 114 – 15, 118, 120, 127, 145 the Shunammite’s husband 117, 122 – 4, 133n31, 134n35 the Shunammite’s son 121 – 4 Simon, Uriel 117, 133n9 Sisera 1 – 2, 52 – 60, 70 – 1, 82, 85,  187 Slivniak, Dmitri M. 29, 31 Smith, Carol 99, 111n21 Smith, Mark S. 9, 53, 182n62 Smith, Michael J. 69 social control and hierarchy 33 – 4, 68; preservation of 13 – 15, 42, 47, 138 – 9, 161; theological hierarchy and 42, 187 – 9 (see also theological hierarchy); see also gender hierarchy Song of Deborah 61 – 2, 66n73 Stavrakopoulou, Francesca 107 – 9 Sternberg, Meir 143 – 4 Stökl, Jonathan 162 – 3 Stone, Ken 18n8, 194; Hosea (book) 9 – 10, 110n1, 195n19; on male honor and 23n89; on queer readings and theory 165 submission to God 2 – 3, 16 – 17, 110, 115, 129, 188 – 9, 193; God’s preference for 161; Isaac (patriarch) 136 – 7, 139 – 40, 142 – 3, 149, 153 – 6; of Israel 178 – 9; prophets and 163, 179, 180n22; refusal 125 – 6; see also 2 Kings 4; Abraham (patriarch); Ahab (king); David (king); Genesis 22 Sylva, Dennis 137, 158n29 Tamar (David’s daughter) 176, 195n14 Tamar (Judah’s daughter-in-law) 14 tent and tent-peg imagery 56, 65n48, 69, 85 Teugels, Lieve 137 – 8, 143 – 4,  149

theological hierarchy 33 – 4; preservation of 13 – 15, 34, 47, 138 – 9, 161, 193; in Samson story 71, 80; social control and hierarchy and 42, 187 – 9 (see also social control and hierarchy); see also God: honor and masculinity of transvestism 6 – 7; see also cross-dressing; drag (performance and dress) Trible, Phyllis 4 – 5, 19n23, 22n72, 36 – 8, 98; on Eve and Adam 30 – 1, 34 – 6; on gender dynamics 43n7, 43n10 Uriah the Hittite 101, 103 Vedeler, Harold Torger 6 – 7, 15 vineyards 100; see also Naboth and his vineyard warriors 11 – 12, 22n74, 90; attire 39; hair and 75 – 6; imagery (see God: as warrior); women 52, 58 – 9, 64nn32 – 33, 66n77 Washington, Harold C. 11, 186 water imagery 57 – 8 wells 146 – 7 wife/sister episodes 147 – 9, 158n47 Wilson, Brittany E. 3, 88, 142, 158n52 Wilson, Stephen M.: on Jeremiah 169, 181 – 2n50; on manhood and warriors 12, 23n88, 23n94, 92nn55 – 56; on maturation 91n18; on Samson 70, 81 – 2 window imagery 107 – 9 Wolde, Ellen van 64n43 womb imagery 76 – 8, 86, 167 – 9, 171 – 2, 177, 181 – 2n50, 181n48 women in the Bible 8 – 9, 20nn40 – 41, 139; the cult and 24n111, 98 – 9; foreign 98 – 9, 111n21 (see also Jezebel (queen)); impurity and 13 – 14, 24n101; marginalization of 13 – 14, 24n100; perception of 13, 23n94, 48; property/inheritance and 105, 112n50, 145, 158n36; prophets 50 – 1, 63n19; sexuality and 14, 65n53; status of 8 – 9, 20n45, 32 – 3, 44n26; strong 114, 130, 132n2, 139, 188 – 9, 190 – 1 (see also Deborah (judge and prophet); Eve; Jezebel (queen); Rebecca (matriarch); the Shunammite); as threat 190 (see also social control and hierarchy;

204 Index theological hierarchy); warriors 52, 58 – 9, 64nn32 – 33, 66n77; as wives and mothers 21n63, 186 (see also motherhood and mother figures); see also Esther (queen); under individual names “word of God” 168 – 9, 176, 178,  181n49 wounded body imagery 173 – 4

Yael 1 – 2, 53 – 62, 64n43, 69 – 71, 82, 85 – 7,  187 Yahweh: see God Yee, Gale A.: on Eve and Adam 35; on hierarchies 42, 44n43; on maleness and dishonor 54 – 5; on monarchy 48 Zimri 108 Zlotnick, Helena 99, 101 – 3, 112n39